The Image of the “Enemy” in Political Discourse of Nascent Spanish Conservatism

Abstract

The article is devoted to the transformation of the image of “enemy” in the emerging conservative political discourse in Spain in the last third of the 18th – first half of the 19th centuries. Comparing the image of “enemy” in the political discourse of traditionalists and liberal conservatives, the author shows that the first is based on religious and philosophical foundations, on which the political ones were layered with great difficulty at the beginning of the 19th century; the second is based on purely political ones. For the Spanish traditionalists, “enemies” are primarily the supporters of the socalled “false philosophy” (non-Catholics and non-Spaniards) who were followers of the British-French Enlightenment. Liberal conservatives who in principle abandoned any military connotations of the traditionalists interpreted the “enemy” exclusively in civil legal terms as political opponents from competing or allied structures (parties and party factions). Within the framework of traditionalism, the Carlists become a kind of “driver” for the transformation of the image of “enemy” who, in the conditions of intra-dynastic wars between Catholics and Spaniards, were forced to begin giving their discourse a purely political sound.

Keywords

• image of “enemy”
• conservative discourse
• traditionalism
• liberal conservatism
• carlism
• spain of the xviii–xix centuries