ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues for limits to be set to the achievement of consolidation and therefore for a definite framework of analysis for pursuing the role of political parties and party systems. In Portugal, as Gladdish shows the political parties had a difficult inheritance to overcome because of the very lack of any tradition of political mobilization. Certainly the length of democratic interruption has to be taken into account not least as this also reflects in some respects on the ability of parties themselves to act subsequently as agents of democratic consolidation. The transitional consensus was replaced by government-opposition rivalry, but this was accepted as normal because of wide agreement on the rules of the game. The book deduces that inter-party relationships were particularly decisive in the Italian case of democratic consolidation.
