In Portugal important legal innovations have been introduced in local government, related to the problems of negative images associated with longevity and corruption, and a decrease in voters' turnout. Independent local lists were introduced into the race in the form of citizen groups, mayors' terms were limited to three and there was a parity law. Participative budgets and decentralized local council meetings have also provided new tools for citizen participation. The object was to discuss whether these innovations are real contributions for local democracy. Methodology included the analysis of the legislative process and its enforcement, and practical consequences, namely on new representatives and citizen participation. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
The Portuguese landscape and its rural areas are the result of thousands of years of human presence, particularly since the late nineteenth century, when protectionist public policies were put in place to promote food self-sufficiency. During the Estado Novo regime, four main agricultural policies were enforced: wheat campaigns, internal colonization, agricultural hydraulic systems and reforestation. Nevertheless, there was a massive rural exodus, starting mainly in the 1960s, which resulted in the depopulation of 80 per cent of the territory. Nowadays, less than 20 per cent of the Portuguese population inhabits interior regions. This demographic change presents huge socio-economic challenges. Recently there have been new trends, based on land concentration and super intensive monoculture, which are incompatible with central and local governments' policies and strategies to reverse depopulation. The sustainability of Portugal's rural world, its landscape and the quality of life of its population are at risk. Four items were identified in this article: eucalyptus and pine forests, olive plantations, greenhouses and mining. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Urban concentration by the seashore, and particularly in Lisbon and Porto, has always been a feature of the Portuguese landscape. However, since the 1960s a huge rural exodus has resulted in a now irreversible depopulation of 80% of the Portuguese territory, where less than 20% of the population lives. Local government has played an important role in the development of attraction strategies for people, families and private companies, as well as many public policies by the central government have been put in place in order to revert this trend or at least to try to provide services and possibilities for a better quality of life for the remaining few who still resist urban attraction. At the same time, recently, as a result of insecurity in other areas of the world and with the prospect of quality of life and lower prices, there has been a huge boom in tourism and foreign investments in urban seashore cities, particularly Lisboa and Porto, resulting in the gentrification of city centres. How has local government dealt with these novelties? What are the differences between projects and political programs for urban and rural municipalities? Attraction strategies of municipalities and private entrepreneurs are analysed and compared. We discuss public policies and some contrasts and inequalities which have been addressed by municipalities and central government and local responses to the new pandemic situation. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
The makers of the Portuguese Revolution of 1974 sought not only the overthrow of a dictatorial regime, but also a reorganisation of Portugal's economy on new lines, securing control of agriculture and industry in the name of workers. The present paper examines the process of revolutionary agrarian reform in the Alentejo region, a major agricultural zone, and describes how, after the end of the revolutionary period, 1974-76, the reforms of that period were reversed, when the Socialists and Social Democrats successively gained power. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersion
During one of the worst economic crisis that Portugal has faced in the last decades, with a considerable debt to deal with, emigration, population loss, ageing and unemployment afflicted our economy and society, particularly in rural territories. The aim of this article is to access the main local and central government policies to fight depopulation and territorial inequalities, and their attempts at sustainable development. What remains in the Portuguese inland regions and how is it being addressed by the few who still believe in life outside the cities? What is the role of local government in the sustainable development of the territory? All over the country, and particularly in rural areas, there is an urgent need to attract people and investment (Almeida 2017a). What are the main issues addressed by the central government to deal with this problem? For this research, a database was built with the political programmes of the 308 mayors elected in 2013, which were subject to a thorough analysis, and the new socialist government recently approved National Programme for Territorial Cohesion, aimed at promoting a more balanced territorial planning. This article describes the demographic situation and compares the municipalities' economic strategies. The results are yet to be observed, but these new local and central policies at least reflect a change of paradigm from the social-democrat coalition government (2011–15) and introduce a discourse of hope for inland regions, even if the political time of each government (four-year terms) is never enough to solve such complex issues. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion
WOS:000258402600003 (Nº de Acesso Web of Science) ; Since the Portuguese revolution of April 25th, 1974, and the beginning of the democratic regime (with the first elections for parliament held on April 25th, 1975), political parties dominate the electoral process, both on central government and on the municipalities. The analysis of the political elites, their party filiations and recruitment and their social backgrounds has occupied Portuguese social scientists for the last years. With this paper, the author proposes to establish the relationship between these two levels of government, national and local, and access the importance of political parties in each of them. Many mayors' political careers include vertical mobility, both upwards and downwards: from mayors to members of parliament to members of the European Parliament and ministers or even Prime-Minister and President of the Republic (in the case of two mayors of Lisbon), or from ministers and members of parliament to mayors. In all of these cases, their party and their position within the party has played a central role, even when some individuals have pursued other party choices in order to get re-elected, or even have presented independent candidacies (only possible since 1997).
Has Portugal's transition to democracy since the 1974 revolution enhanced women's participation in politics? Has the democratisation process influenced women's access to elected offices? This paper offers an explanation of the Portuguese political system from a historical perspective, and an evaluation of the Portuguese political class in order to introduce the gender issue. Although the democratic regime is now more than 30 years old, there is still an under-representation of women in Portuguese politics, which is inscribed into the larger issue of women's access to all aspects of social, cultural and economic life. However, at all levels of government, women are better educated than men, with a larger proportion coming from the ranks of specialist professionals, teachers and top managers. Not surprisingly, left-wing parties recruit them in larger numbers.
