portuguese journal of social science: volume: 6 | issue: 3

Portuguese Journal ofSocial Science

Portuguese Journal of Social Science | Volume Six N

umber Three

ISSN 1476-413X

6.3

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Volume Six N

umber Three

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Portuguese Journal of Social Science Volume 6 Number 3 – 2007

Articles

137–146 Open the social sciences: To whom and for what? Michael Burawoy

147–154 ‘Open the social sciences: To whom and for what?’, by Michael Burawoy José Madureira Pinto

155–169 ‘Fascist lackeys’? Dealing with the police’s past during Portugal’s transitionto democracy (1974–1980)

Diego Palacios Cerezales

171–191 From Porto to Portadown: Portuguese workers in Northern Ireland’s labour market

Martin Eaton

193–211 Minority representation in Portuguese democracy André Freire

Review

213–219 Francisco Javier Luque Castillo

221 Index – Volume 6

9 771476 413007

ISSN 1476-413X 6 3

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Portuguese Journal of Social Science

Volume 6 Number 3

The Portuguese Journal of Social Science (PJSS) is an English language, peerreviewed scholarly journal by the Higher Institute for Labour and BusinessStudies (Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e das Empresas – ISCTE), astate-funded university institute located in Lisbon, the largest in Portugal doingsocial science research.

The journal is dedicated primarily to introducing an international readership tothe best work currently being produced by Portuguese scholarship in the social sci-ences. This work – until the publication of PJSS – was only available in Portugueseor was scattered among a variety of different non-Portuguese language journals:much important work – of general interest to the social science commu-nity as wellas of particular interest to specialists in Latin America and southern Europe – hastended until now to be neglected by readers who do not readily read Portuguese orwho do not have access to Portuguese language journals.

While preference will be given to original work, the PJSS will consider excep-tional pieces that have previously been published in languages other thanEnglish. All articles will be submitted to two referees, nominated by the EditorialCommittee, for peer review. The principal academic disciplines covered by thePJSS include anthropology, economics, history, social psychology, sociology,political science and social geography.

Editorial CommitteeJoão Ferreira de AlmeidaMaria Eduardo GonçalvesEmanuel LeãoAntónio Costa PintoJosé Manuel Leite Viegas

Editorial BoardOnésimo T. Almeida – Brown University, USAMaurice Aymard – Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, FranceMichael Billig – Loughborough University, UKRobert Boyer – CEPREMAP, Paris, FranceWillem Doise – University of Geneva, SwitzerlandSchmuel Eisenstadt – Hebrew University of Jerusalem, IsraelMichael Herzfeld – Harvard University, USAMax Kaase – International University Bremen, GermanyKenneth Maxwell – Harvard University, USAPhillipe C. Schmitter – European University Institute, FlorenceLady Margaret Sharp – University of Sussex, UKVerena Stolcke – Autonomous University of Barcelona, SpainGilberto Velho – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, BrazilStuart Woolf – University of Venice, ItalyLeonardo Morlino – University of Florence, ItalyMichael Burawoy – University of California, Berkeley, USA

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Almeida, J. Ferreira de (1982), Classessociais nos campos: camponeses parciais numaregião do noroeste, 2 vols., Lisbon: ICS.

Amâncio, L. (1997), ‘The importance ofbeing male: Ideology and context in genderIdentities’, Revue Internationale de PsychologieSociale, no. 2, pp. 79–94.

Pinto, A. Costa (ed.), (1998), ModernPortugal, Palo Alto: Society for thePromotion of Science and Scholarship.

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Portuguese Journal of Social Science Volume 6 Number 3. © Intellect Ltd 2007.

Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/pjss.6.3.137/1

Open the social sciences: To whom andfor what?*Michael Burawoy University of California

AbstractThe Gulbenkian Commission Report (1996) on the restructuring of the social sci-ences disavowed anachronistic disciplinary divisions, Western universalism andmethodological positivism, and instead proposed the unification of all scientificknowledge under what it called ‘pluralistic universalism’. It exposed its own scholas-ticism, however, in failing to address for whom and for what is scientific knowledgeproduced. With these two questions as points of departure, this article develops a dis-ciplinary division of labour, and thereby distinguishes among professional, policy,public and critical knowledge. Examining the form and relations among these fourtypes of knowledge allows one to recognise the real basis of divergences among disci-plines, and within disciplines across nations and history. A global perspective on thesocial sciences today examines the specific responses to market fundamentalismfrom different disciplines and different places in the world system.

It is exactly ten years since the Gulbenkian Commission published itsreport on the restructuring of the social sciences. Chaired by ImmanuelWallerstein, the Commission consisted of ten distinguished scholars fromthe natural sciences, humanities and the social sciences. Their report,Open the Social Sciences, was widely publicised throughout the world asinnovative, pointing towards a future that would dissolve outdated discipli-nary divisions within the social sciences, while making their unificationthe locus of an ambitious reconciliation of the humanities and natural sci-ences. The Commission attributed the backwardness of the social sciencesto a lingering attachment to ideas, methodologies and divisions thatmarked their birth in the 19th century. These antiquated notions, theCommission noted, began to break down after 1945 laying the founda-tions for an anticipated integration of all scientific knowledge. Driving thisrupture with the past would be the rational development of social science,unhindered by false epistemologies and vested interests.

The Commission flattered scientific knowledge with its own autonomoushistory. For such autonomy is illusory – a distorted expression of the privi-leged existence that prevails only at the pinnacle of Western academe, andof little relevance to most social scientists, embedded in contexts increas-ingly driven by what I call third-wave marketisation. The GulbenkianCommission was the project of an elite cut off not only from the actual

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Keywordssocial scienceGulbenkian

Commissionpublic sociologypolicy sociologycritical sociologyprofessional sociology

PJSS 6 (3) 137–146 © Intellect Ltd 2007

* This is a revisedversion of the lectureto the PortugueseSociologicalAssociation deliveredat the University ofLisbon’s Institute ofSocial Science (ICS-UL) on 30 March2006. I would like tothank João Ferreira deAlmeida, ElisioEstanque, José VirgilioPereira, JoséMadureira Pinto,Boaventura de SousaSantos and AnáliaTorres for theircomments.

PJSS-6-3-01-Burawoy 3/15/08 2:18 PM Page 137

practice of the social sciences, but also from the real world problemsthose sciences are designed to investigate: not to mention from the peopleaffected by those problems. Rather than opening the social sciences,the Gulbenkian Commission was effectively closing them off, not only tothe global south but also to most of the global north. Head stuck in thesand, the Commission was disarming the social sciences as it faces search-ing challenges to its viability.

Settling accounts with the Gulbenkian Commission is long overdue.We need to rethink the social sciences, not from the top down but from theground up, rooting them in the multiple contexts of their production. Weneed to dispense with imaginary utopias divorced from everyday practicesand explore the concrete division of labour within and between the socialsciences. We cannot quarantine the social sciences, refusing their dissec-tion for fear of disturbing a hornet’s nest. We cannot exempt ourselvesfrom the investigative eye we so gleefully turn upon others. If sociology, inparticular, can disclose to others the public issues that underlie theirprivate troubles, why can it not do the same for itself, turning privateantagonisms into public debate. To transcend the divisions that divide us,or, at least, turn those divisions in a constructive direction, we have totrace them to different locations and trajectories within and through thescientific field. Spelling out the parameters and dimensions, the patterns ofdomination and interdependence within and among scientific fieldsshould foster a more effective presence in the world beyond.

We begin, therefore, by endorsing the Gulbenkian Commission’s identifi-cation of three problems that beset the social sciences, and the Commission’sidentification of three corresponding empirical trends. We then reinterpretthose trends not from the rafters of the ivory tower but from the groundedlaboratories of social science production – laboratories understood as fieldsof force operating in a world historical context.

Three problems, three trends and a totalising utopiaThe Gulbenkian Commission identified three significant issues that mustbe at the heart of any rethinking of the social sciences: (1) the false uni-versalism of Western thought that had underpinned the social sciences;(2) the anachronistic division of the social sciences divided by their objectsof knowledge; and (3) a misguided positivist methodology that still domi-nated the practice of the social sciences.

These three problems were corroborated and accentuated by three cor-responding historical tendencies identified by the Gulbenkian Commission.First, feminism, anti-racism and anti-colonial thinking attacked the socialsciences as universalising the experiences of particular societies, namelyEurope and the United States, and even more narrowly of hegemonicgroups within these societies. Second, the advance of inter-disciplinaryprogrammes and journals as well as area studies signalled the anachro-nism of divisions within the social sciences, divisions only maintained byretrograde disciplinary organisations. Third, narrow positivist methodology,

138 Michael Burawoy


based on an imagination of Newtonian physics, with its predictable futureand reversible time, no longer pertained in the natural sciences, whichexhibited striking convergences with cultural studies in a common hostil-ity to simple explanatory frameworks. Together, natural sciences and cul-tural studies pointed to a new social scientific epistemology.

The Gulbenkian Commission’s crowning proposal was to unify discipli-nary knowledge within which the social sciences, now combined into asingle historical science, would be the field of reconciliation of the naturalsciences and the humanities. With all fruitless oppositions therebyresolved, the social sciences would march forward under the banner of anunspecified ‘pluralistic universalism’. Paradoxically, this was not a movebeyond, but a programmatic return to the ambitions of 19th centurypositivism – the unification of all scientific knowledge. We hear nothingabout how and where this new knowledge will be produced. Nor do wehear for whom this knowledge will be produced, nor for what ends.Instead we have an abstract and totalising utopia that reflects the con-cerns of Western academics, perched high up in the ivory tower, seeminglyunaware that the fortress beneath them – supporting them – was undersiege. We need to transport the Gulbenkian Commission out of its ivorytower, and bring the Commissioners down from heaven to earth. We needto start with the actual relations of the material production of knowledge,recognising how they vary by time and place. To advance the social sci-ences, I shall argue, we must not dissolve them, but create alliances bothamong them and between them and the public, around shared projects –alliances stitched together from below rather than imposed programmati-cally from above.

Knowledge for whom? Knowledge for what?The Gulbenkian Commission suppressed two questions that provide a nec-essary foundation for re-envisioning the practice and project of the socialsciences in the light of the tasks they face today. The two questions are:knowledge for whom?; and knowledge for what? In the context of scientificproduction we ask, first, whether knowledge is for an academic audienceor an extra-academic audience: that is, whether as social scientists we talkto one another or to others. We ask, second, whether the knowledge con-cerns the determination of the appropriate means to pursue a given,taken-for-granted end, or whether it involves a discussion of those veryends themselves: that is whether the knowledge is instrumental orwhether it is reflexive.

This gives rise to four types of knowledge that define a scientific field.Policy knowledge is knowledge in the service of problems defined by clients.This is, first and foremost, an instrumental relation in which expertise isrendered in exchange for material or symbolic rewards. It depends uponpre-existing scientific knowledge. This professional knowledge involves theexpansion of research programmes that are based on certain assumptions,questions, methodologies and theories that advance through solving

139Open the social sciences: To whom and for what?


external anomalies or resolving internal contradictions. It is instrumentalknowledge because puzzle-solving takes for granted the defining parame-ters of the research programme. Critical knowledge is precisely the exami-nation of the assumptions, often the value assumptions, of researchprogrammes, opening them up for discussion and debate within the com-munity of scholars. This is reflexive knowledge, in that it involves dialogueabout the value relevance of the scientific projects we pursue. Finally,public knowledge is also reflexive – dialogue between the scientist or scholarand the public beyond the academy, dialogue around questions of societalgoals but also, as a subsidiary moment, the means for achieving thosegoals. The result is the following matrix.

Division of disciplinary knowledge

Academic audience Extra-academic audience

Instrumental knowledge Professional PolicyReflexive knowledge Critical Public

This matrix forms a division of disciplinary knowledge in which the fourtypes of knowledge are fundamentally different practices, with differentcriteria of truth, modes of legitimation, notions of politics, regimes ofaccountability and pathological tendencies. This division defines a scien-tific field as a pattern of domination and inter-dependence among the fourdifferent types of knowledge. In this view, what distinguishes the naturalsciences from the humanities is the former’s emphasis on instrumentalknowledge that is a concern with the development of scientific researchand its applications and the latter’s focus on reflexive knowledge: that is, aconcern with dialogue about meaning, the fundamental values of society.The social sciences are not the reconciliation of natural sciences andhumanities, as the Gulbenkian Commission hoped; rather they lie at thecrossroads of these two opposed bodies of knowledge. That is, the socialsciences contain within them the contradictions and challenges of com-bining instrumental and reflexive knowledge. From this perspective, thecommitment to methodological positivism represents the professional self-misunderstanding of the nature of social science that sees it as valueneutral and context-free, which reduces the four-fold division of discipli-nary knowledge to a single quadrant.

We can now turn to the second ill that was emphasised by GulbenkianCommission – the changing relation among the social sciences. In terms ofour scheme, the separate social sciences are marked by different configu-rations and balance among the different types of knowledge. In the UnitedStates, the paradigmatic social science of economics is marked by the dom-ination of instrumental knowledge while, say, cultural anthropologyweights reflexivity more heavily. Political science is closer to economics,while sociology is closer to anthropology. More fundamentally, however,because of the importance of reflexivity, the social sciences should be

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distinguished by their configuration of value stances, or what we mightcall their standpoint. Economics takes as its standpoint the market and itsexpansion, political science takes as its standpoint the state and politicalorder, while sociology takes the standpoint of civil society and theresilience of the social. Cultural anthropology and human geography arepotential allies in the defence of civil society. It would, of course, be amistake to homogenise disciplines as each is a field of power with subal-tern groupings that challenge the dominant standpoint of the discipline.Still, it would be no less an error to overlook the different interests thatdivide the disciplines.

At the same time, we must not forget the importance of inter-disciplinaryor trans-disciplinary programmes that, at least in the United States, wereborn out of the eruptions of society in the 1960s, and continue to maintainclose relations with their distinctive publics. They are not harbingers of somenew unity of the social sciences or of the social sciences with the humanities,but, more usually, their appearance and then their persisting marginalityreflect the overweening power of the disciplines. Indeed, the dissolution ofdisciplinary boundaries and the unification of the social sciences could onlybe real in a totalitarian world in which there are no longer divisions amongstate, economy and society. In present-day capitalism, a unification of thedisciplines would be artificial and coercive. It would necessarily reflectthe domination of the market economy and thus be the incorporation of thesocial sciences under the hegemony of neo-classical economics.

We have discussed two of the issues identified by the GulbenkianCommission, the limits of methodological positivism and the relation amongthe social sciences, and it remains only to consider the question of universal-ism. In criticising the false universalism of European social sciences, theGulbenkian Commission created a new and elusive category – pluralistic uni-versalism. We, however, approach the problem of universalism and pluralismmore concretely – universalistic questions with particularistic answers. Ourtwo questions, knowledge for whom and knowledge for what, generate fourtypes of knowledge that provide a general frame for expressing variations inand inter-connections among local, national and regional divisions of discipli-nary labour. It enables us not only to specify the differences among disci-plines, but also the concrete manifestation of disciplines in different historicaltimes and geographical places. The rest of this article focuses on sociology, butit applies equally, I would argue, to other disciplines.

The contribution of the semi-periphery: the case ofPortuguese sociologyAt one pole of national variation stands US sociology with its elaborateprofessionalisation, rooted in an enormously diverse and steeply hierarchi-cal system of higher education. Professional knowledge did not alwaysdominate US sociology. Indeed, in its late 19th century origins US sociology,like so many other sociologies in their inception, was predominantly publicin character, impassioned by social injustice and a champion of moral



reform. Indeed, in part because it had a more radical and public agenda, in1905 it broke with the American Economics Association within which ithad developed. As the 20th century unfolded, however, sociology under-went its own professionalisation, becoming ever more inner directed as itcompeted with the other social sciences for a permanent place in the aca-demic hierarchy. With notable exceptions, such as Edward A. Ross, sociol-ogists removed themselves from the public eye as they became moreoriented to their peers.

The field of sociology has a different disciplinary configuration in othercountries, reflecting different historical trajectories, patterns of higher edu-cation and relations among economy, state and civil society. Thus,Scandinavian sociology possesses a strong policy moment compatible withthe demands of a welfare state. The sociology of some Soviet regimes, suchas Poland and Hungary, were marked by a subterranean critical moment.Authoritarian regimes, such as those of South Africa and Brazil that fell to aburgeoning civil society developed a powerful public sociology. Along theselines the division of labour in Portuguese sociology is especially interesting.

As a late developer, sociology in Portugal shows an especially vibrantrelation among the four types of knowledge. Portuguese sociology began inearnest towards the end of the Salazar dictatorship and really took off onlyafter 1974. Entering so late, it could borrow from the traditions of profes-sional and critical knowledge in other countries, especially from France andthe United States. This was no mechanical adoption, however, but an imag-inative adaptation to the Portuguese circumstances – circumstances thatcalled on sociology not only to tackle questions of policy, but also to foster asocietal self-consciousness. With alacrity, sociology took up the challenge toreconstitute the very social fabric of post-revolutionary Portugal.

Some 30 years after the dictatorship sociology is still very much in thepublic eye. Sociologists are regular commentators in the media: newspa-pers, television and radio. Extended lecture series on sociology haveappeared on public radio. Especially interesting are the open city confer-ences organised by the Portuguese Sociological Association, which bringsociologists into dialogue and debate both with one another and withdiverse publics about local and national issues. Sociology’s high profile canbe attributed, at least in part, to the duality of professional sociology. Asociology degree is not merely a stepping-stone to some other degree butprovides a meaningful identity and distinct occupation in all manner oforganisations: in municipalities, schools, trade unions, media and so forth.In other words, sociologists are professionals not just in the academy orresearch institutes, but in all realms of state and civil society.

Its close association with ‘socialist’ governments has advanced sociol-ogy’s policy and public roles. Sociologists have entered the political arena asministers, parliamentary deputies, trade union leaders and at all levels ofthe civil service, while those who remained in the academy became advi-sors to the leaders of the country from the president down. Entry into theEuropean Union in 1985 gave rise to a new impetus for policy sociology –

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an avalanche of demands for mapping patterns of inequality, poverty, edu-cation, and for diagnoses of social problems from drugs, to prisons tomental health. The research is well-financed, but has to be delivered speed-ily and according to detailed specifications. Still, this policy science thenbecomes a potential vehicle for public discussion and the impetus for morein-depth research. Policy sociology reverberates into and energises allarenas of sociology.

Underpinning both public and policy sociology is a strong professionalsociology. I have already noted how the Portuguese Sociological Associationrepresents a certain civic professionalism. It is also particularly robust. Ithas 2000 members, which in a society of ten million, represents a densitymore than three times that of the United States. Moreover, sociology istaught in universities and in high schools across the country. There are anumber of dynamic research centres, including those within the universi-ties of Lisbon, Oporto and Coimbra as well as ISCTE: a founding centre ofPortuguese sociology and a university unto itself.

Institutionally robust, especially for a small semi-peripheral country,the actual practice of Portuguese sociology has also a distinctive character.Reflecting and reinforcing the permeable boundaries between sociologyand society is a proclivity towards ethnographic research – research that,by definition, is at the interface of the academic and the public. Unlike themajority of participant observation studies in the United States, whichhave been steadfastly micro and ahistorical and riveted to the ethno-graphic present, Portuguese ethnography – whether of urban or ruralareas, whether of family or of work – lays bare micro-processes in order togauge the character of the wider Portuguese society and its transforma-tions. Indeed, ethnographic sites are regularly revisited and restudied tomark such historical change.

Just as the dividing lines between professional, policy and public sociol-ogy are quite blurred, similarly we cannot compartmentalise critical soci-ology. Whether it flows from the French lineages of Touraine and Bourdieuor from the American lineages of Wallerstein and Wright, critical sociol-ogy is intimately bound up with professional and public sociology. The rel-atively recent re-emergence of Portuguese society and the close linksbetween Portugal and the global south, especially ties to Africa and LatinAmerica inherited from the colonial era, have given a rare dynamism tothe critical-public nexus, ranging from the emancipatory projects of theWorld Social Forum to international feminist projects to Bourdieu-stylecritiques of social domination and symbolic violence.

To what can we attribute the multiple and fluid connections amongthe four types of sociology? To what extent is Portugal replicating the samerelatively undifferentiated character that can be found in all newly emer-gent sociologies? To what extent are we seeing the vibrancy of youth, towhat extent the legacy of a peculiar history and to what extent the effectsof a particular place in the world order? How did opposition to the colonialwar and dictatorship create the grounds for a flourishing sociology, whether



by preparing intellectuals in exile or the formation of a critical intelligentsiaat home? Did those same historical experiences lead to a self-consciousplacement within a global division of sociological labour, connecting criti-cal voices in both north and south? Will its distinctive connection tosociety and as a meeting place of intellectual currents from the world overbe threatened if Portuguese sociology becomes more professionalised andits public become more cynical? Will the growing importance of policyscience, pressures from European Union for standardisation – the Bolognaprocess – the hegemonic currency of English draw sociology away from itslocal roots and concerns? Can Portuguese sociology manage to maintainits global profile without at the same time losing its national distinctive-ness? Indeed, can it develop its specificity through its global connections?To situate the promise and the challenge of Portuguese sociology, andindeed other sociologies of the semi-periphery, in an international contextis my final task in this brief commentary.

The spectre of third-wave marketisationUndoubtedly, Portuguese sociology is a product of its own history andcontext that led to the selective appropriation of sociology from elsewhere,but its late development also expresses something more general – thepotentiality of what I call third-wave sociology.

Sociology has gone through three waves. Its first wave emanated fromEurope. It was a response to the first wave of marketisation that threatenedthe existence of the labouring classes, which, in turn, sought to install anddefend labour rights with trade unions, co-operatives, utopian communitiesand political parties. This burgeoning civil society of the 19th centurygrounded the first wave of sociology: a sociology with strong utopian flavour.

Second-wave sociology had its epicentre in the United States andstretched from the First World War until the breakdown of the communistregimes. It corresponded to second-wave marketisation, which began inthe late 19th century, was interrupted, and then burst forth again in the1920s and 1930s, provoking reactions from nation-states that assumedthe forms of fascism, Stalinism, social democracy and, in the United States,the New Deal. In each case the state sought to protect society from themarket through the (real or putative) guarantee of social rights. Sociology,where it was allowed to exist, tried to strike a collaborative relation withthe state. Professional-academic sociology in the United States was given aboost by policy science, whether the latter served foundations or thefederal government. At a global level this second-wave sociology lastedsymbolically until the last vestiges of planned economies had dissolved,although in the West the assault on policy sociology began much earlierwith Thatcher and Reagan. From then on states became more inhospitableto sociology and its project to defend and invigorate civil society. Statesinstead began to nurture the expansion of the market together with anoffensive against civil society. Economics became the favoured socialscience – in some countries more than others.

144 Michael Burawoy


Sociology has now entered its third wave, a reaction to third-wave mar-ketisation, more popularly known as neo-liberalism, and more euphemisti-cally as globalisation. In the present era, defending civil society throughnational social policy becomes less viable, and so sociology turns increas-ingly to the public for its audience, not only on a national scale but also ona local and global scale. With third-wave marketisation’s assault onnational civil societies, with the retrenchment of labour and social rights,sociology’s task in its third wave, I argue, lies in the defence of humanrights (which includes labour and social rights) through the organisationof a civil society of global proportions. This third-wave sociology does notemanate from the advanced capitalist societies of the north, but from thecountries of the south – latecomers to sociology. Countries that look bothto the south and to the north, countries such as South Africa, Brazil andPortugal become the fertile ground of a new publicly oriented sociology:the epicentre of third-wave sociology.

