Protest, Youth and Precariousness: The Unfinished Fight against Austerity in Portugal 9781789206661

Citation preview

Protest, Youth and Precariousness

Protest, Culture & Society General editors: Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Institute for Media and Communication, University of Hamburg Martin Klimke, New York University Abu Dhabi Joachim Scharloth, Waseda University

Protest movements have been recognized as significant contributors to processes of political participation and transformations of culture and value systems, as well as to the development of both a national and transnational civil society. This series brings together the various innovative approaches to phenomena of social change, protest and dissent which have emerged in recent years, from an interdisciplinary perspective. It contextualizes social protest and cultures of dissent in larger political processes and socio-cultural transformations by examining the influence of historical trajectories and the response of various segments of social, political and legal institutions on a national and international level. In doing so, the series offers a more comprehensive and multi-dimensional view of historical and cultural change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Recent volumes: Volume 27 Protest, Youth and Precariousness: The Unfinished Fight against Austerity in Portugal Edited by Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões Volume 26 Party Responses to Social Movements: Challenges and Opportunities Daniela R. Piccio Volume 25 The Politics of Authenticity: Countercultures and Radical Movements across the Iron Curtain, 1968–1989 Edited by Joachim C. Häberlen, Mark KeckSzajbel and Kate Mahoney

Volume 24 Taking on Technocracy: Nuclear Power in Germany, 1945 to the Present Dolores L. Augustine Volume 23 The Virago Story: Assessing the Impact of a Feminist Publishing Phenomenon Catherine Riley Volume 22 The Women’s Liberation Movement: Impacts and Outcomes Edited by Kristina Schulz Volume 21 Hairy Hippies and Bloody Butchers: The Greenpeace Anti-Whaling Campaign in Norway Juliane Riese

Volume 20 A Fragmented Landscape: Abortion Governance and Protest Logics in Europe Edited by Silvia De Zordo, Joanna Mishtal and Lorena Anton Volume 19 The Nuclear Crisis: The Arms Race, Cold War Anxiety, and the German Peace Movement of the 1980s Edited by Christoph Becker-Schaum, Philipp Gassert, Wilfried Mausbach, Martin Klimke and Marianne Zepp Volume 18 The Revolution before the Revolution: Late Authoritarianism and Student Protest in Portugal Guya Accornero

For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website: http://berghahnbooks.com/series/protest-culture-and-society

Protest, Youth and Precariousness The Unfinished Fight against Austerity in Portugal

Edited by

Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2020 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2020 Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Carmo, Renato Miguel, 1971- editor. | Simões, José Alberto    Vasconcelos, editor.   Title: Protest, youth and precariousness : the unfinished fight against    austerity in Portugal / edited by Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto    Vasconcelos Simões.   Description: New York : Berghahn Books, 2020. | Series: Protest, culture &    society | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019058043 (print) | LCCN 2019058044 (ebook) | ISBN    9781789206654 (hardback) | ISBN 9781789206661 (ebook)  Subjects: LCSH: Youth--Political activity--Portugal. | Unemployed    youth--Portugal. | Precarious employment--Portugal. | Protest    movements--Portugal. | Portugal--Economic conditions--21st century. Classification: LCC HQ799.P8 P76 2020  (print) | LCC HQ799.P8  (ebook) |    DDC 320.0835/09469--dc23  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058043 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058044 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78920-665-4 hardback ISBN 978-1-78920-666-1 ebook

In memory of our dear colleague and friend, Britta Baumgarten

Contents

List of Figures and Tables

ix

List of Abbreviations

x

Introduction 1 José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Renato Miguel Carmo Part I. Youth Precariousness, Work and Collective Action Chapter 1.  Precarious Futures: From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

13

Chapter 2.  Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal’: Tales of Precarity from a Life Course Follow-Up Study with Young Adults in Portugal (2009–2016) 33 Magda Nico Chapter 3.  Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism in Portugal 54 Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns Chapter 4.  Collective Action at a Crossroad: Trade Unions and Social Movements in the Age of Labour Precariousness and Austerity Dora Fonseca Chapter 5.  The Precariat Strikes Back? Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation José Soeiro

72

92

Part II. Protest, Media and Democracy Chapter 6.  Contentious Portugal: Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution in the Portuguese Anti-Austerity Cycle of Protest Guya Accornero

117

viii | Contents

Chapter 7.  Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies in the Portuguese Anti-Austerity Protests Britta Baumgarten

137

Chapter 8.  Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism in Portugal José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

163

Chapter 9.  Reinstitutionalising Democracy: The Role of the Portuguese Elections in Temporally Taming the Democratic Crisis Jonas Van Vossole Conclusion. Towards a Post-Austerity Turn? Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões

187 213

Index 223

Figures and Tables Figures Figure 1.1. Evolution of the rates of employment, unemployment and temporary contracts in Portugal, among young people aged between 15 and 24, between 1996 and 2017. Figure 2.1. Occupational trajectories of 52 middle-class young adults in Portugal (N=52), 2009.

16 44–45

Tables Table 2.1. Life course research methods used: a summary.

36

Table 2.2. Importance attributed to different life events (agency-structure scale) (mean percentage).

46

Table 5.1. Law 63/2013 enforcement.

106

Table 7.1. Main differences between the activist groups.

157

Abbreviations 15O Plataforma 15 de Outubro (15 October Platform) BE Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) CDS-PP Centro Democrático Social-Partido Popular (Social Democratic Center-People’s Party) CDU Coligação Democrática Unitária (Unitary Democratic Coalition) CGTP Confederação Geral de Trabalhadores Portugueses (General Confederation of Portuguese Workers) EC European Commission ECB European Central Bank EU European Union IMF International Monetary Fund M12M Movimento 12 de Março (12 of March Movement) MAS Movimento Alternativa Socialista (Socialist Alternative Movement) MFA Movimento das Forças Armadas (Armed Forces Movement) MoU Memorandum of Understanding MPT Movimento Partido da Terra (Earth Party Movement) PAN Partido dos Animais e da Natureza (Animals and Nature Party) PCP Partido Comunista Português (Portuguese Communist Party) PEV Partido Ecologista Os Verdes (The Greens Ecologist Party) PI Precários Inflexíveis (Inflexible Precarious) PREC Processo Revolucionário em Curso (Revolucionary Process Underway) PS Partido Socialista (Socialist Party) PSD Partido Social Democrata (Social Democrat Party) QSLT Que se Lixe a Troika (Screw the Troika) USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Introduction José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Renato Miguel Carmo

On a global scale, the last few years have come to be characterised by growing financial and economic crises which, in turn, have led to notable socioeconomic impacts on various European countries and elsewhere. The wave effect of the 2008 financial crisis in the US influenced the global financial economy, having particularly impacted a number of European countries, starting with the collapse of the financial system in Iceland, followed by Ireland, Greece and Portugal. The escalation of these crises led to the adoption of austerity measures by national governments, followed by the administering of financial assistance programmes under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission (EC). These three institutions, which came to be known as the Troika, were viewed by many as the ‘institutional faces of austerity’; they inspired different demands by emergent social movements as well as individuals who would not otherwise be politically active and engaged. This is the case with Portugal, where, in comparison to other countries, ‘public sphere’ political and civic participation has traditionally been weak, replaced instead by a more prominent role on the part of traditional political actors, namely political parties and trade unions (Cabral 2014). This lack of tradition in extra-institutional participation, however, changed with the escalation of the economic crisis and resulting economic and social consequences, which stirred up new forms of public participation and protest. The emergence of new forms of protest and new collective actors defines what has been termed as a ‘new cycle of contention’ (Baumgarten 2013;

2  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Renato Miguel Carmo

Accornero and Pinto 2015), characterised by a ‘new structure of political opportunities’ (Tarrow 2011). This new cycle of protest started in 2011, culminated in 2012–2013, and started to progressively decrease from the second half of 2013 to 2014. This was a period characterised by significantly strong public participation, with a broad repertoire of participation ranging from mass demonstrations and sit-ins to public place occupations, among others. The emergence of new collective actors created to give voice to claims against the adoption of austerity measures by the government was one of its chief features, along with the goal of mobilising people who were not habitually connected with acts of political engagement. Digital media appears as a crucial resource for informal participation and mobilisation here (Campos, Pereira and Simões 2016; Campos, Simões and Pereira 2018; Simões et al. 2018). This new cycle of protest was also characterised by the prominent role of young individuals, who became the face of wider discontentment, as was visible during the 12 March 2011 ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Desperate Generation) protest march, one of the most important in recent years. This was predominantly due to the growth of youth unemployment and job insecurity, as well as the reduction of state social support and lack of job opportunities (Carmo, Cantante and Alves 2014). Although such protests were intergenerational in nature, young people seemed to epitomise the socioeconomic consequences of the crisis as well as being the face of what was an ever-growing disbelief in the political system. This prominence of youth was felt not only in Europe (Flesher Fominaya and Cox 2013; Sloam 2014) but around the world (Ancelovici et al. 2016; Tejerina et al. 2013), a pattern suggesting the importance of younger generations as drivers of social change (Feixa and Nofre 2013). This book focuses on the many ways in which protests are connected to crisis, centring on the main consequence of economic crises: precariousness. There are many possible responses to the impacts of economic instability, protests being regarded as one of them. How people chose to go beyond institutional systems to present their grievances and demand solutions is an issue that is addressed in different ways throughout this volume. Precariousness and protest are two distinct phenomena. If the former is related to contractual restrictions and labour vulnerabilities that affect the individual’s socioeconomic condition, the latter rises from a generalised discontentment regarding the political and economic situation of a given country and the repercussions such situations may have on people’s lives. At the same time, however, it is important to point that the two are also partially associated, not only because we often witness an escalation of both phenomena when financial and economic crises take their toll on society, but, above all, because the battle against precariousness has been one of the

Introduction | 3

main issues on the agenda of new social movements. The relation between socioeconomic conditions and mobilisation had been absent from most debates on public participation and social movements until recently (Della Porta 2015; Ancelovici et al. 2016). The crisis was not only the trigger of different protest actions, but also took the issue of social inequality into the centre of the debate on social movements and civic engagement, bringing ‘the economy back to the analysis of mobilisation’ (Tejerina et al. 2013: 385). The fact that austerity presents itself as a ‘socially transversal phenomenon’ makes recent protests ‘new’ in comparison to traditional class-based cleavages which sustained previous grievances (Della Porta 2015). Keeping in mind the reconfiguration of the social recruitment of the ‘oppressed’, therefore, it is within this scope that we might understand theoretical proposals such as the emergence of a ‘precariat class’ (Standing 2014), of which youth represents an important segment (Sloam 2014). Nevertheless, since mid-2013 the decrease in the frequency and strength of protests organised by new social movements in Portuguese society that emerged in 2011-2012 has been evident, especially in the case of mass demonstrations with a significant public impact. This decreasing trend is due to a number of factors, two of which are worth highlighting: first, a growing sensation of disenchantment and disappointment among activists in regard to new social movements’ abilities to actually implement ‘participatory democracy’ or to remain active beyond momentary events without the help of traditional political actors (such as political parties or unions), thus pushing ‘ordinary citizens’ away from the public sphere; second, with a few exceptions, the notion that social protests have had no real impact on the political sphere, thus highlighting the inefficacy of such movements in influencing institutional systems, consequently leading to their inability to deliver results or mobilise new members. Still, it should be acknowledged that ‘micro-protest actions’ (such as public debates, assemblies or small demonstrations) connected to specific issues (e.g. debates about how to overcome public debt), often organised by mobilised activists, have maintained their visibility during the now low period of participation, a trend that may be termed as the ‘aftermath of anti-austerity protests’. Regardless of the decrease of social protests after mid-2013, the levels of precariousness and inequality did not come to an end (Carmo and Cantante 2015). This was particularly noticeable, as well as dramatic, among the young. This situation affects how younger generations deal with their own future. In this context, Portugal is a particularly interesting case study, as it captures distinctive and even contradictory trends. After four years under an intense adjustment programme, Portugal witnessed a change in its national government composition which has been

4  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Renato Miguel Carmo

supported for the past four years (from November 2015 until October 2019) by left-wing parties. This change has brought hope to the population, with the implementation of changes to policy orientations that aim to develop a plan for economic regeneration, as well as the recovery of the standard of living among the Portuguese. Regardless of this fact, however, the Portuguese continue to live in a socially and economically vulnerable situation. This book sets out to question if in fact social protests can really influence a ‘post-austerity turn’ or if, on the contrary, we are experiencing a kind of numbness of social protests that coexists with the persistence of structural problems such as inequality, unemployment and precariousness that undermines the future, particularly among the youth (Carmo, Cantante and Alves 2014). We posit that a ‘post-austerity transition’ will only take place if the structural problems that compromise the future are reversed. We may consider this issue in a more ‘normative’ way, focusing on the practical consequences and responses that arise at different levels (economic, social, political, etc.), or in a more ‘positivist’ way, focusing on identifying and describing the intervening factors in the understanding of the question. In their analyses, the authors of this book take into account different approaches and dimensions. In some cases, they examine the economic and social consequences of the crisis on precariousness (either in general or focusing specifically on young people); in others, they present a more political focus, either analysing the reconfiguration of the political system – with the emergence of new political actors and the reorganisation of power relations between existing ones – or taking into consideration the responses coming from outside the institutional system, through anti-austerity claims translated into various forms of collective action, including the use of digital resources for political mobilisation. It is our aim to analyse these issues, focusing on the Portuguese reality, and combining broader comparative perspectives drawn from case studies pertinent to other European countries. We underline the fact that this edited book gathers the contributions of different researchers who, although they hail from a variety of European countries, are all based in Portuguese scientific institutions and have all been working continuously on the central topics of this book. The volume presents a diversity of perspectives and points of view regarding the issues of precariousness and protest produced by the authors, all of whom possess very distinct scientific and personal backgrounds (see biographical notes). We should point out that Portugal is a particularly interesting case study due to the fact that it has been the target of a rigid austerity programme, similar to other countries such as Greece or Spain, all of which were hit by measures that have had a tremendous impact on the working

Introduction | 5

population, including, above all, young workers. After years of hardship, Portugal is now living under a new political climate, with a national government, supported by left-wing parties, that has implemented a programme anticipating the replacement of most austerity measures. This political reconfiguration, which is unique in the context of the European Union, is one we consider worthy of scientific study and debate. Are we actually moving to a post-austerity phase? What are the social consequences of such a change regarding the youth population? These are two core questions behind this book’s narrative, addressed in each chapter, though in different ways. With Portugal as the central case study, therefore, we set out to explore and analyse these issues.

Book Overview The book is divided in two parts. The first part – ‘Youth Precariousness, Work and Collective Action’ – focuses on situations of labour precariousness as applied to Portuguese youth population and this population’s relationship with different forms of collective action. The chapters pay special attention to the impacts of the economic crisis and the austerity programme in relation to social conditions, that started to worsen after 2008. The chapters will further explore other dimensions that link precariousness with new mechanisms of social practices and representations, such as constructed perceptions concerning the future, political alternatives, and mobilisation around new forms of activism. We should note that although the same protest events (for instance, the ‘Desperate Generation’) are mentioned in several chapters, their review is appropriate since these mass public protests had a huge impact on a structural level, not only because they defined the anti-austerity cycle at different times, but also due to the fact that from an analytical point of view, they acted as reference points when it came to locating the different analytical perspectives (from interviews to document analysis) to be approached. In this sense, even though a common narrative is presented, each of the authors will provide their own views, offering differing relevance to different sides of the story. The first two chapters define a broader scenario for the ensuing discussion, providing a portrait of youth precariousness in Portugal by analysing youth’s social situation. While chapter 1 (Renato Carmo and Ana Matias) explores different situations of youth precariousness within the labour market, focusing on young adults’ transitions to work and their responses in terms of protest, chapter 2 (Magda Nico) looks at precariousness as related to young people’s recent life trajectories in the labour market, examining

6  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Renato Miguel Carmo

the ambivalences of this situation as the ‘new normal’. Together, these two chapters allow us to situate the discussion that follows on the problem of examining different forms of collective action. This issue is explored either by analysing specific precarious workers’ organisations, created outside the institutional political system, that have played an important role in the organisation of major protest events (chapter 3, Nuno Alves and David Cairns), or through the observation of the role played by traditional trade unions in organising main events during the protest cycle (chapter 4, Dora Fonseca). The complex and ambivalent relation between these two types of collective actors, usually representing opposite poles with regard to politics (non-institutional vs. institutional), constitutes one of the originalities of the Portuguese case. Traditional trade unions have found a way to ‘harmonise’ their relationship with anti-austerity social movements (AASMs), just as much as AASMs managed to ‘coexist peacefully’ with trade unions by being present or cooperating with them on key protest occasions. In a different but complementary perspective, chapter 5 (José Soeiro) examines how precarious workers appear as a ‘collective actor’ that stands out as a new class – the ‘precariat’ – engaged in a common struggle and in reaching a ‘collective consciousness’. Although the context of the crisis appeared to be auspicious to creating new political parties (like, for instance, Podemos in Spain), in the Portuguese case no new parties were formed that came out directly from the protest movements.1 In that sense, this ‘precarious class consciousness’ remains attached in terms of collective action either to emergent social movements or traditional trade unions which became major players in enacting precarious workers’ grievances. The second part – ‘Protest, Media and Democracy’ – is centred on the topic of protests and their multiples types of expression. In addition to research centring on recent manifestations in Portugal, particular attention will also be paid to the new conceptualisations of activism that make use of distinct digital tools and platforms through which online and offline networks become articulated in multiple and complex ways. Another aim of this section is to observe the new social movement forms of protest and activism, drawing comparisons with the more traditional methods of civic participation in Portugal, dating back to the establishment of democracy by the ‘Carnation Revolution’ of 1974. Chapter 6 (Guya Accornero), which opens the second part of the book, offers a broader picture of the recent contention cycle by revisiting the reverberations of the 1970s revolutionary period in Portugal, comparing these with the anti-austerity protests that occurred four decades later. In tracing this temporal arc, the analysis not only draws parallels between the two periods, but also contextualises the current protest cycle. The variety of

Introduction | 7

expression and modes of protest organisation is then explored in chapter 7 (Britta Baumgarten) through an analysis of forms of action and organisation of social movements as part of the survival strategies adopted after the anti-austerity period – a time period in which young people played an influential role. These reconfigurations of protest are also captured via the examination of ‘new grammars’ as utilised by existing groups and movements. In chapter 8 (José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos), the issue is assessed from the point of view of the role played by digital media in the new cycle of protest, particularly (although not entirely) in the anti-austerity movements, in which, once again, young people were key. The political participation of youth, in fact, reflects a broader change in forms of participation, characterised by greater fluidity and sustained by the increased use of a variety of digital tools for civic engagement. In this assessment of the impact of the crisis on how dissent is organised and expressed – which, as we have noticed, expanded and branched into different arenas (public and private, formal and informal) – it remains relevant to observe the responses of the institutional political system to this outcome by looking at the system’s reconfigurations. Chapter 9 (Jonas Van Vossole) analyses the evolution of the various elections during the crisis period, showing how the system itself responded to the crisis by somehow assimilating its impact. We must add here a word concerning method. This book brings together different research projects that adopt different methodologies, with different implications concerning the way in which the main issues, as outlined above, are addressed. All chapters rely on qualitative approaches to data collection and analysis, each with its own specificities, that can be summarised by three major variants: 1) in-depth interviews as main method, conducted as a result of ongoing participant observation (chapters 3, 4, 7 and 8), as part of a purposive sample method (chapter 1), and as part of a life course analysis (with a special biographical emphasis) in two different time periods with the same interviewees (chapter 2); 2) participant observation as complementary method, integrated in an ethnographic approach to the subject, either relying on a single case study (chapter 3), on multiple groups and/or events (chapters 4 and 7), or on online observation of different platforms (chapter 8); 3) documental collection and analysis as main method, either of legislation and statistical data (chapter 5), official data from elections (chapter 9) or historical documents and statements pertinent to a specific time period (chapter 6). Considering the diversity of research objectives, it is to be expected that, from an empirical point of view, different samples would be drawn with distinct implications in terms of their representativeness. The question of representativeness of cases depends largely on the nature of the objects,

8  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Renato Miguel Carmo

being most unlikely to anticipate the limits of populations that are generally unknown by the lack of prior reference information. Therefore, the empirical contours of research objectives have been delineated, in most cases, in the course of the research projects themselves, outlining the ethnographic approach adapted to each respective group, as seen as relevant to the situations under observation. In those cases where collection materials are in the form of document data (official statistical data, legal documents, historical testimonies, etc.), representativeness is ensured by the very availability of the materials that allowed for an exhaustive examination of entire sets (legislation and official results of the elections). The diversity of epistemological guidelines depended on the research objectives of the different empirical cases gathered, which, in turn, resulted in different understandings on how to collect information and the circumstances surrounding the gathering procedures. Thus, while some cases had a more participative character, demanding closer proximity to the subjects studied (mainly that of participant observation and ethnographic work), others called for no such active participation due to the nature of the analysis (i.e. documental analysis). In situations where the gathering of information involved direct contact with the research subjects, participation was voluntary and consented, and the necessary elucidations regarding the research objectives were provided. Where there were interviewees, anonymity of the participants and confidentiality were guaranteed, according to a previously established agreement. In our view, the methodological multiplicity offered throughout this volume is one of its most enriching aspects. As each chapter presents a specific research objective and is founded on a particular method of data collection, it should be considered independently of the others. However, given the cross-cutting and transversal nature of the issues discussed, the chapters can also be understood in a complementary way, contributing to an understanding of the arguments presented throughout the book. The unity of the book develops, in this sense, from its own diversity, which enables both autonomous and complementary readings. In any case, each chapter provides an individual explanation of the particular methodology adopted in order to make it understandable on its own to the reader. This introduction has thus served as an invitation to the chapters that follow, outlining the major debates and results ahead. In doing so, it did not intend to deliver definitive answers, but rather to posit the problems to be discussed and encourage the reader to read further. Our approach, as previously underlined, is diverse in nature, setting out to captivate different audiences, deriving from different areas of interest and backgrounds. The focus on a unique case such as Portugal, usually absent from collective volumes

Introduction | 9

on the topic, offers an opportunity to go deeper into an analysis of recent events that have youth, precariousness and austerity as central subjects. José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões holds PhD in Sociology from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at New University of Lisbon (NOVA FCSH), Portugal, where he teaches in the Department of Sociology, and is also a researcher at CICS.NOVA (Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences). He has been researching youth cultures, children/youth and digital media, as well as activism and social movements. He coordinated the ‘Networked Youth Activism’ project (2014–2015) and the Portuguese participation in the European study ‘Net Children Go Mobile’ (2013–2014). He is currently working on ‘ArtCitizenship’ (2018–2021), studying activism and creative practices of young people in Portugal. He has published extensively on the above-mentioned subjects. Renato Miguel Carmo is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology of University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL) and research fellow at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL), Portugal. He is Director of the Inequality Observatory and Deputy director of CIES-IUL. Issues such as social and spatial inequalities, public policy, mobilities, social capital and labour relations have been at the core of his research projects. His recent publications have appeared in Geoforum, Journal of Civil Society, European Societies, Sociologia Ruralis, Time & Society, Sociological Research Online, European Planning Studies and others.

Note   1. Even in cases of new political parties being formed during the crisis period, as was the case of Livre – Tempo de avançar (Free party – Time to move forward).

References Accornero, G., and P.R. Pinto. 2015. ‘“Mild Mannered”? Protest and Mobilisation in Portugal in Times of Crisis, 2010–2013’, West European Politics 38(3): 491–515. Ancelovici, M., P. Dufour and H. Nez (eds). 2016. Street Politics in the Age of Austerity: From the Indignados to Occupy. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Baumgarten, B. 2013. ‘Geração à Rasca and Beyond: Mobilizations in Portugal after 12 March 2011’, Current Sociology 61(4): 457–73. Cabral, M.V. 2014. Dimensões da Cidadania: A Mobilização Política em Portugal numa Perspectiva Comparada. Porto: Edições Afrontamento. Campos, R., I. Pereira and J.A. Simões. 2016. ‘Activismo digital em Portugal: um estudo exploratório’, Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas 82: 32–47.

10  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Renato Miguel Carmo

Campos, R., J.A Simões and I. Pereira. 2018. ‘Digital Media, Youth Practices and Representations of Recent Activism in Portugal’, Communications – The European Journal of Communication Research 43(4): 489–507. Carmo, R.M., and F. Cantante. 2015. ‘Desigualdades, redistribuição e o impacto do desemprego: tendências recentes e efeitos da crise económico-financeira’, Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas 77: 33–51. Carmo, R.M., F. Cantante and N.A. Alves. 2014. ‘Time Projections: Youth and Precarious Employment’, Time & Society 23(3): 337–57. Della Porta, D. 2015. Social Movements in Times of Austerity. Cambridge: Polity. Feixa, C., and J. Nofre (eds). 2013. #Generación Indignada: Topías y utopias del 15M [#Outraged Generation: Topias and Utopias of 15M]. Lleida: Editorial Milenio. Flesher Fominaya, C., and L. Cox (eds). 2013. Understanding European Movements: New Social Movements, Global Justice Struggles. New York: Routledge. Simões, J.A., R. Campos, I. Pereira, M. Esteves and J. Nofre. 2018. ‘Digital Activism, Political Participation and Social Movements in Times of Crisis’, in I. David (ed.), Crisis, Austerity and Transformation: How Disciplining Neoliberalism Is changing Portugal. Lanham: Lexington Books, pp. 71–90. Sloam, J. 2014. ‘“The Outraged Young”: Young Europeans, Civic Engagement and the New Media in a Time of Crisis’, Information, Communication & Society 17(2): 217–31. Standing, G. 2014. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Tarrow, S.G. 2011. Power in Movement Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tejerina,  B., I. Perugorría, T. Benski and L. Langman. 2013. ‘From Indignation to Occupation: A New Wave of Global Mobilization’, Current Sociology 61(4): 377–92.

Part I

Youth Precariousness, Work and Collective Action

Chapter 1

Precarious Futures From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

Introduction In recent decades, high levels of youth unemployment, as well as the increasing precariousness of their working conditions, have placed the issue of youth participation in the labour market on the agenda of academia and major international organisations (Standing 2011; Alves et al. 2011). According to the OECD (2016), young people are considered one of the groups most affected by the economic crisis and, in a general context of increasing flexibility in employment contracts, they are more inclined to accept temporary/ atypical contracts. Other studies have reported how the impact of precariousness on the social and personal lives of young people reaches beyond the objective dimension of the working sphere, to have repercussions on both their prospects and the construction of their life projects (Carmo et al. 2014; Leccardi 2005). Recourse to temporary employment agencies has represented a growing trend in most European countries. This results from the encouragement for increasing labour market flexibility in response to the international context of both great competitiveness and high levels of unemployment (OECD 2016). However, many authors state this has become ‘the new source of social inequalities in the European labour market’ (Passaretta and Wolbers 2016: 2), which have led to the fragmentation of markets and the sharpening of regional asymmetries in European countries (especially in the south), with no improvement in the already reduced levels of contractual security (Gialis and Leontidou 2016). In the European Union, the youth employment crisis has afflicted countries such as Portugal that have undergone austerity measures and far-reaching adjustment programmes. In this

14  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

chapter, we look at some of these developments taking place in Portugal over recent years within the context of the European Union, firstly, by analysing employment and unemployment trends and, secondly, by measuring the extent of contractual precariousness concerning the incidence of temporary and part-time contracts. Throughout the text, we establish analytical relationships between the levels of unemployment and employment, the increasing precariousness of labour activities and the deepening of resource inequalities (Therborn 2013), which impacts on a considerable proportion of young workers. The chapter is structured according to three core sections. Firstly, we set out the theoretical framework, before contextualising precariousness according to statistical indicators and then presenting the research results on the experiences stated by the young persons interviewed regarding the precarious working conditions they have encountered and how these have shaped their relational capital and perceptions of their roles in the workplace. The analysis then covers three different and distinctive situations: professional internships, working in call centres, and research activities. In the third section, we attempt to identify areas of resistance, criticism and protest towards a context of perpetually remaining under atypical contractual employment, with limited social benefits, high levels of professional insecurity and the continuing prospect of low levels of remuneration.

Theory and Contextualisation In a context of increasing internationalisation and private sector competitiveness, the European and Portuguese labour markets have undergone significant changes in recent years. In such a challenging setting, many countries responded to high levels of unemployment by adopting policies that facilitate recourse to temporary workers. The implementation of greater labour market flexibility happened primarily through the deregulation of temporary or permanent contracts. This new reality has fostered a higher level of segmentation and dualisation regarding the terms and conditions, as well as the opportunities available to those workers already in the labour market (insiders) and those beginning to integrate into it (outsiders), in which the question – under what conditions do they do so? – is worthy of inquiry (Kesisoglou et al. 2015; Reimann 2016; Passaretta and Wolbers 2016; Costa, Dias and Soeiro 2014). This labour market dualisation, resulting from the increase in temporary working practices as a means of responding to the structural problems of increasingly globalised and competitive economies, has brought about an

From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow  |  15

increase in social inequalities and particularly income disparities. Temporary employment terms interlink with greater instability and contractual insecurity, low wages and, in general terms, fewer opportunities. Individuals with atypical employment contracts are also more dependent on individual negotiation processes, experiencing more difficulty either in framing and acting under the auspices of trade union organisations or getting their rights safeguarded by social protection schemes (Estanque 2014; Kretsos 2010). In this context, young people – as well as women, low-skilled or migrant workers – rank among the most vulnerable groups working on temporary contracts, as such contracts frequently serve as entry points into the labour market (OECD 2016). What often comes to light, however, is the extension and circulation through various types of precarious working forms and the transformation of a temporary condition to a permanent state. Some authors even argue that precariousness has become the ‘paradigmatic condition’ of young people’s working conditions (Kesisoglou et al. 2015). Thus, the current labour market incongruities seem to encapsulate the coexistence of the traditional model (fixed-term contracts, full-time salaries and direct relationships with the employer) – that is becoming increasingly less representative – with atypical working practices that frequently turn out to become the typical condition (ILO 2015: 57). The OECD (2016) estimates that in countries such as Portugal, Slovenia and Italy, between 2007 and 2015, about one in ten youth-occupied jobs disappeared and that the recent economic improvement has not yet resulted in any recovery in employment rates. Furthermore, higher levels of unemployment were accompanied by increases in precarious work, mainly temporary employment. The difficulties experienced in different European countries with regard to integrating young people into the labour market did not emerge with the onset of the financial crisis, although they did intensify over this period. Indeed, over the last two decades, there has been a downward trend in employment in Portugal between the ages of 15 and 24 (primarily due to the increase in schooling levels), and a rise in the rates of both unemployment and the number of temporary contracts (Figure 1.1). Recent years show a recovery in youth employment compared to the indicator in the period corresponding to the financial crisis in Portugal (around 2011): between 2013 and 2017, youth employment rose by 10.5% (an increase of more than 4.3 percentage points). Also, concerning unemployment, it is possible to observe the effect the crisis has had on this age group: in 2012, the unemployment rate stood at 37.9% (approximately 159,000 young people under the age of 25 were unemployed). In 2017, around 88,000 individuals in this age group were unemployed (23.9%) – the lowest rate since 2010.

Figure 1.1. Evolution of the rates of employment, unemployment and temporary contracts in Portugal, among young people aged between 15 and 24, between 1996 and 2017. Figure created by the author. Source: LSF, Eurostat, 2018. Notes: Employment rate – calculated by dividing the number of person employed over 15 years of age by the total population of the same age ([lfsi_emp_a]); umemployment rate – percentage of the unemployed population aged 15-24 in the total active population of the same age group ([lfsa_urgaed]); percentage of temporary contracts in full employment ([lfsi_pt_a]). In 2017 there were 283,000 young people employed in the 15 to 29 age group (the employment rate stood at 25.9%).

16  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow  |  17

Concerning temporary contracts, the indicator has risen continuously over the last twenty years (about 37 percentage points, from 28.6% to 65.9%), peaking in 2015 (at 67.5%). However, a recent trend shows a slight decrease in youth working with these types of contract. These numbers convey how the rates of social vulnerabilities among the young population are particularly pronounced.1 As highlighted by recent studies in Portugal and other peripheral countries, the socioeconomic positioning of youth is getting worse when it comes to unemployment, job insecurity and low wages.2 These worsening aspects also serve to demonstrate how the financial crisis and/or austerity measures had distinct social and economic effects in peripheral societies (Knight and Stewart 2016) that need to be further studied through multidimensional methodological approaches incorporating separate national and transnational analytical scales. Growing job insecurity among the youngest generations has obvious consequences for their passage through life and life’s existential components. The unpredictability they are subjected to on a daily basis as a result of insecure employment means that while they may be able to find regular work, the relatively low wages paid do not, in many cases, allow them to achieve certain milestones in their transition from adolescence to adulthood, namely leaving the parental home, marriage, parenthood and labour market insertion (Cairns et al. 2014; McDonald et al. 2011).

Objectives and Methodology Under the auspices of the Inequality Observatory (observatorio-das-desigualdades.com), we carried out qualitative research that returned to some of the sociological dimensions of an earlier project (see Alves et al. 2011), but differed with regard to the sample, with interviews being limited to young people with higher education qualifications. Choosing to concentrate on this population in no way conveys that precariousness afflicts this population to a greater degree than it does others. Precariousness, in fact, tends to be transversal to the young working population irrespective of their level of schooling (Alves et al. 2011). We thus carried out semi-structured interviews with a non-probabilistic sample of 24 young persons who found themselves in situations defined by professional precariousness (remunerated/not remunerated internships, research grants, fixed-term contracts, uncertain/ temporary contracts, recibos verdes self-employed/sub-contracting, informal working conditions, unemployed). These young interviewees, whose ages range from 22 to 32, hold higher education qualifications from different academic fields, they reside in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, and they

18  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

were selected via word of mouth (snowball technique). For the purpose of anonymity, the names chosen to identify the participants are fictitious. In the interviews, we sought to grasp the trajectories of these young persons from the moment that they entered higher education, through to their labour market integration and subsequent experiences as workers, focusing on four particular dimensions: 1) higher education record; 2) labour market position and pathways; 3) daily life and transitions (subdivided into questions on financial autonomy, perceptions of justice, citizen and social participation); 4) future projections and alternatives. The interviews carried out with our young participants provided proof that, in the midst of having to deal with limitations regarding their professional careers, not only is there enormous fragmentation and discontinuity in career progression, but also notable diversity and heterogeneity in contractual situations. Nevertheless, detailed analyses of these trajectories enabled the identification of a relatively limited set of contractual conditions that occur with the most significant and most regular frequency, specifically: fixed-term contracts; full-time and/or part-time dependent employment; full-time research grants; self-employed (recibos verdes/personal invoices), part-time service provision; and full-time IEFP (Institute of Employment and Professional Training) internships.3 An essential aspect to understanding this dimension stems from the environment prevailing in the place of work. In general terms, the young people interviewed highlighted positive working environments where there were good relationships among colleagues, all the while drawing attention to the importance of the following aspects of working life: team work – belonging to a group is a facet referred to as determinant to job satisfaction, in conjunction with having management present whenever difficulties and obstacles emerge during daily working life, as well as being capable of motivating and willing to accept suggestions and ideas; the type of tasks carried out which enable the acquisition of new knowledge and experience; being given the opportunity to progress in their careers; being part of a ‘good company’ that offers conditions allowing workers to build up a curriculum vitae; and company location and the respective means of access. These positive aspects, nevertheless, are for the majority of respondents replaced by feelings of dissatisfaction and concern characterised in two different ways: first, their position with regard to the work – the actual and objective working conditions – as well as their contractual uncertainty – the unpredictability of their futures in the workplace; and second, their role in the workplace, which often leads to a more subjective facet of the self being constructed (the idea of adopting a machine-like self-image and of being easily replaceable). Such situations emerge most prominently in three cases:

From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow  |  19

professional internships, working in call centres and working in research, cases we will deal with in greater depth in the following sections.

Youth in Precarious Working Conditions: The Distortion of the Trainee Figure In the professional situations mentioned above, internships deserve particular attention due to the recurrence with which they appear in the trajectories of young people (often not out of any personal desire but due to a failure to find any alternative). There are various internship typologies that either have contractual statuses or remuneration clauses (curricular internships and training, professional internships, remunerated and non-remunerated internships, internships financed by the IEFP [Institute of Employment and Professional Training]), or are financed by companies or other entities.4 In this context, it is interesting to understand the perceptions held by some of the young people spoken to with regard to the perverse and systematic effects associated with the generalisation of internships, be it concerning the labour market and the universal acceptance of such schemes, or the professional trajectory of the respective individual. Of the 24 young individuals interviewed, six had had at least one internship experience (nonremunerated or rewarded). We now present two experiences of internships to illustrate different forms of relating to these schemes.5 Raquel, aged 29, with a master’s degree in psychology, began her career with a professional internship that then led to a contract in a parish council. She recalls this experience as an opportunity for learning. Following an initial phase with some contractual stability and professional satisfaction in the parish council, the financial crisis and recession that struck in 2011 led to funding cuts in the department she worked in and Raquel was forced to leave the internship. What happened next was a period of starting and ending various jobs, the majority with precarious contracts. At the time of the interview, Raquel had just started working for a development and training company on a fixed-term contract. This company had undertaken a collective redundancy process and, in the department that employed her, Raquel was replacing two colleagues. In addition to holding responsibility for all of the department’s administrative procedure, she was also due to supervise an intern. She explains: I am constantly apologising to ‘my’ intern because the position of an intern is, to me, different to that of which (an internship) is used today. I ended up turning to her because I have a lot of work …

20  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

Internships, both curricular and professional types, are being used to replace people, to do the less appealing jobs, the work that the people who are already there don’t want to do … She is getting a very different experience to that which I had during my internship, where, in fact, I feel that I did learn an immense amount of things.

Our second interviewee, after having finished her undergraduate degree in management, opted to join the job market instead of proceeding to a master’s degree; she felt this would better her own personal growth and also allow her to begin building up her curriculum vitae. Out of university, Amália, aged 21, had a remunerated internship in a human resources firm. She describes her situation and those of her fellow interns as highly uncertain with regard to remaining in the company following the internship period: [My colleagues] all started recently, because the internships are all for nine months and in my company, in my area (of work), they haven’t recruited anybody for four years. … When I started there, I began getting along very well with one of my colleagues (kind like of my boss) and he told me: ‘I’m going to tell you right now that you are doing an outstanding job, but you need to understand something about company policy – it is really complicated in terms of getting authorisation to keep anybody on. It is Spain that is responsible for recruitment and whoever holds responsibility does not provide any such authorisation’. Sometimes it seems as if companies recruit loads of interns all at the same time to do the ‘donkey work’, whatever for them is a chore. It has to be work with zero motivation, hours upon hours that end up being non-challenging at a personal level. And they [the interns] show up, and it’s as if they’re machines.

These two accounts, as well as the experiences narrated by other interns, convey the existence of three current trends that partially interrelate and that can be summarised as follows: 1) there is a lack of correspondence between what the role of an intern is supposed to be and the level of tasks that get attributed to them, which frequently reflect the need to overcome ‘regular’ demands for labour within companies; 2) there is generalised uncertainty among interns as to whether or not they will stay on and work for the company after completing their internship (in the majority of cases, continuity does not take place, and such positions are almost always provisory); 3) interviewees perceive their autonomy and individual responsibility as regards work as being limited, reflecting how a considerable proportion of the tasks undertaken are already highly standardised.

From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow  |  21

The Inevitability of Temporary Work The trend towards hollowing out the role of the intern within the current labour market context emerges as one of the main ones identified by this qualitative study. Another job market characteristic emphasised in the interviews, and already quantitatively described above, stems from the incidence of company recourse to temporary workers. This type of contract exists within a legal framework that permits this type of hiring as a means of resolving current situations in companies, assuming a temporal limitation often defined by the short duration of the respective task. Once again, the provisory (atypical) seems to have gradually become the norm (typical) for the job market. The primary professional goal of Manuel, aged 29 and possessing a master’s degree in geography, was to become a teacher. However, the only opportunity he had encountered within this field was a part-time teaching position. To supplement his monthly income, Manuel worked simultaneously in a call centre run by a telecommunications company. Indeed, throughout his working career, Manuel, out of need, has ended up almost continually working within the call centre context of which he holds a critical view concerning the level of precariousness experienced there: [What was the employment contract?] temporary, in the sense that the contract ran from month to month. Afterward, when I finished my master’s degree, I went to Company Y, but there the contracts were fortnightly …, if they knew that you were not going to reach the objective in those two weeks, they’d fire you on the spot. … The managers think of us as numbers, we are entirely disposable; basically, if you don’t want to (do the job), there are those will on the outside. [and how do you understand this…?] I understand it up to a certain point. I understand that companies exist to make profits … I don’t agree with the climate that exists on inside when we do not know from one day to the next (what’s going to happen). I’ve lived with that uncertainty since I was 25/26, when I left school…

Another witness to the call centre context is Tânia, aged 25, who graduated in biology and was unemployed. After failing to find work in her field of study, her first working experience was in a call centre. This work provided the income necessary to pay the rent in Lisbon (in an apartment shared with three other persons) and to save money to pay for a master’s degree, her future objective. Tânia describes moments of high pressure, especially with clients, which caused her to have anxiety problems and panic attacks:

22  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

I had this experience [in a call centre] concerning my first job. It was monthly, but it was with a contract, renewed monthly and openended. I think that, according to the law, they cannot do this for more than two years without contracting a person who has been on monthly contracts for that long a period and it was because of this that I also left afterwards … It continues to be a company made up of temporary workers in which we are all just numbers … Nobody wants to contract anybody. What they want is people who are there to be like robots … But, that’s it, the (lack of ) empathy that the supervisors have towards us, though not all of them, but I do feel that it’s the company that does not want to know about the emotional state of its workers … They promote the dehumanisation of people who are there helping them, and have no notion concerning what they’re doing.

In conjunction with the above, such short-term contracts are not only found in the call centre context. In the interviews carried out, seven respondents claimed being employed at least once under this type of arrangement. In the majority of cases, for the worker, entrance into the labour market – beyond starting out with temporary contracts – often establishes insecurity in the labour market, in part resulting from the ‘forced’ circulation between jobs. This is a perverse characteristic encountered within the scope of contemporary precariousness: the inevitability of the need for jobs and income stems from the lack of more stable and less uncertain alternatives.

Precariousness for Young Researchers The precariousness of employment has also extended into academic working contexts, primarily through the practice of awarding research grants. We interviewed four young persons who had held at least one research grant over the course of their careers. Below, we present the accounts of two young researchers – Mónica, aged 22, trained in sociology, having completed a master’s degree, and André, aged 29 and holder of a doctoral degree in media studies. While both individuals possess different levels of professional experience, both, nonetheless, spoke of how the lack of financing and resources affected their work and life in general. Mónica had had three placements as a research assistant. In the third project, she was the only assistant hired. As a result of this, Mónica described having been overrun with work, highlighting the feelings of stress and anxiety she experienced:

From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow  |  23

On this project, I was doing all of the administrative work, for example, dealing with the money to pay the interviewers, making payments, receiving receipts… for me, this was a huge responsibility as I had never done this. I was also developing case studies on my own, building up the database and doing practically everything alone. … If there had been another person, another grant holder, this would probably have been less stressful, and with shared responsibilities, it would have been different … And so there you go; it’s about working with we have. That is what I feel concerning research; we have to work with whatever we have.

André, with an already eight-year long track record in research, took a critical position on the current situations prevailing in academia, referring, on the one hand, to the impact of the lack of investment and researcher dependence on precarious employment, and, on the other, to the consequent psychological and financial pressures that result from these conditions: Academia depends on precarious labour, a rotational supply of labour … and it depends on a positivist reduction in the production in which everything gets transformed into indexes of productivity and publications and indexes of visibility, etcetera, all built on top of precarious labour practices … I see so many people around me, going from a grant to grant, going from a precarious situation to precarious situation … [When his doctoral grant ended] I knew that I was on a downward spiral and that eventually the money would run out, and I only had a limited amount of time, not only to finish the thesis, but also to get myself a professional position or something else that would enable me to earn enough money to start eating properly again, and this produced an immense sense of anxiety and suffering.

The uncertainty in the context of a research career is due to the fact that much of the academic work is developed by research fellowships (among other more or less precarious forms of recruitment), usually associated with a time limit (typically, three to nine months). The young people interviewed who were working as researchers mentioned that the dependence on existing fellowships to carry out scientific work carried a number of inherited problems, namely a non-existent or very slow career progression (which may makes a career in academia seem less attractive compared to, for example, the business world); lack of social protection (social security discounts are voluntary); lack of unemployment benefits; and lack of project financing (especially in the period of financial and economic crisis) which, on one

24  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

hand, leads to cuts in human resources causing work overload and feelings of stress and anxiety among researchers, and, on the other, leads to dependence on this type of precarious work to produce scientific knowledge.

Are there Alternatives to Precariousness? Our interviewees identified the inappropriate match between existing level of opportunities and the level of remuneration proposed by employers as the main problems prevailing in the job market. As alternatives to the difficulties encountered in the market, some interviewees refer to aspects such as the importance of an informal system of searching for work carried out through the mobilisation of personal networks with the aim of obtaining information about available opportunities; emigration as a path to finding better job offers – more attractive from the financial point of view; and thirdly, the need to opt for work outside their professional realm in order to ensure their final earnings (particularly the case among young independent individuals who live outside the family home and do not possess any financial family [parental] support). The interview content conveys how they perceive precariousness as a necessary evil given the lack of other opportunities. Therefore, precarious work proposals are accepted, even if it means more insecurity in the present moment. In professional terms, this is justified by the need to begin building up a professional career track record. In public discourse, there is recurrent recourse to the idea that ‘it is better to have a precarious job than to be unemployed’. Questioning the respondents as to their level of agreement with this narrative led to reflective moments in which the interviewees – looking over the choices and options taken in their careers, while also being critical of and, in the majority of cases, ideologically disagreeing with the aforementioned view – set out two main reasons to justify their acceptance of precarious work conditions (over unemployment). The first reason is to take the opportunity to work, even if on uncertain terms, in activities connected with their area(s) of interest/education and to consequently acquire further knowledge. This was the case with Olívia, aged 23, a nurse, who had just returned from a year spent working in the United Kingdom, but who, at the time of the interview, had only found temporary employment on recibo verdes (see note 3): if it is a precarious job in our area (of work), I think that’s worth more. In my case, I’m talking about working in the hospital I work at, on a

From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow  |  25

service provision basis, recibos verdes, even if this does not give me any stability at all … However, that’s the way it is; either be unemployed or be in a place gaining experience and adding more for the CV… it’s still worth being in a place that gives me experience and a better CV.

The second reason concerns the inevitability of precariousness in order to secure their economic-financial autonomy. The professional career of Raquel, aged 29, proves elucidative in this respect. With a master’s degree in psychology, she had gone through various jobs with various types of contracts – two internships (one non-remunerated and the other with the IEFP), temporary jobs and recibos verdes service provision. In fact, Raquel provides a perfect example of a young individual who utilised multiple recourses to obtain precarious positions during their professional trajectory, doing so out of the need to secure financial autonomy and carry out personal life projects (Raquel had left her parent’s home and was living with her partner). Often, financial necessities mean that young people will frequently have to accept precarious employment positions that do not always bring rewards or benefits to their career building and curriculum vitae. In reflecting upon her choices, Raquel noted that if she had had other options, she would have preferred to wait and to continue looking for a better job offer: My experience tells me that it is not better to have a precarious job if you have the chance to be unemployed and still to get by… because if you don’t have unemployment benefits, if you have bills to pay, if you do not live with anybody (and thus are the only one paying expenses), you don’t have many options… or if you do not have your parents to help you out. It’s not a question of being better; it’s a question of sheer need.

Spaces of Protest and Resistance: Precariousness also Has Limits In some testimonies, it was possible to identify moments of protest against the objective situations of precariousness, some of which led to the condemnation of and protests against employers. In some of the interviews, however, we were able to identify a certain amount of resistance to signing up to the more traditional form of labour campaigning, such as trade unions. One example of such resistance came from Manuel (aged 29, with a master’s in geography). In his interview, he referred to how colleagues in the call centre nicknamed him ‘the communist’ for the forthright manner in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with the sales objectives/targets

26  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

and the working timetables the company managers would impose on the workers. However, he still held certain reservations towards trade union activities: There are trade unions [in my workplace], but I’m not a member, because all that they do is hand out papers when they show up, and then they leave; and also, strikes and demonstrations that do not get anybody anywhere … As I’m sick and tired of saying to my colleagues: if one day we were to come in here and we logged-in (to start the working day), and then did not lift a finger, they [in the company] would totally lose the plot. But nobody is willing do this. Just to give it a try, to see how it would all go… so that they have some notion that we are important and we are not disposable. [But why this lack of trust in unions?] It’s about politics, about interests.

Among the interviews, there were only a few references to situations of protest against the objective circumstances caused by precariousness. This finding may be a reflection of the normalisation of precariousness, an awareness held by the interviewees that, to a greater or lesser extent, this was due, on the one hand, to their age and experience leading to them being more susceptible to accepting these conditions, and, on the other, to the fact that they were facing a generalised panorama of low-level working opportunities. Moments of protest, when they did happen, emerged within the scope of informal conversations among colleagues, rarely reported to management. Only in extreme situations, primarily among those with call centre working experiences, were there attempts to seek clarification from the ACT – the Authority for Working Conditions. Some interviewees also referred to job-seeking processes in which they were confronted with dubious offers lacking clarity with regard to the terms and conditions of the job (for example, making no reference to remuneration). Rui, aged 30 and a civil engineering graduate, came across one of these situations. Following a job interview that he considered unusual due to the ways in which the company made the job offer, Rui ended up reaching out to a social movement to report the incident:6 I’m called into a room where I’m told absolutely nothing about what awaits me in this internship (and) they turn the discussion around a bit and enter into this ‘now it’s our turn to talk’ type mode: ‘we are a company that, for €30 you deliver us your CV, we work on your CV, we send it to companies, you get an internship and pay us another €30, which is then returned to you when you finish the internship’.

From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow  |  27

That was a disgrace, everybody who was working there, was working in exchange for a course inside that same company. [Where did you report this?] To Ganhem Vergonha.7 They immediately told me that I was not the first person to speak about this. It would have been three months, I think, full-time, €300, something like that in any case.

It becomes evident from the testimonies of these young people, therefore, that precariousness is not something considered ‘normal’ by them, even when it is generalised in the most varied sectors, companies and institutions that constitute the so-called labour market. Strong discontentment resulting from this condition, which, as we have seen, interferes in various dimensions of the individual’s social and existential life, was clearly identified in the interviews. It is against this sense of malaise and deep dissatisfaction that the need arises to examine different alternative forms of social organisation. When asked about alternatives to precariousness, some young people reported that there was a need to rethink their conception of work, either by introducing measures such as Unconditional Basic Income or even declaring the ‘end’ to work, which would entail a restructuring of life forms. Other interviewees referred to the need for greater labour market regulation and supervision. We thus sought to understand if the situations of precariousness (and feeling of frustration identified) materialised in a more or less active social participation, or if the two conditions were not entirely related. The data obtained was not conclusive in this respect, although this sample included very different levels of participation – from very young people active in political parties and social movements, to participation centred on voting rights. None of the young people interviewed, however, participated in activism directly related to issues of precariousness/labour market. In the words of Alice, age 23, possessing an undergraduate degree in communication studies: I’m not going to the demonstrations anymore … I got completely tired of going; For what? To reproduce the same model? You hear the same songs, the same phrases … what results from that? [Do you belong to a political party?] I did, but I left. I did for many years; it was super important for my political consciousness. But I left after a few years. It (a political party) is an interesting instrument that can change reality, but obviously, it is not a means to an end, it has many limitations…. I realise that young people – in using this cliché – that young people do not want to go on to the streets to express themselves because they do not feel that this is going to go somewhere.

