William Zhao - 2022 Mitra Scholar

2021-22 Mitra FAMILY GRANT Recipient Coups and Conciliations: The Role of Civil-Military Relations in the Democratizations of Spain and Portugal William Zhao

Coups and Conciliations: The Role of Civil-Military Relations in the Democratizations of Spain and Portugal

William Zhao 2022 Mitra Family Scholar Mentors: Mr. Byron Stevens and Ms. Amy Pelman April 13, 2022

Zhao 2 The 1970s proved to be an era of surprising political upheaval on the Iberian Peninsula.

At the beginning of the decade, in Spain, General Francisco Franco and his government had been entrenched in power since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. 1 The Portuguese dictatorship, the so-called Estado Novo that was led by Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar, had been born even earlier in 1933.2 By 1980, both of these regimes were no more, having been replaced by modern Western democracies. However, the paths taken during these transitions proved quite different for Spain and Portugal.

Political scientist Scott Mainwaring differentiates the process of democratization between two extremes: in a transition through transaction, members of the outgoing regime negotiate the terms of opening the political system, whereas in a transition through regime defeat, the authoritarian regime itself collapses, allowing for the possibility of a new democracy.3 In this model, Spain exemplified a transition through transaction, since it underwent a form of gradual reform, where the ruling Francoist civilian elite, led by Prime Minister Suárez, negotiated with the opposition to form a new democratic state. These elites had become convinced that the Francoist political system was too outdated and inflexible to succeed in the modern world.4 The Cortes, the legislative institution of Francoist Spain, even adopted the Law

1

"The Death of Francisco Franco: November 20, 1975," in Europe, ed. Jennifer Stock, vol. 4, Global Events: Milestone Events throughout History (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2014), Gale in Context: World History.

2

"Portugal," in Europe since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction, ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter (Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006), 4:2057, Gale in Context: World History.

3

Scott Mainwaring, "Transitions to Democracy and Democratic Consolidation: Theoretical and Comparative Issues" (working paper, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, November 1989), accessed February 7, 2022, https://kellogg.nd.edu/sites/default/files/old_files/documents/130_0.pdf.

4

Paul Preston, The Triumph of Democracy in Spain (London: Routledge, 1986), 119-20.

Zhao 3 of Political Reform in November 1976, which effectively ended Francoist rule. 5 Nevertheless, not all the Francoist interest groups were happy with this new democracy. The armed forces especially objected to these negotiations and expressed their anger through subversive actions.

For example, on February 23, 1981, armed soldiers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, stormed the Spanish Congress of Deputies in an attempt to overthrow the democratic government.6 Throughout this night, national television broadcast these events, with their almost theatrical nature, imprinting indelible images in the minds of Spaniards.7 Yet, this putsch ultimately failed, cementing the death knell of the forces that wished for a return to Francoist dictatorship.

In contrast to Spain, Portugal exemplified a regime collapse. The so-called Armed Forces Movement (MFA), disgruntled with the Estado Novo’s conduct of the Portuguese colonial wars in Africa, overthrew the old regime in 1974 in a coup that came to be known as the Carnation Revolution. Afterwards, a revolutionary atmosphere continued to permeate Portugal.8 During this period of time in 1975, the so-called Ongoing Revolutionary Process, the government nationalized corporations, peasants seized land from its owners, and workers’ strikes culminated in widespread labor unrest. These developments were accompanied by a power struggle between more moderate and more left-leaning factions of the MFA. This process, however, eventually produced a democratic framework.

5

"Spain Holds Its First Free Elections since the Civil War, June 15, 1977," in Historic World Events (Detroit: Gale, 2014), Gale in Context: World History.

6

Preston, The Triumph, 195.

7

Cristina Weller, "The Spanish Coup as Representation," Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, no. 15/17 (Summer 1981): 86, JSTOR. 8

Kenneth Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 62.

Zhao 4 Overall, democracy arrived in Spain from the top-down, guided by dialogues between several interest groups, while in Portugal, democracy manifested itself from the bottom-up, with the people allying with the military to topple the previous sociopolitical order. While Spain and Portugal’s socioeconomic differences can partially explain why Spanish political elites guided the country towards legal reforms and why Portuguese officials provoked a military coup, Spain and Portugal’s civil-military relations in the 1970s best elucidates why Spain transitioned to democracy through transaction and why Portugal democratized through regime collapse.

The Stagnation Thesis and Economic Liberalization Economic factors, including poverty, inflation, and unemployment, can undermine regime stability and eventually cause political change. Many scholars have indeed argued that differences between Spain’s and Portugal’s economies explain the dichotomous characteristics between the two countries’ democratic transitions. The so-called stagnation thesis argues that the Portuguese dictatorship drove the country towards socioeconomic backwardness, which radicalized Portuguese society and made a regime collapse more likely in Portugal than in Spain.9 Many sources attribute the comparatively more backwards development of the Portuguese economy to the failures of the Estado Novo dictatorship. Mark Hudson argues in Portugal to 1993: Investing in a European Future that “in marked contrast to Spain, Portugal did not benefit from the direct and ‘demonstration effects’ of multinational investment to any great extent.”10 Foreign backing, through these aforementioned “demonstration effects,” would have

9

Eric N. Baklanoff, "The Political Economy of Portugal's Later 'Estado Novo': A Critique of the Stagnation Thesis," Luso-Brazilian Review 29, no. 1 (Summer 1992): 1, JSTOR. 10

Mark Hudson, Portugal to 1993: Investing in a European Future (New York: Economist Intelligence Unit, 1989), 62, quoted in Eric N. Baklanoff, "The Political Economy of Portugal's Later 'Estado Novo': A Critique of the Stagnation Thesis," Luso-Brazilian Review 29, no. 1 (Summer 1992): 1, JSTOR.

Zhao 5 boosted investor confidence in Portuguese institutions and generated growth in the Portuguese economy. Indeed, scholars have established clearly that foreign involvement catalyzed the Spanish economic boom. After reconciling with the United States in the mid -1950s, further financial investment from the United States improved confidence in the Spanish economy. 11 Regardless of the fact that Franco retained several autarkic measures during this time, the Spanish economy continued to blossom.12 Thus, Western economic support, in comparison to the economic policies of Spain itself, ultimately factored more heavily in the minds of investors.

Given the importance of multinational investment in Spain, a lack of private investment in Portugal would explain the dictatorship’s failure and the subsequent revolutionary period.

However, many sources debate Hudson’s overall claim that Portugal’s regime failed to attract private investment.

For example, although report on “Employment and Basic Needs in Portugal” the International Labour Office (ILO) supports the stagnation thesis, it nevertheless observes that Portugal did receive significant foreign economic support. For example, Salazar guided the country into becoming a founding member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1960.13 However, the ILO report questions whether such support benefited the country.

Specifically, it notes how joining the EFTA exacerbated emigration, since the higher wages in other European countries proved especially attractive to many Portuguese workers. The

11

Oscar Calvo-Gonzalez, "American Military Interests and Economic Confidence in Spain under the Franco Dictatorship," The Journal of Economic History 67, no. 3 (September 2007): 764-65, JSTOR. 12

13

Calvo-Gonzalez, 765.