The impetus for a third-wave sociology with its valorisation of publicsociology may spring from such semi-peripheral countries as Portugal, butit must still operate under the hegemony of the United States and WesternEurope. The sociologies of these countries of advanced capitalism, especiallythe United States, command enormous influence, prestige and resourceswithin the context of global sociology, and thereby shape the possible reali-sation of public sociology on a world scale. It becomes especially important,therefore, that alternative models for the division of sociological labour,such as the one found in contemporary Portugal, gain recognition andsupport within the United States for example, where sociologists think theirdisciplinary model is the only one, and where those with critical and publicintent are overpowered by professional sociology. Third-wave sociologymust sweep back against the ramparts of second-wave sociology.

We can now restore the Gulbenkian Commission to its historical contextand recognise the source of its myopia. Even though it was written only tenyears ago the Commission’s academic detachment still reflected the periodof second-wave marketisation in which state regulated capitalism protectedthe autonomy of universities and their disciplines. But this era has passedas states are bent on fostering markets – the commodification of researchand the privatisation of higher education – and subjecting the academy topolitical surveillance. The confidence in the resilience of academic auton-omy, taken for granted by the Commission, now looks sadly misplaced asuniversities across the globe come under assault from state and market. Solong as the social sciences are differentially implicated in this offensive theirunification becomes more remote and the proposals of the GulbenkianCommission more utopian. In an important sense, we are, ironically,returning to the laissez-faire world of the 19th century and what seemed tothe Commissioners to be an anachronistic past is now a haunting present.

The Gulbenkian Commission’s linear history – social science before1945, after 1945 converging on a unified historical science – has to bereplaced by a combined and uneven history. By its silence about the very



different conditions that pertain in different parts of the world, theCommission assumes that all nations pass through the same phases ofdevelopment at the same time. This is obviously far from true. Selectiveborrowings (and rejections) of knowledge from advanced countriescombine with indigenous forms and conditions to produce distinctivenational configurations of the division of disciplinary labour – configura-tions that vary by geo-political region as well as by historical period.

Today these national specificities develop in the context of third-wavemarketisation, a phenomenon that creates divisions not only among coun-tries but also among disciplines. Thus, economics and political sciencehave provided ideologies to justify third-wave marketisation although, torepeat, neither discipline is a homogeneous field, but is internally dividedinto dominant and subordinate segments, a division that varies betweencountries. Sociology, cultural anthropology and human geography, on theother hand, have defended civil society against markets and states,although these disciplines, too, are more or less invaded by economics and,moreover, mere promotion of civil society can often buttress the power ofstate and market. Even if the configuration of the social sciences looks dif-ferent in different societies, we can still surmise that third-wave marketisa-tion is more likely to polarise than unify the social sciences.

To conclude, from the stand-point of opposition to third-wave marketi-sation, there is now real urgency to open the social sciences. That is, toopen them first to reflexive thinking that thematises their relation to thevalues and purposes of society, and second to extra-academic audiences, inparticular publics, and especially those publics threatened with the erosionof autonomy and voice. By virtue of their history and their place in themodern world system, social scientists of the semi-periphery are pointingthe way forward – not retreating behind the walls of academe, but advanc-ing into the trenches of civil society. Countries with older and more estab-lished disciplines would do well to take note of their example.

ReferencesWallerstein, I., Juma, C., Keller, E.F., Kocka, J., Lecourt, D., Mudkimbe, V.Y.,

Miushakoji, K., Prigogine, I., Taylor, P.J. and Trouillot, M.-R. (1996), Open thesocial sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the restructuring of thesocial sciences, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Suggested citationBurawoy, M. (2007), ‘Open the social sciences: To whom and for what?’, Portuguese

Journal of Social Science 6 (3): 137–46, doi: 10.1386/pjss.6.3.137/1

Contributor detailsMichael Burawoy is a sociologist in the Department of Sociology at the Universityof California, Berkeley. His interests are in work organisation and working classconsciousness under capitalism and socialism. Contact: Michael Burawoy,Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley. CA 94720, USA.Tel: +1 510 643 1958. Fax: +1 510 642 0659.E-mail: [email protected]

146 Michael Burawoy


Commentary


Review article. English language. doi: 10.1386/pjss.6.3.147/4

‘Open the social sciences: To whom andfor what?’, by Michael BurawoyJosé Madureira Pinto Institute of Sociology of the Faculty

of Arts, University of Porto

AbstractThis text tries to demonstrate that Portuguese sociology has been built on a set ofvirtuous relations between four poles of sociological activity: the theoretical prob-lematisation pole, the observational research pole, the reflexivity pole and the pro-fessionalisation pole. It is suggested that this specific dynamic was favoured by aseries of political-institutional and organisational conditions (the dominance of acritical/applied rationalism in university training, the active role of the PortugueseSociological Association in the promotion of a creative interaction between acade-mics and ‘field professionals’, the political engagement of Portuguese sociologists,the relatively successful opening-up of the labour market to professionally trainedsociologists, etc.) The text is, of course, punctuated with comments – largely con-cordant, but sometimes critical – on Michael Burawoy’s theses about the evolu-tion and specificity of Portuguese sociology and the need to re-invent publicsociology and reformulate the scientific agenda of the discipline.

IPortuguese sociology started to take shape as a project of autonomous dis-ciplinary affirmation about 40 years ago. The argument that will be devel-oped here, in close dialogue with the positions taken by Michael Burawoyon the same issue, is that if this project had been achieved with a significantdegree of overall success, this was due to a set of circumstances which canbe analysed by means of the relations indicated in Figure 1 below.1

The vertices of the square represent four poles of activity which, interact-ing with one another in the form of a virtuous tension, have in our view stim-ulated a qualifying dynamic in the field of Portuguese sociology. They are:

1. the theoretical problematisation pole (T), representing the set of effortswhich, in the scientific domain in question, seek to encourage theoret-ical updating and discussion in a systematic way;

147

KeywordsPortuguese sociologyPortuguese

sociologicalassociation

applied rationalismpublic sociologysocial interventionsociological training


* The commentarystatus of this articlemeant that its authorcould not developmore fully someangles of theevolution ofPortuguese sociology,which could havebetter accommodatedthe positionssupported here. For amore thorough study,see (Pinto 2007,Chap. II), whichincludes the analysisof Michael Burawoy’stheses on the need to

PJSS-6-3-02-Pinto 3/15/08 2:19 PM 7

2. the observational research pole (O),relating to the analysis of concretesocial situations through theoreti-cally and methodologically informedprocedures for gathering and pro-cessing empirical information;

3. the reflexivity pole (R), embracingcritical and self-critical questioningon positions of principle and founda-tions of the methodological-theoreti-cal options and technical operationsrequired by sociological work;

4. the professionalisation pole (P), over-determined by the demands of socialintervention in relatively circumscribed ‘practical’ contexts and incontact with specific ‘lay publics’.

From the standpoint of scientific progress in sociology, we consider thatrather than developing each of these poles independently, it is above allimportant to create conditions prone to exploring on a permanent basisthe connections they can establish with one another. Such conditions willinclude, as we shall see, both the dissemination of predispositions and intel-lectual instruments of a certain kind, and a series of political-institutionaland organisational requisites.

IIThe TO and OT vectors represent two fundamental components of scientificwork and together they correspond to what Michael Burawoy regards asthe distinctive outlines of professional sociology (academic sociology), takenas the place which guarantees the sustainable affirmation of a specific sci-entific point of view and the institutional consolidation of a discipline.

The TO relation represents the epistemological principle which inPortuguese sociology has been termed, coherently with its critical perspec-tive on the empiricist model of knowledge, the command function oftheory in scientific research. Meanwhile, the reciprocal relation (OTvector) indicates the demand – which is also a genetic mark and persistentambition of the ‘scientific spirit’ – to confront interpretative hypothesesraised by the movement of theoretical problematisation with the results ofobservational research of real social situations.

This engagement in controlled systematic observational tasks has beenone of the most important factors in the development of Portuguese soci-ology, not just because it involves the ‘progressive’ reformulation of theo-retical frames of reference (countering the ‘normalising’ tendency ofparadigmatic affirmation), but because it is a sort of reserve ready to actagainst formalist theoreticism. The fact that research on concrete situa-tions has been instituted in Portuguese universities as an essential condi-tion for earning academic degrees and gaining scientific credit has

reformulate thescientific agenda ofsociology (Burawoy2005).

1 The fact that MichaelBurawoy himselffrequently makes useof this kind of graphicdevices in his textswas an incentive toopt for this solution.

148 José Madureira Pinto

Figure 1: Activity dynamics grid.

PJSS-6-3-02-Pinto 3/15/08 2:19 PM Page 148

undoubtedly played a significant role in ensuring that the movement rep-resented by the vector in question has been in effective operation inPortuguese sociology for decades.

IIIIt is widely agreed by authors engaged in the analysis of the origins of theinstitutionalisation of Portuguese sociology that its protagonists partici-pated and invested strongly in the epistemological debate (always political,to some extent) which, since the mid-1960s particularly, agitated the fieldof the social sciences as a whole. It has equally been noted in whatmeasure this ‘virtue’ actually arose out of ‘necessity’ (as so often occurs insocial life): in this case, in a country without sociology there was a needfor the group of candidate sociologists (coming from a wide diversity of dis-ciplinary areas) to promptly and justifiably reconvert their original univer-sity training.

Having adopted a highly critical perspective in relation to the principlesand procedures of a predominantly empiricist nature (then still very muchingrained in this field of knowledge) and unreservedly accepting that thescientific approach of social phenomena always contains a reference tovalues and never exempts itself from the effects of partly insurmountabletheoretical-ideological conflicts, the heritage of reflections which was beingconsolidated from this time (RT and RO vectors) found fertile ground fordissemination among apprentices and practitioners of sociology, first atgraduate level and afterwards in postgraduate university courses.

Critical rationalism, as an epistemological model and as a practicalprinciple for producing knowledge, managed to assert itself as dominantstream, notwithstanding the influence that ‘post-modernist’ hypercriti-cism, and, at the other extreme, some positivist manifestations came toexert in certain sectors of Portuguese sociology. On the other hand, an(epistemologically non-ingenuous) opening-up to theoretical pluralismwas being imposed on the domestic scientific community, and this was stillanchored in the ‘cultural goodwill’ of the first apprentices.

The rate at which several works on epistemology and methodology,guided simultaneously by the critique of empiricism and a prudent demar-cation vis-à-vis hypercriticism, are being republished is in itself a fair indi-cator of the degree of dissemination of the ‘automatisms of reflexivity’(even if there is in this expression a contradiction in terms) in the socio-logical practice of successive generations of Portuguese sociologists. But tomake a deeper assessment of the virtuous effects of these automatisms, itis worthwhile to bear in mind the agility with which extensive and inten-sive analytical methodologies intersect in Portuguese sociology – theformer, particularly prone to characterising the structural conditionings ofsocial practices, and the latter, close to the ethnographic observation pole,more able to highlight relevant details and singularities.

Accepting this view leads us to believe, in light of the distinction proposedby Michael Burawoy in the lecture commented on here, that in Portugal

149‘Open the social sciences: To whom and for what?’, by Michael Burawoy


critical sociology has been somewhat subsumed and embedded in profes-sional (academic) sociology. It has therefore lost some of its useful meaningas an autonomous arena for sociological production. We could go evenfurther, and say that it is precisely because of its mode of acting in practice,that is to say, as an operator of sociologists’ professional habitus, both in the-oretical discussion and above all in observational research, that the criticalperspective in sociology has become really effective. The TR and OR vectors(symmetrical to the previous ones) represent precisely the containmenteffect of the ‘abstract’ hypercriticism made possible by (critically embedded)sociological practice. They also indicate why the agenda of the critiqueof sociology is still essentially marked among us by (tacitly critical . . .)academic sociology.

IVAnother pertinent, and to some extent, original, aspect of Portuguese sociol-ogy is undoubtedly the connection and reciprocal interaction, which occurbetween the academic world and professional practice in (extra-academic)organisations, in which the aims of social intervention tend to surpass thoseof scientific interpretation/validation.

The adjustment between these two worlds is represented in the squareby the OP/PO and TP/PT vectors. It is due, as Michael Burawoy properlynotes, to the importance reached early on in shaping the field of sociology,by the characterisation and promotion (mostly through the PortugueseSociological Association) of a professional culture among sociologists as aculture that associated ‘science’ and ‘practice’. The popularity of postgrad-uate training among ‘professionals’ has also operated in favour of the con-vergence of working interests and environments mentioned earlier.

VThe reflexivity pole (R), in its essentially methodological and meta-theoreticalcomponents (reflexive knowledge directed overwhelmingly at academicaudiences, that is, critical knowledge according to Burawoy), has alwaysbeen responsible for establishing certain criteria to protect scientific workfrom coarse bias (here, every adjective is in a sense inadequate, and has tobe considered in relation to what the results of scientific practice indicate asprovisionally acceptable in the corresponding field of knowledge). But thereis nothing to stop it from also playing an active role in the definition –subject to public scrutiny, and not only to the one of experts and peers – ofthe relevant domains (problems) to be appropriately explored by scientificwork (public knowledge).

But if the idea can be ventured here that Portuguese sociology exhibitssome comparative advantages in relation to other national contexts, thenthis is because it has, from the very start, ‘naturally’ incorporated into itsnormal activity (particularly in mainstream academic sociology) both thepolitical dimension of reflexivity and a open-minded nearing to the speci-ficities of social intervention (P).



As already suggested, the professionalisation pole of Portuguese sociol-ogy is characterised by more than the fact that it has been constituted asan informed repository of academic knowledge (represented by TP and OPvectors). Indeed, it has also contributed positively to the reformulation ofthe theoretical agenda of the discipline (renewal of the relevant ‘sociologi-cal problems’) and of the answers to questions on the meaning of sociologi-cal knowledge – ‘sociology: to whom and for what?’

All the limitations that social intervention professionals have to copewith are known. These limitations arise largely from the need to findurgent answers, ‘on the ground’, to extremely complicated situations ofsocial dysfunction, whose structural causes are ‘remote’ and to somedegree ‘inevitable’. Even so, it must be stressed that, when it concernsthe active involvement of professionals who keep fairly strong links withthe centres of sociological academic production and reflexivity, the profes-sional work of sociologists can give important contributions to scientificadvancement. Particularly, it can allow the public statement of socialproblems bereft of any audible spokesperson, and thereby enable the iden-tification of innovative lines of theoretical problematisation (PT), the revi-sion of the accumulated empirical knowledge about societies (PO) andeven the critique of the ‘abstract’ hypercriticism of certain sociologicalreflexivity exercises (PR).

But the ‘entry’ of public knowledge into the square of Portuguese sociol-ogy has not been achieved via the professionalisation pole alone. It hasalso come about, as has been mentioned in passing already, from the waythe political dimension of reflexivity was incorporated early on into theregular activity of producing knowledge aimed basically at peers. Havingmade its appearance in an intellectual context in which the wish toquestion, sociologically, the social reality was an almost obvious extensionof the wish to put the dictatorship in check, virtually no issue on theembryonic sociological agenda in the early 1970s escaped some form ofpoliticisation.

Marxism, as both an analytical tool and as an instrument of system-atic criticism of the explicit or implicit assumptions of the sociologicalframeworks prevailing at the time, was undeniably the most widely dis-seminated ingredient of the politicised stance – and consequently opento public discussion on the meaning and ethical-political relevance ofits knowledge content – which Portuguese sociology adopted since itsbirth. And the fact that, contrary to what happened in other nationalcontexts, the presence of Marxism in the university teaching of sociologyremained and spread (albeit indirectly, through other theoretical frame-works: critical theory, theory of practice, etc.) has ensured that the disci-pline still retains a measure of analytical-interpretative non-conformism(in light of the inevitable trends towards paradigmatic standardisationappearing in the field) in how Portuguese society and the proper posi-tion of sociology as an instrument of intervention and social change arethought about.



VIContrary to what the internalist visions of the history of science suggest,there is no production of scientific knowledge that is led in a socialvacuum – that is, completely immune to the logic of restrictions or incen-tives of a financial-economic nature, to the influence of ideologicalassumptions, albeit implicit, or to the interplay of relatively dissimulatedpolitical interests. In fact, none of the operations in concrete scientificactivity is sheltered from the influence of ‘external’ factors.

Keeping a constant eye on the positions of Michael Burawoy, we havealready pinpointed in this paper a certain number of political, institutionaland organisational conditions that favoured (or at least did not impede) asustainable ‘virtuous’ development of sociology in Portugal. Let us turnthem more explicit.

One of those ‘exogenous’ determinants refers to the nature of sociolog-ical training at graduate level, almost always organised around solidlearning in the spheres of theory, epistemological reflection and themethodology of observational research. With the replication of such ademanding model at postgraduate level, it has been possible to reproducea set of research procedures and professional routines globally inspired byan ‘applied rationalism’ adaptable to the specificities and great changeabil-ity of Portugal’s social reality.

The role of the Portuguese Sociological Association (APS) is anotherinstitutional ingredient which may be taken in account when we deal withthe specificity of the field of Portuguese sociology. A high proportion ofacademics and professionals are members of this organisation, which reg-ularly invites them to discuss the various implications and difficulties ofsociological work at well-attended conferences or seminars.

Another factor favouring the development of Portuguese sociologyconcerns the opening-up of the labour market to professionally trainedsociologists: hard at first, but afterwards relatively successful. Contrary tothe somewhat pessimistic forecasts, employability in this area has in factremained at acceptable levels from the mid 1980s to the start of the newcentury. The factors that helped here were access to European fundslinked to social intervention programmes, plus, later on, the politicaloption of national and local governments to broaden the spectrum ofmeasures and policies directed towards the building of a welfare state, atthe time still highly incipient, and, finally, the creation of a demand forsociological knowledge based on movements and institutions of ‘civilsociety’, itself in expansion due to the democratisation process underwayin Portugal.

Another of the forces that Portuguese sociology can rely on is theconsolidation of its research apparatus, at first closely linked to the universitysystem, but which has subsequently achieved a significant degree of eman-cipation. Having started early on by seeking spontaneous paths of interna-tionalisation (initially based on a desire for theoretical updating notconfined to any of the hegemonic centres of international sociological



production), this apparatus is today organically connected to foreign net-works and research centres ‘of excellence’.

This aspect is more encouraging the better sociology knows how to useit without losing sight of the requirement to analyse Portuguese society inall its specificity. Once again, both observational engagement and theopening up to reflexivity that have been a feature of Portuguese sociologycan interact virtuously – now so as to ensure, as required of sciences thathave to face the historically situated character of their objects, the com-patibility of analytical instruments of ‘universal reach’ with others capableof restoring specifically concrete social combinations (that are, to a certainextent, always unique).

VII: a final and very brief commentNothing guarantees that the (‘exogenous’) conditions that have been thecreative force behind the TOPR square will remain stable and keep inter-vening in Portuguese society.

It is not certain, in the first place, that the graduate and postgraduatetraining model for sociologists adopted by Portuguese universities in thewake of the Bologna Process will ensure such consistent learning as wasachieved in the first decades as the discipline developed. Dominated inpractice by motives of ‘employability’ and ‘mobility’ (terms defined muchmore in the register of the stereotype than in that of the sociological reflex-ivity), this model may be at risk of compromising not only the preparationof sociologists for the tasks of developing and renewing the paradigmaticguidelines of the field, as is more obvious, but also the actual fundamentaltraining for a demanding professionalisation.

If we further agree that, with the generalisation of neo-liberal viewseven within the ideological world of social-democracy, the opportunities foremployment and sociologically demanding social intervention in the stateapparatus will decline steadily, then it is foreseeable that the Portuguesesociology square will become more and more permeable to disqualifyinglogics. With greater reason, it is legitimate to expect that the ‘breathingspace’ introduced by the reflexivity pole in this square will be reduced.

In these circumstances, everything suggests that the mediating role ofAPS in the qualification of the Portuguese sociological field will find itselfincreasingly under threat. And maybe we will find in the future that thediscussions about how to gain and legitimate a certifiable professionalstatus at European level will prevail over the initiatives which encouragethe virtues of the culture of association between academics and profes-sional sociologists.

Are we on the path to a new era for Portuguese sociology?

ReferencesPinto, J.M. (2007), Indagação científica, aprendizagens escolares, reflexividade social,

Oporto: Afrontamento.

Burawoy, M. (2005), ‘For public sociology’, American Sociological Review 70: 4–28.



Suggested citationPinto, J. (2007), ‘“Open the social sciences: To whom and for what?”, by Michael

Burawoy’, Portuguese Journal of Social Science 6 (3): 147–54, doi: 10.1386/pjss.6.3.147/4

Contributor detailsJosé Madureira Pinto is a professor at Faculty of Economics (Social SciencesDepartment) and research member of the Institute of Sociology of the Faculty of Arts(University of Porto). He has published several books on the methodology of social sci-ences, sociological theory and sociological analysis of education, symbolic processesand cultural practice. He is editor of Cadernos de Ciências Sociais. Contact: Faculdade deEconomia, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-464 Porto, Portugal. Tel: +351 225 571 100.Fax: +351 225 505 050.E-mail: [email protected]





‘Fascist lackeys’? Dealing with thepolice’s past during Portugal’s transitionto democracy (1974–1980)Diego Palacios Cerezales UCM

AbstractWhen a dictatorship is overthrown and a transition to democracy begins, the policeforce’s place in the new regime becomes a contested issue. Can they be trusted? Arethey to be held responsible for having enforced the dictatorship’s rules? The April1974 Carnation Revolution put an end to Europe’s longest right-wing dictator-ship. The Armed Forces Movement, in order to consolidate its power after the revo-lution, dismantled the political police (PIDE) and imprisoned its officers. Otherpolice forces were ordered to remain in their headquarters and wait for ‘democratic’reorganisation. During the two revolutionary years that followed, the provisionalgovernments could not count on the police and did not exercise effective authority:workers occupied factories, shanty town dwellers occupied empty houses andangry mobs destroyed the headquarters of political parties. How could the newauthorities deal with the ‘people’s’ disruptive mobilisations if ‘repression’ was themark that stigmatised the overthrown ‘fascist’ dictatorship? The post-revolutionarygovernments had to devise a new interpretation of the police’s repressive practices,learning to distinguish which were a mark of ‘fascism’, and which could simply beunderstood as the exercise of ordinary public order duties.

