Beyond Pacted Transitions in Spain and Chile: Elite and Institutional Differences
This article compares the transitions to democracy in Spain and Chile, two countries that share important pre-transition characteristics. Both transitions were made from the legality of the existing regime, and democratization followed from a stalemate between the forces of the ancien régime and those of change. Moreover, both were transitions by transaction - negotiated with the authoritarian forces. Yet the differences were more pronounced. The article analyzes the significance of a number of elite-level and institutional variables that have all too often been masked by the crude and simplistic distinction made in the 'transitology' literature between pacted and unpacted transitions. These include: cohesion within the authoritarian forces, the role of agency, substantive (rather than pragmatic) cohesion within the democratic opposition, attainment of civil supremacy, presence or absence of the dictator, length of dictatorship, and even Machiavellian fortuna, among others.
Keywords: democratization; unpacted transitions
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 January 2003
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