An Ever-Shadowed Past? Citizens’ Attitudes towards the Dictatorship in Twenty-First Century Portugal

Abstract

Several years after the transition to democracy, positive attitudes towards the authoritarian past are still observable in Portugal: the belief that the previous regime had more good things than bad things is expressed by about one-fifth of the Portuguese. What explains this nostalgic sentiment? Are factors such as socialisation under the regime, party identification or religiosity more important than satisfaction with democracy and the state of the economy? The empirical analysis suggests that the relevance of these factors varies considerably, but socialisation phases lead to different stances on the past both in routine times and in times of economic crisis.

Keywords:

• Portugal
• attitudes towards the past
• dictatorship
• socialisation
• nostalgia

Notes

1. Although the Portuguese empire included territories in India, the Indian annexation of Goa in December 1961 put an end to the Portuguese presence in the region in less than two days.

2. In 2009, the Flash Eurobarometer (EB) on the 2004 Enlargement asked citizens in all member states whether they thought that ‘the situation which prevailed in Central and Eastern European countries before 1989 was better than today’s’ (Flash EB 257).

3. The question was, ‘Looking back, how do you think Franco’s regime will be regarded in the future: as a positive period for Spain; as a negative period for Spain; or as a period that had good things and bad things’? (‘Con la perspectiva que dan los años, ?cómo cree Vd. Que pasará a la historia el régimen de Franco: como un período positivo para España, como um período negativo para España o como una etapa que tuvo cosas buenas y cosas malas?’) (CIS 1995, 2000).

4. Surveys conducted during that period as well as after Pinochet’s arrest included questions such as: ‘In your opinion, regarding General Augusto Pinochet’s regime, do you think …’ (‘En su opinión, mirando el régimen del general Augusto Pinochet, piensa que …’); ‘What is your opinion about the 17 years of General Pinochet’s government? Would you say they were …?’ (‘Cuál es su opinión sobre los 17 años del gobierno del general Pinochet? Diría Ud que fueron …’ (Huneeus 2003).

5. The question was, ‘Which government or regime was better at ruling the country?’

6. In this section, when we mention the dependent variable in this study, the expressions ‘attitudes towards the past’, ‘attitudes towards the New State’ and ‘attitudes towards Salazar’s regime’ are used interchangeably, in order to avoid repetition.

7. The average discrete changes scores are an average of the changes in the probability of holding different attitudes caused by shifting from the minimum to the maximum value of the independent variable, when all the other variables are held at their means. These scores vary between 0 (no impact at all) and 1 (full impact); thus higher values represent a stronger mean impact.