When a dictatorship is overthrown and a transition to democracy begins,the police force’s place in the new regime becomes a contested issue. Canthey be trusted? Are they to be held responsible for having enforced thedictatorship’s rules? How may their policing practices change in order toachieve democratic standards of policing? (Kádar 2003). Portugal’s transi-tion to democracy began with a coup d’état led by the Armed ForcesMovement (MFA, Movimento das Forças Armadas) on 25 April 1974. Thiscoup, which is also known as the Carnation Revolution, overthrew anauthoritarian regime institutionalised during the 1930s, which, from 1961on entangled the armed forces in a protracted colonial war. Historians agreethat the police forces, particularly the political police (Polícia Internacionalpara a Defesa do Estado – PIDE), were the backbone of the dictatorship.While the police’s activities comprised a wide field of action – ranging fromcrime detection to social services – every police force collaborated withthe feared PIDE and openly expressed their support for the regime’s most

155

Keywordsrevolutionpoliceregime changetransition to

democracymilitarysocial upheaval


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contested policies: the colonial war in Africa; moral traditionalism; andthe absence of opposition other than foreign-led communist agitation. Nopolice units took part in the Carnation Revolution’s military operations:they sided with the regime and were practically the only force thatattempted to resist. During the ensuing two years, the definition of the roleand status of police forces in newly democratic Portugal became a con-tested issue: were they criminal ‘fascist lackeys’, or could they be inte-grated in the state’s bureaucracy as professional police forces?

The MFA programme spoke of democracy, economic development anddecolonisation; yet the MFA was not an ideologically coherent group: rather,it was a loose coalition of about 400 junior officers, mostly captains, boundby their formative years in the military academy and the comradeshipethos of the war experience. Following the coup, 60 of the 62 most seniorofficers were placed on the reserve (Pinto 2001); however, the MFA did notrepresent the majority of the remaining officer corps, but an organisedminority that had to remain vigilant in order not to be swept away by themilitary’s administrative machinery.

By 1974, Portugal’s armed forces had reached its maximum strength,with over 25,000 officers and 150,000 men. Approximately 5250 of theofficers were professionals, whereas the remainder were conscripts (Carrillho1988: 440–65). It was during the struggle to consolidate their power inthe aftermath of the coup that the MFA became politicised (Graham1979). Additionally, General Spínola – the senior officer whom the MFAhad accepted as president in order not to stage too radical a break with thestate hierarchy – became an independent political figure who competedwith the MFA within both the armed forces and society in general.

The ensuing political transition accomplished the programme’s mainpoints. It certainly brought about democracy and made the independenceof Portugal’s colonies possible; however, the process was not directed.During two years of transition there were six different provisional govern-ments, which, in turn, conflicted with new military and political bodiesthat also claimed their right to have a say in how the country was to beruled: the president, the National Salvation Committee (Junta da SalvaçãoNacional – JSN), the Council of State, the MFA’s programme co-ordinationcommission, the Continental Operational Command (Comando Operacionaldo Continente – COPCON), the Council of the Revolution, the MFA Assembly,the 5th Division, the democratically elected Constituent Assembly andsome irregular regional popular assemblies. As they all competed forpower, authority fragmented and each military clique organised its ownplot: three of which became actual coup attempts (Manuel 1995; Maxwell1995; Sánchez Cervelló 1993).

The military was one of the key characters in the play, but as the pho-tographic record of the Carnation Revolution reminds us, popular mobili-sation was the other significant player in the political process. On the firstday of the revolution the cheering crowds in Lisbon framed a new form oflegitimacy that was ratified throughout the country by the huge May Day

156 Diego Palacios Cerezales


demonstrations that followed; however, this popular mobilisation did notonly express the welcoming of new times, confidence in the MFA’s officersand the will to experiment with civil and political rights, it also repre-sented determination to participate in the country’s transformation andthe struggle for improved living conditions. Accordingly, the May Daydemonstrations were followed with the formation in every corner of thecountry of popular assemblies and the election of representative commis-sions in businesses, local councils, shanty towns and schools (Hammond1988; Downs 1989). The mobilisation affected both the dismantling of the‘fascist’ regime and the struggle for better wages and living conditions.

Throughout May and June 1974 most ‘fascist’ local and regionalauthorities were dismissed by the popular assemblies to be replaced withprovisional administrative commissions or military appointees. Studentsdenied right-wing teachers, particularly those who were accused of collab-oration with the PIDE, entry to the universities; whereas in medium andlarge enterprises workers organised and held owners and managersresponsible for having based their negotiation power on the repressivelegislation that prohibited strikes and independent unions. The wave ofmobilisation lasted for two years, and became increasingly politicisedduring 1975.

The different types of popular mobilisation that took place during 1974and 1975 were enabled by the lack of authority exercised by the provisionalgovernments. Lawful procedures for conflict resolution were set aside asdirect action entered into the repertoire of the social and political move-ments. In the socio-economic arena, industrial, rural and urban collectivemovements adopted illegal forms of direct collective action, which includedoccupying factories and the estates of large landowners. Thousands ofproperties were occupied by groups of organised shanty town residents.Meanwhile, the popular political struggle consisted of demonstrations,counter-demonstrations, the boycotting of political meetings, the occupa-tion of public buildings, road blockades, the destruction of the offices ofpolitical parties, and so forth. Several business owners, town councillors,and judges, ministers – including the prime minister: twice – weredetained in their offices by demonstrators who were determined not to freethem until their demands had been accepted. There was no police torepress them.

One of the more dramatic episodes took place during November 1975,when a large demonstration of workers besieged the Constituent Assemblyfor more than 30 hours. The demonstrators refused to disperse and wouldnot allow food to enter the parliament building until the governmentagreed to increase the wages of those employed in the building industry.The government called for assistance from the police and the military, butno security force was prepared to use violence to disperse the crowd. As aresult, the government had to submit to the demonstrators’ demands.

The database for 1974 and 1975 contains details of more than 600episodes of collective law disruption that were not contested by any repressive

157‘Fascist lackeys’? Dealing with the police’s past during Portugal’s transition to . . .


public authority. The public order system had collapsed; making it possiblefor any group that was determined enough bring about almost any form ofcollective action (Durán Muñoz 2000).1

Repression as stigmaIn order to understand the collapse of the public order system we have totake into account at least four related topics: the association of police coer-cion with ‘fascist’ repression; the competition among political actors in thepost-coup environment; the legitimating role of popular action; andthe dilution of discipline within the armed forces. These issues resulted inthe political cost of repression being dramatically increased.

The police had been the dictatorship’s trademark, and its repressiveactivities were the stigma that demonstrated how the authoritarianregime was unpopular, unjust and based on the coercion rather than theconsent of the governed. In Caetano’s Portugal, the primary task of thepolice forces was to maintain the political system and safeguard its opera-tion, while all democratic activities were denounced as international com-munist subversion.2

There were three main police forces, all of which were militarised todifferent degrees: the PIDE,3 the Public Security Police (Polícia de SegurançaPublica – PSP) and the National Republican Guard (Guarda Nacional daRepública – GNR). The PIDE had around 2500 agents, and relied on some20,000 informers (Gallagher 1979), the PSP had 10,500 agents com-manded by 137 army officers, while the GNR had 9900 officers whopatrolled rural areas and garrisoned the main cities with strong infantryand cavalry units. In addition to these main forces, there were also two smallspecialist forces: the Fiscal Police (Guarda Fiscal – GF) and the Judicial Police(Polícia Judiciária – PJ). The various police forces were complemented withthe regime’s party militia, the Portuguese Legion (Legião Portuguesa – LP),which, whilst it had its own security agency and shock troops, dealt mainlywith civil defence matters.

Following the 1974 coup, Portuguese society experienced feelings of col-lective liberation (Oliveira 2004). ‘I don’t know what democracy means,what communism means’, one policeman declared to the press, ‘but every-thing has changed in the last two days. It’s the first time I feel something likethat. It’s good: the people don’t need to be beaten in order to behave’ (Jornalde Notícias, 2 May 1974). Nevertheless, the police was in shock and on thelosing side. Its world had turned upside down: the regime they had sworn todefend had been overthrown and its political elite and senior officials werebeing dismissed, while democratic, socialist and communist political activistswho had previously been persecuted were being released from prison,returning from exile and being honoured as freedom fighters. These former‘enemies of the state’ even sat in the cabinet and in provisional town coun-cils. Would the dictatorship’s police ever find a place in this new Portugal?

One of the JSN’s first decisions was to dismantle both the LP and theonce all-powerful PIDE-DGS (Decree-Law 171/74, 25 April 1974). Both

1 Durán Muñoz (2000)compares the workers’repertoire of collectiveaction in the Spanishand Portuguesetransitions, notingthat the Portugueserepertoire was muchmore radical. Afterexamining some otherhypothesis – politicalculture, organisationalstrength – heconcludes that thecrisis of stateauthority in Portugalwas the main factorthat explainedworker’s recourse toradical means.

2 Regulamento deInformação da Polícia de SegurançaPública, despacho doministro do interior, 15 December 1962.These confidentialinstructionsdetermined thepolitical role of thePSP and alsoexplained that one of the communist’smain goals was tomake people lose theirfaith in the police.

3 PIDE changed itsname to the SecurityDirectorate General(DGS, Direcção Geralde Segurança) in1969, although itsprevious namecontinued to bewidely used.



these measures were largely symbolic and preventive: the institutions inquestion were incompatible with democracy and could be used to co-ordinatea reactionary counter-coup. This document also decreed that the PSP, theGNR and the GF be reorganised along ‘democratic lines’. Twenty days laterthe PSP’s anti-riot unit was disbanded and its officers distributed amongPSP offices in Lisbon (Portaria 413/74, 15 May 1974). This decision hadlong-lasting implications, as it signalled that all – not just political –repressive actions were under scrutiny.

The anti-riot mobile police unit, which was more commonly known asthe ‘shock police’ (polícia de choque) emulated France’s Republican SecurityCompany (Compagnie Republicaine de Sécurité – CRS). It was formed by190 men and trained in the state of the art of riot policing of the 1960s.The shock police’s equipment included less-lethal weapons such as batons,dogs, water-cannons and tear gas. Its ruthless action against strikes anddemonstrations – both of which were illegal under the dictatorship – hadbecome the focus for the opposition’s antipathy, while its operational com-mander, Captain Maltês, had become an infamous figure. This anti-riotunit was harsh, hated and had developed a violent sub-culture: the mencommonly beat demonstrators with the metal grip of their batons, usuallycausing wounds that bled profusely. Nevertheless, it has to be stated thatthe shock police was capable of assessing the degree of force that would benecessary to disperse crowds without causing fatalities during the cycle ofhighly militant mobilisation between 1968 and 1974.

After the revolution, this well-trained and cohesive unit was regarded asa potentially dangerous counter-revolutionary force, while the popularview was that it was a ‘fascist police’. However, its demobilisation meantthe provisional authorities could not count on the services of a police forcethat was specialised in dealing with crowds and capable of breaking-up ademonstration or a picket line without injuring demonstrators. The policeand military units that were called to undertake public order control wereneither trained nor had they the specialised equipment. Consequently, theirinvolvement could quite easily result in politically expensive casualties.

Spínola and police demoralisation: May-September 1974At first, General Spínola’s men – officers with a professional ethos and aconservative outlook – were appointed commanders of the PSP and GNR.The general sought to normalise the political situation. ‘As long as thepolice is now liable to the new authorities’, the provisional governmentsoften declared, ‘the population is bound to obey their commands’. Policebands took part in the 1974 May Day demonstrations, and policemenwore carnations in their uniforms to demonstrate their support of the newpolitical situation. However, neither the reassuring words of the govern-ment nor these token displays were enough to rescue the police’s reputa-tion. In the eyes of most Portuguese, the police forces remained the same‘fascist’ police forces they had been under the dictatorship. In the popularview the issue was simple: ‘fascism’ had been defeated, policemen were



‘fascist lackeys’ and therefore police officers were not to be obeyed. Inorder to be integrated in the new political system, the police would haveto receive the full support of the new authorities, and words and speechesare not enough when actions suggested otherwise. In fact, neither the gov-ernment nor President Spínola was in real control of the state machinery:the MFA co-ordinating committee maintained its structure and wanted toguarantee the implementation of its programme and prevent the emergenceof any counter-revolutionary movements. This represented a significantproblem for the police: the new civil and military authorities were fightingone another in a battle in which anti-fascist credentials were an essentialasset in order to participate in the new political scene. Consequently, no-one wanted to taint their symbolic democratic capital by associatingthemselves with the remnants of a ‘fascist’ police.4

Although police officers, with the exception of those who served withPIDE, were neither imprisoned nor dismissed, and the demands for a politicaltrial were relatively few, the police forces were nevertheless on their own: afact they were to learn very quickly. When they first attempted to dealwith picketing strikers or popular commissions that intended to occupyempty houses, they discovered the public’s usual obedience to policeorders had transformed into open resistance. This was not unexpected;however, if they attempted to use force to overcome resistance, their supe-riors in the civil authorities and the MFA would denounce them as ‘fascistbrutes’ and demand they be held responsible. The traditional cover-up or‘grey check’ the police used to perform their duties no longer functioned,meaning that they learned it was wiser and safer to remain passive.

Two months after the revolution, Luis Filipe Madeira, who was a younglawyer and a well-known democratic activist who became civil governorfor the Algarve, discovered that the PSP agents in the region had all becomedemoralised. The public no longer obeyed police instructions, made fun ofthem and denounced them as ‘fascists’ whenever they became involved inany civil dispute. In these conditions, police officers simply refused topatrol the streets. In the words of Madeira, ‘they were not policemen, butempty uniforms’.5 There are similar accounts of police demoralisation allover Portugal. On the other hand, the appearance of the army at a troublespot, where they were quite often sent to rescue police officers, was gener-ally met with cheers. The military’s involvement in social conflicts wasusually welcomed – at least until the summer of 1975, when politicalpolarisation began to affect even its popularity.

President Spínola and the MFA first clashed on the issue of decolonisa-tion, and the police were part of this power struggle. Spínola wanted to putan end to the social turmoil and ensure the rapid reconstruction of lawand order. He counted on the support of the police. With the intention ofreinstating police authority, Spínola had to display his confidence in thepolice. In early June 1974 he ordered that the police be supplied with mil-itary issue automatic rifles; however, the chief of staff of the armed forces,General Costa Gomes, sided with the MFA and blocked Spínola’s decision.

4 After the Revolution,previous resistance to the ‘fascist regime’became a legitimatingfactor, with even the democraticConstitution statingthe ‘MFA overthrewthe regime as aculmination of thePortuguese people’sresistance to fascism’(CIHAEP-SP, 1992:291).

5 Interview withauthor, 20 June1999.



Costa Gomes argued that ‘the GNR and the PSP are not mentally fit toparticipate in the revolution’, insinuating that they could be used in acounter-coup: he suggested that the PSP be disarmed and provided withwooden truncheons instead (Spínola 1978: 149–50).

Spínola began a campaign to rally conservative social forces and mili-tary officers. The MFA feared that if Spinola managed to rebuild the state’sauthority, he would be able to impose his own programme for a presiden-tial constitution, no economic transformation and a long and controlledprocess of decolonisation along federal lines that would result in the armyremaining in Africa for many years to come.6 In July 1974, Costa Gomesand the MFA outflanked Spínola on the matter of maintaining public orderwhen they obtained his support for the creation of a special operationscommission, COPCON, which was to be responsible for public order. Thearmed forces thus became the principal force for public order. The policewas effectively cast aside – insulted even – because the decree mentionedtheir ‘inability’ and ‘inconvenience’ in respect of maintaining public order:it was clear that the police did not enjoy the confidence of the politicalleadership (Decree-Law 310/74, 8 July 1974). From then on military units,such as the Military Police (Polícia Militar – PM), Lisbon’s artillery regi-ment, the naval infantry and Queluz operational infantry became theforces of public order in the capital, while regional military commanderswere attributed with the responsibility to maintain public order in theirzones.7 COPCON also controlled Portugal’s elite commandos, paratroopsand marines: forces that would be critical in putting down any attemptedcounter-coup. All this power became tangible when, in late September1974, Spínola attempted to strengthen his position by organising thedemonstration of the ‘silent majority’, in emulation of De Gaulle’s movesfollowing the events in Paris in May 1968. Order-loving Portuguese fromthroughout the country were called to a rally in Lisbon where they couldshow their support for Spínola’s policies, their rejection of the strikes andsocial disorder and to show that the communists and the socialists whowere monopolising the public arena were not representative of thePortuguese people.

This call worried the left-wing groups, particularly since there wererumours that Spinola was seeking to ban the Portuguese CommunistParty (Partido Comunista Portuguesa – PCP) and that he would use themeeting to launch a counter-coup. In response, the popular commissionsand trade unions mobilised against this demonstration by barricading theentrances to Lisbon. Cars were stopped and searched for weapons, whilepeople on their way to attend the demonstration were turned back. Inorder to counter these illegal popular blockades, Spinola asked COPCON toclear the roads and guarantee the rights of the demonstrators; however,COPCON took the side of the ‘people’, reinforced the barricades and over-whelmed those military and police forces that had followed Spinola’sinstructions. The general was forced to resign, his supporters were dis-missed and General Costa Gomes was appointed president.

6 Spinola’s own projectfor Africa was a kindof confederation. He was opposed to the recognition of the armed liberationmovements as theformer colonies’representatives. Hisplan to organise apolitical consultationin the colonies neededthe backing of anarmed force capableof controlling thesituation, but afterthe coup, soldiersrefused to combat.

7 Mainland Portugalwas divided in fourmilitary regions:North (based inOporto), Centre(Coimbra), South(Évora) and Lisbon.



The police forces on stand-by: September 1974–March 1975Spínola’s defeat was also a defeat for the police. With some PSP and GNRunits having supported Spínola during the events of September, angrymobs sacked many police stations. Both the GNR and PSP were maderesponsible to the armed forces chief of staff rather than to the ministry ofinternal affairs. They were to be reorganised.

Throughout the following months, the police maintained a low profilepresence in social conflict, while COPCON was in charge of public order.The military met their new police role imaginatively, and tended to fraternisewith the ‘popular masses’. Workers, the rural proletariat and shanty towndwellers cheered military forces as they approached. Left-wing officers andnon-commissioned officers had full authority to deal with popular strug-gles, and began co-operating with ‘the people’. When workers occupied afactory, they asked the armed forces to conduct an inventory and mediatewith the owners and the political authorities; when rural workers beganoccupying the large estates, they could count on the military to supplytrucks for transportation. One MP official recalled, ‘we were told to goto troubled spots, such as factories that were being taken over by theworkers, but when we arrived we asked the workers why were they doingwhat they were doing, and most often they were right and we let them doas they wanted’ (Domingos, Gago and Matos 1977).

On 11 March 1975 forces loyal to the deposed President Spínolamade a counter-coup attempt. The conspirators retained MFA-appointedpolice commanders and managed to mobilise some GNR and PSP units.Nevertheless, the MFA managed to put the attempt down, while self-styledanti-fascist crowds were mobilised in many towns and, in several locations,demonstrated in front of PSP and GNR stations to prevent the officerswithin the buildings from taking part in the counter-coup. Once it wasclear that the attempt had failed, police officers were so afraid of beingattacked by the crowd that they had to be rescued in armoured vehicles bythe military.

A police force for the revolution: March–July 1975This failed Spínolist coup gave new strength to the MFA radicals, whopassed their favoured policies and assured the MFA’s institutionalisation inthe future constitutional order: banks and major industrial firms werenationalised, the MFA Assembly appointed a Council of the Revolutionwith constitutional prerogatives and the new provisional governmentannounced that Portugal had begun a transition to socialism. At last, amajor police reform was announced: Pinto Ferreira, a left-wing colonel whohad been appointed GNR commander in February, was also appointedcommander of the PSP. In order to create a new democratic police, bothforces were going to be merged in six months time.

What could it be: a democratic police? Or, as it was sometimes asked:what was the role of a police force in the construction of socialism? The re-organisation of the police was not an easy task. If the new police was to



be democratic, it had to change its internal organisation, its culture and theway it dealt with the public. This re-definition attempt was also taking placein the armed forces. As we have already noted, the MFA was neither acoherent nor a disciplined body, but a coalition of junior officers. It had toundermine the traditional hierarchies and purge ‘counter-revolutionary’officers in order to maintain their grip on the armed forces, so they createdco-ordinating structures that bypassed formal command chains and severalparticipatory mechanisms inside the units which diluted the discipline. TheMFA fostered internal assemblies in every military unit, in which officers,non-commissioned officers and men were supposed to discuss the unit’s lifeand promote the political awareness of the military. Young, educated, leftistofficers used to dominate the assemblies, in particular when the unit hadits barracks in urban, industrial areas and in areas of large agriculturalestates, while in northern rural Portugal the conservative outlook of thesurrounding society limited the leftist appeal.8 A similar participatoryprocess was promoted within the police: non-hierarchical assemblies wereheld in most districts, with each nominating delegates to a national assem-bly at which re-organisation was to be discussed. The first police assemblyat a national level took place 11 June 1975. The order of the day showsthat they discussed political purges of fascist police officers, the principles ofthe fusion with the GNR and the way in which there could be built a so-called ‘alliance of the security forces with the people’. As long as the issuesat stake were the destruction of fascism, popular mobilisation and the con-struction of a new society, those in command were no longer to exercisetheir functions by virtue of the authority ascribed to them from above, butby the consent of those serving under them and the will expressed by theso-called ‘popular masses’. A far-right critic would latter recall these experi-ences as a process of terrorising police officers, undermining hierarchy andhanding over the Police to the PCP (Barreto 1978). A second gathering wasscheduled for August, but the political process was changing at a very fastpace and it never took place.

The hot summer of 1975In April 1975 Portugal held its first democratic elections. Participationwas high (91 per cent), with the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista – PS)winning overall while the centre Popular Democratic Party (Partido PopularDemocrático – PPD) and the centre-right Social Democratic Centre (CentroDemocrático Social – CDS) parties obtained the majority in the northof the country.9 Radical parties like the PCP and the Popular DemocraticMovement (Movimento Democrático Popular – MDP) showed their strengthamongst the industrial and rural proletariat, although they only managedto obtain 15 per cent of the national vote.

Although the election was for the constituent assembly that was toprepare and approve a new constitution, the election result changed thepolitical balance. While Mário Soares’ PS discovered its massive politicalappeal, it struggled to convert its electoral success into government power.

8 The few military unitsthat were politicisedcontrary to theprevailing ideology of the surroundingsocial area – such as Vila Real InfantryRegiment (left-wing ina conservative area)or the commandos in the Lisbon area (right-wing in the‘Lisbon Commune’)had a special part toplay in the followingevents (PalaciosCerezales 2003:167–9, 182–9).

9 The PPD laterchanged its name toSocial DemocraticParty (PSD – PartidoDemocrático Social).



Vasco Gonçalves and the MFA radicals who were in office resisted, with thePCP supporting their position: they claimed the MFA embodied a ‘revolu-tionary legitimacy’ that was higher than the political parties’ ‘electorallegitimacy’. Some military officials even went so far as to claim the MFAwould have won the election had it had presented its own candidates,and dismissed the high turnout, claiming that since the rural poor andilliterate masses of the north did not yet understand the principles of therevolution, their votes were not as meaningful as the votes of the class-conscious industrial areas. The north may have voted for centre-rightparties, but that was only the dead weight of 40 years of obscurantist dic-tatorship (Correia, Soldado and Marujo undated).

