About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

100 Foreign Aff. 183 (2021)
The Spanish Miracle: Democracy's Triumph over Tyranny and Corruption

handle is hein.journals/fora100 and id is 185 raw text is: The Spanish Miracle Democracy's Triumph Over Tyranny and Corruption Omar G. Encarnacion A People Betrayed: A History of Corruption, Political Incompetence, and Social Division in Modern Spain BY PAUL PRESTON. Liveright, 2020, 768 pp. Nearly three decades have passed since the 1991 publication of the political scientist Samuel Huntington's The Third Wave, the most important scholarly take on the global democratic transformation that took place in the late twentieth century. The book traced democratic openings around the world, beginning with the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal, which ended the West's longest dicta- torship, and concluding with the de- mocratization of eastern Europe follow- ing the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Between those two landmark events, nearly 30 new democracies emerged. According to Huntington, this was the third time such a wave had washed over the world; the first arrived in the nineteenth century, with the advent of OMAR G. ENCARNACION is Professor of Political Studies at Bard College and the author of Democracy Without Justice in Spain: The Politics of Forgetting. mass democracy in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the second came in the immediate aftermath of World War II, ushered in by the democ- ratization of West Germany and Japan. He attributed the third wave to a number of factors, including the eco- nomic expansion of the postwar years, the liberalizing reforms undertaken by the Vatican, the embrace of democracy promotion as a foreign policy tool by the United States and European coun- tries, and the phenomenon of snowball- ing, or countries copying one another's democratic transitions. Huntington also emphasized the important role that domestic elites played in democratiza- tion. Democracies are created not by causes but by causers, he wrote, and although grassroots movements often catalyzed change, democracy could consolidate only when elites embraced it. But in the years since Huntington observed the third wave, the tide has turned. Many young democracies have witnessed what political scientists call democratic backsliding: a reversion to the illiberalism of an earlier era and the deterioration of democratic norms, practices, and institutions. In some cases, most notably Hungary and Poland, once promising democracies are now breaking down. Others, such as Russia, have long since passed that point and have settled into authoritarianism. And the phenomenon is not exclusive to the postcommunist world. Across Latin America, backsliding has taken a heavy toll on countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. One third-wave country that has notably avoided such backsliding is Spain, which began to transition to democracy in 1975 with the passing of Francisco January/February 2021 183

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most