In the extensive CV by Manuel Castells, an international eminence in the field of sociology and economics, there is an entire section devoted to politics. His career as a researcher is characterized by the intersection between academia and public policy, as evidenced by his texts on the social movements that emerged in 2011 in the heat of the so-called civil outrage resulting from the economic crisis of those years. In line with that calling, he had been active underground since his youth, later becoming a member of the Socialist Party and more recently accepting Ada Colau's request. become Minister of Universities in government as part of the commons quota within Unidas Podemos. That is why his recent article in The vanguard in which he asked for the vote for the PSC and his presence in the election bunker with Salvador Illa on the night of March 12.
“I don't vote for politicians, but for people who are politicians and whom I trust, with the data in hand. And that is why I am voting for Illa, because I have been with him in the trenches of the fight against Covid and I have always been able to observe his dedication, his honesty and his decisions based on analyzes and recommendations of scientists,” announced Castells in The vanguard on April 20, in the middle of the campaign for the May 12 elections, in which the candidate of the Catalan Socialists ultimately emerged victorious. A few days later, the former minister appeared in a photo next to Illa, taken while monitoring the election results, at the PSC headquarters.
That first article caused some surprise among the commons, who interpreted the movement as part of his career as an independent. An adjective that Castells highlights in response to this newspaper asked about the reasons for his leap from the ministry representing the commons to express support for the PSC. “I never ransacked the commons, I was never a militant or anything, and I made it very clear to Ada [Colau] who accepted his proposal for a minister as an independent. “She behaved admirably and left me with all the independence,” he explains of the decision that led to him being Minister of Universities in the first coalition government since the return of democracy.
The sociologist recalled that moment in his article, in which he also spoke of Colau as the best mayor since his 'friend Pascual'. [Maragall]”, with whom, he recalls in his answers, he had been active since he was young and clandestine in the Front Obrer de Catalunya (FOC) “which was one of the nuclei that formed the PSC in democracy.”
“I actively supported Ada in her three municipal campaigns, including the last one with me after she left the government,” recalls Castells, who, however, believes that these elections in Catalonia were “different”. “I thought I would make a better contribution to the left by supporting Illa, who is the only one who can design a left-wing government without excluding the left-wing independence movement,” he explains by email.
“These elections are about something different [oponía ya en su artículo en el diario catalán]. They will build a coalition between socialists, ordinary people and left-wing Republicans. This is the political basis of the Catalonia of the future. And political reality indicates that Salvador Illa is the only one who can express this. For votes and for temperance.”
However, Castells' career, as he explained in his answer, is linked to Catalan socialism. The FOC was one of many movements that emerged in response to the Franco regime, bringing together figures such as Maragall, Isidre Molas, Jaume Roures and Miquel Roca. After its dissolution, in 1971, many members dispersed into other organizations and met again, first in the extinct Convergència Socialista de Catalunya and later in the creation of the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya.
“I started serving clandestinely at the age of 17, together with Pasqual Maragall, Isidre Molas and other students, in the Front Obrer de Catalunya (FOC), one of the nuclei that formed the PSC in democracy,” Castells explains. . In an interview with this newspaper, provided more details about that episode. “I had to go into exile at the age of twenty.” [1962]. My friends from the Front Obrer of Catalonia, who had partially joined the PSC, were tortured and imprisoned. They told me to go to France. Then they expelled me from France because of my participation in May '68. And I kept running forward,” he reflected.
In his answers, he also recalls that in the following decades, in the 1980s and 1990s, he was also a member of the Federal Committee of the PSOE, from which he “quietly” left, he says. Although, as he also recalls in that interview, 'without power, he supported a project more in symbolic terms'.
What followed next was his enthusiasm for the social movements that emerged in the period after the Arab Spring in North Africa, Occupy Wall Street in the United States and of course 15M in Spain. A phenomenon about which he published an essay in 2012: Networks of Outrage and Hope (Alianza Editorial).
“I used my independent status and knowing different people to help build bridges. “I had the feeling that a new political force would emerge from the social movement,” he says in the interview, assuring that the only ones who managed to “politically capitalize and to articulate' – of which there are 13 today – were the leaders of Podemos.
It is this connection and his ties with Catalonia that bring him closer to the municipalities, so that they eventually propose him as their quota for the ministry, which he left in the middle of the term “for health reasons and medical regulations”. He was replaced by Professor Joan Subirats.
However, during those years Castells had built a bond with another important figure in understanding the political changes that have occurred in Spain over the past decade: Pedro Sánchez, whom he hosted at his home in California when the Socialist leader was led by had been defended. . of his party and whom he encouraged to try to recapture the General Secretariat, as he tells in his book Ruptura (Alianza Editorial).
Castell also played at a surprising moment in other elections. In 2021, he supported the Socialist candidate for the presidency of the Community of Madrid, Ángel Gabilondo, while overseeing election day. But on this occasion he wanted to publicly expose the reasons for changing his position and changing his vote from the commons – which until recently he publicly acknowledged his support – to Illa. “I want to take a public stand in favor of a project and a person who can lead us on the path of reunification among Catalans, and who lays the foundations for a Catalonia that takes care of its people and projects itself in the world as a beacon of innovation and civility, a reference in the troubled waters we find ourselves in,” I reasoned.