Events › Voices of the Revolution – Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the April 25, 1974 Democratic Revolution in Portugal - with Paul Manuel and Daniela Melo

Join us for a talk in partnership with the Consulate General of Portugal in Boston on the 50th anniversary of the April 25th, 1974, democratic revolution in Portugal, a watershed event that launched what Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington called the ‘third wave” of global democratization. April 25 had a profound domestic and international impact; it liberated Portugal from dictatorship, opened the path to decolonization and independence of five Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome e Principe), and marked the beginning of the third wave of democratization across the world.

Paul Manuel (Georgetown University) and Daniela Melo (Boston University) will discuss the political, economic and social transformations in Portugal, as well as the international geopolitical and historical context in which the events unfolded. Manuel and Melo are Luso-American political scientists who share a deep interest in the Portuguese case, having both dedicated much of their scholarly output to understanding the political dynamics of the past fifty years in Portugal.

Paul Manuel interviewed twenty-four of the most important protagonists of the revolution in 1990 and 1991, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Those interviews and analysis were collected in the book called Vozes da Revolução: Revisitando o 25 de Abril de 1974, Entrevistas e Estudos [English: Voices of the Revolution: Revisiting the Portuguese Revolution of 25 April 1974] (Lisbon, Tinta da China, 2024). The Portuguese Commission for the Commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April Revolution [Estrutura de Missão para as Comemorações do Quinquagésimo Aniversário da Revolução de 25 de Abril de 1974] has recently honored that book for making a significant historical contribution to the scholarship. 

About the Presenters

Paul Christopher Manuel, Ph.D. is an affiliated professor in the Department Government and at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. He is the author or co-author of twelve books and numerous scholarly articles. His research examines issues related to comparative democratization and religion and politics, especially in a post-transition setting, with an emphasis on Portugal. Manuel is a research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. He is also a local affiliate at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He divides his time between Washington, DC and Cambridge. He holds a Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University.

Daniela Melo, Ph.D. is a lecturer at the College of General Studies at Boston University. She writes and teaches about revolutions and social movements, foreign policy, and European politics. Melo is the author of Outmaneuvering Kissinger: Role Theory, US Intra-Elite Conflict, and the Portuguese Revolution, in Foreign Policy Analysis, The European Union, Executive Politics, and Women’s Movements in Portugal, in MaryAnne Borrelli and Janet Martin (eds.), The Gendered Executive: A Comparative Analysis of Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Chief Executives, published by Temple University Press in 2016; as well as other articles on social movements. Melo and Manuel are currently editing a new volume called After the Carnations: Social Movements in Portugal Since the 25 April Revolution (Liverpool University Press, 2025). It will feature contributions from leading Portuguese social scientists, who reflect on the on-going changes to Portuguese society fifty years after the April 25, 1974, revolution. Melo is also a co-founder/board chair of The New Bedford Light, an innovative digital news outlet in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Connecticut at Storrs.

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