The Great Recession has intensely affected the Spanish economy in recent years, and Spain is suffering the highest unemployment rate in Europe. But the Spanish downturn is not only an economic crisis. There is an institutional crisis that has been characterized by several corruption cases, high power concentrated in the main political parties, inefficiencies in the separation of powers and the federal decentralization process, problems in the selection of political elites, high transaction costs and an inadequate governance structure in the EU to resolve the economic crisis in Europe, among others.  Moreover, the assessment of political institutions, government and parliament has sharply declined in Spain and citizens manifest their distrust and dissatisfaction with polity and political actors. Social movements as the 15M movement, the result of the 2011 general elections, several general strikes, the decline of trust in the conservative government and the politicians are good examples of the process of change in the country. This paper studies the Spanish institutional and economic crisis, its effects and the social conflict and movements that are been generated, and it analyses the relevance of the economic crisis over the institutional and social change. The paper applies institutional analysis to the study of the Spanish political economy and empirical work to understand the relationship among the different variables.