Spain's transition to democracy 2 by Mariana Correia da Fonseca Rodrigues

Universidade Católica Portuguesa Instituto de Estudos Políticos

Spain’s Transition to Democracy Success and Possible ShortComings

MA in Governance, Leadership and Democracy Studies Professor Charles Powell Mariana Correia da Fonseca Rodrigues 104515101

Lisbon, 2017

I. Introduction

Before becoming a democratic country, Spain has living for 40 years in a dictatorship and even if it is considered a successful democratic transition case, the year between Francoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death and the first democratic elections it was a year of profound complexity. In this sense in this essay I started in the Chapter II with a contextualization of Spain starting in the first efforts of democratization at the parliamentary monarchy in 1874 that ended with a bloodless military coup in 1923. The second republic in 1931 followed by other military coup led by General Franco that ended the second Republic and the period of Franco Regime which had important factors to understand the democratic transition of Spain. In the third Chapter I focus on the success of the Democracy in Spain according to the Professor Charles Powell texts and the Professor Class about Spain Transition to Democracy in which I tried to choose the five most important arguments. Lately, in my last chapter I conclude with my personal opinion of Spanish Transition to Democracy.

II. Background of Spanish Transition to Democracy

According to Samuel Huntington, Democracy’s Third Wave began in Portugal in the year of 1974 with the Carnation Revolution which influenced a vast number of Countries and “between 1974 and 1990, at least 30 countries made transitions to democracy, just about doubling the number of democratic governments in the world”1 . Back to 1874, there were efforts at democratization at the parliamentary monarchy which enjoyed decades of stability and prosperity but ended with a bloodless military coup in 1923 by Primo de Riviera2 . Regardless this State Coup, the Constitution was suspended and a military dictatorship was implemented. This military dictatorship was after replaced by the Second Republic in 1931 and “Spain’s first attempt at democracy, which was plagued by chronic cabinet instability, party-system fragmentation and ideological polarization. Additionally, it promised far-reaching socioeconomic reforms that it largely failed to deliver”.3 But, in 1936 in a violent military coup led by General Franco, ended the Second Republic and General Franco established a personal dictatorship. Spain at the time was living a period of profound misery and repression, and Franco’s Regime, “Recognized by most Western Governments in economic relations contributed to creating a degree of passive consensus among certain layers of Spanish Society regarding the political stability and relative material comfort guaranteed by the dictatorship”4 . Between the 1960s and early 1970s, after the Stabilization Plan on 1959, Spain had experienced a period of unprecedented economic growth which had social and cultural implications5. Due to that new cultural and social implications, there was space for the birth of a new political opposition (dominated by communist activities) mainly created by the increase of the political protests among a new generation of students, urban professional and industrial workers. This economic changes in Spain associated with changes in the civil society as a more modern, cultural, urbanized and developed society had a special impact on the citizens who became more educated and as a consequence more supporting for democratic Institutions. Moreover, when Franco died in November 1975, there was no opportunity to impose a direct outcome mainly because of the socioeconomic transformations which had political consequences. King Juan Carlos succeed Franco and nominated Carlos Arias Navarro as the 1

Samuel P. Huntington. Democracy’s Third Wave . Journal Democracy. 1991. P.12

Charles Power.Revisiting Spain’s Transition to Democracy. Elcano Royal Institute. Spain. P.41 http://www.iemed.org/publicacions/historic-de-publicacions/monografies/sumarisfotos-monografies/revisiting-spains-transition-powell-charles.pdf 2

Joseph M.Colorer. Game Theory and the transition to Democracy. The Spanish Model. Georgetown University. 1995. P.9.

Charles Power.Revisiting Spain’s Transition to Democracy. Elcano Royal Institute. Spain. P.42. http://www.iemed.org/publicacions/historic-de-publicacions/monografies/ sumaris-fotos-monografies/revisiting-spains-transition-powell-charles.pdf 5

