Bringing the Past Back in: How Attitudes towards the Democratic Transition Influence the Portuguese Voter

Abstract

This article analyses the way in which attitudes towards the transition to democracy explain party identification and ideology in Portugal. This question is important because the transition to democracy in Portugal was a turbulent process marked by a rupture with the past and institutional fluidity. It has also conditioned the main political parties’ relationships with the electorate and each other since 1974. I compare the same explanatory model results from two surveys, conducted in 2004 and 2014, respectively, to understand the extent to which perceptions about the transition help characterise the Portuguese voter over the last decade.

Keywords:

• Political behaviour
• Portuguese electorate
• transition to democracy
• party identification
• ideological placement

Notes

1. It is important to note that both surveys were carried out in periods with right-wing governments in power, namely 2004 and 2014. This could have had effects on both left- and right-wing voters, making the former less favourably and the latter more favourably disposed towards 25 April.

2. Both these were elaborated based on questionnaires devised at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon in 2010 and 2014 respectively. The principal investigators for the surveys were, respectively, António Costa Pinto in 2004 and Marina Costa Lobo in 2014. The surveys were funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

3. The CDS was later renamed the CDS–PP (Centro Democrático Social–Partido Popular - Social Democratic Centre–Popular Party).

4. Degree of religiosity is used instead of church attendance, as it correlates more highly with the dependent variable. Self-declared income is used in lieu of social class, since the latter variable was not included in the survey.