António Costa Pinto

Authoritarian legacies, transitional justice and state crisis in Portugal's democratization

The nature of the Portuguese transition to democracy and the consequent state crises created a ‘window of opportunity’ in which the ‘reaction to the past’ was much stronger in Portugal than in the other Southern European transitions. The transitions powerful dynamic in itself served to constitute a legacy for the consolidation of democracy. This article analyses how the nature of the transition affected the legacy of authoritarianism superseding and transmuting that regimes impact on the ‘quality’ of Portugals democracy, and illustrating how the majority of ‘authoritarian legacies’ were more a result of the nature of the transition than they were of the authoritarian regime.The nature of the Portuguese transition to democracy and the consequent state crises created a ‘window of opportunity’ in which the ‘reaction to the past’ was much stronger in Portugal than in the other Southern European transitions. The transitions powerful dynamic in itself served to constitute a legacy for the consolidation of democracy. This article analyses how the nature of the transition affected the legacy of authoritarianism superseding and transmuting that regimes impact on the ‘quality’ of Portugals democracy, and illustrating how the majority of ‘authoritarian legacies’ were more a result of the nature of the transition than they were of the authoritarian regime.

Portuguese Ministers, 1851–1999: Social Background and Paths to Power

Regime discontinuities involving the replacement of the governing elite as well as the reshaping of fundamental institutions and values are a distinctive feature of the political history of modern Portugal. The purpose of this contribution is to assess the impact of these successive regime changes on the composition and patterns of recruitment of Cabinet ministers the core group of decision-makers and to point out the most significant trends over time: that is, from the mid-nineteenth century, when the Constitutional Monarchy was consolidated, until the present democratic regime.This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of regime changes in the composition and patterns of recruitment of the Portuguese ministerial elite throughout the last 150 years. The ‘out-of-type’, violent nature of most regime transformations accounts for the purges in and the extensive replacements of the political personnel, namely of the uppermost officeholders. In the case of Cabinet members, such discontinuities did not imply, however, radical changes in their social profile. Although there were some significant variations, a series of salient characteristics have persisted over time. The typical Portuguese minister is a male in his midforties, of middle-class origin and predominantly urban-born, highly educated and with a state servant background. The two main occupational contingents have been university professors - except for the First Republic (1910-26) - and the military, the latter having only recently been eclipsed with the consolidation of contemporary democracy. As regards career pathways, the most striking feature is the secular trend for the declining role of parliamentary experience, which the democratic regime did not clearly reverse. In this period, a technocratic background rather than political experience has been indeed the privileged credential for a significant proportion of ministers.

Salazar's dictatorship and European fascism : problems of interpretation

A small country with a vast colonial empire, Portugal was to experience the longest-surviving right-wing dictatorship in twentieth-century Europe. Costa Pinto identifies the links between Salazarism and European fascism. He includes an analytical summary of the interpretations of Salazarism and its origins, both in the context of the debate on European fascism and, more generally, in the context of authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century.

Who Governs Southern Europe? : Regime Change and Ministerial Recruitment, 1850-2000

Portuguese ministers, 1851-1999 - social background and paths to power, Pedro Tavares de Almeida and Antonio Costa Pinto ministers and regimes in Spain -from the first to the second restoration, 1874-2002, Juan J. Linz et al ministers in Italy - notables, party men, technocrats and media men, Maurizio Cotta and Luca Verzichelli ministerial elites in Greece, 1843-2001 - a synthesis of old sources and new data, Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos and Dimitris Bourikos ministerial elites in southern Europe - continuities, changes and comparisons, Nancy Bermeo.

Fascist Ideology Revisited: Zeev Sternhell and His Critics:

