Organizers:

Prof. Dr. Francisco Carlos Palomanes Martinho (University of São Paulo)

Prof. Dr. Leandro Pereira Gonçalves (Federal University of Juiz de Fora)

Prof. Dr. Marçal de Menezes Paredes (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul)

Deadline for submissions: December 15, 2025

On April 25, 1974, a coup d'état perpetrated by mid-ranking military officers, mainly captains, overthrew one of the longest-lasting dictatorships in 20th-century history, the Portuguese New State dictatorship. Beginning as a military dictatorship in May 1926, it transitioned to a civil and corporate dictatorship in January 1933, under the leadership of António Oliveira Salazar. The Portuguese dictatorship was one of the survivors of the wave of democratization that followed World War II. Despite numerous constraints, the Estado Novo remained in power, but began to face signs of a more prolonged crisis from 1958 onwards, with the opposition candidacy of General Humberto Delgado. Then came new problems: the loss of Portuguese India; General Botelho Moniz's attempted coup; the hijacking of the Santa Maria; and the beginning of the wars of liberation in Africa, starting in Angola. All this in 1961 alone. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, the regime's strategy was to hold on until an “opportunity” arose to get it out of the situation it was in. But the winds were not blowing in its favor: growing student and worker demonstrations, isolation in international forums, especially at the UN, the expansion of the war in Africa to the territories of Mozambique and Guinea, the social expansion of opposition groups, reaching the middle and bourgeois classes, which had previously supported the dictatorship. Not even Marcello Caetano's rise to power helped. The so-called “Marcelist spring” quickly resulted in frustration on the part of those who hoped that the dictatorship would somehow transition to a liberal democracy. There was also a significant distancing of sectors of the Catholic Church, one of the regime's most solid bases of support. In this case, the episode that best illustrates this new position of the Church was Pope Paul VI's private audience with representatives of the armed movements of Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique. As can be seen, of all the problems listed here, the most serious of all was the war in Africa. And the solution to the conflict necessarily implied a change of regime. Thus, it was precisely the anti-colonial war that brought down the regime. Wear and tear from a prolonged struggle, corporate-type demands, growing politicization in the Armed Forces: there was no shortage of reasons for the dictatorship to be overthrown.

The fall of the Estado Novo and the unleashing of its revolutionary process had important consequences both internally and externally. A revolutionary culture soon spread, with political, economic, and cultural impacts: from land occupations in Alentejo, to “cleanups” in the public sector, and new aesthetic concepts in culture. The country did not stop between April 1974 and November 1975. From an international perspective, Portugal's proximity to the Soviet Bloc was a cause for concern. This was compounded by the fact that Portugal was a founding member of NATO. It was no coincidence that, in the United States, Republican Senator James Buckley expressed his concern: “There is nothing happening in the world today—neither in Southeast Asia nor in the Middle East—that is half as important and more threatening than the communist advance to power in Portugal.” In Brazil, there were signs of ambivalence. On the one hand, economic and strategic interests in Africa led the Brazilian military to distance itself from Portuguese colonial policy and immediately recognize the independence of the new nations born with the end of colonialism. On the other hand, the Brazilian secret services, through their diplomatic corps, closely monitored the mobilizations of the Brazilian opposition exiled in Lisbon, which was growing in number. Several changes were taking place on the African continent. In Guinea-Bissau, the recognition of independence (unilaterally proclaimed the previous year) also led to the independence of Cape Verde, giving rise to the rise of the PAIGC in the governments of both sovereign countries. In São Tomé and Príncipe, the fall of the metropolitan regime triggered a race for political alliances for independence. In Mozambique, FRELIMO followed a strategy of fighting while negotiating the transition – and emerged victorious in the political transition process. In Angola, the situation was intensifying, given the turbulent relationship between the three main anti-colonial movements, as well as the presence of Portuguese forces (still) present (and the returnees, who were already growing in number). In distant East Timor, a context of political acceleration would hasten independence, which was soon transformed into a long occupation by Indonesia. On all these fronts, there were political articulations, paradoxes, and pressing desires that transversally challenged, among other events, the so-called Hot Summer of 1975. In short, there are many angles from which to consider the impact of the Portuguese Revolution on Portugal, Europe, Brazil, Africa, and, ultimately, the entire world. This dossier seeks to bring together research that, from various perspectives, will consider, from a global perspective, the dialectic of revolution/transition, as well as its various ramifications. From the Carnation Revolution, an integral part of the transitional process in Southern Europe, including Greece and Spain, we will consider various themes linked to the following thematic axes: 1. History and memory of transitions, democracies, and authoritarianism; 2. Africa and Asia in the international context; 3. Political cultures, parties, and organized movements; 4. The state in democracy: institutions and public policies.