Portuguese democracy is now celebrating its 50th anniversary. Portugal joined the European Union (EU) in 1986, but the enduring legacies of the country’s transition process from authoritarianism to democracy became apparent during the European sovereign debt crisis, when Portugal experienced its third bailout since the institutionalization of democratic government. Although the first decade after EU accession was one of slight growth and investment, Portugal’s economy has, in effect, been performing poorly since the beginning of the 21st century. Among the major changes in Portuga - as in much of Southern Europe - as a result of the ‘great recession’, was the emergence of important new actors, including populist parties, new social movements and the polarization of attitudes toward the EU. In some of these areas, the phrase ‘with the exception of Portugal’ was always present. This book explores the factors that might explain why this is no longer the case, presenting a global overview, with an interdisciplinary focus, of the processes of economic, social and political changes in Portuguese democracy since the 2008 economic crisis. The volume is accessible to a broad academic audience, with chapters examining economic, political, social and foreign policy issues, for scholars interested in an analysis of Portugal’s emergence from the economic crisis.

Over the past fifteen years Portugal has promoted several changes in the access of immigrants to family reunification that were interlinked with a significant progress in terms of integration policies. This report analyses the practice of the law, highlighting the hurdles and challenges that immigrants might face during the family reunification process in Portugal. The contact with immigrants, NGOs representatives, policymakers, lawyers and mediators helped to understand this reality. This study was developed between 2011 and 2013 for the project “Family reunification: a barrier or facilitator of integration?”, co-funded by the European Integration Fund, Directorate B: Immigration and Asylum Unit, DG Home Affairs, of the European Commission.

Primary elections for choosing party leaders and candidates are now becoming commonplace in Europe, Asia and America but questions as to how much they hinder a party’s organizational strength and cohesion or affect electoral performance have largely been ignored outside of the USA. Party Primaries in Comparative Perspective gives a much-needed conceptualization to this topic, describing the function and nature of primary elections and providing a comparative analytical framework to the impact of primaries on the internal and external functioning of political parties. Elaborating on the analytical tools developed to study the US experience this framework engages with primary elections in Europe and Asia offering a theoretical, comparative and empirical account of the emergence of party primaries and an invaluable guide to internal electoral processes and their impact.

This book discusses innovative responses and reforms developed in critical areas of urban governance in European countries. It examines the impact of European Union’s policies on the urban agenda and on local governance, and the impact of the transition to democracy in Central and in Southern Europe on local self-government systems. The book is divided into three parts: i) Crisis, Reform and Innovation in Local Government; ii) EU Policies, the Urban Agenda and Local Governance; and iii) Citizen Participation in Local Government. Providing an extensive and updated overview of key challenges in the governance of cities in Europe, the book will be of interest to students and researchers in the broader field of urban studies, and for policy-makers, especially those engaged in urban governance in European countries. /div

Since 2008 many European states have experienced significant challenges in adapting to austerity, and political actors within these states have made significant changes in their discourses and practices. This book explores the short-term impact of the sovereign debt crisis on aspects of political representation in Greece and Portugal, two of the countries that have been the most severely affected. It provides the most systematic examination to date of the attitudinal change of voters and elites regarding participation and representation, and of the legitimacy of the political system in two of the bailed-out Eurozone states. By examining the congruence between elites and voters, the shift in the patterns of competition, and the position of both citizens and representatives on the main issues, the studies contribute towards a reassessment of the validity of the responsible party model and of theories about democratic accountability. By relying on original mass and elite surveys conducted both before and after the bailouts, the volume helps us understand how the EU/IMF intervention has affected partisan alignments in Greece and Portugal, as well as the differences and similarities in the way political elites and civil society have adapted to severe austerity. This book was originally published as a special issue of South European Society & Politics.

To participate in the multi-level system of government in which Portugal is now embedded (Teixeira and Pinto, 2012) requires European political capital as well as national political capital. European political capital is the knowledge required to deal effectively with the complex institutions that make the decisions of European Union. It consists of a mixture of the political skills, knowledge and experience that individuals can acquire by working in Brussels. For Portuguese it requires working with foreigners in a foreign language. It is an asset that qualifies people to be part of the EU decision making game. European political capital does not guarantee influence, but without it people will be on the sidelines rather than players in the Brussels policy community. To ensure that decisions that Portuguese agree to in Brussels will be accepted by the Portuguese government requires national as well as European political capital.^While all politics is about expressing different points of view and negotiating to arrive at mutually agreed decisions, EU politics is different in that bargaining takes place among multi-national groups. Three Brussels institutions are critical in giving Portuguese the opportunity to acquire and make use of European political capital: the European Commission, the Brussels office of the Permanent Representative (PERMREP) of the Portuguese state; and the European Parliament. The first of these institutions has a de-nationalizing effect, since Commission staff are meant to give their first loyalty to the goals and priority of the European Union itself. The PERMREP's Office and the European Parliament have a multi-nationalizing effect, since agreements made with the participation of Portuguese must also have the approval of representatives of more than a score of member states. As EU citizens, Portuguese are eligible to become supra-national civil servants in the European Commission.^Its staff is often described as faceless bureaucrats; while they are usually anonymous they are not bureaucrats. Commission officials are active participants in the policy process with the exclusive right to initiate the legislative proposals and directives that go to the European Parliament and the Council for approval. They also monitor how member states implement decisions taken at the EU level.

Portugal is an established member of the European Union, one of the founders of the euro currency and a founder member of NATO. Yet it is an inconspicuous and largely overlooked country on the continent's south-west rim. In the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Age of Discovery the Portuguese led Europe out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic and they brought Asia and Europe together. Evidence of their one-time four-continent empire can still be felt, not least in the Portuguese language w ...