Elections under dictatorship: Francoism and the New State in comparative perspective, 1945-1975

This dissertation analyses the elections with a highest census that were held by the Portuguese New State and the Francoism between 1945 and 1975. Social scientists have analysed this type of elections from a functionalist perspective by using the concept of "political competition". On the contrary, historians have paid little attention to them since they consider them to be mere propagandistic farces. Our hypothesis is that these elections not only had a role in the process of institutionalization of both dictatorships. On the contrary, since the mid-sixties, they were part of the failed strategies of those groups that wanted to renew both regimes by adopting liberalizing measures. By using comparative history, we get the following conclusions. Both dictatorships used these elections to facilitate their integration into the International Community emerged after WWII. These votings were an evolution, influenced by fascisms, of the electoral mechanisms emerged in Europe during the 19th century. The single party of each country was responsible for controlling their organization. Even when they did not affect executive positions, they became a useful mechanism for forming second-line political elites in which representatives of all groups that supported them were integrated. From the mid-sixties, the desire to show their ability to evolve, on the one hand, and the real impossibility of liberalizing electoral mechanisms for fear of opening the door to pluralism, on the other, generated strong contradictions within these dictatorships.