The political system of the Restoration was the system in force in Spain during the period of the Restoration, between the promulgation of the Constitution of 1876 and the coup d’état of 1923 that established the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Its form of government was that of a constitutional monarchy, but it was neither democratic nor parliamentary,: "[La Restauración] fue un régimen liberal, no democrático." ([The Restoration] was a liberal, not a democratic regime) "although it was far from the one-party exclusivism of the Isabelline era.": "Las oposiciones pudieron conquistar el poder por medios constitucionales, no militares". (The opposition was able to take power by constitutional, not military, means.) The regime "was defined as liberal by its supporters and as oligarchic by its detractors, particularly the regenerationists. Its theoretical foundations are found in the principles of doctrinaire liberalism," emphasizes .
The political regime of the Restoration was implemented during the brief reign of Alfonso XII (1874-1885), which constituted "a new starting point for the liberal regime in Spain.": "El reinado de Alfonso XII fue también una década de importantes cambios políticos… Una nueva Constitución fue aprobada, y se creó y entró en funcionamiento un nuevo sistema de partidos. El monarca empezó a ejercer, con una autoridad y acierto desconocidos hasta entonces, la soberanía que la Constitución le reconocía, juntamente con las Cortes. Los partidos se alternaron pacíficamente en el poder y gracias a ello se alcanzó la estabilidad política". (The reign of Alfonso XII also saw a decade of important political changes... A new Constitution was approved and a new party system was created and came into operation. The monarch began to exercise, with an authority and skill unknown until then, the sovereignty that the Constitution recognized him as having, together with the Cortes. The parties alternated peacefully in power and thanks to this political stability was achieved).
Its main characteristic was the gap between, on the one hand, the Constitution and the laws that accompanied it and, on the other, the actual functioning of the system. On the surface, it appeared to be a parliamentary regime, similar to the British model, in which the two major parties, Conservative and Liberal, alternated in government based on electoral results that determined parliamentary majorities, where the Crown played a representative role and had only symbolic power. In Spain, however, it was not the citizens with voting rights—men over the age of 25 as of 1890—who decided, but rather the Crown, "advised" by the ruling elite, which determined the alternation (the so-called turno) between the two major parties, Conservative and Liberal. Once the decree for the dissolution of the Cortes was obtained—a power exclusive to the Crown—the newly appointed Prime Minister would call elections to "manufacture" a comfortable parliamentary majority through systematic electoral fraud, using the network of caciques (local political bosses) deployed throughout the country. Thus, following this method of gaining power, which "disrupted the logic of parliamentary practice," governments were formed before elections rather than as a result of them,: "El rey era el que de hecho, mediante el decreto de disolución de Cortes, concedido a la persona designada para formar gobierno, posibilitaba el ascenso o el descenso del poder a los distintos líderes y formaciones políticas. Por su supuesto, al hacerlo no actuaba caprichosamente, sino de acuerdo con unas reglas del juego… Pero en todo caso esta forma de acceso [al poder] subvertía la lógica de una práctica parlamentaria. No eran las Cortes las que provocaban crisis políticas y hacían cambiar gobiernos, pues cada partido gobernante se fabricaba una mayoría parlamentaria suficiente, mediante elecciones fraudulentas. Las crisis ministeriales parciales o totales, las alternativas en el ejercicio del poder (el turno), se decidían entre las altas esferas políticas (la elite) al margen del Parlamento, sobre la base de la iniciativa monárquica…" (The king was the one who, in fact, through the decree of dissolution of the Cortes, granted to the person designated to form the government, made it possible for the various leaders and political formations to rise or fall in power. Of course, in doing so he did not act capriciously, but according to the rules of the game... But in any case this form of access [to power] subverted the logic of parliamentary practice. It was not the Cortes that caused political crises and brought about changes of government, as each ruling party manufactured a sufficient parliamentary majority through fraudulent elections. Partial or total ministerial crises, changes in the exercise of power (the turno), were decided among the upper echelons of politics (the elite) outside of Parliament, on the basis of monarchical initiative...) and election results were often even published in advance in the press.: "[…] la confrontación electoral — si es que se la puede llamar así — tenía lugar por medio de negociaciones realizadas con anterioridad a las elecciones, negociaciones que