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This article explores the field of visual arts and artistic experimentation as important elements of civic agency in the Portuguese revolutionary process. It argues that Portuguese visual artists, who had been exploring new media and forms of expression since the late 1960s, anticipated and championed the Portuguese revolution as a democratic project. In doing so, they also proposed new forms of civic action, which intersected artistic practice with political engagement. I will specifically address the mobilization of the artistic and cultural community in Oporto for the creation of a "living" museum of modern art in this city. This project caused a rupture with the institutional apparatus of the dictatorship and effectively promoted a debate about cultural democratization and decentralization. This article conceives visual arts and action as a force for a more plural and progressive regime. It explores collective interventions in the public and institutional space; the configuration of democratic participation in the transformation of former dictatorial structures; and the envisioning of continuing change in order to consolidate democracy. The article thus advances a critical redefinition of the relationship between artistic practice and political mobilization and contributes to the dynamic dialogue between creativity and democratization in Portugal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Lídia Jorge's first two novels, O dia dos prodígios (The Day of Prodigies) and O cais das merendas (Picnic Quay), as anti-realist allegories that challenge the consensus vision of a free and equal "people", encouraged by propaganda, celebrating the Portuguese Revolution of 25 April 1974. Following Jacques Rancière's philosophical insights on literariness and democracy, each of the novels is analyzed in relation to an equivocal, misunderstood process of democratization that continues to exclude and ignore "the part of those who do not count" in the theoretical equality of all citizens in a given regime. Specifically, the analysis sheds light on what Prime Minister Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo once called "the small revolutions" of anonymous common people who, rather than submit to an equality that shuts them out, perform theatrical, political acts of disagreement calling attention to themselves as human subjects of social injustices or wrongs. Specific attention is given to the geo-cultural location and the economic configuration of the communities fictionalized in each novel, dramatizing different stages of the so-called transition to democracy. Jorge's complex texts provoke us to "see" history otherwise, according to the experience of a "people" confined to a coastal fringe of land who are undergoing a violent but unavoidable transformation from a rural subsistence economy to a capitalist market economy dependent on foreign investments and a liberal multi-party democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with the anti-austerity movement in Portugal and a frame analysis of calls for protest, the paper explores the relation between collective memory of a country and collective group memory. The Carnation Revolution which began on 25 April 1974 is the most important event in Portugal’s recent history. Most activists in the anti-austerity movement did not experience this event personally, so their memory depends completely on the existing, politically contentious collective memory of this event. The paper shows (1) the way in which group memories of the Revolution are constructed and (2) the functions these group memories have for the activist groups. It argues that collective memory of important historical events impacts on social movements’ identities, their aims, repertoire of contention and framings. Activist groups engage in the construction of their group memories, and by doing so they refer to collective memory at the national level. These processes are not purely strategic and are sometimes counterproductive in terms of possible success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2015, Lusophone Africa celebrated 40 years since independence. Portuguese colonies in Africa became independent in the aftermath of two orders of interlinked events. The first was the fierce-armed opposition to the colonial order – through the action of nationalist movements and nationalist thinkers such as Amílcar Cabral – which escalated after 1960 when French and English colonies in Africa were achieving independence. The second was the Carnation Revolution, in 1974, which, despite having taken place in Lisbon, had powerful reverberations across Portuguese Africa. Here, I argue that the Carnation Revolution was a by-product of the emergence of nationalist movements in Africa, when it became apparent that popular uprisings there could not be won by conventional armed struggle. Or, to put it slightly different, anticolonial struggle in Africa opened the way not only for the end of Portuguese rule on the continent, but also for the demise of dictatorship in Portugal itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we will seek to analyse the development of international ties that enabled the channelling of international support to the Portuguese Socialist Party led by Mário Soares. The support directed to Portuguese socialists assumed particular relevance in the summer of 1975, during which the revolutionary dynamic questioned and challenged the democratic legitimacy. Coincidentally, during these months there were ongoing negotiations for the signing of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and the situation in Portugal was presented by several actors as a test of the climate of détente. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the US reaction to the Portuguese revolution and its impact on the relationship between Washington and its main Western European allies. It analyses the international repercussions of the chaotic Portuguese transition and their impact on Soviet–American détente. Finally, it highlights the different responses to the Portuguese crisis given by the United States, and by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger overall, and by Western European Socialist governments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 1974 Revolution, all aspects of Portuguese society have gone through profound changes, and fashion and dress are no exception. Fashion design in Portugal took its first steps in the 1970s, conquering slowly yet progressively Portuguese consumers and, in more recent years, obtained a certain degree of international confidence and recognition. The Portuguese fashion industry has for many years been known for its quality and low-cost production, but designers face a larger challenge when it comes to being recognized as a fashion center. This article documents the period from 1974 to 2010 during which Portuguese fashion designers, events, and brands worked together to achieve national and international acknowledgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares the factors which led to the success or downfall of the moderate, centrist government placed into power after the downfall of the dictatorial regime in the Portuguese revolution of 1974-1975 and other revolutions in Europe and Latin America. Use of elections to legitimize the moderate governments; Relations of the moderate governments with churches and religious bodies; Role of the moderates in the revolutions.