President of Government but Carlos Navarro “presented a modest blueprint for liberalization (‘apertura’) in February 1974, but this only deepened the growing rift between ´hard-liners´, who believed the regime’s continuity should be guaranteed by an authoritarian monarchy under Juan Carlos, and ´soft-liners´ who assumed the future monarch would need to bring Spain’s Political System in line with those of its European neighbours”6 . Arias Navarro created some policies related to limited reforms and also legalized just some parties which made the opposition react in mass mobilizations. Juan Carlos who saw the discontent, not only of his citizens, but also of European Institutions, decided to replaced Arias Navarro in 1976 by Adolfo Suárez. It was with Adolfo Suárez that was created a Law for political Reform with an election of a two-chamber Cortes by Universal suffrage: a Congress of Deputies elected according to principles of proportional representation and a major Senate. 7 The decision of King Juan Carlos to replaced Arias Navarro with Adolfo Suárez as the new president was an important turning-point to the Democracy transition process. On December 1976, there was a voting in which the major of the voters indicated their support for Suárez Government popular referendum. Once, it became possible to start the electoral process. Also during this period, there were some issues like the growing opposition manifestations and the terrorist groups ETA that increased the tensions in Spain with armed confrontations. In 1977 significant reforms changed the Spanish panorama such as independent trade unions replaced labor syndicates. On 15 June 1977, there was the first free General elections in Spanish since the Civil War and in 1978 the new constitution was written. However, it is important to understand that the International Context also had special implications on the democratization process of Spain. As Samuel Huntington argued that “convincingly that democracies are normally surrounded by other democracies. The same happens with dictatorships” and in the 70’s that was something new and it was the European Union Community and the political ambition of the developed countries to become a part of it as a global actor. Franco tried to applied but it was rejected due to the fact that only fully democracies could be accepted. So, just after the free elections and the new constitution done when Spain became an EU member in 1986. In this sense, by that time Spain was creating the five spheres for a consistent Democracy: Rule of Law, Usable of State, Autonomous Civil Society, Institutionalized economic society and a political society.

Charles Power.Revisiting Spain’s Transition to Democracy. Elcano Royal Institute. Spain. P.44 http://www.iemed.org/publicacions/historic-de-publicacions/monografies/sumarisfotos-monografies/revisiting-spains-transition-powell-charles.pdf 6

Charles Power.Revisiting Spain’s Transition to Democracy. Elcano Royal Institute. Spain. P.45 http://www.iemed.org/publicacions/historic-de-publicacions/monografies/ sumaris-fotos-monografies/revisiting-spains-transition-powell-charles.pdf 7

III. Success and Short-come of Spanish Transition to Democracy

According to Samuel Huntington, “Between 1974 and 1990, democratization occurred in personal dictatorships, military regimes and one-party systems”8 . This factor related to the Franco regime as a civilian-based authoritarian regime (without a military) is an important factor for a successful transition to Democracy. This is due to the fact that when an authoritarian regime is a military base, the military is in a better position to continue to control an immensity of domains and also if the civilians who served under a political regime they still had and incentive to continue after democracy is installed. Some factors that I consider important to affirm, according to the authors, is that the transition to Democracy in Spain was possible due to profound sociopolitical changes that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. This factors, that I mentioned in the previous chapter, is related with the Stabilization Plan that had implication on the economic development; the increased of education in the middle class that encouraged the emergence of democracy and also the will in becoming part of the European Community; last, the nomination by Franco of King Juan Carlos was fundamental to the Spain’s transition to Democracy. To understand the success and Short-come of Spanish Transition to Democracy I choose 5 of the arguments of the Professor Charles Powell in his texts. The first argument about the success of the transition it is about the demand for political amnesty that was related with forgiving the crimes and conflicts in the Franco regime, including ETA terrorists. This was related first about the pardon in November 1975 and second with the 1977 law that argued that none would be investigated or prosecuted. As explained in the Professor Charles Powell text about “Revisiting Spain’s Transition to Democracy”, there were some authors that assumed that were not calls for justice. However, this also had a special contribution to national reconciliation. The second argument about the success of the transition it is related with the new laws of the syndical associations. In March of 1977, it was approved a new law about the labor’s relations in which recognized some associations like, CCO and UGT. Also, that law ended the mandatory syndicates of employers, technicians and workers of the Franco regime. This measure can be considered as a success mainly because had little resistance when replaced by other democratic associations due to the fact that there was an existence of a democratic state9. Thirdly, the consensus between the parties was a fundamental aspect of the democratic 8

