Typological Evolution of Political Elites in Contemporary Portugal: from Statism to Segmented Elites Under Constitutional Change

The Portuguese socio-political reality after 1960 was transformed by a process of economic and social modernization, which particularly accelerated through the emergence of the revolution of April 25, 1974, known as the Carnation Revolution, which established a democracy. The revolution started a new republic characterized by a constitutional and political rupture with the past, followed by sudden changes in the social and economic environment, and brought with it a radical circulation of the political elites. In this paper we intend to analyse the evolution and to typify the Portuguese political elites after 1960, taking into account the ideal types of plutocracy, statism and segmented elite as considered by Best (2018: 331-338). Having Portuguese society in this period undergone an accelerated process of social complexity, we show how political elites of a plutocratic type have been replaced by new elites constituted during the democratic period. Democratic elites tried to capitalize on the new social situation, social expectations and achievements, in the context of political struggles and the different ideological currents that have spread in the social environment. We suggest that the democratic political regime was constituted and became flexible in order to accommodate not only the action of the new political parties and social movements, but also the integration of prominent personalities who acted in the conduction of the various political elites. In analysing the evolution of Portuguese political elites, we consider the moments in which they tended to differentiate; we observe and explain how their action has spread spatially in Portuguese territory, giving rise to a functional specialization capable of guaranteeing the survival of the different elitist groups at local, regional and national level; how legitimate political institutions were created to accommodate the different logics of elitist action and to integrate into legitimate advantageous positions the various types of actors, always succeeding in maintaining political action within the limits of democratic representativeness and strategically managing the pressures of the electorate and the tensions created between the various adversaries. We also consider how the evolution of this process led to situations of unification of elites, even in the presence of different projects and ideologies, whenever possibilities arose for the exercise of political power, with consequences for the dynamics and configuration of the power elite, reaching creative solutions, as the original elite currently in power (a parliamentary coalition of the socialist party with the radical left parties). The various ideal types allow us to identify and understand the action of the Portuguese real elites through the crossing of identitarian traits of two types: statist, in the form of political capitalism, and segmented elites, often at the expense of economic growth, poverty reduction and inequality, social cohesion and general prosperity of the country. We use the databases of CEPESE (Research Centre for the Study of Population, Economics and Society), with large information of the agents who took over the main political positions in Portugal, e.g. Presidents of the Republic, prime ministers, ministers and secretaries of state, deputies and civil governors.