This clash of legitimacies – electoral and revolutionary – broke thebroad political coalition that had supported the MFA. Far-left organisationsand some members of the armed forces accused the communist-leaninggovernment of trying to control the popular struggles, so they began tofight for popular power and to organise autonomous workers’ and soldiers’assemblies. The PS also began to organise large demonstrations against thegovernment, and called for the primacy of electoral legitimacy. The centre-right parties followed this strategy, taking part in PS initiatives. Throughoutthis ‘hot summer’ of 1975, the hitherto silent conservative majority in thenorth began to mobilise under the leadership of the Catholic Church, whichorganised meetings, pilgrimages and demonstrations. Anti-communismbecame the rallying cry for a new broad political coalition of conserva-tives, democratic socialists and former Salazarists, while angry crowdssacked the offices of left-wing local authorities throughout the region.During two months of violence, approximately 80 of the PCP’s local officeswere destroyed (Palacios Cerezales 2003: 141–73). This radicalisation wason the increase, and the government and the MFA began to lose control ofthe northern districts. Some hard-line MFA officials pressed for ‘strongrepressive action’ in order to save the revolution from ‘reactionary’ and‘terrorist’ forces. Nevertheless, most of the military did not want to resortto shootings or to be associated with violent repression.

The maintenance of public order was a hot issue, and some regional mil-itary commanders tried to transfer those duties to the police forces; however,as one GNR commander explained, he could not ask his men to stop theangry crowds, because force could be necessary and if a guard killedsomeone in the line of duty, the political authorities would charge him withmurder and label him a fascist (Comércio do Porto, 23 September 1975).

COPCON purchased anti-riot equipment, including tear-gas, rubberbullets, protection shields and water tanks, but did not have sufficient timeto train its troops how to use it. It also sent some hard-line marine units tothe most violently anti-communist districts, but after killing two demon-strators who attacked a PCP headquarter in Fafe, near Braga, they wereasked to withdraw. Most of the MFA’s men were unwilling to assume thecosts of repression since, as General Costa Gomes claimed, ‘[it] did nothave a repressive vocation’.



At this point the MFA split into three factions: radicals, who favoured amilitary-controlled transition to socialism; populists, who supported theautonomous popular struggles; and moderates, who called for an agree-ment with the PS while manoeuvring to form an alliance with conserva-tive officers and take control of the military apparatus. As most militaryunits demonstrated their lack of repressive will against anti-communistcrowds in the north, the radicals discovered they were unable to govern.The 5th provisional government, which had been the most radical to date,was forced to resign in favour of the 6th and final provisional governmentthat counted on support from the moderate parties.

Moderate government against the ‘Lisbon Commune’:September–November 1975The new government was backed by the majority of the ConstituentAssembly, and was received with the abrupt halt of popular anti-commu-nist violence. However, the social turmoil continued: left-wing soldierswho disagreed with the moderate turn began organising demonstrationsof enlisted men, declaring that ‘soldiers would always be on the side of thepeople’. Indiscipline was widespread, and the troops refused to obey orderswhen they were asked to stop the illegal collective actions being carriedout by workers and landless peasants. The government and the MFA’smoderates decided that in order to re-establish authority they had to relyon the police. The unification of the GNR and PSP was halted, and a newcommander was nominated for each. The government took powers awayfrom COPCON and created the Military Intervention Group (AgrupamentoMilitar de Intervenção – AMI), a co-ordinating structure in which the fewdisciplined military units and police were integrated. Both the PSP andGNR were provided with heavy weapons, such as the G3 automatic rifle, adecision that both dramatised the new political confidence in the policeand had powerful symbolism. The infamous anti-riot shock Mobile Policeunit was also reorganised.

The reconstruction of a disciplined and respected public order systemwas at stake, and the new authorities enacted their will to re-committhemselves to the police. Nevertheless, the political situation remaineduncertain. In Oporto and other northern cities the police quickly realisedthey could obtain the confidence of the public authorities, and began oncemore to use coercion when they believed it to be necessary. In the ‘LisbonCommune’ and other southern districts, the balance of power was not yetin favour of the government: some leftist military units remained active, themarines were as powerful as ever and Major Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho,the darling of the left, was still Lisbon’s military governor.

Lisbon became a theatre for enormous daily demonstrations and counter-demonstrations and rumours of imminent coups were commonplace. On20 November, following a 30-hour siege of the Constituent Assembly, thegovernment declared itself to be on strike and announced it was going tomove to Oporto until such times as the armed forces had re-established the



conditions necessary for effective government. The moderate faction of theMFA had everything prepared in their plan to outwit the radicals: Otelowas dismissed as the capital’s military commander; troops serving in themore radical units were placed on leave; and the veteran commandos werere-enlisted and called to active duty. Finally, on 25 November 1975 anillegal move by paratroopers was interpreted as an attempted coup by thefar-left, enabling the pro-government military to seize the advantage andmobilise the commandos to take control of Lisbon.

The country had been on the verge of civil war for four months, andthis could have been its first episode; however, the radical officers refusedto mobilise their forces, which mainly consisted of marines, and accepteddemocratic legitimacy must prevail.

The police come-back: the end of the revolutionThe government returned to Lisbon and resumed office under its new strongman, Colonel Eanes, who had been commander of operations that took placeon 25 November. Eanes was appointed army chief of staff and oversaw thenormalisation of the hierarchy within the armed forces. Left-wing unitswere disbanded and the assemblies and soldiers’ participation in themwere suppressed. At least 100 left-wing officers were imprisoned and left-wing publications were closed. This was not a Chile-style coup; however,these measures only lasted a few months – just enough time to re-establishthe authority of the state. The popular movements soon discovered thepolitical situation had changed and radical collective action quickly disap-peared, allowing Portugal to once more become a demobilised and under-politicised society.

The political experience of these months of social unrest had made clearthat democratic legitimacy also meant the primacy of public authority bywhatever means necessary, and supported by whatever civil or militaryenforcement required. As long as the association of coercion with fascismhad reduced the state’s capacity to govern, the democratic need forauthority had to be stressed. The governing politicians and MFA moder-ates had learned a lesson: the consent of the governed was not enough togovern, because a complex society comprises competing interests andpolitical wills. They also learned they had to accept some degree of policeviolence, and, at least in principle, to publicly back police actions.

In a very significant episode, on 1 January 1976, the GNR shot overthe heads of people taking part in a far-left demonstration in Oporto, andmanaged to kill four people in the process. Both the journalists at thescene and the subsequent Russell Commission report stated the guardshad lost their temper; yet both the government and the Council of theRevolution sided with the GNR and held the demonstrators responsiblefor the violence (Diário de Lisboa, 2–4 January 1976). The restoration ofpolitical confidence in the police was thereby explicitly stated, encouragingthe public to once more respect the indications and instructions of policeofficers.



The police resumed its usual functions: former Spínolists were nominatedas police commanders, and the anti-riot equipment purchased by COPCONwas transferred to the police. In March 1976 the new anti-riot police, theIntervention Corps (Corpo de Intervenção – CI) was publicly announced,although its existence was yet to be approved by law. Most of the officerswho were employed in this corps had previously been officials of theauthoritarian regime’s anti-riot Mobile Police. The commando regiment,which had been in charge of public order in Lisbon since the 25 Novembercoup, was allowed to return to barracks: the return of the police thus maywell be the moment symbolising the end of the revolution.

EpilogueDuring the years that followed, Portugal’s democratic regime becameincreasingly stable. The new lines of police modernisation in Portugalwould take Western European standards as its benchmark. During the late1970s, the PSP was demilitarised and a special school for police officerswas established. The GNR evolved more slowly, and continued to usefirearms against collective rural collective throughout the period duringwhich the agrarian reform was dismantled. Nevertheless, in the early1980s they were provided with less-lethal weapons, and in 1986 theGNR’s special anti-riot unit was created.

After the political transition, the police forces had to deal with a doublelegacy: that of the dictatorship and that of the revolution (Pinto 2001).In the public’s reconstructed recollection, only the PIDE remained associ-ated with the fascist repression: the PSP and GNR were integrated as pro-fessional police forces that were responsible to the law rather than to anyparticular political regime. Moreover, in the sub-culture of the police, thememory of the revolutionary period’s social turmoil became a kind of alibifor their previous devotion to the authoritarian regime.

Thirty years on, the generational replacement and dramatic increasein police numbers have diluted the presence of old-school police officers.Those police officers who had willingly participated in the revolutionaryreorganisations of 1975 were cast aside, but there remained a desire tochange some internal hierarchical and professional problems that expresseditself in the long-standing struggle for union rights within the police(Colaço and Gomes 2001). The aspiration of police officers for civic rightsis often expressed as the need to ‘bring the revolutionary principles of25 April’ into the police forces.

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Regulamento de Informação da Polícia de Segurança Pública (1962), Despacho doMinistro do Interior, 15 December 1962.

Sánchez Cervelló, J. (1993), A revolução portuguesa e a sua influência na transiçãoespanhola 1961–1976, Lisbon: Assírio e Alvim.

Spínola, A. (1978), País sem rumo: Contributo para a história de uma revolução,Mirandela: SIRCE.

Suggested citationCerezales, D. (2007), ‘“Fascist lackeys”? Dealing with the police’s past duringPortugal’s transition to democracy (1974–1980)’, Portuguese Journal of SocialScience 6 (3): 155–69, doi: 10.1386/pjss.6.3.155/1



Contributor detailsDiego Palacios Cerezales is an assistant professor and doctoral researcher atMadrid’s Complutense University (UCM). He obtained his masters degree in socialsciences at the University of Lisbon’s Institute of Social Sciences (ICS/UL). He haspublished O poder caiu na rua: Crise de estado e acções colectivas na revolução portuguesa(Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2003), and several articles on contempo-rary Portuguese history. He is currently completing his doctorate on the history ofpublic order policing in Contemporary Portugal (1834–2000). More informationcan be obtained at http://www.historiadelpensamiento.es/dpc.html. Contact: DiegoPalacios Cerezales, Departamento de Historia del Pensamiento y de los MovimientosSociales y Politicos, Facultad de Ciencias Políticos y Sociología de la UniversidadComplutense de Madrid, Campus de Somosaguas, 28223 Madrid, Spain. Tel:+34 91 394 27 83. Fax: +34 91 394 28 57.E-mail: [email protected]





From Porto to Portadown: Portugueseworkers in Northern Ireland’s labour marketMartin Eaton University of Ulster

AbstractWhile North-Western Europe remains the principal destination for Portugueseemigrants, post-millennium flow has seen the United Kingdom (UK) and North-ern Ireland (NI), in particular, emerging as a focal point. As part of a changinglabour market demand and supply process, several thousand migrants have nowbeen recruited by agencies to work in the region’s rurally based food processingindustries. This article quantifies the resurgence of Portuguese emigration trails,explores their recent distribution patterns, and evaluates the role of employmentintermediaries in facilitating the flow. Using qualitative discursive techniques theexperiences of these players are examined before determining their impacts on thelocal labour market. Results show that benefits have been brought to a number oflocalised economies suffering from shortages and working patterns based on sub-stitution and segmentation have been fundamentally altered. At the same time,some small towns have struggled to adapt to this influx and concerns have beenraised in relation to work-based problems and the pace of developmental changeassociated with the growing numbers of Portuguese emigrants in NorthernIreland.

IntroductionIn summer 2006 as the Portuguese soccer team enjoyed success at theWorld Cup, residents of the small provincial town of Portadown inNorthern Ireland gathered to cheer them on. In a display of inter-communitysupport, both locals and immigrant workers came together in theirsupport for a team that carried the hopes of two, small, semi-peripheral,part industrialised countries located on the fringes of the European Union(EU). It was a union, in part, inspired by their mutual rivalry with theEngland football team and demonstrated some of the progress that hasbeen made in integrating Portuguese workers into Northern Irish society.

The Portuguese in this part of Ulster represent a small proportion of anemigrant community numbering at least 4.5 million worldwide (Lawless2005). This mobilisation was based upon exploration, colonisation, andmore recently, economic emigration to seek a better life. Migrant flowshave curtailed since the peak period of the 1970s when hundreds of

171

KeywordsPortuguesemigrant workeremployment agentNorthern Irelandrural labour market


PJSS-6-3-04-Eaton 3/15/08 2:27 PM Page 171

thousands fled from authoritarian Portugal. Nevertheless, there has beena post-millennium, domestic recession-induced resurgence in emigrationand it continues to be a fundamental factor shaping Portugal’s socio-demographic evolution (Arroteia 2001). In turn, the United Kingdom hasemerged as an important destination with immigrants now estimated tonumber between 110,000 and 250,000 (Anon 2005; Almeida 2006).While their nuclei focused upon London and the Channel Islands, therehave been significant influxes of emigrants into Britain’s peripheral, semi-rural regions. These secondary flows included East Anglia, north-westEngland, Wales, the Scottish Borders and Northern Ireland.

With this background in mind, this article presents an overview of thePortuguese emigrant flows in north-western Europe and more specificallytowards the United Kingdom. It attempts to quantify recent influx, deter-mines their location patterns and the reasons for recent re-distributions ofemigrantes towards peripheral parts of Britain. The study reviews sec-ondary literature and statistical data before utilising empirical research tofocus upon the working experiences of Portuguese migrants and the viewsof interested third parties, related local employers and emergent supportorganisations. Our spatial emphasis is the Northern Ireland labour marketwhere many migrants have been recruited by employment agencies towork in the region’s agricultural harvesting, meat processing and foodpacking sectors. These industries, in turn, are located in small rural townsoften distant from the region’s main population centres. While thenumbers of foreign minorities in Northern Ireland are relatively small,many Portuguese (along with recent influxes of eastern Europeanworkers) have congregated together in expressions of human gregarious-ness and shared economic interests. These concentrations have broughtbenefits to local economies but have also lead to problems at the micro-scale. As a result, issues relating to the workers’ motivations, and includ-ing the phenomena of ‘trade-off ’, competition and discrimination arediscussed, together with a determination of what the future might hold forthese itinerant workers.

Migrant workers, labour markets and population mobilityThe majority of contemporary Portuguese migrants have been labelled asneo-classical labourers perpetually moving in order to find jobs, securesalaries and remit their savings back to their families (Castles 2000). Thispattern has, however, become more complicated since the emigrants havebeen further motivated to travel and find a better level of remunerationand more secure conditions of employment in their chosen destinationcountries. In relative terms, therefore, workers availed of more advanta-geous labour market conditions to the ones they may have been used to intheir country of origin or previous destination society and this is now akey factor influencing their decision-making, and in turn, their exodus.

Although this mobility was normally an individual decision-makingprocess, in more recent years, Portuguese emigrants have become part of

172 Martin Eaton


a collective labour market process. Employment agencies have been set upthat were designed to engage workers for the benefit of specific sectors ofindustry and these have proliferated with recruitment branches beingestablished in both host and destination countries. The agents haveactively sought out candidates and then moved migrants from either lowercost/lower wage areas (such as Portugal) or from employment in similarsectors of industry (in north-west Europe) to semi-peripheral areas of theEuropean Union (such as Northern Ireland). In so doing, they haveinduced more complex local labour market issues (Mulholland 2005),which are, in part, based upon the perception of migrant labourers replac-ing the indigenous workers. This idea that the immigrants ‘are taking(our) jobs (which should be) for local workers’ (the ‘TOJ’ syndrome), is aprejudiced but very real concern (Hayes and Dowds 2006) in manyadvanced industrialised countries where immigration is often near the topof the political agenda (Borjas 1999; Spencer 2003). As a result, thenotion of strain on social and economic integration into local job marketshas emerged as a contentious issue for state governance, public organisa-tions and private agencies. In an Irish context this issue was further com-plicated by a recent history of conflict within its divided communities andspatial boundaries, making the process of Portuguese immigration unique,and integration into the local labour market, an outwardly difficultprospect fraught with hazard (Borooah and Mangan 2007).

These theoretical conditions meant that Northern Ireland representeda microcosm of what was happening in other, similar, rural, labour migra-tion-dependent and peripheral parts of the United Kingdom. Given thatlittle research has been carried out into these job markets so this contribu-tion becomes an important if tentative starting point. It is an issue deserv-ing of attention from politicians, economists, demographers, geographersand social commentators interested in determining the impacts of rela-tively large numbers of often averagely educated, transient, single youngpeople seeking work and financial remuneration at a level that would beimpossible to achieve in an equivalent type of job in Portugal. As such, thetheoretical and practical implications for both host and destination soci-eties should not be underestimated.

The diáspora associated with Portugal’s population has been an endur-ing feature of the country’s social, cultural and demographic evolutions.Since the age of the discoveries, and for much of the 20th century, emi-grantes have travelled in a worldwide search for heightened economicopportunity (Moreira 2005). As a result, sizeable Portuguese communitiesare now established in South and North America, South Africa, Australiaand much of the rest of the European Union (Baganha 2003). The largestgroups can be found in Brazil and the United States with approximately1.2 million, in each case (Lopes 1997). Traditionally, Brazil was a favoureddestination (Volpi Scott 1999) but towards the latter part of Portugal’sauthoritarian era (during the 1960s and 70s), young Portuguese menwere emigrating in unprecedented numbers towards north-western

173From Porto to Portadown: Portuguese workers in Northern Ireland’s labour market


Europe: driven out by a repressive political regime. At its height in 1970,173,000 individuals (Serrão 1977) left this part of the Iberian Peninsula;most heading for jobs, and potentially more rewarding and safer destina-tions in France, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland (Branco 2001).In addition, untold numbers emigrated illegally, anxious to avoid conscrip-tion and embroilment in the ultimately ill-fated attempt to controlPortugal’s African colonies (Corkill 1999: 25). After the revolution in1974, more relaxed societal controls led to large numbers of emigrantsreturning home. Some were forced back (as retornados) from the formercolonies whilst others travelled home voluntarily (as regressos) from north-ern Europe (Rato 2001). These returnees, along with increasing numbersof immigrants from the Cape Verde islands, Brazil, Angola, China, andparts of north-western, central and eastern Europe, contributed to a turn-around in the country’s migration balance. Researcher’s attentions shiftedto evaluate this net-inward migration of flows (Fonseca 2001; Eaton2002) while generally ignoring the continued outflow of the domesticpopulation. This was unfortunate because as a renewal of economic reces-sionary conditions impacted in the first half of the current decade, emigra-tion from Portugal re-emerged at rates of between 21,000 and 27,000 eachyear. Indeed, since the start of 2000, over 96,000 Portuguese (almost 1 percent of the total domestic population) have left their country of birth (INE2000–2003). Many have been forced to leave as a result of home labourmarket difficulties including growing unemployment, limited job opportu-nities, higher interest rates, the rising cost of living, wage freezes and otherausterity measures imposed by successive governments (EconomistIntelligence Unit 2004) (Table 1).

As a result, Table One shows that, in the new millennium, almost83,000 (86 per cent) Portuguese emigrants continued to follow the modernroute by migrating to central North-Western Europe. Switzerland andFrance remained the principal destinations (Malaurie 1998; Marques2001) but the United Kingdom had come to account for one in ten of allemigrants. Indeed, the United Kingdom outstripped Germany (Bauer et al.2002), Spain and Luxembourg as a main receiver of Portuguese migrants.Seventy-three per cent of emigrants were classified as temporary (less thanone year), short term or seasonal migrants, but in the British case, theratio was significantly different with 43 per cent being labelled as long-term, permanently settling (more than one year) emigrants. Almost 10,000migrants were recorded as having travelled to the United Kingdom between2000 and 2003, and the rate of outward movement was accelerating. Whencoupled with voluntary Portuguese consular registrations it was clear thatBritain had gained significantly in its attraction.1 Nevertheless, it is impos-sible to derive an accurate total not least because Portuguese citizens areallowed to circulate freely around the EU. Almeida (2006: 6) recognisedthe usefulness of the British labour force survey, which suggested thatthere were 85,000 Portuguese citizens living in the United Kingdom in2005. However, some commentators believed there to be nearly 110,000

1 The longevityassociated withPortugueseimmigrants and theirrelative integrationinto British society isreflected in the secondhighest level of Britishcitizenship beinggranted. In 2004, forexample, 545Portuguese nationalswere confirmed withthis status (HomeOffice 2005).

174 Martin Eaton



Year

Are

a/Co

untr

y of

20

0020

0120

0220

03To

tal (

2000

–200

3)

Des

tinat

ion

Tem

.Pe

r.To

t.Te

m.

Per.

Tot.

Tem

.Pe

r.To

t.Te

m.

Per.

Tot.

Tem

.Pe

r.To

t.

Nor

th W

este

rn E

urop

e13

,561

3855

17,4

1613

,473

4359

17,8

3215

,308

6922

22,2

3019

,347

5909

25,2

5661

,689

21,0

4582

,734

Switz

erla

nd47

1811

1358

3135

5824

738

0560

3822

4082

7838

7990

747

8518

,193

4507

22,6

99Fr

ance

2431

609

3040

3444

2229

5673

4124

1838

5962

6550

849

7399

16,5

4955

2522

,074

Uni

ted

Kin

gdom

1416

675

2091

1441

501

1943

984

881

1865

1705

2187

3893

5546

4245

9792

Ger

man

y14

9510

6425

59X

X19

70X

X98

614

4395

523

9829

3820

1979

13Sp

ain

XX

1177

XX

1175

2524

404

2928

XX

2247

2524

404

7527

Luxe

mbo

urg

XX

XX

X14

15X

X70

412

6677

020

3612

6677

041

55O

ther

N. W

est

Euro

pean

cou

ntri

es35

0139

427

1850

3013

8218

5116

3815

5915

0745

0424

124

9814

,673

5380

8574

Oth

er c

ount

ries

w

orld

wid

e30

8083

739

1713

5414

0327

5732

3718

9151

2897

477

817

5286

4549

0913

,554

Tota

l for

all

emig

rant

de

stin

atio

ns16

,641

4692

21,3

3314

,827

5762

20,5

8918

,545

8813

27,3

5820

,321

6687

27,0

0870

,334

25,9

5496

,288

Tem

., te

mpo

rary

em

igra

tion

for

a pe

riod

of l

ess

than

one

yea

r; P

er.,

perm

anen

t em

igra

tion

for

a pe

riod

of m

ore

than

one

yea

r; T

ot.,

tota

l of t

empo

rary

and

per

man

ent e

mig

ratio

n;

X, i

nfor

mat

ion

not a

vaila

ble.

Sour

ce: I

nstit

uto

Nac

iona

l de

Esta

tístic

a (2

000–

2003

).

Tabl

e 1:

Por

tugu

ese

emig

ratio

n to

Nor

th W

este

rn E

urop

e, 2

000–

2003

.


Portuguese resident (Anon 2005) although, in turn, the real figure(according to the Portuguese Consulate General in London2) couldbe more than twice as high at around 250,000 nationals (Almeida2006: 12).

Whatever the true figure, it is clear that the Portuguese have been spa-tially drawn to two main locations. The first of these is the ChannelIslands. Most emigrants found jobs in the horticultural and tourism indus-tries of Jersey and Guernsey, where employment of Madeiran emigrants inthe hotel trade remains important (Anon 2004; Beswick 2005). Today,Jersey has a population of around 6000 Portuguese, which grows to10,000 annually as a result of seasonal employment fluctuations. Therehas also been a pattern of emigrants locating in central London, and moreespecially the boroughs of Kennington, Lambeth and Stockwell, whereemployment in cleaning and domestic service remains a significantfeature (Campos and Botelho 2001: 3). This capital based community iswell established and can be considered a socially coherent entity number-ing up to 27,000 (Benedictus 2005). Indeed, it mimics traditionalPortuguese enclaves found in parts of France (Volovitch-Tavares 1999)even to the extent that they have produced their own version of the YellowPages commercial telephone directory – as Páginas Portuguesas – detailing amyriad of Portuguese owned but British based services (Ramalho 2006).These included café-bars, restaurants, delicatessens, lawyers, doctors andhairdressers, as well as fostering community centres, social clubs and anexpatriate football league. Many luso-families have produced first andsecond generation offspring who attend British schools (Abreu et al.2003) and are culturally and dialectically assimilated into the host com-munity. More recently still, there has been spatial distribution of thePortuguese emigrant population towards peripheral regions of Britain.Trails have developed, for example, towards East Anglia to help in agricul-ture (John 2003), and towards north-west England (around Manchester)where the Portuguese work mainly in food production factories. In a postmillennium shift, workers have also begun gravitating towards Wales, theScottish Borders and Northern Ireland (Corkill and Almeida 2007).

