Regime Dispensability and Democratic Transitions: A Case Comparison of Spain and Turkey

Abstract

Democratic transitions are usually complex and uncertain processes, and specifying paths to democratisation is a tentative process. One of the controversial and less explored paths is that of regime self-transformation. An attempt is made in this paper to explain this kind of transition with the notion of regime dispensability, a situation in which the dictatorial regime is abandoned in favour of a non-dictatorial one, using two countries that experienced such regime-initiated democratic transitions, namely Spain and Turkey, in a comparative framework. Dispensability is linked to the nature of the dictatorial regime and is used as a tool to account for causes of, and regime groups that can bring about, the regime's transformation, as well as for the implications of self-transformation for the future democracies.

Key Words:

• Dispensability
• democratic transition
• Turkish transition
• Spanish transition

Notes

1 See, for instance, Ahmad (1993), Evin (1994), Rouleau (2000).

2 For an account of those forms of transitions see Share (1987); see also the comments of Stepan (1986) on re-democratisation initiated from within the regime.

3 For examples of this school of analysis see Lipset (1981), Vanhanen (1992), Perez-Diaz (1993), Putnam (1993).

4 See, for instance, Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) and Collier (1999).

5 As Przeworski (1991) put it.

6 This viewpoint is shared by Eisenstadt (2000, p. 16) who concedes that ‘authoritarians only decide to liberalise because of perceived threats’.

7 For those points see Huntington (1991).

8 See also Casper and Taylor (1996) where they speak of the regime elites obtaining ‘guarantees of continued influence’ by exiting from direct control.

9 Also Huntington (1984, p. 212): ‘almost always, democracy has come as much from the top down as from the bottom up; it is as likely to be the product of oligarchy as of protest against oligarchy.’

10 ‘From a particular moment of the transition, there seems to be no clear relationship between this [working class] pressure and the principal political events’ … [by the start of the transition] the working class movement was poorly organised and labour unions were weak (Maravall, 1982 pp. 14, 205).’ Also, ‘the increase in civil disorder … can not be said that was threatening the regime per se, at least in short term’ (Share, 1986, p. 186).

11 Powell (1996, p. 70) quotes an official socialist publication of October 1974 in accordance with which the monarchy was ‘another Francoist institution, in view of which the only option left to decent Spaniards was to fight against it.’

12 Share (1986, p. 46) quotes Carrillo: ‘violent change doesn't make sense where the security forces dispose of sophisticated weapons and where the memory of the civil war is a powerful disincentive to political violence.’

13 Arias was repeatedly saying ‘what I want is to continue Francoism (quoted in Powell, 1996, p. 93)’.

14 ‘Groomed in the intricacies of the Francoist power structure (his very means of survival), Suarez was well qualified to understand where and how it was best dismantled’ (Graham, 1984, p. 150).

15 ‘For any change in the system to occur legally, the key players were the council of the Realm and the Cortes’ (Alba, 1978, p. 255).

16 The ‘moderator’ type is characterised by ‘fairly high (though variable) unity and differentiation [from civil society], combined with fairly low threat [from civil society] and moderate autonomy [in political organisation]’ (Clapham & Philip, 1985a, p. 9). Hale (1994) insists on the ‘moderator’ characteristics, while Tachau and Heper (1983) consider it a ‘guardian’ regime.

17 See also Özbudun (1990) for the electoral system and the law on political parties.

18 This conclusion of Hagopian concerns Brazil but applies in the Turkish case as well.