ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the conditions that enable local struggles for improved living conditions to mature into a full-scale battle for a different urban regime. It presents a tentative analysis of certain characteristics and capacities which the Citizens' Movement developed throughout Spain's transition to democracy, as well as of the constraints under which it operated. Following the signing of the Mocloa Pacts in late 1978, the image of the CCOO and of the Socialist-led labor union UGT as crucial political actors, who could shape the direction of the transition to democracy, was enhanced. Neighborhood associations, on the other hand, could not reconstruct the mobilizing capacities which they demonstrated in 1976. This situation clearly affected their ability to increase their sphere of action and consolidate their legal standing within the new political system. A consolidation of the associations' status as political actors would have provided neighborhood activists with the opportunity to regulate their public work.
