Revolution and policy failure: the 1910s Portuguese Republic

Abstract

The Portuguese revolution of October 1910 instituted a civilian revolutionary and ‘progressive’ Republic within the background of a conservative and monarchist Europe, whose core was located in the countries of the Triple Alliance. Since its very beginning, the regime fell short of any foundational consensus and was caught by a wave of conspiracies, upheavals, social protests and civil war menaces. This article sheds light on the shortcuts adopted to overcome the political instability examining political procedures like legislative coups, wishful thinking and ad hoc planning. The final part broadens the debate through the assessment of the time frames and the types of effects that policy failure is able to bring about.

Keywords:

• public policy
• republic
• religion
• economic policy
• Portugal

Notes

 1. Pierson, 595–628. This agenda has been introduced by Evans, Rueschemeyer and Skocpol's book, Bringing the State Back In.

 2. Zelizer, “New Directions,” 1–11.

 3. Marques, Ensaios de História da i República.

 4. One explanation for this popular designation says that the groups of the “White Ant” militants were “nibbling the wooden bars of the regime”. Leal, As minhas Memórias .

 5. Ilharco, Memórias; Carvalho, Antes e depois da Republica; Valente, A República Velha.

 6. Gaspar, A primeira República em Abrantes; Moura, A guerra Religiosa; Villares, As congregações.

 7. Ramos, “A igreja,” 280–303.

 8. For instance a scheme of priest substitution preventing the possibility of the impediment of religious service was quickly set in place by the Secretary of the Apostolic Legation in Lisbon, drawing on the previous experience in France. Moura, A guerra religiosa, 79.

 9. Quoted in Ramos, “A igreja,” 261.

10. Catroga, Os inícios do positivismo; Dias, Darwin em Portugal.

11. Braga, A história das Ideias; Costa, Discursos Parlamentares, 37–54.

12. Comte, Système de Politique Positive, 21–2. For Auguste Comte's influence on the Portuguese political and academic milieu see Catroga, Os inícios do positivismo; Homem, Da monarquia à República, 160–93.

13. Scientism is the key for this transposition. According to Harold Sharlin, “During periods when scientific theory appears to be able to explain one part of the world well, and the central idea seems to have universal applicability to the physical world, scientism finds new advocates. Those scientific principles, it appears to non-scientists, are also applicable to the organisation of society, the universal law of gravity, or the idea that the energy of the universe is constant, are appealing and suggestive ideas.' Sharlin, “Herbert Spencer,” 457–65.

14. Ventura, Anarquistas, Republicanos e Socialistas.

15. Adão, “Assimilation and Transformation,” 515–22; Mayo and Molina, El positivismo; Vallenilla, “Venezuelan Positivism,” 327–44; Hilton, Positivism in Latin America.

16. Zea, The Latin America Mind; Nachman, “Positivism,” 1–23.

17. Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict, 148.

18. Braga da Cruz, As Origens da Democracia; Moura, A guerra religiosa.

19. For the quantification of political and social instability in this period of the Portuguese Republic see Gomes and Tavares, “Democracy and business cycles,” 291–321.

20. The monetarisation of public deficit proved to be the major econometric cause of inflation. Santos, Ohlos de Boneca, 182–203.

21. We speak of policy failure whenever the executive power or some state department establishes goals, new rules or new programmes for state action which thereafter prove ineffective and are revoked, suspended, subsumed under different legislative measures or simply abandoned. The list of policy failures (see Appendix 1) embraces social and economic failures in the period from 1917 until the end of the constitutional regime in 1926.

22. Boletim da Previdência Social , 1918–9, 131–9; 305–18; 370–86. AMWSS, ISSOPG, Direction of the Central Office, ‘Livro de Actas das Sessões do Conselho Superior de Previdência Social’ 1919–20.

23. Ricardo, ‘Relatório,” 12.

24. Relvas, Memórias Políticas, 88.

25. AMWSS, ISSOPG, Direction of the Central Office, Report from the Commission appointed by the Ministry of Work on 27 March 1919.

26. Leal, Temas de Segurança Social .

27. Comparison of the law published on 11 May 1919 with the manuscript Project for Organization of Mandatory Social Insurance in AMWSS, ISSOPG, Direction of the Central Office, Projecto Organização dos Seguros Sociais Obrigatórios.

28. Revista Económica 3 March 1921; 4 April 1921; Boletim da Associação Central da Agricultura Portuguesa , 1920, 1.

29. Contemporary views suggest that state projects have failed due to raising inflation which outdated the legal ceilings established for the payment of annuities. Grillo, “Estudos de Previdência Social,” 14–31.

30. Magalhães, Tranquilidade, 72–4.

31. Grillo, “Estudos de Previdência Social”.

32. More formally, in a game theory situation a player is a “wishful thinker if her expected pay-off (according to her own probability distribution) at that time coincides with the highest possible expected pay-off one can ever expect within the set of these possible outcomes.” Yildiz, “Wishful Thinking, ” 319–44.

33. Anselmo de Andrade has estimated the surface of untilled land of the country to be 988,500 acres which corresponds to 4.5% of the total surface area and 7% of the crop area. The major problem however is that this estimate does not distinguish arable land from non-arable land. Andrade, Portugal económico.

34. Cidrais, “A reunião,” 1.

35. Esteves, “A Florestação dos Baldios,” 1157–1260.

36. Schwartzman, The social origins of democratic collapse, 82–7; Graça, Propriedade e agricultura.

37. Esteves, “A Florestação dos Baldios,” 1157–1260.

38. Lopes, “De baldio a colonato.”

39. Mayntz and Hugues, The development of large technical systems; Arthur, “Competing technologies,” 590–607.

40. APFT, Documents related to telecommunications, Report of 22 August, Couto dos Santos, O Problema económico financeiro dos CTT ; Statistical Yearbook Portugal, 1912–26.

41. Mitchell, European Historical Statistics ; Maddison, Dynamic Forces in Capitalist Development.

42. Silva, A Introdução, 205–33.

43. This integrated vision of the telegraph and telephone network was put forward by two senior civil servants, Humberto Serrão and M. P. Melo, in 1919: Plano Geral de ampliação e remodelação da rede telegráfica, Archive of the Portuguese Foundation of Telecommunications, Documents from Humberto da Cunha Serrão M2, 1 September 1919.

44. Decree 12435 promulgated by the military dictatorship on 7 October 1926 makes mandatory the collection of additional tax to finance the public telephone system, and centralises the initiatives under the Post Office and Telegraph board, but sanctions autonomous actions sponsored by the municipalities.

45. Couto dos Santos, Situação da Administração Geral dos CTT debaixo do ponto de vista do seu material e instalações. Report of 9 August 1936. APFT, Documents related to telecommunications.

46. Reports of the Government Delegate in ATP, 1914-1916-1916-1923, APFT, Documents from the Anglo Portuguese Telephone; Confraria, “Serviço telefónico,” 58–73.

47. The Archive of the Ministry of Work and Social Security has been incorporated recently in the National Archives of Torre do Tombo.