AGAINST THE UTOPIA. THE ORIGIN OF CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANISM IN SPAIN

This work analyses the origin of conservative republicanism, or possibilist, between 1870 and 1880. It was a reaction to the relationship of the republican idea and the federal utopia in the Democratic Sexeny. That utopia, called La Federal, was the consequence of a democratic ideology built on the principle of decentralization as a solution to the political problem and social issues. That ideology was developed by public writers with a philosophical, romantic and millenarian interpretation of history and politics, influenced by humanism and French socialism of the mid-nineteenth. The ineffectiveness of La Federal to establish the Republic on an agreement with the liberal parties, and creating liberal and democratic manners, led to Emilio Castelar and his followers to build the conservative republicanism separating the republican idea of utopia.