International Labour Office, "The Economic and Social Development of Portugal to 1975," in Employment and Basic Needs in Portugal (Geneva: International Labour Organization, 1979), 184, accessed December 9, 2021, http://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1979/79B09_903_engl.pdf.

Zhao 6 subsequent migration throughout the 1960s led to the total population of the country declining by one percent.14 This labor shortage was felt most acutely in the agricultural sector, where the rural population declined by 31 percent.15 While this phenomenon of agricultural emigration was not isolated to Portugal during this time period, Portugal lacked the industrial and economic capacity to mechanize its agricultural sector. Whereas in other European countries, mechanization allowed for the agricultural sector to continue to grow in spite of rural emigration, Portuguese agriculture remained stagnant and unproductive.16 Such poor agricultural productivity eventually led to food scarcity and contributed to the instability of the Portuguese regime, since the agricultural sector had once been a primary pillar of support for the Estado Novo.17 Political scientist Nancy Bermeo also emphasizes socioeconomic factors as contributing to the relatively conservative Spanish transition to democracy and the more revolutionary Portuguese transition. In “Redemocratization and Transition Elections: A Comparison of Spain and Portugal,” she argues that the Spanish middle class was substantially more modernized and well-developed.18 The Spanish middle class was composed of the administrators and professionals, while the Portuguese middle class was composed of more merchants and other traditional occupations. Through the lens of the stagnation thesis, these trends resulted from the Portuguese government’s inability to modernize its economy. Thus, given Spanish economic development, the bourgeois Spanish middle classes supported a gradual transition to democracy

14

International Labour Office, 195.

15

International Labour Office, 195.

16

International Labour Office, 193.

17

Maxwell, The Making, 22.

18

Nancy Bermeo, "Redemocratization and Transition Elections: A Comparison of Spain and Portugal," Comparative Politics 19, no. 2 (January 1987): 223-24, JSTOR.

Zhao 7 that maintained their property rights, which meant they voted for more conservative political parties.19 These conservative parties sought to maintain continuity with the previous dictatorship, facilitating a transition through transaction. Bermeo also notes that in Portugal, business owners were organizationally weak: they had limited experience in politics, and few autonomous organizations represented their interests. 20 Hence, they were unable to effectively organize behind conservative politicians that would support capitalism. Thus, the left dominated political discourse in Portugal, effectively leading to a democratization process that sought to overturn more of the previous order.

Not all scholars have supported the stagnation thesis, however. Eric N. Baklanoff makes the argument that the Portuguese economy experienced dynamic growth throughout the 1960s and 1970s. While the ILO focused on the impact of joining EFTA on hampering agricultural development, Baklanoff emphasizes how free trade and an increasingly liberalized economy allowed Portugal to construct new iron mills, oil refineries, and industrial complexes.21 During the 1960s, with the appointment of Marcello Caetano as Salazar’s successor as prime minister, technocrats sought to continue this trend of economic liberalization. Overall, Baklanoff emphasizes how this change in the Estado Novo’s policy contributed to a real GDP growth rate of 7.4 percent between 1968 and 1973, which is comparable to the growth rates of other high performing economies in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea.22 While some may argue that the simple statistic of GDP per capita growth does not necessarily reflect a healthy economy,

19

Bermeo, 221.

20

Bermeo, 220.

21

Baklanoff, "The Political," 6.

22

Baklanoff, 8-9.

Zhao 8 Baklanoff also provides evidence that the economic inequality in Portugal was roughly comparable to that of other more stable countries. Portugal’s Gini index, a measure of wealth inequality, was 0.431, similar to France.23 Baklanoff deploys these statistics to defend the Portuguese government’s economic policies as promoting relatively balanced growth among different classes. He makes a compelling argument that the Portuguese government’s economic policies were not a root cause for the Estado Novo’s regime collapse.

Considering all these sources, the Portuguese government seems to have successfully promoted industrial growth at the cost of agricultural stagnation. While the Estado Novo’s economic policy was not perfect, it was not a primary reason why the regime collapsed. Public opinion polling showed that many citizens in Portugal, while not necessarily happy with the regime’s authoritarian nature and the slow pace of Caetano’s reforms, were more optimistic about their economic prospects than ever before.24 Once the regime collapsed, however, the socioeconomic conditions in Portugal, namely the absence of a developed middle class, could have played a contributing role in driving the Ongoing Revolutionary Process’s leftist policies.

Similarly, in Spain, the economic considerations were not a primary driving factor for democratization itself, but the relatively modern middle class shaped democratic Spain into upholding capitalism and property rights after the transition.25 A more careful consideration of the economic factors in both countries reveals a more consequential factor in the Iberian transitions to democracy. The ILO report mentions that another factor contributing to labor shortages was the fact that Portugal required significant

23

Baklanoff, 13.

24

Howard J. Wiarda, The Transition to Democracy in Spain and Portugal (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1989), 104.

25

Bermeo, "Redemocratization and Transition," 221.

Zhao 9 manpower for wars in its African colonies.26 Moreover, it notes that the government spent much money on its military that it could have been investing in public works or infrastructure. 27 Therefore, the military conflict played such an overarching role in 1970s Portugal that it was causing significant damage to the Portuguese economy.

Thus, it becomes even harder to consider that purely economic reasons caused the differences between Portugal’s regime collapse democratization and Spain’s democratization through transaction. In fact, any economic differences between the two countries were partially due to the aggressive use of the Portuguese military in colonial conflicts, suggesting that divergences in civil-military relationships in the two countries was a more important differentiator.

The Military’s Prestige during the Spanish and Portuguese Dictatorships Both Spain and Portugal had relatively similar political systems for a dictatorship. They both took inspiration from corporatist ideals. Under corporatism, while the respective dictator had significant power, he still needed to balance the support of the pillars of powers. In dictatorships, the military serves as one of the most important pillars of power: a displeased military is liable to overthrow any regime.28 On the other hand, the military did not form the entirety of the government, since other pillars, such as the oligarchs and the bureaucrats, also held political power. Both Spain and Portugal in the middle of the twentieth century fit this theoretical model, where civilian elites and the military split power. 29 Thus, rather than

26

International Labour Office, "The Economic," 184.

27

International Labour Office, 184.

28

Felipe Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, and Democracy: Post-Franco Spain in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 5.

29

Agüero, 37.

Zhao 10 discussing the Iberian transitions to democracy from an economic standpoint, the relationships between the civilian government and their militaries played the central role in the story of regime change.

In Spain, the military had always been a party of significant political influence.30 Thus, during the process of democratization, the civilian government sought to appease the military, which stabilized the country enough for the Francoist elites to negotiate a peaceful transition to democracy. In Portugal, however, the military was sidelined by the civilian elite to dealing with geopolitical matters. Thus, the Estado Novo sought to achieve geopolitical goals to the detriment of the soldiers on the ground, which ultimately triggered a regime collapse.

