A Pacted Transition?

Abstract

The Portuguese transition has been reviewed by several political scientists and a part of the literature devoted to transitions to democracy since the 1970s. However, it remains difficult to understand and explain its success. This is what the present article purports to do, retrieving some of these contributions and linking them to a historiographical approach anchored in recent studies on Portuguese political history. In this sense, it reclaims the idea of a double transition taking place in Portugal between 1974 and 1982 and draws attention not only to the two pacts signed in 1975 and 1976, but also to three other pacts which we believe were decisive to the success of the Portuguese transition.