Palacios Cerezales, Diego2025-01-172025-01-172010Palacios Cerezales, D. (2010). Repressive Legacies and the Democratisation of Iberian Police Systems. South European Society and Politics, 15(3), 429–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2010.5136031743-961210.1080/13608746.2010.513603https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/114906Literature on democratisation claims that the dictatorship's police forces are difficult to reform and that modes of transition and authoritarian legacies are linked. It predicts that a continuous transition will leave greater legacies than a discontinuous one. This paper analyses the police reforms during democratisation in Spain and Portugal, comparing them in several dimensions: symbolic changes, demilitarisation, decentralisation, accountability, professionalisation and new service role. In both countries a democratic police was built; yet, contrary to predictions, the Spanish police underwent a faster and deeper reform than the Portuguese, a result explained by the double legacy of dictatorship and revolution in the Portuguese transition, the credibility dilemmas of the Spanish reformers and the impact of regional devolution.engAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/journal articlehttps://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2010.513603open accessPortugalEspañaTransición a la democraciaPolicíaHistoriaPolítica55 Historia59 Ciencia Política