The II Republic’s Spain as seen by British diplomats, 1931-1936: the persistence of the ungovernable nation’s cliché

the persistence of the stereotype of an ungovernable country

Abstract

The perception of a country by another nation’s diplomats through diplomatic reports intertwines subjective elements such as prejudices and clichés already existing and seemingly objective analysis of events. British documents show that His Majesty’s diplomats approached Spain as an underveloped and misruled country in sharp contrast with their views about their own modern, in the sense of developed, state. In this context, their perception of the Republican government ranged between an initial hope of change and, on the other hand, a more persistent vision of a weak government unable to face extreme political pressure , especially from various leftwing revolutionary organizations.