Abstract
AbstractIn 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.
Highlights
On 28 May 1926 a coup d’état ended the First Portuguese Republic, which had been established on 5 October 1910
Salazar led the country until 1968 when, after falling off a chair, he was replaced by Marcelo Caetano, who ruled the country until the New State was ended in 1974 by the Carnation Revolution
Most studies of the political elites in the countries tend to concentrate on ministers and members of parliament;[55] few consider those in local government
Summary
On 28 May 1926 a coup d’état ended the First Portuguese Republic, which had been established on 5 October 1910. The constitution laid out the roles and responsibilities of government in the municipalities, parishes and administrative regions, indicating that local governments were to have political, legislative and financial autonomy This did not transpire; even today local government in Portugal remains dependent on central government for most of its finances and some authors have argued that decentralisation was never completed, leaving the country a centralised and bureaucratic state.[15] Today the locally elected representatives in Portugal’s municipalities consist of a mayor and a group of councillors with executive powers who control their own revenues. The process of ageing was not so apparent in this group; mayors appointed in the early years of the New State were 44.2 years old, on average, in its final years they were 46.8 (Table 3)
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