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 seven different constitutions which had been imposed either by the Right or the Left (Table 3.1). Moreover, we can count nine documents if we include a further two constitutional projects, the one of 1856 inspired by the liberal progressistas was approved but not ratified and the project of the constitution of the First Republic in 1873. In total, 166 years had to pass by between the first democratic constitution of Cadiz approved in 1812 and the 1978 constitution, in order for Spain to enjoy a stable and strong democracy. According to the constitutionalist Roberto Blanco Valdés, Spanish constitutionalism evolved like a pendulum which moved back and forth between progressism and conservatism. According to his calculations, Spain experienced 68 years of ‘oligarchical, closed-minded and anti-democratic constitutionalism’, further 62 years of ‘radical negation of constitutionalism’ (the 6 years of absolutist rule between 1814 and 1820, the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera between 1923 and 1931 and the dictatorship of Francisco Franco between 1939 and 1975), but barely three decades of progressism and democracy (Blanco Valdés, 2006b: 26).