28  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

Conclusion: Flexibilisation, Fragmentation and Commodification Towards the end of the 1990s, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1998) wrote a short essay entitled ‘Today, precariousness is everywhere’. In this work, the author forecasted, to a large extent, a series of processes within a neoliberal framework that have since become central reference points in the world of labour studies. In defining precariousness as a new means of domination, Bourdieu framed his interpretation of this phenomenon as bearing an amplitude that reached beyond the sphere of labour. As we have demonstrated throughout this text, this extends to a set of spheres and areas in the social lives of individuals. Hence, in this sense, precarious labour practices tend to spread through the intermediation of institutional and organisational practices, as well as individual strategies. This generalisation results partially from the rising deregulation of labour laws and labour relations. This process may be interpreted as the fragmentation and the commodification of labour that mutually interrelate through situations of precariousness and that directly impact on labour conditions and relations. In turn, as previously mentioned, this tends to hollow out the labour sphere, extending into other sectors of the daily lives of young workers. Precariousness thus gets transformed into a way of life with profound implications for the social and emotional stability of individuals (Carmo et al. 2014). Through the intermediation of the interviewees, we here identified processes such as ‘hyper-flexibility’ and the ‘hyper-fragmentation’ of labour that emerge, for example, in the shorter, temporal ranges of fixed-term contracts, increasingly compressed into shorter periods of time. The flexibility in the contracts and their durations further fosters fragmentation in the careers through which these young people circulate through cumulative and distinct contractual forms (whether short or fixed term) and via multiple and different employer entities. In turn, there is a deepening commodification of labour activities that spans various meanings. One arises from the increasing lack of social protection that exposes workers to the whims of abusive organisations that they do not control and that extrapolate the functions and tasks attributed to the various categories that we analysed (the intern, the call centre worker, and the research grant holder). On the contrary, precarious workers lack the scope to directly and automatically trigger their rights to defence and the guarantees that stem from institutional frameworks and the appropriate normative and legal systems. Thus, the majority did not have direct,

From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow  |  29

immediate and guaranteed access to the right to social defence and protection as provided, for example, by employment laws and the labour codes. This process of hyper-commodification drives an economic devaluation in the cost of labour expressed through the gradual downward pressures on salaries and the trend towards low levels of overall remuneration. As some recent studies have demonstrated, this reveals a relationship between the precariousness of labour and the reductions in the salary levels in effect (Rodrigues et al. 2016). In turn, earning an income tends to be perceived as an end in its own right and tends to be disconnected from the content and the nature of labour activities under implementation. Hence, the primary objective alluded to by many of the interview participants principally involved ensuring some form of income that permits living with a minimum of economic-financial independence (a partial autonomy) and with correspondingly lesser focus on professional or personal self-fulfilment achieved through the professional activities engaged in. This interrelates with a third meaning attributed to the notion of ‘hyper-commodification’ that highlights the routine and mechanised nature of the work carried out. Some of the witness accounts gathered established similarities between routinised activities often undertaken, outlining types of mechanised tasks that are common to the functions of machines and robots. The precariousness of working capacities impacts on the ability to react and to protest, to the extent that this deepens the atomisation and individualisation reflected in a set of symptoms that affect the social and emotional wellbeing of individuals. According to one respondent, the processes tied to precarity identified throughout this article: are things that kind of kill you on the inside, but that also makes us more malleable and more porous so that they (employers) can do whatever that they want with us as we have lost the strength to resist. We are left somewhat exposed to whatever appears before us, we’ve lost any resistance (we had in us) because we feel so far from everything, we feel sad, we feel separated from other people, and so on. This individualises, separates us, fragments us, and this all facilitates our exploitation.

Hence, not only has precariousness extended throughout all of society, but it is also simultaneously killing the aspirations to a better, more stable and dignified life. What is left is a permanent state of uncertainty that corrodes subjectivity and atomises individuals within their condition of exploited, to undermine their capacity to produce agency and engage in collective actions.

30  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

Within the logic of killing aspirations and power of engagement, therefore, the generalised resorting to precarious practices will continue to compromise individuals the and collective futures of young people. Renato Miguel Carmo is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology of University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL) and research fellow at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL), Portugal. He is Director of the Inequality Observatory and Deputy Director of CIESIUL. Issues such as social and spatial inequalities, public policy, mobilities, social capital, and labour relations have been at the core of his research projects. His recent publications have appeared in Geoforum, Journal of Civil Society, European Societies, Sociologia Ruralis, Time & Society, Sociological Research Online, European Planning Studies and others. Ana Rita Matias is a sociologist and PhD candidate in climate change and sustainable development policies. She holds a degree in sociology from ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL). She is a member of the Observatory of Inequalities since 2013, where she has investigated issues related to social inequalities, labour market, and precariousness and living conditions. She is currently developing her doctoral thesis, entitled: ‘Coexistence with Drought: social inequalities and impacts of climate change in Alentejo’ at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon.

Notes This chapter had the support of the FCT –  Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, UID/ SOC/03126/2013 Strategic Funding, and  is part of the activities developed under the project ‘Opening Futures: Young People’s Vulnerabilities and Social Cohesion Policies’ (IF/00053/2013). Portions of this chapter were previously published as ‘As dimensões existenciais da precariedade: jovens trabalhadores e os seus modos de vida’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 118(2019): 53–78, and are reproduced here under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.  1. These numbers are presented as a mere illustration of the problem. A more in-depth analysis requires a disaggregation of such data in accordance with specific age cohorts: 15–19, 20–24 and 25–29 year-olds, as has been undertaken by several international organisations and statistical institutes (such as OECD, ILO and Eurostat).  2. These trends have been particularly evident in Southern European countries such as Greece (Gouglas 2013; Gialis and Leontidou 2016; Papadakis et al. 2015) and Portugal (Carmo et al. 2014; Alves et al. 2011).  3. We here provide a small glossary of the most recurrent contractual types. IEFP Internships have a nine-month duration, are non-renewable, with financial funding from the Institute of Employment and Professional Training, commonly referred to

From Non-Standard Jobs to an Uncertain Tomorrow  |  31

 4.

 5.  6.  7.

by its Portuguese acronym, IEFP. Set up in 1979, the IEFP is a Portuguese public institute that provides national employment services, namely job creation and combatting unemployment. ‘Fixed-term contract’ represents the expression written into the contract that stipulates the length and duration of the contract, and indicates its expiry date (National Institute of Statistics – Statistics Portugal). Dependent Employees are individuals who undertake their activities under the authority and supervision of a third party (National Institute of Statistics – Statistics Portugal). Temporary work indicates a term of employment determined by objective conditions, such as a specific end date, which may be upon the conclusion of a task or until the return of a temporarily absent worker. Examples include seasonal employment; persons recruited by an agency or via an employment grant and those contracted by a third party for the completion of a specific task; and specific training contracts (Eurostat). Part-time work is a period of employment with a duration below the normal working duration in effect at a company/institution (National Institute of Statistics – Statistics Portugal/Eurostat). Recibos Verdes are service provision contracts agreed between a freelance worker and the contracting entity. The IEFP internships (see note 3, above) have entered the mainstream and become a common practice to which many companies and institutions make recourse. These result from applications by companies or other non-profit entities to the IEFP and are financed almost entirely by public funds. This measure falls under the auspices of the Garantia Jovem (Youth Guarantee) programme which provides a support scheme for employment within the scope of the Portugal 2020 programme, and has been under implementation since 2014 as a response to the significant surge in youth unemployment. In presenting respondent accounts, we applied fictitious names to the interviewees. The company focused on career management and engaged in a type of internship outsourcing (the ACT would later close it). Ganhem Vergonha (Be Ashamed) is a non-profit Portuguese online platform that emerged in 2013 with the mission of denouncing adverts and job offers deemed illegal: http://ganhemvergonha.pt (accessed on 10 June 2016).

References Alves, N.A., F. Cantante, I. Baptista and R.M. Carmo. 2011. Jovens em Transições Precárias: Trabalho, Quotidiano e Futuro. Lisbon: Editora Mundos Sociais. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. Contrafogos. Oeiras: Celta. Cairns, D., K. Growiec and N. A. Alves. 2014. ‘Another Missing Middle? The Marginalised Majority of Tertiary Educated Youth in Portugal during the Economic Crisis’, Journal of Youth Studies 17(8): 1046–60. Carmo, R.M., F. Cantante and N.A. Alves. 2014. ‘Time Projections: Youth and Precarious Employment’, Time & Society 23(3): 337–57. European Commission. 2016. First Results of The Implementation of the Youth Employment Initiative: Portugal. Luxembourg: Publications Office of The European Union. Costa, H.A., H. Dias and J. Soeiro. 2014. ‘As greves e a austeridade em Portugal: Olhares, expressões e recomposições’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 103: 173–202.

32  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias

Estanque, E. 2014. ‘Rebeliões de classe média? Precariedade e movimentos sociais em Portugal e no Brasil (2011­2013)’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 103: 53–80. Gialis, S. and L. Leontidou. 2016. ‘Antinomies of Flexibilization and Atypical Employment in Mediterranean Europe: Greek, Italian and Spanish Regions during the Crisis’, European Urban and Regional Studies 23(4): 716–33. Gouglas, A. 2013. ‘The Young Precariat in Greece: What Happened to “Generation 700 Euros”?’, European Perspectives – Journal on European Perspectives of the Western Balkans 5(1): 30–49. ILO. 2015. Global Employment Trends for Youth 2015: Scaling up Investments in Decent Jobs for Youth. Geneva: International Labour Office. Kesisoglou, G., E. Figgou and M. Dikaiou. 2015. ‘Constructing Work and Subjectivities in Precarious Conditions: Psycho-Discursive Practices in Young People’s Interviews in Greece’, Journal of Social and Political Psychology 4(1): 24–43. Knight, D.M. and C. Stewart. 2016. ‘Ethnographies of Austerity: Temporality, Crisis and Affect in Southern Europe’, History and Anthropology 27(1): 1–18. Kretsos, L. 2010. ‘The Persistent Pandemic of Precariousness: Young People at Work’, in Joerg Tremmel (ed.), A Young Generation Under Pressure? The Financial Situation and the ‘Rush Hour’ of the Cohorts 1970 – 1985 in a Generational Comparison. Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 3–22. Leccardi, C. 2005. ‘Facing Uncertainty: Temporality and Biographies in the New Century’, Young – Nordic Journal of Youth Research 13(2): 123–46. McDonald, P., B. Pini and J. Bailey. 2011. ‘Young People’s Aspirations for Education, Work, Family and Leisure’, Work, Employment and Society 25(1): 68–84. OECD. 2016. Society at a Glance 2016: OECD Social Indicators. Paris: OECD Publications. Papadakis, N., A. Kyridis and A. Papargyris. 2015. ‘Searching for Absents: The State of Things for the Neets (Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training) in Greece. An Overview’, Journal of Sociological Research, 6(1): 44–75. https://doi. org/10.5296/ jsr.v6i1.7228. Passaretta, G. and M. HJ Wolbers. 2016. ‘Temporary Employment at Labour Market Entry in Europe: Labour Market Dualism, Transitions to Secure Eemployment and Upward Mobility’, Economic and Industrial Democracy, first published 8 June 2016. Accessed 6 September 2016.  https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X16652946. Reimann, C. 2016. ‘Temporary Employment and Labour Market Segmentation in Europe, 2002–2013’, in Martin Heidenreich (ed.), Exploring Inequality in Europe Diverging Income and Employment Opportunities in the Crisis. Cheltenham: Elgar, pp. 139–163. Rodrigues, C.F., R. Figueiras and V. Junqueira. 2016. Desigualdade do Rendimento em Portugal: As Consequências Sociais do Programa de Ajustamento. Lisbon: FFMS. Standing, G. 2011. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Therborn, G. 2013. The Killing Fields of Inequality. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Chapter 2

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal’ Tales of Precarity from a Life Course Follow-Up Study with Young Adults in Portugal (2009–2016) Magda Nico

Introduction Longitudinal and qualitative studies provide relevant insights into how people ‘strategically adapt’ (Giele and Elder 1998: 9–10; Elder and Giele 2009: 14) or find ‘solutions to situations’ they experience over time (Thomas and Znaniecki 1984 [1928], quoted by Mitchell 2007 [2006]: 19). Precarity should not be seen as a mere feature of a specific work experience or of a specific historical period. It is a cumulative process that (young) people learn to adapt to and resist. It can be argued that these individual actions of resistance are the raw material of social movements and collective action, even if the link between organised movements, on the one hand, and each of these lives and individual actions, on the other, are not exactly clear or easy to trace or measure. A contemporary and popular understanding of the experiences young people have of precarity is that they represent the ‘new normal’. This is in itself an attack on – or, at the very least, an insult to – the agency and resilience of people. In this chapter, using results from a qualitative followup study that gathered interviews with ‘ordinary’, middle-class young adults (Roberts 2011) at two points in time (2009 and 2016), it is argued that precarious living is neither a ‘new’ phenomenon (we can look back at previous generations and find other situations of informal work, exploitation, alienation of social rights at the workplace, etc.), nor a ‘normal’ one, as it is interrupted and questioned by individuals (even if only after a period of time), with consequences on their personal, professional and family lives. This chapter, therefore, intends to provide an alternative understanding of

34 | Magda Nico

how the crisis and the ‘precarious way of life’ (Alves et al. 2011) are objectively and subjectively experienced in Portugal; and how they are embedded in the lives of young adults. First, the methodology that made this alternative understanding possible will be presented, followed by relevant results on professional trajectories up until 2009 (based on fieldwork from a first research round) (Nico 2011; Nico and Alves 2017). This information will then be updated by exploratory results drawn from observing the role of the crisis as a determining factor to how the lives of those interviewed had turned out by 2016 (Nico 2017). To conclude, it is argued that neither alternative and/or longitudinal and/or qualitative data on how people deal with and adjust to the crisis is enough to refute the hypothesis that ‘precarity is the new normal’. In addition, I defend the fact that the ways in which young people break their individual cycles of precarity can and should inform the emergence of new legal frameworks and the definition of public policies to deal directly with the problems of precarious work – an endeavour that, not less importantly, should also be embraced by researchers.

The Theoretical Importance of the Method Most studies comparing pre- and post-historical circumstances underestimate a serious issue. By dealing with a collection of data concentrated exclusively on two points in time – the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of the specific historical circumstances under analysis1 – and by dealing, most of the time, with aggregated quantitative data, researchers are faced with a major difficulty: this kind of research design makes it impossible to track down the concrete process underlying the social phenomenon being analysed (Nico 2015a). As a consequence, researchers feel tempted to connect the dots between these points in time, making interpretations that are often based more on speculative hypotheses than on empirical evidence, and that have the nature of an essay rather than one of demonstration, explanation or comprehension. These analyses are frequently no more than scientifically informed hunches. The subject in the sentence of the Thomas theorem is, in fact, ‘men’, not ‘researchers’. Therefore, ‘if men’ (in the sense of ‘ordinary people’) ‘define problems as real, they are real in their consequences’.2 For this reason, alternative research designs must follow this theorem wholeheartedly in order to reach below the surface of the lives of the individuals. The research design here presented was developed with a view to overcoming the above-mentioned problems of analysing life courses within a given historical period. In this sense, it is multi-method and was adapted

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  35

to the two rounds of inquiry, i.e. to the distinct historical and economic contexts. It also put in place new, innovative instruments to encourage participants to make fresh reflections on their own balance between ‘agency’ and ‘structure’ – namely, the ‘locus of control exercise’. The research design was largely influenced by literature in the field of longitudinal and life course studies, bearing in mind that ‘any point in the life span must be viewed dynamically as the consequence of past experience and future expectation’ (Giele and Elder 1998: viii). An analysis per frame is not able to grasp the cumulative processes of life and the effects that the duration of certain life experiences, or the timing of specific events, have in untwining life trajectories. A major reference in this regard is the work developed by Glen Elder – Children of the Great Depression (1974) – a book analysing the social trajectories of a group of individuals since they were children, during the Great Depression, until they were teenagers, ‘tracing step by step the ways in which deprivation left its mark on relationships and careers, life styles and personalities’. A second reference was developed by Howard Williamson and is The Milltown Boys Revisited (2004). Williamson revisits a group of approximately 50 young offenders in a community in Wales, twenty years after the first time he had visited them. The author’s work elaborates on grounded theory and describes the relationship that he established over the years with the participants. A third reference is the project Inventing Adulthoods: A Biographical Approach to Youth Transitions (2009 [2007]), developed by Sheila Henderson, Janet Holland, Sheena McGrellis, Sue Harper and Rachel Thomson. This was a long-term research endeavour, carried out across the UK during a ten-year period by a large and committed team, which follows strong theoretical guidelines, both within its research hypothesis and within the analytical strategies adopted. My research followed life course theoretical principles in a serious but creative way, combining methods and techniques, quantifying and graphically organising qualitative data, qualifying qualitative data, and creating typologies. Although there was some continuity between the two sets of methods used in 2009 and 2016, there are some differences and epistemological updates in the latest version (Table 2.1). Both research designs and theoretical concerns followed a biographical approach and, therefore, do not emphasise how individual actions interact with each other – producing collective action or social movements – but rather how individual lives unfold into intimate, personal resilience against the effects of long-term precarity. Participant recruitment in 2009 was made possible through shared friends, co-workers or acquaintances, whereas in 2016 direct contact by the researcher sufficed. The 2009 sample was gender-balanced and distributed

Direct re-contact.

Round 22016 (N=13)

Aspects related to the locus of control exercise (only for 2016) and to the chronology of events; participants respond to a more rigid guide, contrary to the rest of the co-produced interview. Interview is recorded, transcribed into Word files, and subjected to content analysis.

Conversation on the time and timing of events, relationship between events, understanding and explanation of the life course.

Used as the structure for the guide of a part of the interview – from 2009 to 2016. Analysed jointly and separately in a vertical content analysis and a holistic form analysis.

Used as the structure for the interview guide – from birth to date of interview. Analysed jointly and separately in a vertical content analysis and a holistic form analysis. Selected quotations from 2009 became part of the 2016 guide as conversation teasers, icebreakers, and caricature quotes from the past.

Table filled in during the interview with the most relevant (positive and negative) moments between 2009 and 2016, including the effects of agency, significant others, working and living conditions, the crisis, and chance on these moments.

Not used

Notes: All participants were informed in 2009, and again in 2016, of the academic nature of the study and the anonymity and confidentiality of the interview (despite it being recorded). All voice and transcript data are stored in a personal computer protected with a password. All interviews were carried out before the General Data Protection Regulation and all quotations are identified with a fictitious name (all other variables are accurate).

Source: Nico (2017).

Intermediated by shared friends, co-workers, or acquaintances.

Round 12009 (N=52)

Recruitment Collection and co-production of data of participants Biographical interview (cutting Life calendar4 Past reality check Locus of control exercise across all data collection)3

Table 2.1. Life course research methods used: a summary.

36 | Magda Nico

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  37

across different education levels and residential living situations. However, this aspect is still a work in progress when it comes to the composition of the second ‘sample’ (based on 13 interviews). 52 young adults were interviewed in 2009. Out of this total, one third was living at home with their parents, a third had left home to live with a partner or spouse, and the remaining third had left home to live alone or share a flat with other young people (friends or mere acquaintances at the time). Educational attainment varied between possessing a 7th grade education and having a PhD, with the majority having completed secondary school and having gone on to university. At the time the interviews were conducted, all participants were living in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Approximately a third of them, however, were not originally from here. The ‘limited’ social diversity of the ‘samples’ was based on the weight of the so-called ‘middle class’ in Portugal and on the theoretical standpoint of not ignoring the ‘missing middle’ (Roberts 2011) in youth studies. The biographical interview – which, in both cases, cut across all data collected (including the more specific techniques) – consisted of a conversation focusing on the time and timing of (demographic and other) events, and on the causal/interdependent relationship between them. The interview guide followed the chronological order of the life course of participants, attempting to grasp not only the demographic events of their lives, but also the interpretation participants made of them, the causal and emotional relationships they established between them, just as required by the holistic approach. The chronological order of the guide, however, was flexible, following the reflexive and subjective accounts provided in relation to the actual life events. The modus operandi of the interview calendars, therefore, was followed in both rounds of interviews (Nico 2015a). These interviews were recorded, transcribed and subjected to thematic content analysis, holistic content analysis, and holistic form analysis (Cohler and Hostetler 2002). In 2016, additional research instruments were used. For example: 1) a ‘reality check of the past’, which consisted of confronting the interviewee in the second interview with their own charismatic and/or polemical statements from their interview in 2009; and 2) the locus of control exercise, through which interviewees were asked to attribute causes to the most important events for them between 2009 and 2016 (for more details, see Nico 2017). This chapter primarily makes use of the coded interviews, the life calendars (for 2009 and 2016), and the information taken from the locus of control exercise (exclusively for 2016). To sum up, interviewees from 2009 were and are still being contacted for second interviews. Seven years after the first round of interviews, a

38 | Magda Nico

whole different context had been established in Portugal, with a period of so-called crisis that enveloped Portugal with a serious of financial, economic and political events. As Amaral and Lopes (2017) put it: ‘The great recession of 2008/2009 has had a huge impact on unemployment and public finances in most advanced countries, and these impacts were magnified in the southern Euro area countries by the sovereign debt crisis of 2010/2011’. This was followed by a change of government (from the Socialist Party to the Social Democratic Party), the intervention of the Troika, and several austerity measures taken up by the government in conjunction with the Troika. For this reason, the time that elapsed between the first and second set of interviews cover different stages in the process of the outbreak, expansion and consolidation of the crisis. It should also not be forgotten that the crisis itself was a very multifaceted phenomenon. This project is still ongoing: one-quarter of the 52 young adults interviewed in 2009 (at the time, for a study on transitions to adulthood) have already been interviewed. This means the sample is currently incomplete. It is worth pointing out, therefore, that, as the last participants get interviewed, more complicated lives might be revealed – lives perhaps more severely affected by the crisis, possessing narratives of greater hardship pertinent to the last seven years.

Precarity as the ‘Old (Short-Term) Normal’ (2009) In 2009 the so-called crisis was already largely ingrained in public discourse. Precarity was by then a steady feature in the professional trajectories of young people. These two circumstances, however – the crisis and precarity – were not linked in the biographical accounts of participants. Young people did not foresee the individual or collective actions of resistance or resilience. The crisis was still too abstract for them. In 2009, the crisis was often mentioned as something participants were afraid could affect their lives in the future, although they were not quite sure how that could happen. Its immediate effect was the general idea that things were not getting any better, and that it would be best to hold on to what they already had. These were not times to take unnecessary risks. The tricky question was indeed to decide what was unnecessary, what was inevitable but possible to delay, and what was simply urgent. These difficult decisions to prioritise events and projects – trapped between a simultaneously abstract and concrete crisis – were based on three main approaches to life, which I now explain.

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  39

The first is having plans in spite of the crisis. This resilient approach was based precisely on making life plans survive the adverse circumstances that could occur and that were, to some extent, expected at this point. This was not in any way a denial of circumstances. On the contrary, it consisted in making an effort to adjust the idealised plans to unfavourable external conditions, without losing sight of the maximum flexibility of the adjustment. This approach implied always taking into account the limits interviewees were willing to give up in the future (at least in the short term). Right now, I have a very concrete plan: I am going to have another baby next year; I would like… we would like to have three children. If we don’t have three, at least we will have two, no matter what. Whether I am unemployed or not, we are going to do it. I would also like to have a different house to accommodate these children. But if I cannot afford it, then we will live in the one we already have and we will be very happy! These are my plans. (Rita, 31 years old in 2009, married with one child, homeowner, university undergraduate degree, unemployed marketing specialist)

The second is the ‘on-the-go’ approach. The plan was precisely not to have too many plans. The idea is that the order through which problems and transitions are to be dealt with should not be predefined; instead, everyday life and a degree of randomness should determine which problems and transitions are handled first. Just as the order in which problems and transitions are to be dealt with should not be predefined, so also these should not be completely determined by the external structural context, but rather be a result of ‘circumstantial arbitrariness’. Some years ago, I was having a conversation with a few friends. At the time, I wanted to take the Psychology course and we were talking about the ‘mental structure to organise problems’. Many of them spoke of the idea of an archive and drawers, etc. But I always said: ‘imagine a pool and all the problems are floating in it, and I am swimming around. So, I pass near the first one, I grab it and take care of it. I continue swimming, grab the next one I come across and take care of that one. Nothing is organised. There is a limit to my problems: the pool indeed has a certain size. But I don’t have to set my priorities in advance, nor set them in a specific order. My future is exactly like that. It just keeps presenting itself to me. (Gonçalo, 26 years old in 2009, university undergraduate degree, lives with friends in a rented apartment, optical technician and DJ)

40 | Magda Nico

Somewhere in between the first two approaches, there is a third profile in which there is a clash between an increase in age and a lack of progression or intensity in life events and trajectories – caused, in the minds of individuals, either by structural or agency-related motives. This may bring about a sense of being stuck in life. Because I see time passing by, and I am now 26, it’s terrible! And I don’t see changes in my life, you know? When I was 15, I thought ‘at 22 I am going to be whatever…’ and then, nothing… Perhaps everyone goes through this. (Júlia, 26 years old in 2009, lives with friends in rented apartment, has a boyfriend, university undergraduate degree, works in a fashionable shoe shop)

At the crossroads of ‘age’ (these individuals were between the ages of 26 and 32 in 2009) and ‘time period’ (the early beginning of the so-called crisis), in 2009, these individuals were allowing their socially-stratified trajectories to evolve ‘naturally’ and seemed prepared to embrace their social destiny, at least in the short run. Interviewees did not foresee the concrete effects of the crisis and did not imagine ways of reacting to them, adapting to them or resisting them. Instead, there was a widespread understanding that social mobility starts at the ‘bottom’ of the occupational ladder, so it was only natural that this be the case for them, as the period marked the start of their professional careers, as they had only recently entered the labour market. This idea was present in the discourses of individuals from different social classes, i.e. belonging to different groups of individuals with different educational attainments, which in this study – as in most studies with young people – work as a proxy for social class background and social class destination. This happened despite the fact that for each of them the ‘bottom’ was subjectively and objectively associated with different occupations, contractual conditions and precarious features (that varied according to their social class background and, therefore, their social class ambitions). This is one of the reasons for the apparent ‘acceptance’ of their precarious circumstances. A very important aspect, however, should be added to the cross-cutting, vague nature of the importance of the crisis in their lives at the time, and to the understandable side of the temporary, transitional, short-term and initial precarity of the labour market (reflected in their discourses): the fact that precarity is extremely socially stratified. Although these ideas of widespread but short-run conformism towards precarious experiences in the labour market cut across the different social profiles of the interviewees, and although this cohort shares characteristics (to the extent that some

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  41

would even say it can be considered a ‘generational unit’), precarity is still extremely socially stratified. This means the class effect is stronger than the generation effect. Figure 2.1, displaying data collected mainly from the life calendars, shows these apparently contradicting ideas.5 In 2009, two considerably different groups of entries and trajectories in the labour market were found among young people aged between 26 and 32 in that year. One was characteristic of people with lower educational qualifications. Young people in this group tended to enter the labour market early on in their lives, either through part-time, seasonal or informal jobs. They also tended to have more access to contracts, even if in some cases these were temporary. Their trajectories looked on the surface to be steady. However, not only was unemployment a very common disruption to labour market trajectories (most of the time, jobs did not last long and were compensated by unemployment benefits), but also various forms of poor quality of life in the workplace was experienced – there were low levels of satisfaction with work, moral harassment from hierarchically superior colleagues, high levels of stress, among other negative circumstances. Family and housing transitions in this group were relatively standardised according to age, as the following quote illustrates: Then Paulo didn’t want to get married and I said: ‘I have a job, you have a job, we have a house, we have everything, why don’t you want to get married? What are we doing then? Are we just not going to move in together because our parents are a bit old-fashioned? What are we going to do then? Date all our lives?’ (Susana, 30 years old, secondary school education, back-office employee)

In the second group, on the other hand, lower down in the figure, although clearly possessing higher educational qualifications, there is also a greater variety of precarious situations. In most cases, entry into the labour market occurs later than that of the previous group (with important exceptions), contracts in general – and permanent contracts in particular – are relatively rare, and multiple and overlapping professional activities are quite common. DJing was something I enjoyed doing, bringing musical pleasure to other people. But technically I didn’t have any skills, I just had a vast music culture, that was it. But I thought it was a great time to start learning and working on it. So, I just sent some applications and thought: ‘If they call me, fine. If they don’t, it’s not a big deal because I already have a real job’. (Gonçalo, 26 years old in 2009)

42 | Magda Nico

To sum up, in 2009 only superficially did precarity seem to be acceptable, i.e. ‘normal’. If, on the one hand, there were calm statements on precarious working conditions, on the other hand, this was justified on the grounds that this precarity was not seen as an enduring reality. Therefore, precarity was normal precisely because it had not been unusual for previous generations to start from the bottom of the social ladder, to have to demonstrate more effort, more sacrifices and to ‘swallow their pride’ in relation to certain situations at the beginning of their working lives. So, it was normal because it was the (statistical) norm in the past – especially in a country such as Portugal, where the informal economy has always been an important part of the labour market (Walther 2006) – and it was again normal because, as in the past, it was not necessarily seen as a very longlasting phenomenon at the individual level. Precarity was a feature of early professional careers, not of the labour market itself. With age, precarity would decrease in life. Therefore, at a certain age, precarity was not seen as surprising. Expectations of a short-term experience of precarity in the labour market, in fact, were the main predictor for the apparent lack of individual or collective action towards the crisis and its effects. As will be shown next, however, according to the data from 2016, the ‘duration’ of precarity plays an important role in the refusal to accept certain working situations and conditions considered as ‘normal’.

Precarity as ‘Normal’ Has an Expiry Date (2016) In 2016, the scenario had changed. In 2009 young people only accepted precarity as ‘normal’ to a certain extent, or for a certain amount of time. Once that limit had been reached, ‘enough is enough’ (as one of the interviewees shared in 2016). Hence, it is the accumulation or repetition of certain adverse circumstances during a longer period of life (O’Rand 2009) – more than the event itself – that determines its rejection at a certain point in life. How an unfavourable experience extends into the present life of an individual (Abbott 2005; Elder 1974) may, after all, provide the necessary conditions for a self-inflicting turning point (Thomson et al. 2002), and not, as could also be expected, for the naturalisation or normalisation of being at a social disadvantage. Despite the crisis and its acknowledgement by the participants, precarity is not ‘the new normal’. Among several possible options, there are three sets of results that confirm this idea (developed below). These results underline the importance and the inflexibility (timewise) of family plans in the context of precarious jobs; the ethical rivalry between precarity and

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  43

unemployment in a context of prolonged precarity; and the relevance of the effects of the crisis and of the precarity of significant others in one’s own life. What these results stress, respectively, is the inflexibility of emotional and relational life plans as a form of resistance to the crisis and the endurance of its precarity; the individual actions taken towards dignifying work; and the holistic, intra- and inter-generational effects of the experiences of precarity and unemployment. A discussion of these three sets of results can take the table that follows as its starting point. This table aggregates the results of an open question asked at the end of the biographical interview (using the life calendar): ‘Think about the last 7 years of your life. What were the most meaningful events for you, whether good or bad? For each of these, could you please reflect on their causes, namely: your own responsibility, choices, merit, “guilt”; events or circumstances linked to your close family and friends; your social and financial situation – job, earnings, type of contract, expenses, etc.; the crisis in Portugal; chance – good or bad’. Participants were then asked to attribute a percentage of responsibility/causality to each of these factors in relation to the event they had just mentioned. Each of these spheres has a relative equivalence to life course principles: Your choices = Agency; Family and Friends = Linked Lives; Social and Economic Situation = Cultural Location; Financial and Social Crisis = Historical Location. Chance would simply be equivalent to the statistical principle of ‘error’. This table makes it possible to analyse the subjective position of each individual on a scale ranging from individual agency to social structure. The use of this scale, which connects agency and structure in a continuum is, in itself, a critique of dichotomic sociological understandings of trajectories in general, and of transitions to adulthood in particular. The table shows the distribution of the mean percentage attributed to the effect of the different categories on relevant life events, distributed across the agency-structure scale. It is possible to see that the subjective impact of these categories on meaningful life events tends to decrease on this scale. This means individuals believed it was their own agency (48.6%), followed by their families and friends (26.7%), their social context (11.2%), and only then the crisis (7.1%) that conditioned their life events. This might indicate that predictors for meaningful life events that fell well outside the control of individuals may have been left out of the narrative accounts of their trajectories, regardless of the actual impact they had, or did not have, in terms of shaping their life courses. This affects the way in which people tell their stories of resilience and resistance to the crisis and of the duration and accumulation of their experiences of precarity.

44 | Magda Nico

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  45

Figure 2.1. Occupational trajectories of 52 middle-class young adults in Portugal (N=52), 2009. Figure created by the author.

46 | Magda Nico

Table 2.2. Importance attributed to different life events (agency-structure scale) (mean percentage). Your own choices

Family and close Social and friends, events economic and circumstances situation

Family

53.83

29.17

Work

53.33

12

7.33

The ‘crisis’

Chance

5

5

16.33

3.67

8.33

School

60

0

40

0

0

Health

40

60

0

0

0

Home

36.67

40

20

0

3.33

Other events

35.71

29.29

12.5

18.93

2.14

Total

48.56

26.74

11.21

7.12

4.77

Source: Nico (2017), locus of control exercise.

Family Life Must Go On ‘Strategic adaptation’ is the label Glen Elder Jr. often gave to the so-called ‘agency’ of individuals (Elder 1985, 1994; Elder and Giele 2009; Elder, Johnson and Crosnoe 2002). In his words, ‘adaptive responses are shaped by the requirements of the new situation, but they also depend on the social and psychological resources people bring to the newly changed situations’ (Elder 1991: 74). Thomas and Znaniecki, on the other hand, bring forth the idea of ‘the solution of a situation’ (quoted by Mitchell 2007 [2006]: 19) to refer to processes of adapting to circumstances. In the same way that this is not pure ‘agency’, it is also not pure ‘normalisation’. When it comes to family life, young people pragmatically adapt their life plans to their new, or expected, circumstances and constraints, but life goes on. Although it is well known that the crisis and precarity have had a great impact on the timing, delay and occurrence of transitions to adulthood, the fact is that in this small sample most events in the past seven years of the lives of participants were family-related (civil union, marriage, children) and considered positive. The family sphere, although affected by the crisis – which results in having one child instead of two or in delaying the first child (Cunha et al. 2015) – ends up successfully adapting to the historical period in question. In fact, half of the meaningful events mentioned as positive in the last seven years of the lives of these young adults refer to civil union, marriage and parenthood. Family life must go on. And when it does go on, this is a way of resisting the objective and subjective effects of the crisis and the endurance of the forms of precarity it entails.

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  47

Long-term Precarity or Unemployment? A Matter of Dignity and Indignation One aspect that is very clear in Table 2.2 is the low percentage attributed to the impact the crisis is said to have had on the work trajectories of participants (only 3.67% on average). Not only is this counter-intuitive to the wider research hypotheses (that the effects the crisis would have had in the labour market, particularly for the younger individuals, would be recognised), but it also contrasts with the interviews of those same individuals in 2016. The locus of control exercise and the biographical accounts gave contradictory signs. This may be explained by several factors. One is linked to the fact that unemployment episodes and experiences of precarity in the labour market had not been mentioned as one of the top six/seven events representing in the last seven years of their lives. So, even if these experiences are seen as important in explaining their life trajectories in that seven-year time span, they are not used to define or summarise their path during those years. Although quantitative data, on the one hand, and ‘pure’ qualitative biographical data, on the other, make the presence of the crisis and its many effects at the individual micro-level (namely, in work trajectories) extremely evident, these indications are lost when interviewees are challenged to interpret their life events as satellites of the crisis. They do not ‘accept’ these negative episodes, to the point of making them the common denominator of their generation. The answer lies in the fact that they are downsized to merely secondary episodes, without being assigned a significant role in the lives of these individuals as a whole. This, in turn, may be seen as a way of refusing to be reduced to faceless figures in times of precarity. In their biographical accounts, these young adults do indeed express the gravity of having precarious jobs and the point at which this becomes unacceptable. This is reflected in the short account Júlia gave of her own experience, and the critical opinion provided by Jorge of how a specific professional group is treated in the labour market. They both comment on a statement made by the President of the Confederation of Portuguese Business (CIP), António Saraiva, that week in the media, in an interview published by Diário Económico (on 7 March 2016). Yesterday I heard a guy in the news say ‘it is better to have a precarious job than to be unemployed’. Hum, really? Not in my opinion. If you think you can be precarious for 9 years, like me. When I started working there, I would cry because of my physical tiredness, I was not used to being on my feet all day long, I only had one day off per week… But then came the mental tiredness. The work environment is bad, people are unhappy working there, and I would sometimes get

48 | Magda Nico

home in a really bad mood (for my daughter). And I thought, ‘I don’t want this for me, I have to get out, to leave this environment’. And you know? It is a relief, to have the possibility to start something new. (Júlia, 33 years old in 2016, university undergraduate degree, rented apartment, civil union, one child) There are many forms of undignified work and people have to know about them. Myself and everyone else in Architecture knew that. It was great: we had to have our own car, a computer, two languages, AutoCAD, of course. ‘Come here, I’ll let you work here!’ I found that statement on how it is ‘better to have a precarious job than to be unemployed’ quite curious. I thought, ‘yes, it is also better to have Hepatitis B than AIDS, but best of all is to have none of these, right?!’ (Jorge, 38 years old in 2016, final year of undergraduate degree in architecture, bank employee with high-level responsibilities, single, homeowner)

So, although they come from different social backgrounds and have different labour market skills, both Júlia and Jorge are critical of the precarity that characterises the labour market and each, in their own way and timing, have said ‘no, this is not normal’. This rejection of long-term precarity was present in almost half of the people re-interviewed, which shows the importance of the duration of precarious work, more than simply having had or not having had the experience of a precarious job. Precarity has an expiry date at the individual level. Life course theory and the idea of an accumulation of disadvantages is key to explain the self-inflicted turning points in professional trajectories, even those leading to unemployment. This specific ‘sociologically-grounded’ act of resilience (Estevão, Calado and Capucha 2017) is seen as a ‘positive’ event (in the long term). These young adults shared their stories on how unemployment was the immediate consequence of interrupting long-term precarious situations in the labour market. This self-ability enabled interviewees to see unemployment as a positive turning point – one that was necessary to break dangerous cycles of long-term precarity and consequent impacts upon their emotional well-being – and to be able to move on with different professional plans.

Effects of the Crisis in Personal Networks Table 2.2 also shows that ‘other’ people and spheres of life are the areas in which the effects of the crisis have had the highest (relative) percentage (18.93 % on average). This, together with the results presented before, reinforces the idea that young people are not denying the effects of the crisis or

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  49

the problematic nature of long-term precarity. They simply choose to be pragmatic, to adjust to the situation and give it a secondary importance when it comes in their life stories. This is different from ‘normalising it’. It is instead trying to overcome it, to survive it, to acknowledge it. This acknowledgement is more likely to be made in a non-biographical account, where the role of crisis observer is easier to bear than that of crisis victim. This is why young people point to the effects of the crisis in the lives of other people – or more specifically, the professional lives of other people – referring, above all, to older generations, namely the unemployment of their parents as a result of the crisis. They deny the exceptional nature of their own ‘generation’, stating that the effects of the crisis do not impact their lives alone, nor do the new flexible and precarious forms of work. The examples they share are precisely of how the crisis has affected older generations, for whom work has a central role, whether in terms of identity or in terms of economic support. The big shift was with my dad. My dad is an event! My dad himself is an event! The big problem for him was the crisis and his social and economic situation. He had like 20% bad luck. He thought, ‘this is the moment to quit my government job because from now on this is only going to get worse. If I quit now, I will receive a compensation and a year and half from now I can retire’. The problem is the crisis is here, the government changed, and now he can’t retire any longer at the age he thought he could. Now he is a burden to everyone because he has already spent the compensation… (Mónica, 32 years old, master’s degree, part-time primary school teacher, married with one child) My mother’s unemployment affected me in a negative way. As much as I try, I simply cannot help her, and now I am getting to the point where I don’t have the patience to hear her broken record… My tolerance level is sometimes much lower than what I hoped it would be. Her professional life was very mixed in with what life meant to her. And now I am feeling that pressure to fill that void in her life… But mentally I cannot help her… (Dora, 32 years old, bachelor degree, waitress, rented apartment, consensual union)

In referring to the experiences encountered by other people resulting from the effects of the crisis (namely, precarity in the labour market and unemployment episodes), many interviewees in 2016 further mentioned the emotional impact that seeing an almost entire generation having to migrate had on their own lives, highlighting above all the surprising effect it had on young, qualified people who were already in the labour market

50 | Magda Nico

but lost their jobs during the crisis. Incredulous, they shared the effects the crisis had around them, making them feel like an abnormal exception to the point of almost feeling ‘survival’s guilt’ for having made it in the labour market, as if the crisis did not exist. The biggest change is the number of friends who have migrated and the impact that has had in my life. My best friend, he is an engineer, he migrated. He has many friends with the same profession who also migrated, it is one of the professional groups that did/does it the most. He made a good living, had a stable job, and was happy about it. From one day to the next, he was dismissed. He tried to get another job here, but it was the peak of the crisis. He even worked without being paid, a surreal situation. When he realised, there was nothing else. He was unemployed for a whole year, spending his savings. By then he would say: ‘we were rich and didn’t know it.’ This has had a huge impact on my social life and it disturbs me emotionally. Those who stayed, and we are not many, talk about it all the time… (Rute, 38 years old in 2016, bachelor degree, international relations technician, consensual union with one child, homeowner)

Concluding Remarks This chapter presents evidence to support the idea that precarity is not ‘the new normal’ – an idea that runs contrary to what is widely disseminated by the research community. In doing so, it provides both ideological and empirical arguments. Ideologically, the chapter aimed to draw attention to the dangers of the self-fulfilling prophecies produced by academia. Jon Oliver, presenter of ‘Last week tonight’, in reference to the election of Donald Trump, went through an entire programme stating ‘this is not normal’, asking viewers to keep reminding themselves that: ‘this is not normal!’, to ‘write it on a post-it note and stick it on your refrigerator, hire a skywriter once a month, tattoo it on your ass.’ What he tried to do as a journalist, while commenting on the Trump presidency, is what researchers could attempt to do in academia concerning precarity among young people. Saying ‘precarity is the new normal’ is neither stating the obvious (if in fact it were true, I beg to differ) or preparing people to accept it as ‘normal’. It is discouraging people from finding alternatives, encouraging them instead to passively embrace their social or historical ‘destinies’, it is suggesting their social and wellbeing expectations should be low, average, ‘normal’.

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  51

Empirically, a turn to qualitative methods and an investment in longitudinal methods, supported by life course theory, could provide the currently missing dots in time. In fact, precarity does become unacceptable to individuals, but this happens over time. Just as the scary effects of long-term unemployment are different and much more profound than those of shortterm unemployment, so too the effects of long-term precarity need to be measured and, above all, understood, bearing this ‘duration’ factor in mind. Stating that ‘precarity is not the new normal’ is paying respect and attention to the countless individual stories of resistance and resilience arising from the context of crisis and long-term precarity that individuals involuntarily see their lives embedded in. Magda Nico is a sociologist interested in youth, life course and research methods. She is an assistant professor at ISCTE-IUL and a researcher at CIES-Lisbon University Institute. She coordinates a project on ‘Linked Lives: A Multilevel and Longitudinal Approach Do Family Life Course’ and a ‘Follow-up Project with Young People and the Portuguese Crises’ (2009–). She is a member of ESA’s Youth and Generation RN board, and a member of the Pool of European Youth Researchers. She has published on the ‘Variability of the transitions to Adulthood’, on the idea that ‘Precarity is not the New Normal’ and on ‘Individuals as microcosms of the Portuguese crisis’.

Notes This chapter, submitted in January 2018, is one of the results of research that I reenacted in 2016. It benefitted greatly from  discussions held and comments  offered  at international conferences, coming from many colleagues. Among them,  I would like to acknowledge Gary Pollock, Ana Caetano, Peter Kelly, Nuno de Almeida Alves, Sanna Aaltonen and Sarah Irwin. This chapter was supported by the Portuguese Government through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Strategic Financing of the R&D Unit UID/SOC/03126/2013.  1. In the case of this chapter, this would be the so-called Portuguese crisis.  2. Not ‘if researchers define problems as real, they are real in their consequences’.  3. The 2009 interviews had the average duration of 2 hours and 30 minutes; the 2016 interviews had the average duration of 2 hours.  4. This data was not analysed here due to the small number of follow-up participants (so far).  5. This graph should be read as follows: each line is one of the 52 interviewed individuals; the lines start with the individual possessing the lowest educational attainment at the top and move down to the one with the highest educational attainment. Each

52 | Magda Nico

column represents a year of age, starting from age 14 (the youngest age recorded by one of the interviewees as the age they first entered the labour market). Each cell and its respective colour represents a specific status – time and contract type – in the labour market. The professional activity in itself was not used. Instead, the contractual link was considered here to be a better proxy of social mobility.

References Abbott, A. 2005. ‘The Historicality of Individuals’, Social Science History 29(1): 1–3. Alves, N.A., F. Cantante, I. Baptista and R.M. Carmo. 2011. Jovens em Transições Precárias. Trabalho, Quotidiano e Futuro. Lisbon: Mundos Sociais. Amaral, J.F., and J.C. Lopes. 2017. ‘Self-Defeating Austerity? Assessing the Impact of Fiscal Consolidations on Unemployment’, The Economic and Labour Relations Review, March, 28(1): 77–90. Cohler, B.J., and A. Hostetler. 2002. ‘Linking Life Course and Life Story: Social Change and the Narrative Study of Lives over Time’, in J.T. Mortimer and M.J. Shanahan (eds), Handbook of the Life Course. New York: Kluwer Academic Publications, pp. 555–76. Cunha, Vanessa (ed.), with M.L. Mendes, L. Pappámikail, D. Cruz and R. Freitas. 2015. ‘The Double Postponement. Men and Women coping with Childbearing Intentions in Their Late 30s and Early 40s’, Final Report. Lisbon: University of Lisbon. Elder Jr., G. 1974. Children of the Great Depression. Chicago: Chicago Press.  . 1985. ‘Perspectives on the Life Course’, in Glen H. Elder Jr. (ed.), Life Course Dynamics: Trajectories and Transitions, 1968–1980, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press.  . 1991. ‘Lives and Social Change’, in W. Heinz (ed.), Theoretical Advances in the Life Course Research. Bremen: Deutscher Studien Verlarg, pp. 58–86.  . 1994. ‘Time, Human Agency, and Social Change: Perspectives on the Life Course’, Social Psychology Quarterly 57(1): 4–15. Elder Jr., G., and J.Z. Giele. 2009. ‘Life Course Studies. An Evolving Field’, in G. Elder Jr. and J.Z. Giele (eds), The Craft of the Life Course Research. New York: The Guilford Press, pp. 1–24. Elder, G.H., M. Kirkpatrick Johnson and R. Crosnoe. 2002. ‘The Emergence and Development of Life Course Theory’, in J.T. Mortimer and M.J. Shanahan (eds), Handbook of the Life Course. New York: Kluwer Academic Publications, pp. 3–9. Estevão, P., A. Calado and L. Capucha. 2017. ‘Resilience: Moving From a “Heroic” Notion to a Sociological Concept’, Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas 85: 9–25. Giele, J.Z., and G.H. Elder Jr. 1998. ‘Life Course Research: Development of a Field’, in J.Z. Giele and G.H. Elder Jr. (eds.). Methods of Life Course Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 5–27. Henderson, S., J. Holland, S. McGrellis, S. Harper and R. Thomson. 2009 [2007]. Inventing Adulthood: A Biographical Approach to Youth Transitions. London: Sage. Mitchell, B.A. 2007 [2006]. The Boomerang Age: Transitions to Adulthood in Families. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

Neither ‘New’ nor ‘Normal: Tales of Precarity  |  53

Nico, M. 2011. ‘Transição Biográfica Inacabada: Transições para a Vida Adulta em Portugal e na Europa na Perspectiva do Curso de Vida’, PhD dissertation. Lisbon: University Institute of Lisbon.  . 2015a. ‘Beyond “Biographical” and “Cultural Illusions” in European Youth Studies: Temporality and Critical Youth Studies’, in P. Kelly and A. Kamp (eds), Critical Youth Studies for the 21st Century. Leiden: Brill, pp. 53–69.  . 2015b. ‘Bringing Life “Back Into Life Course Research”: Using The Life Grid As A Research Instrument for Qualitative Data Collection And Analysis’, Quantity and Quality 50(5): 2107–20.  . 2017. ‘Young Individuals as Microcosms of the Portuguese Crisis’, Contemporary Social Science, Special Issue ‘Investigating Youth in Challenging and Troubled Contexts’ 12 (3–4): 361–75. Nico, M., and N.A. Alves. 2017. ‘Young People of the “Austere Period”: Mechanisms and Effects of Inequality over Time in Portugal’, in P. Kelly and J. Pike (eds), NeoLiberalism, Austerity, and the Moral Economies of Young People’s Health and Well-being. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 125–40. O’Rand, A. 2009. ‘Cumulative Processes in the Life Course’, in G. Elder Jr. and J. Giele (eds), The Craft of the Life Course Research. New York: The Guilford Press, pp.121–40. Roberts, S. 2011. ‘Beyond “NEET” and “Tidy” Pathways: Considering the Missing Middle of Youth Transitions Studies’, Journal of Youth Studies 14(1): 21–49. Thomas, W.I., and F. Znaniecki. 1984 [1928]. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Thompson, P. 2004. ‘Researching Family and Social Mobility with Two Eyes: Some Experiences of the Interaction between Qualitative and Quantitative Data’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 7(3): 237–57. Thomson, R., R. Bell, J. Holland, S. Henderson, S. McGrellis and S. Sharpe. 2002. ‘Critical Moments: Choice, Chance and Opportunity in Young People’s Narratives of Transition’, Sociology 36(2): 335–54. Walther, A. 2006. ‘Regulating Youth Transitions: Trends, Dilemmas and Variations across Different “Regimes” in Europe’, in A. Walther, M. du Bois-Reymond and A. Biggart (eds), Participation in Transition: Motivation of Young Adults in Europe for Learning and Working. Frankfurt: Peter Lang European Academic Publishers, pp. 43–63. Williamson, H. 2004. The Milltown Boys Revisited. Oxford and New York: Berg.

Chapter 3

Precariousness and MultipleEngagement Activism in Portugal Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns

Introduction The idea that young people are apathetic or detached from formal politics, especially with regard to voting in elections, is familiar from studies of youth political participation, supported by analysis of data from various national and international surveys (see, for example, O’Toole et al. 2003). Young people, it is argued, have little or no interest in politics or political parties, whether this is due to perceptions of corruption and dishonesty or a basic lack of connection with the issues that are prominent in policy agendas (Harris et al. 2010). This kind of argumentation has come to typify our understanding of youth political participation in Portugal and many other established democracies (Freire 2000, 2003; Freire and Magalhães 2002; Magalhães 2005; Mendes and Seixas 2005), and while this position may at times be justified, particularly when confronted with statistical evidence of disinterest, it does not mean that all young people are apathetic. Our own research on this topic has revealed that while there are indeed many who do not vote in elections, join political parties or engage with social movements, there are other dedicated young people who reject the quasi-abstentionist position (Alves et al. 2016; Cairns et al. 2016; Cairns and Allaste 2016). As an example, we will focus on the activism of one particular group involved in campaigning for workers’ rights in Portugal: Precários Inflexíveis (Inflexible Precarious). Rather than abstaining, its members can be found engaging in intense political debates, extending to involvement in various forms of formal and informal participation. This includes becoming an integral part of the large-scale street demonstrations

Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism  |  55

that took place in Portugal during the economic crisis, a period during which the Portuguese economy was subject to the external governance of a Troika composed by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission.1 In discussing this theme, we hope to provide insight into how and why these young people chose to participate rather than remain on the side-lines. As a key driver of activism, we have identified the social and economic context of austerity that accompanied the crisis, with an emphasis on precariousness within the labour market disproportionately affecting youth. This included not only unemployment but also various forms of labour market instability that came to typify youth working conditions, and while not a new phenomenon or restricted to crisis-affected countries at this time (see Standing 2011), during the crisis of 2008 precarity spread and intensified, providing a catalyst for new, interesting and diversified forms of political activism. However, important as this may be, we will show that precarity is not the only driver of activism. In fact, previous experience of becoming political in other contexts and engagement with other groups is also prominent in the construction of hybrid organisations. Our discussion begins with a brief outline of our research context, followed by details of the study from which our evidence is drawn: the European Commission funded project, Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement (MYPLACE). In the remaining part of the chapter, we look at the work of the Precários Inflexíveis group, starting with an outline of their main focus, discussing how they help to build a class consciousness among precarious workers and support the fight against precariousness, culminating with this group’s participation in the large-scale street mobilisations that occurred in Portugal between 2011 and 2013.

Economic Change, Crisis and Precariousness Readers familiar with the recent social and economic history of Portugal will be aware that even prior to the crisis, young people faced significant difficulties entering and remaining securely within the labour market (Guerreiro et al. 2004; Alves et al. 2011). We are also aware that Portugal is not alone in this situation, with young people in many other countries facing labour market marginality of similar or even greater magnitude (Standing 2011). In looking at the scope of the problem, figures published by the Portuguese national statistics agency demonstrate that the arrival of the economic crisis coincided with a rise in unemployment rates, with a specific impact upon the youth population in the form of elevated joblessness levels among the

56  |  Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns

15–24 age group during this time period, reaching an astounding peak of 42.5% at the beginning of 2013. These numbers have substantially reduced in scale since this time (19.4% in the second quarter of 2018 against an average of 6.8%) but this is still more than double the average unemployment rate. Even taking into account the fact that young people’s unemployment rates must be carefully observed due to the smaller size of this cohort in absolute terms (due to a large proportion of young people being in full-time education) and the volatility of employment status itself, with people fluctuating between states of employment, unemployment, training and different precarious situations, it is clear that there is a persistent and acute problem with youth unemployment in Portugal, and indeed in other Southern European countries. The resilience of this problem leads us to ask who these jobless young people are in terms of their education and skills profiles: can they be characterised by obvious qualification deficits, as would be the case with early school leavers, or might they be experiencing labour market difficulties due to having reached a high level of educational attainment but lacking opportunities in which to invest their academic capital? Significantly, unemployment at the time during which we conducted our research was highly prevalent within all educational attainment level groups, ranging from those with only a basic level of instruction to university graduates and postgraduates. The implication is that educational credentials ceased to significantly improve one’s job chances in Portugal; in fact, between 2007 and 2008, and again in 2012, joblessness rates were actually higher for those with tertiary-level credentials, who were noticeably worse off compared to some of their peers with lower levels of educational attainment. And the situation only changed in 2014, when there was a near return to levels of pre-crisis graduate unemployment, although the fact that 22.5% of highly qualified young people in Portugal were without work at this time hardly constitutes a cause for celebration. What this overview of the situation tells us is that Portugal has a large number of highly talented and well-qualified young people who have faced difficulties in entering the skilled labour market. However, the problems do not stop after one has found a job. Although difficult to measure due to its fluid nature, job precariousness takes many different forms, encompassing contractual insecurity and working beneath one’s education and skill level (Vosko 2010). There is also the degree of certainty about being able to continue to be employed to consider, alongside the extent to which legal obligations are effective or observed by employers, control over labour processes and adequacy of income levels (Rodgers and Rodgers 1999). In starker terms, this position translates into an abundance of involuntary

Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism  |  57

part-time working, short-term contracts and casual employment, including the infamous recibos verdes (green receipts), referring to a quasi-legal form of work agreement, encompassing autonomous labour market relations (equivalent to having no rights and no statutory entitlements within a hierarchical dependent job), a situation that became emblematic of everything is dysfunctional about the Portuguese labour market since the turn of the century.2 This brief summary provides an effective introduction to our subject matter: youth political activism in Portugal, identifying one reason for its emergence. It is our contention that persistently poor job prospects and pitiable working conditions provided the impetus for political mobilisation. Furthermore, we know that many of the young people facing these conditions are highly educated and articulate, and therefore able to organise protest movements and construct arguments effectively. While the image of unemployed and precarious youth in Europe is still distorted by stereotyped images of the under-qualified and demotivated, exemplified by the semi-fictional NEET categorisation (Furlong 2006), the reality of economic crisis era labour market marginality is more complex. Furthermore, not only are many of these unemployed and under-employed individuals marginalised in the labour market, they know that they are marginalised and have some idea as to who is responsible for their position in society: politicians, local businesses and multinational corporations, national government and European and global institutions, most notably, the European Commission, the Central European Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Therefore, not only is there an impetus for action, targets for political confrontation are easily identified.

