Dr Andrew Dowling

Reader in Hispanic Studies

: dowlinga@cardiff.ac.uk
: +44 (0)29 2087 5608
: 1.12, 66a Park Place, Cathays, Cardiff, CF10 3AS

: Media commentator
: Available for postgraduate supervision

I am a contemporary historian working in the Hispanic Studies Department within the School of Modern Languages and joined Cardiff University in 2002 from the Department of History at Queen Mary, University of London. Prior to this, I spent seven years in the city of Barcelona, where I completed my doctorate. My research has centred on Catalan history in the 20th century and in particular, the political articulation of Catalan nationalism under both the Franco dictatorship and democratic Spain. Recent research centred on the emergence of pro-independence mobilisation in Catalonia and I completed a research monograph for Routledge on this subject in 2018. My next monograph, A Short History of Catalonia, is published in 2022 by Routledge.

I am editor for the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Spanish History, a volume which brings together around 45 Spanish and international scholars of Spain.

I am on the Editorial Board of the journal Dictatorship and Democracies, based in Spain and the editorial committee of the political monthly Treball. I have been a particpatant in a series of successful research funding bids with scholars from Spanish universities, with projects focussing on regions, nationalism and identity in Spain. The latest, with funding from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, runs from 2020 to 2023 and includes colleagues from the universities of Valencia and Barcelona.

I teach courses on the modern and contemporary history of Spain, and co-ordinate the School Final Year Module Protest and Dissent in the 1960s.

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students on any area of modern Catalan history and politics, nationalism in Spain and theoretical approaches to nationalism and have successfully supervised to completion four students, most recently in 2020.

I regularly comment in national and international media on issues of contemporary concern to Spain, including the BBC, CNN, France 24, the Associated Press and TRT World, and have been cited in a number of Spanish media outlets including El Pais, La Vanguardia and CTXT.

2021

Dowling, A. 2021. Reconfiguración estatal y protoregionalismo en la España franquista tardía. In: Claret, J. and Fuster-Sobrepere, J. eds. El regionalismo bien entendido: Ambigüedades y límites del regionalismo en la España franquista. Granada: Comares, pp. 39-54.

2020

Dowling, A. 2020. Introduction. In: The Madness, by Narcís Oller. Translated by Douglas Suttle. London: Fum d'Estampa Press, pp. 7-17.
Dowling, A. 2020. La Assemblea Nacional Catalana: las limitaciones estratégicas de un movimiento social sui generis. Historia del Presente 35(1), pp. 53-68.

2019

Dowling, A. 2019. Catalonia's 9/11. Quarterly Journal of Military History 31(2), pp. 16-18.
Dowling, A. 2019. Principal frames for interpretation of the Catalan independence challenge to Spain. Catalan Journal of Communication and Cultural Studies 11(2), pp. 303-309. (10.1386/cjcs_00009_7)
Dowling, A. 2019. When national symbols divide: The case of pan-Catalanism and the Països Catalans. Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 25(1), pp. 143 -157. (10.1080/14701847.2019.1579494)

2018

Dowling, A. 2018. Prohibition, tolerance, co-option: cultural appropriation and Francoism in Catalonia, 1939-75. Contemporary European History 27(3), pp. 370-386. (10.1017/S0960777318000267)

2017

Dowling, A. 2017. The rise of Catalan independence: Spain's territorial crisis. Federalism Studies. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Dowling, A. 2017. La independència de Catalunya, la crisi i les emocions polítiques. L'Avenç April, pp. 50-58.
Dowling, A. 2017. La calle como una plataforma para comunicar: De la Crida a la Assemblea Nacional Catalana. In: Forti, S., Cal, E. U. and Gonzlez i Vilalta, A. eds. El Proceso separatista en Cataluña. Crisis de elites, protesta y recambio generacional (2006-2017). Granada: Editorial Comares, pp. 171-187.

2016

Dowling, A. 2016. A tale of two cities. Madrid and Barcelona in Spain. In: Cole, A. and Payre, R. eds. Cities as Political Objects. Historical Evolution, Analytical Categorisations and Institutional Challenges of Metropolitanisation. Cities Series Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 79-95.

