Atlas / Organisations / Carnation Revolution
Carnation Revolution
MFA · 1974–1976 · Portugal · Military Democratic · Movement · coding confidence medium
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
A coup by junior officers that ended Europe's longest dictatorship, decolonised an empire and nearly produced a communist state before settling into democracy.
Economic model
Banks, insurance and heavy industry nationalised in 1975; land occupations in the south; most reversed within a decade.
Organisation of powers
A military council governing alongside elected assemblies, resolved by a counter-coup against the far left in November 1975.
Reading note
The only case in this dataset of an army overthrowing a dictatorship and then handing power to elected civilians within two years.
Check a claim about Carnation Revolution. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored −06
Coded −6: banks, insurance and heavy industry nationalised in 1975.
- Documented act or statuteMost nationalisations were reversed within a decade.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored −05
Coded −5: censorship abolished and the secret police dissolved within days.
- Documented act or statuteDivorce, abortion and family law reform followed over the next decade.
AU · Organisation of power · scored +02
Coded +2: a military council governing alongside elected assemblies.
- Documented act or statuteA constituent assembly was elected in April 1975, a year after the coup.
SC · Scale of decision · scored +03
Coded +3: a unitary state that decolonised an empire in two years.
- Documented act or statuteAll African colonies became independent between 1974 and 1975.
ID · Rule of membership · scored −04
Coded −4: around half a million retornados absorbed as citizens.
- Documented act or statuteThe returning settler population arrived within months and was absorbed without a citizenship dispute.
CH · Method and tempo · scored +05
Coded +5: a coup that handed power to elected civilians within two years.
- Documented act or statuteFour people were killed during the coup itself.
Where it came from, and what came after
- was succeeded bySpanish Second Republic
The Iberian republican tradition, interrupted for four decades in both countries.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- Tudeh Party4.1
- Left Populism5.6
- New Jewel Movement6.0
- Sankarism6.2
- La France Insoumise6.6
- Classical Marxism7.2
Countries
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.