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War and Democratization: Lessons from the Portuguese Experience

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13510340701303246

1743-890X

Nancy Bermeo,

History, Culture, and Society

Abstract The literature on democracy suggests that new democracies should have difficulty emerging during war or in the aftermath of armed struggle, yet Portugal's current democracy emerged simultaneously with the end of the nation's unsuccessful war in Africa. This article addresses the reasons and argues that democracy triumphed not simply in spite of the war but also, in part, because of it. The costs and geography of the war itself, the capacity and rootedness of the state that waged the war, the political culture of the regime's military officers, and the war-related timing of Portugal's first elections all helped prevent the emergence of an anti-democratic coalition and contributed to ensuring a successful transition to democracy. The article ends with three ideas that merit closer examination: that different sorts of wars leave different legacies for democracy; that wars that leave state bureaucracies intact or stronger are more likely to be followed by lasting democracy than those which do not; and, finally, that the ideologies of military elites are pivotal to the outcome of post-war democratic transitions. Keywords: democratizationPortugalwarmilitarystate capacity ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS An earlier version of this article was given at the 'Democracy in Iberia' panel organized by the Iberian Study Group at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association in 2004. Thanks are due to those who attended the panel and to Maya Koenig-Dzialowski and Sam Thypin for research assistance. Notes 1. These figures come from a larger project by the author on the aftermath of war. They are taken from the Armed Conflict Data Set Version 2.0 and from Renske Doorenspleet, 'Reassessing the Three Waves of Democratization', World Politics, Vol.52, No.3 (April 2000), pp.384–406. Categorizations are based on the regime in place two years after the end of conflict. Data excludes colonies and states that disintegrated. Armed struggles that appear in the data set as separate struggles but run for continuous single years (e.g., 1968–1968, 1969–1969) are coded as single conflicts ending in the last year listed. Armed conflicts are defined in the data set as 'a contested incompatibility that concerns government and or territory where the use of force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths per year'. 2. Dankwart Rustow, Comparative Politics, Vol.2, No.3. (April 1970), pp.337–363. 3. Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 151. 4. Mark Warren, 'Democratic Theory and Trust', in Mark Warren, Democracy and Trust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.310. See also Ronald Inglehart, 'Trust, Well Being and Democracy', in Warren (this note), p. 97. Eric M. Uslaner reminds us of the connection between trust and experience. See Uslaner, 'Democracy and Social Capital', in Warren (this note), p.123. 5. Antonio de Figueiredo, 'The Empire is Dead, long Live the EU', in Stewart Lloyd-Jones and Antonio Costa Pinto (eds), The Last Empire: Thirty Years of Portuguese Decolonization (Bristol: Intellect, 2003), pp.127–144. 6. Volker R. Berghahn, Europe in the Era of the Two World Wars: From Militarism and Genocide to Civil Society 1900–1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), p.54. 7. Nancy Bermeo, Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times: The Citizenry and the Breakdown of Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.) 8. John Ikenberry, After Victory: institutions, strategic restraint, and the rebuilding of order after major wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), p.257. 9. A small sample of the works that make this point includes Philippe Schmitter, Portugal: do Autoritarismo à Democracia (Lisbon: Instituto de Ciências Sociais, 1986); Douglas Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1977); Kenneth Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); David Raby, Fascism and Resistance in Portugal (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), p.248; Antonio Reis, 20 Anos de Democracia (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), p.21. In one of the earliest and most comprehensive studies of the armed forces movement, Larry Graham explains how officers were mobilized when Caetano announced that he would be adding draftees to the officers' corps. Lawrence S. Graham, 'The Military in Politics,' in Lawrence S. Graham and Harry M. Makler (eds), Contemporary Portugal: The Revolution and Its Antecdents (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1979.), p.230. 10. Medeiros Ferreira, Ensaio histórico sobre a revolução do 25 de abril: o período pré-constitucional (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa de Moeda, 1983), p.74. 