The different ways that the military was treated in both countries can only be understood through the context of their recent histories. In the Spanish Civil War, Franco, who was a general himself, had been lifted into power through the might of the Nationalist military. Afterwards, Franco gave the military the job of institutionalizing the victory of the Nationalists. Thus, they served as the apparatus of social control, rather than serving as a force to defend the country against external enemies.31 For example, the military was highly involved in the police force, with several of its generals leading the Armed Police and Civil Guard. 32 Large numbers of military officers were posted in Spain’s intelligence agencies, allowing them to receive information on domestic politics. Military courts could even rule on civilian crimes, such as disobedience or resistance to the armed forces.33 These institutions of social order were especially critical for repressing the

30

Agüero, 52-53.

31

Preston, The Triumph, 3-4.

32

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 51-52.

33

Agüero, 52.

Zhao 11 student movements, clandestine labor unions, and most importantly the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) or Basque Homeland and Liberty — the Basque nationalistic terroristic group that constantly hounded the regime.34 Given the amount of power that the Spanish army held in civilian affairs, the civilian elites were understandably concerned about the military during their transition to democracy. To them, the military was a particularly deadly foe, as a bastion for reactionary thought.

In contrast, the Portuguese dictatorship did not care as much about its military, and the military was not especially loyal to the dictatorship. Unlike Francisco Franco, the leaders of Portugal had always been civilians, which influenced how the government behaved towards the military. António Salazar had been a professor of economics before his reign as dictator. 35 Similarly, his successor, Marcello Caetano, had been the rector of the University of Lisbon. 36 All in all, the Portuguese state was a civilian dictatorship of bureaucrats, lawyers, and academics.37 Thus, unlike in Spain, the government did not delegate the duty of neutralizing political opposition and maintaining internal control to the military. Instead, the separate secret police, the Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE) or International and State Defense Police, suppressed dissidents.38 The military actually served as the last bastion of political dissidence, since the PIDE did not try to interfere with military matters. Indeed, throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the most

34

Preston, The Triumph, 31.

35

Maxwell, The Making, 16.

36

Maxwell, 22.

37

Maxwell, 39-40.

38

Douglas Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1977), 22.

Zhao 12 effective opposition candidates in the fraudulent Portuguese presidential elections came out of the military. For example, General Humberto Delgado garnered significant amounts of popular support as a presidential candidate in 1958 on his anti-Salazarist platform. 39 Although he lost, possibly due to electoral interference by the Salazar regime, the military showed itself as a relative safe haven for dissident thought.40 Looking to 1974, the Armed Forces Movement would serve as the most successful embodiment of the military’s tradition of opposing the Estado Novo.

Another excellent way to see how the dictators of both countries viewed the armed forces is through how much the respective militaries participated in the political process. Both militaries sent representatives to their countries’ respective corporatist chambers. In Spain, by 1969, 14.9 percent of representatives in the Francoist Cortes were members of the military, while in Portugal, only 4.2 percent of representatives in the Corporative Chamber belonged to the military.41 These statistics suggest that the Spanish government valued the input of its armed forces in its politics, while to Portuguese bureaucrats, other sectors were more important. Thus, in Spain, the military was valued as a critical institution in the government, while in Portugal, the armed forces were sidelined to secondary importance as a tool to be used by the government.

These views on civil-military relations during the period of dictatorships would eventually determine why the Spanish government was able to successfully negotiate with the military during democratization and why the Portuguese military felt spurned by its own government.

39

Tom Gallagher, "Controlled Repression in Salazar's Portugal," Journal of Contemporary History 14, no. 3 (July 1979): 390, JSTOR. 40

Gallagher, 390-91.

41

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 45-46.

Zhao 13 Military Appeasement and Aggravation Attitudes towards the military translated into how they were deployed overseas, specifically in the colonies. Franco, in particular, limited how the Spanish military would deploy against external foes, while the Estado Novo saw the military as a geopolitical tool. While both countries’ colonial policies directly led to this difference, the dichotomy reflected the amount of effort each regime took in placating its military. Franco would rather keep his troops at home in Spain to keep soldiers satisfied. In contrast, Salazar and Caetano disregarded the plight of Portuguese troops and sent them to fight in terrible conditions in the colonies. 42 Franco sought to prevent any protracted colonial warfare and thus eliminated any conflicts that could have engendered military resentment against his regime. Rather, the Francoist regime was flexible enough to make concessions to Morocco in North Africa. For example, the army fought the relatively low-intensity Ifni War from 1957-58 with Moroccan insurgents.43 Rather than prolonging the conflict any further, the Spanish state eventually handed over the Tarfaya Strip, an economically valuable piece of land, to Morocco. 44 In the last days of the Francoist regime, this avoidance of military conflict was still on display during Morocco’s so-called Green March in 1975. During this event, the Moroccan King Hassan II called for 350,000 volunteers to occupy Spanish Sahara. 45 Without any action by the military, Spain acquiesced to decolonization in the Madrid Accords.46 In both cases, the Spanish military did not 42

Porch, The Portuguese, 30.

43

Staff Researcher, War and Insurgency in Western Africa (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2013), 7, JSTOR. 44

Staff Researcher, 7-8.

45

Jerome B. Weiner, "The Green March in Historical Perspective," Middle East Journal 33, no. 1 (Winter 1979): 20, JSTOR. 46

Weiner, 42.

Zhao 14 have much opportunity to fight any conflicts that could have soured relations between the civilian government and the military.

Even after democratization, the Spanish government treaded carefully, going so far as to appease the military. To understand how the democratic government dealt with the military during the transition to democracy, it is necessary to create a framework for categorizing the military officers into three camps: the reformists, the conservatives, and the hard-liners.47 The reformists were the small minority that favored political liberalization and greater military integration into the West. 48 They would form the main allies of the civilian government within the military. The conservatives comprised most of the officers.49 They disapproved of democratization, since they generally viewed themselves as defending the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War. Fortunately for the government, they also valued obedience and respect for military hierarchy, which predisposed them against disobeying the orders of superiors. 50 Finally, the most threatening group were the reactionary hard-liners, who did not have the same qualms about disobeying the government.51 They despised liberalism and were willing to take substantive action to return the country to a dictatorship.

The ultimate goal of the civilian leadership was to elevate the reformists to power, but in the process of doing so, the Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez recognized that the conservatives would be displeased. Thus, Suárez continued with the long-held Francoist tradition of placating

47

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 106-08.

48

Agüero, 113.

49

Agüero, 108.

50

Agüero, 108.

51

Agüero, 108.

Zhao 15 and appeasing the military. He leniently punished transgressions against the democratic government by military officers.52 Although this policy had the side effect of empowering the hard-liners, more importantly, it allowed for conservatives to stay loyal to the government.