Samuel Huntington. Democracy’s Third Wave . Journal Democracy. 1991 P.21

Charles Powell. El camino a la democracia en España. 2006. CEU. P.17

consolidation. In the elections of 1977, there was a democratic system in which there was no absolute majority and the main opposition party demonstrated to be an alternative of government. The new elections contributed to delegitimizing the authoritarian regime with a legitime successor. Another important factor to refer is about the Basque and Catalan nationalists who had an important presence in the congress which was also one of the objectives of the government in encouraging their participation in the democratic process. This third argument it is really important because it was the only way to overcome the discrepancies during the drafting of the constitution10 . However, there were not so positive aspects about the basques which not contributed to the normalization to the politic situation of the amnesty general approved by the congress. Fourthly, the Moncloa Pacts had a positive and significative impact on the Spanish Economy. This pact included some measures like a “20% devaluation of the national currency, an extensive price and wage controls, and a limited relaxation of job protection legislation, which the left-wing parties accepted on the understanding that the indication of a new system of direct taxation would lead to greater public spending in education, health and public housing”11. The agreements were an important step for the country because they created a consensus on the social market economy as the most appropriate model for Spain and they also helped to the reconciliation between former antagonists and to the new political elite that emerged from the elections. However, lately it did not prevent the Spanish economy from experiencing a recession due to the 1979 oil shock. Fifth and last, according to the readers and the Professor Charles Powell class, there was also a negative impact between 1975 and 1980 which after had positive consequences. There were violence episodes during that five years in which 460 people died as a result of extremewing violence; radical organizations and law-enforcement-driven violence when dealing with demonstrations and protests. However, this fear of violence related with the memory of the civil war brought together the moderate democratic oppositions to exclude the extreme groups. In sum, the Spanish Transition to Democracy is seeing in the world as a successful transition and an example for other countries. This is mainly because of all of the accords that I mentioned in this chapter that permitted the courts to create a Constitution in a peaceful environment and an effort of forgetting the past and believing in a future with Democracy as the only way.

10Charles

Powell. El camino a la democracia en España. 2006. CEU. P.18

11Charles

Power.Revisiting Spain’s Transition to Democracy. Elcano Royal Institute. Spain. P.48 http://www.iemed.org/publicacions/historic-de-publicacions/monografies/ sumaris-fotos-monografies/revisiting-spains-transition-powell-charles.pdf

IV. Conclusion

Writing this essay was a positive challenge due to the fact that I did not know the Spain History and this was a great opportunity to learn it and especially understand the beautiful Spanish Road to Democracy. Before I conclude with my personal opinion, I have to quote Samuel Huntington about Democracy. The author assumes that there are five factors that contributed to the third-wave transitions to democracy:”1)The deepening legitimacy problems of authoritarian regimes in a world where democratic values were widely accepted, the consequent dependence of these regimes on successful performance, and their inability to maintain “performance legitimacy” due to economic (and sometimes military) failure; 2) The unprecedented global economic growth of the 1960s, which raised living standards, increased education, and greatly expanded the urban middle class in many countries; 3)A Striking shifts in the doctrine and activities of the Catholic Church, manifested in the Second Vatican Council of 1963-65 and the transformation of national Catholic churches from defenders of the status quo to opponents of authoritarianism; 4)Changes in the policies of external actors, most notably the European Community, the United states, and the Soviet Union; 5) “Snowballing,” or the demonstration effect of transitions earlier in the third wave in stimulating and providing models for subsequent efforts at democratization.”12 and this is applicable to the Spanish Case, however that is other sentence of Huntington that I truly believe that represented the Spanish Transition to Democracy more than the five factors: “Economic development makes democracy possible; political leadership makes it real” . And it is exactly about this political leadership that I would like to conclude my essay about this successful transition to Democracy case. During my reads, I should assume that behind all of the accords there was great leaders, King Juan Carlos and Adolfo Suárez, who believed that democratic principles were the only way; who had the efficiency in forgetting the past of a violent civil war and tried to, above all, bring all the oppositions to a common goal: A Democratic Spain.

Samuel P. Huntington Democracy’s Third Wave . Samuel P. Huntington. Journal Democracy. 1991. P.14

Bibliography

Colorer, Josep M. Game Theory and the transition to Democracy. The Spanish Model. Georgetown University. 1995.

Huntington, Samuel P. Democracy’s Third Wave .Journal Democracy. 1991

Powell, Charles. El camino a la democracia en España. CEU. 2006

Powell, Charles. Revisiting Spain’s Transition to Democracy. IEMed. Barcelona. 2014

Powell. Charles. La Transición, a la luz del XXV Aniversario de la Constitución. cuadernos de pensamiento político. 2003