11. For an excellent and much needed discussion of the positive qualities of Portuguese democracy see Robert Fishman, 'Rethinking Democracy: Twenty-Five years After the Transition', paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, 29 August–1 September 2002. 12. Reis (note 9), p.8. 13. Lawrence S. Graham, The Portuguese Military and the State: Rethinking transitions in Europe and Latin America (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), p.65. 14. A. Costa Pinto and Nuno Teixeira, 'From Africa to Europe…', in A. Costa Pinto and C. N. S. Teixeira (eds), Southern Europe and the Making of the European Union, 1945–1980s (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 2002), p.20. 15. 1. A. Costa Pinto, O Fim do Império Português: A Cena Internacional, A Colónias e a Descolonizacao 1961–1975 (Lisbon: Livros Horizonte, 2001), p.48. 16. The exact figure is 7,674. See John Springhall, Decolonization since 1945: The collapse of the European overseas empire (New York: Palgrave, 2001), p.179. The human costs for ordinary Africans were, of course, even greater and on an individual level, equally tragic, but the effects of the wars in Africa lie outside the scope of this paper, as do the Africans who fought on the side of the Portuguese. 17. The exact figure is 27,919. See Raby (note 9), p.244. 18. Costa Pinto (note 15), p.51 19. Lawrence S. Graham (note 9), pp.228–9. 20. Jaime Noguiero Pinto, O Fim do Estado Novo e as Origens do 25 de Abril (Lisbon: Difel, 1995), p.432. 21. Graham (note 13), p.78. 22. Springhall (note 16), p.179. 23. Graham (note 13), p.78. 24. Raby (note 9), p.244. 25. Raby (note 9), p.221. 26. Manuel de Lucena 'The Evolution of Portuguese Corporatism Under Salazar and Caetano', in Graham and Makler (note 9), p.77. 27. Costa Pinto (note 15), p.48. 28. Phillippe C. Schmitter, 'The Regime d'Exception that Became the Rule: Forty-Eight Years of Authoritarian Domination in Portugal', in Graham and Makler (note 9), p.36. 29. Jack Snyder, Myths of Eempire:Domestic Politics and international Ambition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), p.72. 30. Lucena (note 26), p.78 31. Caroline Brettell discusses this process of embourgeoisment and notes that it could even be a source of counter-revolutionary feeling, but also noted correctly that the region of greatest emigration voted overwhelmingly for the Social Democrat Party (PPD), an unquestionably democratic party on the centre-right. See her essay, 'Emigration and Its Implications for the Revolution in Northern Portugal', in Graham and Makler (note 9), p.281 and p.293. 32. Eric Backlanoff, 'Portugal's Political Economy Old and New,' in Kenneth Maxwell and Michael H. Haltzel (eds), Portugal: Ancient Country, Young Democracy (Washington DC: Wilson Centre Press, 1990), p.42. 33. Lucena (note 26), pp.74–5. 34. Makler, 'The Portuguese Industrial Elite and Its Corporative Relations: A Study of Compartmentalization in an Authoritarian Regime,' in Graham and Makler (note 9), p.124. 35. Kenneth Maxwell (note 9), p.76. 36. Springhall (note 16), p.175. Costa Pinto points out that the colonies were a net loss for the public purse. See Costa Pinto (note 15), p.48. 37. Lawrence S. Graham and Douglas Wheeler (eds), In Search of Modern Portugal: The Revolution and its Consequences (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), p.48. 38. Lucena (note 26), p.76. 39. For an excellent study of Caetano's liberal elite, see Tiago Luis de Matos Fernandes, 'A Ala Liberal da Assembleia Nacional 1969–73', Dissertacao de Mestrado Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1999. 40. Graham (note 13), p.17. 41. Kerstin Hamann and Paul Manuel, 'Regime Changes and Civil Society in Twentieth Century Portugal', South European Society and Politics, Vol.4, No.1 (1999), p.77. 42. Lucena (note 26), p.78. 43. Reis (note 9). 44. Lucena (note 26), p.78. 45. Thomas Bruneau, 'Portugal's Unexpected Transition 'in Maxwell and Haltzel (note 32), p.12. 46. Raby (note 9), p.222. Costa Pinto reminds us that anti war opposition rose in the universities and in certain sectors of the middle class in the late 1960s, but that it was scarce or non-existent in the countryside. Costa Pinto (note 15), p.46. 47. Reis (note 9), p.13. 48. Costa Pinto, 'Settling Accounts with the Past in a Troubled Transition to Democracy: The Portuguese Case', in Alexandra Barahona de Brito, Carmen Gonzalez Enriquez, and Paloma Aquilar (eds), The Politics of Memory: Transitional Justice in Democratizing Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p.67. 49. Maxwell (note 9), p.63. 50. Author's interviews with demobilized soldiers, Lisbon, 15–30 January 1978. 51. Springhall (note 16), p.175. Salazar set up a variety of inducements including a six-month home visit every four or five years. De Figueiredo (note 5), p.127. 52. Rui Peña Pires, M. Jose Maranhão, João P. Quintela, Fernando Moniz, and Manuel Pisco, Os Retornados: Um Estudo Sociografico (Lisbon: Instituto de Estudos Para o Desenvolvimento, 1984), pp.38–9. 53. Caroline Brettell, 'Repatriates or immigrants? A commentary', in Andrea Smith (ed.), Europe's Invisible Migrants (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003), pp.95–104. 