Activism in Austerity As a source of evidence, we will draw upon some of the results from the European Commission funded project, Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement (MYPLACE), conducted between 2011 and 2015. While this was a fourteen-country study, in this chapter we will concentrate on results from Portugal, with the two authors being the Portuguese team leaders.3 The research itself consisted of statistical surveys and qualitative fieldwork, although for the purposes of this chapter, we will concentrate on two specific sources of evidence: fourteen interviews conducted with activists associated with the Precários Inflexíveis (PI) group; and ethnographic study of this same group during anti-austerity protest actions in 2012 and 2013. With regard to how our material was gathered, selection was made

58  |  Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns

according to the criteria set by the host institution of the MYPLACE project, which necessitated finding an example of youth activism in the area of antiausterity protests. The choice of PI was made due to its high profile and strong reputation in Portugal with regard to such activities, and the fact that it included many members who were relatively young. In other words, this is purposeful rather than a representative sample of interviewees. As such, we make no claims of representativeness with regard to our material, but rather seek to document what we believe is a significant development in youth political activism in Portugal. All interviewees were volunteers, who freely gave up their time to participate. Names and other identifiers have been changed or removed. While our research focused on the work of PI during the most intensive period of anti-austerity protests in Portugal, the organisation pre-dates this event. The group originated within the context of a well-established Portuguese tradition: the annual MayDay commemorations in Lisbon, specifically the events held in 2007. However, PI’s parade on that day was not integrated into the annual march promoted by the CGTP-IN (a Federation of Trade Unions politically closely aligned to the Portuguese Communist Party), but rather into a parallel event inspired by the more recent European MayDay tradition, localising this group of activists within the alter-globalisation/global justice orbit (della Porta et al. 2015: 215–31), a feature that clearly connects with other characteristics of the group that will be analysed later.

Origins of Activism While PI is not exclusively a youth organisation in terms of its constituent members, many young people have been involved as protagonists in the fight against precariousness in Portugal. Their aim is to put pressure on labour market regulators and public powers to prevent (further) entrenchment of the precarious working conditions facing many young people, and the general population for that matter. In practice, this involves a diverse range of creative actions, comprised of both formal lines of engagement (petitions to the Portuguese parliament, discussions with political parties, drafting of legislation, information provided to precarious workers seeking advice or help with employment and administrative problems) and informal activism (demonstrations and occupations of centres of precarious work, such as call centres and shopping malls, including enactments of precarious worker auctions at the entrances to job centres). In terms of how involvement starts, the history of an activist is explained by one of our interviewees, Carla, as follows:

Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism  |  59

[My involvement in] MayDay emerged from my involvement in the student movement. The tuition fees war had ended two years before and there were student movements emerging in several universities. All of us came from these movements. Paulo and others come from MATA, an anti-hazing group that emerged here and in several other different universities. But there is another important group that I belonged to: Project X. In my first year in university, I was invited to belong to a small group of people that systematically applied for positions in student unions and university committees (pedagogical committees, university boards, etc.) to oppose academic hazing, tuition fees and to have a student influence in the governance of academic institutions. It was founded by a group of people from a previous generation of activists, with a connection to PSR (Partido Socialista Revolucionário) [Revolutionary Socialist Party]. (Carla, female, 30)

What Carla’s position illustrates is that Precários Inflexíveis was able to take advantage of previous political experience: in this case, long-standing involvement with a number of different causes. We can therefore see that political biographies tend to continuously evolve through a range of different mobilisations and that becoming an activist is a cumulative process, the origin of which can be difficult to establish since involvement with one movement tends to have many antecedents. We can also observe that there is a connection to a formal political institution, the Partido Socialista Revolucionário (Revolutionary Socialist Party), which later in 1999 integrated with other left-wing political parties and organisations into one of Portugal’s most prominent left-wing parties: Bloco de Esquerda [Left Bloc]. Judging from our evidence, this is not an isolated example. Other young activists we interviewed had similar, if differently variegated, political careers and involvement in causes, often including involvement with this specific party: I never had any significant political training until my affiliation with the Bloco de Esquerda started in 2005. I was 24 then. Two years before that I began my political awakening, watching political debates on TV … about same-sex marriage. I think that was the first subject that made me see the true separation between the political traditions in Portugal …. For me it was an obvious decision: ‘It is a contract between two persons independent of gender’. For this reason, I set aside the other parties, including PSD [Social Democratic Party] and CDS-PP [Social and Democratic Centre-People’s Party], and marked PS [Socialist Party] and PCP [Communist Party] with several question marks. After some political readings I made my final choice: Bloco de

60  |  Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns

Esquerda. But I must say that being member of Bloco de Esquerda also relates to my interest in animal rights. Besides being a vegetarian and basically thinking that we humans shouldn’t eat meat … I started with joining the Animal Protection Rights League and sometime later I helped start another Animal Rights Association: Animal Action, of which I was first president of the Board. (Ivo, male, 32) My first years at university were a bit troubled. I completed only a few courses, I felt really isolated because the university [an Agricultural College] was very conservative, full of old-fashioned landowners. I also felt very disturbed by academic hazing, which was extremely violent in those times. With some other colleagues I started MATA, a parallel group to the traditional student’s unions, with the objective of opposing academic hazing. It was a militant group of people that took the initiative of doing a rather new thing in this very conservative institution, to try to shake up a bit the life inside the university through cultural, political and even technical debate about important subjects. After the consolidation of this movement we tried to influence the starting of similar movements in other universities through our networks, with people we knew that were active. We tried to shake up the student movement a little bit because it was rather paralysed after the defeat in the war against tuition fees … My political experience started a little earlier though … I started my involvement with Partido Socialista Revolucionário (Revolutionary Socialist Party) in the nineties, when Expo 98 [Lisbon International Exhibition held in 1998] was being developed. I lived with my parents in a small civil parish near the Expo construction site and it was total chaos. For instance, they built a highway dividing the parish in two only to serve Expo 98. I felt bad about it and wanted to do something … I joined PSR and afterwards I participated in the creation of the Left Bloc. I’ve also been integrated, for some time, into the Bloc’s national leadership body. (Paulo, male, 34)

What we can see here in Ivo’s and Paulo’s accounts is further evidence of a diversified path towards becoming politically active, a path that is characterised by multiple engagements with different groups and manifold issues, sometimes in a sequential form, other times with multiple and tangential engagements. All these affiliations are, however, ideologically attuned with left-leaning issues such as anti-capitalism, feminism, LGBTQ, pro-choice, anti-xenophobia, environmentalism, vegetarianism, animal rights and the legalisation of cannabis. The closeness of this range of issues within the Left Bloc’s political lexicon is not a coincidence.

Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism  |  61

Although common within the group, an affiliation with the Left Bloc is not automatic among PI members. Some have other political allegiances, and some have none: I’m a militant of the Portuguese Communist Youth since I was 14. But in those times it was vaguely militant. Last year I returned to political life as a member of the Portuguese Communist Party, something that I try to combine with PI and with CENA (a recent trade union of artists and creators). (António, male, 30) I know that many members of PI are affiliates of political parties, but the movement remains non-partisan. I don’t like labels. People like to stick labels on others, reducing people’s lives to a label that most of the time is not even true. But I share my time devoted to activism with other organisations in which I was a member even before coming to PI. One is a feminist organisation and the other works on migrant and refugee’s issues. (Clara, female, 30)

In this way activist movements that are disparate in terms of the nature of the cause, if ideologically consistent in terms of having a general leftwing orientation, can reinforce one another, with impetus carried from one action into another. This model explains how a high degree of political competence can be obtained by younger activists, perhaps in a relatively short period of time, as well as acknowledging the social connections between different forms of cause-based activism. One further source of impetus concerns the experience of precarious work itself. While many members of the group members began their involvement while they were still students, some also experienced what was taking place in the local labour market, having been in employment in order to fund their studies. As one of the founding members of the group, Dora, explained during her interview: When MayDay (2007) happened I thought: ‘This is it! This is where I will find my identity. The funny thing is that a great part of this was made by the student movement. They had more time to spare … but there were already numerous cases of illegal autonomous work and outsourced work. (Dora, female, 27)

First-hand experience of precarious work in fact provides another important reason for becoming active, as well as increasing awareness and understanding of what is actually taking place within the workplace. Unemployment, or the fear of being without a job, seems to have been

62  |  Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns

another strong motivation, with other activists having alternated between periods of joblessness and precarious work. Two such positions are illustrated in the respective cases of Clara and Rita: I finished my degree in 2010 and, just like any other young person that has to postpone their entrance into the labour market, I started an M. Phil. But I needed some money for my expenses and had to find a job. My first one was in a clothes store [names multinational company], but these kind of jobs weren’t unknown to me. Since I was 15 I have worked in the summer holidays to support my education. During the M. Phil I also had an internship in the Public Prosecution Office. After this I went to work in a call centre in the insurance business through an outsourcing company with weekly contracts: they earned 14 euros an hour with my work and paid me 2.70 euros. I stayed there until the end of the M. Phil. After this I had to return to my mother’s home in Leiria [100 km from Lisbon]. Now I’m in another internship for one year. After this I’ll have no access to unemployment benefits and I don’t know what I’ll have to do. Probably I’ll return to Leiria, to my mother’s home. (Clara, female, 30) Being precarious is to not know how you are going to pay the bills next month, or one year from now. In most cases you have a six month contract to start, or for even shorter periods. Sometimes you go to a call centre, you do the training and you never know if you can keep the job or not. Sometimes you go to work and the manager says: ‘Don’t bother to show up tomorrow, we don’t need you anymore’. I’ve also worked as a shop assistant in a store of a large multinational. I worked five hours a day (there were no full-time places available), six days a week for 300 euros. I spent almost all of it paying the rent, meaning that you don’t get to eat so much … In the six months I worked there I lost ten kilos. (Rita, female, 29)

These two accounts illustrate some of the bare facts and human costs of precariousness, including not only the fleeting nature of the employment experience and the reality of financial exploitation, but also the resorting to insecure housing trajectories, that is, returning to the family home following a period of relative autonomy, and going without adequate food in order to make ends meet. We should keep in mind that we are here talking about young people who are skilled and qualified, not early school leavers or individuals with social problems. That Clara and Rita are dedicated to the idea of work and the prospect of having a meaningful career is not in doubt, but their stories confirm the idea that they are living in a society in

Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism  |  63

which self-fulfilment and social betterment have been forgotten in favour of prioritising employers’ desires to keep costs as low as conceivably possible regardless of the personal consequences for their employees. In these accounts we have a clear statement of the dynamic that moves these individuals towards political action: the absence of clarity about the future and a lack of hope about their prospects. And while a significant number of these young people had worked in precarious jobs during their time in education, they found the same kind of jobs waiting for them after they graduated, despite having raised their education and skill levels. Unlikely previous generations of relatively unqualified workers or their peers who left school unqualified or underqualified, they have academic capital which they wish to invest but cannot do so, a situation that gestates a sense of injustice and the feeling that their aspirations are not being acknowledged or respected. Through this means, we can see that education itself is important to activism, in this case helping to create the dynamic that led towards becoming an activist.

Hybrid Organisations and Multi-Issue Involvement At various times between 2011 and 2013, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of cities across Portugal in protest against perceived injustices imposed upon them by their government and the Troika in the name of austerity. This included reductions in salaries, cuts in public services, rises in taxation and rocketing levels of unemployment. These protests were facilitated by a combination of effective internal mobilisation, the use of social media and cooperation between disparate protest groups in the face of a common enemy. As such, we can define these protest actions as a concrete manifestation of a hybrid organisation constructed out of cooperation between disparate groups, with members contemporaneously participating in the same protest actions. Neither did the Portuguese protest cycle take place in international isolation, since similar movements emerged at roughly the same time in other austerity affected countries following a generally similar format: large-scale gatherings of members of the public, usually involving a street procession to places of political decision-making, such as parliament buildings or the headquarters of international banking institutions, and the occupation of symbolically important public places (such as Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Syntagma in Athens or Tahrir in Cairo). What this multinational outbreak of activism represents is a confrontation with global power structures, directed towards the actual and symbol centres of economic

64  |  Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns

decision-making, which in our case was the Portuguese government and the representatives of the Troika. This protest cycle began in Portugal with a series of large-scale street demonstrations across Portugal held on 12 March 2011, initiated by a Facebook event and Weblog created by a group of four friends. This demonstration, known as the ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Generation in Trouble), led to the emergence of the ‘Movimento 12M’ [12 March Movement].4 Some of our interviewees explained that they were involved from the first online postings: Paulo saw it on Facebook and called me: ‘Have you seen this? They are gathering thousands of people. I’ve sent an email and got this mobile phone number.’ And I called them and two days after that we had a joint meeting to help them organise it. (Manuel, male, 30)

The extensive media reportage at the time estimated that attendance at the initial wave of events on 12 March, which encompassed Lisbon, Porto and other Portuguese towns and cities, was in the region of 250,000 to 300,000 people. In terms of the ‘format’ of these marches, we can observe an integration of groups and individuals from across the political and activist spectrum, ranging from youth groups protesting against unemployment to pensioners concerned about losing their entitlements. Trade union delegations were also united with groups mobilising around concerns as diverse as gay rights and animal welfare. Family groups, mixing different generations, were also a familiar sight at the events, along with local celebrities and political representatives. This demonstration stands out from events organised at a later point in the protest cycle due to three different factors: firstly, it was started by four non-partisan young people, who were not making a party political intervention; secondly, it was the first grassroots demonstration simultaneously organised in several cities in Portugal and other countries with massive attendance, benefitting from a surprise effect and an ensuing enormous level of media attention; thirdly, due to its non-partisan nature, it had a significant aggregation effect on other grassroots organisations, gathering together people from different socio-demographic backgrounds, many of whom had never previously participated in any such mobilisation. With regard to what followed, on 15 October 2011, another massive demonstration was organised, although this time with rather different objectives and outcomes. This demonstration tried to capitalise on the enormous success of 12 March, but this time the movement had lost some of its grassroots spirit due to the incorporation of a large number of established political organisations, including left-wing political parties,

Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism  |  65

trade unions and workers’ federations. The Plataforma 15 de Outubro (15 October Platform) that organised the event actually ended with a dispute between groups of activists and the participating political and trade unions. Moving ahead to 2012, and the start of our ethnographic fieldwork, these protests involved many members of the same groups and individuals who had mobilised the previous year, now organised in Portugal under the banner ‘Que se lixe a Troika (QSLT) – Queremos as nossas vidas de volta’ (Screw the Troika – We want our lives back), a movement which began in June of that year with the aim of confronting what were by now deeply unpopular austerity policies.5 Although born in the same left-leaning environment of the two previous massive demonstrations (12 March and 15 October), this third generation of organisational platforms was structured very differently, with a view to avoiding the disputes and conflicts associated with the 15 October Platform. The QSLT movement was originally formed by twenty-nine people who subscribed to a manifesto related to the demonstration of 15 September 2012, a date that coincided with the scheduled visit of the Troika to Portugal to observe the progress of the country with respect to the economic adjustment process (Camargo 2013: 80). The manifesto was individually subscribed to in order to recreate the grassroots nature of the first demonstration, and in this way, to try to avoid inter-organisation conflicts and disputes, and attract more regular citizens to the march. This did not mean, however, that the subscribers were non-partisans. On the contrary, some of them were recognised militants from left-wing parties and organisations, a number of whom were previously referred to in this chapter in the account of the multiple involvements of PI members (idem). One further issue needs to be mentioned. One week prior to the demonstration, the Portuguese government announced a policy decision that contributed massively to a rise in the number of participants at the event: the proposed increase in workers’ contribution to the Social Security Fund, from 11% to 18% of the monthly wage, simultaneously with a decrease in employers’ contribution to the same fund from 23.75% to 18%, thus levelling employers’ and employees’ contributions. This decision was generally interpreted as another measure to transfer resources from workers to capital and to further impoverish an already deprived population. The effect of this announcement was not only a larger mobilisation of protesters but also one of turning the demonstration into a response from the population to the government, ultimately calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister and his government. In the aftermath, the government dropped the measure but stayed in power.

66  |  Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns

The demonstration held on 15 September 2012 was probably the largest ever in Lisbon, with several hundred thousand people in attendance.6 Further events were held, including another large-scale demonstration on 2 March 2013, supported by the CGTP-IN and various political representatives from the Socialist Party and the further left Portuguese Communist Party and the Left Bloc. The final events during our MYPLACE fieldwork period included a march on 1 June 2013, entitled Povos Unidos Contra a Troika [People United against the Troika], and an event organised on 26 October 2013 with similar aims.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Large-Scale Events A central theme in the narratives of these protests was concern about the state of employment, including workers’ rights and the intensification of precariousness (Estanque et al. 2013). This discontent is accompanied by a critique of the Portuguese government and the Troika, with allegations of corruption and mismanagement of the economy, interpreted at a subjective level among activists as posing a threat to Portuguese democracy. The impact of the mass demonstrations on political decision-making however appears to have been limited. This apparent lack of success may have led to a change in emphasis among activists, towards more nuanced forms of protest. Looking back now at the interviews we conducted with the activists of Precários Inflexíveis, the response to the end of the large-scale protests was to concentrate on core activities, such as campaigning and awareness-raising, and working with established parties including trade unions. This fundamental decision has marked the group’s recent direction, together with the desire to create a stable and durable movement focused on fighting job precariousness for a sustained period. This story is elaborated upon by another long-time member, Paulo: I don’t know if our story is successful or not, but we have had six years of activity in Portugal and during this time many things have happened. There is a serious flaw in the process of collective action which we wanted to change: there is a tradition in the most mobilised sectors of Portuguese society to carry out small initiatives and one-off events. We opted for the opposite strategy: precariousness was extremely important for our lives and in our public existence; this meant that our idea was not to do experimental events but rather make a continuous intervention into the public sphere. And this decision has been valid until now. (Paulo, male, 34)

Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism  |  67

What we can deduce is that continuous action for Precários Inflexíveis among its most direct constituency (precarious workers) and in connection with partners such as thematically-related organisations and trade unions may be more effective that institutionally conjoined actions, with emphasis on ‘continuous intervention’ rather than one-off events. One particularly difficult challenge has been to balance the relationship between public engagement and having links, or at least being perceived to be linked, to established political parties. Perhaps because of this, the final demonstrations in the protest cycle were somewhat different to the earlier ones, and not as successful in terms of public participation. This is despite the fact that there is a clear intention to not make explicit associations with political parties or a specific ideological agenda. According to Pedro: It clearly links with the objective of doing wide-ranging events, inclusive of several different movements and people, such as the MayDay events. We’ve tried to build a platform without dogmatisms, without compartmentalisation, where everybody could fit in. The idea in this case was to make a large demonstration against austerity and the Troika. (Pedro, male, 30)

However, the fact that the demonstrations became less spontaneous and more structured, as well as being viewed as having associations with specific political parties, is a factor that Pedro attributes as the beginning of the end of the protest cycle: The 2 March (2013) opened the field in a wider fashion, including all the grassroots organisations and people from smaller political parties, gathering what could be called a popular front of what might be a united leftist government. It was a bigger demonstration but less spontaneous, more organised. And that killed it in the eyes of the media. They started to say that it was the Left Bloc and the Communist Party that were behind it all. The media was on our side at the 15 September, but against us on the 2 March, and in all the following demonstrations. The media simply started to ignore us. Our last initiative to gain media attention, the demonstration of 26 October, was to organise a counterdemonstration in favour of the Troika called ‘Thank you Troika!’ They [the media] all came to the call but felt deceived. But we managed to prove our point. (Pedro, male, 30)

This capacity to work with other organisations and mobilise hundreds of thousands of people nevertheless illustrates the group’s capacities – if not in the efficacy of its actions, then in producing political change. The

68  |  Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns

diminished turnouts at the latter marches of 1 June 2013 and 26 October 2013, which gathered tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets, thus signified the end of what was still the most high profile example of social protest in recent Portuguese history, signalling a need to return to other forms of activism. Perhaps for this reason, the group has continued to maintain what can be regarded as its core activities, such as providing information and organising debates to raise awareness, campaigning for legislative reform and engaging in small-scale demonstrations, rather than the mass street protests in conjunction with other activist groups of the past.

Conclusion Our analysis of the activity of Precários Inflexíveis and its individual members provides a valuable account of the richness and diversity of the movement’s operation in the last few years, starting from the issues that led to their formation (including labour market precariousness) to later involvement in larger processes, aiming towards more ambitious objectives in cooperation with other organisations. The transition from focusing on precariousness to wider actions, such as contestation with the government and the Troika, signals alignment between the specific personal traits of PI’s members and the multipleengagement activism they practice. A significant number of these members have been activists since they were teenagers, engaged in different sorts of student movements. It is this previous experience of activism, in association with the condition of labour precariousness, which initially drove these activists to Euro MayDay and to the creation of PI. However, these activists’ careers do not stop at this point. Either due to their personal characteristics or the political milieu they are part of, or both of these factors, multiple involvement in several groups and causes has become a common feature of the PI activist. These activists’ careers are thus constructed incrementally, through involvement with different causes and organisations, either sequentially or contemporaneously. This helps to explain how proficiency in activism can be attained relatively rapidly, with additional recognition of the importance of social networks within and between activist groups. The multiple engagements that characterise PI’s members’ practice of activism also stimulates their ability to connect and bridge objectives with other activists and organisations in the creation of hybrid structures that become involved in large-scale events such as the ones produced in

Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism  |  69

Portugal during the economic crisis period. However, while spectacular in terms of their massive constituency, these large events have been of rather limited political efficacy and occupied the short attention-spanned media for only a limited time in Portugal, as in other Southern European countries, and indeed throughout the world. The power of attraction of these events decreased significantly after a number of iterations, with the last demonstrations becoming pale imitations of the first highly emotional and massive scale events, a consequence of being animated by only the most resilient and veteran activists. This massively contentious period of politics in fact ended with the retrenchment of protest movements to their core activities, and in PI’s case, to their prior constituency: precarious workers and the fight against precariousness. Nevertheless, the political initiative and willingness to act observed among PI members, in the fight against precariousness, other grassroots movements, political organisations or even hybrid organisations such as ‘Que se Lixe a Troika!’, clearly challenges the notion of the young people’s absolute disaffection or generalised cynicism regarding politics and collective action. It is, however, clear that the group of people analysed here does not correspond to the average youth profile, where apathy and cynicism may still be found: PI’s members are urbane, educated, often middle-class, well-organised, well-connected and not even necessarily youthful, a set of characteristics that when confronted with precariousness and a stagnated life course drives them towards mobilisation and action. Nuno de Almeida Alves is Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Research Methods at ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon and member of the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, ISCTE-IUL. He has conducted research mainly on the themes of young people and technology. He has co-authored Youth Employment and Job Precariousness: Political Participation in the Austerity Era (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016) with David Cairns, Ana Alexandre and Augusta Correia, and several articles in journals including  Journal of Youth Studies, Time & Society, Childhood and New Media & Society. David Cairns is Principal Researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, ISCTE-University of Lisbon, Portugal. He has published extensively in the areas of youth, mobility and migration, political participation and education, including seven books on these topics and articles in journals including Young, Journal of Youth Studies, Children’s Geographies, Social and Cultural Geography and International Migration. He is currently working on a project exploring precariousness in the careers of scientists in Portugal.

70  |  Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns

Notes The empirical material used for this chapter is part of the fieldwork undertaken between 2012 and 2013 by the Portuguese team of the MYPLACE research project, coordinated by Professor Hilary Pilkington (University of Manchester), and financed by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission (GA 266831).   1. The Troika was comprised of representatives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission (EC), and responsible for over-seeing the economic bail-outs issued to Greece, Portugal, Cyprus and the Republic of Ireland, including reviews of the implementation of agreed debt repayment plans.  2. Recibos Verdes (Green Receipts) refers to the colour of the tax receipt form used by independent workers in Portugal, which acts as a payment slip provided to those whose services are required for short periods, a system that has been systematically abused by Portuguese employers to the detriment of employees.  3. The MYPLACE project consortium consisted of teams from post-socialist societies (Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia and Georgia), Nordic countries (Finland and Denmark), three Mediterranean nations (Spain, Portugal and Greece), the United Kingdom, Germany and the EU’s newest member state, Croatia.  4. The expression geração à rasca (a generation in trouble) recovers and transforms a famous comment made by the editor of a Portuguese daily newspaper concerning young people’s bad behaviour (geração rasca, meaning something like rascal generation) on the protests against university tuition fees occurred in the nineties. The expression was transformed due to the double meaning of rasca, which can both mean ‘in difficulties’ or ‘in distress’ and ‘low level’, ‘cheap’ or ‘misbehaviour’.  5. As with geração à rasca, the term Que se lixe a Troika does not have a fixed equivalent in English, but is usually translated into terms such as ‘To hell with the Troika’ or interpreted more crudely as ‘Screw the Troika’.  6. These numbers are according to the organisation’s own reports on its website. http:// queselixeatroika15setembro.blogspot.pt/ (accessed 13 November 2019).

References Alves, N.A., D. Cairns, T. Carvalho and A. Alexandre. 2016. ‘Os Jovens e o 25 de Abril’, in A. Belchior and N.A. Alves (eds), Dos Anos Quentes à Estabilidade Democrática. Lisbon: Editora Mundos Socias, pp. 165–79. Alves, N.A., F. Cantante, I. Baptista and R.M. Carmo. 2011. Jovens em Transições Precárias: Trabalho, Quotidiano e Futuro. Lisbon: Editora Mundos Socias. Cairns, D. and A.-A. Allaste. 2016. ‘Contextualising Participation in a Transition Society’, Studies of Transition States and Societies 6(2): 101–108. Cairns, D., N.A. Alves, A. Alexandre and A. Correia. 2016. Youth Unemployment and Job Precariousness: Political Participation in the Austerity Era. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Camargo, J. 2013. Que se lixe a troika! Porto: Deriva. della Porta, D., S. Baglioni and H. Reiter. 2015. ‘Precarious Struggles in Italy’, in D. della Porta, S. Häninen, M. Siisiäinen and T. Silvasti (eds), The New Social Division: Making and Unmaking. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 215–32.

Precariousness and Multiple-Engagement Activism  |  71

Estanque, E., A.H. Costa and J. Soeiro. 2013. ‘The New Global Cycle of Protest and the Portuguese Crisis’, Journal of Social Science Education 12(1): 31–40. Freire, A. 2000. ‘Participação e abstenção nas eleições legislativas portuguesas, 1975–1995’, Análise Social 35: 115–45.  . 2003. ‘Pós materialismo e comportamentos políticos: o caso português em perspectiva comparada’, in J. Vala, M.V. Cabral and A. Ramos (eds), Valores Sociais: Mudanças e Contrastes em Portugal e na Europa. Lisbon: Instituto de Ciências Sociais, pp. 295–362. Freire, A. and P. Magalhães. 2002. A Abstenção Eleitoral em Portugal. Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais. Furlong, Andy. 2006. ‘Not a very NEET Solution: Representing Problematic Labour Market Transitions among Early School Leavers’, Work, Employment & Society 20(3): 553–69. Guerreiro, M. Dores and P. Abrantes. 2004. ‘Moving into Adulthood in a Southern European Country: Transitions in Portugal’, Portuguese Journal of Social Sciences 3(3): 191–209. Harris, A., J. Wyn and S. Younes. 2010. ‘Beyond Apathetic or Activist Youth: “Ordinary” Young People and Contemporary Forms of Participation’, Young 18(1): 9–33. Magalhães, P. 2005. ‘Disaffected Democrats: Political Attitudes and Political Action in Portugal’, West European Politics 28(5): 973–91. Mendes, J.M. and A.M. Seixas. 2005. ‘Acção colectiva e protesto em Portugal: os movimentos sociais ao espelho dos media (1992–2002)’, Revista crítica de ciências Sociais 72: 99–127. O’Toole, T., M. Lister, D. Marsh, S. Jones and A. McDonagh. 2003. ‘Tuning Out or Left Out? Participation and Non-Participation among Young People’, Contemporary Politics 9(1): 45–61. Rodgers, G. and J. Rodgers (eds). 1999. Precarious Jobs in Labour Market Regulation: The Growth of Atypical Employment in Western Europe. Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies. Standing, G. 2011. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury. Vosko, L.F. 2010. Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 4

Collective Action at a Crossroad Trade Unions and Social Movements in the Age of Labour Precariousness and Austerity Dora Fonseca

Introduction The period from 2010 to 2013 was one of acute crisis in various domains. Grievances experienced by large sectors of the Portuguese population fostered a strong opposition against austerity supporters, prompting divisions among political elites with respect to possible solutions. Civil society mobilised in response to the oppressive austerity measures of the Troika1 resulting from the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in May 2011 and subsequent amendments to labour law entailing greater flexibility in the labour market, the devaluation of wages and increased working hours (Costa 2012; Leite et al. 2014). The cycle of anti-austerity contention corresponded to a phase of conflict intensification, characterised by the fast diffusion of collective action both in geographical terms and social sectors involved, combining organised and non-organised action, innovation of action repertoires, and new symbols and world visions, revealing a complex picture within which social movements emerged as key actors alongside trade unions. Furthermore, these ‘heterogeneous waves of protest’ featured the presence of surprisingly similar political values across different types of demonstrations in various European countries (Peterson, Wahlström and Wennerhag 2015). Above all in Southern Europe, protests were a reaction to ‘blind’ austerity imposition, a rejection of the one-way solution proposed by governments and international financial partners, and hence the idea of inevitability. They were motivated by the erosion of the Welfare State and by the blockage of future prospects (Estanque 2014, 2015). Labour

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  73

related and inequality issues were central, pointing to a comeback of materialistic issues as core concerns (Peterson, Wahlström and Wennerhag 2015), together with demands for more and better democracy. In southern European countries, criticism targeting political agents and dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy cut across all the protests (Lima and Artiles 2014), and, as is rightly pointed out by Accornero and Ramos Pinto (2015: 500), in addition to austerity driven demands, this created ‘an opportunity for a number of constituencies (old and new) to insert claims into the fractures among institutional actors. Collective actors were fighting for the right to participate in the definition of the very system they acted upon. In Portugal, democratic dissatisfaction was superseded by changes in the labour market, as this was the realm most affected by extreme austerity policies. High unemployment (especially among young people), wage and pension cuts, the freeze of career progressions, labour precarisation, the undermining of trade unions’ organisational and bargaining power, and the weakening of collective bargaining, were some of the consequences (Costa and Estanque 2012). In recent decades, changes to labour relations at different stages led to the implementation of different labour regulation models in Portugal (Soeiro 2015), among them, the consolidation of a precarious society (2002–2011) and the paradigm change: the regime of the austerity (as of 2011). Those models induced flexibility on labour relations, subtracting many labour rights. At the height of the crisis, with the application of the bailout programme, Portugal was pushed into a ‘precarious society’, then moving towards a ‘society of austerity’ (Ferreira 2012), defined by unemployment, social exclusion and impoverishment. Such a backdrop strongly encouraged the growth of political and social tensions, leading to increased struggles, above all, in the fields of labour and trade unionism. Concurrently, some authors point to a lower degree of identification with the working class, despite the voicing of demands and the ‘objective’ labour market position of protest participants (Peterson, Wahlström and Wennerhag 2015). In this context, protests staged by social movements tried to detach themselves from partisan and unionist logics in order to ensure a neutrality that would grant them an overarching character, mobilising different kinds of people and encompassing the whole society. In this light, a question worth analysing is whether or not social movements have succeeded in maintaining that position throughout the protest cycle. This work is based on a qualitative research covering social movement activity and anti-austerity mobilisations in the period from 2010 to 2013 that resulted in the elaboration of my PhD thesis. In terms of the methodology used, the research relied on the Extended Case Method, resorting

74 | Dora Fonseca

to ethnography and participant observation techniques, complemented by spontaneous interviews in mobilisation contexts and semi-structured interviews (with social movement activists and union officials and activists). On the whole, sixty interviews of both types were conducted. Some respondents were interviewed more than once in order to screen their positioning and to evaluate the internal and external contexts that may have motivated their positional changes. The research also relied on documental research and analysis, mainly press sources, and continuous monitoring of digital platforms used by social movements (blogs, web pages and Facebook).

The New Collective Actors and Trade Unionism: Fighting Austerity The new millennium’s first decade witnessed the simultaneous emergence of a number of collective actors. Several scholars have emphasised the emergence of new political subjects as strong waves of mobilisation have been felt, especially in recent years, throughout different areas of the world (Castells 2013; Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015). Particularly emphasis has been placed on the high incidence of contention in European countries, mainly from the 2008 financial crisis onwards (Ortiz et al. 2013). Despite differences mainly stemming from national context specificities, these waves of protest have highlighted a number of features that cut across territorial and cultural boundaries. As highlighted by several authors (Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015; Fominaya and Cox 2013; Fonseca 2012, 2016), networks (specially of young people) have been paramount, as well as the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) which have not only prompted the building of transnational connections, but also contributed to the emergence of collective actors on the national level. These emergent new political subjects have come to exhibit a peculiar combination of material-, political- and identity-based demands, having also established new forms of horizontal organisation (based principally on cyberactivism), decisionmaking and representation modes. The mid-2000s, in Portugal, saw the emergence of a number of social movement groups displaying horizontally structured network features and aimed at counteracting labour precariousness. On the whole, these social movement groups configured a social movement against labour precariousness. Later on, following the emergence of mobilisation platforms targeting austerity, in which some of those groups were also involved, another social movement, with different goals and bearing new dynamics, was formed: the anti-austerity movement.2 These two social movements defined their

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  75

identity by rejecting precarisation and austerity trends, keeping their distance from the dominant speech of flexibilisation and inevitability, and opposed those who enforced policies of flexibilisation and precarisation. Both had as their goals improving labour market, decent work and creating a fairer society. They also shared organisational common features: they all relied on cyberactivism and were inclusive concerning affiliation requirements and participation. In their struggle for social change, they resorted predominantly to normative and value incentives. Reformist and radical tendencies were combined in a peculiar way: new trends were materialised in an informal, hierarchy-free, organisational manner and, despite being critical of democratic institutions, these were not rejected in the overall scheme of things. Globally, these social movement groups assumed a reformist stance, in the sense of a self-limited radicalism (Cohen and Arato 2000). Although primarily resorting to extra-institutional mobilisation, in general they chose a path that evolved towards the direct interpellation of political powers by means of procedures provided by the democratic institutions. The Portuguese setting fell very much in line with the general trends identifiable on the European level. Following sovereign debt crises, the worsening of economic conditions driven by the adoption of draconian austerity measures, imposed by such international institutions as the IMF and the European Commission, fostered economic-driven protests all over southern Europe. These soon incorporated claims targeting the democratic system and its institutions (which were considered ineffective and in part responsible for the crisis). In countries like Portugal, the sense of ‘democratic disaffection’ (Magalhães 2005) was taken to a whole new level. Surprisingly, although one could speak of a ‘threat’ that was imposed from the outside by international institutions, national anti-austerity campaigns were a domestic response that targeted mostly national actors or authorities (Peterson, Wahlström and Wennerhag 2015). In this context, the Portuguese case unveils, as noted by Accornero and Ramos Pinto (2015), a ‘more complex picture’ where traditional institutional actors, such as labour unions and left-wing political parties, emerged as key players (Fonseca 2016). Accornero and Ramos Pinto, however, further stress the traditional actors’ role in facilitating and sustaining the discontinuous mobilisation of new forms of activisms. Although the importance of their roles might be attested in some particular situations, the discussion undertaken in the next sections will show that the part played by traditional actors has, in fact, been overestimated. The 2010–2013 period was particularly critical for the trade union movement, both economically and politically. The combination of labour process changes, trade union crisis and the expansion of labour precariousness posed several obstacles to trade union action. Within the context of

76 | Dora Fonseca

crisis, three types of responses from trade unions have been acknowledged in a global sense: they were radical or conflictual; they centred on a reinforcement of cooperation and partnership; or a combination of both (Bernaciak et al. 2014). In Portugal, the most visible strategy (in a newsworthy sense) was strike action, both as a response and as a way of demonstrating strength. In fact, there was a noteworthy increase in the use of general strikes as a demand tactic during the time frame in question (Costa, Dias and Soeiro 2014; Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015). In addition, strike action was also used for the purpose of alliance building (cooperation and partnership) with other social actors (though possessing less visibility). In spite of the intense activity of trade unions during the austerity period, however, it was other social actors who were the main focus of media attention, often considered the principal civil society active responders to austerity measures.

Cooperation/Articulation in the Portuguese Context: Limits and Possibilities A number of specificities related to the Portuguese situation have been highlighted, among them the fact that the crisis context further undermined the weakened positioning of trade unions. In line with the similar trend applicable to trade unions in southern Europe (Guzmán et al. 2016), in being excluded from social dialogue, Portuguese trade unions invested in the preservation of their institutional power and political influence, experiencing difficulties in balancing their identity as representatives of workers’ interests and their role as responsible social partners during this critical context of crisis. In addition, emergent collective actors also came along, displaying their own ability to carry out acts of contestation. For trade unions, given their non-reliance on loose networks of cyberactivism and informality, their limitations were made clear. In this sense, therefore, as Accornero and Ramos Pinto (2015) and Bernaciak et al. (2014) have also pointed out, when it comes to trade unions and other social partners, the solution lies not in competition but in cooperation. The next sections will show that the struggle against austerity represented an enormous challenge for all the social forces that opposed it. As a result, it became a breeding ground for mutual cooperation: one, however, that was not without a number of (important) limitations. In times of crisis, as has been suggested by Guzmán et al. (2016), trade unions might be forced to share representation with emerging social organisations, possessing collective identities that may come across as novel. In this context, in the case of trade unions, alliance building is not just a matter of adapting to labour’s new realities, via, for instance, the inclusion

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  77

of precarious workers and the incorporation of new issues, in the sense of a social movement unionism. It also concerns the updating of forms of action and the reconsidering of an ‘isolationist’ posture of prominence affirmation, together with a stronger approach to actions via the use of new information technologies. Cooperation and partnership reinforcement by means of alliances and coalition building has been one of the strategies adopted by both the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP) and the social movement sector in the European crisis context. The approach framed the struggles against labour precariousness and anti-austerity in an encompassing manner and envisaged the articulation between the social actors involved as a way of magnifying resistance and opposition. At the same time that complementarities are envisaged, sources of tension can also be anticipated. The relationship between trade union organisations and (new) social movements is affected by sources of tension that can be traced to two particular aspects: differences concerning organisational features; and the trade union movement’s self-image as a ‘privileged counterpart’ and its affinity with institutional action and conventional strategies (Fonseca 2016). Alliances with other social actors are deemed attractive, not only because they might increase the trade union movement’s access to ‘outsider’ groups and thus reverse the affiliation deficit, but also because they grant increased legitimacy to union campaigns and claims. In a context of trade unions crisis, cooperation with the social movements against labour precariousness and anti-austerity represented an opportunity to concretise the necessary openness and broadening of public interest, as well as to reinforce mobilisation capacity. It should not be forgotten that the incapacity to capture youth sectors, who are also those most affected by labour precariousness, is one of the trade unions’ most critical issues. In the crisis context, in comparison to strategies adopted in other European countries, those adopted by the CGTP, for example, were somewhat limited. The organisational differences between trade unions and social movements groups are undeniable. The network structure of social movement groups, with no identifiable centres, hierarchies or formal leaderships, along with their inclusive affiliation criteria, is unmistakably different from the vertical, hierarchic, bureaucratic, exclusive and sectoral logics of trade unions. In respect to types of activism, trade unions stand out for their absence (or residual character in a few cases) of cyberactivism. Conversely, social movement groups have come to depend overwhelmingly on cyberactivism for mobilisation and organisational dynamics in general. Although this has framed these groups as being overtly informal, alongside extra-institutional mobilisation, they have resorted to the direct democratic arena to express their demands within the institutional sphere. Nevertheless, data suggests

78 | Dora Fonseca

that their capacity has been sporadic and discontinuous. In the Portuguese case, it has been suggested that this may be connected to the relative absence of a long-established, autonomously infrastructured civil society, which forces ‘new new’ social movements to draw support and acquire members from a relatively sparse network of autonomous social players, causing them to be less rooted in civil society (Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015). The trade union confederation’s history and agenda account for some of the difficulties in implementing cooperation/articulation strategies. Here, traditional national cleavages play a role as they might limit mobilisation around new divides: groups which are exclusively mobilised by traditional divisions such as the capital/labour conflict are, in principle, unavailable to be mobilised by new social movements (Kriesi et al. 1995). A probable outcome, therefore, is the CGTP seeking to impose its (dominant) position in the context of relationships established. Attempts to set the ideological framework, goals and action strategies collide with those social movements’ matrix. Framed as social network movements in the internet age, these groups asserted their autonomy from society’s institutions and defied formal politics (Castells 2013). In that sense, the CGTP’s attempt stirred the opposition of the social movements, which sought to stage the conflict on their own terms and through autonomous goals and strategies. Social movements, however, faced a dilemma between taking on a refractory attitude or a reformist one in the sense of cooperation, setting up a permanent tension between the advantages of articulation with the institutional realm and the autonomy requirements, constraining relations of cooperation/articulation. Inasmuch as the social movements sought to fight labour precariousness and the disruptive effects of austerity, they entailed harsh criticisms of trade unions. Both trade unions and social movements pursued similar goals, acted in the same context and targeted the same constituencies and memberships – as highlighted by Accornero and Ramos Pinto (2015), in the austerity context, the objectives of different kinds of actors coincided more and more – increasing the chances of inter-organisational competition, generating, in turn, scepticism and distrustfulness that undermine alliance politics. This ended up being the case. As mentioned above, the CGTP and the social movement groups presented the same objectives, based on social change, including: emancipation, the eradication of inequalities, decent work and the end of austerity. On this matter, the CGTP and social movements here envisioned mirror the European trend, as identified by Peterson, Wahlström and Wennerhag (2015): protests primarily addressed to the State as employer and provider of welfare. Existing differences between the CGTP and social movements

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  79

concerned the specific type of protest. In the CGTP’s case, those were of a sectoral type, whilst in the case of the social movements, they stemmed from the type of labour relations. This overlapping fostered the idea that social movement groups could induce sectarianisms, fragmenting the working class, setting them apart from anything else because they supposedly competed with trade unions for the same constituencies. That idea was vehemently rejected. As was put forth by an activist, ‘we’re not looking to replace trade unions … our goal is to foster awareness’. That awareness worked in favour of trade unions too, as it would create conditions for the mobilisation of the sectors affected by labour precariousness and austerity. It is also true that some social movement groups (like the Inflexible Precarious – PI) tried to incorporate workers who faced difficulties with their trade union membership due to their precarious labour status (they were often precluded from membership). Their actions were intended to raise trade unions’ consciousness of that fact and stir up changes. This positioning was, more often than not, understood as an attempt to take on the role of trade unions. Even if the general objectives of the CGTP and social movement groups overlapped, their ways of concretising them differed substantially. The idea of organised action strictly undertaken by bureaucratised and exclusive organisations did not resonate with social movement groups, if only for the simple reason that they conveyed a critique of institutional actors and action. A good example of the importance of similar objectives, especially of the sectoral type, is provided by a social movement group that pursued the creation of an ‘intermittent status’ for artists and show business workers, through which those professionals were entitled to unemployment benefits. This was also one of the demands of the trade union representing the professional sector, therefore any attempt to overlap with the actions of the trade union made no sense. A strategy of convergence around the sector’s labour precariousness issues was a better goal. It was put in place through the shared organisation of actions that focused the creation of the status mentioned above. The realism/fundamentalism dichotomy (Scott 1990) and the notion of self-limited radicalism (Cohen and Arato 2000) are helpful in underlining the existing complementarity of perspectives. In the case of the struggle against labour precariousness, social movement groups were mobilised by objectives that were also part of the trade unions’ agendas. They displayed a realistic attitude of exerting influence over the institutional arena, namely through conventional political means, such as petitions. This realistic position was expressed through structural reform ideas oriented towards social rights realisation and amplification, combined with a position of autonomy and differentiation from formal institutions. Whilst asserting

80 | Dora Fonseca

their autonomy, social movement groups did not surrender to formal institutions. Moreover, and in spite of a set of theoretical hypotheses, cooperation/articulation with institutional actors, namely with the trade union movement and in particular with the CGTP, wasn’t out of the question. The trajectories of the majority of social movement groups and mobilising platforms illustrate the progressive adoption of a realistic position. Some of the features mentioned reinforce network social movements’ matrix of autonomy, which, in turn, entails attitudes of independence regarding participation in the institutional-political field and relationships with its actors. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the differences pointed out, cooperation/articulation in the context of austerity took three main forms: initiatives support, direct involvement and shared organisation (Fonseca 2016).

‘Successful’ Cases in the Context of the Struggles against Labour Precariousness and Anti-Austerity During the period of consolidation of a precarious society (2002–2011) (Soeiro 2015), the attitude of the trade union movement vis-à-vis the social movement against labour precariousness and its social movement groups was one of relative indifference. In some cases, it was manifestly negative, for the collective actors could constitute a threat to workers’ unity and representative organisations, not only because they offered an alternative (even though it was ineffective in legal terms), but also because they asserted a ‘precarious worker identity’ detached from trade unions, thereby fragmenting the working class. Research focusing on other contexts, such as that of the 15M in Spain (Guzmán et al. 2016), has reported that trade union responses to the emergence of anti-austerity movements were erratic, oscillating between a timid amount of support or more decisive backing, attempts to discredit the social movement and its proposals, or convergence with them. Following Guzmán and her colleagues, it is possible to speak of the ambivalent nature of the relationship between trade unions and social movements, especially when the first face strategic challenges posed by the emergence of new collective actors whose demands overlap with their own, affecting their acquisition of legitimacy to represent the interests of those hit by the economic crisis. In the Portuguese context, the Inflexible Precarious case is rather exceptional and stands out for various reasons. Unlike other social movement groups, the PI envisaged establishing a cooperation/articulation relationship with the trade union movement right from the start. Its perspective on

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  81

the struggle against labour precariousness was comprehensive and foresaw the involvement of different social actors. As a result, joint action with trade unions was part of the strategy pursued. The PI took on a more proactive role than its fellow social movement groups and, in such specific cases as campaigns and mobilisations, they built a relationship based on direct involvement and sharing of organisational initiatives with several unions (for instance, with the Lisbon’s Teachers Union – SPGL). Cooperation/ articulation with the CGTP grew in intensity and quality, reaching its highest peak at the time of the crisis outbreak. For both sides, it can thus be said that austerity and the worsening of life conditions worked as a ‘mistrust dispeller’ between the two. As noted, the crisis context prompted several mass protests and the emergence of new collective actors. The protests’ strong tone of indignation aroused the interest of the trade unions, making it clear that the demands voiced were not being properly channelled through representative democracy’s institutions. Confronted by extremely harsh austerity measures, it became essential for both the CGTP and the emergent collective actors, who together assembled a type of mobilisation platform (comprising several social movement groups), to show willingness regarding cooperation/articulation. Labour precariousness and austerity, in addition to the limits of democracy, were the core concerns of the CGTP and the mobilisation platforms (Desperate Generation, 15O, Screw the Troika) during the anti-austerity protest cycle. These common issues allowed these actors to draw out with some ease, and, in spite of their differences, the possibilities of cooperating/ articulating together. In a more exacerbated way than previously experienced, however, cooperation/articulation was constrained by sources of tension that can be schematically ascribed to the dichotomies of reformism/ radicalism, formalism/verticality and autonomy/horizontality. The actions of mobilisation platforms took place in the extra-institutional arena and combined conventional repertoires with innovative ones. Added to this were distinct organisational features (inclusiveness vs trade unions’ exclusiveness regarding affiliation and participation, as well as an absence of defined leaderships) that precluded joint actions at certain times. The CGTP´s most expressed demands predominantly come in the form of defensive logics – defence of wage labour rights and organisational maintenance – features that make it unwilling to incorporate ‘external’ struggles. Mobilisation platforms, on the other hand, showed no concerns whatsoever with organisational maintenance. As they are critics of institutions of representative democracy, the odds of them seeking cooperation/articulation with trade unions tended to be small. Additionally, the language used to express demands was a distinctive feature that posed difficulties: the CGTP’s ‘class’

82 | Dora Fonseca

language, strongly ideological, conflicted with the ‘autonomous’ language of the mobilisation platforms, centred on self-expression, with a strong appeal to direct participation and innovative action repertoires. Thus, even though differences can be reversed by the similarity of objectives, which were predominantly about social change, in this case, organisational and autonomy issues conditioned the trade union confederation engagement in civil society protests to a certain point. By and large, two moments of the CGTP’s support for anti-austerity protests and mobilisation platforms can be signalled: the first lies in the fact that depreciation coexisted with an implicit support that could be inferred from public statements; while the second came in the form of open support. The first example began with the Geração à Rasca protest (12 March 2011), overwhelmingly staged by students and college educated people – another European trend spotted by various authors such as Peterson, Wahlström and Wennerhag (2015) – to which the confederation did not concede any support. Despite recognising the demands as rightful, the spontaneity inherent in the protest (in the sense that there was no organisational backup), the absence of concrete proposals, as well as the anti-partisan stance and criticism addressing the institutions of representative democracy, aroused suspicion. This can be inferred from the following statement: ‘We had no idea of who they were and what they were up to … they decided to call the protest … Who is behind it? No one knows’ (interview with a trade unionist, March 2011). The 15O protest (15 October 2011) and its mobilisation platform got the same reaction from the CGTP and reproduced the previous protest stance in relation to trade unions and institutional actors. On this, a few new aspects are worth emphasising: first, the protest voiced more radical demands of a total rupture with the system; second, it was promoted by a set of organisations linked to the radical Left (especially extra-parliamentary); and, third, it was meant to be an international protest (with simultaneous protest actions in several countries). The first aspect was problematic because trade unions were part of the system. As for the second, the links to the radical Left represented a sensitive issue given the Portuguese Communist Party’s influence within the CGTP. This political party’s openness to collective actors who were peripheral to its sphere of influence was perceived as capable of bringing complications. As for the protest’s international character, it was not appealing for the CGTP given the confederation’s national dimension prioritisation. The second illustration, when support was openly granted, coincided with the worsening of economic and political conditions due to the bailout, allowing the demands of both actors’ to converge. It also corresponded with

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  83

a peak of protest, when some of the largest public demonstrations recorded in Portuguese history (on 15 September 2012 and 2 March 2013) took place (Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015). The demands of the CGTP and the mobilisation platforms were identical: the end of austerity, the dismissal of the government, anticipated elections and a left-wing government. Mobilisation platforms thus adopted a reformist stance. The CGTP’s reassessment of positioning was particularly evident in the Screw the Troika’s case. Its mobilisation capacity did not leave the confederation indifferent. Soon enough, the CGTP announced its support for the new protest. An example came in the form of the CGTP Secretary-General making an appeal for participation in the second Screw the Troika protest (2 March 2013) during a confederation national protest. A fact that sheds light on the mobilisation platforms’ behaviour concerns contacts made in the context of protest calls. Notwithstanding their stance towards political actors, all mobilisation platforms contacted the CGTP. Yet, most of the time, those contacts were limited to information provision. The trade union movement was not genuinely expected to engage in protests and it fulfilled that expectation. This was true in relation to the Geração à Rasca and 15O protests. It is possible to say, in fact, that, in a certain way, the trade union movement was deliberately kept out of any direct involvement. With austerity deepening, mobilisation platforms intensified their appeals to the confederation regarding general strikes. The 15O mobilisation platform was the first to do so.3 15O was extremely active in supporting CGTP’s initiatives and embraced direct involvement during the general strikes, a support that points to a reversion of their ‘anti-trade unions’ discourse. Concerning the internal level, however, the positioning was ambivalent because there was no unanimity regarding cooperation/articulation with the trade union movement and political parties. Existing heterogeneity provided a breeding ground for conflicts and tensions ranging from the radicalism of breaking up with the system to taking up a reformist stance or self-limited radicalism. This heterogeneity and consequent volubility in terms of positioning themselves did not offer the CGTP any security. The Screw the Troika’s case is quite different. Even though different tendencies subsisted inside the mobilisation platform, a more reformist stance had always prevailed in the sense that relations, or even alliances, with the CGTP and left-wing political parties were envisaged as natural. Meetings with the CGTP’s regional organisations in Lisbon and Oporto took place before the two Screw the Troika protests. Concerning the organised protests, the trade union movement participated throughout, as did several of the left-wing political parties. This support, especially the

84 | Dora Fonseca

CGTP’s, was fundamental, for their presence boosted the mobilisation and acted as a legitimating factor. The second Screw the Troika protest, in particular, witnessed dynamics of shared organisation, a collaboration seen as a step forward in the struggle for collective goals, compared to the collaborative efforts of previous mobilisation platforms/labour unions/political parties. For instance, action ‘tides’ were events that fit in the dynamics of shared organisation. They were meant to be confluence spaces that brought together professionals of a specific sector, thus mirroring trade unions’ sectoral logics. In the case of the teachers’ movement, for example, one of the trade unions collaborated with this movement platform in setting up the ‘tide’ of action to be advanced, an initiative that was then reproduced in other cities, with other professional sectors. In the light of this account, and recognising the significance of the trade union movement throughout the anti-austerity protest cycle, Accornero and Ramos Pinto’s (2015) assessment that the collective actors would most likely not have sustained mobilisation levels as they did had it not been for the ‘help’ of the trade unions finds some support here. It is clear that the Screw the Troika protests benefited from the participation of the trade union movement; nevertheless, it needs to be pointed out that the opposite can also be said to be true, for there is no indisputable evidence that the Screw the Troika protests would not have mobilised so many people if trade unions had not provided support. After all, the Geração à Rasca protest had no support, be it from trade unions or political parties. A completely different aspect, however, is their ability to sustain mobilisation in between protest events, namely mass street demonstrations. As is rightly pointed out by Accornero and Ramos Pinto (2015), these collective actors were less successful at maintaining significant levels of participation in other initiatives, namely in relation to holding regular meetings among activists. Participation tended to decrease when no big demonstration was imminent. In that sense, support from more ‘structured’ actors such as trade unions could have offered other possibilities.