One particular example of this appeasement occurred during Operation Galaxia, a coup attempt that was supposed to take place on November 17, 1978. Fortunately, for the Spanish government, these machinations were discovered early, and the conspirators were arrested. 53 Yet, the government did not pursue excessive punishment for the perpetrators, which included hardliners like Colonel Antonio Tejero. Instead, Suárez let the sympathetic military tribunals mete out relatively lenient punishment and Tejero served only seven months of detention.54 Unsurprisingly, then, the hard-liners were empowered to continue with plotting putsches, including the February 23, 1981 attempt that Tejero eventually became famous for organizing.

Besides Operation Galaxia, the government also sought to appease the military by not punishing speeches by antidemocratic officers that sought to incite a coup.55 Yet, this policy was not completely illogical. During the investigation into Operation Galaxia, it was uncovered that 200 officers were contacted by Tejero and simply did not report the coup attempt to the government.56 Most of these men were conservatives who were simply waiting for events to unfold. While they disliked actively participating in a coup, they would lend their tacit acquiescence through their silence.57 Certainly, a harsh punishment against the 52

Preston, The Triumph, 149-50.

53

Preston, 147-48.

54

Preston, 149.

55

Preston, 148.

56

Preston, 148.

57

Preston, 148.

Zhao 16 officers involved in Operation Galaxia would have convinced many conservatives to lend a more substantive form of support to reactionary plotters. Indeed, when the real threat of putsch came to pass on February 23, 1981, most of the army did not mobilize against a government ripe for the taking.58 In this way, the policy was successful: it contained active anti-democratic sentiment to a smaller slice of the army. Moreover, the Spanish government had, in essence, negotiated successfully with the military as well through its appeasement, promising officers that they would maintain their prerogatives. Because of this appeasement, the negotiated democracy between the Francoist elites and the opposition continued to stand.

Rather than appeasing the military as in Spain, in Portugal, the civilian government deployed the army aggressively to fight the liberation movements in its colonies. These long deployments under poor conditions served to aggravate the military officers. Whereas in Spain, the government recognized the necessity of treating the military as a political force, the Portuguese Estado Novo played a dangerous game by envisaging its military as a purely geopolitical tool. In fact, the leaders of Portugal throughout the 1960s and 1970s defined the military by its victories and losses, going so far as to insult the military for its perceived failings.

In a relatively early example of this behavior, throughout the late 1950s, Salazar refused to give up the Portuguese enclave of Goa to India.59 Instead, against the threat of an Indian assault, he ordered the garrison to never surrender and instead fight to the death. They faced insurmountable odds, with the garrison numbering 3,000 troops against an Indian assault force of 30,000 men.60 During the invasion in December 1961, the Portuguese garrison surrendered

58

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 164-65.

59

Porch, The Portuguese, 35.

60

Porch, 36.

Zhao 17 quickly in direct violation of Salazar’s orders. As a result, the commanders of the garrison were subsequently punished and court-martialed.61 These actions alienated the military: to them, the actions of Salazar seemed illogical. The garrison had been ordered to fight an unwinnable battle in an enclave thousands of miles away from their homeland. Thus, many Portuguese military officers believed surrender was a reasonable option in the face of certain defeat.

The trend of offending the military continued during the Portuguese colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau from 1961 to 1974. These wars were fought in an era where far stronger colonial powers, such as Britain, had already decolonized. Moreover, African colonies had declined in economic relevance, and the benefits of holding onto the colonies was outweighed by the cost of thirteen years of war.62 Instead, the colonies had a psychological and cultural importance to Portugal’s leaders, as a last bastion for their once great prestige as an empire.63 These delusions of greatness, however, contrasted with the reality of the situation. One of every four adult males had served in the conflict by 1974, while the Portuguese government was spending 40 percent of its budget on sustaining the war.64 The war itself was unsustainable.

The decision to commit to an African colonial war stood in stark contrast to Spain’s acquiescence to decolonization from its colonies. Given that the military had more influence in Francoist Spain than in Portugal, it may seem like the Spanish state would be predisposed to using military force instead of diplomacy. Yet, by pursuing diplomacy and eventual decolonization, Francoist Spain displayed a more nuanced understanding of how to utilize

61

Porch, 35-36.

62

Porch, 12-13.

63

Porch, 14-15.

64

Maxwell, The Making, 20.

Zhao 18 military force in a manner that kept the armed forces content. Indeed, the Estado Novo did not just deploy its troops to fight a war that made little geopolitical sense but also deployed its troops in aggravating conditions.

For example, Portuguese officers were paid little, less than officers of similar ranks in other European militaries. Colonels and generals in the British and French army earned approximately 50 percent more than their equivalents in Portugal. 65 To the men fighting in the colonies, their pay even compared poorly to menial laborers. One of the original members of the MFA, Captain Sousa e Castro, even claimed that “as a captain commanding a company in Mozambique I earned less than a barber in Nampula, 10,000 a month.” 66 Given that these military officers were dying for this colonial war, most of them were displeased with their living conditions. This anger was attributed to the government, which officers saw as unwilling or unable to support their soldiers on the ground.67 The military officers also felt increasingly isolated from the Portuguese on the mainland, facing hostility as representatives for an unpopular war. 68 When they returned home from the colonies, they were criticized by those who were once their friends. The white Portuguese colonial settlers also resented the army, complaining that the army had consistently failed in its defense of the colonies and was growing increasingly reliant on native African troops.69 All these factors engendered feelings of abandonment among the Portuguese soldiers: they had neither the

65

Porch, The Portuguese, 45.

66

Marcello Caetano, O Depoimento (Rio de Janeiro: Distribuidora Record, 1974), 75, quoted in Douglas Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1977), 47.

67

Porch, The Portuguese, 62.

68

Porch, 32.

69

Porch, 32-33.

Zhao 19 support of the state, nor of the Portuguese mainland, nor even of the Portuguese colonists. Thus, they turned their anger towards their government.

Given these conditions, by continuing this conflict in its colonies, in an era in which much of Europe had already been decolonized, the civilian bureaucrats of the Portuguese Estado Novo were aggravating its relations with its military. The war seemed to have no end, especially since the government refused to negotiate settlements with the liberation movements.70 The displeasure with the unceasing fighting in Africa was a core reason that the Movimento das Forças Armadas (MFA), or Armed Forces Movement, was formed.71 Although the MFA would eventually become ideological in nature, it originally sought to overthrow the government and to stop the colonial war that many military officers thought was unnecessary. When the MFA did coup the Estado Novo in 1974, it marked the end of a protracted war, one that had lasted thirteen years.

As one of the sole institutions that has the power to overthrow a government, the military often plays a key role in regime change. With the maintenance of a force that maintained internal order and suppressed dissent, Franco gave his military an important political role. After his death, Spain continued to appease the military during its transition through transaction, a prudent decision given the conservative attitudes of most officers. In contrast, Portuguese officials ignored the concerns of the military and exacerbated conditions. A military coup, a regime collapse, and the subsequent revolutionary chaos was the logical conclusion.

70

Porch, 57.

71

Porch, 77.

