Local government in Portugal has been facing challenges which are not new. However, recently some dramatic events have been exposed by the media and have revealed problems whose resolution implies a structured and consistent approach by the Government, as well as local responses with different dynamics and impact. Two parallel movements have been developing: the long-time demographic concentration in the big cities by the sea has exponentially increased in the last half century; as the interior regions have become depopulated. These regions occupy eighty per cent of the Portuguese territory, but only less than twenty per cent of the population lives there. This population is unprotected, frail and increasingly deprived of basic rights of citizenship, such as health, protection, justice, education, communication and others which are taken for granted in urban areas. Local government elected representatives are analysed, as well as their political messages and actions and public policies by the central government in order to verify what is being done to ensure the quality of life of the Portuguese people and the sustainable development of different territories.

Economic inequalities, social exclusion, discrimination against minorities, cultural resistance and disruption of social cohesion – these are all key concerns in the current European and global agenda, both in scholarly work and policy-making. RESISTANCE aims at analysing these issues by focusing on the processes of resistance carried out by social actors that have been historically disadvantaged, discriminated against and dominated. By using a concept of resistance that connects continued and less visible forms of resistance, cultural dissent and violent revolts, the ultimate goal of RESISTANCE is to produce a reinterpretation of the universe of “the dominated”. RESISTANCE will provide an understanding of how these actors could influence processes of social change, either by opening up societies to diversity and making them more inclusive and equal, or, conversely, by causing the increase of repression. Rooted in the disciplinary field of history, RESISTANCE uses the past as a laboratory for the analysis. Focusing on the former Portuguese and Spanish empires, this project privileges a comparative approach in time and space in order to investigate an extended time frame (sixteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries) and a spatial framework that encompasses Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. The past experiences of their societies, strongly grounded on ethnic, social, economic, cultural, religious, and gender inequality, still shape current political and social dynamics. RESISTANCE is led by the University of Évora, and made up of seven beneficiary universities in Portugal, Spain and Germany, plus six universities in third countries (Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mexico and USA). In addition to academic-type deliverables, RESISTANCE proposes an extensive range of dissemination and communication outputs specifically targeted at wide-ranging audiences (schools, museums, international agencies, think tanks, policy-makers, and more).

Roughly until the 2008 international financial and economic crisis and the sovereign debt crisis and austerity policies that followed, scholars studying the Southern European democracies (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) either focused on democratic consolidation or on the quality of democracy (see, for example, Morlino 1998; Gunter, Diamandouros and Phule 1995). However, the Southern European democracies have been experiencing profound changes since the emergence of the global economic and financial crises. As Matthijs (2014) noted, ‘there is already ample evidence that the strength of liberal democracy in Southern Europe has diminished since 2010, as seen in a weakening of civil and political rights, the rule of law and the functioning of government’. Clearly, there are significant changes in the functioning of contemporary democracies, especially those that haveendured painful austerity policies.The aim of this project is to examine these changes by analysing the case of Portugal, one of the countries affected most severely by the crisis, from both a longitudinal and a comparative perspective. Although it is still too early to definitely assess the impact of the economic crisis on the evolution of contemporary democracies, it is clear there are different responses to these external challenges and distinct trajectories of adaptation. Portugal can be considered a good example of one of the most important difficulties many contemporary democracies must face: the people’s loss of faith in the ability of democratic institutions — particularly legislatures, parties and the political elite — to solve problems and realise collective goals. We believe that by revisiting the concept of ‘democratic consolidation’ and by exploring aspects of a possible process of ‘democratic deconsolidation’ we can shed light on some of the changes recently experienced in European countries since the2008 crisis. The use of this concept here is not related to the consensus on the ‘rules of...

What is the role of local government and its elites in the sustainable development of the territory and it’s dynamic? With the 2005 law that limited the terms of mayors and forced the replacement of 48% of them in this year’s local elections, is political representation and leadership at the local level about to change? After a study on Local Government in Portugal, which produced a database and an analysis of local elites replacement due to the 1974 regime transition (Almeida, 2013), I have the necessary skills and material support to study the new elected mayors, comparing them with the earlier ones, their programs and the solutions they present to solve the problems of the Portuguese territory. Will changing the people result in a new replacement of the group? Are party politics still the major force in local government or is there room for independents and citizen groups? (Almeida, 2008).

This project is set to study the following questions: 1) What are the factors behind the growing dissatisfaction of the citizenry with the ruling class? 2) Is this dissatisfaction also addressed towards the institutions of representation? 3) How does the phenomenon of political representation function at the parliamentary level? 4) Does it make sense to speak of a ‘crisis of representation’? In order to answer these questions, the project will develop six strategies. First, it will update the existing databases containing biographical data of the Portuguese MPs (Freire 2001). Second, it will enlarge and deepen the existing knowledge regarding the role of the parties in the process of parliamentary recruitment (Freire 2001) through interviews with party leaders and MPs, as well as content analysis of party documents and press releases. Third, it will compare policy orientations of candidates (and MPs) vis-à-vis their voters (relying on surveys targeted at each of these groups). Remarkably, such a comparative analysis between elite and non-elite attitudes has never been done in Portugal, and it will allow the study of its political representation. Fourth, it will study the participation of civil society in the law-making process through an in-depth analysis of citizens’ and organized interests’ hearings in parliament. Fifth, based on a mass survey and on focus groups, it will study citizens’ attitudes towards the political elites and the institutions. Sixth, a crucial innovation of this project is its embeddedness into two international networks of research: the Candidate Survey and the PARENEL project (see references). Such a framework will allow us to insert our study in a broader comparative context and to relate the Parliament’s institutional characteristics to the whole process of political representation.