Cooperation and Articulation in the Context of General Strikes Between 2010 and 2013, the recourse to strike as a means of struggle was reinforced. In particular, public sector unions played a core role in austerity contestation (Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015). The general strike stood out as the trade union movement’s main form of confrontation. The context of crisis brought about countless sectoral strikes carried out at a national

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  85

level (including such sectors as transportation, teachers, nurses, etc.). It was general strikes, however, that mostly stood out due to their symbolism, their capacity to aggregate general indignation and their impact on society (Costa, Dias and Soeiro 2014). There were five general strikes during this time frame, with the struggle against austerity being their common denominator. During the four-year period, one state budget after another was oriented towards public expenditure consolidation, attained through wage and pension cuts, tax increases, among other things, furthering the degradation of living conditions. Austerity measures were complemented by changes in the labour law that entailed more flexibility and, therefore, more labour precariousness. In general, the general strikes were called in reaction to the announcement of new austerity measures. General strikes benefited from the context of anti-austerity protests organised by mobilisation platforms. In a broad sense, the four antiausterity protests – Geração à Rasca, 15O, and the two Screw the Troika protests – had impacts on both the political agenda and public attitudes, influencing the trade union movement’s positioning and that of the CGTP in particular (Fonseca 2016). Also important was the fact that both trade union confederations (CGTP and UGT) put their differences aside, calling joint general strikes on three occasions: 4 November 2010, 4 November 2011 and 7 June 2013. These three joint general strikes amplified discontent and social unrest, projecting an idea of unity around austerity refusal, one that resonated within the social movement sector. Cooperation/articulation between the CGTP and mobilisation platforms was more effective in the context of the general strikes between 2011 and 2013. Supporting initiatives and direct involvement were the two forms of cooperation/articulation most used. Recognising that CGTP’s use of general strikes was a more radical response to austerity,4 and, by the same token, more akin to their own positions, mobilisation platforms revaluated their strategy regarding autonomy, and allowed contacts with other social actors like trade unions to gain priority. As a result, the politics of alliances became mandatory in the face of events. General strikes, in this sense, would provide a context for the building/reinforcement of cooperation/ articulation between the CGTP, social movement groups against labour precariousness and anti-austerity mobilisation platforms. All social movement groups and mobilisation platforms released statements granting support for the general strikes and the CGTP, thus increasing the legitimacy and public acceptance of the strikes. In doing this, they also fostered the mobilisation of certain population sectors that tended to avoid or did not identify with trade unions, such as youths. In this context, the direct involvement of mobilisation platforms took the following forms: dissemination through

86 | Dora Fonseca

independent media (social movement groups and mobilisation platforms reported the events); active mobilisation for the general strike; presence in workplaces on strike; participation in picket lines (CGTP’s or their own); and organisation of street demonstrations. Together, these forms of direct involvement increased the impact of general strikes. Dissemination through independent media was carried out by all social movement groups and mobilisation platforms existent at the time of each general strike. This entailed extensive (alternative) media coverage of all events (testimonies and videos of strikes were posted) and a constant actualisation of strike numbers, showing how widespread the discontent was. This was a way of mobilising the undecided, combating misinformation concerning strike numbers and engaging citizens in the construction of general strike narratives. The second form was the active mobilisation of the general strikes, by means of distributing propaganda, social network dissemination, press releases, organisation of public meetings and other innovative actions, such as ‘invading’ workplaces (e.g. call centres) with propaganda leaflets while shouting slogans. In addition, social movement groups and mobilisation platforms organised open meetings to discuss what forms of active participation citizens had at their disposal during general strikes. This was a way of mobilising the public considered to be detached from trade unionism. The third form consisted of being present in workplaces where workers were taking labour action due to mistreatment. Workplaces known for labour precariousness were targeted, with the objective of promoting direct contact with workers, and promoting and backing the possibility of a general strike in workplaces where the right to strike was hampered. Protest actions (with banners and flyer distribution) were often carried out to expose the exploitation perpetrated in such places. The fourth was the participation in CGTP’s picket lines, or the setting up of their own. For instance, the PI joined trade unions’ picket lines at Lisbon airport, at public transportation offices, at post offices and at universities. The last recourse was the call for street demonstrations on a day of a general strike, something that was entirely new. It first happened on the 4 November 2011 general strike, under the initiative of the 15O mobilisation platform. By calling a demonstration, the 15O mobilisation platform introduced a new element in the general strike process. This innovation in the action repertoire produced changes in the political opportunity structure,5 bringing a new dynamic to the general strike as a form of confrontation. From that moment on, all general strikes had a street demonstration called by the CGTP, serving to show that the confederation, impelled by mobilisation platforms, was now incorporating new strategies in its action repertoire.

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  87

Conclusion The crisis, the rampant precariousness and the imposition of austerity created a breeding ground for the combination of organised and nonorganised action, and emergence of new collective action dynamics. In this context, there is no doubt that, as pointed out by Accornero and Ramos Pinto (2015), there was an overwhelming predominance of labour-initiated protest. Recognising that fact, however, is not reason enough to dismiss the argument that I have presented here: that social movements were a corner stone of the anti-austerity struggle. Furthermore, the discussion strongly supports Peterson, Wahlström and Wennerhag’s (2015) argument that the opposition to neoliberal austerity projects discursively constructs an ‘essential unity’ among heterogeneous groups. Such unity was accomplished through the cooperation/articulation between the trade unionism and social movements, expanding, in spite of the reluctance from both sides, based on the benefits of organisational and strategic features as well as ideological ones. The social movements addressed certain present features congruent with the assertion of autonomy vis-à-vis trade unions and other institutional actors. For that reason, they faced the dilemma of choosing between the benefits of cooperation with trade unions and their own autonomy requirements. On the part of unions, and especially of the CGTP, a cautious attitude was also acknowledged. By and large, the unfolding of cooperation/ articulation was constrained in a number of ways. In the CGTP’s case, it is worth highlighting the assumption of a position of prominence and the attempt to define a field of action that was to be exclusive to it. As for the emergent collective actors, some of their goals and strategies drove them apart from the CGTP. This is congruent with accounts on Spain, where trade unions and the 15M movement faced a similar crisis context and experienced similar difficulties. In the Portuguese context, it was possible to identify the presence of sources of tension that can be ascribed to the dichotomies of reformism/radicalism, formalism/verticality and autonomy/horizontality. They influenced one another and were conditioned by an intricate set of factors, particularly visible in the 15O platform’s case. The worsening of the economic and social situation, however, as well as the redefinition of the political context, forced a strategy reassessment by both the CGTP and the social movements. Tensions began to dissipate with the Screw the Troika’s first protest, mainly because its demands were more in line with a reformist attitude. Regarding the CGTP, it was possible to acknowledge a constant attempt, more or less explicit, to assert its role as the legitimate representative of workers, materialised in the attempt to impose ‘the rules of the game’ in respect to cooperation/

88 | Dora Fonseca

articulation. There was, in fact, an evolution towards a greater recognition and support of emergent collective actors. Notwithstanding this, the CGTP’s attempt to assert a prominent role never ceased. Consequently, mobilisation platforms, for their part, developed their own strategies, attracting many who were disillusioned with trade unions and political parties. The cooperation/articulation relations were also influenced by structural aspects, traditions and political conflicts, all historically anchored and part of the broader context within which the relations are constructed, thus composing an extremely complex framework for cooperation/articulation. Furthermore, cooperation/articulation had mutually legitimising effects on both the CGTP and the social movements, but those effects were greater in the case of the social movements due to their characteristics. The support of initiatives and direct involvement in actions were the cooperation/ articulation forms most used by social movement groups against labour precariousness and anti-austerity movement platforms. The advantages of the cooperation/articulation forms mentioned were particularly visible in the context of the general strikes between 2011 and 2013. The systematisation effort undertaken regarding the collected data allows to formulate clues of how to bypass some of the obstacles of cooperation/articulation relations without compromising the maintenance of the collective actor’s social bases. In light of this, it is possible to point out certain aspects that might enhance the outreach results of the cooperation/ articulation relations. First, an effective opening up on the part of the trade union movement to new collective actors articulating objectives and claims similar to their own is necessary. This opening up will only be effective when it is no longer dependent on specific conjunctures or particular events, and, instead, becomes a generalised attitude. To this, it must also be recognised that such an opening up is equally fostered by social and labour changes, as was the case with this analysis. And yet, on the other hand, it is important that social movements become more open to trade union objectives and strategies as well. Secondly, it is required that both trade unions and social movements develop willingness regarding successive (re)approximations and find a common discursive ground. Continuity is the key factor that will allow to deal with the specificities of collective actors and, thus, smoothen out any suspicion or mistrust. Last of all, and regarding social movements in particular, continuity, in the sense of regularity, is important in terms of internal dynamics and when it comes to counteracting organisational entropy; in addition to formulating clearer claims, continuity is of significant importance when it comes to dialogue maintenance. To conclude, this statement from Guzmán et al. (2016) regarding unions and the 15M in Spain (the equivalent of the anti-austerity movement

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  89

in Portugal) sums up what is, in our view, the core issue that made the relations between trade unions and social movements in the age of austerity so ambivalent: [t]he ambivalent nature of the relationship between the unions and 15M is largely explained by the fact that labour issues are a major concern of the latter. We must not forget that precariousness and unemployment constitute the basis of the discontent that fuels 15M. It is precisely the labour dimension of this new social movement that leads it to cross swords with the old labour movement. (Guzmán et al. 2016: 467–68)

Dora Fonseca has a PhD in Sociology, with the thesis ‘Social Movements and Trade Unionism in Times of Crisis. The Portuguese Case: Alliances or Latent Tensions?’ (University of Coimbra, Portugal). She is Researcher at the Center For Social Studies, currently working on the research project ‘REVAL – From Internal Devaluation to the Revaluation of Work: the Case of Portugal’. She has published articles in journals and book chapters, including ‘Building the “Contraption”: Anti-austerity Movements and Political Alternative in Portugal’ (co-authored, Routledge, 2018). Her research interests are mainly focused on labour studies and social movements.

Notes   1. The Troika consists of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission.   2. See Fonseca (2016).   3. It is worth pointing out that even though the mobilisation platforms all coexisted in time at some point, they emerged sequentially. So, although the 15O is here mentioned as the first to assertively support the general strikes, it was not the only platform nor even the one granting the most effective support. That was, in fact, Screw the Troika.   4. In addition, the CGTP did not subscribe to the Social Dialogue Agreement in January 2012, reinforcing the idea of the trade union confederation as a potential ally of the anti-austerity movement (at that time, intensely promoted by the 15O mobilisation platform).   5. See Kriesi et al. (1995).

90 | Dora Fonseca

References Accornero, G., and P.R. Pinto. 2015. ‘“Mild Mannered”? Protest and Mobilisation in Portugal under Austerity, 2010–2013’, West European Politics 38(3): 491–515. Bernaciak, M., R. Gumbrell-McCormick and R. Hyman. 2014. European Trade Unionism: From Crisis to Renewal? Report 113. Brussels: European Trade Union Institute. Castells, M. 2013. Redes de Indignação e Esperança: Movimentos sociais na era da internet. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. Cohen, J.L., and A. Arato. 2000. Sociedad Civil y Teoría Política. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Costa, Hermes A. 2012. ‘From Europe as a Model to Europe as Austerity: The Impact of the Crisis on Portuguese Trade Unions’, Transfer 18(4): 397–410. Costa, H.A., H. Dias and J. Soeiro. 2014. ‘As greves e a austeridade em Portugal: Olhares, expressões e recomposições’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 103: 173–202. Costa, H.A., and E. Estanque. 2012. ‘Labour Relations and Social Movements in the 21st Century’, in Denis Erasga (ed.), Sociological Landscapes: Theories, Realities and Trends. Rijeka/Croacia: INTECH/ Open Acess Publishing, pp. 257–82. Estanque, E. 2014. ‘Rebeliões de classe média? Precariedade e movimentos sociais em Portugal e no Brasil (2011-2013)’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 103: 53–80.  . 2015. Classe Média e Lutas Sociais: Ensaio sobre sociedade e trabalho em Portugal e no Brasil. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp. Ferreira, A.C. 2012. Sociedade de Austeridade e direito do trabalho de exceção. Porto: Vida Económica – Editorial SA. Fominaya, C., and L. Cox (eds). 2013. Understanding European Movements: New Social Movements, Global Justice Struggles, Anti-austerity Protest. New York: Routledge. Fonseca, D. 2012. ‘New Actors on Stage: Analysis of the Emergent Forms of Collective Action in the European Context’, 2nd ISA Forum of Sociology, Buenos Aires: University of Buenos Aires.  . 2016. ‘Movimentos sociais e sindicalismo em tempos de crise. O caso português: alianças ou tensões latentes?’, PhD dissertation. Coimbra: University of Coimbra. Guzmán, S.P., B. Roca and I. Diaz-Parra. 2016. ‘Political Exchange, Crisis of Representation and Trade Union Strategies in a Time of Austerity: Trade Unions and 15M in Spain’, Transfer 22(4): 461–74. Kriesi, Hanspeter, Ruud Koopmans, Jan W. Duyvendak and Marco G. Giugni. 1995. New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. London: UCL Press. Leite, J., H.A. Costa, M.C. Silva and J.R. Almeida. 2014. ‘Austeridade, reformas laborais e desvalorização do trabalho’, in J. Reis (ed.), A economia política do retrocesso: crise, causas e objetivos. Coimbra: Almedina/CES, pp. 127–88. Lima, M.P.C., and A.M. Artiles. 2014. ‘Descontentamento na Europa em tempos de austeridade: Da ação coletiva à participação individual no protesto social’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 103: 137–72. Magalhães, P. 2005. ‘Disaffected Democrats: Political Attitudes and Political Action in Portugal’, West European Politics 28(5): 973–91.

Trade Unions and Social Movements  |  91

Ortiz, I., S. Burke, M. Berrada and H. Cortes. 2013. World Protests 2006–2013. New York: Friedrich Ebert Foundation, http://cadtm.org/IMG/pdf/World_Protests_20062013-Final-2.pdf (accessed 30 August 2018). Peterson, A., M. Wahlström and M. Wennerhag. 2015. ‘European Anti-Austerity Protests – Beyond “Old” and “New” Social Movements?’, Acta Sociologica 58(4): 293–310. Scott, A. 1990. Ideology and Social Movements. London: Unwin Hyman. Soeiro, J. 2015. ‘A Formação do Precariado. Transformações no Trabalho e Mobilizações de Precários em Portugal’, PhD. dissertation. Coimbra: University of Coimbra.

Chapter 5

The Precariat Strikes Back? Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation José Soeiro

Precarisation in Portugal: The Peculiar Features of a Deep Process Precarious labour relations, with no social protection or formal contracts, are not a new or marginal phenomenon in the history of capitalism. They are at the heart of its logic of accumulation. Even in the periods of greater regulation and collectivisation of labour relations, vast sectors, such as women or migrants, were essentially kept apart from employment contracts and the rights associated with them (Braga 2018; Chun 2009; Linden 2008). But the job insecurity we are experiencing today is not merely a continuation of the past. On the one hand, this is occurring after a broad process of institutionalisation of social relations, through which the collective voice of workers was recognised, and social rights and indirect wage mechanisms, such as public services, were registered in the State. Precariousness, therefore, corresponds to the disarticulation of the forms of solidarity and protection that resulted from this process (Castel 2009). Yet on the other hand, it is a matter of fact that labour relations lacking formalisation or rights have always existed, notably in the informal economy. What is new is its legal recognition, the registration of precarious forms of employment in different national laws. In Portugal, the process of legal recognition of precariousness began with the law of fixed-term contracts, in 1976. But it is mainly between 1986 and 1995, in the context of European integration and of a conservative modernisation, that labour deregulation is accentuated. Since this period, even when social protection has been reinforced (as happened between

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  93

1995 and 2002), precariousness has increased. Between 2002 and 2011, a ‘precarious society’ was consolidated in Portugal (Ferreira 2009). Between 2011 and 2015, there was a shift in the austerity policy, not only in terms of intensity, but also quality. The financial crisis that began in 2008 was used as an opportunity to radicalise the dynamics of commodification in all aspects of life (Fraser 2013). A ‘state of emergency’ was invoked which would have to be addressed through the compression of demand and purchasing power, lower wages and ‘flexibilisation’ of labour relations. Austerity politics set up an unprecedented process of ‘internal devaluation’ and transfer of wealth from workers to Capital – more than EUR 2.5 million (Leite et al. 2014: 185). It constituted a form of social authoritarianism that prefigured a new social regime, far beyond the labour field. Worthy of emphasis, however, is the fact that this process is not new. It is necessary to understand the precariousness of labour in Portugal within the framework of a broad shift towards ‘structural precariousness of work’ through which national governments were ‘required to dismantle social legislation that protects labour’ (Antunes 2008: 21). The labour reform agenda that has been institutionalised since the 1980s at an international level took the flexibilisation of labour relations as a dominant strategy, leading transnational organisations to urge ‘developed countries’ to ‘reduce security levels and employment costs (the rigidity of labour markets), promoting the transition of employment policies from passive to active’ (Ferreira 2009: 6). Portugal has experienced these trends in a particular way. On one hand, this is owed to the semi-peripheral role of Portuguese society in the international division of labour and the interstate system (Santos 1985, 1993, 2011), with the State having a high centrality in the regulation of labour, in conjunction with the persistent disarticulations and discontinuities between the formal and informal State.1 On the other, ‘institutional inconsistency’ (Pinto and Pereira 2006) has come to characterise Portuguese development, as is evident in the discrepancy between prescribed behaviours and actual behaviours, and between a formally solid State that, in practice, is fragile and inconsequential in many of its functions. This ‘institutional inconsistency’ occurs, for example, through the non-alignment of the feminisation of labour, on one hand, matched up with the lack of institutional frameworks capable of ensuring gender equality (reproducing a sexual division of labour in the domestic space), on the other. Or, in a different field, between the ever-increasing levels of schooling possessed by the Portuguese population (along with the corresponding expectations that brings), and the absence of an insertion strategy for qualified professionals. The context in which the ‘formation of the precariat’2 takes place in Portugal must, therefore, be

94 | José Soeiro

understood in the light of these trends and features that are characteristic of Portuguese society, which combines multiple socioeconomic and institutional times periods, and that challenge simple interpretative schemes. From an economic point of view, Portugal conserves its structural weaknesses: a fragmented, low-skilled and over-indebted productive structure, the main economic groups investing in rentier activities, a population with qualifications below the European average, a growing external indebtedness and a scarce capacity of international competition (Abreu et al. 2013: 140). In addition, the country maintains an entrepreneurial structure made up of many companies (more than one million), but which, at the same time, are very small (67% do not exceed 5 employees).3 In the last decade and a half, the occupational structure underwent significant transformations, resulting in a restructuring of the employed population, with an increase in qualifications that paralleled the growth of low-skilled work in services, an increase of professionals and technicians, and a reduction of so-called ‘manual labour’ (see Alves et al. 2011: 33–34). The transition from a rural and agricultural country to a service sector country in less than half a century is connected to the expansion of public services and the population’s rapid increase along the coast and in large metropolitan areas, compensated by the existence and affirmation of some medium-sized cities in some interior regions.4 In what concerns the feeling of class belonging, this restructuring of the socio-professional structure, also associated with changes in consumption patterns, gave rise to what has been designated a ‘middle-class effect’ (Estanque 2012), which symbolically enlarges this class, far beyond its objective limits and its demographic weight.5 In terms of labour relation systems, Portuguese society has been characterised by the heterogeneity of its labour standards, by the performativity of social dialogue, by the weak institutionalisation of forms of conflict resolution in the workplace, by the continuing blocking of collective bargaining and by the maintenance of management models of a despotic nature, in various fields (Ferreira and Costa 1998/1999; Estanque 2009; Dornelas 2010; Reis 2014). From the social point of view, Portugal has historically maintained high levels of inequality and poverty, with low wages and a limited welfare state. In fact, even before one could truly define them as fully functional, social protection systems were being submitted to international and national pressures that encouraged their dismantling. This was done, first, through the non-application of constitutional and legal provisions and a lack of political commitment to comply by them; then, by the neoliberal dynamics of privatisation of goods and services (Santos 1993). In the context of austerity, the deconstruction of social protection and the impoverishment of individuals

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  95

and families (particularly those that could be mechanisms of support and appeal) amplified and intensified this process. With the original political solution anchored to the Left, between 2015 and 2019, the tendency seemed to be going in reverse (see Carmo and Barata 2017). Still, the structural setback of this dynamic requires a transformation that is far from being totally accomplished.

The Six Periods of Precarisation and Its Main Modalities In the last decade and a half, precarious employment has continually progressed in Portugal. With a substantial number of the labour force (above 15% of total employment) working with ‘green receipts’ – an expression implying ‘self-employed’, many of them being in fact ‘falsely self-employed’, in the sense that they should have an employment contract6 – and fixedterm contracts (around 14% of those employed and over 20% among workers with a contract),7 precarisation in Portugal has expanded in recent years through an exponential increase in temporary work (which, in the last decade, multiplied by almost ten) and involuntary part-time work (which, between 2000 and 2014, quintupled). The profusion of forms of precarious jobs under the onus of the State, for example, is to be noted. The number of scholarships and internships financed by government programmes, and ‘occupational’ forms of support for the unemployed was, in 2014, around 150,000 but has declined in recent years. Among the unemployed, numbering around 725,000 in 2014, 500,000 in 2017 and 360,000 in 2018, most are unprotected because the coverage ratio of unemployment benefits has not ceased to decrease (see GEP/MTSS 2016). Moreover, it is impossible to understand the precarious conditions in Portugal without taking into account the weight of the informal economy which represents around onequarter of the GDP. In this overview, it is also important to point out the centrality of the State, as it will help to explain the characteristics and strategic choices of the politics of the precariat8 in Portugal. There are four essential reasons behind the importance of the State in the process of precariousness. First, it is key to the definition of labour regulation, having contributed to the legal recognition of different forms of precarious employment. Secondly, the State is a key player in mediating the ‘social partners’ through a tripartite system that gives it initiative. Third, the State is itself the largest employer of precarious people, being directly responsible for about 116 jobs in atypical or nonpermanent modalities.9 Finally, the State is responsible for the inspection of labour relations, ensuring the effectiveness of labour laws (to a large extent,

96 | José Soeiro

the spread of precariousness in Portugal is also due to the inefficiency of this control). Precariousness takes place both in the legal sphere and in jurisprudence (through the selective application of labour regulations), based, above all, on social practices that go well beyond what is legally disposed. This is to say that precariousness, therefore, is a phenomenon of a large-scale legal transgression. Undeclared work, the dissimulation of labour contracts, the lack of coincidence between legal frameworks and actual practices, and the strength of the informal state are the structuring features of precariousness in Portugal. The most expressive example is the phenomenon of the ‘false green receipts’, the most significant labour fraud and one of the main themes of the politics of the precariat in the country. If we take into account the evolution of the legislative framework, it is possible to identify different periods of labour regulation in Portugal, from the democratic revolution of 1974 to the present stage (Soeiro 2015). The first period (from 1974 to 1976) is defined by the institutionalisation of the labour law as an indispensable component of democracy, following the 25 April Revolution. In the second period (1976–1986), legal recognition of precarious forms of employment began mainly with the introduction of fixed-term contracts. The third period (1986–1995) is defined by labour deregulation in the context of European integration and conservative modernisation, where the weight of fixed-term employment was accentuated, as was, for example, ‘false self-employment’. In the fourth period (1995–2002), de facto precariousness parallels a reinforcement of social protection, in a conjuncture of neoliberal consolidation of European Union. The fifth period (2002–2011) is the consolidation of a ‘precarious society’, combining not only traditional forms of precariousness (informality, ‘false self-employment’, fixed-term employment), but also the growth of temporary work agencies. It is also in this period that we witness the creation of new collective action responses by precarious workers. The sixth period (2011–2015) constituted a paradigmatic transition under austerity, with significant changes to labour legislation, witnessing the increase of unpaid working time, the reduction of labour costs and the quasi-total dismantling of collective bargaining and contracting (Lima 2014; Leite et al. 2014). If we were to characterise the main ways of labour precarisation in Portugal, we could systematise them into four major modalities: 1) precarisation through the inscription into the law of precarious working conditions (fixed-term contracts in the late 1970s, the so-called ‘green receipts’ in the 1980s, temporary work in the 1990s and the various forms of Stateaided precariousness throughout the 2000s); 2) precarisation through the

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  97

transgression of the law, whether through informalities (clandestine labour relations, without a contract or social protection) or improper use and interpretation of legislative texts and certain legal provisions such as the one framing ‘self-employment’, temporary work or internships; 3) ‘insertion measures’ for the unemployed and ‘active employment policies’ promoted by State departments, often used to fill the permanent needs of companies or institutions; and 4) precarisation through the transformation of labour relations into business relations – the act of ‘de-labouring’, framing relations of work provision as relations of service sales, as if workers were replaced by individual entrepreneurs and bosses became clients. It is in the confrontation with these forms of precariousness that different precarious workers’ organisations have been born in Portugal, since the 2000s. The formation of the precariat and the politics of the precariat must be understood in relation to these features.

The Formation of the Precariat: New Subjectivities, Organisations and Agendas If the concept of ‘precariousness’ has been used in social sciences at least since the 1980s (especially in the context of the sociologies of family, poverty and exclusion), it is mainly from the 2000s onward that the notion began to be used intensively in the field of militancy, especially in such countries as Italy, France and Spain and later, in Portugal as well – although never in such nations as the UK or Germany, for example, where labour law has another tradition (Barbier 2005). At first, ‘precariousness’ or ‘precarity’ seems to have functioned as a way of labelling the changes taking place in the world of work. Subsequently, the categorisation of ‘precarious’ had a ‘militant elasticity’ of sorts: a hybridity between the academic and the political that permitted a transfer of scientific authority to the activist discourse, legitimising its increasing use in this field (Boumaza and Pierru 2007: 11). As a result, in the case of some movements, the concept has been widened to operate as a category, symbolically coalescing various causes, joined around the idea of a progressive ‘precariousness in life’. The European background to this process can be found in the mobilisations of the unemployed which first emerged in the 1980s, namely in France. Concerning trade unions, it is also from this period that the first attempts were made to tackle this problem. With the globalisation of the economy, the inefficiency of some strategies put in place by the trade unions became more evident. The erosion of

98 | José Soeiro

the autonomy of nation states to decide and put into practice economic and social policies compressed the possibilities of action on the part of the unions. By deregulating labour markets and by promoting social dumping through the relocation of production, transnational capital operates on an international scale and the trends it promotes appear fatalistic. The gap between the spatial scale of the offensive and of resistance is evident, emphasising the delegitimisation of union action by force of power. It would be necessary to wait until the mid-1990s, with the taking place of ‘European marches against unemployment, precariousness and exclusion’ (Schmidt and Spadoni 2000) and with the actions of the alterglobal movement (Santos 2005), to see the first transnational mobilisations occurring, under the motto of combatting the neoliberal globalisation. At the beginning of the 2000s, there were several movements against precariousness with innovative traits. In France, for example, new activism networks like Stop Precarité arose. In Italy, labour union confederations created branches of ‘atypical workers’; radical unions (such as COBAS or CUB) and self-organised groups of precarious people organised important movements at the local and national level. In Spain, meanwhile, intense conflicts also took place in the call centre sector (Soeiro 2015). The first attempt to build an autonomous political agency for the precariat on a European scale was that of the EuroMayDay movement that emerged in 2004. Of a Europeanist nature, this initiative set out to detail how a radical political subjectivity is formed based on the condition of ‘precariousness’. Developing its own vision of the process of precariousness, accentuating the liberating potentialities of irregularity, the movement relied on a rhetoric based on conquering new rights, more than defending previous models of regulation. In media practices, aesthetic choices, patterns of internal organisation and strategies of action, the EuroMayDay movement marked a new stage in the struggles of different precarious segments of the working class, influencing, in dozens of countries, the experiences of autonomous organisations tied to these sectors. One of the characteristics of the politics of the precariat is that it refers to precariousness beyond the strict labour dimension. Indeed, the experience of precariousness is related to job insecurity, exposure to underemployment and lack of access to social protection (Paugam 2000). But it is also founded on a particular relation to time, marked by unpredictability, uncertainty and the collapse of linear time in individual trajectories. For this reason, the condition of precariousness structures a vast set of experiences of everyday life that extend beyond the labour sphere and spread to other dimensions related to autonomy (namely housing and financial) and our ability to project the future.

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  99

Thus, precariousness is not only an economic regime and a form of labour regulation, but it constitutes a mechanism of domination and social control. For this reason too, the formation of the precariat as a subjectivity recognised in a common experience is based on a multiplicity of spaces and forms of expression. The creation of places of sociability and political conspiracy (with equivalent functions to the old taverns), the intensive use of the online public sphere as a meeting point and as an organisational space (via websites, blogs or social networks), the existence of cultural objects (such as songs), the expansion of labour struggles outside the work space (through campaigns and networks of solidarity), the action on the urban space centring on a variety of problematics (from housing to support systems) are all structuring elements of this process. By placing the emphasis on the idea of precariousness in life, some of the mobilisation movements extended the fight against exploitation in the workplace to all biopolitical devices that reproduce the precarious condition inside and outside the space of production. It is true that by accentuating the fragmentation of statutes and conditions, by shattering productive identities, by individualising labour relations, precarisation inhibits collective action and pushes back labour democracy. However, the experience of precariousness also has common features from which have been built mechanisms of identification and solidarity. At the same time as it has dismantled forms of protection and organisation, this process has opened up possibilities for new conflicts and re-establishing practices of resistance.

The Birth of Precarious Workers’ Organisation in Portugal: The Answer to Absences and a New Activist Landscape In Portugal, union structures began to enunciate the reality of precarious labour at the end of the 1980s, having since the beginning associated the struggle against precariousness with the recognition of permanent contracts to permanent jobs, setting their battle strategy within the frameworks of a solidarity by ‘stable workers’, who, in their collective bargaining agendas, demanded that permanent contracts be given to ‘precarious workers’. Initially, this orientation was successful and resulted in the integration of many workers. But it eventually led to a stalemate, owing to economic, political and labour reasons. The rigid union approach, focused in types of labour relationships which became increasingly less dominant, the difficulties in the renewal of activists and the delay in the strategic reflection on the transformations underway led to important blockages and absences

100 | José Soeiro

that help to explain the emergence of experiences of mobilisation and of self-organised groups of precarious people at the margins of the trade union structures. The first experiences of organising workers outside the Fordist union model (full-time wage, with a stable bond and a defined professionalism) are arguably those of the movements of the unemployed, which served to foreshadow some of the characteristics that were to influence precarious workers’ groups years later. In Portugal, the 1980s witnessed the birth of this type of organisation, particularly in one region most affected by unemployment, caused by de-industrialisation and crisis in the sector of the automotive industry centred in the Setúbal Peninsula (Soeiro 2015). Since the year 2000, there has been a multiplication of collectives, associations and initiatives around the various facets tied to the process of precarisation in Portugal. In 2002, ‘Stop Precariedade’ was the first organisation to provide precarious workers with a form of self-agency, independent of labour unions, though in cooperation with them and seeking to respond in solidarity with their impasses. It is between 2004 and 2012, however, that most of these types of groups appear: the Association of Scientific Research Grantors (ABIC), the Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD), the Platform of Intermittents of the Audiovisual Sector, a group calling themselves Enough of These Green Receipts (FERVE), MayDay Lisboa, Precários Inflexíveis – PI (Inflexible Precarious), Comunidária, Maldita Arquitetura (Damn Architecture), MayDay Porto, a teachers’ group in Curricular Enrichment Areas (AEC), the Network on Sexual Workers as well as the Movement Without Employment (MSE), just to name a few. These different and heterogeneous groups, initiatives and platforms do not exhaust the field of struggle against precariousness, in which labour unions, political parties and other associations obviously intervene. However, born outside or at the edge of the union universe, these groups and movements structured a field of activism around the precariousness for which the classic union repertoires were not sufficient or satisfactory. The multiplication of collectives and initiatives that took the idea of precariousness as a referent empowered a militant space, made out of its own organisations and mobilisations, but also in contact with other social actors –– the labour unions, political parties, the media and other social movements. In Portugal, the basis of the formation of the precariat as a collective actor is the experience of a common struggle and the acquisition of a collective conscience. Other factors equally interpose to create a sense of identification: music, new spaces of sociability and political conspiracy, as well as the intensive use of the online public sphere, as a platform to meet and organise.

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  101

One of the reasons behind the emergence of such organisations has been a response to the impasses and incapacities on the part of existing unionist movements: for example, the impasses in the development of union strategies to face the increase of contractual statutes (such as the presence of temporary work agency workers within the companies) or the absence of employment contracts in situations of salaried work (for example, through working on ‘false green receipts’). Precarious organisations have also sought to respond to union absence in sectors without such a tradition, such as the liberal professions that have undergone a transformation into waged labour (for example, architects), or to respond to the unavailability of unions in recognising certain activities as work (as is the case of sex work), or to prioritise certain socio-professional groups as a target for representation and recruitment (such as domestic workers). In some cases, precarious workers’ organisations in Portugal have used the category of the ‘precariat’ as a unifying flag of various conditions and identities, in which the actual experience of precariousness and/or the threat of future precariousness (for example, among students) were engines of mobilisation. Most of the precarious mobilisation movements, however, start from more specific categories, combining professional identities with precarious labour statutes, revealing how important the identification around a certain qualification or an ethos associated with a profession degraded by precariousness was (e.g. nurses, workers in the cultural sector, architects, teachers, and so on). The phenomena of collective action around these professional identities do not, however, inhibit the articulation of initiatives or organisations with more comprehensive approach to the mobilisation of the ‘precariat’, defined by its diversity. In the cycle of collective action that existed between 2011 and 2014 (Castells 2012), precariat mobilisation took place under a broader umbrella of identities. In Portugal, the idea behind the ‘Geração à Rasca’ movement, at first, or later the ‘People Against the Troika’, consisted of a broad categorisation of individuals in which precarious workers were included, and whose mobilisation played a determining role. The cycle of struggles that started in 2011 reconfigured the collective action of the precariat on an international scale. In Portugal as well, precarious youth were constituted as catalysts for protest, but, progressively, broader alliances emerged, first formed from the condition of ‘Desperation’, and then, in opposition to the Troika. In these multitudinous coalitions, converging with the precariat were the unemployed, civil servants, students and pensioners. In this new period, labour issues began to be integrated into a more comprehensive agenda, which included the fight against austerity and impoverishment, the issue of forced emigration, as well as the critique of

102 | José Soeiro

the political and representation system, accompanied by the calling out for a ‘Real Democracy’. In terms of scales of action, collective action evolved in two directions: concrete demands became renationalised, given the identification of the nation-state as the only space permeable to democratic pressure; while, at the same time, an international protest community emerged, connected by online communication (Estanque, Costa and Soeiro 2013). This cycle of collective action led to the birth of an anti-austerity field in Portugal, in which converged associations, trade unions, partisan organisations, informal collectives and initiative groups whose focus ranged from labour issues to anti-racist struggle, from environmentalism to feminism and LGBT issues, from the fight against anti-imperialism to housing and urban issues, from the rights of the disabled to the right to participate democratically, from economic justice to local development decision making. In addition, there were platforms that were reasonably short-lived (such as the Platform 15 de Outubro – 15O and the Platform Que se Lixe a Troika – QSLT [Screw the Troika Platform]), but that had been responsible for convening the largest demonstrations of the last decades (in fact, the biggest demonstrations since the revolutionary period of 1974–1976). During this time frame, new trade union organisations also emerged in the precarious sectors, such as CENA – Musicians, Show and Audiovisual Professionals Union and the STCC – Union of Call Center Workers. At the end of 2015, as a result of parliamentary elections, there was a change in the government in Portugal. An alliance for a parliamentary majority on the left was formed, sustaining a Socialist Party minority government, supported by formal agreements signed with the Left Bloc, the Portuguese Communist Party and the Greens Ecologist Party. A primary goal of these agreements was to stop the process of impoverishment imposed by austerity policies, to give back income to the workers, to rebalance labour relations – in particular by combating precarious labour – and to recuperate public services. This new political cycle, with its political progresses and impasses, brought to a halt the previous austerity policy. With this having happened, however, the question that now must be asked is: are these recent changes enough to allow us to talk about a post-austerity transition in the field of labour?

Reversing Labour Precariousness: A Post-Austerity Transition The agenda of precarious organisations in Portugal has articulated the struggle for recognition (of more invisible segments of the working class, without

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  103

access to collective representation of their interests) with the struggle for redistribution (that is, to change an economic structure in which precariousness is a means of overexploitation). In this process, it used, in an eclectic manner, a repertoire of protest forms that includes the most classic of instruments utilised by contemporary social movements (petitions, demonstrations, denunciations, taking public positions), as well as instruments that operate through the production and circulation of information in the online public space (YouTube videos, blogs and social media pages), initiatives of a assemblearist character, and acts of transgressive irruption in the private‘public’ space (such as shopping malls) and in the places of production (for example, in call centres). The politics of the precariat is, therefore, not reduced to the channelling of collective action to the State. The spaces of sociability created by precarious organisations also include alternative economic and cultural practices, proposing forms of non-market exchange and mechanisms of solidarity that are activated in the community space. However, if we take into account the demands of the precarious organisations in Portugal in recent years, we will verify that they have mainly focused on the legal recognition of wage relation, and the extension of protections and rights associated with employment contracts to those class segments that have been deprived of them through various forms of precarious employment. In doing so, the politics of the precariat takes the State as its main interlocutor and uses the law as part of its struggle repertoire. The fact that the labour law in Portugal has had its genesis in the revolutionary process and the fact that precarious workers have a fragile collective representation, serves to explain the centrality of the State in the politics of the precariat. This centrality is also due to the weakness and difficulty of these groups in creating organisations in the workplace and in the daily life of companies. In mobilising the precariat, the focus on the law is articulated with other complementary actions (denunciations to the media, appearances in the public space as well as increased confrontational tactics), possessing at least two dimensions. On the one hand, the aim is to broaden rights and bring about the recognition of these new realities – namely intermittent work, domestic work, sex work or scientific work – as well as social security rights for independent and self-employed workers. On the other, the defence of some of the existing laws is taken as a transformative struggle, inasmuch as precarisation has significantly spread in Portugal owing to the deep gap between law in books and law in action. The case of ‘false self-employment’ is illustrative of this reality: the fight for the enforcement of the existing law would already imply a profound change in the labour

104 | José Soeiro

reality in Portugal. It is worthwhile, therefore, to observe three different examples of how the State itself has sought to respond to the politics of the precariat, namely in the political cycle of the Left-wing agreements between 2015 and 2019.

A Law Made from Below: The ‘Special Action to Recognise Employment Contract’ The decision to propose a Citizens Legislative Initiative (ILC) on the subject of precariousness arose in the weeks following the demonstration of the Geração à Rasca held in March 2011. During this period, Portuguese society debated the meaning and consequences of this unprecedented mobilisation. ‘A part of the dispute over the meaning of that demonstration would be directly within our reach. That’s where the idea of the ILC exists’, said Tiago Gillot, one of the spokespeople of the Precários Inflexíveis. The initiative was presented in April 2011 by the organisers of Geração à Rasca (the 12 March Movement) and by activists from Precários Inflexíveis, FERVE and the Intermittents Platform. During a period of eight months, more than 35,000 signatures were collected in ‘demonstrations, concerts, shopping centers, universities, football matches’, in defence of three concrete measures included in the proposal: 1) the creation of new mechanisms to combat precarious work and the ‘false green receipts’; 2) limiting the time allowed for fixed-term contracts to 18 months; and 3) integrating temporary workers into the companies for which they work, provided they have been working for at least one year (or 20 months in the last two years). In Parliament, the citizens’ law proposal was discussed for months in the specialised Commission. On two of the proposal’s features, both relating to fixed-term contract limitations and temporary work agencies, it was immediately clear that the main parties (the Socialist Party – PS, a centre-left party; the Social Democratic Party – PSD, a liberal centre-right party; and the Democratic and Social Center – People’s Party – CDS-PP, a conservative right-wing party) did not accept the proposal. However, in the issue of fighting the ‘false green receipts’ (i.e. the ‘false self-employed’), ‘everyone was open to working on a solution’, explains an activist of Precários Inflexíveis. A working group was constituted, composed of all party forces and open to the participation of the proponents. ‘I was a spectator of the private process of legislative elaboration’, says Tiago, who was present at all meetings. In this working group were heard Employers’ Associations – ‘who totally opposed the law proposition’, according to Gillot – trade union confederations, the Labour Conditions Authority and the Superior Council of Magistrates.

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  105

In July 2013, the Portuguese Parliament unanimously adopted a common legislative text ‘establishing mechanisms to combat the misuse of “self-employment” in subordinate employment relationships’. Law 63/2013 took effect on 1 September of that year. The great novelty of the law was the introduction of ‘presumptive method’ (implying that it would be enough to prove two of the indications of employment provided in the General Labour Law to presume that the worker is in an employment situation) and the recognition of employment contracts as acts of ‘public interest’. It is therefore no longer up to the employee to sue the employer, as it becomes the obligation of the State to guarantee the recognition of a given contract of employment, either by instructing the company or by going to court if the company refuses to give recognition. The law thus reverses the burden of proof and gives to the Public Prosecutor’s Office the responsibility of the lawsuit under the initiative of the Labour Conditions Authority. For Gillot, the law ‘is the first existing major change concerning “green receipts” in more than 20 years; a first big step and in the right direction. It is strong, it is a citizens’ process and it is done at a time when everything is being taken away’, he stated back in 2014. The approval of this law, in fact, happened in total contradiction with the logic of austerity and precariousness. Although ‘a very partial victory’ because ‘it is only on one of the three aspects’ proposed by the ILC, because ‘none of the proposals were extremely advanced’, and also because there was ‘a small cut of what we were asking for for the “false self-employed”’, the activist of the Precários Inflexíveis considers that ‘there is no comparison with the previous reality’. In his view, ‘the law broke a cycle of impunity, gave a perspective of effectiveness in fighting “false green receipts” and is changing the lives of many people’ (Soeiro 2015). In order to ensure that the law would be an effective instrument to fight the precariousness of labour relations, the Precários Inflexíveis requested meetings with the Labour Conditions Authority (ACT) and the Attorney General’s Office and established themselves as intermediaries between the workers and these institutions. As a result, they opened an online ‘channel of complaint’, providing legal advice as a way of giving workers ‘some control over the level of complaints and so that we [Precários Inflexíveis] can put pressure on public bodies’. According to data provided by ACT concerning this new legal regime, 2,740 irregular workers were detected as a result of the inquiry. A total of 913 workers were regularised during the administrative stage, while 526 cases were placed under the responsibility of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

106 | José Soeiro

Infringements reported

Warnings

Submissions to Public Prosecution Service

1,529

500

*

54

10

13

2014

1,364

1,510

507

420

34

425

2015

1,124

478

291

66

29

64

Situations voluntarily regularised by the employers

Workers identified

2013a

Year

Inspections

Table 5.1. Law 63/2013 enforcement.

2016

301

252

115

60

7

24

Total

4,318

2,740

913

600

80

526

b

Source: Autoridade para as Condições de Trabalho/ACT (Authority for Working Conditions). Notes: * Non-available information. a Data from 1 September onward (Law 63/2013 has been in force since that day). b Data until 31 July.

In July 2017, a new version of this law was published, resulting from changes negotiated by the Left majority in the new Parliament, which strengthened it in two fundamental dimensions. On the one hand, it extended the scope of application of Law 63/2013 to all forms of undeclared work: the new mechanism to recognise a contract of employment of ‘false self-employment’ became applicable to other forms of precarious work, including ‘false internships’, ‘false scholarships’ and informal work, without contract. On the other, a mechanism for the protection of the precarious worker against dismissal has been created. Under this mechanism, the ACT draws up an inspection notice and, under the presumption of an existing employment contract, the employer can not dismiss the worker, thus taking advantage of the fact that the contract is not yet recognised by the court. The dismissal of the employee becomes unlawful when this ‘special action of recognition of the employment contract’ is in progress. This change was acclaimed by the precarious workers’ movements as a sign of significant progress.

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  107

The Regularisation of the ‘Precarious Workers of the State’ One of the characteristics of the precarisation of labour in Portugal is the fact that the State itself is a bad example in terms of labour practices. Precarious workers’ organisations have put this issue on their agenda, arguing that the ‘State is the largest employer of precarious workers’ and, in doing so, have forced political actors to respond to the problem. Consequently, in the agreements signed by the Socialist Party, Left Bloc and the Portuguese Communist Party in November 2015, the fight against precarious labour in the public sector was explicitly inscribed as one of the commitments that would have to be executed in the current legislature (2015–2019). The first agreed step was to conduct a survey on all non-permanent employment situations within the State. This diagnosis was made public through a report that was released in January 2017. In it, 116,391 nonpermanent State workers (about 17.5% of the total) were identified, of which 71,279 worked in the government’s central administration, 18,127 in public companies, 24,090 in local administrations and 2,895 in the local State company sector. The main modalities identified were fixed-term contracts (totalling 76,669), followed by ‘false self-employed’ (19,157) and, thirdly, State-assisted forms of precariousness (15,061 with ‘insertion contracts’, 3,662 with research scholarships and 1,842 with internships). This process was a very interesting political-epistemological challenge. Defining concepts is not just a terminological exercise: in this case it defined the scope of a public policy, it was a choice with concrete consequences. The dispute over the question ‘who is a precarious worker’ was, therefore, a battle that mobilised the precarious workers’ organisations with the aim of determining a number of related questions, namely: 1) what exactly was understood by the ‘parameter’ of the State (for example, how to tackle the issue of outsourcing and labour intermediation by private companies)?; and 2) what was the criteria that defined a subordinate employment relationship and an employment contract without it being a fixed-term agreement? Beyond the legislative question in itself, the social process associated with this law has brought about a conquest of another nature: the visibility, in the public space, of various groups of precarious workers (from specialised educational technicians to regional programme employees, just to name two) who, although seen as indispensable for the functioning of the State departments, had no public representation or organisational backing, including in trade unions.

108 | José Soeiro

By giving visibility to these public servants, the process also revealed that the employment status of those who work for the State was completely fragmented, with dozens of different situations and conditions, many of them irregular and illegal. At the same time, it also revealed the difficulties of the trade unions (which were unable to exhaustively identify all the workers) and of the precarious workers’ groups who, having had the merit of bringing specific labour conditions into the public space, could not have representation in the official Commissions created by this law, owing to the fact that they are merely informal associations. This, in turn, limited their ability to influence and act at a deeper level. What seems more interesting in this case, from the point of view of a politics of the precariat, is how a legislative process can be, at the same time, a process of knowledge production and self-organisation. Indeed, information and recognition are powerful weapons, and if the politics of the precariat establishes a relationship with the State, it does so not as its unique goal, but to take further its strategy for recognition, in which the State plays a central role.

Self-Employed and Social Security: A Difficult Relation A different case concerns the system of social security deductions for self-employed workers. Between November 2009 and February 2010, Portuguese precarious workers’ groups have carried out an intensive campaign against the social security debts of the ‘false self-employed’ under the motto ‘Before debt, we have rights’. Since that time period, the issue of social protection of self-employed workers and the way in which deductions are made (with a gap of more than one year of their income, with a high rate due to the fact that they assume all deductions, and in which employers are viewed as clients without contributive obligations) were at the centre of the political agenda of the precariat. The particularity of this demand is that it does not involve the recognition of an employment contract, but rather seeks to create forms of protection for workers who are genuinely in a situation of self-employment and intermittent activity. This is also why the trade union movement has not invested in an intervention around this topic. Trade unions are meant to represent employees and not the self-employed. After many years of struggle, a political agreement has been established to change this law, which was implemented in 2018–2019. It is an issue that concerns more than 1 million workers registered as having some kind

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  109

of self-employment (accumulating all forms of employment), of which more than 300,000 are defined as exclusively self-employed.

Conclusion: Creating Exceptions and Changing the Rules As I argued at the beginning of this chapter, job insecurity is not at all new. But the process we are experiencing is also not merely a continuation of the past. In Portugal, it was mainly between 1986 and 1995 that, in the context of European integration and conservative modernisation, labour deregulation was accentuated. What might be called a ‘precarious society’ was then consolidated during the 2000s. Between 2011 and 2015, an aggressive austerity policy used the financial crisis as an opportunity to radicalise the dynamics of commodification of all aspects of life. During this period, labour precarisation developed through different modalities: the inscription of precarious working conditions into the law, legal transgression through total informality and clandestine labour, through the improper use of certain legal provisions, ‘insertion measures’ and ‘active employment policies’ for the unemployed, and, lastly, the dissimulation of labour relations as business relations (what can be termed ‘de-labourisation’). Union structures began to tackle this issue at the end of the 1980s. Their strategy was mainly focused on the ability of ‘stable workers’ to impose, in their collective bargaining agendas, the recognition of permanent contracts for ‘precarious workers’. But the formatting of union intervention for a particular type of labour relationship, which became increasingly less dominant, created important blockages and absences, serving to explain the emergence of mobilisation and self-organised groups of precarious workers at the margins of trade union structures. Impasses facing the diversification of contractual statutes, the lack of trade unionist tradition in dealing with ‘liberal professions’ transformed into wage labour, difficulties in responding to and recognising certain activities as work, and to prioritise certain socioprofessional groups as targets for representation and recruitment: all this aids in understanding why autonomous precarious organisations emerged. The basis of this formation of the precariat as a collective actor is the experience of a common struggle and the acquisition of a collective conscience. Music, new spaces of sociability, the intensive use of the online public sphere as a place of meeting and organisation, the expansion of labour struggles out of the company space, were features of this process. The agenda of precarious organisations in Portugal tried to extend the fight

110 | José Soeiro

against exploitation in the workplace to other biopolitical devices that reproduce the precarious condition. As a result, the fight against ‘precariousness in life’ has come to articulate the struggle for recognition with the struggle for redistribution and used an eclectic repertoire of protest (formal and informal, more institutional and more transgressive, in public space and in places of work, online and offline). During the cycle of collective action that took place between 2011 and 2014, precarious youth was a catalyst for protest, forging progressively broader alliances in mobilisations that constituted diverse multitudinous coalitions. Portugal has historically maintained high levels of inequality and poverty, with low wages and a limited welfare state. In the context of austerity, the deconstruction of social protection and the process of impoverishment amplified and intensified these trends – and precarisation was crucial to it. With the political solution anchored to the Left, between 2015 and 2019, this tendency towards impoverishment started to be reversed, but the structure of inequalities persists and the patterns of precarious labour have not been overturned. The ‘action to recognise employment contract’, the regularisation of the ‘precarious workers of the State’ and the new social protection law for the self-employed, are examples of a political agenda that contradict precarisation. But the politics of the precariat, however, is not limited to these subjects, nor to its legislative accomplishment, for a number of reasons: first, because, as was stressed in the characterisation of the precarisation process in Portugal, there is a huge distance between law in books and law in action, implying that changing laws is never enough to change social practices; second, because even at the legislative level there are a number of other issues around which there are labour struggles and strikes, that have remained untouched in the current political cycle, such as the case of temporary work agencies; and third, because the politics of the precariat have sought, at least in the Portuguese case, to combine open pre-figurative practices with consequent reconfiguration policies. In fact, the history of labour movements, like civil rights movements, shows that creating exceptions and fighting to change the rules are not opposed strategies, but necessary linkages. With limitations and difficulties, the fact is that the precariat is a key player for the political alternatives in Portugal. José Soeiro has a PhD in Sociology (University of Coimbra, Portugal), for research on ‘The Formation of the Precariat: Work, Precariousness and Social Mobilization in Portugal’. He is currently a Member of Parliament, with responsibility for labour issues. He was the author, among others, of the following books: A Falácia do Empreendedorismo (with Adriano Campos,

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  111

Bertrand, 2016), Não Acredite em Tudo o que Pensa. Mitos do Senso Comum na Era da Austeridade (co-editor with Miguel Cardina and Nuno Serra, Tintada-China, 2013) and The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed (with Julian Boal and Kelly Howe, Routledge, 2019).