continuarían siendo la parte fundamental de la política electoral hasta 1923. Los resultados eran entonces a menudo publicados en la prensa antes del día de la votación." ([...] electoral confrontation — if it can be called that — took place through negotiations held prior to the elections, negotiations that would continue to be the fundamental part of electoral politics until 1923. The results were then often published in the press before voting day). As noted by Carmelo Romero Salvador, under the Restoration, "corruption and electoral fraud were not occasional anecdotes or isolated outgrowths of the system, but [resided] in its very essence, in its very being.": "Lo que en mayor medida distingue al caso español… [es] el hecho de que la acción gubernamental determinó que el partido que convocaba las elecciones las ganara siempre, y que ello quedase normalizado e institucionalizado a raíz del pacto entre los dos partidos mayoritarios que, desde 1881 y durante más de cuarenta años, decidieron alternarse en el poder". (What distinguishes the Spanish case to a greater extent ... [is] the fact that government action ensured that the party that called the elections always won them, and that this became normalised and institutionalised as a result of the pact between the two majority parties which, from 1881 and for more than forty years, decided to alternate in power). This was already observed by contemporary foreign observers. The British ambassador reported to his government in 1895: "In Spain, elections are manipulated by the government; and for this reason, parliamentary majorities are not as decisive a factor as elsewhere."
In 1902, the regenerationist Joaquín Costa described "the current form of government in Spain" in terms of "oligarchy and caciquism," a characterization that was later adopted by much of the historiography on the Restoration.: "Una de las características más típicas del régimen político de la Restauración lo constituye el desfase, tan criticado por los regeneracionistas, entre el país legal (la Constitución de 1876 y sus desarrollos legislativos) y el país real, la oligarquía y el caciquismo". (One of the most typical characteristics of the Restoration political regime is the discrepancy, so criticized by the regenerationists, between the legal country (the 1876 Constitution and its legislative developments) and the real country, the oligarchy and the caciquism).
The historian highlights that the "stability of the liberal regime," the "greatest achievement of the Restoration," was obtained through a conservative solution that did not disrupt "the political and social status quo" and that tolerated an "organized caciquism." The politicians of the Restoration "did not want to, did not dare to, or could not break the entire system by mobilizing public opinion," so that "the electorate found itself excluded as an instrument of political change, and the Crown took its place" as the arbiter of power alternations. This meant abandoning the progressive tradition of national sovereignty (the electorate as the arbiter of change) in favor of placing sovereignty in "the Cortes alongside the King.": "La solución conservadora tuvo su precio… En primer lugar, la tolerancia al caciquismo, o manipulación de la administración por parte de los caciques, fue injusta para los que no eran clientes, y resultó ineficiente a la hora de gestionar los intereses colectivos y abstractos en un sistema capitalista moderno. En segundo lugar, el hecho de que el poder dependiera del grado de cohesión del partido, en lugar del voto parlamentario, implicaba que las facciones, independientemente del número de escaños, pudieran y buscaran, como forma de arrancar concesiones del ejecutivo de su partido, provocar crisis. Y ello producía gobiernos efímeros, gabinetes débiles… En tercer lugar, la neutralización ideológica de los partidos… Por fin ―y por lo que hace a la evolución del sistema político― convendría no olvidar que el abandono del principio de soberanía nacional encerró al régimen en un callejón de difícil salida". (The conservative solution came at a price... First, tolerance for caciquismo, or the manipulation of the administration by local bosses, was unfair to non-clients and inefficient in managing collective and abstract interests in a modern capitalist system. Secondly, the fact that power depended on the degree of party cohesion, rather than the parliamentary vote, meant that factions, regardless of the number of seats, could and would seek to provoke crises as a way of extracting concessions from their party's executive. And this produced short-lived governments, weak cabinets... Thirdly, the ideological neutralization of the parties... Finally - and as far as the evolution of the political system is concerned - it is worth bearing in mind that the abandonment of the principle of national sovereignty trapped the regime in an impasse with no easy way out). However, by opting for a conservative rather than a democratic solution, the politicians of the Restoration "tied the fate of the monarchy to parties that did not depend on public opinion," which had profound long-term implications for the monarchy.
A project by Cánovas del Castillo