Descongelando la democracia: el descenso de la colaboración interpartidista en España (1977-2004).

Do negotiated transitions of power necessarily depress the level of competition or competitiveness (substantively and behaviorally) across political parties in subsequent democracies? This article demonstrates - through a study of deputy votes in the Spanish Congress of Deputies between 1977 and 2004 - that the negotiated transition of power in Spain initially depressed the degree of competition across political parties, as the democratization literature hypothesizes. However, it also shows that collaboration precipitously declined within five years of the transition and, aside from a one-time increase, progressively declined over the twenty-seven-year period. The data also demonstrate that substantive policy received significantly less cross-party support than legislation on the "rules of the game" after 1993. These findings provide the foundation for the argument that negotiated transitions do not necessarily preclude more competitive and representative democratic politics as initially feared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]