Estado Novo

Portugal’s authoritarian regime, formally established in 1933 under António de Oliveira Salazar and overthrown by the Carnation Revolution in 1974.

National Union (Portugal): The political organization that served as the Estado Novo’s sole legal party. It organized regime loyalists while excluding competitive party politics.
First Portuguese Republic: Portugal’s republican regime from 1910 until the military coup of 1926. Its instability and conflicts preceded the authoritarian order that replaced it.
Marcello Caetano: The Portuguese politician who succeeded Salazar as prime minister in 1968 and led the regime until 1974. His limited reforms failed to resolve the regime’s political and colonial crises.
Fascism: A revolutionary ultranationalist political ideology associated with dictatorship, mass mobilization, and political violence. Historians debate how far the Estado Novo shared fascism’s defining features.
Portuguese decolonization: The process by which Portugal relinquished its African and Asian colonies, accelerating after the 1974 revolution. The regime’s collapse ended its resistance to independence across Africa.
Portuguese Constitution of 1933: The constitution that established the institutional framework of Portugal’s Estado Novo. It formalized a corporatist state while limiting political representation.
Coup d'état of 28 May 1926: The military coup that ended Portugal’s First Republic and began an authoritarian dictatorship. It created the dictatorship from which the Estado Novo emerged.
Américo Tomás: The Portuguese admiral who served as president from 1958 until the 1974 revolution. As head of state, he remained a symbol of continuity under Salazar and Caetano.
Salazarism: The conservative authoritarian political doctrine associated with António de Oliveira Salazar. It names the distinctive ideology that shaped the Estado Novo’s institutions and public language.
1975 Portuguese constitutional crisis: The period of intense political and military conflict in Portugal following the 1974 revolution. The revolution opened a turbulent struggle over the political order left behind.

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