International influence in democratic transitions: a case comparison of Spain and Greece

Abstract:

Examining the impact of the international system on the domestic system in countries in the process of democratisation, the article seeks to account for the relation between regime-initiated democratic transitions and the international factor, taking two case studies of the way the international factor interacted with the decisions and tactics of regime and opposition elites. The first is the Spanish exemplary reforma pactada of 1977; the second is the much less studied case of the short-lived and aborted “Markezinis experiment” in Greece in 1973, the failure of which has been blamed by its protagonist on external- mainly American- opposition.