2015

Dowling, A. 2015. Political cultures, ruptures, and continuity in Catalonia under the Franco regime. In: Fernandez, J. and Subirana, J. eds. Funcions del Passat en la Cultura Catalana Contemporània. Lleida: Punctum, pp. 221-239.

2014

Dowling, A. 2014. Accounting for the turn towards secession in Catalonia. International Journal of Iberian Studies 27(2-3), pp. 219-234. (10.1386/ijis.27.2-3.219_1)

2013

Dowling, A. 2013. The leading role of the party: Catalan communism and the Franco regime, 1939-1975. European History Quarterly 43(3), pp. 489-507. (10.1177/0265691413491053)
Dowling, A. 2013. Catalonia since the Spanish Civil War: reconstructing the nation. Portland, Or.: Sussex Academic Press.
Dowling, A. 2013. La reconstrucció nacional de Catalunya 1939-2012. Barcelona: Pasado y Presente.

2012

Dowling, A. 2012. For Christ and Catalonia: Catholic Catalanism and nationalist revival in late Francoism. Journal of Contemporary History 47(3), pp. 594-610. (10.1177/0022009412441648)

2009

Dowling, A. 2009. Autonomistes, Catalanistes and Independentistes: politics in contemporary Catalonia. International Journal of Iberian Studies 22(3), pp. 185-200. (10.1386/ijis.22.3.185/1)
Dowling, A. 2009. ETA Liberation Front (Euskadi ta Askatasuna) and Basque nationalism. In: Ness, I. ed. International Encylopedia of Revolution and Protest. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 1127-1132.
Dowling, A. 2009. Catalan protests against centralism. In: Ness, I. ed. International Encylopedia of Revolution and Protest. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 629-632.

2006

Phelps, N. A., Ballas, D., Parsons, N. and Dowling, A. 2006. Post-suburban Europe: planning and politics at the margins of Europe's capital cities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Phelps, N. A., Parsons, N., Ballas, D. and Dowling, A. 2006. Business at the margins? Business interests in edge urban politics. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30(2), pp. 362-383. (10.1111/j.1468-2427.2006.00663.x)
Dowling, A. 2006. The Catholic Church in Catalonia. From Cataclysm in the Civil War to the "Euphoria" of the 1950s. Catalan Review 20(1), pp. 83-100.

2005

Dowling, A. 2005. Convergència i Unió, Catalonia and the new Catalanism. In: Balfour, S. ed. The Politics of Contemporary Spain. Routledge, pp. 106-120.

2001

Dowling, A. 2001. The reconstitution of political Catalanism, 1939-1975. International Journal of Iberian Studies 14(1), pp. 17-25. (10.1386/ijis.14.1.17)

Undergraduate

Introduction to Spain (Year One)
Business Spanish (Year Two)
Spain 1898-1975 (Year Two)
May 68: Marking Changes in European Politics and Culture (Year Four) Module Lead
Cultures of Dissent and Rebellion in Spain (Four)
Politics and Society in Spain (Four)

Postgraduate

MA Global Studies
MA Translation Studies
Research Methods and Skills

My scholarship on Catalonia and Spain, which straddles historical sociology, political science and contemporary history, is ideally situated to combine academic rigour and reach wider audiences. My third sole authored monograph A Short History of Catalonia, published by Routledge, provides a social, political and economic analysis of a minority nation and fully engages with the theory of nationalism, historical sociology and historiography.

I supervise students in the areas of historical sociology, comparative and national history, with a particular focus on questions of national identity.

I welcome applications from students of:

Historical sociology

Nationalism and Identity

Modern and Contemporary Spain

Catalan studies

Historical sociology

Music and dissent

Radical politics

Past projects

Co-supervisor (50%)

Alexander Tuck, awarded 2014, Spains National Cycling Tour and the politics of regional and national identity, 1975-2000

Aleksandra Dragojlov, awarded 2018, Serbian Compliance Patterns towards EU Integration under the Progressive Party: An Exercise in Statecraft.

Kristine Sollli, awarded 2020 The reporting of the EU in the print media and the development of Eurosceptic movements: A case study of Britain and Norway

Cecilia Morgan, awarded 2020, Intertextuality, Manipulation and Propaganda: Reworking the Arthurian Legend in
Contemporary Spanish Literature