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The Transition to Democracy in Portugal and Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Extract

The relatively recent proliferation of books and articles on Spain and Portugal is obviously a consequence of the profound socio-political changes that have occurred in those countries over the past decade. The range and variety of this growth area of academic literature has been considerable. It is almost as if after more than forty years of dictatorship, everybody wanted to acquire, in a few years, the knowledge they had been deprived of before. New journals newspapers, books and booklets appear and disappear from bookstores and newspaper stands with amazing rapidity, revealing the importance of the anxieties and frustrations created by so many years of intellectual and physical repression and censorship. In the light of this publishing explosion this article will attempt to review the major contributions to the debate on the Spanish and Portuguese transitions to democracy, with the intention of delineating the most prominent issues and themes (political, social and economic) involved.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 Linz, Juan J., in Graham, Lawrence S. and Makler, Harry M., eds, Contemporary Portugal: The Revolution and its Antecedents (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1979), Foreword, vii.Google Scholar

2 Livermore, H. V., A New History of Portugal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; de Oliveira Marques, A. H., History of Portugal (New York: Colombia University Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Minter, William, Schmitter, Phillippe, and Payne, Stanley G., A History of Spain and Portugal (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973).Google Scholar

3 Outstanding among other universities are: Birmingham, Liverpool, Oxford and LSE, in Britain; Yale, Columbia, Pittsburgh, Montreal, Chicago, Massachusetts, Boston, Clark, Michigan, and Texas, in the USA and Canada. Universities in Brazil, Portugal and Spain have also had Portuguese curricula in various fields. In most cases, however, interest has been restricted to one or two fields. The Iberian Centre at Oxford University is perhaps providing the impetus needed to promote an interdisciplinary approach in the United Kingdom. For details on the development of scholarship on Portugal in Europe and the United States, see: Graham, and Makler, (eds), Contemporary Portugal, Introduction, XVIIIXXIV.Google Scholar

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6 Payne, Stanley G., The Spanish Revolution (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970)Google Scholar. He mentions the example of Thomas's The Spanish Civil War, where the estimate of the people executed by the Francoist forces went up from 40,000 in the first edition published in 1963. Payne's assessment of Thomas's book is, however, generally positive. He also agrees with the accepted view of Thomas, Hugh as ‘the most impartial general history of the Civil War’, p. 225.Google Scholar

7 For an exhaustive bibliography on Spanish socialism see Fundación Iglesias, Pablo, 100 Años de Socialismo en España (Bibliografia), (Madrid: Editorial Pablo Iglesias, 1979)Google Scholar. We do not know of any other gathering of information on Spanish socialism which is more comprehensive than this. Although it includes material in Spanish only, the amount of primary documents quoted make it irreplaceable for specialists.

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10 Vives, Jaime Vicens, An Economic History of Spain (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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14 Throughout this article we use the term ‘authoritarian(ism)’ to refer generally to those regimes which existed in Portugal and Spain prior to the introduction of liberal democratic political institutions. In doing so, we recognize the theoretical inadequacy of the term as against more precise concepts which encapsulate authoritarian state forms (e.g., fascism, military dictatorship, Bonapartism, etc.). However, we feel that ‘authoritarian(ism)’ is sufficient for our purposes.

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54 Porch, , The Portuguese Armed Forces, p. 237.Google Scholar

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56 Poulantzas, , The Crisis.Google Scholar

57 Poulantzas, , The Crisis, p. 191.Google Scholar

58 Poulantzas, , The Crisis.Google Scholar

59 Story, , ‘Spanish Political Parties: Before and After the Elections’.Google Scholar

60 For example, from participating jointly in government following the Revolution, to condemning each other in full view of the public (notably at a May rally, Day, in 1975).Google Scholar

61 Maravall, José M., ‘Spain: Eurocommunism and Socialism’.Google Scholar

62 Carr, and Fusi, , Spain, p, 251.Google Scholar