In the mid-seventies, for example, as Spain’s Generalissimo Franco lay dying in Madrid, it was next to impossible to find any knowledgeable person who believed that Spain could become a democratic country without a replay of the bloody civil war of the 1930s. Spaniards were thoroughly convinced that they would do just that. “We kill the bulls, after all,” they liked to say; they were a violent people, and the Old Order would not go quietly into the dark night of fallen autocracies.
And yet, Spain accomplished a seemingly miraculous democratic revolution, paradoxically organized and commanded by icons of the Old Order: King Juan Carlos and a now-forgotten Franco loyalist, Adolfo Suarez. Portugal followed suit shortly thereafter, albeit with some dramatic moments and a few street clashes, but the new model–dictatorships could indeed fall, and democracies could be created, peacefully.
http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2008/08/14/war-and-democracy/
