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Between a rock and a hard place: the privatization or preservation of the commons in Spain in the long 19th century

  • José-Miguel Lana Berasain ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 7. November 2024
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Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie
Aus der Zeitschrift Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie Band 44 Heft 2

Abstract

This text reviews the transformations of the commons in Spain in the long 19th century based on the notion of “bundles of rights”. The contention is that the process of change was prompted by the clashes between alternative models, beginning with privatization or preservation and culminating in a complex landscape of property rights. In terms of privatization, several alternatives were advocated and eventually implemented, depending on the social groups that promoted them and their balance of power. In stylized form, two options that while not necessarily incompatible stand in opposition: on the one hand, privatization in the form of large property units with the land concentrated in the hands of an elite of creditors and investors, and on the other, small plots involving broader social participation and greater access. In turn, the preservation of communal lands did not rule out the privatization of their use, in some cases in favor of large industrial companies in the timber, resin, and cork sectors, and on other occasions in the service of social inclusion policies through the distribution of plots for their cultivation by the rural proletariat.

Keywords: Property rights; Communal lands; Privatization; Bundle of rights

Acknowledgements

This paper is part of the research project AEI/FEDER PID2019-109336GB-I00. A first version was presented at the workshop Collective Land Rights and Capitalist Economy, 19th–21st Centuries (Duisburg, November 24–25, 2022). The author is indebted to Borbala Zsuzsanna Török, Laura Gerken, Hanne Cottyn, Lidia Montesinos, Manoela Pedroza, Ian McNair, Gonzalo Echeverría and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. None of them are responsible for any shortcomings in the manuscript.

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Published Online: 2024-11-07
Published in Print: 2024-11-26

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Titelseiten
  2. Collective Land Rights and Capitalist Economy, 19th–21st Centuries
  3. Between a rock and a hard place: the privatization or preservation of the commons in Spain in the long 19th century
  4. Negotiating Collective Land Rights in the Andes: Insights from contrasting trajectories on the Bolivian-Chilean altiplano, 1880s–1930s
  5. Collective Management of Environmental Resources: Historical-Anthropological Insights from the Slovenian Karst (19th century to post-socialism)
  6. Collective Property in the Modern State: Émile de Laveleye’s Primitive Property in its Global Context
  7. The trajectory of a transnational right to land norm
  8. Rights of nature, indigenous communities and land property: legal perspectives from Latin America
  9. Abhandlungen
  10. Rechtspraxis in der Arbeitsvermittlung: Die Rolle des professionellen Selbstverständnisses von Fachkräften in der Arbeitsvermittlung von jungen Menschen
  11. Kann Technik sanktionieren? Der technische Vollvollzug von Normen als soziologisches Problem
  12. The Reception of Luhmann in the Sociology of Law in Brazil
  13. Between a rock and a hard place: the privatization or preservation of the commons in Spain in the long 19th century
  14. Rezension
  15. Karl-Heinz Ladeur, Das Rechtssubjekt und sein Bildungsroman. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des Privatrechts im 19. Jahrhundert, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft 2024, 382 Seiten, ISBN 978-3-95832-362-9, 49,90 €.
https://doi.org/10.1515/zfrs-2024-2009
Schlagwörter für diesen Artikel
Property rights; Communal lands; Privatization; Bundle of rights

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Titelseiten
  2. Collective Land Rights and Capitalist Economy, 19th–21st Centuries
  3. Between a rock and a hard place: the privatization or preservation of the commons in Spain in the long 19th century
  4. Negotiating Collective Land Rights in the Andes: Insights from contrasting trajectories on the Bolivian-Chilean altiplano, 1880s–1930s
  5. Collective Management of Environmental Resources: Historical-Anthropological Insights from the Slovenian Karst (19th century to post-socialism)
  6. Collective Property in the Modern State: Émile de Laveleye’s Primitive Property in its Global Context
  7. The trajectory of a transnational right to land norm
  8. Rights of nature, indigenous communities and land property: legal perspectives from Latin America
  9. Abhandlungen
  10. Rechtspraxis in der Arbeitsvermittlung: Die Rolle des professionellen Selbstverständnisses von Fachkräften in der Arbeitsvermittlung von jungen Menschen
  11. Kann Technik sanktionieren? Der technische Vollvollzug von Normen als soziologisches Problem
  12. The Reception of Luhmann in the Sociology of Law in Brazil
  13. Between a rock and a hard place: the privatization or preservation of the commons in Spain in the long 19th century
  14. Rezension
  15. Karl-Heinz Ladeur, Das Rechtssubjekt und sein Bildungsroman. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des Privatrechts im 19. Jahrhundert, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft 2024, 382 Seiten, ISBN 978-3-95832-362-9, 49,90 €.
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