The Military Threat To Spanish Democracy: A Historical Perspective

Abstract

Military intervention in politics has been a constant factor in Spanish history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The nature of intervention has varied and it can be divided into three distinct periods: 1814 to 1875; 1923 to 1939; and 1976 to the present. The armed forces which emerged from the Franco regime were dominated by an antidemocratic ideology, born of civil war and preserved through the military's isolation from society at large. They have neither fully supported nor wholly rejected the democratic system created by the transition which followed the death of Francisco Franco (in November 1975); they have been a source of perpetual concern. The first governments of the democracy did not take measures to resolve this situation. The socialist government elected in October 1982 has inherited the problem and is aware of the types of major changes needed to solve it.