Using relationship management to legitimate the monarchy: An analysis of the reign of King Juan Carlos I of Spain

Abstract This article explores the management of relationships by King Juan Carlos I of Spain to legitimate the monarchy as an institution and build a new democracy after Franco’s death in 1975. The high level of public support during most of his reign shows there is a correlation between good relationship management and the loyalty of the subjects. Only when some basic relationship management principles of mutual benefit, such as trust and openness with his subjects, were violated the level of support of Juan Carlos I, and the monarchy as an institution started to decline. Nonetheless, the value of relationship management has proved durable since the new monarch, Felipe VI, was able to recover in a relatively short period of time the public support that Juan Carlos I enjoyed in the past. This fact indicates that even in the case of disruptive monarchies, such as Spain, the power of relationship management has shown effectiveness to legitimate the institution. However, at the same time it also points out that in a public opinion regime monarchies have to show exemplarity and that involves not only to create mutual benefit for the citizenship through good deeds, since Juan Carlos I always behaved professionally as a business and diplomatic representative, but that there is feeling of trust between the monarch and the subjects