The author analyses the Agrarian Reform in the southern part of Portugal, which took place as a result of radical legislation issued right after the Revolution of April 25th, 1974. The municipality of Avis is presented as an example of this movement, because of its charismatic leaders and the huge adhesion of their followers, who set in motion land occupations throughout the entire region. Personal and group motivations are described, using both written (institutional and literary) and oral sources. Thirty years later, consequences of the movement can still be found in the region and new ways of life were established in order to cope with the changing rural world.
The Portuguese rural world no longer resembles the one described in the literature, mostly because people no longer live or work there. Farmers became brand managers and tour hosts, workers were replaced by machines and intensive farming shoved entire populations to urban areas. With depopulation, the agrarian landscape has been transformed into a place for leisure or nature preservation. How are the remains of the rural being addressed by the few who still believe in life outside the big cities? What is the role of local government and its leaders in the sustainable development of the territory and its dynamic? All over the country, and particularly in rural areas, there is an urgent need to attract people and investment to fight depopulation and unemployment. What are the differences between projects for urban and rural municipalities? Political and economic strategies of municipalities and private entrepreneurs are analyzed and compared. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
In 1974, Portugal's Carnation Revolution, initiated by the military, received huge popular support. Army officers, mostly of the rank of captain, started the Revolution, but then the politicians took over. While it was largely a 'top down' revolution, at the local government level ordinary people assumed control. In this article we consider those who made up the local elites before the Revolution, during the transition period that followed, and thereafter. We compare the local elites in Portugal during Salazar's dictatorship with those under the Democratic regime, using a database of 6,000 entries containing details of 3,102 mayors and deputy mayors and 402 civil governors who held office between 1936 and 2013. Our main conclusions are that during the transition period the elite who had ruled under Salazar were almost completely replaced. A new group, from different professions and social backgrounds, took up the reins of local government. The Revolution produced a population willing to participate in the new order and take on roles within local government, but they did not always retain their seats after the first democratic elections. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion
This article focuses on the processes of subjectivity change and subjectification among Brazilian Jews who become citizens of Israel. Global Zionist movements and the State of Israel interpellate their Brazilian and Jewish Diasporic identities, and the process of migration (aliyah) is rooted in diverse motivations, that are further challenged by the political situation in Israel/Palestine. The characteristics of the Jewish Diaspora and of citizenship accession in Israel allow for different ways of looking at contemporary migrations and circulations of people, as well as the way that national and cultural identifications are negotiated between subjects, social context, and the state. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Portugal has been living in Democracy for the last three decades. After the revolution of April 25th 1974, and a two year transition period, democratic institutions have begun to function with some regularity, towards a multi-party system. There have been four major parties in Portugal since 1974/1975: the Socialist Party (PS), the Social Democrat Party (PSD), the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Popular Party (former CDS – Social Democrat Centre, now CDS-PP), on the right wing (see analysis of statutes in Lobo, 2003: 253-261). The two major parties, the Socialist Party (PS – centre left) and the Social Democrat Party (PSD – centre right), usually alternate in the control of central government, sometimes in coalition to other parties. This two-party system characterizes most democracies nowadays. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion
The Portuguese 25th April 1974 revolution introduced a process of democratization. It was also the beginning of women's general participation in elections, both as voters and elected representatives, as well as their recognition as equal to men in all aspects of social, economic and political life. After an historical analysis of women's participation in Portuguese politics, we come to the conclusion that the introduction of a parity law in 2006 has positively influenced the election of women members of the Portuguese Parliament and women representatives to the European Parliament. In the 2015 national elections of 2015, for the first time one third of the elected the Members of the Portuguese Parliament were women. However, in local government there is still a long way to go to achieve such levels of female political representation. Does the political system limit women's access to elected offices? Without any doubt, gender wise Portugal is on the right track, but the questions remain: why are women in local politics still a minority? What obstacles do they face? And what may be done to change this? There are several hypotheses: improving education levels, fighting low civic participation and trying to change the existing behaviour differences in national and local party committees. A large study of local government in Portugal has already been conducted and published. For this research new data has been collected from municipalities' and parties' official sites, as well as the press, in order to follow the evolution of women in Portuguese local government, first as proposed members of the earlier administrative committees which ruled municipalities from 1974 until the first local elections which took place on 12th December 1976, and then as elected representatives from 1976 to the latest 2013 local elections, comparing this level with central government. Trying to present some hope for change, we show some examples of political actions that may encourage female presence in local government and increase their role as participative citizens. Although in Portugal four decades of the democratic regime have gone by, women's representation in Portuguese politics is still low. But a sociological study of this group reveals higher educational levels and specialized jobs, particularly in teaching and management. If women in representative jobs are indeed more educated than men, could they have more to contribute to the mayor's office? Party membership is also discussed, revealing that left wing parties invest more in women in local government than right wing parties do. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