54. Stephen Lubkemann, 'Race, Class and Kin in the Negotiation of "Internal Strangerhood" among Portuguese Retornados, 1975-2000', in Smith (note 53), p.89. 55. Ibid., p.85 56. Costa Pinto (note 15), p.82. 57. Rui Peña Pires, Migrações e Intergracão: teoria e aplicações à sociedade portuguesa (Oeiras, Portugal: Celta Editora, 2003), p.198. 58. Lubkemann, in Smith (note 53), pp.75–94. 59. Pires (note 57). 60. Costa Pinto, 'The transition to democracy and Portugal's decolonization', in Lloyd-Jones and Costa Pinto (note 5), p.33. 61. José António Saraiva and Vincente Jorge Silva, O 25 de Abril visto da história: do 25 de Abril às presidenciais falando do século XIX, da República (Amadora, Portugal: Livraria Bertrand, 1976), p.182. 62. Reis (note 9), p.32. The same source reports how Marcelo Caetano barely escaped censure by the British parliament when he visited Britain near the end of the regime. 63. Lucena (note 26). 64. J.M. Tavares Castilo, 'A Elite parlamentar do Marcelismo', in Costa Pinto and André Freire (eds), Elites, Sociedade e Mudanza Politica (Oeiras, Portugal: Celta Editora, 2003), p.43. 65. Schmitter (note 28), p.41. 66. Lucena (note 26), p.61. 67. Ibid. 68. Hamann and Manuel (note 41), p.89. De Figueiredo reports that after being arrested, imprisoned, and finally expelled from Mozambique, he was told he had been punished 'not for what he had done but because of what he could do'. See de Figueiredo (note 5). 69. Costa Pinto (note 48), p.72. 70. Schmitter (note 28), p.33. 71. Lucena (note 26), p.61. 72. Costa Pinto (note 48), p.75. 73. Valentim Alexandre, 'The Colonial Empire', in A. Costa Pinto (ed.), Modern Portugal (Palo Alto, CA: The Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship, 1998), p.56. 74. Porch (note 9), p.55. 75. Ibid., p.44. 76. Ibid., p.58. 77. José Maria Brandão de Brito, 'The Portuguese Economy for Salazarism to the European Community', in Costa Pinto (ed.), Modern Portugal (note 73), p.107. 78. Walter C. Opello, Conflict and Change in Portugal, 1974–1984 (Lisbon: Teorema, 1985), p.162. Ronald H. Chilcote makes a similar point in 'Class and State in the Portuguese Revolution: Transitions and Hegemony in the 20th Century', University of California at Riverside, unpublished manuscript, August 2002, p.76. 79. Costa Pinto (note 48), p.75. Costa Pinto reports that 4,300 people were purged in the first eight months of the revolution. 80. The figure of 20,000 total and the estimate of 92 per cent stability comes from Luis Salgado de Matos, 'Portugal and Eastern Europe: After the Revolution, Democratic Europe', in Sebastian Royo and Paul Manuel (eds), Spain and Portugal in the European Union (London: Frank Cass, 2003), p.79. 81. Costa Pinto (note 48), pp.75–7. 82. Opello (note 78), p.177. 83. Maxwell (note 9), pp.19–20. 84. Reis (note 9), p.18. 85. Porch (note 9), p.32. 86. Ibid., p.33. 87. Ibid., pp.46–7. 88. Graham (note 9), p.253. Oriana Fallaci's observation that 'Every politician had his own man in the army' is illustrative of this representative quality. See Oriana Fallaci, 'Disintegrating Portugal: An Interview with Marío Soares', New York Review of Books, Vol.22, No.18 (November 13, 1975), n.p. 89. Porch (note 9), p.42. 90. Ibid., p.195, concludes that this was the weakest of three factions. 91. Maxwell (note 9), p.87. This whole section draws heavily on Maxwell's research. 92. Porch (note 9), p.207. 93. Reis (note 9), p.16. 94. Maria Carrilho, 'Democracy and the Armed Forces in Portugal: From Revolution to Routine', in Richard Herr (ed.), The New Portugal: Democracy and Europe (Berkeley, CA: Regents of the University of California, 1992), p.30. 95. I have not had time to discuss the important role of Europe vs. Africa in detail. For the role of Europe, see Royo and Manuel, 'Some Lessons from the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Accession of Portugal and Spain to the European Union', in Royo and Manuel (note 80), p.11. 96. The country was divided into 14,000 polling places with only 500 voters to a table. 92 per cent of eligible voters turned out. George McGovern, Revolution into Democracy (Washington DC: Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Government Printing Office, August 1976), p.42. 97. Chilcote (note 78), p.179. 98. Reis (note 9), pp.30–1. 99. Maxwell (note 9), p.132. 100. Philippe Schmitter, 'Liberation by Golpe: Retrospective Thoughts on the Demise of Authoritarian Rule in Portugal'' Armed Forces and Society Vol.2, No.1 (1975), p.20. 101. Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 102. Felipe Aguero has argued for example, that 'democratization … can be secured without prior voluntary support of the democratization credo by members of the armed forces'. Soldiers, Civilians and Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p.21. 103. Fishman (note 11), p.2. 104. This is a quotation from Frank Carlucci during a congressional hearing in 1976 quoted by Maxwell (note 9), p.131. 105. Carrilho (note 94), p.29.