ABSTRACT
Relations with neighbouring states in north-west Africa became a priority area for Spanish diplomacy during the 1980s when it was thought that the country’s historical ‘special relationship’ with the Arab world might facilitate a more influential role for Spain in the western Mediterranean. In fact, this purported relationship, although grounded in seven centuries of cohabitation on the Iberian peninsular, had been much undermined over the years by both confrontation and neglect, before being resurrected in the diplomatic discourse of the present century, in part to justify Spain’s belated colonial involvement in Morocco.
