Politics Literature Arts Ideas

Omar G. Encarnación

Omar G. Encarnación is professor of political studies at Bard College. His books include Democracy without Justice in Spain: The Politics of Forgetting (2014) and Out in the Periphery: Latin America’s Gay Rights Revolution (2016). (May 2019)

A view of Cibeles Square taken during the annual Pride parade in Madrid, Spain, July 6, 2019

Why Gay Reparation’s Time Has Come

In the last decade alone, close to a dozen nations, including the United States, have embraced some form of gay reparation—but why some countries, but not others, are coming around to making amends to the homosexual community is far from clear.

October 30, 2019

Spanish prime minister and Socialist Party leader Pedro Sánchez addressing supporters outside the PSOE headquarters, its façade covered by a giant election banner, Madrid, April 28, 2019

Spain, Savior of Social Democracy in Europe?

Against the backdrop of a pan-European wave of rightwing populism, PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez ran as an unapologetic progressive. This move was pivotal in persuading Spaniards to vote Socialist again.

May 28, 2019

El Valle de los Caídos, the war memorial and mausoleum of General Franco built, in part, by Republican prisoners in the mountains near Madrid, Spain, 1976

Spain Exhumes Its Painful Past

If Spain’s new Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has his way, El Valle will soon receive a radical makeover. In June, Sánchez announced his intention to move General Franco’s remains from El Valle and transform the site from a shrine to Francoism to a “memorial for the victims of fascism.”

August 24, 2018