Portuguese migrants in Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland’s foreign population is dominated by Chinese (estimatedat 7–8000 individuals), Indian (1500), and African (1600) communities(Multi-cultural Resource Centre 2002). More recently, east Europeanimmigrants have proliferated with significant numbers travelling fromLithuania, Russia and, in particular, from Poland (STEP 2006). Nevertheless,as part of a provincial population of almost 1.7 million, foreigners remaina small minority. Given the paucity of information on the region’s foreignpopulation and the failure of the NI Census 2001 to delve beyond genericethnic groupings, once again, accurate migration data on national group-ings was difficult to attain. Conservative estimates placed the region’sPortuguese population somewhere between 700 (MCRC 2002) and

2 Registration ofPortuguese nationalsat the ConsulateGeneral (PCG) is avoluntary activity andthe figure of 250,000immigrants reflectsspeculation on thepart of the PCG(Almeida 2006).

176 Martin Eaton


1000 individuals (Holder 2003: 74). In turn, most were Portuguesenationals with a small minority (of 10 per cent) being Portuguese speaking-individuals from third countries such as Angola, Brazil, Mozambique andEast Timor. Data relating to the allocation of national insurance numbersshowed that between 2002 and 2005 a total of 1630 Portuguese wereregistered with the Social Security Agency (DSDNI 2006: 22). Given thatthe mobilisation was a recent phenomenon and the situation constantlychanging, as well as there being no requirement to register (or de-register)with the Portuguese Consulate (in Manchester), then the true figurefor Portuguese immigration was perhaps higher still (at approximately2500 nationals). The question marks surrounding these figures reflectedthe weak statistical hold of government agencies and the unrecordedflux associated with the migratory flows, both into and out of theprovince. Nevertheless, what is clear is that the Portuguese representeda minor grouping within a small foreign minority population in NorthernIreland.

In spite of this limited status, recent media attention highlighted thePortuguese community but delivered mixed messages as to their impact.On one hand, they were viewed as a positive player in the regionaleconomy, helping to support agriculturally based industries that have suf-fered from acute labour shortages in recent years. At the same time, somemedia sources have painted them as a disruptive group (Tyrone Today2006) citing problems such as anti-social behaviour, abuse, harassment,intimidation and violence (issues reported in Público 2002) in the work-place. In autumn 2002, a locally produced TV documentary exposed someof the difficult conditions and experiences of Portuguese emigrantsworking in Dungannon’s meat processing factories (Collins 2002). Theprogramme alleged that wages paid to the Portuguese workers were gen-erally lower than the salaries paid to local Northern Irish employeesworking in the same factory. Survey of the Portuguese community inNorthern Ireland by Soares (2002) found that the recruitment processwas demographic and gender specific with almost nine out of ten workersbeing young, single males, between 22 and 31 years of age. Most returnedto Portugal at the end of their six-month temporary work contracts.Educational attainment amongst these immigrants was of an averagestandard, with over three-quarters having completed their secondary levelschool education. These were a replication of the neo-classical migrationchains established by temporary labour migrants in other semi-industri-alised areas, and particularly those previously moving from, into, and viaPortugal (Castles 2002). Indeed, almost seven out of ten migrant labour-ers interviewed had worked in other north European countries, namelyFrance, Germany, and Switzerland (Soares 2002: 78). Many workers,therefore, had experienced similar work posts and labour schemes operat-ing in these countries. Consequently, Northern Ireland could be seen asanother cog in the wheel of migratory circulation that now typifies thissort of semi-rural labour market arrangement that is pan-West European



in scope, with workers moving as a reaction to where the job demandswere emanating from.

In spatial terms, the Portuguese were found located in small but highlyconcentrated numbers in the new/market towns of mid-Ulster. Theseincluded the localities of Portadown and Craigavon (each conservativelyestimated to contain around 200 Portuguese nationals), and in the initialfocus of location – Dungannon (estimated at 300) (McGreevy and Bayne2001). More recently, Portuguese workers were drawn into the smalleroutlying market towns of Antrim, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Banbridge,Coalisland, Coleraine, Cookstown, Kilkeel, Limavady, Magherafelt, Omagh,Newtownards and Rathfriland (NISRA 2006). What was unusual aboutthis distribution was that, the main population centres of Belfast, Lisburnand Londonderry/Derry were largely ignored by Portuguese emigrants.This was because migrant workers were responding to change and short-fall in the rural economy and filling an: ‘unmet demand for low paidlabour’ (TUC 2004: 2): effectively substituting themselves into the local,agriculturally based labour markets of Ulster where activities includingmushroom picking, sandwich-making and potato-packing factoriesremained important. Indeed, Northern Ireland’s food processing industrywas the third largest manufacturing sector in the region, employing19,000 workers and producing £2.5 billion sales in 2005 (Anon 2007).Moreover, much of the produce was exported and this value-added tradeaccounted for: ‘almost two-thirds of the food processing sector’s output’(OFMDFM 2004), thus helping to maintain its position as a staple indus-try, alongside tourism, financial services, and electronics manufacturingsectors. Northern Ireland remains a relatively buoyant regional economywith low unemployment (4.2 per cent – April 2007), increasing levels ofemployment activity (an EAP of 786,000), and falling numbers of personsclaiming unemployment related/incapacity benefits (around 24,000) inspring 2007 (DETI 2007).

Portuguese workers’ impactsBecause of the sensitivity associated with this topic area, language con-straints and the levels of suspicion now surrounding the role of agencies, aswell as alleged interference on the part of supervisors, it proved impossibleto conduct a quantitative inquiry aimed at the workers. However, to coun-teract these difficulties and begin examining the experiences of these labourmigrants a series of in depth, semi-structured exploratory discussions wereheld with representatives closely associated with the Portuguese working inNorthern Ireland. These respondents included a female migrant workerfrom Lisbon (Interviewee A), a local supermarket line manager (B), twofood processing factory production managers (C and D), a local commu-nity/church worker (E), the managing director (F) and manager (G) ofa sandwich making factory, a Brazilian born, male immigrant worker (H), aPortuguese family support worker (I), a local newspaper editor (J) anda former recruitment agent (K). Our informants were carefully selected as

178 Martin Eaton


possessing knowledge of the labour market issues specifically surroundingthe migrants in two of the main destination towns: Portadown andDungannon. This important and detailed qualitative information was col-lected in the spring of 2006 and focused upon the segmentation of the locallabour market, the problems and benefits emerging, and the integrativeprocess undertaken by migrant workers and local communities alike. Weshould, of course, be aware that the empirical base was narrow and opin-ions put forward were value laden. Nevertheless, quality and integrity ofresponses was high and allowed for tentative comment to be made.

Our discussions showed, for example, that at the micro scale the influxof Portuguese workers into Northern Ireland has been rapid and a veryrecent phenomenon.

Interviewee E gave an indication of the timeline whereby: The first group ofpeople to come were the Portuguese appearing here in 2000. At the start itwas all males arriving most of which were aged between 20 and 30. In thelast few years (however) there have been many families and middle-agedpeople coming to live and work here.

Not surprisingly, our investigation showed that Portugal’s immigrant com-munity is a small and largely hidden group whose relative ‘invisibility’ wasbased upon their inherent desire not to draw attention to themselves.While their numbers were the subjects of debate it was quite likely thatcurrent estimates of between 1000 and 2500 newcomers were conserva-tive. Taking account of unrecorded immigration and family reconciliationthe real figure was much higher at anything up to 6000 individuals(reflecting speculation on the part of ground worker E). In spite of thisuncertainty, most Portuguese immigrants were now part of a distinctivelabour market where the immigrant’s importance was repeatedly stressed.Indeed, without the migrant labourers then, it was likely the meat pro-cessing factories (and the rural agricultural economy) in many parts of theregion would struggle to survive.

Interviewee C, for example, was unequivocal on this topic: Local people don’twant to work in this (chicken processing plant) environment. Moreover: Wecan’t get local people to do the work so if it weren’t for foreign workers thecompany would not be able to operate. We have such high productivity andmarket demand that if we failed to meet it, the factory would close down and(all of us) would be out of jobs.

The inherent flexibility, ready compliance and low skill requirementsafforded by the immigrant worker (in comparison to a local employee) alsolay at the heart of the business decision to take on foreign nationals. Thiswas particularly true in terms of the seasonally fluctuating, generallylong, hard and unsocial hours that were associated with shift working pat-terns in these sectors. To this end, G attested that:



The food industry has unpredictable hours at best . . . (this factory) starts atseven and does not finish until production has stopped. For local workerswith families to support, this is not seen as an acceptable condition.However, it is perfect for foreign nationals who (in his perception) . . . haveno families to support in the immediate area.

D argued:

the migrants have been able to work overtime in the past when it was notwanted (by the local workers), for instance, at Christmas and New Year holidays.

This demand-led argument meant that the employers were generallyhappy with their supply relationships with the labour agencies (Cains2004: 5) and were, therefore, reluctant to intervene to make agents changetheir ways or regulate their activities. Indeed, the factories had garneredthe fruits of a well-motivated, highly productive and relatively docile immi-grant labour force that was easily recruited and praised for its intrinsicwork ethic. This positive image was one reiterated by:

F who said that his factory had been able: to use a large population of(Portuguese) workers keen to work at any time, any holiday to maximumeffect, and as:

B affirmed: we have (Portuguese) agency workers who come in to doshifts we have trouble filling at night.

The role of the labour agents and the agencies they represented wasclearly very strong and often extended from pre-arrival through to theirinitial location in Northern Ireland:

A’s narrative appeared typical of many and explained that: I had to give(name of employment agency) a cheque for £250 in order to secure myplane ticket . . . On arrival, (name of agency) had organized accommodationfor us but it was rough with no heating, oil, electric and very littlefurnishing.

A synthesis of information supplied by the interviewees and K (in particular)showed that these employment agencies were both internationally andlocally based, in Oporto (Portugal), and in the island of Ireland (in Belfastand Dublin). A typical agency attracted workers to factories across NorthernIreland (Bell et al. 2004: 54) through adverts placed in Portuguese dailynewspapers (e.g. Correio de Manha). The agency interviewed potentialworkers and completed medical checks before signing them up and flyingthem to Belfast. Once in the region, they were accommodated in sharedlodgings of variable quality with several other agency employees and thenassigned to meat processing companies and food packing firms in one of themain foci/semi-rural towns mentioned previously.

180 Martin Eaton


Figure 1 interpreted the segmented nature of this labour arrangementand the way in which rental and transport costs were deducted from theemployee’s wages, which in turn were paid by the agency and not directlyby the factory of employment. In turn again, the agency was paid by the host-company at minimum working wage (MWW) level for the production workthat was provided by the migrant. The agency then paid the migrant labourera wage (minus deductions) at a basic level that it determined. Often, themoney was paid ‘cash in hand’ and via a second intermediary who wasnormally a native, Portuguese speaking, charge-hand. It was along thiscontinuum that the labour market changed from formalised to informal andinto a ‘grey’ area where regulatory controls were more difficult to enforce.Unsurprisingly, this sub-contracting arrangement became increasingly com-plicated in its operation and led to allegations that migrant workers werebeing exploited. Indeed, many were considered victims of a ‘long hours/lowpay’ syndrome (TUC 2003) that has proliferated elsewhere in Britain.


Source: Author’s schematic interpretation (2007).

Figure 1: Portuguese immigrant insertion in the Northern Ireland Labour Market.


Problems in the labour marketThe major problem to emerge from the investigation, therefore, related tothe employment situation, and more specifically, the issues of exploitation,discrimination, and physical/verbal abuse in the workplace. These hazardswere often perpetuated by intimidation and fear on the part of intermedi-aries. Indeed, in many respects these workers were dependent upon the‘generosity’ of their labour agents but vulnerable to (unfair) dismissal andejection from tied accommodation at short notice.

Interviewee A, for example, alleged that: Portuguese people and other for-eigners . . . were complaining that (Mr X) was bullying and threateningthem . . . I knew of them to put Portuguese out of their homes which theywere renting off (Mr X), during the night if they were going to shift jobs thatwere not a part of the (named) agency.

Rivalry and competitiveness amongst the controlling agents was a factor,therefore, and echoed a similar system operating in Portugal but relatingto some Portuguese agent’s nefarious treatment of Lusophone Africanimmigrants (Eaton 2003: 108) during the 1990s. Moreover, there wereparallels with immigrants entering Portugal that were carrying similarlife experience backgrounds, since the Portuguese emigrants possessed astrong work ethic and had family values at the root of their decision toemigrate (McGreevy and Bayne 2001). These drivers included a desireto earn money, remit savings, improve their lives and those of theirfamily, educate their children and broaden their horizons. Many of thesemigrants, therefore, made independent choices in order to maximise theirincomes and other opportunities within the constraints that they faced.This reflected a dual frame of reference that they carried with them (King1998: 270) or a trade-off, whereby poor wages and working conditionsabroad were tolerated because the wages earned in Northern Ireland werehigher than any potential earnings in their home country. Portugueseworkers appeared to accept their circumstances in deference to the remu-neration that they received: sterling, which could be converted into a rela-tive euro fortune when repatriated, thus helping to improve familialcircumstances, in their source areas. However, in extreme cases andaccording to:

C, for example: If foreign workers have trained to a higher level and areworking through an agency they still only receive(d) the basic rate, so insome cases they were exploited through their agency.

This scenario was, however, complex and relative to the individual’s cir-cumstances since one person’s ‘self-exploitation’ represented anotherperson’s ‘trade-off ’. Interviewee H, for instance, was previously a carmechanic in his native Brazil and:

182 Martin Eaton


made more money than most but this only allowed (him) to have a basicstandard of living (at home). It is nothing compared to what (he made) now(in Northern Ireland). H explained that he currently had a specialist (foodprocessing) job that meant he: received a higher salary.

A related feature was the integration process that these immigrantworkers underwent in the face of wider societal issues such as racialtension, verbal abuse, and occasional physical violence that was often areciprocal process. There was, for example, some evidence of intimidationand violence directed against fellow nationals. Indeed, Portuguese ‘worksupervisors’ were alleged to be coercing the contracted immigrant work-force into rejecting trade union membership and encouraging thePortuguese to inform on each other with respect to misdemeanours, bothtrivial and serious. The consequences were sometimes extreme:

A: I know a Portuguese guy who had a bottle smashed over his head. Also(name of NI labour agent deleted) and his crowd treat Portuguese like slavesand carry out wrongful beatings which I would class as racial.

Equally, there was some observational evidence of intimidation of theindigenous community (e.g. street begging, vagrancy and casual violence),and conversely instances of harassment of workers by locals, particularly,in social interaction arenas such as public houses and nightclubs. Experienceamongst the respondent workers was mixed but the underlying theme wasone of conflict.

H, for example, stated that: (he) had one or two problems with local people . . .mainly occurring on nights out in (a nearby) town.

A claimed that: one (Portuguese) guy was called a monkey because hewas black and people call us smelly and think we are diseased. (Some) homesare targeted with petrol bombs.

D spoke of: some resentment towards the migrant workforce.

It appears that the harassment was not exclusively, therefore, the domainof the local resident/worker against the immigrant but more a two-wayprocess reflecting confrontational attitudes on the part of some of theimmigrant population (agents/supervisors/workers) against each other. Acomplicated picture was clouded further by the alleged involvement oflocal paramilitary vigilantes (BBC 2004) looking to ‘control’ what theyconsidered to be ‘their’ communities.

Interviewee E stated: Most attacks are from . . . youth mobs that are linked toparamilitaries and it is the paramilitaries who control the attacks. Some ofthe houses, which are rented to Portuguese people, are paramilitary ownedand these people . . . (then) demand £20 per week from the Portuguese who



live in them to ensure their windows stay in . . . and that they receive noattacks.

This, of course, had a multiple depressant effect since the Portugueseworkers had monies deducted at source by the labour agent and allegedlyby their supervisor, paid rent to the paramilitary ‘landlord’ and then hadto pay protection money to the same ‘landlord’ to secure a safe living exis-tence. From a spatial perspective, many immigrant workers lived inrundown, dilapidated interface areas between Unionist and Nationalistcommunities and were, therefore, often on the ‘front-line’ at times ofheightened tension such as during the Orange Order parading season.

Community responsesA further complication emerged, since the process of adaptation byPortuguese immigrants to the local society, and indeed, by local communi-ties to the Portuguese (and other immigrant communities) has been slow.Mobilisations by organisations such as the Northern Ireland district coun-cils and agencies like the Citizens Advice Bureaux, to help local integrationefforts were only a very recent development. Relative invisibility within thecommunity meant it was difficult for the region’s social services, forexample, to help the workers. A simple lack of knowledge of an exactnumber of immigrants resulted in resource issues often being ill informedand poorly determined. It was initially difficult to overcome factors such asefficient provision of English language classes, the proper distribution ofinterpreting and translating services, or improved access to health ser-vices, education systems, welfare benefit offices, and so forth.

The situation has, however, changed with greater recognition andinvolvement through, for example, local councils providing translatorsand translations of documents. Several simple but far-reaching transitoryarrangements emerged.

Interviewee B (referring to a national supermarket retailer) stated that:In the Dungannon store they put up signs in Portuguese for taxis and(one) manager was sent to learn Portuguese. In this . . . store we have anoutside firm (which) acts as a translator and is . . . used when the cus-tomer requires one.

Other retailers specifically employed Portuguese in their human resourcedepartments to assist with their recruitment process and facilitate directemployment strategies, thus removing the agent from the employmentequation.

C noted that: Within personnel we have a Portuguese girl who assists in the(worker) interviews and also checks identity cards (against false representa-tion and fraud).

184 Martin Eaton


In addition, the Police Service of Northern Ireland employed an interpreterfor the mid-Ulster area and community funded initiatives such as the SouthTyrone Empowerment Programme (STEP) was utilised to support theimmigrant community (STEP 2005). Migrant workers’ forums were set upin Craigavon and a community/voluntary partnership called ANIMATE(Action Now to Integrate Minority Access to Equality) was working onmigrant worker issues in the Dungannon, Craigavon and Cookstown areas(Craigavon Borough Council 2005). Bus-mounted advertising campaignsaimed at disseminating an anti-racism message in the workplace, were alsoinstigated in Dungannon in the spring of 2006 (DSTBC 2006: 10).Moreover, a local newspaper, the Tyrone Courier, published a weekly columnin Portuguese devoted to matters of local interest to the immigrants. Thiswas tangible recognition of the contribution that the Portuguese workershave made: a point noted by J when he stated that:

There are more than two communities in Dungannon: the Portuguese arenow a sizeable group and an important part of life in Dungannon.

In some respect the Portuguese emigrant experience in the province mim-icked that found in rural parts of mainland Britain such as Lincolnshire,Norfolk and Suffolk. The situation they found themselves in was fluid andthe immigrant group was rapidly expanding. Most new entrants weretrying to ‘shuffle up the socio-economic pyramid’ (Eaton 2003), whichwas based upon relative levels of aspiration, wages and living conditionsfound in different parts of North-Western Europe.

When Interviewee A was asked: what factors made her decide to leavePortugal, her answer was emphatic and echoed the views of most: money.

In turn, even the minimum-working wage (minus agent’s deductions)/basicwage earned locally was higher than what could be made in Portugal where:

everything keeps going up in price . . . but the salary stays the same so itbecomes unaffordable to live there (Interviewee A, again).

Northern Ireland was, ergo, an outwardly attractive location pullingworkers into the province and providing jobs and rewards, with only theclimate negating against even greater levels of satisfaction since accordingto Interviewee A: it is very cold here. Equally, the local education system(once the initial English language barrier has been overcome) offered firstand second-generation immigrant worker children a much better prospectof schooling than similar opportunities found back home (Newnham2003). Indeed, the Portuguese in Northern Ireland quickly moved beyonda pioneer stage and were now settling with spouses/partners and/or chil-dren. As E attested:



There are 70 (Portuguese) kids now in school in Portadown, mostly inprimary schools but there are a few attending secondary school.

All of these favourable conditions, therefore, had the potential to allow furtherimprovement of the familial situation. Once again, they helped to justify thetrade-off associated with many of the immigrant’s work experiences and theirapparent willingness to tolerate the more negative aspects of their existence.

DiscussionIn conclusion, we have tentatively examined the scale, experiences andimpacts of Portuguese migrant workers in Northern Ireland’s labourmarket. Our analysis argued that employment of Portuguese migrants, inPortadown, Dungannon and other regional market towns, was signifi-cantly driven by employment agencies. This process has provided factorieswith a stable workforce and counteracted many of the labour shortagesassociated with the rurally based food processing sectors. As a result,working patterns based upon substitution and segmentation, have beenfundamentally altered. Equally, the role of agencies have brought adverseconsequences for some migrants in terms of reduced pay and inferiorworking and living conditions compared to other (non-migrant) workers.However, it appeared that this was a conscious decision-making process onthe part of the migrant worker to ‘trade-off ’ personal inconveniences indeference to remunerative reward, remittances, and savings, which couldall be used to improve familial circumstances, both in Portugal and inNorthern Ireland. As such, many Portuguese appeared to tolerate thedualistic operating conditions that they faced as well as the slowness asso-ciated with the pace of developmental change and the process of adapta-tion to, and on the part of, many local communities.

Consequently, the future for these types of immigrant is difficult tosurmise. It may be that with growing levels of migrant labourers andincreasing evidence of family reconciliation then greater integration canbe expected. Integration can take two forms, first, in terms of the commu-nity. As we have observed, first-generation immigrant children are nowsettling in Northern Ireland’s primary schools and with time will moveinto the secondary (and tertiary) education sectors. It is likely that com-munity groups/associations will be established, and continue to grow.Hypothetically, they may come to mirror (on a smaller scale) the estab-lished Portuguese social communities found in London. Fledgling exam-ples already exist in Dungannon where the weekend use of a localcommunity centre together with a Portuguese owned restaurant and amanaged public house forms the hub for a local socialisation/integrationprocess to take place. Portadown has a public house with a strongPortuguese clientele base, and a coffee house and shop selling Portuguesegoods, which acts as an informal drop-in support-centre offering mutualadvice and translation services. More importantly, these initiatives arecontributing to a relatively positive information chain that constitutes a

186 Martin Eaton


key part of the strong worker migration trail that has now developedbetween Portugal and Northern Ireland.

