Spanish Farmers' Unions, in search of a new social legitimacy? From the farming production to the multifunctionality-oriented issues

Contrary to other Western European countries, there has not been historical continuity in the Spanish agricultural interest representation system. In fact, the rich unionism existing in Spain during the first three decades of the 20th century was aborted by the coup d’état conducted by General Franco against the Second Republic in July 1936. After the Spanish Civil War, the new authoritarian political regime imposed a state corporatist system where all farmers and agricultural workers were compulsorily integrated. Until 1936, the organizational patterns of the Spanish agricultural representation system were very similar to those of other European countries. In this period, there was a great variety of agricultural associations which had expanded over all Spanish rural society thanks to the introduction of the Act of Associations (1901 and 1906). Some of these associations (such as CNCA and its wide network of cooperatives and small local saving banks expanded in regions such as Castille) had been promoted by the Catholic Church based on the Papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo Anno (1931) which defend the ideological principles of social Catholicism.Peer Reviewe