'Red osmosis or left -wing deliberation?': Trans -European party linkages, domestic party development, and the democratization proces

Albeit domestic factors play a predominant role in democratic regime emergence and subsequent transitions, what are the spheres of international influence? Is the influence the result of deliberate policies, or rather the osmosis of ideas? Or is it both? In what vital way can domestic political agents participate in trans-European advocacy networks influencing their own institutional development, affecting local elite decision-making, and driving democratization in a given country? This analytic case narrative ponders these essential questions by studying the intricate advocacy networks developed between the Partido Socialista of Portugal and its European socialist brethren.;Applying the insights of the political-determinants conceptual approach and expanding that with fragmented interdependence, linkage and party theories, the dissertation is based on interviews with party officials, a review of first-hand documents and contemporary personal accounts. The study corresponds to three distinct stages of democratic transition: insurgency, internal consolidation, and adaptation. The work assesses the accomplishments and limitations of the comparative democratization scholarship, claims that too much determinism weakened the explanatory rigor of the literature, and contributes to the reexamination of the transition paradigm by looking at the most classic empirical case of Portugal through the most recent methods of agency-driven approach, that of the instrumental role of transnational linkages. The field of international relations also benefits from the extension of "Second Image Reversed" explanation to sub-governmental actors like political parties and elite groups.;The ensuing central thesis is that the ideological and moral support, as well as educational, material, and technical assistance which the Eurosocialists (directly or through their party confederacies and quasi-party foundation) offered their fledgling new member helped make it a viable democratic agent of change, prevailing vis-a-vis the anti-democratic forces in multi-level elections, and allying with military moderates to sustain the transition strictly according to the democratic rules of the game. Confirmation that trans-European advocacy networks were effectively employed to link with domestic institutional development and local elite crafting and convergence are evident in the organizational hierarchy, ideological moderation, alliance tactics, and the rapidly-earned popular legitimacy of the party, which was founded abroad and had no domestic network whatsoever at the outset of the transition. In the post-constitutional period, the Partido Socialista was able to assume a cabinet role at an extraordinary time of politics when path-dependent decisions were made about the establishment of a West-European type of pluralist democracy, about de-colonization and appropriate post-authoritarian de-militarization, about necessary economic compromises, and, ultimately about Portugal's accession to the European Community. Some final thoughts are also spent on possible applicability of findings to other Mediterranean transitions and the post-1989 transformation of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.