Incumbents, Opposition and International Lenders: Governing Portugal in Times of Crisis

Abstract

The Portuguese case provides a unique opportunity to study the opposition's behaviour in a variety of political conditions. It offers an insight into the impact of the financial crisis on the opposition's behaviour in both majority and minority political settings. It allows the comparison of the opposition's relationship with a minority government, during which non-collaboration could have dramatic consequences, and also with a majority government, when such a choice does not have major political or policy implications. Moreover, it enables us to study the effect of an additional veto player (the so-called troika composed of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund), which not only constrains both majority and opposition parties, but also gives political entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to push ahead with liberal measures -in this case, clearly in disagreement with the moderate and radical left programmes. Relying on quantitative data on the legislative behaviour of the parliamentary party groups in the period 1995-2012, and on qualitative process-tracking of the opposition's positions on key economic issues -such as the decision to vote against Prime Minister Sócrates' last austerity package after a series of approvals -this article aims to determine whether, and if yes how, the financial crisis has affected the behaviour of the Portuguese opposition parties in parliament, by examining and comparing their behaviour in hard and in normal times.

Portuguese healthcare reforms in the context of crisis: External pressure or domestic choice?

“…In addition, our findings on tacit cooperation are in line with the research showing that policymaking during the Portuguese crisis involved collaboration between main political actors (see Afonso et al, ; De Giorgi, Moury, & Ruivo, ), but further research on policy preferences in the context of crisis would yield valuable insights into what makes this collaboration possible. The recent work by Giger and Nelson () on the electoral consequences of retrenchment politics and work by Jensen () on the similarity of parties' policy preferences in specific welfare sectors such as healthcare could be particularly useful in this respect.…”

Critical trends of citizen participation in policymaking. Insights from Portugal

“…Negatively affected by the rise of the value added tax, discontent also spread among business sectors, and within party ranks of both government coalition and opposition. The major mainstream party of the opposition, the ps, decided to stop supporting the government in 2012 by voting against amendments to the 2012 budget and the 2013 budget, at a time when pools on voting intentions gave it an edge over the coalition (De Giorgi et al 2015). Additionally, the Constitutional Court played a key role in legitimizing distrust and discontent, as several measures were forced to be suspended, such as the Labour Code amendments in 2013 (Decision 602/2013), followed by the Law 27/2014, though that came into force despite the opposition of the labour unions (Cardoso and Branco 2017).…”

The 2015 Portuguese Legislative Election: Widening the Coalitional Space and Bringing the Extreme Left in

“…The PSD popularity had started falling in november 2011 and, one year later, the polls put the PS in the lead (De Giorgi, Moury & ruivo 2015). The major accusation against the incumbent was that they had broken promises made to Portuguese citizens in an unprecedented way (Freire 2015).…”

“…A bailout was then requested and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed in May by the lenders -the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (known as the 'troika') -and three parties (PS, PSD and CDS-PP). This would mean that, no matter which party won the successive election, the new executive would be constrained by the commitments to the international lenders Downloaded by [b-on: Biblioteca do conhecimento online UL] at 03:57 18 May 2016 (De Giorgi, Moury & ruivo 2015), as in Ireland (Mair 2011). By contrast, the radical parties (PCP, PEV and BE) considered the bailout antidemocratic and unnecessary and refused to participate in the talks with the troika.…”

“…In contrast, BE, PCP and PEV sustained their highly conflictual behaviour towards the government, proving once again the difference between mainstream and extreme parties in opposition, even in times of crisis . However, in late 2012, the PS voted against both a second amendment to the 2012 budget and the 2013 budget and thereafter started to align in parliament with the other left-wing parties (De Giorgi, Moury & ruivo 2015), voting against critical and highly politicised bills. Furthermore, the PS requested a review of the constitutionality of some austerity laws approved by the centre-right majority and, on key issues, the Constitutional Court ruled in their favour, thus pushing the government to find alternative measures under the pressure of the international lenders.…”