Zhao 20 Promotion Policies Colonial policy and military deployments—certainly, these important decisions of the Portuguese and Spanish civilian governments affected their relationships with the military. Yet, besides discussion of geopolitics, the professional concerns of military officers remain another important aspect of civil-military relations. Like any other professionals, military officers desire promotions, so a government must decide on the correct advancement policy to prevent uprisings.72 By promoting reformist members of the military to crucial positions, the Spanish government facilitated political loyalty among its military as it underwent a regime transition through transaction.73 In contrast, by allowing milicianos, or conscript officers, to become professional officers, the Portuguese government ignored the professional concerns of the army and only worsened the already present tensions between the civilians and the armed forces. 74 In Spain, Suárez’s government had decided on a promotion policy that awarded officers who were politically loyal. At the very top of the military hierarchy, the king named the liberal General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado as chief of the general staff. Mellado would later serve in Suárez’s cabinet as vice president for defense affairs.75 Mellado then embarked on an aggressive policy of promoting politically faithful officers and reassigning those who were unreliable.

The first replacements and promotions that Mellado made were obviously meant to buttress the government in critical areas where political loyalty was paramount. For example, he appointed new officers to the roles of the director general of security, the inspector general of the

72

J. Bayo Adekson, "Pay, Promotion, and Other Self-Interests of Military Intervention in Politics," Military Affairs 45, no. 1 (February 1981): 21, JSTOR. 73

Preston, The Triumph, 100.

74

Maxwell, The Making, 38.

75

Preston, The Triumph, 97-98.

Zhao 21 armed police, and the director general of the civil guard.76 Furthermore, Mellado replaced generals in charge of the Madrid Military Region and the army chief of staff. 77 Since these positions were necessary for maintaining internal security of the country, Mellado populated them with the leading reformists. While Mellado preferred giving these promotions to the small reformist minority, the pool of high-ranking reformists was limited. 78 He often resorted to promoting those officers who did not necessarily support democracy but would faithfully follow King Juan Carlos’s orders.79 In the long-term, this promotion policy paid significant dividends. As more and more of the Francoist generals were moved to the reserve list, the conservatives were slowly losing prominence in the new Spanish armed forces. Moreover, the urgent actions of the hard-liners in opposition to the government reflected the long-term success of the policy. Once the coup attempt of February 23,1981 failed, the hard-liners lost much of their power within the military.80 The reformists became more and more prominent. As the army’s composition changed, many became concerned with maintaining their careers rather than overthrowing the nascent democracy.81 Such policy did come at a cost. After all, in Spain, the civilian-military relationship had always been a negotiation. Suárez had to make several concessions to please the conservatives; some of that came in the form of the appeasement strategy that he was already pursuing in the 76

Preston, 100.

77

Preston, 99-100.

78

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 126.

79

Agüero, 126.

80

Agüero, 162.

81

Preston, The Triumph, 219.

Zhao 22 short term. For example, to keep up the pretense of fairness, Mellado had to give some important roles to the hard-liners.82 Moreover, Mellado himself lost credibility as a leader to an army, becoming viewed as driven by political motivations by many of the troops. 83 His loss of credibility undoubtedly hindered his advancement policy because it reduced the amount of promotions he would be able to make without angering conservatives. Nevertheless, his strategy of promoting based on political loyalty laid the groundwork for a reliable military in the long term. After February 23, 1981, there were no more coups that threatened the government.

Unlike in Spain, for most of the Estado Novo’s existence, the government did not seek political loyalty in its troops, but rather promoted officers based on their seniority. A more senior officer was expected to be more competent, an assumption that was incorrect. Instead, this promotion strategy yielded an old and old-fashioned general staff, whose average age was 61.84 Most of the young officers serving in the colonies viewed their seniors as incompetent and out of touch with the ground war, which undermined the respect for traditional military hierarchy that kept much of the Spanish armed forces in check. 85 In comparison to Spain, little strategy underlay how the Estado Novo promoted its officers. As Salazar himself said, “it would be unfortunate to pass over officers with a clean, at times, distinguished career, who through no fault of their own found that after a period of intensive service their promotion came a little slowly.”86 By not wishing to offend these officers, the Portuguese government inspired neither a competent nor politically loyal officer corps, setting the stage for its regime collapse.

82

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 126.

83

Agüero, 126.

84

Porch, The Portuguese, 43.

85

Porch, 42.

86

Caetano, O Depoimento, 167-68, quoted in Porch, 43.

Zhao 23 However, as the Portuguese army needed more and more men to fight their wars, Portugal altered its promotion strategy, much to the chagrin of its officer corps. As the armed forces needed more and more manpower, the state started a fast-track to turn milicianos, or conscripted officers, into professional soldiers. Enacted in July 1973, Decree-Law 353/73 created a two-semester course at the Military Academy that fostered this transition between conscript and professional.87 Finally, the government sought to incorporate more competent officers who had proved themselves in combat.

For another reason, however, Decree-Law 353/73 served as a key event in the Portuguese transition to democracy: it fostered a breakdown in the already fraught civil-military relationship.88 Milicianos could count all of their days as a conscript towards their position in the seniority line, which would allow them to jump up many ranks.89 As a result, those who were already professionals believed that their position in the seniority line was being skipped by milicianos not worthy of promotion. An open letter to the government by 38 officers stated that many “feel wounded in their prestige, in their dignity, in their professional honour and intellectual standing by the thought that a two-semester course can in any way substitute for the four-year course which they completed.”90 Moreover, since pay was tied to rank, these concerns were of utmost importance to these officers. Indeed, Decree-Law 353/73 served as the impetus

87

Porch, 65.

88

José Javier Olivas Osuna, "The Deep Roots of the Carnation Revolution: 150 Years of Military Interventionism in Portugal," Portuguese Journal of Social Science 13, no. 2 (2014): 224, accessed November 22, 2021, http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/87243/1/Olivas-Osuna_Deep%20roots%20of%20revolution_2018.pdf.

89

90

Porch, The Portuguese, 65.

Manuel Barão de Cunha, Radiografia Militar (Lisbon, 1975), xv-xvii, quoted in Douglas Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1977), 67.

Zhao 24 for meetings of angry Portuguese army officers that eventually evolved into conspiracies, such as the MFA, that sought to overthrow the government. 91 In response to this anger, the government was forced to issue Decree Law 409/73 that revised this policy and then finally repealed the law amid continued pressure. 92 The failure of this miliciano promotion policy once again reveals the lack of understanding between the military and its civilian government. For the government, Decree-Law 353/73 seemed like a common-sense law that would eventually shape the army into a capable fighting force. To the military officers themselves, this law seemed an existential threat. Their rank was based on their seniority, and any law that threatened the seniority line would endanger their pay and thus their livelihood.

The promotion policies of both countries, moreover, fit into the broader strategies each country sought to enact. When the new Spanish democracy promoted reformists up its ranks, it was aiming for the same political loyalty that its policy of appeasement sought to engender.