Notes  1. This concept, derived from world system theorisation and applied to the Portuguese context, was developed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos (1985, 1993, 2011). ‘Semiperipheral societies are intermediate societies in the double sense of presenting intermediate stages of development and performing intermediation functions in the management of conflicts between central societies and peripheral societies that are provoked by inequalities in the appropriation of the surplus produced on a world scale’ (Santos 1985: 871). In Portugal, the main features to be highlighted are the lack of interaction between capitalist production and social reproduction, the internal disarticulation between one and the other, and the fact that the formal state runs parallel to an informal state (through the non-application of the law, its selective application or its instrumentalisation).  2. The word ‘precariat’ has been used by many scholars and activists, namely Castel (2009), Foti (2010), Standing (2011) or Braga (2018), just to mention four different approaches to the concept. The debate around the concept of ‘precariat’ has developed in the realm of the francophone social sciences, coming later to Anglo-Saxon social sciences, having then been futher developed by the work of Guy Standing (2011) who popularised the term in English. For Standing, the precariat is a specific class composed by those who are engaged in insecure forms of labour that is unlikely to help them build a desirable labour identity or career. For a more precise analytical application and critique of Standing’s use of the concept, see Munck (2013), Breman (2013), Wright (2016) and Braga (2016). In this text, I use ‘precariat’ to refer to the most unprotected fraction of the working class, those deprived of work-related guarantees such as income and social protection. The expression ‘formation of the precariat’ intends to emphasise the economic, social and the political dimensions of the process, centring on both objective and subjective aspects.  3. In 1991, 53% of the companies had 5 employees or fewer; in 2006 that rate had gone up to 67%. In 2011 there were more than one million businesses (1,136,697) employing almost 4 million people (3,850,591 employees). Only a residual portion of Portuguese companies have more than 50 employees (about 2%) (Ferreira 2009).  4. The concept of medium-sized cities varies from one country to another. In Portugal, for a settlement to be considered an ‘urban centre’, it must have more than 10,000 inhabitants. A medium-sized city would then have between 10,000 and 100,000 inhabitants. This quantitative criteria, however, is not the only factor, for functionality is also considered, taking into account the regional importance and other qualitative criteria. In Portugal, some medium-sized cities have registered, in the last twenty years, dynamics of demographic growth superior to metropolitan areas.  5. The ‘middle class effect’ is the process by which the ‘urban middle class is the main model for the new generations’, and through which this ‘service class’ becomes a

112 | José Soeiro

 6.  7.  8.

 9.

symbolic reference in the subjective perception of vast sectors of the working class, having an attraction effect that extends beyond its objective limits and its demographic weight (Estanque 2012: 81–84). See: https://www.pordata.pt/Portugal/População+empregada+total+e+por+situação +na+profissão+principal+-35 (accessed 17 December 2017). See: https://www.pordata.pt/Portugal/Trabalhadores+por+conta+de+outrem+total+ e+por+tipo+de+contrato+-844 (accessed 17 December 2017). The concept of the ‘politics of the precariat’ is developed in Braga’s analysis of the metamorphosis of the working class in Brazil (Braga 2018). Guy Standing (2014) also proposes what he termed the ‘politics of paradise’, that defined the political agenda of the precariat. I here use the politics of the precariat as an analytical concept to name the political demands of the organisations and mobilisations of precarious workers. I will come back to this issue in the last part of this chapter. This number was presented in a public report that can be consulted here: https://www.portugal.gov. pt/media/24866340/20170203-mf-rel-contratacao-ap.pdf (accessed 17 December 2017).

References Abreu, A., H. Mendes, J. Rodrigues, J. Gusmão, N. Serra, N. Teles, A. Delgado and R. Paes Mamede. 2013. A Crise, a Troika e as Alternativas Urgentes. Lisbon: Tinta-da-china. Alves, N.A., F. Cantante, I. Baptista and R.M. Carmo. 2011. Jovens em Transições Precárias: Trabalho, quotidiano e futuro. Lisbon: Editora Mundos Sociais. Antunes, R. 2008. ‘Desenhando a nova morfologia do trabalho: as múltiplas formas de degradação do trabalho’, Revista Critica de Ciências Sociais 88: 19–34. Barbier, J.-C. 2005. ‘La precarité, une catégorie française à l’épreuve de la comparaison internationale’, Revue Française de Sociologie 2(46): 351–71. Boumaza, M., and E. Pierru. 2007. ‘Des mouvements de précaires à l’unification d’une cause’, Sociétés contemporaines 65: 7–25. Braga, R. 2016. ‘On Standing’s A Precariat Charter: Confronting the Precaritisation of Labour in Brazil and Portugal’, Global Labour Journal 7(2): 148–59.  . 2018. The Politics of the Precariat: From Populism to Lulista Hegemony. Leiden: Brill. Breman, J. 2013. ‘A Bogus Concept’, New Left Review 84: 130–38. Carmo, R.M., and A. Barata. 2017. ‘“The Contraption” and the Future of Social Democracy: The Government Experiment in Portugal’, Open Democracy. https:// www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/renato-miguel-do-carmo-andrbarata/contraption-and-future-of-social-democracy-gov (accessed 16 December 2017). Castel, R. 2009. La Montée des Incertitudes: Travail, protections, statu de l’individu. Paris: Seuil. Castells, M. 2012. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Political Alternatives to Labour Degradation  |  113

Chun, J.J. 2009. Organizing at the Margins: The Symbolic Politics of Labor in South Korea and the United States. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Dornelas, A. 2010. Emprego contratação colectiva de trabalho e protecção da mobilidade profissional em Portugal. Lisbon: Ministério do Trabalho e da Segurança Social. Estanque, E. 2005. ‘Classes, precariedade e ressentimento: mudanças no mundo laboral e novas desigualdades sociais’, Oficina do CES 238.  . 2009. ‘Precariedade, Sindicalismo e Ação Coletiva’, in AAVV, 2 anos a FERVEr. retratos da luta, balanço da precariedade. Porto: Afrontamento. pp. 87–91.  . 2012. ‘Precariedade, sindicalismo e ação coletiva’, Configurações 9: 81–103. Estanque, E., H.A. Costa and J. Soeiro. 2013. ‘The New Global Cycle of Protest and the Portuguese Case’, Journal of Social Science Education 12(1): 31–40. Estanque, E., and A.C. Ferreira. 2002. ‘Transformações no mundo laboral e novos desafios do sindicalismo português’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 62: 151–59. Ferreira, A.C. 2009. ‘Da sociedade precária à sociedade digna: balanço da evolução social em Portugal 2003–2008’, Relatório preliminar. Coimbra: CES. Ferreira, A.C., and H.A. Costa. 1998/1999. ‘Para uma sociologia das relações laborais em Portugal’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 52/53: 141–71. Foti, A. 2010. ‘Mayday Had Become Like a Funeral – Interview with Alex Foti’, Irish Anarchist Review 1: 8–11. Fraser, N. 2013. ‘Triple Movimiento? Entender la política de la crisis a la luz de Polanyi’, New Left Review 81: 125–39. GEP/MTSS (Gabinete de Estudos e Planeamento/Ministério do Trabalho e Segurança Social). 2016. Livro Verde sobre as relações laborais. Lisbon: GEP/MTSS. Governo de Portugal. 2017. Report ‘Levantamento dos instrumentos de contratação de natureza temporária na Administração Pública’ (Artigo 19.o da LOE 2016). Lisbon: Governo de Portugal. Leite, J., H.A. Costa, M.C. Silva and J.R. de Almeida. 2014. ‘Austeridade, reformas laborais e desvalorização do trabalho’, in J. Reis (ed.), A economia política do retrocesso: crise, causas e objetivos. Coimbra: Almedina/CES, pp. 127–88. Lima, M. d. P.C. 2014. ‘A reconfiguarção neoliberal do regime de emprego e de relações laborais, no período de intervenção da Troika’, A transferência de rendimentos do trabalho para o capital, June 2014. Lisbon. http://www.ces.uc.pt/ficheiros2/files/ Transferencia_trabalho_capital_19junho_MPazCL.pdf (accessed 14 December 2018). Linden, M. Van der. 2008. Workers of the World: Essays toward a Global Labor History. Leiden: Brill. Munck, R. 2013. ‘The Precariat: A View from the South’, Third World Quarterly 34(5): 747–62. Paugam, S. 2000. Le salarié de la précarité: Les nouvelles formes de l’intégration professionelle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Pinto, J.M., and V.B. Pereira. 2006. ‘Trinta anos de democracia: mudanças sociais e inconsistência institucional’, in M. Loff and C. M. Pereira (eds), Portugal: 30 anos de Democracia (1974-2004). Porto: Universidade do Porto, pp. 133–151. Reis, J. (ed.). 2014. A economia política do retrocesso: crise, causas e objetivos. Coimbra: Almedina/CES. Santos, B.S. 1985. ‘Estado e sociedade na semiperiferia do sistema mundial: o caso português’, Análise Social, XXI, 87-88-89: 869–901.

114 | José Soeiro

 . 1993. ‘O Estado, as relações salariais e o bem-estar social na semiperiferia: o caso português’, in B.S. Santos (ed.), Portugal: um Retrato Singular. Porto: Edições Afrontamento, pp. 17–56.  . 2005. O Fórum Social Mundial: Manual de Uso. Porto: Afrontamento.  . 2011. Portugal: Ensaio contra a autoflagelação. Coimbra: Almedina. Schmitt, B., and P. Spadoni. 2000. Les sentiers de la colère. Paris: L’esprit frappeur. Soeiro, J. 2015. ‘A Formação do Precariado: Transformações no Trabalho e Mobilizações de Precários em Portugal’. PhD dissertation. Coimbra: Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra. Standing, G. 2011. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury.  . 2014. A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens. London: Bloomsbury. Wright, E.O. 2016. ‘Is the Precariat a Class?’, Global Labour Journal 7(2): 123–35.

Part II

Protest, Media and Democracy

Chapter 6

Contentious Portugal Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution in the Portuguese Anti-Austerity Cycle of Protest Guya Accornero

Portugal in Transition On 25 April 1974, the Portuguese authoritarian regime Estado Novo was overthrown through a peaceful military coup by the officers of the Portuguese army, which had established the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas – MFA) with the aim of democratising the country, putting an end to the colonial war and starting the decolonialisation process. After two days of negotiations and some confrontations, the regime collapsed and Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano, who succeeded the leadership of António de Oliviera Salazar in 1969, surrendered power to General António Spinola. On 26 April, the creation of the National Salvation Committee (Junta de Salvação Nacional) was announced, headed by Spinola, and a decree-law was promulgated which extinguished the previous government, dissolving the National Assembly (Portuguese parliament), the political police PIDE/DGS,1 the Portuguese Legion (Legião Portuguesa) and the national youth organization, Portuguese Youth (Mocidade Portuguesa), all organisms of censorship, as well as Portugal’s singular party under the dictatorship government, the National Popular Action (Acção Nacional Popular), and removing Portugal’s president, Américo Tomás. At the same time, an amnesty was approved for all political crimes, leading to 130 political prisoners being liberated from the political prisons of Caxias and Peniche. The first provisional government, created in May 1974 and remaining in power until July, reflected the conservative influence of General Spinola who proposed a federal solution for the overseas colonies and

118 | Guya Accornero

the institutionalisation of a presidential democracy. With the second provisional government, created on 12 July 1974, the MFA programme of democratisation and decolonisation was strengthened; this was owed above all to Colonel Vasco Gonçalves, Prime Minister from the second to the fifth provisional governments (July 1974 to September 1975) and a sympathiser of the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português – PCP). It was during this period that most social measures characterising the ‘Portuguese revolution’ were undertaken, such as the agrarian reform, the nationalisation of key private enterprises (banks, insurance companies, public transport and steelworks, among others), the introduction of a minimum wage for civil servants and, through decree law 169-D/75 of 31 March, the adoption of unemployment benefits. At the same time, the decolonisation process was started. On 25 April 1975, the elections for the Constituent Assembly took place, being the first Portuguese democratic elections with universal suffrage. The Socialist Party (Partido Socialista – PS) obtained the most votes with 37.87% of the popular vote, followed by the centre-right Popular Democratic Party (Partido Popular Democrático – PPD)2 with 26.39%, and PCP with 12.46%. Historian Ana Mónica Fonseca states that, despite the diversity of parties working towards the constitutional project, ‘the revolutionary spirit was a common element, reflected in a left-wing language appealing to Socialism … transversal to all proposals’ (Fonseca 2013: 111). The constituent assembly was formed on 2 June 1975 and it started its work during the most intense and conflictual period of the PREC (Processo Revolucionário em Curso, Revolutionary Process Underway), known as the ‘hot summer’ (verão quente). In September 1975, the fifth provisional government headed up by Vasco Gonçalves fell and a new government led by the more moderate MFA movement was established. On 25 November, a failed coup d’état carried out by conservative officers put a definite end to the social fervour that had been brewing, to the revolutionary experience and to the Gonçalvist period. Finally, on 25 April 1976, Portugal held its first ever general elections with universal suffrage, with PS winning the majority of the votes, followed by the centre-right parties of PPD and CDS respectively, with the country’s fourth political force being that of PCP. These events marked the first phase of Portugal’s transition into democracy, which, unlike in simultaneous transitional processes that occurred in Spain and Greece, took the form of a political and social revolution. In this chapter, I will analyse how the Portuguese Revolution came to represent an essential source for mobilisation inspiration, framed by contentious players, and in the more recent crisis periods, defined by austerity. I will

Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution  |  119

start off by briefly drawing attention to the role of social movements in the construction of democracy in Portugal and taking into consideration the social rights and values expressed in the 1976 Constitution. I will then move to an analysis of austerity politics and their consequences in the country, considering them as an attack on what is termed the ‘April values’ (democratic values that came from the 25 Abril Revolution). I will sketch out the Portuguese anti-austerity cycle of protest, its main actors and the role that the 25 Abril Revolution’s memories and values played in the recent anti-austerity struggles. I will further highlight differences between the Portuguese and the Spanish case. To conclude, I will take the memories and values as inspired by the 25 Abril Revolution, setting out to explain how these can be connected to the political outcomes of the cycle of protest in recent years.

A Coup d’État which Became a Revolution As it is well known, the 1974 Portuguese coup d’état was immediately followed by a large social mobilisation. This period of Portuguese history, known as PREC, was characterised by large social mobilisations, radicalisation, conflicts between opposing political actors, coups and counter-coups, and a profound redefinition of social and political forces. At the basis of this process of political and social reshaping – which some scholars (Dobry 1986; Palacios Cerezales 2003) have referred to as a typical crisis of the state – there were strong pressures by grassroot, social movements and citizens’ massified involvement in what was perceived as a ‘fluid moment’ when everything seemed possible. The high level of political participation during the PREC, both in institutional channels (such as elections) and in less conventional forms (such as demonstrations, strikes, occupations), was an expression of this hope, and strongly contributed to the construction of democratic Portugal as we know it today (Durán Muñoz 1997; Schmitter 1999; Durán Muñoz 2000; Palacios Cerezales 2003; Ramos Pinto 2013, Accornero 2013 and 2016b). Different social scientists consider the PREC as one of the periods of most intense social mobilisation after the Second World War in Europe.3 Along with that, the PREC social movements have been identified as fundamental actors in strengthening the dimension of rupture of Portugal’s transition to democracy. Such movements pressed political institutional actors to undertake cutting measures in respect to the dictatorship past – such as the rapid dissolution of authoritarian institutions, of purges and political trials – and to implement social reforms which, to this day, are still

120 | Guya Accornero

at the basis of Portuguese democracy (Schmitter 1999; Palacios Cerezales 2003; Costa Pinto 2006). From this perspective, ‘the revolutionary period of 1974–75 was the most complex phase of the transition’ in which ‘it is still unclear what kind of regime (was) to be established’ (Costa Pinto 2006: 198). This perspective of transitional processes, as periods in which political results are uncertain, is shared by Leonardo Morlino (1998: 19), who considers them as ‘fluid and uncertain periods in which democratic structures are emerging’. Michel Dobry (1986) uses the concept of ‘political crisis’, an analytical instrument that, in turn, has been applied by Diego Palacios Cereales (2003) in his analysis of the Portuguese revolutionary period. According to Palacios Cerezales, it is this dimension of crisis which, even if perceived as an ‘uncertain’, unstable and risky situation by many, contributed to the emergence of social movements and to the unprecedented Portuguese citizens participation during the PREC. The feeling that ‘everything was possible’ stimulated engagement, with potential results being perceived as plausible options. This, in turn, sustained the mobilisation and encouraged the confronting of risks and costs.

The Legacy of Revolution in Portugal Democracy: The Role of Constitution In addition to full political rights, the Portuguese Revolution also introduced fundamental social rights which are an invaluable heritage for the country’s democracy. These measures, undertaken in the ‘hot summer’ of 1975 and further developed through the works of the newly elected Assembly, were expressed and enshrined in the 1976 Constitution, which has continued to develop a strong role in defending the basic principles of equality and social justice for the country. The Constitution was the legitimating base for the 25 April 1976 elections, in which the first democratic parliament was elected. Fonseca (2013: 111) underlined that the Constitution became the biggest symbol of the instatement of democratic pluralism and a parliamentary regime. Constitutionalist Jorge Miranda (2013) stresses that these elements conjointly aimed at moulding a liberal democratic regime up until the first constitutional revision in 1982, possessing unique characteristics for a liberal constitution and Western democracy, such as the articles pointing towards a ‘transition to socialism’ (article 2) through the ‘collective appropriation of the main means of production, soils and natural resources, and the exercise of democratic power held by the working class’ (article 80).

Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution  |  121

Moreover, the nationalisations undertaken in 1974 were confirmed, the implementation of the agrarian reform was prescribed, and great importance was attributed to the ‘democratic planning of the economy’. Thus, in 1976, when social mobilisation was decreasing and the political forces in charge were already in line with Western European liberal-democratic systems, the Portuguese constitution did, in fact, accede to the claims of social movements that had exploded under the PREC, incorporating the projects that had resulted from the most radical period of transition. The first constitutional reviews,4 in 1982 and in 1989, partly reformed more ‘socialist’ principles, reducing the dominance of the state over the economy, especially after Portugal joined the Economic European Community in 1986, and, even more significantly, at the time of the first International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) intervention in Portugal in 1983. Following reviews in 1992 (consistent with the Maastricht treaty), 1997 and 2001, liberal elements were strengthened – more representation, less centralisation, increased regional autonomy, more individual rights and guarantees – all the while reinforcing private initiative in the country’s economy. The 2003 revision, on the other hand, introduced more aspects related to the process of European integration, as did the reforms that followed in 2004 and 2005. In a more or less incisive manner, all these reforms aimed at limiting the state’s role in certain matters and bringing about the ‘dis-ideologisation’ of the Constitution. According to Miranda (2013: 100), however, ‘after seven constitutional reviews without rupture, since Portugal joined the European Community …, the constitution that the Constituent Assembly approved in 1976 was still the same’. Consequently, its (unchanged) strong focus on social rights played a significant role when Portugal was facing the hardest crisis of its recent history.

The Politics of Crisis and Austerity In Portugal, the outbreak of the 2008 financial and economic crisis brought about deep changes in politics and society. From 2008 onwards, ‘Portugal adopted three different approaches to the crisis, each of which was implemented by a different government. The first approach focused on the sustainability of the financial sector. The second shifted the focus to mitigating the adverse economic and social impact of the crisis. And the third approach concentrated on fiscal adjustment’ (Pedroso 2014: 2). These three phases correspond to the EU directive changes. Consistent with the brief neo-Keynesian period at the European level, in 2009 José Socrates’

122 | Guya Accornero

government adopted the Programme for Investment and Administration Development (Programa de Investimentos e Despesas de Desenvolvimento da Administração, PIDDAC), aiming at ‘increasing consumption and public spending in order to sustain both domestic demand and business enterprises’ (Pedroso 2014: 3). Re-elected Prime Minister in 2009, from 2010 onwards Socrates had to follow the new strategy imposed by the EU, with the adoption of the first Stability and Growth Programme (Programa de Estabilidade e Crescimento, PEC I). In the spring of 2011, the PEC IV, which included further cuts to public spending, was rejected by the parliament, provoking a political crisis, an economic external intervention and the resignation of the Prime Minister. Before new elections took place, in May 2011 Socrates signed the ‘Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality’ (MoU) with the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (the so called ‘Troika’). The agreement aimed to ‘reduce the Government deficit … by means of high-quality permanent measures’ (Memorandum 2011: 2) such as reducing the number of services, while maintaining quality of provision; reducing transfers from the State to public bodies and other entities; reducing costs in the area of education with the aim of saving EUR 195 million; and by ‘freezing wages’ and reducing the overall budgetary cost of health benefits schemes (Memorandum 2011: 3–4). Other cuts were imposed on the social benefits, pensions and rental systems. In June of that year, a new government was formed by the centre-right PSD and the right-wing CDS-PP. While many austerity measures had begun to be adopted by the previous Socialist government, these measures now intensified under the bailout conditions. These measures went on to have drastic consequences on the economic and social situation of the country (Castro Caldas 2012). The GINI index, which had started to decrease from 2005, started to increase once again in 2011, in what is traditionally one of Europe’s most unequal countries.5 According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Portugal suffered a downgrade, in respect to the Human Development Index, dropping from 29 globally in 2007 to 41 in 2014, occupying one of the last positions on the list of the countries having a ‘very high human development index’, nearly dropping to the level of the countries on the ‘high human development’ index.6 A 2016 report by two UN Special Rapporteurs, Léo Heller and Leilani Farha, for example, expressed concern about the impact of the unprecedented economic crisis and the austerity measures in relation to rights to housing, water and sanitation in Portugal, manifesting strong worries about the situation of people in vulnerable situations, including the ‘new poor’ – those pushed into poverty as a result of the austerity measures.7

Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution  |  123

According to the Eurostat, the Portuguese annual net earnings, in the case of a single person without children, was, in 2014, 40% lower than the European average.8 Permanent emigration more than doubled in only four years, moving from 23,760 emigrants in 2010 to 49,572 in 2014.9 At the same time, the percentage of people suffering from material deprivation increased from 21.9% in 2012 to 25.5% in 2013. In the case of people suffering from severe material deprivation, this figure moved from 9% in 2010 to 10.6% in 2014.10 The picture was also worsened by a significant decline in the GDP and an increase in unemployment from 7.6% in 2008 to 16.8% in 2013, achieving 38% in the case of those under 25 years of age.11 This situation was not surprising, ‘as history demonstrates, the consequence of insisting on this type of democracy-astringent … fiscal consolidation policy is that it probably produced more long-term social bads than short-term economic goods’ (de Sousa et al. 2014: 1525).

An Attack on the ‘April Values?’: The Blurry Boundary between Fiscal and Political Intervention This was not the first time that Portugal resorted to foreign assistance: previous IMF interventions in the country took place in 1978 and 1983, and all these moments were characterised by growing social protest. According to Ron Francisco’s ‘Protest Events and Coercion Database’,12 the year with the greatest number of protest events between 1980 and 1995 (170) was recorded in 1982, which was also the second-highest year in terms of labour strikes (101). Unsurprisingly, that was also the year in which the greatest number of people took part in protest actions (3,091,355), most of whom were strike participants (2,911,845) (Accornero 2012; Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015). There were two general strikes in 1982, the first ones since 1934.13 After the 1982 IMF intervention in the country, social protest significantly grew again at the end of 1980s, during the centre-right Second Cavaco Silva government.14 As this brief review shows, Portugal has experienced previous periods of austerity, times when the so-called ‘April Values’ came under attack. Nevertheless, if the revolution’s conquests – and the 1976 constitution in itself – has been threatened at other times in the recent past, as Miranda (2013) stresses, until recent years, it seemed like the intrinsic values established – relating to work, access to healthcare or education – have always been preserved. Moreover, if the criticism of the constitution, seen as ‘blocking necessary reforms’, is not new in centre and right-wing circles, during the recent crisis this attack took on new strength, due to its

124 | Guya Accornero

international legitimation in the context of the hegemonic austerity ideology. For instance, in a JP Morgan report (2013), the following statement was expressed: The political systems in the periphery were established in the aftermath of dictatorship, and were defined by that experience. Constitutions tend to show a strong socialist influence, reflecting the political strength that leftwing parties gained after the defeat of fascism … Political systems around the periphery typically display several of the following features: weak executives; weak central states relative to regions; constitutional protection of labour rights; consensus building systems which foster political clientalism; and the right to protest if unwelcome changes are made to the political status quo. The shortcomings of this political legacy have been revealed by the crisis. Countries around the periphery have only been partially successful in producing fiscal and economic reform agendas, with governments constrained by constitutions (Portugal), powerful regions (Spain), and the rise of populist parties (Italy and Greece).

This declaration shows how blurry the boundaries between the economic, financial and political levels can be. Similar positions, however, were also at the basis of the narratives legitimating the external assistance imposed by the Troika on Portugal, something that’s clearly expressed in the MoU. On this issue, according to Donatella della Porta (2012: 275): The contemporary crisis is in fact a crisis of democracy even more and before than a financial crisis. Neo-liberalism was, and, in fact, is, a political doctrine that brings with it a deteriorated vision of the public and democracy. It implied not only the less political interventions to balance social inequalities produced by the market (with policies of liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation), but also a very elitist (mainly electoral) conception of citizen participation, as well as an increased level of influence for lobbies and strong interests.

As a consequence, the external intervention did not aim exclusively at the control of economic performance and public expenditure, but it also addressed a set of issues related to the country’s internal administration, especially the instruments and mechanisms coded in national political systems, considered to be opposite to market logic. Hence, the protest against austerity measures in Portugal has obviously become a reaction towards defending constitutional rights established in the country and the ‘April values’.

Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution  |  125

Portuguese against Austerity Apart from a few exceptions (Fishman 2011; Fernandes 2012; Accornero 2012; Fernandes 2015; Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015), many social scientists consider Portuguese citizens as ‘alienated’ from politics and political participation, whether it be through institutional channels (Freire 2000 and 2003; Magalhães 2005), such as elections, parties, associations, or non-conventional channels, namely demonstrations, petitions and strikes (Magalhães 2005). If we are to look at the general frameworks of the political and social engagement of Portuguese citizens, the situation appears to be more complex. As previously referred to, Portuguese society has showed that it can react in difficult contexts and it has always played a significant role in the political and historical processes in the country. On the one hand, the PREC social movements were essential in corroborating the rupture with the authoritarian past, in institutionalising fundamental social rights and in the decolonisation process. On the other hand, whenever these achievements have been perceived as being a threat, contentious actors rose up and social protest has increased. This also happened in the recent context of crisis and austerity. According to the 2012 Social Survey, the average number of Portuguese citizens who declared having participated in at least one lawful demonstration during the previous year more than doubled in respect to 2010, increasing from 2.4% to 6.8%. Along with Spain and Ireland, Portugal was the country where this indicator showed the highest growth in Europe. A study carried out by the Portuguese police (Public Security Police – PSP) showed that, in Lisbon, the number of demonstrations increased from 244 in 2010 to 298 in 2011, and up to 579 in 2012 (one every 15 hours) (Elias and Pinho 2012: 43). The analysis of data collected by Accornero and Ramos Pinto, through the Protest Events Analysis (PEA) method, which included observation of all forms of contentious politics such as demonstrations, strikes and occupations, also showed the development of an intense cycle of protest between 2010 and 2013. In 2010, the first austerity measures were contested, above all by the trade union Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses – GCTP (General Confederation of Portuguese Workers), through a general strike that took place on 4 March 2010. A second general strike was organised in November. In the wake of these two strikes, social agitation grew significantly, reaching its peak with the mass demonstration organised by the Geração à Rasca (Desperate Generation – GàR) movement which took place on 12 March 2011.

126 | Guya Accornero

Following the 2011 elections and under the new government, two more peaks are evident in the cycle of protest: the first one in the second half of 2012 and the second in June 2013. Both of these were marked by huge demonstrations organised by the Que Se Lixe a Troika (The Hell with Troika – QSLT) movement, at a particularly critical moment in the process of implementing the austerity measures. The first demonstration organised by the QSLT took place on 15 September 2012, at a time when the government had just announced the increase of the unique social tax, a contributive social security tax applied to salaries. The second, and largest of the two, happened on 2 March 2013, in the context of growing concerns, dissatisfaction and anger against the government and the Troika, at a time when the harsh consequences of austerity measures on Portuguese social and economic life was becoming more and more evident. Along with GàR, the QSLT was a new contentious player that shared similar characteristics with the so-called ‘new new social movements’ (Feixa, Pereira and Juris 2009). Common features among these new protest movements were, above all, the rejection of institutionalised political parties, the recusal of the traditional left-right political and ideological categories, and their emphasis on direct democracy. Another relevant common point was the strong use of digital tools, both as an organisational resource of mobilisation and as an instrument allowing horizontal participation.15 Frequently associated with the Indignados in Spain, the GàR movement actually appeared before the Spanish one. On 12 March 2011, it was able to organise the first of a cycle of huge demonstrations, the largest since the revolutionary period (Baumgarten 2013; Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015). The event was organised by means of a Facebook page and a blog, where the organisers described potential followers and demonstrators in the following way: We the unemployed, ‘five hundred-euristas’ [minimum wage earners] and other underpaid workers, disguised slaves, the subterm and shortterm hired, fake independent workers, intermittent workers, trainees, scholarship holders, working students, students, mothers, fathers and offspring of Portugal … We protest so that those responsible for our situation of uncertainty – politicians, employers and ourselves – can act together, working towards a rapid change within this reality that has become unsustainable. (Protesto da Geração à Rasca 2011, author’s translation)

Avoiding any party identification, they adopted as their anthem the song Parva que sou (How dumb am I), by the Portuguese band Deolinda,

Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution  |  127

a song that expresses the difficulties and worries of a generation strongly affected by unemployment and precariousness.16 As some authors underline (Baumgarten 2013; Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015), in spite of the international references – such as the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring – the movement’s identity, claims and targets were clearly national. This was immediately evident in the name the organisers adopted, a reference to a 1990s youth movement called Geração à Rasca (Worthless Generation) that contested the education reforms and the tuition increases implemented by the PSD government in power at the time (Seixas 2005). The 12 March 2011 demonstration marked the starting point of what would be a redefinition of the arena of contestation in Portugal. GàR went on to create the new platform called M12M (Movimento 12 de Março, 12 March Movement) that again emphasised its distance from existing political parties and trade unions, avoiding positioning itself in a left-right axis, and adopting, as its only programmatic statement, Jose Saramago’s appeal to turn ‘every citizen into a politician’. During the summer of 2011, several other groups appeared from the M12M or were connected to it, such as Indignados Lisboa, Acampada Lisboa, Democracia Veradeira Já, Portugal Uncut or Attac Portugal. They created the 15 October (15O) platform, which, in collaboration with other similar groups around the world, had the aim to organize the international demonstration on 15 October 2011. If in the first phase of the cycle of protest some divergences and conflicts existed between traditional contentious players (such as trade unions) and the ‘new new social movements’, from September 2012 onward, a tendency towards increasing collaboration became evident (Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015). In October 2012, M12M leaders were joined by branches of the CGTP and Bloco de Esquerda (Left Block) to create the Congresso Democratico das Alternativas (Democratic Congress for Alternatives – CDA). The CDA managed to gather 1,500 people with the aim of developing a shared platform for the various movements and groups that were fighting against austerity.17 The CDA became a central supporter of the demonstrations that were to follow, organised by the Que se Lixe a Troika. Just like the M12M and the 15O,18 the QSLT avoided explicit connections to any political parties. However, although terms like left and right were never mentioned, its left-wing position was clear, if only for the important presence of Left Block militants, of members of organisations such as the Precários Inflexíveis (Inflexible Precarious) and by the occasional alliance with the CGTP. In conjunction with this, despite initial suspicions on the part of the Portuguese Communist Party towards the CDA and ‘new new social movements’ in general, this party became more willing to cooperate

128 | Guya Accornero

as the actions of these movements began to advance from the end of 2012 onwards.

‘Fathers and Children of April’: The Revolution as a Unifying Resource of Mobilisation for Different Generations of Activists All the demonstrations of the second phase of the cycle of protest – 15 September 2012 (QSLT), 29 September 2012 (CGTP), and 2 March 2013 (QSLT) – drew reciprocal support from various traditional and new organisations. At the same time, increasing references to the historical symbols of resistance and protest in Portugal became evident. Perceived as being under threat, the 25 April values were constantly framed in the cycle of protest, through the explicit reference to symbols of the Portuguese Revolution of 1974, activated in order to sustain mobilisation. Grândola Vila Morena, the revolution’s hymn, was sung by a group of activists attending a parliamentary debate on 15 February 2013, interrupting the prime minister’s speech. The same song was chosen as the anthem of large demonstrations organised by QSLT on 3 March across many Portuguese cities. During these demonstrations, several references to the 25 April coup-d’état, to the MFA and to the PREC were also made, namely to the Armed Forced Movement, the main actor of the revolution, for example with the slogan: ‘We want the Army back!’ The memory of the revolution is still very fresh in Portuguese society and, to date, has often been the foundation for social mobilisation. In her work, Britta Baumgarten (2017: 57) observed exactly this, having stressed that ‘among today’s social movements in Portugal we find a lot of references to the Carnation Revolution. Symbols, songs and slogans from the revolutionary period (and also some protest songs against the dictatorship) are noticeable at any of the anti-austerity demonstrations that have taken place in Portugal since 2011’. Baumgarten (2017: 57) further quotes the following words provided by an anti-austerity activist, who considers the 25th of April ‘the most important event for the social movements due to the fact that it is the most recent point in our history that, through the will of the people, a political regime changed radically’, further stating that ‘we are the children and grandchildren of April’. In her analysis, Baumgarten (2017) further underlines that, in the recent years of crisis and austerity, the government was seen as a betrayer, setting out to destruct the ‘conquests of April’ – the founding values, rights and the very fulcrum of Portuguese democracy. The reference to ‘April’ was

Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution  |  129

thus activated in order to sustain a mobilisation which was experienced not only as a contestation against harsh austerity measures and the deterioration of the economic conditions of most Portuguese but also as a fight aiming at defending the democratic values that emerged from the 1974 Revolution that was coming under attack. This argument is particularly relevant if we consider memory as part of the process of constructing a collective identity. As underlined by Zamponi and Daphi (2014), memories have to be understood, in the process of longitudinal diffusion of protest, as a selective mechanism strongly rooted in the present: ‘memory-approaches highlight that what happened in the past is not an objective fact, but a social construction, which selects, highlights and omits events’ (Zamponi and Daphi 2014: 197). Following this perspective, ‘memory is a channel of diffusion identifying past experiences that are more important in mobilisations today, or not’ (Zamponi and Daphi 2014: 198). Memory-rooted shared narratives, therefore, play a central role ‘in forming and maintaining movement identity’ (Daphi 2017: 101). Another interesting effect of the recent austerity context and antiausterity mobilisations is the ‘reactivation’ of former activists who, after having fought against the Estado Novo, had abandoned social activism after the 1974 Revolution. Among twenty-two former activists interviewed who had mobilised against Estado Novo in the late 1960s, nine stated that they had abandoned organised engagement after the PREC came to an end, explicitly referring to 25 November19 or the 25 April 1976 elections as the specific moment of their disengagement (Accornero 2016a). Among these nine, however, four stressed that they recently felt the need to reengage in political activities due to the specific political situation. This was the case of Rui, a former Coimbra student, who declared that, after having abandoned all forms of activist engagement at the end of the PREC, he felt the need to participate in the recent movements, above all in the QSLT protests. The same applies to Maria, a former Maoist activist who had been imprisoned and spent time in exile, who, after stressing her ‘radical cut’ with political activism, stated that, in the recent context of austerity, she was motivated to participate in anti-austerity mobilisations in order to aid in defending the ‘conquests of revolution’. A similar case is that of Bernardo, a former Trotskyist activist who disengaged from political activism after the PREC. In contrasting the early 1970s with recent times, Bernardo shared the sentiment that, back then, ‘everything was possible, but now this has been lost’. Because of this, having also underlined the gloom-ridden economic and political context the country was in, he pointed out that he had come back to the streets to participate in the QSLT demonstrations. Lastly, Glória, also a former Maoist activist who also withdrew from a life of activism

130 | Guya Accornero

after the PREC, spoke of having created a group consisting of her ‘former comrades’ from her student movement days, many of whom she had not seen in forty years. She explained feeling the need to do something in view of the ‘serious economic, political and social crisis sweeping through the country’ (Accornero 2016a). These cases show the strong connections that still persist in relation to the ‘April values’, across generations of activists, something that is also displayed in the collaboration between traditional and new contentious actors. In order to better understand this specific Portuguese case study, it is worth comparing the Portuguese example with that of next-door Spain. According to Kostis Kornetis (2014: 6), the predominant memory of the collective Spanish ideal is that of an ‘agreed transition’, of democratization as a moment of social appeasement, with which most Spaniards seem to identify. On the other hand, the social movements that emerged in the context of the crisis and austerity in Spain ‘also involved, in some way, a radical reconceptualization of the past’. Social movements, therefore, criticise this memory of a ‘model’ regime change, considering that it did not integrate all the forces and claims developed in the fight against Francoism and did not introduce a real rupture with the authoritarian past, two elements which would have compromised the implementation of a real democracy in the country.

Conclusions: The Portuguese Specificity from Transition to Austerity Unlike in Spain, in Portugal the revolutionary nature of the transition – implying a radical cut with the past, the involvement of new political forces in the institutional landscape and the introduction of important social rights expressed in the constitution – has developed a strong role as a resource of mobilisation at a number of critical moments. During the first forty years of democracy in Portugal, several attempts to ‘mitigate’ the revolutionary characteristic of the transition were carried out.20 This specifically happened in 2004, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the revolution when the official slogan, ‘April is evolution’, deliberately hid any revolutionary reference. In spite of these attempts, the relevance of the revolution as a founding moment in recent Portuguese contemporary history is intact in society, as mass participation, involving many young people, in the annual celebrations of the revolution’s anniversary shows. Moreover, according to a survey conducted by the Institute for Social Sciences of Lisbon University and the Expresso newspaper, 25 April is considered as the most important

Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution  |  131

event in Portuguese history by 59% of the Portuguese, with higher rates recorded among the illiterate.21 This conclusion is relevant not only in trying to understand the Portuguese case, but also for social movement studies in general. As highlighted by Polletta (1998: 138), scholars, observers and activists often perceive mobilisations as a kind of ‘fever’, that is, as something ‘sudden, impulsive and unplanned’. But, as Polletta demonstrated, organizational resources that can also be ‘dormant’ in phases of mobilization’s latency are indeed important for the protest. This allows continuities of social movements, even during periods of abeyance, where abeyance is considered as ‘a holding process by which movements sustain themselves in nonreceptive political environments and provide continuity from one stage of mobilization to another’ (Taylor 1989: 61). This introduces my last point, specifically related to the Portuguese case. In addition to reasons linked to the historical memory and the natural identification of recent movements with the protest actors of the PREC, according to some scholars, concrete elements exist which allow the activation and reproduction of the Portuguese capital of contentious resources. Robert Fishman (2011) stressed that the social revolution post-25 April caused a cultural renewal and the dissolution of the social hierarchy. That favoured the rooting of democratic practices, making Portuguese society more inclusive and open. From a quite different perspective, Tiago Fernandes (2012, 2015) states that the social revolution that occurred after the coup was imprinted in the associations and in the Portuguese institutions, serving to explain the continuity of the 25 April ‘spirit’ in the country. As Fernandes (2012: 19) states: ‘In Portugal, state transformations during the transition allowed for a higher control of the state apparatus by unions, especially the CGTP’. Fernandes suggests that the revolution not only gave more power to unions, but also turned them into central institutions in Portugal’s political life. According to the author, they remain that way until this day. He also claims that, for this reason, protection of labour is stronger than in Spain, given the connection between unions and some political parties. This could also explain the strong role developed in the era of antiausterity Portugal by trade unions and the ‘new new social movements’, traditionally conflictual actors. Accornero and Ramos Pinto (2015) show the predominance of protest related with the labour sphere. In the years 2010–2013, about two-thirds of protest (66.3%) emerged from this sphere. In comparison, the new players, such as the GàR, the M12M and the QSLT, fronted nineteen events (11.7%), only a few more than those organised by public and private sector consumers and clients (11.7%) (Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015).22

132 | Guya Accornero

Along with the common repertoire of references to the ‘April values’, the important role developed by trade unions and traditional conflictual actors was at the basis of the collaboration between these and the ‘new new social movements’ in the Portuguese case, which appears to be unique in the context of Southern European mobilisations during the crisis period. This could be considered as the main specificity of the cycle of protest against austerity in Portugal, and it has to be understood, as a long-term consequence of the specific path towards democracy followed by the country and its society, through a social revolution. The Portuguese protest cycle that started in 2011 can be said to have concluded after the great demonstration of 2 March 2013. But it is evident that Portugal experienced, during the years of crisis and austerity, the strongest protest cycle since the period of the PREC, and that this last one was a source of contentious structures, repertoire and frames for contemporaneous movements. Guya Accornero is Researcher at CIES-IUL and Assistant Professor at the ISCTE-IUL, Principal Investigator of the FCT funded Project ‘HOPES: HOusing PErspectives and Struggles: Futures of housing movements, policies and dynamics in Lisbon and beyond’, and co-chair of the Council of European Studies Social Movements Research Network. She has published articles in journals including Mobilization, Social Movement Studies, Journal of Contemporary Religion, West European Politics, Estudos IberoAmericanos, Democratization, Cultures & Conflicts, Análise Social and Historein. She is the author of The Revolution before the Revolution, and co-editor of Social Movements Studies in Europe: The State of the Art (both for Berghahn, 2016).

Notes This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, under the grant IF/00223/2012/CP0194/CT0001.   1. The PIDE (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado, International and State Defence Police) was renamed the DGS (Direcção-Geral de Segurança, General Security Directorat) in 1969.  2. The Popular Democratic Party was a right-wing party created on 6 May 1974 and legalised on 25 January 1975; in 1976, it changed its name to Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrata – PPD/PSD). To the right of PSD is the nationalist, conservative and liberal Social Democratic Centre–Popular Party (Centro Democrático Social-Partido Popular – CDS-PP), founded on 19 July 1974.

Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution  |  133

 3. It has been defined as ‘the broadest, deepest people’s social movement in post-war European history’ (Sousa Santos 1990: 27), as the ‘last left-wing revolution in twentieth-century Europe’ (Rosas 2004: 15) and as ‘some of the widest popular mobilisations of post-war Europe’ (Ramos Pinto 2007: iii).  4. The Constitution of the Portuguese Republic foresees, in articles 284 to 289, the mechanisms for the process of its own review. The initiative for its review must come from the members of parliament, who are responsible for preparing the constitutional review process (article 285). Any modifications to the constitution must be approved by a two-thirds majority of sitting MPs (article 286).  5. Pordata: http://www.pordata.pt/Portugal/%C3%8Dndice+de+Gini-2166 (accessed 6 November 2018).  6. Human Development Report (2014): http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr14report-en-1.pdf (accessed 6 November 2018).  7. OHCHR: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21021&LangID=E (accessed 6 November 2018).  8. Eurostat, Annual net earnings: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show. do?dataset=earn_nt_net (accessed 6 November 2018).  9. Pordata: http://www.pordata.pt/Portugal/Emigrantes+total+e+por+tipo-21 (accessed 11 December 2019). 10. Pordata: http://www.pordata.pt/Portugal/Taxa+de+priva%C3%A7%C3%A3o+mat erial+severa-2358 (accessed 11 December 2019). 11. Pordata: http://www.pordata.pt/DB/Portugal/Ambiente+de+Consulta/Tabela (accessed 6 November 2018). 12. ‘European Protest and Coercion Data’, Ron Francisco: http://web.ku.edu/~ronfrand/ data/ (accessed 22 April 2015). 13. From 1933 to 1974 strikes were forbidden under the Estado Novo’s laws. The strike that took place on 18 January 1934 was a revolutionary strike, called upon to overthrow the rise of fascism. Notably, this strike took place after decree-law No. 23050 was published on 23 September 1933, which abolished principal labour rights, such as the right to strike and to organise free elections for union leaders. 14. The future President of the Republic, Cavaco Silva, implemented, as Prime Minister, strong structural reforms to liberalise the Portuguese economy, including fiscal reforms, the liberalisation of public enterprises and state media, together with reforms of labour and agricultural legislation. 15. In respect to this and its relevance to the Portuguese case, see Simões and Campos (2016). 16. Sanches 2011. 17. See its website at http://www.congressoalternativas.org/ (accessed 22 April 2015). 18. M12M and 15O continued to exist during 2012–2013, but their participants were reduced to a few activists. 19. On 25 November a military coup attempt by officers close to the extreme left created a pretext for a countercoup by moderates, which put an end to the revolutionary process. 20. This happened in particular during the so-called ‘cavaquismo’, that is, during the two governments led by Cavaco Silva (see Soutelo 2009).

134 | Guya Accornero

21. Luísa Meireles, ‘25 de Abril é símbolo consensual da democracia’, Expresso, 14 April 2014: http://expresso.sapo.pt/25-de-abril-e-simbolo-consensual-dademocracia=f865511 (accessed 22 April 2015). 22. Similar findings are presented by Campos Lima and Artiles (2011 and 2014) and Costa, Dias and Soeiro (2014).

References Accornero, G. 2012. ‘A Mild-Mannered Country? Crises and Cycle of Protest in Democratic Portugal’, 23rd Conference of the International Political Science Association. Madrid: Universidade Complutense, 8–12 July.  . 2013. ‘Contentious Politics and Student Dissent in the Twilight of the Portuguese Dictatorship: Analysis of a Protest Cycle’, Democratization 20(6): 1036–55.  . 2016a. ‘I Wanted the Revolution: Militants’ Trajectories in Portugal from Dictatorship to Democracy’, The Politics and Protest Workshop, New York: CUNY Graduate Centre, 3 November.  . 2016b. The Revolution before the Revolution: Late Authoritarianism and Student Protest in Portugal. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books. Accornero, G., and P.R. Pinto. 2015. ‘“Mild Mannered”? Protest and Mobilisation in Portugal under Austerity, 2010–2013’, West European Politics 38(3): 491–515. Baumgarten, B. 2013. ‘Geração à Rasca and Beyond: Mobilizations in Portugal after 12 March 2011’, Current Sociology 61(4): 457–73.  . 2017. ‘The Children of the Carnation Revolution? Connections between Portugal’s Anti-Austerity Movement and the Revolutionary Period 1974/1975’, Social Movement Studies 16(1): 51–63. Campos Lima, M.P., and A.M. Artiles. 2011. ‘Crisis and Trade Union Challenges in Portugal and Spain: Between General Strikes and Social Pacts’, Transfer 17(3): 387–402.  . 2014. ‘Descontentamento na Europa em tempos de austeridade: Da ação coletiva à participação individual no protesto social’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 103: 137–72. Castro Caldas, J. 2012. ‘The Consequences of Austerity Policies in Portugal’, International Policy Analysis, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, https://library.fes.de/pdffiles/id-moe/09311.pdf (accessed 11 December 2019). Costa, H.A., H. Dias and J. Soeiro. 2014. ‘As greves e a austeridade em Portugal: Olhares, expressões e recomposições’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 103: 103–202. Costa Pinto, A. 2006. ‘Authoritarian Legacies, Transitional Justice and State Crisis in Portugal’s Democratization’, Democratization 13(2): 173–204. Daphi, P. 2017. Becoming a Movement: Identity, Narrative and Memory in the European Global Justice Movement. London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield. De Sousa, L., P. Magalhães and L. Amaral. 2014. ‘Sovereign Debt and Governance Failures: Portuguese Democracy and the Financial Crisis’, American Behavioral Scientist 58(12): 1517–41.

Reverberation of the 1974 Revolution  |  135

della Porta, D. 2012. ‘Mobilizing against the Crisis, Mobilizing for “Another Democracy”: Comparing Two Global Waves of Protest’, Interface 4(1): 274–77. Dobry, M. 1986. Sociologie des crises politiques. Paris: Presses de la FNSP. Durán Muñoz, R. 1997. ‘Oportunidad para la transgresión. Portugal, 1974-1975’, Ler História 32: 83–116.  . 2000. Contención y transgresión: Las movilizaciones sociales y el Estado en las transiciones española y portuguesa. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales. Elias, L., and P. Pinho. 2012. ‘Reuniões e manifestações: Os desafios das novas formas de contestação social’, Polícia Portuguesa 4(3): 37–53. Feixa, C., I. Pereira and J. Juris. 2009. ‘Global Citizenship and the ‘New New’ Social Movements: Iberian Connections’, Young 17(4): 421–42. Fernandes, T. 2012. ‘Civil Society After Dictatorship: A Comparison of Portugal and Spain, 1970s–1990s’, Kellogg Institute Working Paper Series 384.  . 2015. ‘Rethinking Pathways to Democracy: Civil Society in Portugal and Spain, 1960s–2000s’, Democratization 22(6): 1074-104. Fishman, R. 2011. ‘Democratic Practice after the Revolution: The Case of Portugal and Beyond’, Politics & Society 39(2): 233–67. Fonseca, A.M. 2013. ‘A Constituição de 1976: O contexto político’, in A.M. Belchior (ed.), As Constituições republicanas portuguesas: Direitos fundamentais e representação política (1911–2011). Lisbon: Mundos Sociais, pp. 103–19. Freire, A. 2000. ‘Participação e abstenção nas eleições legislativas portuguesas, 1975– 1995’, Análise Social 35(154–155): 115–45.  . 2003. ‘Pós materialismo e comportamentos políticos: o caso português em perspectiva comparada’, in J. Vala, M.V. Cabral and A. Ramos (eds), Valores sociais: Mudanças e Contrastes em Portugal e na Europa. Lisbon: ICS, pp.295–362. J.P. Morgan. 2013. ‘The Euro Area Adjustment: About Halfway There’, 28 May 2013. https://culturaliberta.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/jpm-the-euro-area-adjustmentabout-halfway-there.pdf (accessed 11 December 2019). Kornetis, K. 2014. ‘“Is There a Future in This Past?” Analyzing 15M’s Intricate Relation to The Transición’, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 15(1–2): 83–98. Magalhães, P. 2005. ‘Disaffected Democrats: Political Attitudes and Political Action in Portugal’, West European Politics 28(5): 973–91. Meireles, L. 2014. ‘25 de Abril é símbolo consensual da democracia’, Expresso, 14 April 2014: http://expresso.sapo.pt/25-de-abril-e-simbolo-consensual-dademocracia=f865511 (accessed 22 April 2015). Memorandum. 2011. ‘Portugal: Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy 17 May 2011’, http://ec.europa.eu/ economy_finance/eu_borrower/ mou/2011-05-18-mou-portugal_en.pdf. Miranda, J. 2013. ‘A Constituição de 1976’, in A.M. Belchior (ed.), As Constituições republicanas portuguesas: Direitos fundamentais e representação política (1911-2011). Lisbon: Mundos Sociais, pp. 83–103. Morlino, L. 1998. Democracy between Consolidation and Crisis: Parties, Groups and Citizens in Southern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Palacios Cerezales, D. 2003. O Poder Caiu na rua: Crise de Estado e Acções Colectivas na Revolução Portuguesa, 1974–1975. Lisbon: ICS.

