After the Bailout: Responsibility, Policy, and Valence in the Portuguese Legislative Election of June 2011

Abstract

This article discusses the 2011 legislative election results in Portugal and the context in which they took place. After describing how the economic and financial crisis unfolded, leading to the European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout, it analyses the campaign strategies of the major parties. On the basis of a post-election survey, the article then discusses how successful these strategies were, and concludes by analysing the aftermath of the election in terms of government formation.

Keywords:

• Portugal
• Elections
• Economic Crisis
• Passos Coelho
• PS
• PSD
• CDS-PP
• CDU
• BE

Acknowledgements

Several segments of this article were previously published in the blog The Monkey Cage (www.themonkeycage.org), in two posts entitled ‘June 2011 Portuguese Parliamentary Elections: Pre-Election Report’ (available online at: http://alturl.com/5rvho) and ‘2011 Portuguese Parliamentary Election: Post-Election Report’ (available online at: http://alturl.com/kboak). I thank both the editors of the blog and of the journal for permission to reprint them here. Part of this article was written while I was Luso-American Development Foundation Visiting Professor at the Department of Government of Georgetown University. I wish to thank the Luso-American Development Foundation for their support.

Notes

 [1] ‘Europe's left: left out’, The Economist, 7 June 2011, available online at: http://www.economist.com/node/21518773

 [2] Bank of Portugal, Main Economic Indicators, available online at: http://www.bportugal.pt/en-US/Pages/inicio.aspx.

 [3] ‘Acordo entre troika e Governo desenvolve PEC 4, diz Teixeira dos Santos’, Actualidades, 5 May 2011, available online at: http://noticias.portugalmail.pt/artigo/20110505/acordo-entre-troika-e-governo-desenvolve-pec-4-diz-teixeira-dos-santos

 [4] ‘Ideia de que PEC IV esteve na origem do acordo é “pura fantasia”’, Jornal I, 4 May 2011, available online at: http://www1.ionline.pt/conteudo/120998-ideia-que-pec-iv-esteve-na-origem-do-acordo-e-pura-fantasia

 [5] The English versions of the memorandum and accompanying documents are available online at: http://alturl.com/bxv7c. For an analysis of the document, see ‘Memorandum of economic and financial policies: 11 perspectives’, available online at: http://alturl.com/fzv36.

 [6] See R. Fishman, ‘Portugal's unnecessary bailout’, New York Times, 12 April 2011, available at: http://alturl.com/q5483

 [7] E. Miranda, ‘Sócrates acusa PSD de querer FMI e crise política,’ Jornal de Negócios, 15 March 2011, available at: http://alturl.com/sycmj

 [8] ‘Catroga compara Sócrates a Hitler’, Expresso, 11 May, 2011, available at: http://aeiou.expresso.pt/catroga-compara-socrates-a-hitler = f648180.

 [9] P. Pires and S. Marques, ‘Vamos rever a Constituição e vamos revê-la depressa’, TVI, 11 April 2010, available at: http://alturl.com/a2jrd

[10] ‘Vice do PSD quer benefícios sociais atribuídos em cartão de débito’, Diário Económico, 19 April 2011, available at: http://alturl.com/p2r5i

[11] ‘Mais Sociedade provoca polémica ao ligar reforma e subsídio desemprego’, Sol, 27 April 2011, available online at: http://alturl.com/odese

[12] ‘Passos Coelho quer “mudar actual paradigma estatizante”’, Diário de Notícias, 29 March 2011, available online at: http://alturl.com/ywd3j

[13] Leonete Botelho and Nuno Simas, ‘Assis abre jornadas do PS com críticas à proposta de revisão constitucional do PSD’, Público, 5 July 2010, available online at: http://alturl.com/ytedk

[14] See ‘Sócrates acusa PSD de querer “destruir o Serviço Nacional de Saúde”’, Jornal de Notícias, 7 May 2011, available online at: http://alturl.com/kghe7; and Carla Soares, ‘Sócrates acusa PSD de querer desviar verbas da escola pública para a privada’, Jornal de Notícias, May 8th, 2011, available online at: http://alturl.com/drjot

[15] The blog Margens de erro (http://www.margensdeerro.blogspot.com) kept an updated register of all polls published during the campaign. For the decline of the BE, see: http://margensdeerro.blogspot.com/2011/06/alegrebloco.html

[16] Laakso and Taagepera's formula for effective number of parties iswhere n is the number of parties with at least a seat and p is the proportion of seats.

[17] The CEP project was coordinated by Marina Costa Lobo and Pedro Magalhães at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL). It was a Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing survey of registered voters conducted in continental Portugal, executed by TNS Euroteste, N = 1000, stratified by region and size of locality, with fieldwork between 8 and 28 July 2011, and a 62 per cent response rate. All results weighted by actual election results.

[18] Poll results available online at: http://alturl.com/je5t3

[19] Available online at: http://alturl.com/734s8

[20] I computed an average score, from 1 (not responsible at all) to 5 (extremely responsible), of responsibility awarded to agents other than the government. Voters above the median value of this variable see other agents as ‘highly responsible’.