In this book, Robert Fishman, an important student of democratization, regime change, and varieties of democracy, uses solid theoretical and empirical comparative research to develop a powerful argument on how the legacies of two different types of transition to democracy make a difference to the political inclusion of post-authoritarian democracies. To do so, he compares two third-wave democracies—Portugal and Spain—with almost polar opposite transitional pathways. Portugal’s transition was one of rupture, with a powerful state crisis and a social revolution in 1974–75, whereas Spain’s was an example of what Juan Linz described as the “ruptura-pactada” model, based on elite pacts that dominated the path to democracy during the 1970s and 1980s. Fishman revises earlier literature on democratic transitions, blending it with later developments on the legacies of types of regime change in his attempt to resolve the almost insurmountable problem of whether different “modes of transition” generate distinct and enduring consequences. Fishman argues that “historically rooted cultural understandings about the substance of democracy, and about the principles that should govern political interactions in such systems, carry enormous consequences for political inclusion and, as a result, the actual attainment of political equality” (p. 3). In the case of Portugal and Spain, he demonstrates convincingly that the historical legacies of the 1970s conditioned “democratic practice” and generated a more inclusive and more anti-hierarchical democracy in the case of the former.

Democratic practice is the intervening variable of this research, one that Fishman defines as “the ways in which political actors—including ordinary citizens, groups that are organized or spontaneous, and institutional office holders—make use of the right and possibility for action provided by democracy and deal with others who are similarly engaged” (p. 6). The central argument of the book, with very important implications for theories of and comparative research on democratization, is that the Spanish transition by pact gave birth to an “institutionally and hierarchically segmented” democratic practice, contrasting with the Portuguese revolutionary situation of 1974–75, which was more open and inclusive.

The cultural differences forged during the first years of the transition were later molded in each country by two historically complementary processes (which the author calls “transitional codas”) that were to have a decisive impact on democratic politics in both Iberian nations. In the case of Spain, the 1982 parliamentary elections and the reconfiguration of the party system resulting from them were the determinant historical events. The more significant change, according to Fishman, was related to the collapse of the UCD and the rise of the AP (which became the PP) as the main party to the right of PSOE. According to the author, the replacement of the UCD by the AP/PP—of a moderate party with a propensity to compromise by a party much further to the right and that had a less inclusive vision in relation to demonstrators or the legitimacy of the claims of the peripheral nationalisms—has had harmful consequences for the functioning of Spanish democracy.

In the Portuguese case, the process that led to the “readjustment” of the transition’s legacy involved the privatizations that began at the end of the 1980s. The social legacy of the revolution—which was incorporated into the 1976 constitution and was largely visible in the weight of the public sector in the economy—certainly diminished the pressure on policy makers to develop the welfare state. Curiously, according to Fishman, it was the 1989 revision of the constitution and the subsequent process of reprivatizations that heralded a period of sharp growth in social expenses. This process has made it possible to transpose the social legacy of the revolution from the sphere of public ownership of enterprises to the growth and consolidation of the welfare state. These two processes closed the cycle that began during the initial phase of democratization. The form of democratic practice that came to be dominant in both countries must be seen as a result of the combined effect of the context of the transition with the two historical processes that have occurred subsequently. For this reason, Fishman argues that it is from the 1990s that the cultural legacies historically rooted in democratic transitions become visible, and it is therefore from that time that we seestable and significant variations between the two countries.

The main evidence of the Iberian divide in political inclusion can be found in the way that political elites in both countries have dealt with protests and pressures from below. In this respect, Fishman claims that Portugal and Spain are two very different cases. The Portuguese political elites developed an idea of democracy that tends to conceive of demonstrations and social protests as legitimate and as normal mechanisms in the process of democratic “conversation.” As a result, they tend to be more open and receptive to demands and social pressure from below. In Spain, however, the political elites tend to adopt a conception of democracy that regards demonstrators and social pressures as having potentially destabilizing effects and, consequently, tend to promote a sharp demarcation between social protests and the “official world of representative institutions” (p. 82).

The most obvious effect of this contrasting democratic practice can be seen both in the success of protest movements and in the mechanisms used to achieve that success. Protest movements in Portugal have been more successful in their efforts to influence the political agenda and the decision-making process than their counterparts in Spain. This is largely a reflection of a democratic practice that tends to promote “conversations” between the social movements and the institutional political authorities. In Spain, where both sides share a hierarchical and segmented view of democratic political life, the relationship between the two spheres—the movements and the institutional—tends to be more confrontational, leaving little room for dialogue and democratic negotiation to resolve conflicts.

Fishman also finds important differences in the media and public education system that reinforce his central argument. The Portuguese media treat the demands of the more socially and economically disadvantaged sectors in a more inclusive and impartial manner. In Spain the media are less sympathetic to the voices of social protest movements and tend to offer them limited and unequal coverage. Also perceived as being a legacy of the social revolution, the Portuguese education system is designed and functions in a nonhierarchical, participatory, and inclusive way, matching conventional education with the civic and cultural empowerment of students. The hierarchical nature and rigidity of its education system have prevented this model from being reproduced in Spain.

The political inclusion divide in Iberia leads the author, in his conclusion, to emphasize the positive effects the Portuguese standard of democratic practice has had on democracy. It is a standard that also demonstrates the lasting advantages of a social revolution for deepening democracy in terms of inclusion and equality. Conversely, the Spanish case reveals the costs of ignoring the cultural dimension of democratization and highlights the negative impact that a democratic practice based on an exclusionary and segmented vision can have on the functioning of democracy.

Of course, the overall assessment of how a democracy functions cannot be reduced to one of its dimensions, and the author should have introduced other aspects. Indeed, as another reviewer, André Paris, stressed in a seminar discussion of Fishman’s work, if we consider some studies on the quality of democracy carried out in these two countries, we see positive results in some indicators alongside negative assessments of other aspects of the functioning of democracy. That being said, Fishman has produced a refined theoretical and empirically grounded book that makes masterful use of the comparative method and contributes both to the study of legacies of different types of transitions and of the quality of post-authoritarian democracies.