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In what ways did the institutional legacy of the Franco regime shape Spain's transition to democracy? In less than two decades Spain has rushed from dictatorship to democracy and from virtual world isolation to membership in the European Union. The actual transit ....

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.... the principles of democracy. Upon Franco's death he was no longer able to protect and promote the values of national unity, anti-communism, and Catholicism. He could no longer stand in the way of a nation ready to turn to a democratic government, society, and culture. Although Franco's death on November 20th, 1975 precipitated a nominal shift to democracy, the transition, shaped by the institutional legacy left behind by the Franco regime, actually began much earlier. Franco was the Caudillo of Spain for nearly forty years. From the close of the Civil War in 1939 (Franco was Chief of the Government of the Spanish State since September 1936) ....