Contemporary Portugal

Dimensions of Economic and Political Change

Stephen Syrett

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138717299
• eBook ISBN: 9781351766975
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

This title was first published in 2002. Portugal experienced rapid and dramatic change over the final decades of the twentieth century. After the turbulence that followed the 1974 revolution, the 1980s and 1990s provided a period of unprecedented political stability and economic modernization during which Portugal converged rapidly with the wealthier member states of the European Union. This important new volume offers a timely focus on this recent period. Written for a wide audience by a multidisciplinary team of experts, the book provides an accessible overview and analysis of the key dimensions of recent economic and political change in Portugal and identifies the tensions and policy challenges that rapid change has produced. In so doing the book reveals something of the complexity of contemporary Portugal: an outward looking modern, democratic and European state, but one where the legacy of its recent traditional, colonial and often inward looking past continues to influence and shape its development in the twenty-first century.

1 Portugal Transformed

STEPHEN SYRETT

Introduction

That Portugal underwent a period of dramatic societal change in the last 25 years of the twentieth century is beyond dispute. One need look no further than the new landscape of motorways, apartment blocks, hypermarkets, advertising hoardings and mobile phones, to know that change has been profound and rapid. Portugal increasingly conforms to the model of an advanced western European state in terms of its economic structure, democratic political tradition, models of social organisation and state provision of welfare services, as well as in the aspirations and expectations of its population. Socio-economic indicators confirm increasing convergence to European norms whether in terms of diet, electoral turn out or demographic characteristics.

The pace of modernisation has been particularly impressive. Fundamental changes that in other European countries took place across half a century or more have been compressed into little more than two decades. Yet the pace and scale of change has brought with it fragility and vulnerability. There remain doubts as to the strength of the foundations of the new social, political and economic systems and whether they can be sustained and built upon in the future. Significant gaps between Portugal and its advanced European partners remain whether in terms of the strength and diversity of its economic base, levels of education and training, or the quality and efficiency of public services. Continuity is also very much in evidence. Dominant economic and political elites have survived and reinvented themselves to remain at the heart of modern Portugal. Rapid change has not swept away traditional lifestyles; rather the contemporary landscape is marked by the juxtaposition of traditional and modern forms of production, consumption and social reproduction.

The contradictions and discontinuities that characterise a period of rapid transition are defining features of contemporary Portugal. As Portugal seeks to establish a new place and identity within Europe, and negotiate the uneasy transition towards convergence with the economic and political structures characteristic of the modern democratic states of northern Europe, it is confronted by an array of tensions and paradoxes rooted within unfolding processes of change. This volume explores the economic and political dimensions of Portugal's current journey 'backwards out of the big world' (Hyland, 1997) seeking to understand the nature of such change and identify the new challenges it has created.

The roots of many of the processes of contemporary change can be found in the 1960s (Barreto, 1996a). In this period mass out-migration from interior rural areas resulted in rural depopulation and the growth of urbanisation processes centred on the Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas. A new and deeper integration into the international economy also emerged via labour migration to northern Europe and the development of manufacturing and tourist industries. The social functions of the state began to develop in areas such as education and social security, whilst culturally the arrival of television and social mixing arising from the experiences of the colonial wars were important social factors. The shift in orientation towards Europe through economic integration and away from Africa, marked the start in a major repositioning in Portuguese outlook from Atlanticist imperial power to small European nation state.

The revolution of 1974 marked a watershed in the shift to a new era. The resultant 1976 constitution established universal suffrage in national and local elections for the first time in Portugal's political history. The major historical changes of this period - the establishment of democracy, decolonisation, the beginnings of European integration - are analysed in a number of English language texts (Baklanoff, 1978; Robinson, 1979; Graham and Makler, 1979; Gallagher, 1983; Graham and Wheeler, 1983; Sousa Ferreira & Opello, 1985). Yet since this period the story has moved on (Barreto, 1996b; Santos, 1993), and in a manner that few predicted. This volume focuses upon the post-revolutionary period but with particular emphasis upon change in the 1980s and 1990s. In this period Portugal has enjoyed a degree of economic and political stability and has been driven by a vision of European integration that has enabled the playing out of rapid and dramatic change. The starting point for this analysis is not therefore that of a country with its 'head in the First world and its feet in the Third', but rather a country with a social, economic and political profile convergent with the established economies and democracies of western Europe; a convergence largely unthinkable in 1974 and the turbulent period that followed.

Portugal's newly acquired 'maturity' means it now faces many of the same dilemmas as advanced western nations (failing electoral turnouts, immigration, drug abuse, rising criminality etc.¹)· However the constitution of these new problems, alongside more traditional ones, must be understood within the particular context of the nature and scope of the recent transition process within Portugal. This process of change is of wider significance too. In the European context many of the smaller transitional economies that hope to join the European Union over the forthcoming decade are interested by the apparent economic and political success of Portugal. Analysis of the Portuguese experience of rapid transition thus provides insights into the challenges of European integration that may be informative to other applicant countries. Although it is beyond the scope of this volume to analyse comprehensively all aspects of contemporary economic and political change in Portugal, the contributions in this book provide a starting point for a fuller understanding of a number of key dimensions of the transition process.

Towards Convergence?

To date, the apex of the process towards European convergence was Portugal's presence as one of the founding members of the first phase of economic and monetary union in 1999. The Portuguese 'economic miracle' talked of by some commentators reflected the strong macro-economic performance of the Portuguese economy across the 1980s and 1990s (see Table 1.1; see also Chapters Two and Three). During this period consistently above average GDP growth rates enabled Portuguese GDP per capita to rise from 52.8 per cent of the EU average in 1985 to 73.3 per cent in 1999. Across this same period the inflation rate fell from 19.4 per cent to 2.3 per cent. Marked improvements in public finance included a reduction in the public account deficit from 6.1 per cent of GDP in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables and Boxes
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Portugal Transformed
• 2 Portugal's Changing Integration into the European and Global Economy
• 3 Economic Change and Regional Development in Portugal
• 4 Tourism in Portugal: From Polarisation to New Forms of Economic Integration?
• 5 International Population Mobility, Immigration and Labour 105 Market Change in Portugal
• 6 The Liberalisation of Media and Communications in Portugal
• 7 Environmental Issues in Portugal: Towards a Sustainable Future?
• 8 National Political Change in Portugal, 1976-99 Richard A.H. Robinson
• 9 Local and Regional Government: Continuity and Innovation in Local Governance
• 10 Challenge and Change: Prospects for the 21st Century
• Index