The Portuguese Republic at War: States of Emergency or Business as Usual?

During Portugal’s troubled and divisive participation in the First World War, successive governments resorted to emergency powers in order to keep order throughout the country, notably in Lisbon. Considering that in 1926 the army took power through a coup d’état, and that this gave way over time to Salazar’s Estado Novo, it is tempting to establish a causal link between these two sets of events. This article suggests, however, that the repeated suspensions of constitutional guarantees, while damaging to the quality of Portuguese democracy and the long-term prospects of the country’s young republican regime, were by no means a recent departure, having already been a feature of politics during the late constitutional monarchy. The article examines these successive interventions, and their context, as well as a number of possible reasons for their occurrence, noting the existence of a paradox: although usually deployed by a vanguard party, the Democrats, in defence of the embattled republican regime, these moments of constitutional exception did not result (despite claims to the contrary) in a ‘Terror’, since those in authority baulked before any consistent and widespread use of political violence or even the imposition of harsh sentences. Neither did the military – transformed or not by the experience of colonial warfare (this is still to be determined) – seek to impose its will on the civilian authorities during the war years and their immediate aftermath. Ultimately, one must consider with great care Portugal’s political culture, notably the failure to secure widespread popular support for the basic rules that must underpin democratic governance.