Second, greater levels of integration can be anticipated in terms of the locallabour market. Progress has been made with some migrant workers nowbeing directly employed by the factory (rather than continuing to be linked toa labour agency), thus benefiting from bonus payments, training opportuni-ties, language attainment, access to trade union membership, and closerimmersion in the workforce and local economy. However, there is also a down-side because if labour agencies are not carefully regulated (Concordia 2006:12) then problems of discrimination/exploitation demonstrated in the articlecould render the Portuguese immigrants as a vulnerable group in a societynot characterised by its tolerance of ‘outsiders’. The omnipresent spectre ofviolence is unlikely to go away completely and it is a disturbing prospect; oneorchestrated by criminal paramilitary elements (both Republican and Loyalist)exerting what they see is ‘control’ over ‘their’ communities.

Equally, as segmentation in the labour market continues and potentialsaturation point3 is neared with migrant workers continuing to enterNorthern Ireland and take up jobs that local workers are reluctant to takeon, then it is possible that conflict will develop. There is already someobservational evidence of friction developing between different groups ofimmigrant workers (Portuguese and eastern Europeans, for example)competing for the same job vacancies in mid-Ulster and this may be exac-erbated in the longer term in a three way-internecine tension between thelocal, Portuguese and East European working groups.

On the other hand, with time, co-operation and a level of tolerance, thePortuguese workers and their families could be a welcome addition tothe establishment of multiculturalism and a multi-ethnic society withinthe region. Such a community already typifies large urban centres in therest of the United Kingdom (i.e. London and to a lesser extent, the ChannelIslands and around Manchester) but is a process still in its infancy inNorthern Ireland. Moreover, it is a largely unknown concept in manyrural market towns, and more economically peripheral parts of theprovince. This lack of experience of immigrant labourers and their contri-butions will be a key factor in changing community relations and percep-tions of the Portuguese workers. It is a feature that time will change butone which will require all parties to come together to discuss their similar-ities and differences. Given past experience, there is no guarantee that thiswill happen. As a result, Portuguese workers in Northern Ireland remainin a classical state of migratory flux. Many live in a hidden, partiallyunderstood, sometimes abused, but important, gradually evolving, and atthe micro-employment scale, an increasingly influential community.

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3 There is debate overwhether there are afinite number of jobsavailable in the food-processing sector ofNorthern Ireland. Itmay be thatsaturation point isbeing reached.Equally there wereinferences from thesurvey (intervieweesB and E) that somelocal areas have beenregenerated and thecontributions ofmigrant workers havehelped to improvetrade and produce re-investment, increasesin jobs and sustainedgrowth of factories(DETI 2007).



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Suggested citationEaton, M. (2007), ‘From Porto to Portadown: Portuguese workers in Northern

Ireland’s labour market’, Portuguese Journal of Social Science 6 (3): 171–91, doi:10.1386/pjss.6.3.171/1

Contributor detailsMartin Eaton is a Reader in the University of Ulster’s School of Environmental Sciencesand since 2003 has been an International Fellow of the Gilbert M. Grosvenor Center

190 Martin Eaton


for Geographic Education at Texas State University and International Scholar atthe Universidad de La Serena in Chile. His research interests include EU regionaldevelopment processes, industrial geography, analyses of the periphery (especiallyIberia) and migration processes in Portugal and Northern Ireland. He is the authorof several articles on Portuguese immigration and demography. Contact:Dr. Martin Eaton, Reader in Human Geography, School of Environmental Sciences,University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, BT52 1SA, UK. Tel: 02870 324663.Fax: 02870 324911.E-mail: [email protected]





Minority representation in Portuguese democracyAndré Freire CIES-ISCTE

AbstractUsing Lijphart’s framework concerning different models of democracy, the objec-tive is to provide a very brief overview of the main social and political divisions inPortuguese society, and to present the main institutional features of Portuguesedemocracy and the possibilities they offer for minority representation. The articlestarts by looking at the main social and political divisions in Portuguese society.Then, the main institutional characteristics of Portuguese democracy, as regardsthe ‘executive-parties dimension’ and the ‘federal-unitary dimension’, and theopportunities they offer for representation of minorities in Portugal, are presented.The article uses a perspective which is both longitudinal (1974 to the present)and comparative (Portugal in the context of Western Europe). The article endswith some brief conclusions.

IntroductionVarious different models can be found for democracy, both in normativetheories for democracy, and in the domain of empirical political science(Dahl 1998; Lijphart 1977, 1989, 1999; Beethem 2005; Held 2005).However, considering that our topic here is ‘minority representation inPortuguese democracy’, the theoretical model best suited to this type ofanalysis is that conceived by Arend Lijphart on majoritarian and consen-sus democracies (Lijphart 1977, 1989, 1999; Horowitz 1985; Reynolds1999; Reilly 2001; O’Flynn and Russell 2005).

In his various works on the subject, Lijphart starts out from the premisethat modern democracies are fundamentally representative. So if governmentis not exercised (directly) by the people, the types of democratic regimes arebasically differentiated by the varying answers to the question ‘who shouldgovern’? According to the ‘majoritarian model’ of the Westminster type,the answer is the representatives of the majority of the voters – ‘the major-ity’. According to the ‘consensus democracy model’, the answer is the rep-resentatives of the largest possible part of the various segments into whichthe electorate is divided – ‘as many people as possible’.

Each type of democracy is associated with an integrated set of politicalinstitutions, which function as a system of incentives and constraints forthe activities of social and political actors. With regard to the election ofrepresentatives and the decision-making process at central government

193

Keywordsrepresentationminoritiesdemocratic modelPortugal


* Paper prepared forpresentation at theSeminar on ‘Minorityrepresentation innational parliaments’organised by theCouncil of Europe,Committee on Rulesof Procedure andImmunities,Assembleia daRepública, Sala doSenado, Lisbon, 29September 2006. Theauthor wishes tothank the DeputyAna Catarina Mendesfor her invitation totake part in thisseminar.

PJSS-6-3-05-Freire 3/14/08 2:36 AM Page 193

level, which the author calls the ‘executive-parties dimension’ of the insti-tutional model (see Table 1a), majoritarian democracy is fundamentallyassociated with the following characteristics: first, a majoritarian electoralsystem and a political arena dominated by two major parties which taketurns in government and, second, the prevalence of executive power, nor-mally exercised by a single party, over legislative power. Politics is hereenvisaged as a zero-sum game in which the winner (in each election) takesall (i.e. control of the fundamental decision making processes in centralgovernment). This solution is therefore particularly well suited to homoge-nous societies, in other words, societies with few ethnic, linguistic, reli-gious or other divisions, and where the main dividing lines through theelectorate are socioeconomic. This is the sort of society where today’slosers are most likely to be tomorrow’s winners, that is, where a system oftwo alternating parties will work.

However, we should note that majoritarian systems at central govern-ment level may co-exist with consensual type solutions at the level of thestate’s territorial organisation: the prime example of this is the federalsolution (as opposed to a unitary and centralised state) (see Table 1b). Inaccordance with the second empirical dimension of his models of democ-racy, which Lijphart calls the ‘federal-unitary dimension’, majoritariandemocracy tends to feature the following characteristics: unitary and cen-tralised government (both as regards the powers conferred by the constitu-tion, and as concerns the allocation of state revenues and expenditure), a

194 André Freire

Consensus – ‘Who Majoritarian – ‘Who governs? As many

Empirical dimensions governs? The majority’ people as possible’

Executive-parties Concentration of power Power-sharing within the in the executive executive (‘enlarged’ (single-party coalition government)government) Power-sharing between

Executive dominance of executive andthe legislature legislature

Bipartisan system Multi-party systemMajoritarian electoral Proportional electoral

system system (PR)Pluralism of interest groups Neo-corporatism

Paradigmatic examples: UK, New Zealand (until Switzerland, Belgium,countries, etc. 1996), Barbados European Union

Type of societies usually Non-plural societies (i.e. Plural societies (i.e., associated with each homogenous societies societies highly divided type of democracy such as those divided along ethnic, religious

only along socio- and/or linguistic lines economic or territorial ‘number of groups lines) and their relative

dimension’)

Source: Lijphart (1999).

Table 1a: Models of democracy: majoritarian and consensus.


single-chamber parliament (or a highly asymmetrical two-chamber system,where the second chamber has every limited powers), constitutional flexi-bility (the national executive is clearly supreme, and only a simple majorityis required for constitutional amendments) and a central bank which isdependant on executive power.

Majoritarian democracy offers various advantages, including the possi-bility of producing stable governments which may be more easily held toaccount by the electorate. But when the floating electorate is relativelysmall because the different segments are fairly rigid and faithful (to theirrespective social and party political groups), alternation may be jeopar-dised. What is more, under these conditions, minority segments are deniedaccess to power and are therefore tempted to bring the regime down byforce (or else to foster sentiment in favour of territorial secession). So astable government might actually deliver an unstable regime.

In these cases, the solution has involved introducing institutional rulesof a consensus type. In other words, as regards the ‘executive-partiesdimension’, these are systems with proportional representation (electoralsystem); multi-party systems (often fragmented); coalition governments(often oversized) and a certain balance between executive and legislativepower (see Table 1a). These are generally joined by other features relating tothe ‘federal-unitary dimension’, such as federalism, strong bicameralism(i.e. where the two chambers are elected in fairly different ways, generallywith one representing individuals and the other the States, and with identicalpowers) and constitutional rigidity (i.e. very broad majorities are needed toalter the constitutional architecture), and so forth (see Table 1b).

195Minority representation in Portuguese democracy

Consensus – ‘Who Majoritarian – ‘Who governs? As many

Empirical dimensions governs? The majority’ people as possible’

Federal-unitary Unitary and centralised Federal and decentralised government government

Concentration of power in Strong bicameralisma unicameral parliament Constitutional rigidity

Constitutional flexibility Judicial review (andAbsence of judicial review strong amendment

(soft amendment procedures)procedures) Independence of the

Central bank controlled by Central Bankthe executive Switzerland, Belgium,

Paradigmatic examples: UK (until devolution in European Union (USA,countries, etc. 1998), New Zealand Canada)

(until 1996), Barbados IdemType of societies usually Idem

associated with each type of democracy

Source: Lijphart (1999).

Table 1b: Models of democracy: majoritarian and consensus.


We should note that, as in the previous case of majoritarian democracy,the executive-parties and the federal-unitary dimensions are analyticallyand empirically distinct. In consensus democracy, politics is conceivedessentially as power sharing and minority rights are highly protected,namely through a kind of right of veto. Power sharing is regarded as theprice to pay for political stability in deeply divided societies. Consensussolutions may also be especially suited to processes of recent democratisa-tion and/or to societies emerging from military conflicts (especially wherethe conflict is rooted in ethnicity).

Using the theoretical framework developed by Arend Lijphart, myobjective here is to provide a very brief overview of the main social andpolitical divisions in Portuguese society, and to present the main institu-tional features of Portuguese democracy and the possibilities they offer forminority representation. We will start by looking at the main social andpolitical divisions in Portuguese society, in the first and second sections. Inthe third section we will present the main institutional characteristics ofPortuguese democracy, as regards the ‘executive-parties dimension’ andthe ‘federal-unitary dimension’, and the opportunities they offer for repre-sentation of minorities in Portugal. We will use a perspective which is bothlongitudinal (for the democratic period, 1974 to the present) and compar-ative (viewing the Portuguese experience in the context of WesternEurope). We will end with some brief conclusions.

Social and territorial divisions in Portuguese societyPortugal has a long and unbroken history as an independent state (itsfrontiers have been relatively stable since the middle-ages) and, in additionto this, it has no significant minorities, from an ethnic, religious or linguis-tic point of view. So, unlike in Spain and various other new democracies inEastern Europe, studies of Portuguese political culture have revealedstrong feelings of national identity shared by a more or less homogenouspopulation (Cruz 1989; Reis and Dias 1993; Pinto and Núñez 1997; Freire,Magalhães and Espírito-Santo 2003).

As we can see in Table 2, Portugal is the most ethnically concentratedcountry of the thirteen Western European countries presented. In 1999,the dominant ethnic group accounted for 99 per cent of the population.Despite the growth in immigration since then (Pires 2002), the situationhas not significantly changed in this respect. The level of ethnic homo-geneity in Portugal is similar to that of countries such as Denmark, theUnited Kingdom or Greece, amongst others, and contrasts particularlywith the situation experienced in Europe’s ethnically divided or frag-mented societies (France, Spain and Belgium).

In terms of religious structure, Portugal belongs to the group of pre-dominantly Catholic countries in Western Europe (France, Austria, Italy,Belgium, Ireland and Spain) (see Table 3). Indeed, Portugal is joint leaderwith Spain of the table for religious homogeneity with the lowest level ofreligious fragmentation. In addition, of the thirteen Western European

196 André Freire


countries considered, with a variety of religious structures (predominantlyCatholic, Protestant or Orthodox; religiously mixed), the only country topresent a level of religious fragmentation lower than Portugal and Spain isGreece (overwhelmingly Orthodox) (see Table 3).

Whilst in Portugal there is very little potential for political polarisationalong religious or ethnic lines, as the divisions are very small and society isvery homogenous in these fields, the same is not true in terms of the levels


Index of No religious

Countries Catholic Protestant Orthodox Others Religion fragmentation

1)FRA 73.9 0.0 0.0 10.5 15.6 0.42AUS 78.0 4.9 0.0 8.6 8.6 0.38ITA 83.1 0.0 0.0 0.7 16.2 0.28BEL 90.0 0.0 0.0 10.0 0.0 0.18IRL 93.1 0.0 0.0 6.0 0.0 0.13SP 94.9 0.0 0.0 5.1 0.0 0.10POR 94.5 0.0 0.0 5.5 0.0 0.10

2)NL 33.0 23.0 0.0 5.0 39.0 0.68GER 35.3 40.2 0.0 2.1 22.3 0.66

3)UK 13.1 72.0 0.6 4.8 9.5 0.45DK 0.0 88.2 0.0 11.8 0.0 0.21SWE 0.0 88.2 0.0 11.8 0.0 0.21

4)GRE 0.0 0.0 97.6 2.4 0.0 0.05

Source: Lane and Ersson (1999: 46).Notes: Catholic countries; religiously mixed countries; protestant countries; Orthodox countries;within each group, the countries are listed in a descending order of religious fragmentation.

Table 3: Confessional structure in Western Europe, 1995.

Countries Dominant ethno-linguistic group (per cent)

Portugal (POR) 99Denmark (DK) 97United Kingdom (UK) 97Greece (GRE) 96Ireland (IRL) 95Austria (AUS) 94Italy (IT) 94Germany (GER) 93Netherlands (NL) 92Sweden (SWE) 91France (FRA) 87Spain (SP) 80Belgium (BEL) 59

Source: Lane and Ersson (1999: 55).Note: The countries are listed in a decreasing order of ethnic homogeneity.

Table 2: Ethnic concentration in Western Europe, 1990.


of secularisation versus religious integration (see Table 4). Portugal is oneof the least secularised countries in Western Europe, together with theother Catholic countries (Austria, Italy, Ireland and Spain) and OrthodoxGreece. The percentage of people who ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ go to church iscomparatively low, both in 1990 (44 per cent), and in 1999 (36.9 per cent),putting the country in ninth and tenth place, respectively, out of the 13countries in descending order of secularisation. On the other hand, the per-centage of people who ‘often’ go to church is one of the highest for the thir-teen European countries considered: 47.5 per cent (1990) and 53.2 percent (1999), putting the country in third place in descending order of reli-gious integration. There is consequently rather more potential for politicalpolarisation due to the social division between a more religious majorityand a more secularised minority, given that the two groups have relativelyequal weight in society as a whole.

Of the 13 Western European countries presented in Table 5, Portugalhas the highest level of socioeconomic inequality, although in the 1980sit shared this position with Spain.1 These findings persist in the 1990s,regardless of whether we use the S80/S20 or the Gini Index as the indicatorfor 1996 and 1999, respectively.

Portugal remains an extremely divided country in terms of the distrib-ution of socioeconomic resources and the system of material rewards. Inother words, the divisions between a minority that controls most of thesocioeconomic resources, and a majority that has fairly limited access tothese resources, are the deepest of the 13 Western European countries in

1 Note that the data onthe Gini Index for the1980s is problematicin various respectsbecause the referencedate and themethodology are not the same for allcountries, as in somecases the referenceperiod is the 1970s.On this point, seeLane and Ersson(1999), Gunther andMontero (2001) andFreire (2006b).

198 André Freire

Never or Go to Never or Go to rarely go church rarely go church to church often to church often

(1990) (1990) (1999) (1999)

SWE 77.0 IRL 87.7 FRA 73.6 IRL 74.7DK 71.6 ITA 51.2 GB 70.8 ITA 53.6GER 66.1 POR 47.5 DK 67.1 POR 53.2FRA 66.1 AUS 44.1 NL 60.8 AUS 42.9GB 63.9 SP 39.7 SWE 58.8 SP 36.0NL 53.0 BEL 34.8 GER 58.1 GRE 33.6BEL 51.4 NL 30.5 BEL 56.0 BEL 27.8SP 44.1 GER 26.5 SP 47.3 NL 25.0POR 44.0 GB 24.5 AUS 37.7 GER 24.2AUS 37.9 GRE 22.7 POR 36.9 GB 18.7ITA 24.5 FRA 16.9 ITA 20.9 FRA 12.3GRE 20.5 DK 10.8 IRL 14.8 DK 11.9IRL 6.1 SWE 10.3 GRE 13.1 SWE 9.1

Sources: World Values Survey 1999; European Values Study 1999/2000; Eurobarometer 1990(for Greece).Notes: The countries are listed in decreasing order (either for ‘secularisation’ or for ‘religiousintegration’). GB, Great Britain.

Table 4: Levels of secularisation and religious integration in Western Europe,1990 and 1999 (%).


analysis. More recent data, from the United Nations Development Program,show Portugal to be the most unequal country in the EU-25 (UNDP 2005).This situation would appear to be related not only to the actual level ofdevelopment in the country (other fairly unequal countries are Spain andGreece), but also to the population’s actual tolerance vis-à-vis inequality(Cabral, Vala and Freire 2003) and, above all, to the ideological orienta-tion, and consequent public policies, of the governing class (see in thisrespect the position of the United Kingdom).

Socioeconomic inequalities in Portugal are not only fairly significant;they also correspond to a fairly precise geographical demarcation. On theone hand, there are areas of the country (Lisbon and the Tagus Valley,Madeira and the Algarve) with greater control of socioeconomic resourcesand above average earnings levels, whether measured in terms ofper capita GDP or in terms of per capita household disposable income(see Table 6). On the other hand, with less control over socioeconomicresources there are other areas of the country (north, centre, Alentejo andthe Azores), where earning levels are below average. Regions in the firstgroup are – as a rule – more densely populated, although certain coastalareas of the north and centre also have a high population density (Freire2001). Indeed, if the statistical data at our disposal allowed us to breakdown the northern and central regions into coastal and interior sub-regions, we would have an even clearer picture of the geographical patternof socioeconomic inequality: the interior outlying areas have much morelimited control over socioeconomic resources than the coastal areas,


Gini Index (1980s) S80/S20 (1996) Gini Index (1999)

SP 0.39 POR 6.6 POR 0.36POR 0.39 GRE 6.1 GRE 0.34DK 0.38 ITA 6.0 SP 0.33AUS 0.37 SP 5.9 UK 0.32IRL 0.33 UK 5.6 IRL 0.32ITA 0.31 IRL 5.6 ITA 0.30FRA 0.30 GER 4.7 BEL 0.29UK 0.30 AUS 4.7 FRA 0.29GRE 0.30 FRA 4.5 AUS 0.26NL 0.27 NL 4.5 NL 0.26GER 0.25 SWE 3.7 GER 0.25BEL 0.24 DK 2.9 DK 0.23SWE 0.22 BEL - SWE 0.23

Sources: Gini Index, 1980s (Lane and Ersson 1999: 69 and 70) (except for Austria and Ireland(income of the richest 20 per cent—the data is from the 1960s—and Denmark (Gini Index)—thedata is from the 1970s. All other country data is from the 1980s; Gunther and Montero (2001)—Portugal, mid-1970s, and Greece, 1982; S80/S20 (1996) (Matsaganis et al. 2003); Gini Index(1999) (Dennis and Guio 2003: 6).Notes: Gini index: 0 (maximum equality) and 1 (maximum inequality); S80/S20—the ratiorepresents the income received by the richest 20 per cent vis-à-vis the poorest 20 per cent; Thecountries are listed in a decreasing order of social inequalities.

Table 5: Social inequalities in Western Europe, 1980–1999.


which are more central (from a social and political perspective, althoughnot necessarily from a geographical perspective) (Freire 2001). Finally,there is also a contrast between the two most remote Atlantic islandregions: Madeira and the Azores. Madeira has above average levels ofincome, especially in terms of per capita GDP, whilst the Azores is theregion trailing farthest behind the national average, in terms of per capitaGDP, and the second farthest behind the national average in terms of percapita disposable household income.

Issue dimensions of partisan conflict in the Portuguese party systemPrior to the relatively bloodless Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 thatinitiated the so-called ‘third wave’ of worldwide democratisation, free andfair elections with universal suffrage and a competitive party system wereunheard of in Portugal. Portugal’s transition was initiated by a coup led byjunior officers (Freire 2005, 2006a). Whilst the coup may have beenplanned as a political revolution to liberalise society – overthrow a decrepitregime and end the interminable colonial wars – it is important to note thatthe military remained committed to holding constituent elections one yearfrom the date of coup. These elections were held on schedule on 25 April1975, and obtained a 92 per cent turnout. One year later, on 25 April1976, the first constitutional parliamentary elections took place.

A stable party system quickly emerged, and by 1976 four parties rep-resented almost 90 per cent of the electorate. Apart from a brief periodduring the mid-1980s when the centre-left Partido Renovador Democrático(PRD) emerged and disappeared, the party system has remained relativelystable. The general tendency is for the vote to concentrate with the twocentrist ‘catch-all’ parties: the centre-left Partido Socialista (Socialist Party –PS),2 and the centre-right Partido Social Democrata (Social DemocraticParty – PSD), which, despite its name is a liberal party and not socialdemocratic.3 Alongside the PS and the PSD, the Partido ComunistaPortuguês (Portuguese Communist Party – PCP)4 and the conservativeCentro Democrático Social (Social Democratic Centre – CDS) have become

2 The PS has alwaysbeen a member of theSocialist International(Sablosky 1997:56ff.).

3 Until the 1990s, thePSD had beenassociated with theEuropean LiberalDemocratic andReformist Group(ELDR) in theEuropean Parliament.Since the beginning ofthe 1990s, however, ithas aligned itself withthe conservativeEuropean People’sParty (EPP) (Frain1997: 80ff.)

4 Founded in 1921, thePCP was a member ofthe Comintern untilthe collapse of thisorganisation (Cunha1997: 37). In theEuropean Parliament,the PCP is a memberof the UnitedEuropean Left/NordicGreen Left (UEL/NGL)parliamentary group.

200 André Freire

GDP per capita 2001 DHI per capita 2001

NUTS (Thousand euros)PORTUGAL 11.9 8.0North 9.6 6.7Centre 9.7 7.2Lisbon and Tagus Valley 15.8 9.8Alentejo 9.6 7.0Algarve 12.4 8.6Azores 9.4 6.9Madeira 13.4 8.5

Source: Instituto Nacional de Estatística, Contas regionais (www.ine.pt).

