The Portuguese revolution: from the dismantling of the corporative organization up to the dubious end of corporatism (I)

Abstract

This article is the theoretical introduction to a larger study that will successively include, in other numbers of Análise Social, the following themes: from the corporative providence up to the integrated social security, the dismantling of the corporative organization and the changes in work law. The author, after having extensively analysed, in a previous work, the evolution of the Portuguese corporative system under Salazar and under Caetano, wants now to examine carefully its liquidation, in order to see or «guess», through it, which new institutions are taking its place and which sense they will have. But he tries, above all, to determine the game properly institutional, which is juridical and political within the broader picture (and, no doubt, determinant) of the complex social, economic and cultural transformation one has seen in Portugal. «Three years of continuity and rupture», «Old regime and revolution», «On the Fourth Estate» and «The Portuguese revolution» are the different steps of a fruitful reflection
through which the author elaborates and suggests some hypotheses that, for him, are able to explain some decisive aspects of the Portuguese revolution, in order to place it in the large world and in the very special history of this country, and as well to collect or antecipate its pending problems and coming fruits. Thus one traces a theoretical picture that, though acknowledged as controversial by its author, will be on trial subsequently, when the different series of institutions (constitucional, socio-professional, etc.) will be approached in the following articles.