Human Resource Strategy

The Phases Through Which Spain Evolved In Its Transition From An Authoritarian Regime To A Democracy

History has shown that democratization around the world has occurred in stages.   According to Samuel P. Huntington, these stages can be broken into three waves, with the third wave being the current wave (Website). Huntington (1991) referred to three transitions types that took place during the third wave of democratization: 1Transformation, which occurred when the elites in power took the lead in transforming democracy, 2Replacement, which occurred when opposition groups took the lead in transforming democracy and 3 Transplacement, which occurred when democratization resulted largely from the joint action by government and opposition groups (Huntington, 1991, 121 – 127). Huntington argues that 35 countries were democratized during the third wave, but for the purpose of this essay, I will focus on one, Spain, where transformation was the transition type that occurred.

According to Huntington, transformation required the government to be stronger than the opposition and consequently occurred in well-established military regimes where governments clearly controlled the ultimate means of coercion vis-à-vis the opposition and/or vis-à-vis authoritarian systems that had been successful economically, such as Spain. He also identified five major phases through which third wave transformations usually evolved, and it is these that will provide the basis of my examination of how Spain's transition occurred (Huntington, 1991, 125 – 127).

Emergence Of Reformers
The first step in the transformation process was the emergence of a group of leaders or potential leaders within the authoritarian regime who believed that movement in the direction of democracy was desirable or necessary. While the reasons why people became democratic reformers varied from country to country, in the case of Spain, the reformers believed that democracy was the "right" form of government and... [continues]

Read full essay