Abstract
This article proposes an analysis of Spanish cultural heritage policies. These one are based on a double institutional dimension, simultaneously local and national, in a country which is deeply decentralized. The first part scans the distinct historical steps of the institutionalization of such policies, from the Enlightenment until the democratic transition of the seventies. This transition has clearly opted for an important dynamics of devolution of powers and competences to the Autonomous Communities (regional authorities). It has directly affected the economy of heritage policies, one on the first sector for which such a devolution had been implemented. The impact of this devolution deals with much more than only technical or judicial aspects of the differentiation. Within contemporary Spain, the heritage policies are in the throes of the problem of national identity, and its relationship to the pasts. The first and faraway past, i.e. the foundations of the national Unitarianism, is actually beated up by tensions which are related to the implementation of specific heritage policy strategies, within each autonomous community. The closer past, i.e. the Franco, induces nowadays a new and crucial debate, from an heritage perspective. At least, the article shows how such institutional and technical dimensions of all heritage policies are closely related to a model of cultural policy which remains incomplete.