The State, the Police and Political Violence: A Case-Study Before Spanish Civil War (1936)

This article deals with the management of public order during a crucial period of Spain's twentieth-century democratization process. A regional case-study is employed in order to analyse the detail of political violence and gain a clearer understanding of both the participants and the role of the police and the civil governor. It is based on an exhaustive database containing all the episodes of violence that led to deaths and serious injuries. Quantitative research, combined with adequate contextualization, is vital to unravel the evolution of this violence and identify the main actors. This article pinpoints important differences in the case of Asturias – compared to the nationwide data available – and contributes to the academic debate on the authorities’ responsibility for the rising toll of victims during the spring of 1936. It shows that police participation in the generation of victims was of minor relevance, partly due to a deliberate policy pursued by Asturias’ civil governor, which ruled out the preventative and recurrent use of the police to control conflictive situations.