When the Portuguese dictatorship promoted the milicianos, it showed that its primary concern was winning the war. As before, the Spanish government displayed a more nuanced selfassessment of their situation. They recognized that the military had its own interests separate to those of the civilian government. Just as any other political institution, they would need to be treated as another party to the negotiations towards democracy. The Portuguese civilian government, however, recognized the professional concerns of the military as less important to the geopolitical goals of the Estado Novo. It underestimated the threat of a military coup, and thus triggered a regime collapse.

91

Osuna, "The Deep," 224.

92

Osuna, 224.

Zhao 25 Bridges between Civilians and the Military: Juan Carlos I and António de Spínola Although political reform can be described in terms of systemic issues and government policy, personal leadership is a critical factor in the success of any movement. In this regard, Spain had a strong political leader in the form of King Juan Carlos I to guide the country to democracy, while Portugal did not, resulting in the chaotic and destabilizing Processo Revolucionário Em Curso (PREC) or Ongoing Revolutionary Process in 1975.

Within both nations, personal leadership was required to keep the military in line. Given his studies at several military academies and his key position as a supporter of democracy, Juan Carlos served as the central unifying figure who bridged the interests of the conservative Francoist military with those of the new civilian government.93 In Portugal, after the Carnation Revolution, General António de Spínola was poised to occupy a similar position to lead a new Portuguese democracy that would prove amenable to elite interests. As a general, he held the highest rank among the putschists, given that the MFA’s coordinating committee was composed of more junior army officers.94 These leaders aimed to align the military with the interests of democracy: Juan Carlos achieved this goal, while Spínola failed. This distinction proves critical to understanding how civil-military relations affected the Spanish and Portuguese democratization.

Although Juan Carlos would eventually become a catalyst for democratic change, he himself had been Franco’s chosen successor. As Franco aged, he sought the continuation of his own principles. His plan for his succession revolved around a new monarchy that would embody the principles of Francoism. Historian Paul Preston describes how “in Francoist constitution

93

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 145-46.

94

Maxwell, The Making, 59.

Zhao 26 terms, there was no continuity with the Borbón monarchy of Alfonso XIII . . . a new Francoist monarchy, coincidentally personified by a Borbón, was being ‘installed.’” 95 To achieve his goal, Franco selected Juan Carlos as his successor and not Carlos’s father Don Juan, who he considered too liberal. Throughout his youth, Juan Carlos was thus groomed for the job. In 1969, he swore loyalty to Franco himself and the Fundamental Laws of the Francoist State. 96 Given his upbringing, he was thus expected to maintain the authoritarian nature of the Spanish government.

However, just as many other members of the Francoist elite realized Francoism’s increasing inadequacy during the 1970s, Juan Carlos realized that the monarchy’s continued survival as an institution required a transition away from Francoism to a democracy.97 By this time, Basque terrorism and labor unrest had unsettled the nation. Meanwhile, the hard-liners had blocked any attempt to enact meaningful reform to Spanish political life, while continuing with their bloody repressions in the Basque Country. Such lack of tangible political solutions convinced many Francoist politicians that a democratic reform was truly necessary to maintain their interests. A similar political calculus underlay Juan Carlos’s decision to strive for democracy. To support democracy was to guarantee his popular support, although he could only act cautiously because his legitimacy was tied directly with the Francoist system and its constitution.98 Nevertheless, Juan Carlos deserves significant credit for bucking his training and for recognizing that a democracy was necessary.

95

Paul Preston, The Triumph, 21.

96

Preston, 21.

97

Preston, 78.

98

Preston, 77.

Zhao 27 Juan Carlos can be further lauded for facilitating Spain's transition to democracy through the Francoist political system. His most important decision was in his choice of Adolfo Suárez as his prime minister. Suárez was the secretary-general of the Movimiento Nacional, the sole political party of Francoist Spain. 99 However, he had been a relatively unimportant and obscure figure in comparison to men like José María de Areilza and Manuel Fraga, who had advocated strongly for reform in the past. This obscurity, however, played to his advantage, since he alienated fewer of the Francoist elite in comparison to these more controversial and well-known candidates.100 Moreover, his experiences as a bureaucrat gave him critical knowledge of the Francoist system and guided the actions he took to dismantle Francoism. Throughout 1976, Suárez successfully negotiated the difficult tasks of communicating with members of the opposition and navigating his democratic reforms through the Francoist elite.101 By November 1976, the members of the Francoist Cortes—the main legislative body—had adopted the Law for Political Reform in order to dissolve Francoist institutions. 102 By promising many members a spot in the future democratic order, Suárez had effectively convinced the Francoist civilian elites to destroy their own political project.

Perhaps the most critical actions Juan Carlos took in the Spanish democratic transition occurred after the passage of the Law for Political Reform. The military had long been a bastion of conservative and reactionary thought, which ended up being one of the primary threats to the newly inaugurated Spanish democracy. Juan Carlos deployed his influence as commander-in-

99

Preston, 80.

100

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 73.

101

Preston, The Triumph, 76.

102

Preston, 101.

Zhao 28 chief and his previous experience as a military man to marshal the conservative faction of the army into obeying the Constitution. He served as a lynchpin to successful civil-military relations, by bridging the military and the civilian government.

In his youth, Juan Carlos had been trained as a soldier and attended a variety of military academies, which provided him an insight into military life. 103 In a speech to his generals in 1980, he claimed that “in my heart, in all my being, side by side with my love for the country, palpitates military spirit, and I feel always identified with my companions in the Army, with your concerns, your sorrows, your satisfactions, and your hopes.” 104 He also frequently held private conversations with his generals, forming personal connections with several critical figures.105 In both his private and public communications with the military, however, he also exhorted a disciplined, apolitical military, warning them to not interfere with democratic governance.106 In this way, he tried to bridge the gap between the soldiers and the democratic government that most of them viewed with distrust.

Beyond his communications with military officers, the king held the position of commander-in-chief of the military. The Francoist military had long held a strong respect for the traditional military hierarchy. The conservative faction of the military, which the majority of the officers belonged to, especially valued obeying orders from one’s superiors. This traditional respect for military hierarchy was one of the only factors preventing these conservatives from

103

Walther L. Bernecker, "Monarchy and Democracy: The Political Role of King Juan Carlos in the Spanish Transition," Journal of Contemporary History 33, no. 1 (January 1998): 75-76, JSTOR. 104

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 146.

105

Bernecker, "Monarchy and Democracy," 76.

106

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 146.

Zhao 29 acting against a democratic government that they despised. 107 As commander-in-chief, Juan Carlos’s orders to stay apolitical thus held special importance to the conservatives. This role in guiding the military to democracy was especially emphasized when he swayed critical military officers into supporting the government during the reactionary coup attempt of February 23, 1981.108 With much of the civilian government taken hostage by the putschists, his hurried phone calls to garrisons around the country guaranteed that critical military units stayed loyal to Spanish democracy.109 Moreover, he made his support for democracy explicit, going on national television to declare that “the Crown cannot tolerate in any form any act which tries to interfere with the constitution which has been approved by the Spanish people.” 110 Hampered by Juan Carlos’s efforts, the coup failed: only the Valencian garrison, led by the hard-liner Jaime Milans del Bosch, rebelled.111 Without his intervention, the Spanish military, already predisposed to authoritarianism, would have likely overthrown the nascent and vulnerable democracy.

