Daniel Nataf - Böcker

Examines the transition to, and consolidation of, democracy in Portugal following the revolutionary events of 1975, during a period of major changes in socioeconomic structure. Nataf emphasizes that not only political institutions but also the fabric of social relations were uprooted, and he compares the Portuguese case to other models of European democratization and postwar settlements.This book examines the transition and consolidation phases of Portugal's democratization. Unlike more incremental types of democratization, the Portuguese case involved "expanded" democratization in which not only were political institutions replaced but the fabric of social relations uprooted. This resulted in a period of dishegemony in which the policy paradigm was uncertain and highly susceptible to political events and government initiatives. By the late 1980s, a tentative social settlement was established that drew partly from neocorporatist and partly from conflict models of European society.Nataf relies on diverse materials including government statistics; business, trade union, and party documents; and electoral, census, and survey materials to substantiate his interpretation of the political and social consensus emerging throughout the 1980s. He uses the Portuguese experience to generate a typology of forms of democratization and then applies this analysis to the post-communist world.

First published in 1991. In the late 1970s, Nicos Poulantzas, in Crisis of the Dictatorships: Portugal, Spain, Greece, applied his well-known theoretical perspectives to a concrete analysis of the major transformations that occurred in those three countries during 1974 and 1975. His provocative and interpretative analysis not only provided a basis for comparative study but also examined several important theoretical questions about transition from dictatorship to representative democracy and on to socialism. The present essays offer a retrospective assessment of this transition and examine current developments with particular attention to the role of the state and social classes in the overthrow of the old dictatorships, the evolution of representative democracy and political parties, and the formal integration of these countries into the European Eco nomic Community and the international capitalist system.