Suchergebnisse

The 2009 European Parliament elections were especially interesting for the Portuguese media, politicians and citizens because they took place shortly before the legislative and local elections of 27 September and 11 October 2009, respectively. Because of this proximity, the elections
to the European Parliament were seen as a kind of primary for the forthcoming national elections. However, this also gave them special relevance in terms of electoral behaviour research concerning second-order elections. Here we reflect on these issues, not only by looking at the last European
Parliament elections from a longitudinal perspective, but also by comparing the result with what happened in the following national elections. Since 1987 there have been major changes in the Portuguese party system, with the emergence of a majoritarian trend that was first visible in the legislative
elections but which has since been replicated in European and local elections. However, the 2009 European elections showed a significant increase in party system fragmentation, indicating a possible return to the consensual period (197587). The questions are thus: to what extent may this be
an indication of a major structural change; and is it simply a response to specific political circumstances?

Using Lijphart's framework concerning different models of democracy, the objective is to provide a very brief overview of the main social and political divisions in Portuguese society, and to present the main institutional features of Portuguese democracy and the possibilities they
offer for minority representation. The article starts by looking at the main social and political divisions in Portuguese society. Then, the main institutional characteristics of Portuguese democracy, as regards the executive-parties dimension and the federal-unitary dimension, and the opportunities
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 ends with some brief conclusions.

The main goal of this article is to analyse the role of social, political and ideological factors in explaining party system change in Portugal during the democratic period (April 1974June 2005). We begin with the evolving trends in the party system format, and their main effects on the patterns of parties' interactions as well as on the functioning of the political system. This first approach will enable us to divide the democratic period into two distinct phases and an interlude. Following this, we will analyse the dimensions and strength of policy competition between the parties before, finally, analysing the impact of social, political and ideological factors on party system change in Portugal.