Thus, throughout the Spanish transition to democracy, Juan Carlos played a central role: he both catalyzed democratic change and preserved it against autocratic backsliding. He was well respected by both civilians and the military and used this reputation to effectively bridge these two dichotomous factions.

In the Portuguese transition to democracy, General António de Spínola would seem to have the appropriate characteristics to serve a similar role in guiding Portuguese democracy.

107

Agüero, 108.

108

Preston, The Triumph, 199.

109

Preston, 199.

110

Bill Cemlyn-Jones, "King Orders Army to Crush Coup," The Guardian (London), February 23, 1981, accessed January 17, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/1981/feb/23/spain.fromthearchive.

111

Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, 165.

Zhao 30 During the Portuguese war in Guinea-Bissau from 1968-1972, Spínola had been a critical figure in fighting the insurgents, incorporating the native Africans into the colonial administration, and winning the confidence of both the military and the locals. 112 Through these efforts, he had accumulated a reputation for competence. However, during the war, he did not seek to expel the rebels but rather strove to hold a strong enough position to negotiate an end to the war. He posited that Portugal could not hold back the tide of anticolonialism forever.113 The Portuguese Prime Minister Marcello Caetano rejected these advances in 1972, telling Spinola that an honorable defeat was more worthwhile than any negotiated settlement. 114 Unsurprisingly, Spínola was deeply displeased with a decision that nullified the efforts of his troops.

Disagreements with Caetano’s policy were publicly expressed through Spínola’s book Portugal and the Future in which he claimed “a purely military victory is not possible. To the armed forces therefore only belong the duty of creating and maintaining for the necessary length of time—naturally not very long—those conditions of security which will allow of finding those political and social solutions which can put an end to the conflict.” 115 His ideal solution was the formation of a Lusitanian Commonwealth that still maintained economic and cultural ties between all the Portuguese-speaking countries. Moreover, he also espoused a liberal viewpoint of the world that contravened the authoritarian principles of the Estado Novo, writing for “the hallowing of the principle ‘one man—one vote.’”116

112

Maxwell, The Making, 31.

113

Maxwell, 31.

114

Maxwell, 31.

115

António de Spínola, Portugal and the Future (Johannesburg: Perskor Publishers, 1974), 20.

116

Spínola, 44.

Zhao 31 Civilians and military officers of all stripes read the book, given Spínola’s reputation. As a result, Portugal and the Future lent legitimacy to the MFA’s anticolonial movement, providing it a statement of principles where it had previously had none. Specifically, Spínola’s arguments swayed many apolitical officers to support the coup against the Estado Novo, some of whom would probably have not backed the MFA if they had known the left-leaning character of its Coordinating Committee.117 Given the fact that the MFA had otherwise been composed of relatively junior officers, they also asked him to be the provisional president of the new Portuguese Republic after the Carnation Revolution.118 Thus, just like Juan Carlos, Spínola had realized that the dictatorial government was no longer viable in the face of modern problems. Namely, a critical problem in both dictatorships was regional nationalism, whether that be the Basque country or in Africa. Both men realized that the dictatorships would prefer warfare and oppression over any practical negotiated solutions. Afterwards, they played a central role in catalyzing the downfalls of their respective dictatorial regimes.

Unfortunately for Portugal, Spínola and the Coordinating Committee of the MFA had completely different views on how the new Portugal should be structured. Spínola had wanted his Lusitanian Commonwealth, and the Coordinating Committee wanted immediate decolonization, preferably without any lingering ties to the colonies. 119 The Coordinating Committee would also end up allying with the Portuguese Communist Party, which would have been unthinkable for Spínola.

117

Porch, The Portuguese, 83-84.

118

Porch, 92.

119

Maxwell, The Making, 57.

Zhao 32 After the Carnation Revolution, a power struggle soon erupted between these two camps once Spínola became provisional president. At the start, he had several advantages in his power struggle against the Coordinating Committee. He was generally acceptable to the supporters of the previous regime, since he was relatively moderate compared to the left-leaning MFA. 120 Moreover, he also had a pristine reputation among the Portuguese people and army because of his competent leadership during the wars in Africa and his support of the coup. 121 This wide range of support, a trait that aided the Spanish king as he navigated his country to democracy, would facilitate the stability of his rule over the new Portugal.

Yet, by the nature of his position as President, Spínola’s advantages—namely his political power and his control over the military—would be nullified. Unlike in Spain, where much of the legitimacy of the king flowed from his position as successor to Franco, legitimacy rested with the MFA, not Spínola. After all, the transitional Constitution specifically referenced the MFA’s political program that was proclaimed during the Carnation Revolution. 122 Thus, the Coordinating Committee of the MFA had veto power over government policy and ministerial nominations, allowing it to stonewall his policies. 123 Given such interference, Spínola struggled to govern effectively. For example, the soldiers of the MFA sought to promote confrontations between workers and employers, which led to widespread labor conflict and damaged the country’s economy.124 The overturning of the

120

Porch, The Portuguese, 94.

121

Porch, 95.

122

Maxwell, The Making, 65.

123

Porch, The Portuguese, 95.

124

Wiarda, The Transition, 106.

Zhao 33 socioeconomic order threw the country into chaos and hindered Spínola’s ability to resolve Portugal’s economic issues. Additionally, this upheaval ultimately eliminated Spínola’s advantage that he was relatively appealable to the special interests that had backed Caetano. In such a revolutionary atmosphere, Spínola was always on the back foot. An even greater defeat occurred when Spínola failed to enact his plan to form a Lusitanian commonwealth for Portugal’s former colonies.125 The leaders of the liberation movements in these colonies unsurprisingly favored immediate decolonization and removal of Portuguese influence over protracted negotiations over a Lusitanian commonwealth.126 These failings eroded Spínola’s previously widespread support. As a politician, he became a divisive, rather than unifying, figure in the country. In contrast, due to his mostly indirect involvement in politics, Juan Carlos had a much easier time serving as a unifying figure for the military, since his prime minister became the scapegoat for any political shortcomings.

Thus, Juan Carlos could stay above the fray, while Spínola had to fight his own political battles, which quickly resulted in his reputation losing its luster.

The Coordinating Committee of the MFA was also working to undermine Spínola’s control over the military. In essence, it created a parallel military hierarchy, the Operational Command for the Continent (COPCON), outside of the traditional chain of command. 127 The importance of the MFA’s move was made especially clear in September 1974, when Spínola planned for a mass demonstration in Lisbon with his supporters.128 Realizing that he was losing

125

Maxwell, The Making, 74.

126

Maxwell, 74-75.

127

Maxwell, 79.

128

Porch, The Portuguese, 125.

