ABSTRACT
Literature on democratisation claims that the dictatorship's police forces are difficult to reform and that modes of transition and authoritarian legacies are linked. It predicts that a continuous transition will leave greater legacies than a discontinuous one. This paper analyses the police reforms during democratisation in Spain and Portugal, comparing them in several dimensions: symbolic changes, demilitarisation, decentralisation, accountability, professionalisation and new service role. In both countries a democratic police was built; yet, contrary to predictions, the Spanish police underwent a faster and deeper reform than the Portuguese, a result explained by the double legacy of dictatorship and revolution in the Portuguese transition, the credibility dilemmas of the Spanish reformers and the impact of regional devolution.
