ABSTRACT
The breakdown of authoritarian regimes and the transition to more open forms of governance and new market structures entail enormous changes. The military is likely to become a key player in determining political outcomes. Such was the experience of Portugal during its transition from authoritarian to democratic politics. This pattern of politics, present for so long in the political history of Southern Europe and South America, has largely been overlooked in the theories and accounts of the transitions to democracy in the 1980s. In Southeastern Europe the break with the old regime has been neither as clear-cut nor as easy to make in separating civilian and military groups vying for power from prior existing interests and commitments to established concepts of state and nation. In cases characterized by social upheaval, the military is almost certain to emerge as a key institution and exercise its option to act unilaterally.
