Miguel Primo de Rivera in the context of "José Antonio Primo de Rivera"

Para-fascism are authoritarian conservative movements and regimes that adopt characteristics associated with fascism such as personality cults, paramilitary organizations, symbols and rhetoric, while diverging from conventional fascist tenets such as palingenetic ultranationalism, modernism, and populism. Para-fascism often emerges in response to the need for a facade of popular support in an age of mass politics, without a genuine commitment to revolutionary nationalism, instead focusing on maintaining tradition, religion, and culture. Para-fascist regimes may co-opt or neutralize genuine fascist movements.

The historian Roger Griffin defines the following regimes and movements as para-fascist: Austrofascism in the Federal State of Austria led by Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg, Metaxism in the Greek '4th of August Regime', the "New State" of António de Oliveira Salazar's Portugal, the Bando nacional and the FET y de las JONS led by Francisco Franco in the Spanish State, Kingdom of Hungary led by Miklós Horthy, and the Révolution nationale in Vichy France led by Philippe Petain; the dictatorships of Carol II and Ion Antonescu in the Kingdom of Romania, Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship in Spain and Antanas Smetona's Lithuanian Nationalist Union in Lithuania have also been referred to as para-fascist. While most historians of fascism agree that these regimes were not totally fascist, many authors do acknowledge that they have some kind of connection with fascism, either by being partially influenced by it or by co-opting some genuine fascist groups. The words used by different historians to characterize these conservative regimes include, apart from parafascism: semi-fascist, fascisant, fascistic, fascistized, quasi-fascist, and others.

Falange Española (FE) was a Spanish fascist and national syndicalist political organization active from 1933 to 1934. Its name translates to "Spanish Phalanx." Founded on October 29, 1933 by Alfonso García Valdecasas, Julio Ruiz de Alda, and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the eldest son of the deceased dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera. On February 15, 1934, FE merged with the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista (JONS), founded by Onésimo Redondo and Ramiro Ledesma Ramos, among others. The new party was called Falange Española de las JONS (FE de las JONS).

Following the success of Italian fascism with Benito Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922, various attempts to create a fascist organization in Spain along Italian lines failed. Organizations like the Comunión Tradicionalist, Acción Popular, and Renovación Españoa already existed but those organizations were never fascist and only minor fractions in those organizations would be. In those years, the Spanish fascists and the most reactionary financial and business sectors felt the need for a fascist party, which had proven to be an effective check on the development of left-wing mass movements in Europe. With the establishment of the Second Republic and the initiation of the democratization of Spain, the first attempts crystallized in the Falange Española, promoted by these reactionary sectors.

General Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship over Spain began with a coup on 13 September 1923 and ended with his resignation on 28 January 1930. It took place during the wider reign of King Alfonso XIII. In establishing his dictatorship, Primo de Rivera ousted the liberal government led by Prime Minister Manuel García Prieto and initially gained the support of King Alfonso XIII and the army. During the Military Directory (1923–1925), the dictatorship created the official party of the regime, the Unión Patriótica (UP). It also censored the Spanish press and worked to eliminate separatism in Catalonia. Under Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, Spain won the Rif War, where Spanish forces fought Riffian tribes in Morocco.

Primo de Rivera's dictatorship established the Civil Directory in 1925. During the Civil Directory, Primo de Rivera created the National Assembly, where Spanish corporations had their interests represented. The dictatorship formed good relationships with Italy and increased its interactions with countries in Latin America. It invested heavily in Spanish infrastructure, such as roads and railways, and expanded labour laws to assist nursing mothers in the workforce. Throughout the dictatorship, women became an increasing percentage of Spain's skilled labour. In 1929 an economic downturn occurred, and the value of the Spanish peseta fell. The army's grievances with Primo de Rivera grew, and seeing this, the King stopped supporting the dictatorship. Primo de Rivera resigned in 1930, ending his dictatorship, and General Dámaso Berenguer succeeded him before Spain's Second Republic was established in 1931.

In Spanish politics, the turnismo, turno pacífico or simply turno (Spanish for "turn" or "shift") refers to an informal two-party system of government within the constitutional monarchy of the Restoration. It consisted of the alternation in government of the two dynastic parties (the Conservative and the Liberal parties) through systematic electoral fraud which ensured that the party that called the elections always won.

The system was in place from 1879, the first elections held under the Restoration, until 1918, when it began to break down in response to public influence during World War I, and was ultimately abandoned after the election of 1923 and coup d'etat of Miguel Primo de Rivera.