Authoritarian Legacies, Politics of the Past and the Quality of Democracy in Southern Europe: Open Conclusions.

In these concluding remarks on authoritarian legacies and related politics in Southern Europe the definitions and dimensions of authoritarian legacies and politics of the past conclusions are recalled; the legacies and politics of the past are related to democratic quality and the influence of the former on the latter is assessed; the contextual dimensions influencing and conditioning the authoritarian legacies and the politics of the past in each country are also analysed; attitudes towards the past are reconsidered; and, finally, how the problem of the fading of legacies largely remains open is noted by elucidating some ironic aspects of the phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]