ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a theoretical framework for understanding transitions to democracy. The framework is based on this study's argument that the constitution-making process is central to a successful transition to democracy. The beginning of the long Brazilian transition to democracy is a good example of such a turning point. Important to the success of the transition is the degree of democratization that takes place in the pre-constitutional period—after the turning point and prior to the constitution-making process. While the turning point signals the beginning of the transition, and pre-constitutional reforms lay down the necessary groundwork, an effective constitution-making process creates the legal framework for regime change and comprehensive democratization. The Spanish Second Republic experienced such a transition with eventually ominous consequences. In the case of post-war Italy, a centrifugal democracy has been more or less operative since the consensual transition of the late 1940s.
