The representation of the political crisis in Portugal

Abstract

Using the cliché of the political representation crisis as a basis, the article analyses its effects on the different subsystems: the electoral system, the party system and the system of government. The crisis of political representation is analysed on the basis of the different elements that are traditionally presented as symptoms of this crisis: the crisis of the political decision margin, the crisis of parliamentarism, the crisis of political identification models, media democracy, the appearance of the useless vote, the electors' failure to identify the elected as true political decision makers, the institutionalisation of new forms of representation and the judicialisation of political activity. Considering these factors, the article makes a quantitative analysis of the production of legislation in the 6^th and 7^th Legislatures, endeavouring to identify the evolution of the system of government between the 7^th and ^8th Constitutional Governments and inserting this evolution in the crisis of political representation.