136 | Guya Accornero

Pedroso, P. 2014. ‘Portugal and the Global Crisis: The Impact of Austerity on the Economy, the Social Model and the Performance of the State’, International Policy Analysis, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id/10722.pdf (accessed 11 December 2019). Polletta, F. 1998. ‘“It Was Like A Fever…”: Narrative and Identity in Social Protest’, Social Problems 45(2): 137–59. Protesto da Geração à Rasca. 2011. Manifesto. https:// geracaoenrascada.wordpress.com/ manifesto/ (accessed 6 January 2017). Ramos Pinto, P. 2007. ‘Urban Protest and Grassroots Organisations in Lisbon, 1974– 1976’, PhD dissertation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.  . 2013. Lisbon Rising: Urban Social Movements in the Portuguese Revolution, 1974–75. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Rosas, F. 2004. Portugal Século XX: Pensamento e Acção Política. Lisbon: Notícias. Sanches, A. 2015. ‘Um desempregado, um bolseiro e uma estagiária inventaram o Protesto da Geração à Rasca’, Público, 26 February 2011: http://www.publico.pt/ sociedade/noticia/um-desempregado-um-bolseiro-e-uma-estagiaria-inventaram-oprotesto-da-geracao-a-rasca-1482270 (accessed 22 April 2015). Schmitter, P. 1999. Portugal do Autoritarismo à Democracia. Lisbon: ICS. Seixas, A.M. 2005. ‘Aprender a democracia: jovens e protesto no ensino secundário em Portugal’, Revista Crítica das Ciências Sociais 72: 187–209. Simões, J.A., and R. Campos. 2016. ‘Juventude, movimentos sociais e redes digitais de protesto em época de crise’, Comunicação, Mídia e Consumo 13(38): 130–50. Sousa Santos, B. 1990. O Estado e a Sociedade em Portugal. Porto: Afrontamento. Soutelo, L.C. 2009. ‘A memória do 25 de Abril nos anos do cavaquismo: o esenvolvimento do revisionismo histórico através da imprensa (1985–1995)’, MA thesis. Porto: University of Porto. Taylor, V. 1989. ‘Social Movement Continuity: The Women’s Movement in Abeyance’. American Sociological Review 54: 761–75. Zamponi, L., and P. Daphi. 2014. ‘Breaks and Continuities in and between Cycles of Protest: Memories and Legacies of the Global Justice Movement in the Context of Anti-Austerity Mobilisations’, in D. della Porta and A. Mattoni (eds), Spreading Protest: Social Movements in Times of Crisis. Colchester: ECPR Press, pp. 193–225.

Chapter 7

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies in the Portuguese Anti-Austerity Protests Britta Baumgarten

The anti-austerity protests were a window of opportunity for the creation of new activist groups. Protest events and organisational platforms, like 15O and Primavera Global, brought together old activists and attracted some new people. In this chapter I focus on the smaller forms of mobilisation. I here shed light on some of the most interesting activist groups that were created during 2011 and 2012: the Indignados of Lisbon, Exército de Dumbledore, Alvorada Ribatejo and the unemployment movement (Movimento Sem Emprego – MSE). Even though all of these groups developed in the context of crisis and austerity and are all part of the struggle against austerity policies, they show a great variety of ideas and principles of organisation. This diversity often gets lost when we write about ‘the anti-austerity movement in Portugal’. I focus on activist groups, describing their inner logic of existence, concepts of organisation, and aims. Furthermore, I point out any similarities the groups share. The existing literature on the anti-austerity movement in Portugal usually speaks about new structures of organisation, potential for mobilisation and new forms of action without going into much detail about the actual activist groups that constitute this movement (Soeiro 2014; Baumgarten 2013, 2016). Some authors write about a single activist group and their functioning in more detail but stay at the descriptive level (Carvalho 2014). Based on my fieldwork on the anti-austerity movements from 2011 to 2013, I am going to present the activist groups, their aims, principles of organisation and practices, and relate those to the general context of the anti-austerity protests in Portugal since 2011.

138 | Britta Baumgarten

Collective Identities and the Backstage of Protest A short look at a mainstream definition of ‘social movement’ from the Encyclopaedia Britannica makes us realise the importance of identity: ‘Social movement, loosely organised but sustained campaign in support of a social goal, typically either the implementation or the prevention of a change in society’s structure or values. Although social movements differ in size, they are all essentially collective. That is, they result from the more or less spontaneous coming together of people whose relationships are not defined by rules and procedures but who merely share a common outlook on society’ (Killian et al. 2017). Social movements are fragile, because of their loose organisation. They need a collective of people in order to exist, but these people are connected mainly by their common outlook on society. Such a common outlook is harder to reach in modern times, given the information society and a plurality of life worlds. So, it is surprising that social movements are flourishing. In Portugal they have gained importance after a period of nearly forty years of relative silence following the Carnation Revolution and the PREC in 1974/1975 (Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2014; Baumgarten 2013; Estanque et al. 2013). In researching the anti-austerity movement, we are faced with some conceptual challenges. The new forms of organisation of activism, already different from what some named the ‘new new social movements’ (Feixa et al. 2009), force us to adapt our categories or even substitute them with new ones. In this chapter I compare some forms of activism that arose and/ or flourished during the anti-austerity protests, pointing out a number of the conceptual challenges as well. In talking about new forms of organisation of activism, we have to specify what is new about them. Therefore, it is necessary to take a closer look at what Haug (2013: 706) calls the ‘backstage of protest’. In Portugal, there are new forms of protest to be observed, like ‘grandolar’, the strategic use of an old protest song from the Carnation Revolution of 1974 in order to disrupt politicians in their speeches. We observe more colourful mass demonstrations than before 2011, some political occupations and more protest events conceptualised for a distribution via the Web 2.0 (Baumgarten and Díez García 2017). However, the use of a few new forms of action does not justify talk of a new type of movement. What is more interesting in the anti-austerity activism since 2011 are new forms of organising activism, e.g. the public assemblies, occupations, new practices of decision making and ideas to politicise outstanders (Baumgarten 2016). To analyse these new forms of organisation, we have to focus on the backstage of protest in more detail. Research on the backstage of protest

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  139

includes the large literature on democratic practices and creating spaces for debate, the interplay of online and offline communication, practices of alliance building and cooperation, everyday routines and the creation of movement identities. The focus here is on how activists organise themselves into a movement and sustain their activities over time (Haug 2013: 706). Identity is a very interesting concept here, because it highlights the aspect of what unites political activism. ‘Before members of any group can present “their” demands to authorities or strategize about how “they” can best bring about desired changes, they need to know “who they are”’ (Whittier 2015: 115). ‘Through its analysis of boundary work, collective identity scholarship has also shed light on why groups that on the surface seem to be compatible in terms of goals can nevertheless have problems building alliances’ (Flesher Fominaya 2010: 401). As I am writing about very young groups and spaces1 for activism, I obviously cannot talk about long-term processes of identity formation within movements. So, in talking about the creation and cultivation of an internal culture (Whittier 2015:  118) regarding these cases, we have to restrict the analysis to a very short period in time. That said, this is a very interesting moment in the creation of internal culture, as by creating a space or a group, first decisions about its internal functioning have to be made and put into practice. Some groups reported on changes and learning processes that contributed to building up an internal culture during the period in question. Moreover, we observe a specific kind of identity formation which – not just because of the limited time for experiences of the new group or space itself – refers to older forms of activism, either developing something in contrast to or conformity with other movements, trade unions and political parties. But let us first have a closer look at what we are talking about, when we focus on identity. Polletta and Jasper (2001: 285) define collective identity as an individual’s cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community, category, practice, or institution. It is a perception of a shared status or relation, which may be imagined rather than experienced directly, and it is distinct from personal identities, although it may form part of a personal identity. … Collective identities are expressed in cultural materials – names, narratives, symbols, verbal styles, rituals, clothing, and so on – but not all cultural materials express collective identities. Collective identity does not imply the rational calculus for evaluating choices that ‘interest’ does. And unlike ideology, collective identity carries with it positive feelings for other members of the group.

140 | Britta Baumgarten

One of the important aspects of the new wave of mobilisation were affective ties. In Portugal, we often observe an overlapping between friendship ties and activism in the same groups or spaces. As Mcclurg (2003) points out, the relation between social networks and political participation is, in fact, nothing new under this scenario. Also, approaches to movement identity point out the importance of affective ties (Flesher Fominaya 2010). As ideological commitment and tight membership structures become less important, affective ties might even gain importance in political participation: ‘Social relationships based on friendship or sexual attraction are often important in recruiting people to protest events and social movements, and these relationships also help to keep people in a group once they have joined’ (Hirsch 2015: 106). According to the type of organisation of activism, however, affective ties can have different functions, as we will show later in this chapter. The concept of identity was developed in cases of movements of people that organised themselves in order to defend issues closely related to their personal identity. Collective identity was thus built on dominant aspects of individual identity that were relevant for the movement. Here we identify the first difference between the new social movements of the 1960s and 1970s and today’s movements against austerity. McDonald (2002: 111) criticises the fact that ‘the conception of “collective identity” that emerged over the 1990s, closely linked to a model of social movement as “contentious politics” (McAdam et al. 2001), represents a significant obstacle to our capacity to explore the forms of social struggle characterising social formations that increasingly take the form of networks, scapes and flows’. Rucht (2011) observes a trend towards weak collective identities in social movements supported by processes of social change, like individualisation, less stable biographies, changes between milieus and a higher mobility in modern societies. Following Rucht’s rationale, this helps to explain why inflexible orders and religions lose their importance in an increasingly complex world, just as individual preferences change: especially young generations who tend to engage in a short-term, situational manner, instead of building up a lifelong political and social engagement. Weak collective identities are, therefore, better suited to attract young activists. Rucht argues that because of these changes in society, some social movements today have weak identities that are moreover advantageous for protest mobilisation. Recent protests often involve various smaller milieus in the mobilisation process that organise protests together. Weak identities make it easier to build loose and sometimes short-term networks across social groups. They allow for a more flexible adaptation to changing external frameworks. In

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  141

terms of communicational range, Rucht speaks about bridging as opposed to the former bonding: referring to Granovetter (1973), he observes that the weak ties that correspond to weak collective identities lead to a wider communicative range than more homogenous groups. In addition, they also serve better to attract media attention. Strong collective identities are rare and only found at the group or organisational level. It is more difficult for groups with a strong identity to be integrated into larger mobilising networks (Rucht 2011: 73–74). So, there is a trend towards weak collective identities: identities that are in no way a shortfall, but, instead, welcomed by activists and supporters (Rucht 2011: 82–83). Referring to global activism, Della Porta (2005) speaks about ‘tolerant identities’ that are more inclusive and welcoming of diversity and crossfertilisation. Such ‘tolerant identities’ often use broader frames and aims, try to avoid structures of representation and prefer deliberation over voting. The new wave of protest of the indignados (indignants) and occupy movements are characterised mainly by such weak and tolerant identities. Their openness to and search for diversity, their internal practices of decision making by deliberation and development of mechanisms to include minority voices, are examples of this (Díez García 2016; Flesher Fominaya and Cox 2013; Della Porta and Mattoni 2014; Dufour et al. 2010; Tejerina and Perugorría 2012). These new ways of activism, however, also question our conceptual frameworks. Does it still matter who organises an assembly, with its certain aims and frameworks, or is it rather the mechanisms of functionality, the practices and forms of inclusion of diverse voices that matter? Can we talk about a common identity if what we observe are rather fluid processes of organising and short-term campaigns, and if participants refuse to represent others? Furthermore, the existence of many activist groups with very few members and often strong affective ties in Portugal further raises the question of boundaries between friendship and activism. The already described shift of research interest to the backstage of protest often already includes a reconceptualisation of social movements as ‘spaces’ instead of actors. It ‘reflects the importance that contemporary activists have attributed to the internal structure and decision-making processes’ (Haug 2013: 706). Haug proposes focusing on meetings as one of the core activities of activists where a lot of time and effort is spent: ‘“social movement entrepreneurs” use meetings to mobilise constituencies and to form alliances. In fact, even less-engaged activists probably spend most of their activist time in meetings’ (Haug 2013: 707). But it is not for quantitative reasons alone that activist meetings are of interest:

142 | Britta Baumgarten

for each participating actor, the meeting appears as an action space which constrains their agency in various ways; but at the same time, this structure is also produced and reproduced by these same actors … the participants do not simply ‘find’ an arena, they construct it interactively. And the participants’ expectations are not static but are continuously negotiated and adjusted to the situation in which they find themselves throughout the meeting. (Haug 2013: 710)

‘In contrast to formal organisations, the relationships among activists are not pre-defined by formalised rules and roles, and even their goal may be unclear and contested. Under these circumstances, meetings are the natural way to establish and stabilise social relations, and to create a social order that facilitates collective action and fosters social change’ (Haug 2013: 707). We can distinguish various characteristics of meeting arenas. Referring to Haug (2013: 715), I here present some characteristics that are useful to analyse the case of the Portuguese anti-austerity activism: 1) Membership: openness regarding who can participate; 2) Hierarchy: certain roles that give participants authority or privileges within the meeting; 3) Rules: e.g. time and place of the meeting, maximum speaking time, specific rules to facilitate equal participation, type of decision making (Haug 2013: 715). Approaches to identity and the conceptualisation of movements as space are useful to better understand the new groups and spaces of activism founded during the high phase of protest against austerity in Portugal. I follow Polletta and Jasper (2001: 285) who claim that ‘the analytical challenge is to identify the circumstances in which different relations between interest and identity, strategy and identity, and politics and identity, operate; circumstances that include cultural processes as well as structural ones’. Polletta and Jasper’s statement is thus not just about describing new movement identities, but also observing how they are shaped by the political context and strategical aims of the movements. Analysing the organisational practices of the activist groups means taking a closer look at how the public assemblies or meetings are conceptualised and how they work in practice. These processes are part of the group’s identity, but it is not enough just to take a look at the practices in meetings to understand identity. That said, it is the interplay between ideas, practices, external limitations and aspirations that I will now analyse.

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  143

Activist Groups within the Portuguese Anti-Austerity Movement The years 2011 and 2012 opened up a window of opportunity for the organisation of new forms of activism in Portugal. The first large demonstration of the ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Desperate Generation) on 12 March 2011 was more than a singular mass demonstration. It was an eye-opener for the possibilities of mobilisation outside the common structures of trade unions and political parties. This is brought forth in the words of an activist named Mario: I think that the first thing that became obvious was the possibility to have a social movement besides trade unions. This was something until then not so obvious in Portugal. We thought that no one besides us, outsider of the trade unions and the political parties, could organise something that was not something marginal, something vanguard. As a result, this idea in the heads of the people changed.

All assemblies and groups analysed in this chapter are part of the wave of protest against austerity that started in 2011. They were created at different times of the protest cycle and, in some cases, their creation is closely related to the specific framework of anti-austerity protest at the time. Before getting into this analysis, however, I start with a short description of the anti-austerity protest in Portugal. The ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Desperate Generation) protest was the starting point of a climate of increased openness towards political participation. During the weeks after the March 2011 protests, there were many smallscale attempts to mobilise people politically, at a time when the organisation of protests in platforms or assemblies were not an issue. I was told by interviewees about small groups of friends that started gathering to discuss politics, but, among these meetings, only one larger meeting took place to discuss how to continue with the struggle. At that meeting the dominant voices favoured many small groups instead of a unified approach. This decision was heavily criticised by some activists, claiming it was an attempt to divide the movement (Baumgarten 2016). Visible protest mobilisation reappeared in May 2011, with the occupation of Rossio, a central square in Lisbon (Baumgarten 2016, 2013). This was the starting point of the creation of new groups and platforms, like the Indignados de Lisboa. In Santarém the movement Alvorada Ribatejo was created in the summer of the same year. A single, large-scale international

144 | Britta Baumgarten

protest on 15 October was followed by a series of less successful attempts to organise large street protests. The platform 15O, which was created in the spring of 2011 by several activist groups with the aim of organising protests against austerity as a united front, faced difficulties in their joint decision making. It did not work as an open space to bring individuals together, because most of these individuals were already part of groups with strong identities and a history of former difficulties in working together. Due to this, 15O became smaller and lost its role as a platform by the spring of 2012. Exército de Dumbledore was created at the end of 2011. In the summer of 2012, the unemployment movement (MSE) was created in order to mobilise the large masses of unemployed people: those placed in a jobless situation as a result of the debt crisis and the austerity programme. Another space of activism where different groups and some individuals came together was Primavera Global. Organised well in advance by Primavera Global was the long-term occupation of a public park in Lisbon, an action that did not succeed in terms of participation numbers. In autumn 2012, the group Que se Lixe a Troika (QSLT) started to organise various large-scale protests, which also incited smaller, independent protests carried out by spontaneous groups, such as Grandoladas (Baumgarten 2017). Participation in the QSLT protests, for most activists, was restricted to participation in the street demonstrations. The meetings of this group were not public and excluded some activists with different ideas about activism that, in the former processes of organisation, caused unfruitful discussions (Baumgarten 2017). Building on the above, I will now describe the four newly created groups mentioned in more detail, and then discuss the differences between them. This study is based on fieldwork carried out from 2011 to 2013, consisting of around 280 hours of participant observation of meetings. As well as the carrying out of informal discussions at these meetings, twenty-seven semi-structured interviews with activists were also conducted in 2012 and 2013. One later interview, with an activist from Alvorada Ribatejo, was conducted specifically for this publication in February 2018. Interviewees were chosen for being amongst the most active participants in the group meetings. While the activists from Exército de Dumbledore were around 20 years old, activists from the other groups analysed were between the ages of 25 and 35. In total, 30% of participants were female. I interviewed activists from the cities of Lisbon, Coimbra, Oporto, Póvoa de Varzim and Santarém. Interviewees from Lisbon and Santarém knew me before the interviews from my participant observation activities at meetings, while those from the other cities were indicated to me by activists from Lisbon.

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  145

Indignados Lisboa The Indignados and the public assemblies organised by them were probably the most popular amongst the new actors that composed the anti-austerity movement. Inspired by the Spanish 15M and the public assemblies that were organised all over Spain, but also related to the concepts of earlier assemblies, like the ones organised during the Arab Spring, the Indignados were founded after the occupation of Rossio in the spring of 2011. Conversations with participants about the Indignados were often accompanied by the advice that the conversation partner could not speak for the group as such. Diversity is probably the main characteristic of this group. Its main aim, according to the participants I spoke to, was to stimulate political debates in open assemblies. This does, however, not mean that the Indignados were only concerned with debates. Besides broader political discussions, they organised protest events at their public assemblies. Their main task, however, remained the creation of spaces of open, self-organised groups and the providing of information about political issues. For the Indignados, the idea was to create local assemblies in order to help interested people create their own assemblies. Such assemblies were to be carried out according to the principles of being open public spaces, bringing people with different ideas together to talk about politics and to get involved in political action. There was no attempt to control these local assemblies, but there were two national meetings of the assemblies that served as a space for exchange of ideas and learning. In 2012, a group was formed, dedicated to informing by creating a newspaper similar to the newspapers created in Spain. The newspaper did not succeed, but people from the Indignados engaged in producing films and distributing information about activism in Portugal and abroad. Creating open spaces for debate was not only inspired by what was coming out of Spain. An interviewee told me that there was a greater need for an open kind of activism which was not attached to any kind of political party or trade union. The creation of the Indignados, therefore, was also regarded as a reaction to the perceived lack of openness of the existing activist groups in Portugal at the time. In the words of Isabel: I think that the people here were tired of hierarchies, tired of how the trade unions and political parties are constantly leading. For me that kind of activism is valuable, but this here is something else. To join this group, you simply show up … To start something you just bring an idea and do something. We are open to any kind of suggestion. You are here as a citizen, just a group of citizens that come together and do something. There is nothing more. It is not necessary to makes

146 | Britta Baumgarten

things more complicated. Great ideals? No. Basically it is this, we do not have leaders, we represent ourselves, you are a citizen who wants to do something and does it. It is what it is. It is very simple.

The assemblies were mainly held in public places and parks, because the Indignados wanted to avoid any obstacles to participation. People could simply pass by and stop if they become interested in the assemblies. Often there were interested bypassers that listened to the assemblies for a while. Regarding their main aim, the Indignados stayed with the tradition of constructing power instead of taking over power. Large demonstrations were welcomed, but they were not regarded as an end goal as such: ‘For us success does not mean bringing people out on to the streets to demonstrate, this because we think that a one-day protest does not change a ot of things. It has some relevance, but it is very relative. For us, success is getting people to think by themselves, meet and self-organise’ (Rui). The work at the day-to-day level was regarded as more important than large events, just as the idea of growth was not related to the construction of a mass movement with a central structure, but, instead, various independent spaces where people organise themselves. This idea was put into practice at a large public assembly at the 15 October 2011 demonstration organised by various groups. It was at this assembly, in fact, that the Indignados started to create local assemblies. According to an interviewee, they collected around 200 e-mail addresses from people interested in creating their own local assemblies at that demonstration. E-mails had been sent to all those people interested in starting processes of auto-organisation of local assemblies. Three assemblies, two in Lisbon (the Graça Popular Assembly and the Benfica Indignados) and one on the Tagus South Bank (the Barreiro Assembley), worked well for some time (Carvalho 2014). The fundamental idea of the local assemblies was to keep them horizontal and not hierarchical. They should have full autonomy and not depend on the Indignados or any other group. The Indignados are a mobiliser and creator of assemblies, but do not want any responsibility, nor be a central assembly. They want complete independency and sovereignty of the assemblies, want to create spaces of discussion so each assembly establishes its own functioning mechanisms, be it consensus based or not. (Rui)

The local assemblies, for example, organised debates, public gardening projects and cultural projects, most of which were centred at the local level. At the two national meetings, ideas about the organisation of assemblies

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  147

and other events were exchanged. The activities of the Indignados Lisboa ended in 2013, but many of the local projects continued and were further developed. Many former participants became part of other more structured projects such as cultural centres and Web 2.0 based projects aimed at spreading information about political issues worldwide.

Movimento Alvorada Ribatejo – Santarém (Ribatejo Dawn Movement) Movimento Alvorada Ribatejo came together in Santarém, a very conservative town of around 60,000 inhabitants located in the interior of Portugal, 80km from Lisbon. The proximity to Lisbon, as well as the extremely difficult backdrop for mobilisation, were factors that shaped this movement, organised by two young local men. Inspired by the protest events in Lisbon, the group was founded in 2011, originally with the purpose of organising a protest event against austerity which then led to further events being organised and the creation of a Facebook page. The founders followed the idea of initiating political debate and organising themselves politically outside the established fields of political parties and trade unions in the Santarém region. The group maintained close contacts with various other groups in Lisbon in order to exchange information and organise events. Alvorada Ribatejo continues to organise events today, though the group has never grown beyond the two core organisers as far as leadership in concerned. The group has remained open to anyone interested in joining, having developed specific strategies to motivate people to join the debates. As one of the organisers, António, stated: Always with a megaphone. This is kind of our trademark. We have gone out with the megaphone many times to get closer to the people. This caused funny situations, what we have jokingly called ‘spontaneous’ popular assemblies. We get close to the people with the megaphone and just start talking to seven, eight people, talk a bit about things, about the situation of the country.

The fact that Alvorada Ribatejo has continued to mobilise over the years may be a surprise to many readers, for, given the small size of the movement, it might be interpreted as not having had any sort of success. Throughout its history, the group has not focused on a single issue, but, instead, has mobilised for various reasons, namely anti-austerity protests, debates about language reform, meetings to debate actual political frameworks, etc. No

148 | Britta Baumgarten

institutionalisation or radicalisation was ever observed from this group, so how did it survive? The motivation for becoming active, in this case, was rather more moral based than strategical. In the face of the extreme situation of austerity politics, the activists felt they had a moral obligation to do something. The group claim is that ‘change is always in our hands’,2 so one single person and that person’s engagement is considered enough to make a difference. They believe that their activities make a difference, so to stop carrying out activities is not regarded as an option, because ‘if we stop, nothing will ever change’. The group organised protests in Santarém and takes part in protests in other cities as well. They also organise their own events, promoting debate on local issues. In observing their actions, I noted that their demonstrations and assemblies were always small. Often events consisted of the two organisers with their megaphones and a few more people with signs. Their greatest success in numbers was a protest held in May 2012 which had around 60 participants. The organisers, however, mentioned being quite aware of the difficulties in mobilising people in their region. They described their work as ‘breaking stones’, making it known that it seemed that people were afraid to participate in demonstrations. So, one main aspect of their activities became to show the possibilities of mobilising and to inspire people to create their own initiatives. Still, the small size of the movement was in no way detrimental for the group. In many conversations with activists from different groups in Lisbon, the two organisers in Santarém were celebrated for their courage and stamina. There was a lot of moral support from the Lisbon activists, although they seldom came to Santarém in person. Small demonstrations organised by Alvorada Ribajejo, however, were well appreciated by many activists, viewed as courageous, as signs for a new beginning, praised for the individual will to fight or, as one interviewee put it: ‘It’s a poetic situation, it’s poetic to see six people doing a demonstration, but it’s there, the will is there’ (Beatriz). A slogan posted by Alvorada Ribatejo tells us about their understanding of democracy: ‘Democracy, in which all can and should participate with opinions and solutions for a better future for all’. So, as in the case of the Indignados Lisboa, Alvorada Ribatejo was recognised for its diversity and exchange of ideas, carried out jointly with the aim of improving society. The group was often praised for its complete openness, and, in this context, the small number of participants was pointed out as being an advantage as well. The two organisers of Alvorada Ribatejo not only welcomed any person interested in their movement’s form of activism, but were also able to dedicate more time to talking to potential participants. On the first anniversary of the group, celebrated in a park in the centre of Santarém, they engaged

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  149

in very long conversations with interested passers-by, for example. They also included homeless people in their assemblies. One limit of openness was the group’s caution in staying independent from political parties and trade unions. In the case of Alvorada Ribatejo, therefore, we find a kind of activism that combines openness and debate with the aspiration to inspire others to create their own activist groups. Creating a mass movement is an aim, but such a movement is not conceptualised as central. Instead, it is a temporary cooperation of various small groups with common aims. The motivation of the organisers is based on the moral motive that something needs to be done and that every person needs to stand up to make a difference, instead of being based on strategic activism. This helped the group to continue their activities, even if they were never successful in terms of gaining new participants.

Exército de Dumbledore Exército de Dumbledore3 was founded at the end of 2012 by an activist who wanted to experiment with a model of activism, after having spent several years in other movements and as a member of the Left Bloc Party. Drawn out of some negative experiences with conventional organising tactics, he called upon people he knew and who he thought would be interested in the new kind of activism he wished to implement. The organisational model of Exército de Dumbledore is very different from the two cases described above. Under this model, a closed group is regarded as necessary to build up trust and the willingness to speak and discuss. Moreover, being a closed group is regarded as a mechanism to protect the participants, as some of the forms of action are not legal. There are two levels of participants, a core group that meets once a week and a group of people that do not want to participate in the weekly meetings but are available to help in the protest events of the group. From the start, the group set out to be action oriented, aiming to organise small, creative protests. Participants spoken to claimed to appreciate the internal dynamics of the group that led to personal changes, new insights and changed minds among them. Fun is also another important factor that further explains the group’s inner functionings. In interviews, I was told over delicious food, for example, about participants who announced they would withdraw from the group if the provisional name were to change. When it comes to carrying out actions, the participants of Exército de Dumbledore are proud of being the first to use modern ad-busting techniques.

150 | Britta Baumgarten

The most important aim of the group is to have open debates that are also the core of the organisational principles of the group. A group of around ten people meet once a week with meetings starting with a joint dinner at the home of one of the participants. This dinner and the casual conversations among the small group not only serve to build up high levels of trust amongst the participants; this open atmosphere also serves to bring up issues people usually shy away from talking about in groups. Out of such conversations and brainstorming the group develops ideas for action. Although this is a small, homogenous and stable group of students, group identity is not fixed. ‘Nationalism of the collective’ was a term used by the founder of Exército de Dumbledore when he spoke about the problems of having too strong an identity. He also saw the danger of ‘reproduction of the system via existing activism’. Learning from past negative experiences in other groups with a strong identity, the participants aim at a weaker and more fluid identity. They are more interested in fruitful dynamics and constantly reflect on their activities. There is no fixed ideology and diversity of ideas is embraced. There is no core issue, although many of the protest events were related to austerity, gender stereotypes and LGBTTT issues. The aims of Exército de Dumbledore are broad. In interviews, activists joked that their aim is to ‘change the world’ or ‘happiness’. Of course, it is difficult to avoid a strong identity in a group consisting of very few people that had to learn a lot about each other, a group that is unique in its forms of action and that receives a lot of positive feedback for its activities. Moreover, there is the group’s trendy name and the fun and personal growth people experience from participating. So, there is a high, positive identification with the group. But group identity is carefully reflected to always remind people about internal diversity and the importance of dynamics instead of a fixed profile, and to keep the actions themselves at the centre of outward communication. The group is not growth oriented in the sense of becoming a larger group. On the contrary, in fact, as its dynamics are fitted for this kind of small group in which no strangers are welcome in order to protect the group. The idea of growth is only present in the sense of inspiring other people to also express themselves politically, to build up their own group according to their own principles: People may want to do other kinds of things and it is interesting to have people from all kinds of areas of action … and that people realise that they do not need to depend on other original groups to do things for themselves, to do things the way they want to and not have to make any efforts to integrate themselves in groups that are already shaped. (Adriana)

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  151

Forms of action for most events are selected in a way that they could be easily copied by non-experienced people, like altering the posters on metro trains, slogans in black letters on city walls or writing texts on toilet doors in public buildings. There were also calls to motivate people to carry out their own Exército de Dumbledore-like activities. For example, this call on the group’s Facebook page: Let’s play a game? Rules: 1) Get a proper permanent marker, 2) Leave a message in the city (it could be in a public toilet, on an advertising poster, or, who knows, on a bank …), 3) Take a picture and share it with us.

Running short of inspiration? Now, make a little tour of our photos. (6 January 2013, 20:40, https://www.facebook.com/pg/exercitodumbledore/photos/?tab=album&album_id=428959673844440) The group has talked publicly about how their type of activism works and, in the past, had the idea of distributing small how-to films on the internet, to teach others about their approach. But Exército de Dumbledore did not want to create a network of groups or any other type of larger structure. This would run against their idea of diversity and constant change. They do promote certain ideas, but more important for them is the aim to encourage others to think for themselves and not to accept everything as a given. This type of activism is related to what has been coined artivism (Nossel 2016), but the group’s aims and internal organisation go beyond this concept. Newly created or strengthened friendship ties are an important factor, but the aims are clearly political, going beyond a group of young people having fun.

MSE – Movimento Sem Emprego (Unemployment Movement) The unemployment movement (MSE) followed a rather classical social movement approach, focusing on one main issue: high unemployment. ‘MSE aims to unify forces concerned with unemployment and related issues, so that those who are elected feel pressured to deal with this issue’ (David). Its goal was to pressure politicians and to have an impact on public discourse, in order to change people’s ideas about the unemployed (regarded as victims of the capitalist system).

152 | Britta Baumgarten

The movement organised meetings in the form of public assemblies that, in 2012, were amongst the most attended public assemblies, with up to forty people participating in some of them. These meetings were called plenary assemblies and sought to create a balance between basis-democratic decision making and efficiency: The main decisions are made in the plenary and are voted on. We want to avoid people getting tired of the democratic processes though. So, when there are questions that are better handled by specialists, like, for example, contact with the media, creation of videos, posters or photos, there is no need for the people to decide about everything … the specialists can decide in their respective areas. In this way, we keep people’s heads ready for the more important questions. (David)

Tied to the above, another interviewee, Rui, added: ‘You need delegation of roles, of tasks, and of responsibilities between the people who are willing to work’. This was further explained by Beatriz who stated ‘the group is further trying to find a balance between debate and action. Individual experiences with unemployment are exchanged and valued, but the joint development of protest events are equally important’. This form of organisation was developed in contrast to earlier experiences of activism that were often blocked due to the fact that everything was meant to be decided by the assemblies. The MSE activists who engage in the movement’s daily work belonged to a core group that not only has more power to decide on smaller issues in an ad-hoc fashion, but also took responsibility for leading the assemblies. This model proved to be more flexible and enables MSE to react promptly to political events: We are aiming to provide quick responses to the government’s politics with press releases or posts on our website. This is in contrary to the assembly movements that are completely organised by the assembly and can only be acted upon after decisions are made and, thus, cannot be reacted upon immediately in the case of new situations … We reflected upon this question and believe it is a bit foolish, because the people exist, we know who they are, we know pretty much who will be at the next assembly and that is why it does not make sense to wait … It is not a bureaucratic leadership, we do not even have the conditions for that, there is no funding for professionalisation … We are always looking for a democratic leadership in the sense of respecting the will of the collective. (Rui)

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  153

These organising principles are very much related to the concept of democracy, which stresses the need to avoid the exclusion of vulnerable groups from decision making processes, e.g. by limiting the time and the frequency of public assemblies. Further to this issue, Rui went on to express the following, a position also shared by other MSE participants spoken to: I always considered the discourse on real democracy a bit arrogant in the sense that real democracy is not just for those who stay in a public space until four in the morning to discuss politics … As a consequence, the worker who needs to work at nine in the morning or the unemployed person that has to be at the unemployment office in the morning won’t stay to see the decisions being undertaken.

Organisational principles must, therefore, resemble the traditional workers’ movement, something expressed by another interviewee named Paolo: there has to be a democracy more based on the people, in factory commissions, neighbourhood commissions, in places where people live, where they live together, where they live their lives … a change of reality not only for the country, but the places that surrounds you, this is what most people claim. People talk, not so much about the state of the country, but how the state of the country affects their daily lives. That is why we need a democracy that is more rooted in the neighbourhoods, the factories and work places, in the schools, in the places where people live and where they live together.

Most of the MSE participants had taken part in other movements and left-wing parties before joining. Like the other groups described in this chapter, MSE was interested in getting people engaged in politics: ‘We need to get people interested in politics again. Because people … distance themselves from politics and justify this by saying to themselves: “this has nothing to do with us”’ (Daniel). But this idea also differed from the aims of the other groups. It was more focused on a conception of power than that of deliberation. The MSE movement wanted to change the perception of the unemployed. The aim was to recruit people, to have them engage in a specific debate centring on a singular concept seen as pertinent to society. This was in contrast to the aims of the other new groups that want to bring in people to engage in political debates on various topics, thus looking for diversity. MSE sought alliances with other groups, including trade unions and political parties, and, in doing so, followed a systematic approach in

154 | Britta Baumgarten

the building up of their alliances: ‘There was one meeting were we listed the strategic organisations and they are the Communist Party, the Left Bloc and a number of other satellite organisations tied to these two political parties, to the extra parliamentary left, the social movements. So this is all strategic organisation’ (Rui). The group, therefore, followed a particular structured plan of growth. On this issue, Paolo states: ‘It was seen as necessary to have a very large-scale movement, with a strong connection to the people’s realities’. First, once the unemployed realised that they were not to be blamed for their situation and that they needed to organise themselves in order to fight for their interests, the public assemblies would become larger as more people would join the movement. A second, and equally important, growth objective was to create more local groups, ideally composed of unemployed individuals who would come together to organise themselves locally as smaller nuclei, but still be a part of the larger MSE. In terms of action, street demonstrations were the first option, not only with the aim of demonstrating power, but also to make MSE known amongst the unemployed. Regarding such street demonstrations, however, MSE changed their strategy when they realised that the unemployed were difficult to mobilise. Instead, smaller, more creative forms of action were chosen, for as Beatriz pointed out, ‘people get tired of demonstrations when there are only around 200 participants’. Compared to the other groups, MSE had a rather fixed identity, based on ideas of class struggles and working-class ideals. The purpose of the group was interest representation, for as one interviewee puts it: ‘I think it’s necessary that the precarious and the unemployed organise themselves in order to fight for their interests, and that is why I support MSE’ (Jesús). It is important to point out that although some members were not completely unemployed, there was an identification with this situation in the case of some participants; as Beatriz stated: ‘I was always very precarious, so I do identify very much with this (being unemployed) and it gave me the impulse that I wanted to do something … It was very good, very moralising’. There is, however, a more volatile component in this identity. MSE did not pretend to already know everything about the unemployed and those working in precarious jobs. As Paolo pointed out: We try to find what is the best connection between the people and the current moment. The movement fights for the questions the people want the most. In this case, unemployment is a very good issue, because unemployment is there and there are more unemployed every day … all of the movement’s participants need to reflect a lot more about who the people around us are and what do they think about our work … speak

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  155

with the people and ask them what they think is really very important, even to make the movement, itself, grow in Portugal … we need to talk to the people a bit, in person, ask them how they are, what is their situation at the moment, and what they think could be done to improve it. This is maybe the best way (for the movement) to grow.

Acting according to people’s real problems and ideals, however, is not an end in itself, as the above interview passage shows. It is, more than anything, a mechanism of growth as ‘it is essential to increase the number of people that are regularly taking part in the movement’s activities and not just at the demonstrations’ (Paolo). Like other groups, MSE got most of its participants via friendship ties, including other groups that shared similar interests and, to a lesser extent, via new participants who attended the assemblies: ‘until now, we have put a lot of work into joining our friends; sometimes people appear from outside, bring in people from other organisations that are interested in working with us’ (Daniel). MSE came to an end in 2013. It did not manage to grow as planned and public assemblies became smaller with the general decrease of large protests after March 2013.

The Great Variety of Backstage Organisation in the Austerity Protests The four activist groups observed differ in many core elements of movement identity. In the following table I have singled out six aspects which are important when it comes to organising activism. These are only a small number of the important questions that define a movement’s identity, as we learned from the short literature review. I selected them for their potential in showing important differences in the functioning of activist groups and spaces. First, a new organisation principle with regard to the anti-austerity movement was the public assembly, a model that spread from Spain to many other countries witnessing a strong sense of disenchantment and protests (Díez García 2016). But the importance of the public assembly to Portugal was not well received. Many activists criticised debates and deliberation was said to be too time-consuming. Three of the groups analysed here practised alternative models. The model of Exército de Dumbledore differs greatly, being based on closed meetings and the building up of trustbased relationships in order to improve the quality and openness of the discussion. Learning from the problems of small structures and outright

156 | Britta Baumgarten

deliberation, MSE developed a form of open meeting, restricted meeting times and dividing work and responsibilities, including allocating decision making to experts. Alvorada Ribatejo proactively tries to get into conversation with people by approaching them with the megaphone, because the traditional form of assembly did nothing to attract people. Second, regarding openness, all models were developed from a critique of former models: the Indignados Lisboa and Alvorada Ribatejo criticised the lack of openness of the traditional activist groups and trade unions and their attempts to control processes. MSE criticised the inefficiency and structural exclusion of some groups in the case of the public assemblies. Exército Dumbledore was seeking to create a space were people could talk openly, a place where diversity is embraced and where movement identity does not become problematic. This idea was developed from former experiences in other groups. Third, in speaking about identity, we find that for some of the cases analysed, a strong identity is not an option. The Indignados Lisbon, like many other actors of the indignados/occupy protest wave, face difficulties in speaking in the name of a unified group. Alvorada Ribatejo, on the other hand, had no difficulties in speaking in the name of their group. Exército de Dumbledore, on the contrary, avoids a strong identity in order to keep away from the problems connected with such a strong identity, though we cannot generally say that a strong identity is regarded as problematic in the anti-austerity protests. MSE, like many of the groups created before the anti-austerity protests began, like the Precários Inflexíveis, for example, function in a logic of strong identity. Fourth, regarding issues, most of the groups are broad in their scope. Here MSE, as a classic single-issue movement, differs from the others, as they aim to politicise people and generate public debate, and thus keep the range of issues and positions narrow in scope. Fifth, closely connected to identity, the ideas about growth vary among the groups. Most of the new groups favour a model of inspiration: it is not so much the growth of their own group that is important, but the desire for people to create their own groups. MSE is an exception here, as it seeks to unify the unemployed into a strong, overarching movement. On the other side of the spectrum, Exército de Dumbledore completely rejects growth, seeing it as dysfunctional. Sixth, we also find differences in the way of going about politicising people. Portugal, as a ‘Third Wave’ democratiser, possesses a weak civil society (Fernandes 2014). With the exception of a short period in time right after the Revolution of 1974, the Portuguese do not possess much experience when it comes to political auto-organisation. Still, among the four groups in

Spreading activism, inspire people to start their own smallscale protest events, make people reflect, no interest in group becoming larger or building up networks

More local assemblies and loose cooperation between them, exchange of information, national meeting once a year. Ideal of people coming together to discuss political issues and finding solutions together

Idea of growth

Inspire through ad-busting and other outward communication

Strong idea of growth, unified mass movement with local branches, main goal is to pressure government

Limited by external framework, growth is less important because activism is less strategic and more a moral obligation: all individuals count, spread of activism, inspire people to start their own groups, goal of creating a mass movement made of independent groups

Broad

Broad

Issues

Idea of Invite to debate and to politicisation participate in protest actions of by-standers

Specific

Broad

Avoids a strong identity by reflecting on activism, valorisation of dynamics

Weak

Identity

Invite to debate and to participate in protest actions, engage in conversations with bystanders, inspire through protest events

Medium, diversity welcome, independence from political parties and trade unions

Open

Closed, in order to guarantee safety and open communication dynamics

Open

Openness to new members

Fight stereotypes that hinder unemployed, invitation to join a strong, united movement

Strong, class-based but open to changes

Open

Public assemblies with leaders, not everything decided in assembly, unity

Public assembly, diversity Closed meetings once a week with few participants, social gatherings, add groups of friends when more participants needed for protest action, diversity

Public assembly, diversity

MSE

Principles of organisation

Alvorada de Ribatejo

Exército de Dumbledore

Indignados

Group

Table 7.1. Main differences between the activist groups.

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  157

158 | Britta Baumgarten

question, one of the primary aims has been to politicise individuals. What differs, however, is each group’s ideas on how to go about politicising people. In my analysis, I distinguish approaches of unification and embracing diversity. On one hand, we have the MST movement that sets out to convince the unemployed to fight for their rights and to organise themselves in order to become a strong unified front with common aims. On the other, there is Exército de Dumbledore with its focus on diversity, aiming to challenge traditional views but not wanting to prescribe an alternative worldview. In fact, for Exército de Dumbledors, there is no face-to-face exchange of worldviews. The purpose of their activities is simply to stimulate thoughts and emotions. People are asked to think for themselves, not to take over the worldview of the group. Inside the group, however, diverse views are discussed in detail but without the aim of reaching common worldviews. The Indignados Lisboa and Alvorada Ribatejo are located in between these two extremes. Here diversity is embraced, but people are invited to come together to discuss joint interpretations and solutions.

Conclusion The protest wave against austerity was a window of opportunity that favoured the creation of new activist groups and experiences of new forms of activism. This chapter shows that such a favourable opportunity structure (Meyer and Minkoff 2004) does not translate into just one type of movement. The broad range of issues that became important in the international protests following the Arab Spring has also been reflected at the Portuguese national level. Some groups, less open to debating other issues and positions, aimed at becoming classic single-issue movements, and also set out to gain strength by growing in terms of their participation base. This was the case with MSE who centred their objectives on the issue of unemployment. Other groups focused on debates that, although aimed at politicising people, did so by embracing different positions. These groups had a weaker common identity and a growth idea, in some cases, directed at inspiring people to create their own groups or assemblies, and in others not wanting any further growth at all. In terms of survival, some of the groups possessed significant disadvantages, because their kind of activism and success depended on mass participation, something that, apart from street demonstrations, is hard to accomplish in Portugal. Because of this, MSE suffered from lack of participation on the part of the unemployed. As a classic social movement group, it needed a high number of participants from a group that is known to be

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  159

hard to organise (Baglioni et al. 2008). As all efforts were directed towards growth, it is no surprise that MSE was one of the groups that, by 2013, had ended. Alvorada Ribatejo was less ambitious and survived longer. Here the organisation of events as an offer to participation and as a model to demonstrate the possibilities of action were more important than the actual number of participants. Indignados Lisboa, on the other hand, stopped their public assemblies in 2013 as well, because their model did not attract enough people; however, some of the projects that grew out of the local assemblies continued afterwards. Carvalho (2014) points out the importance of the community gardening project in the assembly of Barreiro, for example, that gave the group a certain structure. Thus, while the debate concept did not work out well in the long run, joint activities to create cultural projects and other small projects were more successful. Lastly, Exército de Dumbledore’s structure made success a factor that did not depend on increasing the number of participants. As a group of students that is pretty much closed off to new members, its survival only becomes critical when participants finish their studies or go abroad for a long period of time. Apart from the four cases discussed, we have observed some trends concerning the anti-austerity movements and other related groups in Portugal that has led to the restructuring of activism since the end of 2012. With a lack of participants to organise larger events, there has been a turn in some activist groups towards organising smaller events. Although many groups favour large demonstrations, they are no longer organised, with calls for protest occurring less frequently as well. Instead, small creative protests are organised and disseminated via the internet: ad-busting on underground trains, painting walls with political messages, covering statues with black cloth or hanging an effigy from a traffic light as a representation of a person committing suicide because of the austerity politics (Mourão and Raposo 2013). We also observed the institutionalisation of groups, while those groups and spaces that did not built up more of an organisational structure disappeared after the wave of protest started to diminish. After 2012, a number of cultural spaces did emerge, founded by activists. Although such centres are key to providing information about the work of the space, also serving as a platform for attracting new people, the fact remains that these centres are often frequented by people who enjoy the nightlife activities these places offer, but who, in the main, do not possess the desire to become an activist. Still, these spaces often serve as a kind of low-level, initial contact with the world of activism. It is also worth mentioning that organising activities at the neighbourhood level has also increased since 2012, with people increasing becoming more attracted to working around smaller, concrete projects, as is the case of community gardens, cultural projects or bicycle repair shops.

160 | Britta Baumgarten

Another development that has been observed is that of institutionalisation: some of the initiators of the ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Desperate Generation) protest funded what was termed a Citizen Academy that included various initiatives in collaboration with schools or as part of city festivals. Another initiative has been to create left-wing political parties, as is the case with the party LIVRE. Lastly, creating an association has been seen as another survival strategy, as associations offer people who want to support a group but do not wish to become activists the opportunity to become a member and contribute financially. Such initiatives, however, in many cases, are not planned strategically. In some cases, parts of a group’s activities continue, while others suffer from a lack of participation. The end result is that they fade away without any proper decision to end them outright. Some groups, as shown above, have better chances of survival in times of low participation; this depends on how well each group’s model suits its purposes. Identity is something that is usually not strategically developed, but is built up over time, going beyond the control of the activists. This helps to explain why some groups continue while others fade, but it does not imply that those organisations who continue do so because they have a good model, one that others should follow. It would be wrong, in fact, to think about differences and chances of survival based on individual best practices. Britta Baumgarten (1975–2018) was a contracted post-doctoral researcher (FCT Investigador) at CIES-IUL, Lisbon, and an invited lecturer at ISCTE, Lisbon. She worked on civil society and social movements in Portugal and in Brazil in a transnational perspective and led the FCT/CAPES project cooperation ‘New Modes of Political Participation’ between CIES-UIL and the Federal University of Santa Catarina/Brazil. Recent publications include: ‘Time to Get Re-Organized! The Structure of the Portuguese Anti-Austerity Protests’, in Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change (2016), 40: 155–87; Conceptualizing Culture in Social Movement Research, with Priska Daphi and Peter Ullrich (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Notes   1. In Portugal, all public assemblies had some kind of group identity, even though some participants regarded them primarily as a space for exchange of ideas and finding solutions together: a space with certain rules of debate but open to everyone and embracing diversity.   2. This claim was part of various calls for events created by Alvorada Ribatejo and published on their website, https://movimentoalvoradaribatejo.wordpress.

Forms of Action, Forms of Organisation and Survival Strategies  |  161

com and on their Facebook events page, www.facebook.com/pg/AlvoradaRibatejo-234462546587631/events/?ref=page_internal (both last accessed 11 December 2019).   3. Exército de Dumbledore is the Portuguese name for Dumbledore’s Army, the secret organisation of pupils of Hogwarts in the famous book and later film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling).

References Accornero, G., and P.R. Pinto. 2014. ‘“Mild Mannered”? Protest and Mobilisation in Portugal under Austerity, 2010–2013’, West European Politics: 1–25. Baglioni, S., B. Baumgarten, D. Chabanet and C. Lahusen. 2008. ‘Transcending Marginalization’, Mobilization 13(3): 323–35. Baumgarten, B. 2013. ‘Geração a Rasca and Beyond: Mobilizations in Portugal after 12 March 2011’, Current Sociology 61(4): 457–73.  . 2016. ‘Time to Get Re-Organized! The Structure of the Portuguese AntiAusterity Protests’, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 40: 155–87.  . 2017. ‘The Children of the Carnation Revolution? Connections Between Portugal’s Anti-austerity Movement and the Revolutionary Period 1974/1975’, Social Movement Studies 16(1): 51–63. Baumgarten, B., and R. Díez García. 2017. ‘More than a Copy Paste: The Spread of Spanish Frames and Events to Portugal’, Journal of Civil Society 13(3): 247–66. Carvalho, T. 2014. ‘WP7: Interpreting Activism (Ethnographies) Deliverable 7.1: Ethnographic Case Studies of Youth Activism -Popular Assembly of Barreiro’. MYPLACE, Lisbon: CIES-IUL. Della Porta, D. 2005. ‘Multiple Belongings, Tolerant Identities and the Construction of Another Politics’, in D. Della Porta and S. Tarrow (eds), Transnational Protest and Global Activism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 175–202. Della Porta, D., and A. Mattoni (eds). 2014. Spreading Protest: Social Movements in Times of Crisis. Colchester: ECPR Press Studies. Díez García, R. 2016. ‘The “Indignados” in Space and Time: Transnational Networks and Historical Roots’, Global Society 31(1): 43–64. Dufour, P., H. Nez and M. Ancelovici. 2010. ‘From the Indignados to Occupy: Prospects for Comparison’, in C. Seale, G. Gobo and J.F. Gubrium (eds), Qualitative Research Practice. London: Sage, pp. 11–40. Estanque, E., H.A. Costa and J. Soeiro. 2013. ‘The New Global Cycle of Protest and the Portuguese Case’, Journal of Social Science Education 12(1): 31–40. Feixa, C., I. Pereira and J.S. Juris. 2009. ‘Global Citizenship and the “New, New” Social Movements: Iberian Connections’, Young 17(4): 421–42. Fernandes, T. 2014. ‘Rethinking Pathways to Democracy: Civil Society in Portugal and Spain, 1960s–2000s’, Democratization: 1–31. Flesher Fominaya, C. 2010. ‘Collective Identity in Social Movements: Central Concepts and Debates’, Sociology Compass 4(6): 393–404. Flesher Fominaya, C., and L. Cox (eds). 2013. Understanding European Movements: New Social Movements, Global Justice Struggles. London: Routledge.

162 | Britta Baumgarten

Granovetter, M.S. 1973. ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78(6): 1360–80. Haug, C. 2013. ‘Organizing Spaces: Meeting Arenas as a Social Movement Infrastructure between Organization, Network, and Institution’, Organization Studies 34(5–6): 705–32. Hirsch, E.L. 2015. ‘Generating Commitment among Students’, in J. Goodwin and J.M. Jasper (eds), The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts. 3rd edn. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 105–13. Killian, L.M., N. Smelser, J. Turner and H. Ralph. 2017. ‘Social Movement’, Encyclopaedia Britannica. Available online at https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-movement (accessed 15 December 2017). Mcclurg, S.D. 2003. ‘Social Networks and Political Participation: The Role of Social Interaction in Explaining Political Participation’, Political Research Quarterly 56(4): 449–64. McDonald, K. 2002. ‘From Solidarity to Fluidarity: Social Movements beyond “Collective Identity” – the Case of Globalization Conflicts’, Social Movement Studies 1(2): 109–28. Meyer, D.S., and D.C. Minkoff. 2004. ‘Conceptualizing Political Opportunity’, Social Forces 82(4): 1457–92. Mourão, R., and M. Raposo. 2013. ‘Representações de Contrapoder Performances Artivistas no Espaço Público Português’, MA dissertation. Lisbon: ISCTE IUL, Escola de Ciências Sociais e Humanas Departamento de Antropologia (accessed 30 November 2017). Nossel, S. 2016. ‘Introduction: On “Artivism”, or Art’s Utility in Activism’, Social Research 83(1): 103–106. Available online at http://muse.jhu.edu/article/620871 (accessed 21 December 2017). Polletta, F., and J.M. Jasper. 2001. ‘Collective Identity and Social Movements’, Annual Review of Sociology 27: 283–305. Rucht, D. 2011. ‘The Strength of Weak Identities’, Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen 4: 73–84. Soeiro, J. 2014. ‘Da Geração à Rasca ao Que se Lixe a Troika. Portugal no novo ciclo internacional de protesto’, Sociologia, Revista da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto XXVIII: 55–79. Tejerina, B., and I. Perugorría (eds). 2012. From Social to Political: New Forms of Mobilization and Democratization. Bilbao: Bizkaia Aretoa. Whittier, N. 2015. ‘Sustaining Commitment among Radical Feminists’, in J. Goodwin and J.M. Jasper (eds), The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts. 3rd edn. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 115–25.

