ABSTRACT
One of the basic characteristics of Southern European political societies in the periods after a dictatorship was the speed with which a non-polarized mass political orientation was affirmed. The most relevant structural causes of this were higher incomes, better schooling and the formation of intermediate social classes. However, the enormous influence of collective historical memory must not be undervalued. The advent and consolidation of dictatorships, whether permanent or transitory, generated such traumas in the population as to prevent the rise of irreversible political splits. The road to democracy was a transition towards a more or less speedy centralized consolidation of the political system. This trend seems to have affected all sub-cultures. It also seems to have favoured the convergence of the elites.
