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AbstractThis article describes and explains labour market reforms in Portugal during the sovereign debt crisis from 2011 to 2014. Policy outputs were not homogenous, but differentiated between a first phase where recalibration co-existed alongside hard liberalising measures and a second phase, from late 2012, where recalibration was dropped and liberalisation further deregulated employment protection and security and eroded collective bargaining. This variation is explained by the changing coalitional politics and blame allocation underpinning policymaking under conditionality. Initial reforms resulted from a broad informal political coalition spanning the governing centre-right parties, the main opposition party, a trade union and employer confederations; its breakdown in late 2012 led to the executive's increasing centralisation, the shut down of social concertation, and more radical policy outputs. The article shows that cooperation between government and opposition and government and social partners is possible even under external conditionality, how coalition politics affects the nature and direction of reforms, and highlights how political dynamics of blame allocation drive the process of coalition building and breakdown.

Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, this article examines how the main dimensions of labour market legislation (employment protection, security in unemployment, collective bargaining and activation policies) changed in Portugal during the sovereign debt crisis from 2011 to 2014. We show that the reforms passed during the Troika years were qualitatively different to earlier reforms. Despite building upon previous trends, there were path-shifting changes. First, security in employment and in unemployment for standard workers (insiders) declined substantially. Second, a significant decentralisation of wage bargaining shifted the balance of power towards employers, while a move from joint to statutory regulation stalled social cooperation. Third, neither of these trends was offset by any relevant unemployment compensation strategy or activation effort targeted at outsiders: no recalibration occurred in a historically dualised labour market. The balance of power between employees and employers shifted towards the latter at the expense of the former. A worse situation for insiders and outsiders points to wide market flexibilisation and enduring segmentation at a lower level of security. The austerity-driven reforms brought the Portuguese labour market to a liberalized dualisation, signalling a new departure for Portuguese labour market relations.

Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor in History and Civilisation from the European University Institute

AbstractOver the past decades, the level of regulation of fixed-term contracts has been in flux. Many reforms deregulating these contracts were followed by a regulatory countertrend, a puzzling finding considering influential theoretical expectations like the ones developed by the dualization and liberalization literatures. This paper draws on the comparative employment relations and comparative political economy literatures to identify the drivers of pro-outsider reforms. Furthermore, it develops an innovative argument claiming that governments may rely on support from a 'domestic coalition' including workers in permanent contracts, or they can leverage the European link to support their intention of conducting a pro-outsider reform. Each of these paths relies on the assemblage of distinct pro-reform coalitions of policy actors. To test our argument, the paper uses fsQCA. We compare 38 reforms enacted in 16 European countries between 1985–2019. After the fsQCA analysis, we conduct a qualitative discussion of the different paths.

This article examines the programmatic evolution of social democratic parties in Italy, Portugal, and Spain, three countries in which the center-left has governed in the last decade. To do so, the article develops an analytical framework for mapping social and labor market policy reforms and assessing their liberalizing, regularizing, or recalibrating character. In explanatory terms, the article studies the coalitional politics behind social democratic reforms as being conditional upon the relationships between organized interests, electoral social blocs, and party system dynamics. The comparative analysis shows both commonalities and differences: the cases range from postindustrial recalibration (Italy) to inclusive egalitarianism (Spain), with Portugal taking a middling path, closer to that of Spain. Overall, in these countries a move away from both traditional "social protectionism" and crisis-era internal devaluation has taken place, but it has taken different forms depending on country-specific coalitional dynamics within the left and trade union camps.

UID/CPO/04627/2013 SFRH/BD/86762/2012 IF/00926/2015 ; This project aims to shed light on the changes in political decision-making processes across Europe in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Crisis responses have challenged traditional parliamentary-democratic ideals such as accountability, representation and deliberation. As a result, taking a multi-disciplinary and comparative perspective, this project seeks to address the concentration of power, looking particularly at locations (arenas), processes (institutional and discursive) and long-term impact. ; publishersversion ; published

Résumé Cet article aborde la relation entre démocratisation et développement de la société civile au Portugal durant la période 1974-2010. Dans notre analyse, nous argumentons sur le fait que les différents modèles historiques de mise en œuvre des politiques publiques ont façonné les modèles du développement associatif durant la période démocratique. Lorsque les politiques sociales, ainsi que la création d'institutions politiques (et de régulation) affectant les sous-secteurs associatifs, ont été favorables aux organisations de la société civile, ces dernières se sont épanouies. De la sorte, sur le long terme, les organisations de la société civile ont vu leur pouvoir s'accroître chaque fois que les institutions et les politiques menées durant la période de transition ont pris en compte les pressions exercées par la société, traduisant de ce fait une relation plus consensuelle entre les élites et les masses.

In this article we study the relationship between democratization and civil society development in Portugal (1974-2010). We argue that the differences in historical patterns of policy-making and the ways social policies were engaged with each associational subfield at the moment of the transition shaped subsequent patterns of associational development during the democratic period. When the enactment of social policies and the creation of regulatory and political institutions affecting each sub-sector were friendlier towards civil society organizations, the latter blossomed. In the long run, civil society organizations were empowered whenever institutions and policies, designed during the transition and the immediate post-transition phases, were created to include societal pressures from below as the result of a more consensual relationship between elites and masses. Adapted from the source document.