Peasants and Politics in Salazar's Portugal: The Corporate State and Village «Non-Politics»

Abstract

In the elections held on the first anniversary of the April Revolution, over 93 percent of the Portuguese population voted in a massive display of political participation. In the first few years after the 25^th April one saw a proliferation of political parties, a high level of electoral participation and innumerable other political activities: strikes, land occupations, worker and neighbourhood councils, neighbourhood committees, and so on. This widespread participation stands in sharp contrast to the half century of apparent political apathy and acquiescence that characterized the Portuguese political life under Salazar's Estado Novo (New State). In this article one tries to examine exactly the manner in which the Estado Novo controlled peasant participation by effectively eliminating all possibilities for local-level participation in the political arena. The author argues that only through an understanding of a regime's structure can one explain the forms of peasant political participation. The ethnographic material analysed is based on field work done in São Miguel and on the data concerning Vila Velha, these being extracted from Ricos e Pobres no Alentejo by José Cutileiro. By comparing these two parishes, which have very different ecological bases, land tenure systems, and social structures, the persuasive manner in which the corporatist authoritarian government of prerevolutionary Portugal determined peasant non-participation in politics will be shown.