Rafael Gasset y la política hidráulica de la Restauración, 1900–1923

Abstract

RESUMENEste trabajo plantea una nueva visión del reformismo agrario llevado a cabo desde el Gobierno durante la Restauración. Esta revisión se centra en el estudio de las aportaciones de Rafael Gasset, el sempiterno ministro de Fomento restauracionista -^lo fue nueve veces entre 1900 y 1923-, a la solución de la llamada cuestión agraria en el período histórico iniciado en la coyimtura crítica del 98 y finalizado con la liquidación del sistema del tumo de partidos en septiembre de 1923. El análisis de las causas de lo que hemos denominado como fracaso de la puesta en práctica de la política agraria hidráulica en los años de vigencia del régi-men canovista -a nuestro juicio de carácter esencialmente político-, así como las paradójicas razones que explican su continuidad histórica y éxito efectivo durante las dictaduras primorriverista y franquista, sirve, por añadidura, para esbozar algunas hipótesis que nos permiten entender mejor la naturaleza de estos regímenes históricos. ABSTRACT

Explaining path-dependent rigidity traps: increasing returns, power, discourses, and entrepreneurship intertwined in social-ecological systems

“…† Sources: own elaboration based on the primary and secondary sources consulted. Main secondary sources include, e.g., Ortí (1984), Moral-Ituarte (1991), Gómez-Mendoza (1992), Sánchez (1997), Fernández (2000).…”

“…During the Restoration period (1874-1931), the HIR discourse was absorbed at a political level owing to decisive actions taken by the Civil Engineering Corps and by Rafael Gasset, who was several times minister of public works. They intensively promoted the main arguments of Joaquín Costa, the key ideologist of the hydraulic-irrigation paradigm, in both the media and the Parliament (Ortí 1984, Díaz-Marta 1989, Gómez-Mendoza 1992, Sánchez 1997, Mateu 2002. This contributed to a progressive shift of the state from a mere subsidiary of hydraulic infrastructure, to the active promotion and implementation of such a type of infrastructure (Table A2.1).…”

“…(3) progressive inhibition of the state from economic life (Sánchez 1997). However, implementations on the ground were very limited.…”

“…However, implementations on the ground were very limited. During the 1920s, until 1933, just about 12% of the planned primary infrastructure and irrigated land surface had been carried out, funded through the emission of public debt instruments justified as investments with long-term returns based on taxable income (see Sánchez 1997, Fernández 2000. During this period, the overtly liberal HIR discourse played mainly a rhetorical role and utopian unifying symbol based on powerful logics (logos) and capacity to appeal to emotion (pathos; Table 1).…”

“…First, at the constitutional, strategic level, was the interventionist character of both the Irrigation Act of 1932 and the NPHW of 1933, inherited by the NPHW of 1940. The state financially assumed, in full, the construction of primary and secondary irrigation hydraulic infrastructure, and took a main role in the colonization-and-development strategies (Sánchez 1997, Gil 2001, Moral-Ituarte 1991, Barciela and López 2003. Second, at an administrative level, there was the creation of the Water Union Confederations (precursor of the modern Water Authorities), semiautonomous organizations guaranteed financially by the Ministry of Public Works, in 1926 (Table A2.1).…”