Is Consensus a Genuine Democratic Value? The Case of Spain's Political Pacts against Terrorism

Abstract

This article considers the history of the Spanish political pacts against terrorism and the political contexts in which they have been implemented since the beginning of the 1980s. This sociohistorical approach is necessary in order to understand the current Spanish unanimous repudiation of terrorism. It suggests that these political pacts helped build a consensus that has frozen the political field in Spain. Such a perspective takes into account some of the arguments of the CASE manifesto “Critical Approaches to Security in Europe” related to the need to proceed through meticulous examination of the logics of exceptionalism and decisionist politics that neutralize politics.