These essays offer a retrospective assessment of the transition from dictatorship to representative democracy and on to socialism in the countries of Spain, Portugal and Greece. Examined here are current developments with particular attention paid to the role of the state and social classes in the overthrow of the old dictatorships, the evolution of representative democracy and political parties and the formal integration of these countries into the European Economic Community and the international capitalist system. Among the issues analyzed are whether a domestic bourgeoisie (largely national capital) achieves hegemony and dominance over a comprador bourgeoisie (compromised with foreign capital) and the question of the exceptional capitalist state in a crisis of capital accumulation and political legitimacy and why the exceptional state persists when it faces severe internal contradictions.