Regional Development Strategies of a New Regional Government

The creation of the "State of Autonomies", embodied in the 1978 Spanish Constitution brought to Andalucia the devolution of wide political powers and administrative functions, and with this the possibility for the newly created Junta de Andalucia to implement a development policy wholly different from that of the central government and from those of other autonomous communities. Differently from other historical regions, such as Catalonia or the Basque Country, run by conservative and nationalist parties, the Socialist party in Andalucia from the first moment linked political automony and regional economic development. Underdeveloped, marginal to the main national and international economic circuits, and run by a socialist regional government that wanted to repair the comparative wrongs suffered historically by the region, Andalucia at the beginning of the 1980s enjoyed optimal conditions for implementing a self-reliant strategy of regional development.
In order to identify, interpret, and analyse the evolution of the development strategy of the Junta de Andalucia during the period 1984-1990, this paper reviews policy and resource allocation in three policy sectors: roads, railways, and industrial promotion. In each case, a genuine philosophy of self-reliance appears at the beginning of the period, which is, however, abandoned in the mid-1980s and substituted by a development strategy based on functional integration into larger-scale systems. Using policy documents and interviews with decision-makers and researchers, the paper attempts to explain the observed shift and to interpret the logic of the regional development strategies pursued by the Junta de Andalucia during its first decade. The paper ends by relating the evolution followed by the regional planning policy of the Junta to the wider debate about decentralisation and regional theory and policy.
 
The creation of the "State of Autonomies", embodied in the 1978 Spanish Constitution brought to Andalucia the devolution of wide political powers and administrative functions, and with this the possibility for the newly created Junta de Andalucia to implement a development policy wholly different from that of the central government and from those of other autonomous communities. Differently from other historical regions, such as Catalonia or the Basque Country, run by conservative and nationalist parties, the Socialist party in Andalucia from the first moment linked political automony and regional economic development. Underdeveloped, marginal to the main national and international economic circuits, and run by a socialist regional government that wanted to repair the comparative wrongs suffered historically by the region, Andalucia at the beginning of the 1980s enjoyed optimal conditions for implementing a self-reliant strategy of regional development.
In order to identify, interpret, and analyse the evolution of the development strategy of the Junta de Andalucia during the period 1984-1990, this paper reviews policy and resource allocation in three policy sectors: roads, railways, and industrial promotion. In each case, a genuine philosophy of self-reliance appears at the beginning of the period, which is, however, abandoned in the mid-1980s and substituted by a development strategy based on functional integration into larger-scale systems. Using policy documents and interviews with decision-makers and researchers, the paper attempts to explain the observed shift and to interpret the logic of the regional development strategies pursued by the Junta de Andalucia during its first decade. The paper ends by relating the evolution followed by the regional planning policy of the Junta to the wider debate about decentralisation and regional theory and policy.