Jeffrey Davis has written a fair and generous appraisal of my work. For that I am very grateful. Above all, I think that he grasped the greatest challenge that I faced when confronting the complex subject of the rise of the politics of forgetting in Spain, which was to highlight what is unique about the case (such as how the trauma inflicted by the Spanish Civil War created a stiff resistance among Spaniards toward any revisiting of the past during the transition) while remaining attentive to what the case contributes to the comparative study of the connection between democratization and justice.

Two points in Davis’s review caught my attention. The first one relates to the absence of demands for justice against the Franco regime during the democratic transition, a pivotal factor in the rise and maintenance of Spain’s politics of forgetting. I view this development as a sign of “civil society complicity” with the political elite, rooted in the shared fear of repeating the past—especially the Civil War, the socialization of the public under the Franco regime, and the public’s rush to embrace modernity and Europe by erasing anything about Spain that seem un-modern and un-European. But Davis takes a different angle by suggesting that the absence of societal demand for justice is reflective of the successful incorporation of the opposition into the process of democratization. He notes that: “by giving opposition voices full voice in democratic institutions, the Spanish transition to democracy may have silenced civil society’s calls for retributive justice.”

The second point is Davis’s claim that my analysis reflects a narrow view of transitional justice, by limiting myself largely to the legal and political aspects of transitional justice, such as political trials and truth commissions. He argues that a more expansive view of transitional justice, for which his own work strongly advocates, would result in a somewhat different conclusion in Spain. In particular, he notes that evidence of transitional justice in Spain can be seen when the right was forced to relinquish power and cede some decision-making power with the left. As noted: “Giving the left a full voice and participation is an ideal form of restitutive justice… Full democracy is the perfect remedy for the crime of political exclusion.”

I am quite receptive to the first point, since it echoes a large theme of the book: that democracy’s success in Spain served to legitimize in the eyes of the public the decision made by the political elite to set the past aside. But I am skeptical about the second point, if only because despite the incorporation of the left into the decision-making process of the democratic transition, the transition nonetheless left in place considerable authoritarian residues. Indeed, the Francoists did not relinquish power as much as they chose to share that power with the opposition. All that said, both critiques ultimately underscore points on which Davis and myself appear to be in full agreement. Divergent levels of inclusiveness during the democratic transition and its aftermath between Spain and many Latin American countries have created different rationales and incentives for citizens to pursue justice against the old regime. This point, in turn, echoes the need to pay closer attention to domestic contexts in understanding how nations deal with difficult and painful pasts. There clearly are no one-size-fits-all solutions.