Zhao 34 the power struggle with the Coordinating Committee, Spínola saw the rally as key to breaking the power of the MFA. Unfortunately for him, COPCON, which was outside of his control, then coordinated the efforts to stop Spínola’s mobilization of his supporters by barricading all approaches to Lisbon on September 28.129 This failure proved to be the last straw: Spínola resigned on the thirtieth.

Unlike in Spain, where respect for the king had stood as one last motive to stay loyal to democracy, the MFA’s creation of an independent COPCON indicated that the military had achieved primacy over the civilian government. President Spínola had thus been unable to stabilize the country against sliding into revolution. After all, compared to Juan Carlos, Spínola occupied the more vulnerable position of President and faced a powerful, institutionalized foe in the MFA. During the so-called Ongoing Revolutionary Period after Spínola’s resignation, the MFA quickly took control of the country, governing it under the so-called Council of the Revolution.

At this point, the military was firmly in control of the country: the civilian political parties seemed to be growing more and more irrelevant. 130 The new military junta decided to nationalize the entire banking industry and began a program of large-scale land redistribution.131 Unsurprisingly, such a complete overturning of the previous economic order plunged the country into an economic crisis. Across the country, the junta also threw its enemies, such as members of the old oligarchy and more moderate members of the MFA, in jail. 132 The country seemed to be heading in the wrong direction, backsliding into autocracy.

129

Maxwell, The Making, 89.

130

Maxwell, 111.

131

Maxwell, 112.

132

Maxwell, 110.

Zhao 35 In a country where the military had achieved such dominance, only military action could change this fate. Another coup by a sub-faction of the MFA in November 1975 created a new democracy.133 This democracy had its own flaws, however. In the new Constitution, the weakened MFA still had the formal role as the judge of the constitutionality of the civilian government’s laws.134 Spínola’s defeat paved the way for an increasingly chaotic and left-leaning period during the Portuguese democratization. He failed to balance civilians and military, allowing the military to drive forward the political process. Although Portugal still democratized, his resignation directly engendered instability in his country. During this political instability, Portugal came close to becoming an autocracy again. Indeed, the consequences of his failures are only emphasized when seeing how Juan Carlos’s successes set Spain on the path to a stable democracy. When he bridged the military and the civilian government successfully, he had prevented autocratic backsliding by weakening the coup attempt of February 23 significantly.

His actions protected the delicate democratic transition through transaction, while Spínola’s downfall only created a greater power vacuum after the Estado Novo’s regime collapse.

Conclusion The road to democratization in Spain and Portugal led to a new era in Iberia, one of democracy rather than dictatorship. Indeed, it is rather easy to place these events in the grand narrative of history, within that of the global triumph of democracy over authoritarianism from the 1940s to the 1990s. Yet, to generalize to such an extent would be to ignore the details and

133

Maxwell, 157.

134

Maxwell, 159.

Zhao 36 differences between these two unique processes. Spain transitioned to democracy via a series of negotiations between the democratic opposition and the Francoist civilian elite. Portugal, however, faced a regime collapse caused by a military coup that eventually resulted in a democracy.

While Spain had a relatively more well-developed economy and middle class in comparison to Portugal, these differences cannot explain why Portugal underwent such a tumultuous revolutionary period. Both countries sought economic support from foreign countries, and both experienced significant economic growth in the prior years. Moreover, Portugal’s economic inequality was comparable to that of France and other Western democracies, so class structure cannot reasonably explain the differing nature of the two democratizations.

Instead, the civil-military relations in the two countries could not have been more different. In Spain, the government treated the military as a pillar of power in the country, appeasing conservatives while promoting reformists. The Spanish armed forces did have significant political leverage, as its officers governed the police and internal security forces. Due to this leverage, Prime Minister Suárez recognized the threat of the military to democratic processes, and the government’s actions successfully mitigated this hazard. Thus, the Francoist dictatorship was able to transition to democracy without any revolutionary uprising or regime collapse.

In Portugal, the Estado Novo, under Salazar and Caetano, the military was subordinated to the civilian regime’s geopolitical goal of keeping its colonies. To accomplish this goal, the Portuguese government deployed its military aggressively, which resulted in a deeply unpopular war and a discontented military. In its attempts to keep the war effort going, it enacted Decree-

Zhao 37 Law 353/73, which allowed for the rapid promotion of conscript officers. Yet, this action also had the consequence of angering many professional military officers. All this anger within the military eventually engendered a military coup during the Carnation Revolution.

Finally, Spanish King Juan Carlos successfully bridged the concerns of the military with its government. General Antonio Spínola, the man with the most political legitimacy after the Carnation Revolution, was unable to unify the MFA with his civilian government. Thus, beyond the systematic and policy issues of both countries’ respective civil-military relations, Spain had the benefit of having a strong unifying leader that brought recalcitrant members of the military in line.

The contrasting natures of these two transitions reflect in how the Spanish and Portuguese respectively view their history. Spaniards today view their authoritarian past more ambivalently than the Portuguese do, perhaps due to the negotiated nature of Spain’s democratization.135 Moreover, this ambivalence has had its cost: many Francoist crimes were left uninvestigated due to the so-called “Pact of Forgetting.”136 Although this agreement was perhaps necessary for the successful negotiations between the Francoist elite and the democratic opposition, it also was an abrogation of justice. Human rights violators, many in the military, went unpunished, while victims and families of victims were unable to find closure.137 These consequences were the human costs of the negotiated Spanish transition through transaction.

135

Marina Costa Lobo, António Costa Pinto, and Pedro C. Magalhães, "Portuguese Democratisation 40 Years On: Its Meaning and Enduring Legacies," South European Society and Politics 21, no. 2: 175-76, accessed January 4, 2022, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13608746.2016.1153490.

136

Omar G. Encarnación, "Forgetting, in Order to Move On," New York Times, January 22, 2014, accessed October 9, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/01/06/turning-away-from-painful-chapters/forgetting-inorder-to-move-on.

137

Encarnación.

Zhao 38 Yet, Portugal’s democratization was also controversial. Many of the heroes of the Carnation Revolution tried to guide the country towards a left-leaning military junta only a year later. For a period of time, the military, not civilians, took control of the country. Indeed, after the Estado Novo’s regime collapse, the power vacuum created a dangerous and unstable country that was prone to backsliding into autocracy. Only after a series of internal military conflicts was a true democracy established.138 Democracy, then, was an uncertain and perhaps even unexpected result.

Given that none of these transitions serve as ideal examples of how democratization should occur, comparing which democratization was better or worse becomes difficult. Perhaps it boils down to the age-old question of what is more important: stability or justice? Maybe this answer guides how governments should foster democracy, or maybe there simply is no correct answer without knowing a country’s context. Maybe this answer also differs according to the exigencies of the time: during periods of upheaval and change, stability becomes more important, but that stability is threatened when justice is not advanced. Regardless, by comparing civil-military relations in Spain to those in Portugal, it is clear that the armed forces can catalyze and hinder democracy. These two cases also offer examples of how a government can control these tendencies. After all, democracy is fragile: to create one requires the right strategy, the right policy implementations, and finally the right leaders.

138

Maxwell, The Making, 155-57.

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