ABSTRACT
Rosa Ana Gutiérrez‐Lloret (Chapter 29) assesses the development of the Spanish electoral system under the Restoration, a system designed to have three pillars: the two dynastic parties and the monarchy. To achieve this a new institutional architecture was implemented: Constitution, electoral laws and enhancement of the role of the King. Seeking the end of military intervention in political life, the new parliamentary form created a range of undemocratic and anti‐democratic practices from client networks to simple fraud. These practices were not peculiar to Spain and occurred elsewhere in Europe where political demobilization was high. Whilst those who accepted the new dispensation were the clear beneficiaries, the regime inevitably operated a strategy of exclusion of political opponents, initially Carlists and a fragmented republicanism. Whilst achieving a degree of moderate success until 1898, subsequently the Restoration system showed itself incapable of delivering social and political reform. As well as ever clearer signs of exhaustion as a political form, it was subject to crisis and contestation
