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Most of this book consists of essays published by the author during the period 1976-87. Five present a restatement of Wiaeda’s now-familiar argument that Iberian political culture and social relations are, and have been, characterized by elements of corporatism and organic statism. While the empirical evidence in support of this claim is not entirely persuasive, Wiarda’s discussions of the origins of corporatism thought and the evolution of political and social relations in Spain and Portugal are interesting.

“Since the mid-1970s, beginning with the Portuguese “revolution of Flowers” in 1974 and Franco’s death in 1975, Spain and Portugal have made remarkable strides toward democracy. Scholars and policy officials alike have devoted a great deal of attention to the transition to democracy in Iberia, both in its own right and as a model for other nations in transition to democracy, particularly those in Latin America.”

Howard Wiarda

Howard J. Wiarda is the Dean Rusk Professor of International Relations and Head of the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia.  Much of his career was spent as Professor of Political Science and Comparative Labor Relations, and the Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Iberian and Latin American Studies, at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst.  He retains his positions as Public Policy Scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

During 2001-2002 Professor Wiarda was Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs in Vienna and Visiting Fulbright Research Professor at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary.  In 2002 he was appointed Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University.

Professor Wiarda began his career as a scholar of Latin American politics, and his writings on Latin America, Spain, Portugal and the developing nations are well known in the field.  While continuing these research and writing interests, over the last twenty years his scholarly interests have broadened to include Russia, East/Central Europe, Asia, Western Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, comparative democratization, civil society and general comparative politics and American foreign policy.  He has traveled and done extensive research in all these areas, and his textbooks on foreign policy, comparative politics, and the developing nations, as well as his more scholarly writings, are extensively read, quoted, and cited.  In several surveys he was ranked among the five “most influential” scholars of Latin America in the United States and among the top twenty in the field of Comparative Politics.