Research and Publications
Dr. Gerald Blaney gained his second Masters and PhD in International History from the LSE, where he is now Cañada Blanch Fellow in Spanish History. His doctoral thesis dealt with Spain's paramilitary police force, the Civil Guard, during the Second Republic (1931-1936) and its role in the military rebellion that initiated the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Dr. Blaney's research attempts to explain the various factors that influence the loyalties and actions of the Civil Guard, and of police in general, during periods of social unrest and political uncertainty. In the short term, he is expanding on his doctoral research and working on a manuscript for publication. Alongside this, Dr. Blaney is organizing a conference at the LSE in the Spring of 2011 that will examine the roles and actions of police forces in various Latin American countries as well as in the Iberian Peninsula. Like his previous book on policing in Interwar Europe, this project will involve scholars from Europe and the Americas, and will endeavour to shed light on this important but relatively neglected issue by comparing and contrasting the experiences of a number of different countries and regimes. In the longer term, he has plans to expand on some of his previous research on policing and public order in Spain and Europe during the interwar period. In this Dr. Blaney will adopt a transnational and comparative approach to how governments in the period understood their common challenges and collaborated in combatting them, how new technology and approaches to policing were shared across borders, while at the same time noting how these were refracted through national lenses. He also has begun examining the Spanish police "missions" sent at the request of various Latin American governments to assist with the reform and training of their own police forces. This research will be situated not only within the context of similar socio-political structures and problems, but also within perceptions of a shared cultural heritage, promoted by its Spanish proponents as Hispanidad.
Generally speaking, his research interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish history, the history of the police in Europe and the Americas, and the issues of protest (including terrorism) and public order.
Dr. Blaney edited Policing Interwar Europe: Continuity, Change and Crisis, 1918-1940 (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007), writing not only the Introduction but also a chapter dealing with policing issues during the Second Spanish Republic. This collection featured ten other contributors with essays on the following countries: France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, England, Portugal, Poland, and Bulgaria. He has also written a number of articles and book chapters on various aspects of the Civil Guard during this period, including: "The Civil Guard and the Second Republic: A Reassessment", in Manuel Alvarez Tardio and Fernando del Rey Reguillo (eds.), The Second Spanish Republic revisited (forthcoming); "La historiografía de la Guardia Civil: críticas y propuestas", Política y Sociedad, Vol. 42, No. 3 (2005); "Between Order and Loyalty: The Civil Guard and the Spanish Second Republic, 1931-1936", in Gerard Oram (ed.), Conflict & Legality: Policing Mid-Twentieth Century Europe (London: Francis Boutle, 2003).
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Teaching
HY101: The European Civil War, 1890-1990| (taught jointly with other members of staff in the Department)
HY209: Democracy, Civil War and Dictatorship in Twentieth-Century Spain| (taught jointly with Professor Paul Preston)
HY400: Crisis Decision-Making in War and Peace, 1914-1991| (taught jointly with other members of staff in the Department)
Contact Details
Office: Room J317
Telephone: 020 7955 6119
Email Address: G.J.Blaney@lse.ac.uk|
Office Hours
Thursdays, 13.30-14.30 & Fridays, 14.00-15.00