The diffusion of authoritarian models in the era of fascism. An introduction

This book is the first attempt at a systematic approach to how some Iberian dictatorships, and especially the Salazar’s New State in Portugal, appeared to offer an authoritarian third way somewhere between democracy and fascism. How and why did these dictatorships on the periphery of Europe inspire some of these regimes’ new political institutions? This book tackles this issue by adopting a transnational and comparative research design that analyzes the process of institutional reform in selected transitions to authoritarianism in Europe and Latin America. It pays special attention to how, as they proposed and pursued these authoritarian reforms, these domestic political actors also looked at these institutional models as suitable for their own countries.