Chapter 8

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism in Portugal José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

Introduction On 12 March 2011 thousands of people took to the streets, in what was considered one of the largest public demonstrations in Portugal since democracy was instated, following the overthrow of the dictatorship regime on 25 April 1974. Although the epicentre of this event was the city of Lisbon, other major cities across the country also took to organising similar events. The primary reasons for this mass mobilisation were tied to the demands and hardships brought about by the economic crisis, and especially that of precariousness of labour. Portuguese youth were particularly affected, as was evident in the epithet by which the manifestation was known: ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Desperate Generation). Although the ‘generational despair’ in no way meant that only young people participated in this protest, the faces of youth were by far the most visible. ‘Geração à Rasca’ was the initiative of four young individuals who mobilised the population through a call on a Facebook page. Apart from its widespread impact and, in a sense, the unprecedented adherence the protest had in recent history, the event also broke new ground in relation to the role of digital networks in protest organisation in Portugal, as had been the case in other European countries and in other parts of the world as well. With this chapter, we begin by drawing attention to this episode in the recent Portuguese political and civic mobilisation history given that the occurrences surrounding the 12 March 2011 events presented an important turning point that brought about a new ‘contentious period’, generating a new ‘wave of protest’ which would reach its peak in 2013 (Baumgarten

164  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

2013, 2016; Accornero and Pinto 2015). This cycle of political mobilisation and greater civic participation in the country cannot be separated from globalised movements of social and political turbulence, with a clear network effect that inspired many local political movements. The most noticeable of these movements is that of the case of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’, which, in itself, became a transnational phenomenon that spread and inspired other movements that would contain differing specificities, varying from one country to the next. And yet, to this we add another set of political phenomena that can be situated in the context of response to the global financial crisis – having had more immediate repercussions in Europe and the United States – of which the 15M and Occupy movements are the most discernible. In these protests three central characteristics are evident: firstly, the importance of the economic crisis as a catalyst for the protests (Tejerina et al. 2013), motivating the emergence of new collective actors organised around the fight against economic and financial austerity (Della Porta 2015); secondly, the prominent role of youth as a ‘driving force of social change’ (Feixa and Nofre 2013), due to the fact that they are one of the segments of the population that has been most affected by the precariousness of labour and unemployment and by the reduction of social support from the State (Carmo et al. 2014); and thirdly, the affirmation of new grammars of protest, where the role of digital technologies and networks are central and well articulated with the acts of intervention on the streets, generating, in this way, a space of public protest that has been described as ‘hybrid’ (Castells 2012; Penney and Dadas 2014). At the heart of the ‘new grammars’ generated by this wave of protest were digital media and technologies whose global reach and widespread dissemination became appealing to different audiences and practices, both collective and individual. The enthusiasm generated in various parts of the world around the ‘Twitter or Facebook revolution’, however, should not be seen merely as an ephemeral phenomenon or one that has no consequences apart from isolated episodes, which obscure their deepest and most lasting effects on the reconfiguration of political action and the exercise of citizenship. In this sense, although the importance of digital media and circuits varied according to circumstances and contexts, it is undeniable that their inclusion in the protests that occurred had direct implications on the course of events (Gerbaudo 2012). Furthermore, they have been used in a massive and unprecedented way, giving rise to new phenomena, changing practices and strategies of mobilisation and collective contestation, revealing the impact of social networks in mobilising and organising collective protest initiatives.

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  165

In this chapter, what we want to discuss is precisely the role that the use of different digital tools plays in the reconfiguration of forms of communication and intervention in the public space, within a context defined by the economic and financial crisis. More specifically, we question the functions and role that digital technologies and media have in the forms of expression and articulation of public protests in the country. What ‘new grammars’ of protest emerge and how are they articulated with existing ones? These are issues that go beyond the purely technological dimension, in that they lead us to consider the circumstances and the protagonists involved in the use of this dimension, which we will examine throughout this chapter. This analysis takes into account the case of Portugal, relying on data collected via a research project carried out between 2014 and 2015,1 which sought to study the use of digital media by young activists. Methodologically, the project adopted a qualitative approach, in which in-depth interviewing was carried out with activists. The empirical basis for the reflections presented in this chapter is essentially an analysis of those interviews. It is essential to point out that the setting for this analysis is subsequent to the most acute period of economic and financial crisis that culminated in the bailout implemented in 2012 by the joint intervention of the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), known as the Troika. In this sense, the scenario analysed and the interviews collected, even if reflecting the most intense period of the crisis, are clearly marked by a ‘post-austerity’ aftermath, with noticeable changes in political discourse and policies, as well as an obvious decline of mass public protests. In addition to this, and in order to pinpoint more broadly what is being addressed, we will try to compare, whenever possible, the data presented here with data regarding different empirical realities, notable affinities and differences between contexts.

Digital Media and Political Participation of Young People in a Global Context of Crisis The waves of protest that have erupted in recent years in Europe and around the world have come to be interpreted as processes that serve to discredit democratic systems and traditional political actors (Dahlgren 2013). It is paradoxical that the proclaimed lack of political participation and the disenchantment with traditional politics have been expressed through intense dynamics of intervention of citizens in the public space. In this context, youth have been recurrently portrayed in the scientific literature as being especially alienated and less participative in the

166  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

institutional spheres of politics. In fact, when we look at the interests and formal participation of young people in the political sphere, disenchantment is very much present (Dahlgren 2007, 2009; Loader 2007). However, what most studies and approaches in the area of political studies tend to ignore is an entire reality of youth political involvement that goes far beyond the arena of institutional politics. Forms of resistance and opposition to public authorities, economic models and/or hegemonic normativity, have led to young people resorting to the use of extra-institutional/non-formal civic and political participation methods. A variety of youth cultures have been present in the public sphere by means of music, performance, direct action, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) cultural formats, forms of action that are a part of the micropolitics of everyday life (Johansson and Lalander 2012; Muggleton and Weinzierl 2003). Historically, this has been the privileged terrain of youth action. This fact has been well demonstrated by the protests of the last decade, which rapidly incorporated digital media and technologies (Banaji and Buckingham 2013). As a result, studies dedicated to the political involvement of young people have been rethinking their premises in recent years, becoming more attentive to less conventional, marginal and minority forms of political and civic participation that take place outside or in the interstices of formal politics, expanding the definition of political, citizenship and public spheres (Dahlgren 2013; Fenton 2010, Dahlgren and Olsson 2007, 2008; Sloam 2014). Contrasting with the downfall of traditional models of political action, and with the profound erosion of the image people have of institutions and the political class, new forms of conceiving the political field arise, not reduced to the institutional political system, but, instead, covering daily life and fields as diverse as intimacy, ecology, lifestyles, sexuality, etc. (Feixa et al. 2002; Feixa, Pereira and Juris 2009; Olsson and Dahlgren 2010). This change of focus reveals a new reality that contrasts with the diagnosed apathy of contemporary youth (Loader 2007). The events we report in this chapter are a good example of this, given that, in many of the social movements and episodes of protest, young people have assumed a central role in different regions of the world (Ancelovici et al. 2016; Flesher Fominaya and Cox 2013; Pickerill et al. 2014; Sloam 2014; Tejerina et al. 2013). In this respect, we point out the cases of the Indignados movement in Spain, the Occupy movement in various parts of the globe in 2011, the Gezi protest movement in Turkey in 2013 (Vatikiotis and Yörük 2016), as well as the free pass movement (Movimento Passe Livre) in Brazil in 2013–2014 (Recuero et al. 2015). These movements of protest and mobilisation revealed several tendencies: firstly, the constitution of forms of protest of a hybrid nature,

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  167

increasingly involving the articulation between the street and the internet (Castells 2012; Juris 2012; Tremayne 2014); secondly, the emergence of new protest grammars (Baumgarten 2016, Flesher Fominaya and Cox 2013; Díez García 2017); and, finally, the emergence of new collective actors, non-institutional and horizontal in nature, that have upstaged, to a large extent, the traditional political actors – parties and trade unions (Ancelovici et al. 2016; Castells 2012; Flesher Fominaya and Cox 2013; Pickerill et al. 2014; Tejerina et al. 2013). These characteristics may serve to explain the strong adherence of young people to these movements. The more spontaneous, fluid and uncommitted is the membership or adherence to new collectives of a more horizontal and participatory nature, the more that membership or adherence seems to be in keeping with the modes of political action of contemporary youth (Loader, Vromen and Xenos 2014; Sloam 2014). These tendencies emerge, in a certain sense, in the course of a set of other social processes that shape public participation. Some authors (Bennett and Segerberg 2011, 2012; Kennelly 2011) have pointed to a gradual fragmentation, individualisation and personalisation of political participation, and, simultaneously, to a greater porosity between the public and private spheres, aiming to politically influence through the spheres of leisure and entertainment (Dahlgren 2013), all the while leading to the progressive upholding of personal protest networks. Associated with this issue is the fact that the youth public sphere and its field of participation are increasingly hybrid, characterised by a diversified and convergent media ecology, where online and offline practices intertwine (Penney and Dadas 2014; Sloam 2014). In addition to the relevance of youth and the centrality of digital technologies and networks, recent wave of protests were also characterised by the common denominator of the economic and financial crisis, which began in the United States in 2008, followed by Iceland, and later in Ireland and southern Europe, more specifically, in Greece, Spain and Portugal. The generalisation of the crisis served as a pretext for the implementation of austerity measures on the part of the governments of the various affected countries. In Portugal, the protest march of the so-called ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Desperate Generation), which took place on 12 March 2011, was a prominent moment from a symbolic point of view, having been organised by a small group of people through Facebook, as well as having achieved enormous success in terms of mobilisation. Given the weak tradition in political engagement and activism of the Portuguese population (Cabral 2014; Mendes and Seixas 2005; Santos and Nunes 2004), protests that

168  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

occurred between 2011 and 2013 were particularly meaningful in an otherwise relatively even landscape of public participation, bringing about a new cycle of contention (Accornero and Pinto 2015; Baumgarten 2013, 2016) characterised by a new ‘political opportunity structure’ (Tarrow 2011). This is a period marked by the intensification of Portugal’s financial and economic crisis, which had several social and political consequences. Firstly, the Portuguese government adopted austerity measures with broad social repercussions, followed by a bailout with the joint intervention of the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), known as the Troika. The intervention of the Troika, and the ensuing austerity measures, triggered a wave of protests, with anti-austerity claims and unprecedented public outreach in the country’s recent history. This was a period characterised by the emergence of new collective actors outside the institutional, political system – from informal groups, to platforms, to networks of activists – but also by the mobilisation of individuals who were not usually involved in public protests. Although it is not possible to include the Portuguese situation in a global protest movement (Baumgarten 2013), the protests that began in 2011 and culminated in 2013 accompanied the global protest wave, presenting several affinities with other movements which took place in other countries, both at a symbolic level, through shared imagery (widespread internet and traditional media), as well as at a real level, through created networks (including the movement of some participants between different countries) and similar strategies adopted for action. In observing the emergent protest movements during this period, in fact, not only do we find shared affinities, but also important differences. Several authors have pointed out (Della Porta 2015; Tejerina et al. 2013) that protests, and the social movements associated to them, although reflecting a clear shift towards a mobilisation that is centred around a resurgence of ‘material issues’ and social inequalities, cannot be understood similarly in all contexts. This ‘material turn’ of protest is not identical in all countries in which recent uprisings occurred: what is at stake in the mobilisations occurring in southern Europe – the socioeconomic crisis and the erosion of the welfare state – is not the same as the democratic reforms demanded by protesters in the Arab countries (Tejerina et al. 2013: 380). Among the protests that characterised the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011 – which had obvious repercussions on the 15M movements in Spain and Occupy in the US – and the uprisings in Turkey and Brazil in 2013 and 2014, respectively, we witnessed protests which although contemporary, and, therefore, integrating the same ‘global wave’, extended over a period of time and significantly different geographical contexts.

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  169

In Europe, the recent crisis and the protests it triggered are not associated with poverty and structural and endemic deprivation, but, instead, with new forms of deprivation, linked to a stratum of the population whose consumption capacity has diminished. Studies analysing the 15M protests in Spain, for example, have revealed that the profile of protesters was not limited to young radicals and the unemployed, but includes people of different generations, many without political or partisan affiliation (Ancelovici et al. 2016). Some authors (Taibo 2013) have proposed a typology, distinguishing protesters linked to anti-austerity movements, with more radical demands aimed at capitalist system, from protesters without previous experience and, therefore, with more moderate demands. In the United States the scenario was different. Occupy Wall Street was a movement especially marked by young adults with high education, and with little heterogeneity from an ethnic and social class point of view. A shared characteristic was the fact that ‘many had experienced problems with the job market, and those under the age of 30 were burdened by substantial debt’ (Ancelovici et al. 2016: 16). Also, in the case of Brazil, the scope of the main protests, that occurred between 2013 and 2014, was diverse. On the one hand, they were linked to the inadequacies of public services (from health to education systems) – initially prompted by the incidents generated by the rise in public transportation fares (Passe Livre Movement) – and to the insurgences against the World Cup (Anti-Copa movement); while, on the other hand, they were linked to more general issues related to the country’s governance and, in particular, to the problem of political corruption (Purdy 2017; Recuero et al. 2015; Saad-Filho 2013). Another feature common to several of the movements that emerged in recent years is the fact that their support base is ‘popular’, meaning that they appeal transversally to different sectors of society or are welcomed by the majority of the population (Gerbaudo 2012). These movements, therefore, are not elitist or focused on narrow issues, but comprise a broad scope. This idea is clear in the slogans adopted, such as ‘we are the 99%’, as proclaimed by the Occupy movement in the US, highlighting the problem of the concentration of resources in 1% of the population. This was an issue also defended by the Indignados and the 15M movement in Spain. In this sense, it is not just the young nor the precarious workers that engage in the different protest actions, but also different social strata. This is reinforced by the vast global media coverage to which the protests have been subjected, which contributed, in some ways, to their legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary citizens. Notwithstanding this, precariousness is evident in the protests, precisely because it presents itself as a phenomenon that is generalised and not merely characteristic of the social strata traditionally affected by limited

170  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

resources. In this sense, the emergent class of the ‘precariat’ (Standing 2014) appears as a symptom of the widening of social inequalities, having been reconfigured into new groups (qualified young people with unstable professional ties, the unemployed, those without social protection, among others). In any case, as previously stated, the nature of the claims differs between countries, and, in some of the protests, the multicausal nature of the claims is evident. Precariousness arises in a context that includes other concerns and an array of discourses pertinent to a series of themes that are not always articulated among themselves, nor do they possess clearly defined purposes (democratic deficit, citizenship, cultural participation, etc.). Finally, another element of affinity between these protests can be found in their level of tactics and modes of organisation, and also in their use of similar grammars. Several of these protests adopted common strategies such as claiming the urban public space through the occupation (generally peaceful) of purposefully chosen sites in the centres of the major cities, or by channelling protest to widespread mass demonstrations (Gerbaudo 2012). This is why some of the movements created were given such names as ‘occupy’ or ‘take the squares’. Alongside this occupation of urban public spaces by claiming the streets, the main (and not only complementary) strategy, simultaneously followed, consisted in the use of multiple digital tools. In fact, as referred to above, the articulation between the street and digital networks clearly indicates that the present space of protest should be regarded as hybrid. Not only has there a link between what happens on the streets and on digital networks, but this integration seems to be ubiquitous and immediate, turning digital resources (including digital devices used offline) into tools of participation in a space that is based on multiple forms of communication. In any case, here too, there are notable differences in the usage of different online platforms and in the specific role they played in the protests. Tools such as Twitter, that were widely used in the case of the Occupy Movement (Penney and Dadas 2014; Tremayne 2014), 15M (Fernandez-Planells et al. 2014; Micó and Casero-Ripollés 2014) or in Brazilian uprisings (Recuero et al. 2015), had a residual use in Portugal; in contrast, Facebook was used both by the vast majority of activists and the non-politically engaged population that participated in the protests (Campos et al. 2016; Simões and Campos 2016; Simões et al. 2018). In conjunction with this, it is necessary to consider – in addition to this broad assessment of technology that has a tendency to generate polarised discourses – that digital tools are used in different forms and circumstances and with varying degrees of sophistication, ranging from the basic use of common tools, to specialised practices requiring computer expertise and sophistication of knowledge. Among

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  171

these, we can generically include various uses that transform the internet into a ‘guerrilla terrain’ (of which we can highlight computer attacks). There is also the question of all those who, for various reasons, are excluded from digital networks simply because they do not have access to or do not use such resources or, even if they do, they do so in a way that is not oriented towards political and civic participation. The ‘new grammar’ of protest is, thus, to a large extent the combined result of well-known and already tested action repertoires, based not only on street presence, but also on the combined use of various digital technologies which have the advantage of extending the networks of protest (linking them to different places), all the while allowing a personalised and individualised use of such resources, where public, private, leisure and political dimensions are mixed in different ways. The remainder of this chapter will be focused on pondering the new activist grammars present in Portugal, in a context marked by crisis and austerity.

Youth, Protest and Precariousness in Portugal: Between ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Grammars of Activism The Digital in Activism: Towards a New Grammar? In today’s world, it is impossible to speak of activism, and political and civic participation without taking into account the role of digital media. The importance of the digital for collective mobilisation has been highlighted since the events that followed the neo-Zapatista uprising in the mid-1990s (Rovira 2009), followed by the Iraq War and the alter-globalisation movements in the 2000s (Sommier 2003; Juris 2008; Feixa, Saura and Costa 2002). The role assigned to these technologies in the literature, however, has varied, bringing about discourses that are either apologetic and celebratory, or deprecatory and apprehensive (Dahlgren 2013). On the one hand, it is true that digital networks have been presented as instruments that foster participation and activism, linking them to what their role could be, as both democratising and liberating (Castells 2012). This has led to a variety of designations being applied, such as ‘the Twitter or Facebook revolution’ (Gerbaudo 2012). On the other, such networks have come under some criticism, with a common argument being that their use does not necessarily generate more participation (Fuchs 2011). Furthermore, in a way that highlights the inconsequence associated with its empty character or, moreover, its more obscure nature, the warning of the dangers of surveillance and the monitoring of citizens’ lives by companies and

172  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

authorities has particularly led to the denunciation of these technologies (Lovink 2011; Morozov 2011). Whatever the case, what many recent studies have shown is that contemporary activism is, to a large extent, activism with a digital component (Van Laer and Van Aelst 2010; Milan 2013; Postill 2014). This was witnessed in the protests that recently struck Europe, as well as in other parts of the world. In this context, the role of digital media was not just a secondary one, as it was very much an integral part of the protests themselves, with calls to action on social media networks and protests disseminated online, often via live streaming or through instantaneous postings on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, it is necessary to understand, on the one hand, the specific configurations that each use of digital media takes on in different contexts and circumstances, and, on the other hand, how such ‘new’ practices are articulated with ‘old ones’ in redefining existing grammars. This assessment implies trying to comprehend what the different meanings and forms brought by the entanglement of differing repertoires of action may have – how do the streets and the internet intersect and complement each other? – and how important the digital component is in new forms of activism. This implies analysing the different ways in which the digital enters activism, from simple communication and information tools, to intervention territory and cause for mobilisation (Campos, Pereira and Simões 2016). Another relevant question concerns how these new tools are used for participation by both individuals and collectives, especially if we take into account the associated causes. Emerging grammars not only show a new form of public participation, they can be understood more broadly as an indication of the crisis that has hit the political system, questioning its legitimacy with reflections on the modes of extra-institutional political and civic participation. In this sense, digital media and tools can be perceived as naturally appropriate forms of expression, either for public intervention outside the control of the usual political institutions and organisations, or for the creation of communication channels outside traditional media, creating a communication system that is relatively autonomous and self-regulated by citizens. Digital media, therefore, seem to adapt to the new times of protest, characterised by more diversified and fragmented causes, in the interstices of various territories (political and creative, public and private), where different protagonists are confronted (and converge). In the latter case, in addition to the nature of the claims and the non-institutional character of the protest modalities, it is the scope of the digital tools that can serve to explain the adherence of a certain non-activist population sector, or those

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  173

that, prior to a given protest episode, did not have a trajectory of political and civic involvement. In addition, however, it is also necessary to consider the role of traditional media that often serve to provide accounts of main events, helping to increase their impact within society-at-large. The pivotal role that digital technologies have had as catalysts of contestation should not make us ignore the relevance of the old modes of political and civic expression. Indeed, as we said earlier, the impact of recent protests has largely resulted from the way in which urban spaces have been collectively claimed for intervention, whether through temporary occupation or through public demonstrations. Not being entirely new, these forms of expression have been differently articulated, both in relation to mobilisation and organisation, and effective protest practices. The connection of digital networks to city streets and the various modalities that this connection has assumed has introduced an element of novelty relative to the protests, turning the current public arena into an arena that is not limited to a physically restricted space of intervention, nor to the regulated features of institutional political spheres. This new grammar, therefore, encompasses a mixture of previously non-existent elements with others obviously already known and tried on various occasions of protest, over time. Digital languages (tools, platforms, networks) allow the creation of new types of events that are articulated with ‘old’ formulas of public participation. How this particular mixture adapts to new circumstances and causes, and, above all, how they are adopted by existing groups (movements, platforms, etc.) in certain contexts are issues worthy of being further explored. In our exploration of the ‘new’ activist grammar, we will mainly examine issues related to communication, posed by the use of digital media in activist processes, where public and collective modes of communication come together with others of an individualised and personal nature. As previously mentioned, it is hardly unthinkable to consider recent mobilisations without considering the decisive role of communication processes that involve some sort of digital technology. It is unimaginable to think about the political sphere, either in macro or micro terms, without considering the modes and strategies of communication between different social actors, be they collective or individual, institutional or informal. Political and civic participation is largely due to the ability to be heard, to create an agenda and to gain space in the public sphere. Different actors are aware of this and use various strategies and channels to reach the public, such as conventional media (television, radio or newspapers), digital media, or street expressions. Each of these spaces plays a distinct role. However, they cannot be thought of as autonomous and irreducible circuits, given the complex and intricate

174  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

nature of these territories, which intersect and respond to each other, creating a multiple media ecology existing in convergence.

Research Objectives and Methodologies A brief word on method is required before beginning the analysis. The main goal of our research project was to study the general impact of digital media and networks in contemporary youth activism in Portugal. Given the increasing relevance of digital media in various actions of protest, activism and mobilisation around the globe, it made sense to analyse the specific case of Portugal in a context of crisis. Our chief initial questions were: is digital equipment changing traditional forms of activism in Portugal and, if so, what are the features of this digital activism – what forms do they assume? This was an exploratory research project following a qualitative approach based on a mix method strategy. Since this was an empiricallybased endeavour, we thus opted to follow an all-encompassing strategy, setting out to cover different activist causes and groups (political, ecological, social, etc.). Fieldwork related to this undertaking was carried out between March and November 2014. Along with participating in and observing a variety of events – ranging from demonstrations to meetings, to other public events – we also conducted 36 in-depth interviews with young activists. A ‘snowball’ sampling strategy was relied on as the primary method in our search for interviewees, a method that allowed us to reach a diverse group of young people engaged in various causes. The criteria for selecting participants included respective levels and forms of engagement (ranging from highly active group leaders to less involved participants), variation of fields in which activists participate (ecology, LGBT, anti-austerity, etc.) and age (young people and young adults ranging from the ages of 20 to 35 were interviewed). An interview guideline was drafted taking into consideration two major themes: ‘activist practices’ (initiation in the field, activist record, description of the movement, etc.) and ‘digital uses’ (engagement with digital tools, types of platforms used, tasks performed, etc.).

Circuits of Protest: Between Internal and External Communication In our approach to digital media, we distinguished two types of circuits (Campos, Pereira and Simões 2016; Simões el al. 2018). The first, of an internal nature, is composed of digital technologies and media that serve to feed a chain of information, transmitted within a restricted network of activists. This is particularly relevant in smaller structures, with no human

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  175

or financial capacity to manage complex communication and organisation apparatuses. In these cases, digital media play a central role, allowing the creation of conditions for internal networks to solidify, irrespective of geographical dispersion or the fluctuation of members. The second circuit is defined by the widening of the level of dissemination, seeking to reach a vast and indeterminate audience. We are, therefore, faced with a circuit of communication that partially converges around a particular theme, which evidences different communication models with distinct, but not necessarily opposite, logics: on the one hand, a model that is close to the diffusion of traditional, centralised and unidirectional media, where control over what is communicated is exercised by the broadcaster; on the other, a model focused on the possibility of interaction and construction of networks of co-participation with those who use the same channels of communication. Still, even this diffusion model is not presented in a simple way, considering that different digital platforms are used for both broad and restricted forms of dissemination, revealing a complementarity between the two logics. In this convergent media ecology, the logic of mass diffusion is combined with network diffusion, born out of personal and decentralised initiatives, though possessing a generalised reach. Concepts such as mass self-communication were proposed precisely to account for this change (Castells 2012). The fact that anyone, regardless of their connection to collectives or organised groups, can intervene politically using these networks, confronts us with a new model of political communication, far from the logic of mere political propaganda. Therefore, whether through activist collectives, informal groups, or as mere citizens engaged politically and civically, digital media forms seem to present themselves as indispensable tools for activism and public intervention. The interviews show precisely that digital media play a fundamental set of functions, simplifying and enhancing a series of activities. Generally, the role of these media forms is valued for their communicational reach, using reasonably simple and inexpensive equipment and processes. That is, through platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, blogs or websites, it is possible for activists, regardless of their organisational level, to reach a wide audience. This has implications on various levels: first, in the ‘communication, advertising and public representation of the collective’, which takes into account the processes of ideological communication and the creation of a public image of the collective, aiming to disseminate a variety of messages and reach different audiences, from sympathisers to unspecified members of the public; second, in the ‘mobilisation’ processes, taking into account actions that seek to encourage participation and adherence to the

176  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

cause of a particular movement/group, mobilising not only the supporters of the movement, but also those who are unaware of it or not particularly sensitive to it; and finally, in the ‘recruitment’, taking into account actions that aim at recruiting new people to the cause, enlisting new members, activists, sympathisers, etc. I think it’s critical. I think this is totally structural for us. Ah … that is, a good part of our identity, our ability to intervene, is with our own obligation to communicate daily with people on what is happening and our specific issues, the two things. … And that requires a common communication platform. So, we use the site as a base and Facebook as a diffuser, I think it’s kind of like that. (Activist, Inflexible Precarious)

Many actions of digital activism intend to create a new space of communication in the face of the scarcity of alternatives represented by the universe of traditional media. Digital media, particularly social networks, play a very important role in promoting certain minority or peripheral causes, creating space for them to gain visibility in the public sphere. This situation has direct implications on the creation of networks between individuals and small groups, and on the construction of a collective conscience around certain causes. That is, the fractured nature of participation in minority causes can become solid once a common purpose has been recognised, identifying a shared cause or problem. The creation of a digital communication network (chat, digital forum, Facebook page, etc.) or an online platform (website, blog, etc.) allows the distinguishing of a problem, which is no longer purely individual, but, instead, collective, mobilising a set of people around it. Digital media, therefore, has a fundamental role to play in opening up space for voices that are more dissonant and alternative – and lack enough structures – to be heard in the public sphere. This function of ‘counter-information’ sources, that question ‘hegemonic thinking’ or ‘dominant narratives’, is a fact highlighted by the interviewees: The internet came to disrupt a certain hegemony of speeches. Previously, to get information to a lot of people, you had to have the well-oiled machine of your party or a newspaper, but today you no longer need it … You can see this on Facebook; many people have been politicised in the last three years and mostly through the internet. (Activist, RDA 69)

If more specific causes, therefore, find in digital networks a medium that is ideal for propagation, they nevertheless present limitations in reaching the public that may be connected to a given content if that public has no access

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  177

to or does not use the digital media. This limitation explains the ambivalent way in which activists view traditional media: on the one hand, they seem impenetrable (or less permeable) to certain causes; on the other hand, they reach the general population (including info-excluded) and, as such, cannot be completely ignored, playing an important role in spreading information about their struggles. In this way, traditional media can be powerful adjuncts, helping to break the cycle of circular communication, closed and limited to the activist universe, as the following interviewees assert: Each of us ends up living in a bubble and we, on Facebook, Facebook and social networks in general … on the internet … we create an alternative reality where we live surrounded by people who share our interests. Breaking into other people’s bubbles is very difficult. If people are not there, it’s not because they see your thing on Facebook that they will be interested, unless some hyper-viral video appears. (Activist, No hate ninjas) Television is fundamental here, essentially … if not, it will always stay within the same media and these media forms, they’re a bit of a vicious cycle, in the sense that we are left with the illusion that we all know. But no, we all don’t know! But (the object is) to reach people who were not involved; those who are the majority of the population, as more than 90% of the population are not involved in any process of citizen participation. (Activist, Plataforma 15O; Academia Cidadã)

At an intermediate level, between the communication associated with activist organisations and individual initiatives (many affirming themselves only at the private level), we can situate the uses of the digital as means of information and diffusion of news. This last situation could be mixed up with many of the already mentioned uses with regard to existing collectives, although it has a specific purpose. Certain groups/individuals tend to organise themselves as alternative media, as a news agency or via an information aggregation site. In this sense, we can consider, on the one hand, what is usually called ‘citizen journalism’, associated with uses of information disclosures, denunciations, etc. In this case, the information disclosures are usually less frequent, not often arising in association with a specific project. Such a case is characterised by the use of usual channels, such as blogs or social networks created by others (such as YouTube). On the other hand, we can consider citizen journalism as being associated with alternative media, linked to independent media (websites, blogs, etc.) aimed at the systematic dissemination of information. The best international example is Indymedia,

178  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

of which various formats can be found in several different countries. In the Portuguese case, the site TugaLeaks, inspired by the WikiLeaks website, is probably the best example, functioning as reporting journalism. The activists involved in the collection and dissemination of this type of information are aware of their ‘uncomfortable’ nature, precisely because it impinges on the instituted powers, as reported by the following interviewee, a journalist for the site in question: I had the TugaLeaks Civic Movement which is now the TugaLeaks media body. It came about when I arrived to this certain point when I saw that the information I had … if I divulged it, there could be problems, and then … because two and a half years ago or so, they came to my house because of a thing I wrote in TugaLeaks, and from there I thought, ‘Wait, this is too serious for them to be coming here, so I have to prepare better’. So, I was a bit quiet for a few months. Then I created the media body and I came back stronger. But now I only dedicate to exclusive news. So, publishings in TugaLeaks now, they don’t appear in any other place, or only in very sporadic cases, if I have more information than what was published (originally), but we practically dedicate ourselves only to what’s exclusive; in other words, it doesn’t appear anywhere else. We take care, we investigate, we publish. I don’t know, we’ve already made enemies, in GNR, in the PSP, in the Ministry of Justice, we’ve made enemies, but we are more protected. (Activist, Tugaleaks).

Digital Causes and Struggles For groups struggling for digital rights under various ‘technological causes’, mobilisation for the use of digital tools takes on an importance that is not entirely equal to that of other activist groups for diverse purposes. They move in a specific circuit, facing a particular fight that involves the difficulty of leaving this same closed circuit. In their discourses and practices, it is not only commercial technological devices that are viewed with suspicion, but also software, in its various expressions. The monitoring of information exchanges by large media companies, especially through platforms with hegemonic reach, is something that many activists are aware of and concerned about. Access to Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, it’s free, but they all earn from the analysis they sell to other companies, people’s behavior patterns … If they (people) say that they’ve often bought something, there are market studies that they can do; we are the product … Therefore,

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  179

whenever it is a centralised company to control the flow of information, they will always be in a privileged position because they’ll be able to control the information concerning what we see, that we consult, in order to sell or pass on to third parties this information on what we do or don’t do. (Activist, ANSOL)

Thus, the fight against surveillance and monitoring of citizens’ lives by companies and public authorities becomes the defence of the use of open source software, which doesn’t have as a counterpart the collection and misuse of personal information. A good example of this is the ‘open social web’, which, based on an open and decentralised structure, is limited in its scope, and cannot reach the users of the dominant social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. we usually choose to participate, at the Association level, in social networks that are implemented with free software. Of course, they have a small problem: they also have a lot fewer people, they reach a lot less people … Like, for example, the Status Net network, which has since changed to be a Papillon network … the core idea of these social networks is to be distributed and federated, not centralised in a single site. Because it happened, a few weeks ago it become public, for example, that Facebook along with the US Department of Defense carried out a massive experience without people’s knowledge of the information manipulation that was feed to people. (Activist, ANSOL)

Nonetheless, the pressure for inclusion in such networks seems to overlap with consistent initiatives to overcome them, even, as in the above cases, for activists connected to groups for whom the digital is a cause. Platforms that are an alternative to those of a commercial nature, and, therefore, not secure, are used particularly in an internal communication circuit, focused on the activities of daily organisation and management of the groups themselves: ‘Okay, we have a channel on Mumble, which is a Skype-type chat, but safe, encrypted, for privacy reasons. The new site, in addition to everything integrated, will have a section of groups. Work groups, groups of … everything and anything else. Plans, LAN Party people, no matter, groups’ (Activist, Pirate Party Movement). In this perspective, internet technologies are not only tools of political and social organisation, but also ‘arenas’ of resistance that enable challenges to the instituted powers represented by big companies, the media or the institutional political powers. Such confrontation can be blatant – when creating a circuit and mode of diffusion that opposes traditional media – or latent – when there is a more or less peaceful cohabitation between different

180  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

channels of communication. In their practices, activists are partly aware of this tension, made obvious in the commercial logic behind the tools they use and the need to give in to popular tools (such as Facebook) in order to reach a wider audience. Whether it is individual or collective, it is not only the use of technologies in the protests at hand, but the very challenge of digital capitalism, which is based on digital technologies, platforms and networks, generating a tension between the democratic needs of the activists and digital activism (Barassi 2015). In fact, the daily uses of digital technologies by activists are defined by a constant process of negotiation with social, cultural and economic constraints, created by the corporate (business) logic of web technologies.

Conclusion The end of the first decade of the millennium was marked by various forms of social and political turbulence, with distinct causes and motivations, but where the existence of some common features and seemingly new phenomena was evident. This was evident with the Arab Spring, with the youthful and popular protests in Brazil, Chile, Turkey and Hong Kong, with the anti-austerity protests in Greece, Portugal and Spain, and with the translocal movements of the Indignados and Occupy. Today we are living in a period in which the consequences of different crises, protests and revolutions have yet to be defined. We found that one of the dimensions that became most evident during these popular mobilisations and protests was the importance of digital technologies and, above all, social networks. The aforementioned events were widely disseminated, including through traditional media. Historically, this was the first time the power of digital media and their real-time application in situations of conflict, violence and protest were witnessed, which, in consequence, lead to growing concerns on the part of public authorities to control and neutralise their use. Simple smartphones with an internet connection have been, in many episodes, decisive for overturning regimes or marking the political agenda. This is a trend that seems to be here to stay. Common to these expressions of protest was, as we have seen, its hybrid nature, corresponding to a strong interconnection between the street and digital media. Along with changes to public expressions on the streets, we find what can be called ‘virtual’ public expressions carried out online, that prolong and feed mobilisation offline. In part, this expression is complementary to what happens on the streets, maintaining with it a strategic and

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  181

diversified link. Another part is autonomous, creating a specific intervention field, with its own characteristics. But these media and tools do not work only in episodic situations of greater social and political turbulence, quickly radiating a set of messages. They also work at the level of building a public sphere of its own, competing with other media and circuits. The reality of the last few years has made it clear that it is impossible to be involved in politics or activism without resorting to a set of digital technologies. Indeed, if, on the one hand, institutional actors (parties, trade unions) and some larger non-governmental organisations and associations have been using these technologies for a long time, on the other, we have seen that expanded access to the digital allowed it to be used by more informal, ephemeral and floating structures. The data we collected throughout the project corroborates this reading. We have found that digital tools and the internet are generally welcomed by activists, if nothing else at least because these resources, being embedded in individuals’ daily lives, promote a certain ‘naturalisation’ in their application to certain practices of engagement in activism. In fact, there is a utilitarian view of these resources that highlight the opportunities they bring, not only for new ways of activism, but also for enhancing/empowering old activist practices (communication, interaction, mobilisation, recruitment, etc.). In this sense, the ‘new grammar’ emerges as a mixture of digital and pre-digital practices, not entirely replacing ‘old practices’, let alone street power. This is an issue that is very clear and one that is emphasised by the interviewees. The internet is a complementary resource, intersecting with ways of activism that are perfectly institutionalised, and empowering them. But the street continues to have an extremely important pragmatic and symbolic role, because this is the primordial space of struggle, ideological confrontation and statement of ideas. Hence the strong intersection between the streets and online circuits, forming the hybrid communication circuit we have underlined. In this way, the reading we make is that, for most activists, digital media can fulfil an emancipatory, democratic and participative function, a fact that can be used strategically by collectives, with an importance for different struggles and causes. The internet serves as an aid to alternative communication logics, reinforcing the capacity of individuals and groups with less public expression to acquire an increased visibility space. In this way, its capacity for political participation and intervention in the public sphere is strengthened. This issue is particularly relevant in the case of youth. Several studies have shown that young people are not only increasingly distanced from formal politics, but also have a negative view of institutional political actors. Thus, they are perceived as politically inactive, having little

182  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

capacity to influence the political agenda and to participate in the public sphere. The world of formal politics and the issues that move it not only seem inaccessible to young people, they do not represent their problems and their most direct wishes. This is also a question of generational and social hierarchy, with many rationalising that the universe of formal politics is, above all, a highly normative terrain for adults. Recent years have shown, however, that young people are not politically apathetic. In a context in which they were confronted with the intensification of a set of problems that directly affected them, they mobilised and acted. Still, this involvement is completely different from formal participation. The young people joined movements that were constituted in a more spontaneous and fluid manner, constituted in a more horizontal and noninstitutional nature. In the same way, their participation also has a more floating nature and is not compromised by association with institutions. This way of doing politics and participating civicly is more favourable to the use of digital media, as we have seen. The democratisation of the media means that, today, young people have access to a set of tools of mobile digital communication, with an extremely high communicative potential. Several studies show that this is a highly connected generation, very proficient in the use of these technologies and one that can produce digital contents (images, texts, sounds) in a DIY context. Hence the digital is part of their daily life, being strongly embedded in their sociabilities, consumption and cultural productions. It is, therefore, quite natural that these resources should be used to discuss problems, advocate causes, mobilise friends, etc. These resources allow an intervention that is more individualised, spontaneous, uncompromising, one that mixes leisure, entertainment and politics, and seems, therefore, to be closer to the modes of communication and participation models of many young people. José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões holds a PhD in Sociology from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at New University of Lisbon (NOVA FCSH), Portugal, where he teaches in the Department of Sociology, and is also a researcher at CICS.NOVA (Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences). He has been researching youth cultures, children/youth and digital media, as well as activism and social movements. He coordinated the ‘Networked Youth Activism’ project (2014–2015) and the Portuguese participation in the European study ‘Net Children Go Mobile’ (2013–2014). He is currently working on ‘ArtCitizenship’ (2018–2021), studying activism and creative practices of young people in Portugal. He has published extensively on the above-mentioned subjects.

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  183

Ricardo Campos holds a Graduation and Master degree in Sociology and a PhD in Visual Anthropology. He is a researcher at CICS.Nova – Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences, Portugal. He currently coordinates two research projects: ‘Artcitizenship – Young people and the arts of citizenship: activism, participatory culture and creative practices’ (2018– 2021), and ‘TransUrbArts - Emergent Urban Arts is Lisbon and São Paulo’ (2016-2020), both financed by FCT/MCTES. He is also co-coordinator of the Visual Culture Group of the Portuguese Association of Communication Studies and co-coordinator of the Luso-Brasilian Network for the Study of Urban Arts and Interventions (RAIU).

Note  1. The project entitled ‘Network Youth Activism: digital media, social movements and participatory culture among young activists’ (EXPL/IVC-COM/2191/2013) was financially supported by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and was carried out at the Interdisciplinary Center of Social Sciences CICS.NOVA – NOVA FCSH, UID/SOC/04647/2013, a research centre financially supported by FCT/ MEC through national funds.

References Accornero, G., and P.R. Pinto. 2015. ‘“Mild Mannered”? Protest and Mobilisation in Portugal in Times of Crisis, 2010–2013’, West European Politics 38(3): 491–515. Ancelovici, M., P. Dufour and H. Nez (eds). 2016. Street Politics in the Age of Austerity: From the Indignados to Occupy. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Banaji, S., and D. Buckingham. 2013. The Civic Web: Young People, the Internet, and Civic Participation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Barassi, V. 2015. Activism on the Web: Everyday Struggles against Digital Capitalism. New York: Routledge. Baumgarten, B. 2013. ‘Geração à Rasca and Beyond: Mobilizations in Portugal after 12 March 2011’, Current Sociology 61(4): 457–73.  . 2016. ‘Time to Get Re-Organized! The Structure of the Portuguese AntiAusterity Protests’, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 40: 155–87. Bennett, W.L., and A. Segerberg. 2011. ‘Digital Media and the Personalization of Collective Action’, Information, Communication & Society 14(6): 770–99.  . 2012. ‘The Logic of Connective Action’, Information, Communication & Society 15(5): 739–68. Cabral, M.V. 2014. Dimensões da Cidadania: A Mobilização Política em Portugal numa Perspectiva Comparada. Porto: Edições Afrontamento. Campos, R., I. Pereira and J.A. Simões. 2016. ‘Activismo digital em Portugal: um estudo exploratório’, Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas 82: 27–47.

184  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

Carmo, R.M., F. Cantante and N.A. Alves. 2014. ‘Time Projections: Youth and Precarious Employment’, Time & Society 23(3): 337–57. Castells, M. 2012. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press. Dahlgren, P. (ed.). 2007. Young Citizens and New Media: Learning for Democratic Participation. London: Routledge.  . 2009. Media and Political Engagement: Citizens, Communication and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  . 2013. The Political Web: Media, Participation and Alternative Democracy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Dahlgren, Peter, and Tobias Olsson. 2007. ‘Young Activists, Political Horizons, and the Internet: Adapting the Net to One’s Purposes’, in B.D. Loader (ed.), Young Citizens in Digital Age: Political Engagement, Young People and New Media. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 68–81.  . 2008. ‘Facilitating Political Participation: Young Citizens, Internet and Civic Cultures’, in K. Drotner and S. Livingstone (eds), The International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture. London: Sage Publications, pp. 493–507. Della Porta, D. 2015. Social Movements in Times of Austerity. Cambridge: Polity. Díez García, R. 2017. ‘The “Indignados” in Space and Time: Transnational Networks and Historical Roots’, Global Society 31(1): 43–64. Feixa, C., and J. Nofre (eds). 2013. #Generación Indignada: Topías y utopias del 15M. Lleida: Editorial Milenio. Feixa, C., I. Pereira and J. Juris. 2009. ‘Global Citizenship and the “New, New” Social Movements: Iberian Connections’, Young – Nordic Journal of Youth Research 17(4): 421–42. Feixa, Carles, J. Saura and C. Costa (eds). 2002. Movimientos juveniles: De la globalización a la antiglobalización. Barcelona: Ariel. Fenton, N. 2010. ‘Re-imagining Democracy: New Media, Young People, Participation and Politics’, in T. Olsson and P. Dahlgren (eds), Young Citizens, ICT’s and Democracy. Gothenburg: Nordicom Press, pp. 19–34. Fernandez-Planells, A., M. Figueras-Maz and C. Feixa Pàmpols. 2014. ‘Communication among Young People in the #spanishrevolution: Uses of Online–Offline Tools to Obtain Information about the #acampadabcn’, New Media & Society 16(8): 1287–1308. Flesher Fominaya, C., and L. Cox (eds). 2013. Understanding European Movements: New Social Movements, Global Justice Struggles. New York: Routledge. Fuchs, C. 2011. Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies. New York: Routledge. Gerbaudo, P. 2012. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Press. Johansson, T., and P. Lalander. 2012. ‘Doing Resistance – Youth and Changing Theories of Resistance’, Journal of Youth Studies 15(8): 1078–88. Juris, J. 2008. Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization, Experimental Futures. Durham and London: Duke University Press.  . 2012. ‘Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere: Social Media, Public Space, and Emerging Logics of Aggregation’, American Ethnologist 39: 259–79.

Digital Media, Youth and the New Grammars of Activism  |  185

Kennelly, J. 2011. Citizen Youth: Culture, Activism, and Agency in a Neoliberal Era. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Loader, B.D. 2007 (ed.). Young Citizens in Digital Age: Political Engagement, Young People and New Media. London and New York: Routledge. Loader, B.D., A. Vromen and M. Xenos. 2014. ‘The Networked Young Citizen: Social Media, Political Participation and Civic Engagement’, Information, Communication & Society 17(2): 143–50. Lovink, G. 2011. Networks without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mendes, J.M., and A.M. Seixas. 2005. ‘Acção colectiva e protesto em Portugal: os movimentos sociais ao espelho dos média (1992-2002)’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 72: 99–127. Micó, J.-L., and A. Casero-Ripollés. 2014. ‘Political Activism Online: Organization and Media Relations in the Case of 15M in Spain’, Information, Communication & Society 17(7): 858–71. Milan, S. 2013. Social Movements and Their Technologies: Wiring Social Change. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Morozov, E. 2011. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: PublicAffairs. Muggleton, D., and R. Weinzierl (eds). 2003. The Post-Subcultures Reader. New York: Berg. Olsson, T., and T. Dahlgren. 2010. ‘Introduction’, in P. Dahlgren and T. Olsson (eds), Young People ICTs and Democracy. Gothenburg: Nordicom, pp. 9–15. Penney, J., and C. Dadas. 2014. ‘(Re)Tweeting in the Service of Protest: Digital Composition and Circulation in the Occupy Wall Street Movement’, New Media & Society 16: 74–90. Pickerill, J., J. Krinsky, G. Hayes, K. Gillan and B. Doherty. 2014. Occupy! A Global Movement. New York: Routledge. Postill, J. 2014. ‘Freedom Technologists and the New Protest Movements: A Theory of Protest Formulas’, Convergence 20(3): 402–18. Purdy, Sean. 2017. ‘Brazil’s June Days of 2013: Mass Protest, Class, and the Left’, Latin American Perspectives, published online in April 2017, https://doi. org/10.1177/0094582X17699905 (accessed 16 January 2018). Recuero, R., G. Zago, M.T. Bastos and R. Araújo. 2015. ‘Hashtags Functions in the Protests Across Brazil’, Sage Open (April-June): 1–14. http://sgo.sagepub.com/ content/5/2/2158244015586000 (accessed 16 January 2018). Rovira, G. 2009. Zapatistas sin fronteras. Mexico City: Ediciones Era. Saad-Filho, A. 2013. ‘Mass Protests under “Left Neoliberalism”: Brazil, June-July 2013’, Critical Sociology 39(5): 657–69. Santos, B.S., and J.A. Nunes. 2004. ‘Introduction: Democracy, Participation and Grassroots Movements in Contemporary Portugal’, South European Society & Politics 9(2): 1–15. Simões, J.A., and R. Campos. 2016. ‘Juventude, movimentos sociais e redes digitais de protesto em época de crise’, Comunicação, mídia e consumo, São Paulo, 13(38): 130–50.

186  |  José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos

Simões, J.A., R. Campos, I. Pereira, M. Esteves and J. Nofre. 2018. ‘Digital Activism, Political Participation and Social Movements in Times of Crisis’, in I. David (ed.), Crisis, Austerity and Transformation: How Disciplining Neoliberalism is Changing Portugal. Lanham: Lexington Books, pp. 71–90. Sloam, J. 2014. ‘“The Outraged Young”: Young Europeans, Civic Engagement and the New Media in a Time of Crisis’, Information, Communication & Society 17(2): 217–31. Sommier, I. 2003. Le renouveau des mouvements contestataires a l’heure de la mondialisation. Paris: Flammarion. Standing, G. 2014. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Taibo, C. 2013. ‘The Spanish Indignados: A Movement with Two Souls’, European Urban and Regional Studies 20: 155–58. Tarrow, S.G. 2011. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tejerina,  B., I. Perugorría, T. Benski and L. Langman. 2013. ‘From Indignation to Occupation: A New Wave of Global Mobilization’, Current Sociology 61(4): 377–92. Tremayne, M. 2014. ‘Anatomy of Protest in the Digital Era: A Network Analysis of Twitter and Occupy Wall Street’, Social Movement Studies 13(1): 110–26. Van Laer, J., and P. Van Aelst. 2010. ‘Internet and Social Movement Action Repertoires’, Information, Communication & Society 13(8): 1146–71. Vatikiotis, P., and Z.F. Yörük. 2016. ‘Gezi Movement and the Networked Public Sphere: A Comparative Analysis in Global Context’, Social Media + Society: 1–12.

Chapter 9

Reinstitutionalising Democracy The Role of the Portuguese Elections in Temporally Taming the Democratic Crisis Jonas Van Vossole

Introduction Since 2011, the economic crisis and subsequent austerity policies have led to a period of social conflict. Portugal saw the biggest demonstrations since the revolutionary process of 1974–1975 and the establishment of parliamentary democracy. Low and decreasing salaries, high and rising youth unemployment, and a lack of opportunities for the youngest generations, resulting in precariously employed but highly educated youth, played a leading role in those protests (Estanque 2014). It is, therefore, no coincidence that the first major protest was called ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Desperate Generation). In previous work (Van Vossole 2014), I argued that social struggles lead to a democratic legitimacy crisis, as described by Habermas (1975) when he analysed the problems of late capitalism. The previous existing consensus about what democracy was disappeared. Protest movements and national and international policy makers held radically different perspectives about what democracy was and should have been. While Pedro Passos Coelho, then prime minister, proclaimed ‘Screw elections!’ and entered into direct conflict with the constitutional court, protest movements on the streets – in line with international movements such as Indignados, Occupy Wall Street, and others – demanded ‘Real democracy now!’ Throughout this chapter, I will analyse the role that the different electoral moments of 2013, 2014 and 2015 had on the evolution of the crisis, and the role they played in the re-articulation of a renewed democratic hegemony.

188  |  Jonas Van Vossole

In his defence of the formalist perspective on democracy, Joseph Schumpeter (2013) – and with him people that defend the minimalist perspective in democratic theory such as Adam Przeworski (1999) – argued that the big fallacy of classical democratic theory lay in its defence of a model of democracy based upon the ‘will of the people’, but also in the fact that there is no such thing as a ‘will of the people’: a ‘will of the people’ needs political actors and institutions to be represented in order to be known. Schumpeter thus saw the minimal form of democracy to be based on the idea of ‘representation’ – in his perspective this could only mean ‘free elections in a multi-party system’ – as the best way to express and form this ‘will of the people’. His theory was inspired on a businessefficiency model, based on the idea that competition between different political parties, in which the client would choose his favourite product, and aggregate demand in the form of an elected majority, would define policies. A considerable portion of the critical literature in democratic theory has been based upon the critiques and pitfalls of such a formalist perspective as a prescriptive theory for democracy. In previous work (Van Vossole 2014), I summarised, historicised, defended and explained many of these critiques. In the first section of this chapter, however, I will use Schumpeters’ (2013) approach as a descriptive – not prescriptive – approach to show how elections themselves affect and rearticulate different democratic discourses. This will be done through an analysis of the local, European and national parliamentary elections in Portugal between 2011 and 2015. The concepts of hegemony and political articulation are borrowed from Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s (2001) work, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, which, itself, is based on the work of Antonio Gramsci. Hegemony occurs when a ‘particular social force assumes the representation of a totality that is radically incommensurable with it’. A political community can only reach such a form of ‘hegemonic universality’ through contingent political articulations and new universalities – hegemonic transitions – are the product of political re-articulations (Laclau and Mouffe 2001: x–xii). Elections play the role of institutionalising the ‘wills’ of the people and, thus, formalise and institutionalise the hegemony of liberal democracy. This chapter will show how the elections and consecutive formation of the Geringonça government (the popular nickname for the left-wing Costa government) institutionalised a possible ‘democratic revolution’ and how this – in the case of Portugal and in democratic theory – poses some difficult questions.

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  189

The Portuguese Party Landscape on the Left during the Crisis The eruption of the crisis in 2011 coincided with the appearance of a wide range of new social movements in which unorganised, precarious youth played the leading role. Some of these movements specifically addressed precarious working conditions – like Precarios Inflexiveis (‘Inflexible Precarious’) and Movimento Sem Emprego (‘Unemployed Movement’) – while others had more general or varied demands – like Geração á Rasca (‘Desperate Generation’), Que Se Lixe a Troika – QSLT (‘Screw the Troika’), the Acampadas,1 among others (Soeiro 2014). In the immediate aftermath of the crisis that started in 2011, these protest movements, or at least the people active in them, moved in two separate directions, a path that shares commonalities with Habermas’s (1975: 92) description in his book Legitimation Crisis. One part was a movement that radically retreated from society as we know it. One could say that this movement was marked by elements of deinstitutionalisation and depoliticisation, that is if institutions and political organisation are considered on a broader, national and collective scale. These activists abandoned big protest movements and embraced the idea of building local communitarian or even individual alternatives – such as community gardening, permaculture and squats (Van Vossole 2016). The other movement has been one of institutionalisation and politicisation of the protest movements (Van Vossole 2016) in broad mobilising platforms around the organised left groups and parties. This happened in particular through QSLT, the 15 October platform and Precarios Inflexiveis. Over time, the radical left parties became the political representatives of these movements. The three main traditional parties of the Arco da Governação (‘Arch of Governance’) – Socialist Party (PS), Social-Democratic Party (PSD) and Social Democratic Centre-Popular Party (CDS-PP) – have dominated governmental politics in Portugal since 1974. In analysing the sources of reconfiguration of democracy, this chapter will thus primarily look towards the left-wing opposition, which, itself, went through a process of fragmentation during the crisis (Freire 2017: 189). Due to its ideological and practical role in the protests during the crisis, it also played a key part in the reconfiguration process of Portuguese democracy. On the radical left, there are two main players: the Communist Party and the Left Bloc. The Communist Party (PCP) has been the main party on the Portuguese left since the 1974 revolution. It has a broad membership

190  |  Jonas Van Vossole

and strong ties to the traditional working class and trade unions. During the last three decades, there have been various attempts to change PCP from within, with the end result being a process of profound deradicalisation (Freire 2017: 40). As a result, the party remains one of the most orthodox communist parties in Europe (Freire 2017: 199). PCP usually participates in elections through an electoral front called CDU – Centro Democratico Unitario or Unified Democratic Centre – in conjunction with The Greens Ecologist Party (PEV) and independents. Through the years, the party has had a very stable electorate of around 10%. In 1999, two radical left organisations – the Trotskyist Partido Socialista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Socialist Party, PSR) and the Maoist União Democratica Popular (Popular Democratic Union, UDP) – and one reformist communist movement – Politica XXI – founded a new party. Bloco de Esquerda (the Left Bloc, also referred to as BE or Bloco) has had a relatively unstable electorate, mainly attracting well-educated and young people. While PCP has always had its strongest base in the traditionally organised and older working class, the Left Bloc has tended to concentrate on the younger ‘precarious’ generation. According to Freire (2017: 40), based on its positive attitude towards the USSR and theoretical critique of liberal democracy, PCP could be characterised as being more of an ‘extreme’ left-wing party, while the Left Bloc is more critical towards the USSR and, thus, is more likely be defined as a ‘radical left’ party. While PCP has given less importance to the ideas of ‘revolution’ and ‘utopia’ as immediate political goals, the main differences between both parties, leading up to the crisis period, was very much defined by their approach towards governance. To this day, PCP defends a classical Marxist-Leninist approach towards democracy. It accepts liberal democracy and defends the 1976 constitution as a transitional phase, but rejects it as a final political goal, believing that ‘real democracy’ cannot be based upon a free-market economy. Due to its internal divisions, the Left Bloc, on the other hand, tends to be less clear on this point. While certain internal currents within the party defend a perspective similar to, or even more radical than, that of PCP, in practice the Left Bloc tends to propose reforms in order to broaden democracy, all the while avoiding rupture with liberal institutions. The Left Bloc tends to be more alter-globalist and PCP more patriotic. In their relations towards the European Union – at least until the outbreak of the crisis and the imposition of austerity measures – this translated in the Left Bloc aiming to reform the EU, and PCP becoming more radically Eurosceptic (Freire 2017: 190–92). The coming of the crisis, however, radicalised the left, leading to a convergence between the Left Bloc and PCP. PCP has linked the crisis to

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  191

forty years of right-wing governance; it emphasised the need to nationalise strategic sectors of the economy, called for the renegotiating of the debt and its Euroscepticism grew even stronger. The Left Bloc also defended the nationalisation of the banking sector and privatised public services, argued in favour of a partial rejection of the debt and adopted a more critical position towards the EU (Freire 2017: 193–95). Most of the programmatic proposals of both the Left Bloc and PCP remained radical given that they mainly defended the programme of the ‘old’ social democracy (Freire 2017: 40). The radical character of both parties, therefore, was mainly characterised by their historical critique of representative governments and historical lack of will to compromise with other political actors. The next section will analyse how this configuration was affected by the different election processes that took place in Portugal since the implementation of austerity measures – local elections in 2013, European elections in 2014 and, most importantly, the legislative elections of 2015 – as well as the subsequent street protests that then occurred.

