The Democratization of Spain and Romania

Spain and Romania are two countries which have been successfully democratized. Fransisco Franco ruled Spain for a long time as a fascist dictatorship and Ceausescu ruled over Romania as a communist state. Today, both countries are considered democracies despite remaining problems with, for example, corruption. This study examines the process, when a state goes from a dictatorship to a democracy and the factors that influence a democratization and theories about this process. In this study, two different countries (Spain and Romania) that underwent this process are compared to examine wheter there are differences in the factors that contributed to a democratic transition in these two countries, as well as their conformity with the chosen theory by Ekman and Linde. This is intresting to investigate as the transition for many countries is a very problematic process where some transitions become successful and others do not. The aim of this study was to test theories about democratization. In my result I found that the theory about Transformation, Transplacement och Replacement was applicable to the cases of Spain and Romania