The Political Transition in Spain: An Interpretation

Abstract

It may appear to be an impossible task to account for what has happened in Spain between 1975 and 1979; what was expected to happen at the beginning of that period has not occurred. The turn that events have taken is well known. In the spring of 1979, after elections to both the Constitutional Assembly and the legislature, and municipal elections, the government of the country remains in the hands of those who have exercised power for the last forty years. And yet there is one important difference: in those four years, the dictatorship has given way to a democratic State, and those who lead that State now enjoy the same legitimacy as those of any other Western European country. There are, of course, any number of objections that can be raised to that assertion-not least among them the fact that the first President of a democratic government was one of the last Ministers in Franco's regime; nevertheless, that transition has been realized in Spain.