In this review the following works of Sternhell are considered: La Droite Rgvolutionnaire Les origines françaises du fascisme (1885-1914) (Paris, 1978), Ni Droite ni Gauche L’idéologie du fascisme en France (Paris, 1983), and the following articles participating in the polemic (published up to June 1985), presented in chronological order: Michel Winock, ’Fascisme a la frangaise ou fascisme introuvable?’, Le D6bat, 25 (May 1983), 35-44. Shlomo Sand, ’L’id~ologie fasciste en France’, L’Esprit (August/September 1983),149-60. Jean-Marie Domenach, ’Correspondance’, L’Esprit (August/ September 1983), 176-9. Serge Berstein, ’La France des Ann~es Trente Allergique au Fascisme A propos d’un livre de Zeev Sternhell’, Vingtieme Siecle Revue d’Histoire, 2 (April 1984), 84-94. Jacques Julliard, ’Sur un fascisme imaginaire; a propos d’un livre de Zeev Sternhell’, Annales E. S. C. (July/August 1984), 849-61. Leonardo Rapone, ’Fascismo ne destra ne sinistra?’, Studi Storici, 3 (July/September 1984), 799-820. Philippe Burrin, ’La France dans le champs magnetique des fascismes’, Le Débat, 32 (November 1984), 52-72. Zeev Sternhell, ’Sur le fascisme et sa variante frangaise’, Le Debat, 32 (November 1984), 28-51. Sergio Romano, ’Sternhell lu d’Italie’, Vingtieme Siecle Revue d’Histoire, 6 (April/June 1985), 75-81. Dino Cofrancesco, ’Recensioni’, Storia Contemporanea, 2 (April 1985), 353-71.

Attitudes of the Portuguese Elites towards the European Union

The purpose of this article is to present and discuss the data for Portugal of the IntUne survey on elite attitudes towards European integration. Despite some differences between the Portuguese and the European results of the survey, we find that the concept of ‘compound citizenship’ (M. Cotta, ‘A “compound” model of citizenship? European citizenship in the eyes of national elites’, Lisbon IntUne General Assembly, 27–30 November 2008) may be applied to the perceptions of Portuguese elites regarding the European Union, and the postulated combination of an indirect European citizenship with a direct one is also verifiable in Portugal. We hypothesise that this European ‘compound citizenship’ is not conflictive with national citizenship, possessing instead elements for strengthening the linkage between them.

The Authoritarian Past and South European Democracies: An Introduction

It is the object of the contributors to this volume to compare how Southern European democracies have reacted to past authoritarian regimes. This introduction has three sections. In the first we seek to frame the concepts of authoritarian legacies, transitional justice and the politics of the past as they are applied here. In the second we analyse the forms of transitional justice that were present during the processes of democratisation in Southern Europe, while the third section presents an outline of the volume and of the contributions made by its authors.

Political Catholicism, Crisis of Democracy and Salazar’s New State in Portugal

In interwar European conservative circles, António de Oliveira Salazar’s New State was praised for being an example of a ‘good’ dictatorship: one that avoided the ‘totalitarian’ and ‘pagan’ elements of both Mussolini and Hitler. Salazar, Portugal’s ‘Catholic dictator’, was a political product of the war of secularisation that followed the country’s republican revolution in 1910. The leaders of the 1910 revolution believed that Catholicism was holding Portuguese society back; in the years that followed, the cleavage between the church and their regime was to increasingly radicalise them. Co-existing with and permeating other Catholic Southern European societies, this secularising movement, which was often linked to the difficult consolidation of democratising republicanism, became a powerful engine that drove the ideological and political conflict during the transitions from oligarchic to democratic liberalism.1 The main hypothesis of this paper is that the compromise between the Roman Catholic Church and the Portuguese state formed the basis for the institutional framework of Salazar’s New State. The church was also a powerful agent against the ‘fascistisation’ of some of the regime’s institutions, ‘Catholicising’ them (particularly the corporatist apparatus and the youth movement), whilst simultaneously maintaining its strong and independent Catholic Action movement.

Portuguese Democratisation 40 Years on: Its Meaning and Enduring Legacies

Abstract On the fortieth anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, it is pertinent to ask how Portuguese citizens understand their transition to democracy. In this article, some of the main findings concerning the meanings and legacies of 25 April 1974 are presented, drawing on the findings of two surveys focusing on Portuguese attitudes towards 25 April and fielded in 2004 and 2014, respectively, to a representative sample of the Portuguese population. Here we focus on the degree to which the transition is viewed positively and its social and economic legacies. In the final sections, the main findings of the articles in this special issue are discussed through a presentation of the main questions they answer and the new ones they raise.

The Ends of European Colonial Empires

to rethink the demise or reconfiguration of European power in Africa. Eschewing morality plays and polemics for historical analysis, the authors add nuance and complexity to the decolonization, the most important phenomenon of 20th century history making their book essential reading for the growing number of students interested in this crucial topic.” – David C. Engerman, Brandeis University