ABSTRACT
After two centuries of political instability and regime discontinuity the settlement of the present Spanish constitution has to be considered a great success. Between 1812 and 1978 Spain had eight different constitutions which had been imposed either by the right or the left. Such politics led to the polarisation of Spanish politics culminating in civil wars throughout the nineteenth century up until 1939. The long authoritarian regime under Franco clearly was a major factor in moderating the positions between left and right. It allowed the emergence of a new generation which was no longer trapped in the politics of polarisation. The consensualism around the Spanish constitution of 1978 acquired over time a mystique around it, because it had achieved the reconciliation of left-wing and right-wing Spaniards. More than that it symbolised a new beginning. The images of the fratricidal Civil War haunted the minds of all the participants in the constitutional settlement. Consensualism was the creation of a new language to avoid even a return to a civil war situation.