Table 6: Territorial inequalities in Portugal: GDP per capita and disposablehousehold income (DHI) per capita by NUTS II, 2001.


the system’s main parties. Following its defeat in the 1991 legislative elec-tions, the CDS changed its leadership, its ideological profile and its name,becoming the Partido Popular (Popular Party – PP).5 Some smaller partieshave obtained seats in parliament during the democratic period (Freire2005, 2006a). Among these parties it is worth mentioning the Bloco doEsquerda (Left Bloc – BE). This left-libertarian organisation was originallya coalition of two old extreme-left wing parties and a political movementthat was formed to compete in the 1999 legislative elections. Over the pastfew years, however, it has come to be viewed as a single political party.6

When competing for voters’ support, parties present different packagesof public policies, each with different levels of priority. Both the packages ofpublic policies and their relative priority are related to the issue dimen-sions of partisan conflict. Lijphart emphasises the need to distinguishbetween the dimensions of policy competition, and ‘the characteristics ofthe voters that parties represent’. In this respect, it is important to recallthe difference between ‘domain of identification’ and ‘space of competi-tion’ that were introduced by Sani and Sartori (1983: 330). The formerrefers to which electors identify with the different parties, and whichdimensions of identification (ideological, religious, ethnic, linguistic, terri-torial, etc.) are relevant in each case, while ‘space of competition’ ulti-mately addresses the query, along which dimensions lay the non-identifiedpartisan or floating voters for which it is rewarding to compete (Sani andSartori 1983: 330). The two dimensions are complementary, but what itdoes mean is that electors are usually distributed along multiple dimensionsof identification; however, this does not necessarily mean that politicalparties compete along the same dimensions. Moreover, in spite of multipledimensions of identification, the space of competition can be one-dimensional. Lijphart (1999, 1989) defines seven issue dimensions of policycompetition. Additionally, for each country and epoch, he classifies each ofthem according to their importance for policy competition. In Table 7,Lijphart’s analysis of the dimensions of policy competition in the Portuguesecase is presented for the periods 1975–86 and 1975–96. Updated data forthe period 1996–2004 has been added from our own analyses.

5 The CDS was foundedas a Christiandemocratic party.Following accession to the EU it joined theEPP. In the early1990s it beganpromoting an anti-EUstance, leading to itsexpulsion from theEPP in 1992.Following this, itjoined the Union forEurope of the NationsGroup (UPE). After1997, the party’sstance on the EUchanged, culminatingwith their return tothe EPP in July 2004.

6 The BE elected its firstMEP at the 2004European Elections. In the EuropeanParliament, the BE(like PCP) is anassociated member of the UEL/NGLparliamentary group.


Issue dimensions and their salience

Socio- Cultural Urban- Regime Foreign Post- Number ofYears economic Religious Ethnic Rural Support Policy materialism dimensions

1975–86 H H – – M H – 3.51975–96 H M – – M M – 2.51996–2004 H M – – M M M 3.0

Source: Adapted from Lijphart (1989: 279) for the period 1975–1986 and (1999: 80ff) for the period 1975–1996. Informationfor the period 1996–2004 represents the present author’s evaluation.Notes: H � issue dimension with high salience (counts as 1 for the number of dimensions); M � issue dimension with mediumsalience (counts as 0.5 for the number of dimensions).

Table 7: Issue dimensions of partisan conflict in the Portuguese party system, 1975–2004.


In the Portuguese case, the cultural-ethnic dimension is not relevantfor either policy competition or as a domain of identification. The samecan also be said about the urban-rural dimension (Pinto and Núñez 1997;André and Gaspar 1989; Freire 2001).

For the period 1975–1996, the post-materialist issue dimension wasirrelevant both as a domain of competition and of identification. For theperiod for which appropriate survey data is available (1990–2002), itcan be seen that the electorate has very little support for post-materialistvalues, and that, in general, there is practically no difference betweenthe supporters of each of the parties (Freire 2003; Jalali 2004). Until theend of the 1990s, parties had hardly competed on this issue dimension.With the emergence of the BE as a parliamentary force, however, newpolitical issues have became a domain of competition between the left (par-ticularly the BE, but also the PCP and PS) and the right (PSD and particu-larly the PP). From 1996 until at least 2004, post-materialism has been apertinent dimension of policy competition, although only with medium-level significance.

During the early phase of Portugal’s transition to democracy, from25 April 1974 to 25 November 1975, regime support was a highly con-tentious issue that placed the PCP and several other extreme-left parties inopposition to the pro-liberal democratic parties (Freire 2005, 2006a). ThePCP advocated a Soviet-style popular democracy, while the extreme-leftparties defended Third World Communist models. The PS, PSD and CDS,on the other hand, advocated following the Western democratic model. On25 November 1975, a counter-coup by moderate elements within theMFA, who had foiled a coup attempt by the extreme-left, established adurable liberal democracy. Since then, the PCP has normalised its relation-ship with parliamentary democracy (Cunha 1997), and the issue has lostmost of its previous significance. In any event, this matter has very littleimportance for our present analysis of the period 1996–2004, with theonly relevant point concerning the PCP’s and BE’s reservations regardingthe capitalist system, which is a model of society accepted, to varyingdegrees, by the other three parliamentary parties.

In terms of foreign policy, the major issues of competition have beenconcerned with the alignment of political parties in terms of the two ColdWar political and military blocs and European integration. With respectto the former, the democratic pro-liberal PS, PSD and CDS supported theWest and its military organisations, while the PCP sympathised with theSoviet bloc and its military organisation. As we have seen in respect ofregime support, this policy dimension of competition cuts across the left-right divide. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War,this divide lost most of its significance, although its continued presenceremains apparent in relation to certain international issues, such as theNATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 and the 2003 Gulf War. These divisionssometimes have the power to force ideological alignment that reinforcesthe left-right political divide. One example of this can be seen in the

202 André Freire


political response to the 2003 Gulf War, which was opposed by all of theleft-wing parties and supported by the right-wing parties.

European integration is an issue that cuts across the ideological divide,albeit in a rather less than straightforward manner. During the transitionto democracy, the PCP and other left-wing groups proposed alternativesocialist and Third World paths. This explains why European integrationwas to become a major policy goal of the PS, PSD and CDS. From the mid-1970s until 1992, political support for Europe was monopolised by theselargely pro-European parties, with the result that, from 1988 onwards(the year of the first direct elections to the European Parliament), the PCPwas forced to significantly moderate its resistance to Europe (Cunha 1993).Following its resounding defeat at the 1991 elections, however, the newlyrenamed PP followed its new leader in adopting a much more scepticalposition towards the European Union and its proposals for a single Europeancurrency. This change in direction was short-lived; however, following theelection of a new leader in 1997, the party accepted the inevitability of thenew currency. With the PP’s subsequent rise to power as part of the PSD-PP coalition that formed the government in 2002, the party has assumeda more prudent position. The position of the PP notwithstanding, it is afact that there is very little to separate the PSD and the PS on Europeanissues (Freire 2005, 2006a). One new element of left-right division overEuropean matters came to light in the wake of the European parliamen-tary elections of 2004 when the opposition left-wing parties rejected theEU stability pact that was defended by the governing right-wing parties.

The issues that provide the best overlaps in the left-right divide inPortugal are, first, socioeconomic matters, and, second, religious affairs.Whether as a domain of competition or of identification, both issues enableus to split the parties into left- and right-wing, and to further order themin a left-right continuum that ranges from the PCP on the left, through theBE, PS and PSD to the PP on the right (Freire 2005, 2006a). In terms ofthe domain of competition, the socioeconomic dimension (i.e., controver-sies concerning socioeconomic equality and the role of the state in theeconomy and society) is the most significant, with the religious dimensionhaving only medium significance. During the democratic transition, theCatholic Church aligned itself with the pro-liberal democratic partiesagainst the radical left. During that period, religious polarisation was high.Since then the religious dimension has barely registered as a domain ofpolicy competition except when policies concerning moral issues and/orthe Church’s interests are debated. This has been the case with proposals toliberalise abortion legislation (which is supported by the left), or the proposalto provide state finance for the Catholic University (which is supported bythe right) (Freire 2005, 2006a). As a dimension of identification, however,the religious issue has always proved more significant than the socioeco-nomic issue, with some studies of Portuguese electoral behaviour reveal-ing that church attendance is a better vote predictor than social class(Freire 2005, 2006a). Post-materialist issues are more pertinent to the



competition domain than they are to that of identification. They more orless permit us to range the parties from left to right in terms of their policyproposals; however, they are a very poor predictor of voting alignmentsor of the individual citizen’s position on the political spectrum (Freire2005, 2006a).

On the one hand there is a very low potential for partisan conflict basedon ethnic and linguistic issues in the Portuguese party system, and indeedthese are not relevant dimensions of partisan conflict: on the other handsocial inequalities with a territorial base are fairly deep. Moreover, Portugalhas two ultra-peripheral regions (the Azores and of Madeira – althoughMadeira now has a level of individual and familial per capita incomes thatare above the national average). However, even the issues related to theselatter divisions (i.e. social inequalities with a territorial base) are not rele-vant issues of partisan conflict at least at the national level. On the onehand, this might be due to the fact that regional parties are forbidden by thePortuguese constitution. On the other hand, although Portugal has a cen-tralised system of government, there is a regionalised system of governmentfor the Azores and of Madeira, with a regional parliament and governmentin each. Thus, these minorities – at least from the standpoint of the numberof inhabitants and the distance of the regions from the mainland – canexpress their interests through the regional system of government, whilstalso being represented within the national parliament in Lisbon.7

Leaving aside those issues that normally cut across the left-right divide,we are left with the socioeconomic, the religious and the post-materialistissue dimensions. What, however, is the strength of the left-right divide inPortugal in a comparative perspective in terms of the policy competitiondomain? By using the electorate’s perception of the position of politicalparties on the political spectrum in 13 countries in 1989 and 1999,8 thefollowing became apparent: in terms of standardised ideological distances(i.e. the absolute distance between parties on the political spectrum,divided by the maximum distance) between the two most extreme partiesrepresented in their respective parliament, France, Portugal and Greecehad the most polarised political systems both in 1989 and 1999. In bothPortugal and Greece this is due mainly to the presence of orthodoxCommunist parties. When considering the standardised ideological dis-tance between the two major parties (one from the left ideological bloc,and the other from the right9) in these countries, the opposite conclusionscan be drawn for the Portuguese case. In 1989, Portugal, Austria andIreland were the least polarised systems, while in 1999 Portugal, Belgium,the United Kingdom, Austria and Ireland were the least polarised. Usingdata from surveys conducted during 1989 and 1993, the conclusions arrivedat were very similar (Freire 2005, 2006a).

Political institutions and the representation of minoritiesOn the basis of data gathered and processed by Arend Lijphart (1999) andpresented by Bruneau et al. (2001), Table 8 presents the relative position

7 Madeira has sixdeputies in the Lisbonparliament, while theAzores have five.

8 Portugal, Spain,Greece, France,United Kingdom,Germany, Austria,Italy, Holland,Denmark, Belgium,Sweden and Ireland.The 1989 figures arebased on theEurobarometer 31Asurvey data for allcountries exceptAustria and Sweden,where data from the‘Party Manifestos’was used. The figuresfor all countries in1999 are based ondata from theEuropean ElectionStudy of that year (seehttp://www.europeanelectionstudies.net/EES%201999.htm).

9 Only in Ireland weconsidered the twomajor parties toutcourt (Fianna Fail andFine Gael) due to thefact that these are theparties that usuallylead government’salternation.

204 André Freire


of 23 countries and 24 political systems (France counts twice: the 4th and5th Republics) in terms of the profile of the respective political systems inthe ‘executive-parties’ dimension and in the ‘federal-unitary’ dimension.There is no need here to go into methodological details, suffice to say thatfor each dimension the authors constructed a compound index that aggre-gates the information for the various items characterising each of the twodimensions (see Tables 1a and 1b above). Both as regards the ‘executive-parties’ dimension and the ‘federal-unitary dimension’, the highest scoresrefer to the majoritarian and unitary characteristics, respectively. At theother end of the scale, the lowest scores point to profiles characteristic ofconsensus and federal democracies, respectively.

Before continuing with an analysis of the data in Table 8, we shouldpoint out the d’Hondt highest average system of proportional representa-tion is used in Portuguese parliamentary elections. Votes are convertedinto parliamentary seats by party with a view to ensuring a balancedmatch between the percentage of votes and the percentage of seatsobtained by each party. Votes are counted for each parliament in each ofthe 22 multi-member constituencies (18 corresponding to the 18 mainlanddistricts, one each for the Azores and Madeira, and two for expatriates,


The executive-parties’ dimension The federal-unitary dimension(high, majoritarian; low, consensus) (high, unitary; low, federal)

New Zealand 1.55 UK 1.50Canada 1.45 Iceland 1.45UK 1.45 Luxembourg 1.22Australia 1.41 Portugal (1976–95) 1.00USA 0.78 Greece (1974-96) 0.90Spain (1977–96) 0.72 France, 4th Rep. 0.78Greece (1974–96) 0.66 Sweden 0.54Austria 0.53 Finland 0.47Ireland 0.34 France, 5th Rep. 0.45Luxembourg 0.29 Belgium 0.40France, 5th Rep. 0.28 Ireland 0.34Japan 0.20 Norway 0.34Iceland –0.04 Denmark 0.23Portugal (1976–95) –0.14 Austria –0.10Germany –0.15 Spain (1977–96) –0.23Norway –0.20 Italy (1946–96) –0.35Sweden –0.25 Netherlands –0.38Denmark –0.76 Canada –0.97Belgium –0.92 Australia –1.33Netherlands –1.06 Switzerland –1.39Italy (1946–96) –1.16 Germany –1.50Finland –1.42 Japan –1.52Switzerland –1.59 USA –1.93France, 4 Rep. –1.80 – –

Source: Bruneau et al. (2001).

Table 8: The executive-parties’ and the federal-unitary dimensions: thePortuguese case in comparative perspective, 1945–1996.


divided into ‘Europe’ and ‘rest of the world’). There has been only onemajor change to the Portuguese electoral system since it was establishedin 1975 – the reduction in the number of deputies from 250 to 230 aspart of the 1989 constitutional review, which took effect from the 1991parliamentary election and which had a slight impact on the average sizeof constituencies (reduced from 11.4 to 10.5). Under the electoral law, thenumber of members per constituency is proportional to the number of reg-istered voters.

In terms of the ‘executive-parties’ dimension, the average figures shownin Table 8 for the entire democratic period under consideration (1976–95)show that Portugal occupied a middle-of-the-road position amongst the24 political systems, rather closer to the ‘consensus model’ of democracythan to the ‘majoritarian model’. In other words, Portugal’s institutionalarrangements significantly facilitate the representation of minorities. Thismeans that, although Portuguese society is relatively homogenous (exceptin terms of religious integration, socioeconomic inequalities and politicaldivisions), the design of the political institutions with regard to the ‘executive-parties’ dimension is substantially favourable to the expression and repre-sentation of minority identities and interests.

However, we know that during the democratic period (1974 to thepresent), the Portuguese political system has presented differing charac-teristics in terms of the ‘executive-parties’ dimension, depending on theperiod in question – before or after 1987 (Lopes and Freire 2002; Lobo2001, 2003; Magalhães 2003; Freire 2005, 2006a).

The changes in the Portuguese party system can be divided into threedistinct phases (Freire 2005, 2006a). The first of these was the periodfrom 1976 to 1987, which is characterised by a fragmented multipartysystem with highly unstable cabinets. During this phase, the role of eachof the different major political institutions (president, government andparliament) was more balanced. The second period, from 1987 to 2002,was one in which a strong bipartisan trend within the party system wasevident. This trend impelled change towards single party and increasinglystable governments with power being concentrated with the prime minis-ter. Between 2002 and 2005 the system appeared to have entered athird phase, one in which the concentration of the vote in the two majorparties persisted, although not sufficiently strong to obviate the need toform coalitions. We now know that the period between 2002 and 2005represented only a brief interregnum in the majoritarian trend in thePortuguese party system. The PS won the 2005 legislative elections with aquasi-majority of votes (around 45 per cent) and an absolute majority ofseats that created the conditions for the country to return to stable singleparty government. However, as can be seen in Figure 1, and as has beenargued elsewhere (Freire 2006a), the majoritarian trend in the politicaland party systems is not due to any major change in the institutionalformat of the regime, namely the electoral system, but mainly to a con-centration of the vote in the two major parties (see Freire 2005, 2006a).

206 André Freire


Whilst on average Portuguese democracy is closer to the consensusmodel in terms of the executive-parties dimension, when it comes to thefederal-unitary dimension, it has always been closer to the majoritarianmodel (see Table 8). Indeed, of all the political systems under analysis,Portugal has the fourth most majoritarian and centralised system,exceeded only by the United Kingdom, Iceland and Luxembourg. What ismore, in this dimension evolution over the entire democratic period pointsto great stability in this respect (Bruneau et al. 2001). In other words, thehighly unitary and centralised character of the Portuguese political systemhas been a stable and lasting trait over approximately thirty years ofdemocracy. This fact is all the more curious when we consider that thegreatest divisions in Portuguese society have to do with socioeconomicinequalities and that these are tied, to a fairly significant extent, to clearlydefined territorial factors.

However, we should note that Portugal has a devolved system of gov-ernment for each of the two island regions: the Azores and Madeira. Thissystem consists of a parliament and government, the former being electedand the second chosen in the light of the outcome of these elections (Morais,Araújo and Freire 2003). Each of these two regions has fairly wide-ranging legislative and administrative powers. We should note that the500,000 inhabitants of these regions represent only around five per centof Portugal’s total population, meaning that these devolved and decen-tralised sub-systems have no real bearing on the fundamentally unitaryand centralist character of the Portuguese state.

Madeira consists of three islands, of which only two are inhabited. Ata distance of approximately 978 km from Lisbon it has a population of253,482 (INE 2001). The region has a parliament with 68 deputies


Note: The AD coalition was considered as a single organisation in calculating both the ENEP and the‘Vote percentage of largest party divided by 10’ for the years 1979 and 1980. In these years, the ADis considered the largest party.Sources: ENEP, and the ‘Vote percentage of largest party divided by 10’ calculated by the authorfrom official electoral data (www.cne.pt); Effective threshold (Lijphart) (Magalhães 2003: 189);Disproportionality (Gallagher’s Least Squares Index) (Magalhães 2003: 189).

Figure 1: Electoral system properties and party system change, 1975–2002.


elected by proportional representation (for the next parliament, thenumber of deputies will be cut to 47, all elected for a single constituency,instead of various constituencies as previously).

The Azores are located at around 2000 km from the Iberian Peninsulaand have a population of 241,763 (INE 2001). The region consists of nineislands, each of which corresponds to a constituency (an extra compen-satory constituency will be added at the next elections, as a result of therecent reform of the electoral system). The region’s parliament has a totalof 52 deputies, elected by proportional representation.

Brief conclusionsPortugal is a fundamentally homogenous country in terms of ethnicityand language, and also as regards religious faith. In other words, thecountry has no significant minorities in these areas. However, there arelarge socioeconomic inequalities, which have remained largely unchangedsince at least the 1980s. What is more, these inequalities quite clearly fit ageographical pattern. In addition to socioeconomic issues, and above allthose of inequality, the level of religious integration also has significantpotential for political polarisation. Curiously, however, these territoriallybased social inequalities are not a great source of political controversy.10

This may be because the country’s institutional system (unitary and highlycentralised state), which includes no regionalisation or a parliamentarysecond chamber to represent the regions, provides no channel for theexpression of any (potential) claims. Another reason may be the constitutionprohibition of regionalist political parties. In addition to these social sourcesof political polarisation, there are also the political divisions as such, whichprovide the framework for conflict within the party political system.

In terms of the executive-parties dimension, Portuguese democracy isbasically close to the consensus model. In other words, it provides fairlyfavourable conditions for the expression of minority identities and interests.However, from 1987 onwards there has been a shift towards majoritariandemocracy, but this was due more to changing voter behaviour than toany real alteration in the design of political institutions, namely in theelectoral system.

Despite the existence of devolved government for the Azores and Madeiraregions, Portugal has always (since the transition to democracy) had apolitical system closer to the majoritarian model with regard to the federal-unitary dimension. Indeed, from a comparative standpoint, the politicalsystem is extremely centralised and unitary, not least because theAutonomous Regions of the Azores and Madeira account for no more thanaround five per cent of the country’s population. In other words, if weexclude these regions, from the point of view of expression of the interestsand identities of the population’s resident in outlying regions with limitedcontrol over economic resources, the Portuguese political system does notfacilitate representation of territorially based minorities.

10 Although in 1998 areferendum was heldto find out whetherthe Portuguesewanted to adopt aregionalised system ofgovernment for thecountry as a whole.The proposal from theSocialist governmentwas also supported bythe Communist Party.The right wing parties(PSD and CDS-PP)opposed the plans.The proposal wasrejected by theelectorate, with 63.5 per cent againstregionalisation, andonly 36.5 per centin favour (Freire andBaum 2003).

208 André Freire


The existence of a more decentralised and regionally based politicalsystem would help to give a political voice to the population of more outlyingareas of mainland Portugal with less control over socioeconomic resources,and could therefore serve as an effective weapon in combating socialinequalities, especially those tied to territorial factors. It is highly likelythat Portugal’s political centralism has been partly to blame for the persis-tence of significant social inequalities from the 1980s to the present day.Madeira’s current position in the breakdown of national earnings, as wesaw above, shows that more political decentralisation can be an effectiveform of reducing inequalities, as this region started out from a positionsignificantly behind that of mainland Portugal. However, it is also truethat the Azores show that regionalisation is not enough in itself forachieving this goal.

ReferencesAndré, I. and Gaspar, J. (1989), ‘Portugal, geografia eleitoral: 1975 e 1987’, in

Coelho, M.B. (ed.), Portugal: O sistema político e constitucional 1974/1987,Lisbon: Universidade de Lisboa, pp. 257–7.

Beethem, D. (2005), Democracy: A beginner’s guide, Oxford: Oneworld.

Bruneau, T.C., Diamandouros, P.N., Gunther, R., Lijphart, A., Morlino, L. andBrooks, R. (2001), ‘Democracy, southern European style’, in Diamandouros, P. N.and Gunther, R. (eds), Parties, politics and democracy in new southern Europe,Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 16–82.

Cabral, M.V., Vala, J. and Freire, A. (eds) (2003), Desigualdades sociais e percepções dejustiça, Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais.

Cruz, M.B. (1989), ‘Nacionalismo e patriotismo na sociedade portuguesa actual’,Nação e Defesa 49: 3–22.

Cunha, C. (1997), ‘The Portuguese Communist Party’, in Bruneau, T.C. (ed.),Political parties and democracy in Portugal: Organizations, elections and publicopinion, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 23–54.

——— (1993), ‘L’opposition du parti communiste portugais à l’adhésion à la CEE’,in Delwit, P. and De Waele, J.-M. (eds), La gauche face aux mutations en Europe,Brussels: Université de Bruxelles, pp. 119–32.

Dahl, R. (1998), On democracy, New Haven, CT: Yale Universtity Press.

Dennis, I. and Guio, A.-C. (2003), ‘Poverty and social exclusion in the EU afterLaeken: Part 1’, Statistics in focus: Population and social conditions: Theme 3:8/2003, Eurostat, pp. 1–7.

