Due to the characteristics of the international system, any change in the political regime in Portugal would be a cause for concern from its allies. If we have in mind that the Portuguese transition brought a right-wing dictatorship to an end, replacing it with the uncertainty of a revolutionary process, instigated by communist and extreme-left political tendencies, Portugal did become a problem for the Western Allies. In that sense, one cannot understand the Portuguese process of transition to democracy without looking to its international repercussions and how they impacted the evolution of the Portuguese situation. The Portuguese revolution process was deeply marked by the international interference, from the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany, which led the European approach to the situation in Lisbon. Although very different until mid-1975, the two sides of the Atlantic eventually came together in the strategy of supporting the moderate, anti-communist political forces, at the same time as they pressed the (more radical) authorities in Portugal, and the Soviet Union, to assure the transition into a pluralist, Western-style, democratic regime.

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Democratização,Dimensão internacional democratização,Guerra Fria,Détente