Spain’s democracy is about to turn 40. How well has it worn?

MANY OF THE photos seem older than they are. In black and white, they show Spaniards wrapped in overcoats, the men with sideburns, the women with perms, voting in a referendum on a new constitution on December 6th 1978. Some 67% of the electorate turned out, of whom 87% voted yes, setting the seal on their country’s swift move to democracy after the death of Francisco Franco, its long-standing military dictator.

The constitution has helped to bring Spain the best years since its Golden Age in the 16th and 17th centuries, when it dominated the world. That heyday had been followed by centuries of decline and political instability. Between 1812 and 1975 Spain saw six different constitutions, seven bloodless military coups, four royal abdications, two dictatorships and four civil wars. In the last and worst of those, in 1936-39, around 600,000 people died after General Franco rose against a chaotic parliamentary republic, and Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin intervened.