Frain, M. (1997), ‘The right in Portugal: The PSD and the CDS/PP’, in Bruneau,T.C. (ed.), Political parties and democracy in Portugal: Organizations, elections andpublic opinion, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 77–111.

Freire, A. (2001), Mudança eleitoral em Portugal: Clivagens, economia e voto em eleiçõeslegislativas, 1983–1999, Oeiras: Celta.

——— (2003), ‘Pós-materialismo e comportamentos políticos: O caso portuguêsem perspectiva comparada’, in Vala, J., Cabral, M.V. and Ramos, A. (eds),Valores sociais: Mudanças e contrastes em Portugal e na Europa, Lisbon: Imprensade Ciências Sociais, pp. 295–362.

——— (2005), ‘Party system change in Portugal, 1974–2005: The role of social,political and ideological factors’, Portuguese Journal of Social Science 4(2): 21–40.



——— (2006a), ‘The party system of Portugal’, in Niedermayer, O., Stöss, R. andHaas, M. (eds), Die Parteiensysteme Westeuropas, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fürSozialwissenschaften.

——— (2006b), Esquerda e direita na política europeia: Portugal, Espanha e Grécia emperspectiva comparada, Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais.

Freire, A. and Baum, M. (2003), ‘Referenda voting in Portugal, 1998: The effectsof party sympathies, social structure and pressure groups’, European Journal ofPolitical Research, 42(1): 135–61.

Freire, A., Magalhães, P. and Espirito-Santo, A. (2003), ‘Thinner than thin?Political culture and political action in Portugal’, IOC Discussion Papers 18,Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo.

Gunther, R. and Montero, J.R. (2001), ‘The anchors of partisanship: A compara-tive analysis of voting behaviour in four southern European countries’, inDiamandouros, N.P. and Gunther, R. (eds), Parties, politics and democracy in newsouthern Europe, Baltimore, CT: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 83–152.

Held, D. (2005), Models of democracy, London: Polity Press.Horowitz, D. (1985), Ethnic groups in conflict, Berkeley, CA: University of California

Press.INE (National Institute for Statistics) (2001), Population census 2001, Lisbon: INE.Jalali, V.C. (2004), ‘As mesmas clivagens de sempre? Velhas clivagens e novos

valores no comportamento eleitoral português’, in Freire, A., Lobo, M.C. andMagalhães, P.C. (eds), Portugal a votos: As eleições legislativas de 2002, Lisbon:Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, pp. 87–124.

Lane, J.-E. and Ersson, S. (1999), Politics and society in Western Europe, London: Sage.Lijphart, A. (1977), Democracy in plural societies, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.——— (1989), As democracias contemporâneas, Lisbon: Gradiva.——— (1999), Patterns of democracy: Government forms and performance in 36 coun-

tries, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Lobo, M.C. (2001), ‘The role of political parties in Portuguese democratic consoli-

dation’, Party Politics 7: 643–53.——— (2003), ‘El incremento del poder del primer ministro en Portugal desde

1976’, in Barreto, A., Gomez, B. and Magalhães, P.C. (eds), Portugal: Democraciay sistema político, Madrid: Siglo XXI, pp. 175–204.

Lopes, F.F. and Freire, A. (2002), Partidos políticos e sistemas eleitorais: uma intro-dução, Oeiras: Celta.

Magalhães, P.C. (2003), ‘Elections, parties and policy-making institutions in demo-cratic Portugal’, in Pinto, A. C. (ed.), Contemporary Portugal: Politics, society andculture, New York, NY: Social Science Monographs, pp. 183–202.

Morais, C.B., Araújo, A. de and Freire, A. (2004), Entre a representação desigual e aderrota dos vencedores: Estudo sobre a reforma do sistema eleitoral dos Açores,Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais.

Matsaganis, M., Ferrera, M., Capucha, L. and Moreno, L. (2003), ‘Mending nets inthe south: Anti-poverty policies in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain’, SocialPolicy and Administration, 37(6): 639–55.

O’Flynn, I. and Russell, D. (2005), Power sharing: New challenges for divided societies,London: Pluto Press.

Pinto, A.C. and Núñez, X. M. (1997), ‘Portugal and Spain’, in Eatwell, R. (ed.), Euro-pean political cultures: Conflict or convergence?, London: Routledge, pp. 172–92.

Pires, R.P. (2002), ‘Mudanças na imigração: Uma análise das estatísticas sobre apopulação estrangeira em Portugal, 1998–2001’, Sociologia Problemas & Práti-cas, 39: 151–66.

210 André Freire


UNDP (United Nations Development Program), Human Development Report 2005,in http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/

Reilly, B. (2001), Democracy in divided societies: Electoral engineering for conflict man-agement, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Reis, L.B. and Dias, M. (1993), ‘Grupos de referência socio-politicos’, in França, L.(ed.), Portugal: Valores europeus, identidade cultural, Lisbon: IED.

Reynolds, A. (1999), Electoral systems and democratization in South Africa, Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Sablosky, J.A. (1997), ‘The Portuguese Socialist Party’, in Bruneau T.C. (ed.),Political parties and democracy in Portugal: Organizations, elections and publicopinion, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 55–76.

Sani, G. and Sartori, G. (1983), ‘Polarization, fragmentation and competition inWestern democracies’, in Daalder, H. and Mair, P. (eds), Western European partysystems: Continuity and change, London: Sage, pp. 307–40.

Suggested citationFreire, A. (2007), ‘Minority representation in Portuguese democracy’, Portuguese

Journal of Social Science 6 (3): 193–211, doi: 10.1386/pjss.6.3.193/1

Contributor detailsAndré Freire is an assistant professor at ISCTE in Lisbon and is also a seniorresearcher at CIES-ISCTE. Contact: André Freire, ISCTE, Avenida das ForçasArmadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal.E-mail: [email protected]



Review


Review. English language. doi: 10.1386/pjss.6.3.213/5

Who governs southern Europe? Regime change andministerial recruitment, 1850–2000, Almeida, P.T. de, Pinto, A.C. and Bermeo, N. (2003)London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 242 pp., ISBN 0714682772 (pbk), £75Francisco Javier Luque Castillo, University of Grenada, Faculty of PoliticalScience and Sociology

The interest of political scientists in research elites declined at the begin-ning of the 1960s, whether as a consequence of the criticism that had fordecades seen them labelled as ‘elitist’ for serving (allegedly) as a back-doorjustification for a determined conception of democracy, or whether forbeing considered analytically insufficient (by their static nature). This dis-interest began declining from the beginning of the following decade when,for the first time authors such as Putnam and Dogan raised questionsabout the role of the bureaucratic elites in the political process (Putnam1973; Dogan 1975). Their indignation continued during the followingyears (Aberbach, Putnam and Rockman 1981), culminating with a resur-gence of these studies in the intellectual field at the end of the 1980s.Since then, the waves of democratisation in southern and eastern Europeand Latin America have proved attractive to political scientists interestedin the theme (e.g. Higley and Gunther 1992; Eyal, Szelényi and Townsley1998). Simultaneously, the investigation of members of Western Europeangovernments was consolidated (Blondel and Thiébault 1991). The book isthe result of two lines of research, with its objective being the study of min-isterial elites in the most southern countries of Europe from the beginningof the institutionalisation of the liberal state to the present day.

Southern European ministers have been the subject of a previous study,albeit over a more restricted chronological period and with the nation-state as the geographical reference space. Works by authors such as Lewis(1978), Jerez (1982), Dogan (1975) and Koutsokiz (1982) have alreadyanticipated, at least partially, some of the conclusions concerning thenature of the governing elite in this part of the old world. By this, however,I do not mean the present authors have limited themselves to a simplecompilation, interpretation and synthesis – which in itself would beworthy of eulogy. In addition to this, they have made an extraordinaryeffort to produce empirical data on the ministerial elites that have not pre-viously been studied systematically. It is important here to note that in thisattempt to cast light on the eras that remain in the shadow of understanding,

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some are more successful than others – depending on the availability ofinformation, particularly concerning the more distant periods. Nevertheless,each chapter of this book is a small jewel of political science, an ambitiousand useful sketch of the leadership minorities that, in four southernEuropean countries, were the protagonists during 150 years of regimechange, industrialisation and social and cultural transformation.

The book consists of five chapters, four of which are dedicated toPortugal, Spain, Italy and Greece respectively, with the fifth being a com-parative analysis in the form of a conclusion by Nancy Bermeo, who alsoco-wrote the preface with Pedro Tavares de Almeida and António CostaPinto (this latter two also wrote the chapter on Portuguese ministers).

The editors begin by explaining the importance of ministers in the con-temporary political arena and describing the purpose of this compilation,viz, to examine the composition of the southern European ministerialelites and the rules for their recruitment during the past 150 years, inorder to evaluate the impact of the different regime types and modes oftransition, to scrutinise the similarities and differences between the variouscountries and to identify the dominant tendencies and variations overtime. In these first pages the editors also describe the orientation transmit-ted to the authors through analysis of the ministers’ social profile andtheir political cursus honorum, in order to determine the attributes, quali-ties and types of experience that during the different periods placed theindividuals in the advantageous position from which they could becomemembers of the ministerial elite.

In the application of the first methodological demand, that is, in theperiodisation of the main regime changes, it is possible to clearly observethe first similarity between the countries being studied. The seven regimechanges that took place in Greece and Spain, and the five that were identi-fied in Portugal and Italy, suggest similar national historical trajectories interms of political stability – or instability. However, the exercise of the com-parison becomes even more pertinent when it is established that, through-out the period being studied, the four states experienced monarchism,republicanism, authoritarian fascism and democracy almost contempora-neously. Having arrived at this point, the first question arises: does a modelof political organisation produce a specific type of ministerial elite, inde-pendent of location? In other words, does the political nature of a regimedetermine the recruitment standard and the profile of its ministers?

Answering this question calls for a transversal comparison that demandsa flexible analysis of the nature of the different type of regime.1 That is tosay, that in referring to the monarchical ministerial elite it considers everySpanish government between 1874 and 1931, even though the Francoregime was – at least nominally – a monarchy, and not forgetting that thepresent head of the Spanish state is a monarch, while in the case ofGreece, it is only concerned with the executives nominated prior to theinstallation of Metaxas’s dictatorship (1936–41). The authors also assumethat Italian monarchy ended in 1924, the year in which the last competitive

1 Given that theperiodisationestablished by theauthors is different for each country, weadopt the criteria ofthe type of regime forcomparing theministerial elite.

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elections took place. Portugal is the only country in which the regimes fol-lowed each other in an almost linear sequence from monarchy to republic(1910) to dictatorship (1926) to parliamentary democracy (1974).

The average age of the ministers at the date of first appointment rangedbetween 47 in Portugal and 55.3 in Spain (between 1902 and 1923) duringthe monarchical periods.2 While it was common for the capital cities to beover-represented within government in the four countries during thatera – a situation that persists to the present – it is also worth noting thedisproportionate number of ministers who came from other regions –Piedmont in the case of Italy and the Peleponnese and Sterea Hellas inGreece. The hegemony of these territories in the set of ministers can beexplained by the role their elites played at key moments in the process ofnation building. Nevertheless, over time the proportion of ministers from theItalian north-west gradually declined (from 47.1 per cent in 1861–76, to33 per cent in 1913–22), thereby obtaining greater correlation with thearea’s demography (as a proportion of the total population) and the percent-age of ministers who were integrated into the government. The same trend isnot be seen with the ancient Greek territories, from where at least half of themembers of government were always recruited (with the exception of theperiod 1910–36, when they represented 39 per cent of the total).

The level of academic attainment of ministers during this period wasvery high. Only rarely did the percentage of those without either a univer-sity education or military instruction surpass 10 per cent. In the samefashion, civilians outnumbered members of the armed forces, even thoughthese latter had a significant presence in governments (apart from Italybetween 1913 and 1922, at least one-fifth of all southern European min-isters were members of the armed forces). Examining the professions of thecivil ministers we note the preponderance of jurists, who shared their pro-tagonism with civil servants, university professors and, to a lesser extent,with writers and journalists in Italy, Portugal and Spain, respectively. Inthe Greek case, lawyers represented a much lower proportion (between6.1 and 13.5 per cent) due to the introduction of the ‘full-time politician’category that Soritopoulos and Bourikos defined as ‘those who enter poli-tics immediately after finishing their studies . . . without having exercisedany other occupation’, supporting themselves with family or partyresources. In any case, the percentage of Greek ministers with juridicalqualifications (38.7 per cent during the period 1843–78 and 52 per centbetween 1878 and 1910) is the lowest of the four countries being studied.

The structure of opportunities offered to career politicians in the monar-chical regimes of southern Europe was marked by clientelism and by theexcessive governmentalisation of the political game. In Spain and Portugal,for example, caciques and local notables collaborated in the manipulation ofelections in order to form a parliament that was favourable to the govern-ment in power. Ministers were then selected from amongst these parlia-mentarians, taking into account such criteria as personal loyalty (to thehead of government) and party loyal (by belonging to the group that

2 In chapter two Linz,Jerez and Corzo dividethe first BourbonRestoration into threeperiods: 1874–1902,1902–23 and1925–31 (civildirectorate/dictablanda).

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sustained the executive). Tavares de Almeida and Costa Pinto call particu-lar attention to the fact that the subversion of liberal democratic proce-dures did not affect the status of parliament as the main source ofministerial elite recruitment. And in truth, in these two countries – Spainand Portugal – at least 75 per cent of ministers were parliamentarydeputies before they entered government.

The period between the two world wars is normally associated withtwo regime types: liberal republicanism and fascist inspired dictatorships.If in Portugal, Spain and Greece one preceded the other, in Italy there wasan observable continuity between parliamentary monarchism and ultra-right authoritarianism. Given there is only information available for thePortuguese and Spanish republics (since data on Greek ministers duringthe republican period are included in the period from 1910–36), it is possi-ble to highlight some singularities shared by the two Iberian states duringthe republican period. Firstly, in both countries the advent of the republicresulted in a visible renewal of the leading elite. For example, in the case ofSpain, 96.6 per cent of ministers and approximately 85 per cent of deputieswere new to their positions. The changes in the composition of the politi-cal class were simultaneously accompanied by changes in the profile of itsmembers. In a clear break with the historical predominance of thenational capitals as the centre of governing elite recruitment, over half(52.1 per cent) of Portuguese ministers and 44.9 per cent of Spanish min-isters now came from towns and small cities (Estèbe 1982). In this sense,and as a reflection of the access to power that the rural middle classeshad during these years, there was a significant increase in the numberof medical doctors, school teachers, lawyers and registrars amongst theministers in both countries. It is worth noting some of the more significantdifferences, such as the number of military officers in the Portuguese gov-ernment (the military represented 44.8 per cent of all ministers – tentimes more than was the case in Spain) and the hegemony of theDemocratic Party in the majority of Portuguese cabinets, in clear contrastto the diverse coalitions that existed throughout the life of the SpanishSecond Republic.

As noted above, the years between the two world wars also witnessedthe ascension to power in the majority of European states of heterogeneousconservative coalitions that led to the establishment of authoritarian andproto-fascist regimes. The most durable of these, with 48 and 38 years ofexistence, were in Portugal and Spain respectively. At the other extremewas the experience of the Greek dictatorships of 1936–41 and 1967–74,two periods of authoritarianism separated by two decades of limiteddemocracy.3 In these regimes ministers were mainly nominated for theposition for the first time after they had reached 50 years of age. Amongthem, the academic level was always very high and the proportion of mil-itary officers was very significant (between 25.6 per cent in the Colonels’Regime and 33.3 per cent in Franco’s Spain). In the cabinets of Portugal’sNew State, university professors came to represent over 30 per cent of all

3 Tavares de Almeidaand Pinto establishtwo differentiated eraswithin the Portugueseauthoritarian period:the MilitaryDictatorship(1926–33) and theNew State (1933–74).In the comparativeanalysis of theauthoritarian regimeswe only can account,in the Portuguesecase, the datareferring to the NewState. With respect toGreece, since we donot have the completeinformation for theMetaxas dictatorship,our analysis will onlyconsider the Colonels’Regime (1967–74).



ministers, affirming themselves as a powerful social group. In neighbouringSpain, jurists (34.2 per cent) were the only professionals with a similarlevel of ministerial representation to that of the military. In Greece, theproportion of engineers and architects, which, following the 1967 coup,increased by up to four times compared to the previous period – probablyas a result of the Colonels’ wish to present a technocratic image of them-selves that could legitimate them in the eyes of the public. The formationof governments in the Iberian dictatorships was also subject to the same‘technocratic’ zeal that decisively marked the recruitment channels andregulations, turning the public administration into the main centre ofextraction for the ministerial elite. However, although meritocratic criteriamay have prevailed in the ascension to government, to be affiliated in asingle party, such as Portugal’s National Union, or to be well connectedwith one of Spain’s Franco regime’s families, Falangist, traditionalist orCatholic, constituted excellent jumping-off points for personal promotion.On the other hand, only among the ministers of the Portuguese dictator-ship was there a significant proportion of members of the previous legisla-tive power (30.1 per cent had been deputies in the National Assembly).

When the dictatorships came to an end, their ministerial leaders werepermanently removed. In the case of Spain, however, it is still not possibleto speak of an absolute discontinuity between regimes – since the govern-ments of the democratic era include some of Franco’s former ministers,including nine who were in transitional cabinets – the level of renewal hasalso been very high. One by-product of this ministerial elite renewal wassuch rejuvenation that the current average age of ministers in southernEurope’s democracies ranges between 44.7 (Spain) and 48.7 (Greece).Other aspects, such as the academic level of the democratic ministerialclass, present fewer variations with respect to the past. Thus, the percent-age of ministers without university education (1.2 per cent in Portugal,1.5 per cent in Spain and 2.4 per cent in Greece) suggests a consolidationof the historical model of working-class exclusion. Even in Italy, where9 per cent of ministers do not have university education, it is still wellbelow the 23 per cent that is the western European average of ministersbetween 1945 and the mid-1980s who do not have a university educa-tion. The occupational profile of the ministers also altered with the col-lapse of southern Europe’s authoritarian regimes, producing a progressivedemilitarisation of cabinets coupled with an increase in the number ofeconomists and managers. It is also possible to observe a moderate reduc-tion in the dependence of ministers on public employment in Portugal andSpain, which could be an indication of the strengthening of the ministerialelite’s independence in these countries (Etzioni-Halevy 1993). Moreover,in these democracies, the path towards a ministerial career passed – in themajority of cases – through parliament (over half of the ministers weremembers of a representative chamber) or by senior administrative posi-tions (over 45 per cent were under-secretaries of state, secretaries of stateor directors-general) – although this last characteristic does not include



the Greek case. Nevertheless, the three countries do seem to coincide inthe fact that their ministerial elite have acquired a more technical profilerelative to their predecessors over the past few years. According to NancyBermeo, the democratisation associated with membership of the EuropeanCommunity, the need to apply IMF stabilisation programmes (in the caseof Portugal) and development based on state intervention (in the case ofGreece) were factors that stimulated the ‘technocratisation’ of the govern-ments of the third wave European democracies.

An attentive reader will note that the Italian ministerial elites haveescaped many of the generalisations formulated here. In fact, the ministersof that country present characteristics that differ in many respects fromtheir Spanish, Greek and Portuguese peers. Traditionally linked to interestgroups (between 1946 and 1992 over half of all ministers were linked toone or more of these groups), or with experience in local and regional pol-itics, they illustrate contemporary Italian ministerial idiosyncrasies. It maybe that the days of these singularities were numbered, since the crisis of theItalian political system of 1992–6 and the establishment of a majoritariandemocracy have opened the horizons for the formation of a new minister-ial class in Italy. It is not yet known if it will be closer in its characteristicsto the countries mentioned above. At the present time, as Cotta andVerzichelli have noted, the changes introduced in the electoral process andgovernment formation have consolidated the presence of ‘technocrats’ –who made their appearance at the beginning of the 1990s – and have ledto a decline in the number of ministers with a purely party political past.When another decade has passed, perhaps we will have a sample suffi-ciently large to enable us to establish rules and identify tendencies.

In conclusion, there are many qualities to Who governs southern Europe?Firstly, it is the first book to deal with the evolution of ministerial elites in eachof the four countries, adopting a macro-historical perspective that over-comes the static vision is traditionally provided by structural-functionalism.Secondly, the conclusions the authors reach through the investigation oftheir respective national elites, provides the reader – both the specialistand the interested layperson – with an opportunity to verify whether ornot there is a common historical identity in southern Europe.

There can be little doubt this work will prove be a starting point forfuture research – whether by the scale of the work undertaken (both in therevision of specialist literature and in the production of empirical data) orvia the debate the theses and hypotheses presented in these pages maystimulate. In this regard, what happens with Who governs southern Europe?is the same as what happens with modern art – one of its attractions restsin the reflections it invites us to make.

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Blondel, J. and Thiébault, J.-L. (eds.) (1991), The profession of government minister inWestern Europe, London: Macmillan.

Estèbe, J. (1982), Les ministres de la république, 1871–1914, Paris: Presses de laFondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques.

Etzioni-Halevy, E. (1993), The elite connection: Problems and potential of Westerndemocracy, Cambridge: Polity Press.



Index – Volume 6

Almeida, M.A.P., Memory and trauma of the Portuguese agrarian reform: A case study,pp. 63–76.

Burawoy, M. (2007), Open the social sciences: To whom and for what?, pp. 137–146.

Cerezales, D., ‘Fascist lackeys’? Dealing with the police’s past during Portugal’s transitionto democracy (1974–1980), pp. 155–169.

Eaton, M., From Porto to Portadown: Portuguese workers in Northern Ireland’s labourmarket, pp. 171–191.

Freire, A., Minority representation in Portuguese democracy, pp. 193–211.

Gschwend, T., Institutional incentives for strategic voting and party system change inPortugal, pp. 15–31.

Hespanha, A.M., Form and content in early modern legal books: Bridging material bibli-ography with history of legal thought, pp. 33–59.

Pinto, J., ‘Open the social sciences: To whom and for what?’, by Michael Burawoy,pp. 147–154.

Southern, P., German border incursions into Portuguese Angola prior to the First WorldWar, pp. 3–14.

Teixeira, A.A.C., How has the Portuguese innovation capability evolved? Estimating atime series of the stock of technological knowledge (1960–2001), pp. 77–95.

Torres, A., Mendes, R., and Lapa, T., Families in Europe, pp. 97–133.

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Portuguese Journal ofSocial Science

Portuguese Journal of Social Science | Volume Six N

umber Three

ISSN 1476-413X

6.3

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Volume Six N

umber Three

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edia & Culture

Portuguese Journal of Social Science Volume 6 Number 3 – 2007

Articles

137–146 Open the social sciences: To whom and for what? Michael Burawoy

147–154 ‘Open the social sciences: To whom and for what?’, by Michael Burawoy José Madureira Pinto

155–169 ‘Fascist lackeys’? Dealing with the police’s past during Portugal’s transitionto democracy (1974–1980)

Diego Palacios Cerezales

171–191 From Porto to Portadown: Portuguese workers in Northern Ireland’s labour market

Martin Eaton

193–211 Minority representation in Portuguese democracy André Freire

Review

213–219 Francisco Javier Luque Castillo

221 Index – Volume 6

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