The Local Elections of 2013 Local politics is the political level at which representativeness is closest to direct and participative forms of democracy, given the closer, more personal proximity between the electorate and the elected. In Portugal participative democracy is anchored in the constitution. The local level is the level where those participative dimensions of democracy – in the form of participatory budgets, for example – are strongest from an institutional perspective. It is also the only level – beyond presidential elections – that opens the possibility for candidates outside the recognised political parties to be elected (Almeida 2016). While there are many specific local aspects structuring the results in local elections, the local elections of 29 September 2013 stand out as having been affected by a ‘nationalised campaign’ (Freire 2017: 49–50). It was the first electoral moment since the government of Passos Coelho took power and the implementation of the Troika memorandum. Antonio José Seguro, then Socialist Party general secretary and official opposition leader, had appealed for ‘a vote against the government’. These elections marked a historic defeat for the ruling PSD/CDS-PP coalition. Local lists involving at least one of the two government parties, or parts of them (PSD, PPD, CDS-PP), decreased from 2.3 to 1.6 million, or from 41.8% to 31.8% of the vote. This also resulted in a reduction in the number of mayors, from 140 to 106.2

192  |  Jonas Van Vossole

The right certainly lost the election, but the left did not exactly win either (Freire 2017: 50). PCP – which increased its vote from 9.8% to 11.1% and its number of mayors from 28 to 34 – can be considered an exception. The other parties of the parliamentary opposition would barely profit from the delegitimisation of the right-wing government’s policies. While everything played in favour of a big victory for PS – and even though the party proclaimed itself as the winner of the elections – PS was not able to capitalise on the nation’s discontent (Freire 2017: 49–54). In fact, PS saw its number of votes decrease from 2.1 to 1.8 million: 37.7% of the popular vote in 2009 compared to 36.3% in 2013. However, due to a fall in candidacies linked to the government coalition, PS saw its number of mayors rise from 132 to 149. The Left Bloc saw its number of votes decrease from 3% to 2.4%, losing the only mayor it had won in Salvaterra de Magos in 2009. Besides the Left Bloc’s political problems at the national level, one explanation for the party’s decrease in support is that its electoral results were influenced by the resurgence of independent and locally supported citizens’ candidacies – such as Citizens for Coimbra (CPC), a movement in the Portuguese city of Coimbra, for example – as well as by the rise of abstention resulting from the emigration of young, unemployed people. Rather than turn to the political parties on the left, polarised discontent was channelled towards citizens’ lists (Freire 2017: 51). While there was generalised dissatisfaction with the government’s policies, there were no credible alternatives. A poll by CESOP,3 carried out prior to elections in 2013, showed that 61% of respondents believed that the opposition parties would not do any better (Freire 2017: 54). The first elections following the democratic crisis were marked by a decrease in electoral participation, as well as a surge of new small parties and ‘independent’ lists of candidates. The number of votes decreased from 59% to 52.6% while the number of blank votes (1.7% to 3.9%) and invalid votes (1.3% to 3%) more than doubled. ‘Citizen Groups’, the overarching category that groups together the number of votes cast for independent citizens’ lists, increased from 4.1 to 6.9% (226,111 to 344,531 votes), nearly doubling its number of elected representatives and mayors from 2009 to 2013. In the midst of this, however, it is worth pointing out that the ‘independence’ of various lists could be put into doubt, as many of the ‘independent’ candidates were, in fact, supported by parties – such as the winning candidacy for the mayor of Rui Moreira in Porto supported by CDS-PP, or the Citizens for Coimbra list (CPC) supported by the Left Bloc. The increase of votes for citizens’ lists, together with the increased popularity of participatory budgeting, was a sign of the decreased legitimacy of

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  193

traditional parties who were being replaced by the increasing popularity of active participation by citizens in local democracy, in spite of a decrease in electoral participation as a whole. At the same time, these elections served as a platform for what would be a first trial in the articulation between social movements and parties in electoral alliances.

The European Elections of 2014 In the European elections of 25 May 2014, a similar pattern to that of the local elections can be observed. The European crisis transformed the European elections, which are second-order,4 into an important issue. While overall electoral programmes did not change fundamentally on European issues, the crisis had strengthened Euroscepticism and eroded support for European integration. This meant that Portugal moved from being one of the most Europhile member states to one of the most Eurosceptic (Freire 2017: 122). Prior to the elections, only 42% of voters evaluated EU-membership positively (Freire and Santana Perreira 2015). When election day came, perhaps to no surprise, the lowest turnout ever was registered: 33.7%, with a record 7.5% blank and invalid votes (Freire and Santana Perreira 2015). When comparing the results with the 2013 local elections, again it is possible to observe an electoral reckoning with the government parties and their austerity policies. For these elections, the two government parties – PSD and CDS-PP – participated jointly under a unified list under the name Aliança Portugal (Portugal Alliance), as a strategy to diminish the electoral damage of the unpopular austerity measures and save the smallest partner (CDS-PP) from electoral decimation. The votes for both forces combined, nevertheless, decreased from 39.1% (separately in 2009) to 27.7% (losing half a million votes), having decreased their combined number of members in European Parliament (MEPs) from ten to seven. The main opposition party (PS), nonetheless, would hardly profit from this, gaining around 85,000 votes and adding one more MEP in what was a narrow victory over Aliança Portugal. While the Socialist Party did come out on top, they did so whilst attaining the party’s second lowest result – the exception being the annus horribilis of 2009 – in Portugal’s democratic history (Freire 2017: 125). Due to the decreasing total amount of votes, the relative number of votes for PS still rose from 26.2% to 31.5%, but it lost a massive share of its vote- – 22.7%, compared to the parliamentary elections of 2011 (Freire and Santana Pereira 2015: 103). According to Freire and Santana Perreira (2015), PS would not capitalise on the governing coalition’s losses due to the party’s requisite role at a time of severe crisis

194  |  Jonas Van Vossole

that included its decision to sign the Memorandum of Understanding with the Troika. As Freire (2017: 129) points out, since the intervention of the Troika, PS had been unable to differentiate itself from the right and showed an incapacity to lead the opposition. The perceived pyrrhic victory would eventually, in the context of austerity politics, be framed as a loss for the secretary general of PS, Antonio Seguro, and would trigger a leadership contest by Lisbon mayor Antonio Costa. Antonio Costa had shown that he was able to build alliances on the left as mayor of Lisbon, having led a coalition with the Left Bloc. Apart from being a more credible voice in the opposition against austerity, this background would eventually enable him to articulate alliances at the national level (Freire 2017: 130) The results of the European elections can nevertheless be seen as a protest against the European consensus and the mainstream political establishment. One of the effects was electoral ‘fragmentation’ (Freire and Santana Pereira 2015) or a new step towards the end of the so-called bipartidarismo, the alternating monopolistic power position of PS and PSD. Protests against the European Union, the government, and austerity measures were mainly channelled towards the Communist Party and MPT (Movimento Partido Terra, or Earth Party) (Freire and Santana Pereira 2015). The Communist Party, which defended a clear anti-austerity and anti-European position, would increase its vote from 380,000 to a historic 416,000 votes in the European elections –  a relative increase of 12.68%, with its number of MEPs rising from two to three. The Left Bloc’s campaign, on the other hand, led by leading public figure Marisa Matias under the slogan ‘De Pé! Não somos a Divida’ (‘Arise! We are not the debt’), would have disastrous results. Matias was unable to rescue more than her own seat while the Left Bloc lost two of the three European seats it won in 2009. Despite Matias’ personal popularity in the media – which would be proven in the presidential election of 2016 – the Left Bloc lost more than half of its votes, attaining only 4.56 %, compared to 10.73% in 2009. The limited growth of PCP and the disastrous results for the Left Bloc, despite potentially favourable conditions, were partially explained by the strong division among the left and the reasonable results of new micro-parties such as PAN, LIVRE and MPT that marked the European elections of 2014 (Freire 2017: 123). The success of these small parties, with populist, anti-institutionalist, and social movement orientations, reflected the inability of the Left Bloc to represent the grassroots discontent felt ‘on the streets’. Two other factors were the Left Bloc’s unclear political positions towards the EU, in which the party changed positions between federalism and Euroscepticism, and a crisis within the party leadership following the

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  195

departure of its former leader, Francisco Louçã (Freire and Santana Pereira 2015: 102–103). During this crisis, internal struggles often led to a politics of the greatest common divisor and sharp political turns. The result was a campaign that combined an anti-austerity programme with a very proEuropean perspective, which focused on the need for ‘Euro-bonds’ and a renegotiation of the public debt. Apart from the traditional divide between the Communist Party and the Left Bloc, twelve other smaller parties participated in the elections. European elections have been traditionally very open for new parties to participate in and gain good results (Freire 2017: 58). Two new parties emerged from the internal splits of the Left Bloc and participated in the elections for the first time: MAS (Movimento Alternativa Socialista) and LIVRE (Free) (Freire and Santana Perreira 2015: 100). MAS, a TrotskyistMorenoite radical left-wing organisation led by Gil Garcia, was initially known as RUPTURA (meaning split) and was born out of its namesake from the Left Bloc during the upswing of the anti-austerity movements and in the aftermath of its electoral collapse in 2011. It had a very active role within the social movements and thought it could electorally capitalise on the crisis in the Left Bloc by defending a more radical and populist perspective against the EU and the political establishment in general, with electoral slogans such as ‘Prison for those who robbed the country’ and ‘Stop the privileges of the politicians’. Livre, on the other hand, is a ‘left-wing green and libertarian party’ led by Rui Tavares, a former member of the European Parliament (Freire and Santana Pereira 2015). Rui Tavares had been elected as an independent candidate on a Left Bloc list in 2009. He eventually resigned from the Left Bloc and the GUE (Gauche Unitaire Européene/United European Left) fraction to join the green fraction in the European Parliament. According to Freire (2017: 58), Livre was able to fill a green-left libertarian gap in the Portuguese political landscape, functioning as a ‘mediator’ between leftist parties, occupying a space between PS and the Left Bloc, with a proEuropean federalist perspective that combined a critique of austerity with the open defence of the need for collaboration with PS. None of these splits from the Left Bloc were very successful, however. MAS got 0.38% of the vote; Livre remained at 2.18% and was unable to re-elect Rui Tavares to the European Parliament. The MRPP, the historically Maoist party, which hoped for an electoral breakthrough under austerity conditions under the slogan ‘Death to the traitors’, would get only 1.66% of the vote. Eventually it was the MPT which would largely benefit from the discontent. MPT is a ‘conservative ecologist party’ (Freire and Santa Pereira

196  |  Jonas Van Vossole

2015) which, despite a poor record in earlier elections, would claim a prominent role in these elections through its leader Marinho Pinto, a public figure known for being a television commentator and head of the Portuguese Bar Association of lawyers. Based on a general populist, antiestablishment discourse – comparable with the ideas advanced by Cinque Stelle, the Five Star movement in Italy led by Beppe Grillo – MPT would be the big surprise of the elections. MPT overtook the Left Bloc with 7.14% and elected two MEPs. The 2014 campaign was dominated by the weakness of the left, a lack of cooperation and credible political alternatives to the crisis, as well as a lack of practical perspectives in the struggle to achieve an anti-saving alternative. The result of all this was that these elections were marked by cynicism and non-participation.

The Legislative Elections of 2015 ‘Conservatives win Portuguese elections’ was the main message in both the Portuguese and international media shortly after elections results were revealed on 5 October 2015. The ‘victory’5 of the right-wing conservative government coalition, this time called Portugal á Frente (PAF) – a renaming of the alliance known as Aliança Portugal during the 2014 elections – composed of the Christian-conservative CDS and the right-wing liberal PSD, came as a surprise (Freire 2017: 160). It was compared to the surprising victory of David Cameron in Britain in May of the same year. PAF emerged as the biggest political force in the polls despite the continuous demonstrations against the Troika-imposed austerity policies implemented by incumbent Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. Freire (2017: 160) attributes this surprising fact to four factors: international pressure – from the EU and the financial markets – to continue with austerity policies; the message of PAF that there was no alternative and that ‘the worst was done’; a quasi-total alignment of the media in favour of the incumbent government; and what Freire terms the ‘Syriza antidote’ – the notion that even if the people elected an anti-austerity government it would achieve nothing and lead to disaster. A deeper analysis of the results and subsequent events shows that they were in line with those of the previous elections. PAF made a strong comeback compared to the European elections of 2014 and disproved the results of polls carried out a few months before the elections. It also remained the largest electoral formation with 38.3%. But the coalition of the former government parties lost a large number of votes, voting percentages and seats, as well as its parliamentary majority. Its proclaimed ‘victory’, in fact,

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  197

equalled a loss of around 700,000 votes (a 12% decrease) in comparison to the parliamentary elections of 2011 (Freire 2017: 163), equalling 24 fewer members of parliament. These losses, however, were again limited due to the creative use of the unified list Portugal à Frente – for 38.5% of the votes, PAF received 46.5% of the seats in parliament (Freire 2017: 199). Given the high real electoral threshold6 in the smaller provinces and the D’Hondt method of seat distribution, adding the two government parties together created the perception that it would remain the largest political force. The left-wing opposition parties received 61.4% of the vote. The parties considered to be radical left received nearly 20%. The electoral victory of the left was thus ‘divided’. PS had failed to cast itself as the true vote against austerity. The real ‘winners’ were the radical left parties (Freire 2017: 161). Making a remarkable comeback compared to the European elections, the Left Bloc achieved the biggest electoral gains. After two successive electoral defeats and a series of internal splits, the party rose from eight to 19 seats. As in the European election, its split-offs – the more centre-oriented Livre and the populist left AGIR PTP/MAS – failed to deliver. The splits, in fact, enabled the party to unify itself and bring a more a coherent narrative against austerity. Early on in the campaign, the Left Bloc distanced itself from the U-turn of its Greek sister-party Syriza. After failed negotiations with the EU, the Syriza government led by Alex Tsipras had continued the austerity policies of previous governments. Even though Tsipras’ failure was constantly thrown at Catarina Martins during electoral TV debates, the spokesperson of the Left Bloc managed to win every debate. Consequently, the Left Bloc emerged as the third largest party in parliament. Despite the great success of its direct electoral competitor on the left, the Portuguese Communist Party also succeeded in making progress, though limited. Although the results were not as good as were hoped for, in particular when compared to the gains made in the European elections, PCP still extended its vote, with PCP-PEV winning 17 seats compared to 16 in 2011. For the first time in Portuguese democratic history – with the exception of 1985 – the right had a relative majority, while the combined left had an absolute majority (Freire 2017: 168). The strengthening of the radical left ensured that, for the first time in forty years, the system of ‘alternation’ between the two ‘regime-parties’ of PS and PSD was broken. Under the leadership of Antonio Costa, the Socialist Party had set a target to attain an absolute majority. A year after having won the European elections against the same coalition with a margin of 31% to 28%, it failed to get more than the government coalition (PAF). Nevertheless, given its historically low result in the 2011 parliamentary elections (28.1%), PS still

198  |  Jonas Van Vossole

managed to improve its parliamentary representation. With 32.4%, the Socialist Party gained 11 seats, increasing to 85 in total. Freire (2017: 161162) attributed this disappointing result to PS’s ‘tacticisms’, having followed a defensive strategy and refused to take on the leadership of the opposition in the context of crisis and austerity. Taking into account the crisis context and the unpopularity of the incumbent government, this minor progress was portrayed as a defeat. In the media, by the PAF-coalition as well as by the opposition inside the party itself, the Socialist Party was portrayed as the true loser of the elections. The internal opposition demanded the resignation of PS leader Antonio Costa, as Antonio Costa himself had done the year before in relation to former PS leader Antonio Seguro. These demands – the loudest voice came from PS MEP Francisco Assis – reflected an internal political tension and division inside the party. Some, led by Costa, leaned to the left and demonstrated a tendency to join the anti-cuts agenda of the Left Bloc and PCP. Having learned the lessons of Greece and fearing ‘Passokisation’,7 they were especially aware of the risk of being outflanked electorally on the left. Others, on the other hand, of a more right-wing leaning section of the party represented by Assis, possessing closer links with systemic power and a historical enmity towards the radical left, systematically favoured a coalition with the right (Freire 2017: 175). This group portrayed itself as being ‘responsible’, arguing in favour of one priority: to keep to the agreements with the Troika and the EU. Costa refused the demands for his resignation as secretary general. Although there was disappointment within the Socialist Party, they would not suffer the losses of its sister parties in Greece (Passok), Spain (PSOE), the Netherlands (PVDA) or France (PS). Portugal did not experience the surge of a new anti-establishment force linked to the anti-austerity movements – like the ‘movement parties’ of Podemos, Syriza, or M5S, that were able to connect with the anti-austerity movements through frameworks, structures and repertoires of action (Della Porta et al. 2017). The more influential movements outside the traditional parties – like Congresso Democratico das Alternativas or even Livre – were never real anti-establishment alternatives, but tended to focus on the collaboration among the left, including PS. Santana Pereira (2016) explains this, based on three factors: the fact that PS left office before the agreement with the Troika came into full force and could, therefore, position itself as an opposition force against the most draconian austerity measures, which compressed the space for the radical left; the pre-existence – even pre-crisis – of radical left forces, which have consistently come to gather more than 10% of the votes over time, making it more difficult for a new party – that would be

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  199

dependent on the same discontented electoral base – to rise in popularity; and the existence of differences in political culture, with lower politicisation and participation levels in Portugal compared to other crisis-ridden countries like Spain or Greece.

Possible Coalitions The coalition negotiations in the aftermath of the 2015 elections had an important role in restructuring perspectives of democracy in Portugal. The ruling PAF-coalition’s loss of absolute majority opened the door for a number of parliamentary alternatives, along with the reconnection of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary perspectives. The new balance of power ensured that a parliamentary majority was only possible through a coalition of both regime parties or through an agreement between PS and the ‘radical’ leftist parties. At first glance, government participation by the Left Bloc and the Communist Party seemed highly unlikely. The parties on the radical left have never participated in governments in the forty years of Portuguese democracy and the PS had never made any agreements with coalition partners to its left at the national level. The left had always been excluded from the so-called arco de governação (Arch of Governance) which denominates the three parties which have constituted the governments of the last forty years: PS, PSD and CDS-PP. During the Cold War, such exclusion of the radical left had been the general rule in most European states. But in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when radical left forces entered governments in France, Italy, the Scandinavian countries and elsewhere, the Portuguese case had become an exception (Freire 2017: 107). Freire and Estanque (2013) enumerate three main reasons for the historical lack of convergence on the left. First, there was the historical enmity around the Periodo Revolucionario Em Curso (PREC), the revolutionary process between the fall of the authoritarian regime on 25 April 1974 and the democratic ‘normalisation’. Following this period, the left branded PS as ‘traitors’ of the revolution, as the latter intended to keep Portugal within a liberal democratic, European sphere. PCP and the radical left, on the other hand, were branded as authoritarian forces that wanted to implement a USSR-style dictatorship. A second reason, according to Freire and Estanque (2013), is the way in which Portuguese trade unions are organised. In many European countries, a unified trade union movement is a key factor for pushing towards a collaboration of the left; in Portugal, however, such movements are divided along party lines. A third factor is the political differences

200  |  Jonas Van Vossole

between the left-wing parties, with PS being traditionally aligned to the right and more pro-European, while the ‘radical’ left, and in particular PCP, possess a much more Eurosceptic position. Before the elections, the radical left parties had stated that they would continue to resist any government coalition that continued with austerity policies. It seemed unlikely that PS would agree to a number of crucial conditions for this purpose, not least among them the renegotiation of the debt, a reassessment of European fiscal rules, and an end to austerity policies. The parties that signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the Troika – PS, PSD and CDS-PP – gained more than two-thirds of the seats in parliament. Historically and politically, these parties agreed on important topics such as fidelity to international agreements, the fiscal compact, the Maastricht criteria, and the Euro. The most likely scenarios for the formation process, according to Freire (2015), thus relied on a partnership between the incumbent PAF government coalition – or parts thereof – with PS: a monster coalition of PSD/PS/CDS-PP or a continuation of the PAF government with parliamentary support from PS. PS and PSD are also, nevertheless, each other’s biggest opponents, especially when it comes to the distribution of political appointments and influence in the deep state. A monster coalition between the regime parties would also offer a monopoly on the opposition to the radical left and could pose the risk of delegitimising all regime parties. Such a scenario would also put CDS-PP in a difficult position. The main reason why it had remained in the unpopular PSD-led austerity government was to impose a conservative ethical agenda – blocking abortion law and gay rights, for example. In the newly elected parliament, with a progressive ethical majority, it could easily become sidelined. The PAF alliance of CDS-PP and PSD thus preferred the continuation of their, now minority, government. Its political strategy consisted in framing it as a question of ‘democracy’ as they had ‘won’ the elections. They also legitimised this solution based upon the tradition of the ‘Arch of Governance’ – the historical cordon sanitaire around the radical left which has existed since 1975. Less than two days after the elections, without any attempt to form a parliamentary majority to support a new government, PSD and CDS-PP announced a coalition agreement for the continuation of the Passos Coelho government. For this to work out, they counted on the sitting right-wing President Cavaco Silva, the idea of ‘political stability’, and parliamentary support from a divided PS, in the form of abstentions or disloyalty, as ‘responsible’ opposition. Various factors obstructed this solution. One is that a PSD-led minority government would prolong its monopoly right to positions in the

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  201

deep state. Another was the ideological inflexibility of the right. Despite negative economic results in terms of public debt and public deficits, Passos Coelho persisted with policies that PS had framed as ‘more Troikist than the Troika’. A continuation of these policies had been contested by historical figures of PSD itself, including Manuela Fereira Leite and José Pacheco Pereira. Moreover, the PSD/CDS-PP government coalition had continuously legitimised its unpopular austerity policies as being the consequence of the ‘excesses’ of the past PS government led by former Prime Minister José Socrates. In addition, Antonio Costa himself had no interest in making the collaboration between PS and PAF viable (Freire 2017: 205). In doing so, he would have immediately broken his key electoral promise that he would not support a new austerity budget by the incumbent government parties. Another factor was the internal divisions within PS. Several figures within PS were demanding Costa’s resignation after the elections. Costa would probably not have saved his position as president of PS if the party continued on in the role of opposition. The premiership and access to state governance after four years of exclusion had all the makings of party reunification under his leadership, all the while saving his position. The relations between PSD and PS worsened with the controversial decision by President Cavaco Silva to reappoint Passos Coelho. The President invoked the tradition to appoint the leader of the largest electoral formation as formateur, despite having proclaimed before the elections that he favoured a government with a large majority and a stable coalition (Freire 2017: 167–68). The president’s accompanying controversial speech overtly attacked the left-wing parliamentary majority. In the presidential declaration, he tried to impose a cordon sanitaire against the leftist parties the Left Bloc and PCP because of their Eurosceptic and anti-NATO positions that would harm the image and interests of Portugal vis-à-vis the European Union and the financial markets (Freire 2017: 167). He overtly incited the members of parliament of PS to ignore party discipline at the vote of confidence. Allowing PS, the Left Bloc and PCP to respond to the President’s unilateral decision would mean a loss of time which would only harm the financial situation of the country and its credibility in international markets. The speech was framed as the unacceptable and unconstitutional behaviour of an authoritarian president. According to Freire (2017: 167), the speech revealed incoherence, parochialism and a lack of democratic political culture. It had the opposite effect to what had been intended. Instead of dividing the left, it led to greater unity, both within PS – where the internal opposition would almost unanimously rally behind Costa and gave him a mandate to negotiate

202  |  Jonas Van Vossole

with the Left Bloc and PCP – and between PS and the parties on the left. Even the employers’ federation CIP (Industrial Confederation of Portugal) criticised the ‘unnecessarily polarising speech’ of the president. The removal of PSD and Passos Coelho became the top priority for the opposition. After Cavaco Silva’s speech, PS announced that it would present a motion of no confidence; until then and during the electoral campaign, it had maintained a hardened stance against the possibility of such a motion, endorsing an alternative parliamentary majority agreement instead. In the newly constituted parliament, the new balance of forces immediately crystallised with the election of PS member of parliament Ferro Rodrigues as parliamentary president. By the time the government was announced, it was already clear that the presidential initiative to form a minority government was condemned. Eleven days after its appointment, a motion of no confidence was passed by parliament and the newly formed twentieth constitutional government led by Passos Coelho became a demissionary cabinet. By that time, Antonio Costa had a political agreement for a parliamentary majority with BE, PCP and PEV to support a PS government. At first, President Anibal Cavaco Silva – who was also approaching the end of his mandate and thus had reduced powers – refused to appoint Antonio Costa. Some even expected that he could maintain the government of Passos Coelho in its demissionary form, with a budget based on the previous one, until new parliamentary elections could be called after the presidential elections. The danger of a regime crisis, the potential form of dual power between the parliament and the government, a government without a budget unable to meet its European obligations, combined with the potential for social mobilisation backed by a parliamentary majority, all this combined would eventually lead the president to accept a PS government. The Geringonça solution ended the shortest government – lasting twenty-seven days – in the history of Portuguese democracy.

Geringonça The term Geringonça can be loosely defined as ‘something that is badly constructed’, a ‘hazardously functioning fragile structure’ (Dicionário Houaiss da língua Portuguesa 2001: 1877), a ‘contraption or gadget’, or a ‘misconceived plan’ (Dicionário, Porto Editora 2019). The term Geringonça was used by critical opinion-makers to frame the agreement for the formation of the twenty-first constitutional government of Portugal. The term, previously

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  203

used to disparage the new coalition, would eventually be reclaimed by the government and its supporters. It would be chosen as the Portuguese word of the year in 2016. The Geringonça, therefore, would be made up of a minority government consisting of PS, led by Antonio Costa, with parliamentary support from PCP, the Left Bloc and PEV. The agreement signified an important change in the Portuguese parliamentary tradition, particularly the unwritten rule of the Arco de Governação which excludes the left from government participation. It was the consequence of an unexpected turning point in the attitude of the left parties the Left Bloc and PCP which had been the main parliamentary voice of the struggles against the cuts during the previous executive. Even during the election campaign, Catarina Martins, spokeswoman for the Left Bloc, put forward three minimum conditions for dialogue with PS: it had to abandon its plan to save an additional 1.6 billion in pensions, abandon the new labour regime that would facilitate layoffs and forsake its plans to reduce corporate taxes. Immediately after the elections, both leaders of PCP and the Left Bloc affirmed that they were ready to collaborate with PS to avoid a Passos Coelho government. Both PCP General Secretary Jeronimo Sousa and the Left Bloc’s spokeswoman Catarina Martins stated that they would submit a motion of censure to the right-wing government of Passos Coelho and that its survival would solely depend upon PS. As a regime party ‘in bed’ with possible coalition partners on both the left and the right, PS suddenly found itself in a relatively comfortable position despite the party’s disappointing electoral results. Responding to the expressed intentions of the Left Bloc and PCP during the first week after the elections – while Cavaco Silva tried to sustain the PAF solution – negotiators of the three parties started talks to work out a possible coalition. During the formation process, Antonio Costa met independently with the leaders of the radical left parliamentary forces. These talks were not without their fair share of problems. Many attributed to Martins a genius strategy that would either unmask the Socialists or open the way for a progressive coalition. Yet still, there was internal criticism towards this strategy – a tension revealing the difficulties of building an alliance involving people who were associated with the previous protest movements. The tension was expressed in the form of opposition towards the three terms for negotiations which did not address any of the structural problems behind the crisis; after all, Martins had made no mention of the renegotiation of the debt and the agreements on the budget. It was also expressed in the accusation of a lack of open internal democratic consultation over these terms.

204  |  Jonas Van Vossole

When the negotiations started right after the elections, there were some public protests. Most prominently, Mariana Mortagua – member of parliament for the Left Bloc and a young economist who came to prominence with her parliamentary interventions on the bankruptcy of Banco Espirito Santo – suggested that the renegotiation and cancellation of the debt had to be an essential part of the governmental and budget negotiations. The overt criticism was, however, quickly silenced by Catarina Martins, who claimed that as spokeswoman she was the only one authorised to proclaim the official position of the party. Martins’ intervention was effective, given the authority acquired by her successful electoral campaign. The negotiations with PCP were expected to be more difficult. The communists had made it clear that they were open to cooperation on the left and that failure to form a Costa-led government on the basis of a leftwing majority in parliament would be the sole responsibility of PS itself. Still, PCP seemed very reluctant to give legislative guarantees. Much to the horror of the Europhiles in PS and the anti-communist opinion leaders in the Portuguese media, PCP’s MEPs also proposed a bill that enabled countries to exit the Eurozone in the week of the negotiations. Separate agreements were eventually signed with BE, PCP and PEV that would guide the policy principles of the government in exchange for a vote of confidence and support for the government’s budget. These agreements, among others, included: an increase of the minimum salary from €485 to €600 over the four-year legislation period; the reintroduction of pensions which had been frozen by the Passos Coelho government; the reposition of salaries in the public sector; combating precarious contracts, with particular attention given to the contracts of ‘fake’ independent workers; a reduction of VAT for restaurants; and bringing to a halt the ongoing privatisations of public transport and public services. This agreement was received with surprise and horror by both commenters and politicians on the Portuguese right, who claimed that Costa’s solution was anti-democratic (Freire 2017: 163). Manuela Fereira Leite, former president of PSD, accused Costa of fooling the people and organising a coup d’état (RTP, 16 October 2016).8 Marco Antonio Costa, another leading figure in PSD, framed the new government solution on the left as ‘democratically illegitimate’ (Diario de Noticias, 31 October 2015).9 On his part, right-wing opinion maker Rui Ramos spoke about ‘post-electoral fraud’ (Observador, 8 October 2015).10 If the party or alliance that won the elections cannot form a government coalition – a ‘relative majority’ – the possibility to do so should be given to the second biggest party. This is common practice in most European parliamentary systems and is also in conformity with the Portuguese constitution. But

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  205

in forty years of Portuguese democracy, it had never been practiced before (Freire 2017: 163). For many on the left, both in Portugal and in the European Union, the agreement was welcomed with hope and enthusiasm. The Geringonça was presented as a democratic alternative to neoliberalism and as an example of the success of left-wing policies in Europe.

Democratic Revolution or Thermidor? What exactly has been the impact of the Geringonça solution on democracy in Portugal? In his book Para lá da ‘Geringonça’, Freire (2017: 218–20) makes a positive evaluation of the Geringonça’s first years, focusing on the fact that the agreement permits the Portuguese government to implement the necessary policy changes, all the while staying in conformity with EU laws. It is a satisfying solution for the electorate, evidenced by the rising approval ratings in the polls during 2016 and 2017. For Freire, the Geringonça is a ‘real democratic revolution’ for three reasons: 1) The inclusion of 18% of the population – which voted for PCP or the Left Bloc – who were previously marginalised, which restored the principle of one person, one vote (Freire 2017: 165). At the institutional level, the participation of the radical parliamentary left of PCP, PEV and the Left Bloc in the government solution has democratised the representative institutions. Electoral democracy has been broadened as more political parties and political programmes became available for voters, with the reasonable expectation that they could participate in coalition formations, thus broadening the ‘useful vote’ and the Arco de Governação. 2) The improvement of the quality of representation on two levels, as finally, left-wing political elites are finally doing what the left-wing electorate across all parties expect them to do. Recent polls show that the electorate of PS, the Left Bloc and PCP prefer a collaboration between left parties instead of the traditional collaboration with the right. The formation process also clarified different political options and increased political choice, taking PS to the left (Freire 2017: 218–20). This meant a rupture from the ‘no alternative’ discourse that had been used by Pedro Passos Coelho and the Troika. Under pressure from PCP and BE, the government pushed for limited reforms that broke with the idea of the inevitability of austerity policies, such as increasing the minimum salary to €557 in 2017, reintroducing previously scrapped holidays, and

206  |  Jonas Van Vossole

bringing to a stop the privatisation of the transport sector. All this served to question the idea that economic recovery would only be possible through further cuts in salaries and working conditions. 3) Freire (2017: 219–20) believes the government can have a positive effect on Europe, perhaps even becoming an inspiration for other countries around the continent by playing an important role in ending the neoliberal status quo at an international level. The Geringonça, therefore, could signify a veritable democratic revolution. Some problems remain, nevertheless. Given that the government’s policies remained fiscally conservative, the fact of the matter is they have not ended austerity outright. Freire (2017: 214) points out that the accusations stating that ‘the government and radical left parties lied to the electorate when they promised to end austerity’ is partially true. This, in part, is explained by the restrictions imposed by the EU. As the government is not inclined to radically change the macroeconomic and macro-political environment, the origins of the crisis remain in place. Meanwhile, due to political pressure from parties on the left, the burden of austerity has been more evenly distributed between capital and labour (Freire 2017), yet still no structural answers have been given. No solution has been given to the structural imbalances in the Eurozone, to the structural disadvantage of peripheral areas, to the lack of democratic legitimacy of the EU institutions, to the pro-market/pro-capital bias of the EU structure, nor to the problem of public and private debt unsustainability. Within a context of economic growth, although precarious in nature, primarily driven by the tourism sector – a sector with many underlying problems such as precariousness of salaries and working conditions, external dependency and seasonality – the electorate approves of the government’s policies, according to the polls (Freire 2017: 214). While these policies of more ‘equitable’ austerity are democratically legitimate, at the same time, the Geringonça solution has decreased the available political parliamentary options. As a result, PCP and the Left Bloc have partially lost their anti-establishment character and have softened their political discourses and radical critiques. This is particularly important to consider given that these parties previously functioned as the parliamentary voice behind many of the demands of the extra-parliamentary protest movements in the first phases of the crisis. Through the Geringonça, some of those demands were fused into government policy. But, at the same time, the allegiance of the Left Bloc and PCP to the government solution affects their ability to be representatives and stimulators of those movements. As a result, there is no

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  207

longer a credible opposition voice with social and political representability to defend the cancelation of the debt, the nationalisation of the banking sector, or the exit from the Eurozone, for example. The PS has so far not been confronted with a so-called ‘Passokisation’ – the total electoral wipe-out of social democratic parties – like its Greek sister-organisation Passok, the PSOE, or, more recently, the Dutch PVDA and the French PS. The Geringonça solution not only gave social democracy the chance to remain in power without being decimated for the application of harsh austerity measures, but also kept it alive as a legitimate electoral option, preventing a more polarised political landscape. The situation may prove electorally dangerous for PCP and, particularly, for the Left Bloc which, traditionally, has a more unstable electorate. The local elections of 2017 were the first test of this theory. Although local dynamics – particularly outside the big urban areas – are relatively independent from what happens at the national level, the trend is illustrative. PCP suffered considerable losses, losing one-third of its positions. At the same time, the Left Bloc was unable to consolidate locally the electoral progress it had made at the national level during the legislative and presidential elections of 2015 and 2016 respectively. This could be the consequence of another factor which, according to Freire (2017), contributes to the positive tendency towards democratic revolution – that Geringonça obliged the radical left to take responsibility for its political propositions in adverse conditions. Recent polls have shown that PS and Costa have come to profit the most from the current government solution. The Geringonça has also strengthened the trend towards social peace that started in the year before the elections (Martins 2016). The massive apartidarian11 street protests, demonstrations, and acampadas against austerity had lost momentum due to a lack of organisation and outlook. Those who were better organised – namely around Que Se Lixe a Toika (QSLT) – were institutionalised through the integration of its leadership in the left-wing party-oriented forces and dynamics, which, over time, would shift its focus to electoral and parliamentary struggles. The last attempt to organise a strong Trade Union offensive against austerity measures was the CGTP demonstration of Ponte-a-pé.12 The Government prohibited the demonstration for alleged security reasons, and a judicial and mediatised battle between government and unions followed. In the end the unions were forced to back down, and limited the protest to a small symbolic demonstration in the rain. After the lost confrontation between the CGTP union leadership and the government around the demonstration of Ponte-a-pé in the autumn of 2013, no new large-scale demonstrations or strikes were registered. Also, the union’s hope

208  |  Jonas Van Vossole

for political change would be channelled towards electoral change instead of street mobilisation. If social struggles and mobilisation are considered an essential part of democracy and democratisation – particularly in its participative dimensions – it seems that the increased ‘representative quality’ has seriously affected the participative and popular character of Portuguese democracy. All these aspects should raise at least some concern about the contradictions of the so-called ‘democratic revolution’. Counterbalancing the concept of ‘revolution’ with that of a ‘thermidor’ can be perhaps bring about a more enlightening perspective. Thermidor was the name given to the process of reaction in the aftermath of the French Revolution, at the moment Robespierre was to be executed and the revolutionary process reverted back to normality, signifying a retreat from the most radical objectives of the revolution. The term thermidor was later popularised by Leon Trotsky (1973) in his The Revolution Betrayed to characterise the way in which bureaucracy put an end to the Russian revolutionary process and the participation of the masses in forms of participatory democracy – the Soviet system – which had emerged in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The thermidor put an end to this revolutionary and emancipatory process, taking away the initiative of the revolutionary movements of the working class and institutionalising a new normality led by the Stalinist bureaucracy. This not only meant a retreat in formal aspects of democracy, but also in many of the substantive dimensions of Soviet democracy, such as access to social and equal rights for women and the LGBT community, for example. Of course, the concepts of ‘revolution’ and ‘thermidor’ are of purely metaphorical use here. Just as the concept of ‘revolution’ in Freire’s work can only be metaphorically compared with the October Revolution of 1917, the politics of Geringonça do not equate to a policy of Stalinist reaction. Still it is important to ask: is the electoral process, within the limits of bourgeois democracy, not playing the same role as the thermidor if compared to the emergence of protests, social movements and alternative discourses on democracy in the face of the crisis? In many respects, Geringonça is a return to a situation of ‘normality’ – pacifying the radical elements that emerged during the crisis through a relatively stable government that respects the rules of the Eurozone and the European Union. Is this situation so very different from that of Greece? Ranabir Samaddar (2016) described how Syriza – as the political representative of the anti-austerity struggles in Greece – betrayed its electoral programme and then neglected the result of the referendum on EU-imposed austerity, leading the author to conclude that institutionalised democracy would, from now on, be the route from where passive revolution would

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  209

begin. The ‘radical’ left, which formed the political expression of the social movements during the protests, abandoned (if at least temporarily) its radical position towards a radical social transformation. The anti-austerity protests and the prospect of a radically different democracy vanished. At least for now…

Some Conclusions An analysis of Portugal’s electoral cycles since the protests of 2011 and the formation of the Geringonça government reveals how the protest movement eventually vanished and how its energy and hopes were channelled towards electoral processes. This chapter has argued that this process did not end in a radical change, neither in terms of electoral representation, nor in terms of policies. This leads to the following question: is this form of pacification and the co-optation of social movement leaderships inevitable under liberal representative democracy? Was Michels (1915) right in his ‘Iron Law of Oligarchy’ when he proclaimed that: History seems to teach us that no popular movement, however energetic and vigorous, is capable of producing profound and permanent changes in the social organism of the civilized world. The preponderant elements of the movement, the men who lead and nourish it, end by undergoing a gradual detachment from the masses, and are attracted within the orbit of the ‘political class’. They perhaps contribute to this class a certain number of ‘New ideas,’ but they also endow it with more creative energy and enhanced practical intelligence, thus providing for the ruling class an ever-renewed youth.

While the practical conclusions of the crisis in Portugal point in the direction of such co-optation, the case also provided other hopeful elements. For example, the crisis opened ways for a critique of the electoral system as it is defined (Van Vossole 2014). Many of the protestors involved in the Acampadas and Indignados, for example, were at the centre of the critique of liberal democracy. Originally, these groups were largely constituted by highly-educated, precariously employed youth – the so-called ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Desperate Generation) – the main voice behind the call for ‘real democracy now!’ During the crisis they were the standard bearers of alternative forms of democracy, pre-figurative democratic politics and council democracy. The co-option of the social movements and the integration of the radical left did not bring any answer to their social demands,

210  |  Jonas Van Vossole

nor did it bring any structural solution for the problems of the European economy that lay behind the crisis. That said, however, one can expect that the alternative democratic aspirations will one day emerge again; in which form only the future can tell. Jonas Van Vossole is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science at Ghent University and at the Centro de Estudos Sociais at Coimbra University. He has a master’s degree in political science and a master in complementary economics, both from the University of Ghent. Jonas’ main research interest concerns the study of democracy, social movements, social protests and critical political science, political philosophy and political economy. His current PhD research focuses on the influence of the Euro crisis on democratic legitimacy in Southern Europe, and Portugal in particular.

Notes Parts of the section of this chapter, ‘The Legislative Elections of 2015’, have been published in: J. Van Vossole, ‘Historische Portugese verkiezingen openen perspectieven voor links’, SPanning: Tijdschrijft van het Wetenschappelijk bureau an de SP, 1, 2016; and J. Van Vossole, ‘De confrontatie tussen Belem en Sao Bento: een overzicht van de Portugese coalitie-gesprekken’, DeWereldMorgen.be, 2015.   1. The Acampadas were a form of protest, inspired by the Arab spring, which consisted in permanently occupying public places through the practice of camping.   2. The electoral results can be found on the website of the Portuguese Ministry of Internal Affairs: http://www.eleicoes.mai.gov.pt/autarquicas2013/#none (accessed 2 November 2015).   3. Centro de Estudos e Sondagens de Opinião (CESOP) da Universidade Católica Portuguesa.   4. ‘First-order elections are those where there is much at stake, that is, the control of national executive power. This means that in parliamentary systems, legislative elections are first-order, as are elections for the head of state in presidential regimes. On the contrary, second-order national elections have no direct impact on the control of national executive power’ (Freire 2004: 54).   5. The ‘victory’ was a ‘relative majority’, the term used in Portuguese political discourse to describe an electoral formation that has achieved the highest number of votes or elected representatives.   6. The real electoral threshold is the minimal percentage of votes a party must attain to get its candidates elected. The larger the district magnitude, the smaller the real electoral threshold will be to gain a seat (Schamp and Devos 2012).   7. ‘Passokisation’ refers to the electoral disaster of the social democratic party Passok, punished for what was framed as ‘responsible governance’ – the continuation of austerity policies during the Greek crisis.

The Role of the Portuguese Elections  |  211

 8. https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/eleicoes-legislativas-2015/antonio-costa-esta-a-fazerum-golpe-de-estado_a866449 (accessed 25 October 2015).  9. http://www.dn.pt/portugal/interior/marco-antonio-costa-se-o-ps-se-casar-com-opcp-e-o-be-e-para-a-vida-4864100.html (accessed 2 November 2015). 10. http://observador.pt/opiniao/a-fraude-pos-eleitoral (accessed 25 October 2015). 11. Apartidarian/apartidario was the word with which the occupy movements labelled themselves to distinguish themselves from party-politics. 12. Ponte-a-pé, a wordplay which signified both ‘kick the government out’ (Pontapé) and ‘pass the bridge on foot’ (Ponte a pé).

References Almeida, M.A.P. 2016. Grupos de cidadãos nas autarquias portuguesas: contributo para a prática da cidadania e para a qualidade da democracia? Lisbon: Escrytos. Della Porta, D., J. Fernandez, H. Kouki and L. Mosca. 2017. Movement Parties against Austerity. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press. Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa [online]. 2019. Porto: Porto Editora. https://www.infopedia.pt/dicionarios/lingua-portuguesa/geringonça (accessed 25 November 2019). Estanque, E. 2014. ‘Rebeliões de classe média? Precariedade e movimentos sociais em Portugal e no Brasil’, Revista Critica das Ciencias Sociais 103: 53–80. Freire, A. 2004. ‘Second-Order Elections and Electoral Cycles in Democratic Portugal’, South European Society and Politics 9(3): 54–79.  . 2015. ‘O eleitorado unidimensional ou a derradeira hipótese das esquerdas’, Público, 7 October.  . 2017. Para lá da ‘Geringonça’: o governo de esquerdas em Portugal e na Europa. Lisbon: Contraponto. Freire, A., and E. Estanque. 2013. ‘Da reunião à convergência das esquerdas: porquê, como, para quê?’, Público, 18 April. Freire, A., and J. Santana Perreira. 2015. ‘More Second-Order than Ever? The 2014 European Election in Portugal’, South European Society and Politics 20(3): 381–401. Habermas, J. 1975. Legitimation Crisis. Cambridge: Polity Press. Houaiss, A. 2001. Dicionário da língua portuguesa. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva. Laclau, E., and C. Mouffe. 2001. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Martins, R. 2016. ‘Greves caem para menos de metade em cinco anos’, Público, 5 December. Michels, R. 1915. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Hearst’s International Library Co. Przeworski, A. 1999. ‘Minimalist Conception of Democracy: A Defense’, Democracy’s Value 23: 12–17. Samaddar, R. 2016. A Post-Colonial Enquiry into Europe’s Debt and Migration Crisis. Singapore: Springer. Santana Pereira, J. 2016. ‘A esquerda radical no período pós-2009: nada de (muito) novo em Portugal?’, Oficina do Historiador 9(1): 58–77.

212  |  Jonas Van Vossole

Schamp, T., and C. Devos 2012. ‘The Electoral Equilibrium Hypothesis Tested: A Statistical Historiography of the Belgian National Electoral and Party System’, In 22nd World Congress of Political Science (IPSA 2012). Ghent University, Department of Political Science. Schumpeter, J.A. 2013. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: Routledge. Soeiro, J. 2014. ‘Da Geração à Rasca ao Que se Lixe a Troika: Portugal no novo ciclo internacional de protesto’, Sociologia 28: 55–79. Trotsky, L. 1973. The Revolution Betrayed. New York: Pathfinder Press. Van Vossole, J. 2014. ‘Divergent Narratives on Democracy in the Portuguese Social Conflict: A Dialect Materialist Approach’, Cabo dos Trabalhos 10: 1–17.  . 2016. ‘Post-political Elements in the Portuguese Anti-Austerity Discourses’, in J.D. Pereira, M.A. Samara and P. Godinho (eds), Espaços, redes e sociabilidades Cultura e política no movimento associativo contemporâneo. Lisbon: FCSH, pp. 288–300.

Conclusion Towards a Post-Austerity Turn? Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões

This book has brought together a series of chapters on the issues of precariousness and protest based on the reality of a single country: Portugal. The diverse readings that composed the volume were the work of a collection of authors, of different nation backgrounds, who have been continuously engaged in the carrying out of research on the aforementioned issues, taking into consideration the social dynamics specific to Portuguese society. In situating the study on one specific country, it is essential to point out that it was not the intention of this volume to neglect the potential for contextualisation on an international sphere, keeping in mind comparisons with other countries that share similar historical processes. In fact, among the analyses and debates on the impacts of financial crises and austerity policies that have recently come to shake the social structures of a number of European countries, Portugal has not been a primary focal point of case study research. The reality is, however, that Portugal not only suffered considerable social and economic upheaval, especially between 2010 and 2014, that ended up having significant repercussions on the increase of poverty, unemployment, inequalities and levels of job insecurity (Cantante 2018; Carmo and Matias 2018), but it also experienced an intense cycle of protests characterised by multiple forms of social and cultural expressions (Accornero and Pinto 2015; Baumgarten 2013, 2016; Estanque, Costa and Soeiro 2013). Taking the above into consideration, the first objective of this book was to observe in an in-depth fashion, via the presentation of recently carried out research, a series of social movements organised during the previously mention timeframe, that brought about moments of strong social protest involving thousands of individuals. Although these mass demonstrations can serve to represent key episodes in the history of Portuguese social

214  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões

movements, they do not exhaust the whole plot of actions and collective strategies that had been mounting and reconfiguring in previous years. In fact, this book has served to deconstruct the set and often reproduced idea that practices of citizenship in Portugal are relatively insignificant and limited, especially if we are to take into account the more institutional expressions of such practices (Cabral 2014). What the studies presented in this book show, therefore, is that, first and foremost, the demonstrations that took place in recent years were of great relevance, having been the result of complex processes of negotiation and involvement among different actors (social movements, unions, political parties), having made use of diverse platforms of dissemination to inform and communicate, having experienced different levels of repercussion within public space. Secondly, the analysis carried out in the various chapters showed that protests in Portugal is characterised by certain specificities that distinguish it from protests carried out in other countries, especially those countries that were also subject to austerity programmes, as was the case with Greece and Spain. Probably the most symptomatic fact, when comparing realities, concerns the coexistence and the relatively good relationships – although tense under certain circumstances – between new social movements (many of them inorganic) and the more traditional and institutionalised labour and political party structures. Some of the analyses presented showed in great detail how relations developed and how the more consolidated structures not only managed to avoid different types of conflicts and the potential emergence of new social movements and party organisations, but also had the capacity to re-adjust and incorporate relevant parts of the claims coming out of street protests. One of the consequences of the recent cycle of protest was the emergence of new collective actors (social movement organisations – SMOs) that came to ‘challenge’ the status of traditional political actors (e.g. political parties and trade unions) via the carrying out of major protest marches. The complexities of such relations involving trade unions were addressed by Dora Fonseca in chapter 4. During the height of the crisis, forms of cooperation and partnerships were developed between trade unions and SMOs, particularly by means of alliances and coalitions between SMOs and one of the largest national labour unions in Portugal (CGTP). In turn, these alliances and coalitions also acted as a node of interaction at the European level with other trade unions, serving to strengthen the way in which the struggle against austerity and precariousness was framed and organised at a larger scale, ‘acting as a way of magnifying resistance and opposition’. The relations between these organisations, however, were more ambiguous, as was reflected in tensions that arose due to differentiated positions in the protest field. It was argued

Conclusion | 215

that these tensions were, in fact, directed towards different forms of cooperation, to a great extent owed to the ‘self-limited radicalism’ of SMOs. As described in the chapter, the cooperation between unions and SMOs either took the form of supporting given initiatives, direct involvement in them or via shared event organisation. On the same topic, Nuno de Almeida Alves and David Cairns analyse, in chapter 3, the case of the Precarious Inflexible (PI), an organisation of precarious workers that has played an important role in the organisation of protest events in Portugal. The interesting relationship between PI, as an outsider of the institutional political system, and traditional union workers’ associations is part of the organisation’s specificity. The authors argue that PI’s members do not fit the profile of ‘disaffected youth’, but instead represent urban, educated, middle-class, well-organised and well-connected young people (or, in some cases, not that young) in precarious situations, a positioning that, in part, explains their willingness for mobilisation and collective action. On a different perspective, Britta Baumgarten proposed, in chapter 8, an analysis focused on specific activist groups that emerged during the 2011–2013 cycle of protests. Contrary to approaches that generally refer to these movements’ activities as being a part of a whole, the author presented a detailed analysis of practices by specific groups to show otherwise. It is noted that ideological commitment and membership structures are becoming less important, replaced by affective ties between participants in such collectives, blurring, in many situations, the boundaries between ‘activism’ and ‘friendship’. Moreover, considering the short-term and fluid nature of many of these groups, one may question to what extent we are in the presence of a common identity. The conclusion reached is that the circumstances of the anti-austerity struggle did not translate into one single type of movement, but several types, with distinct forms of organising and building identity. However, the current political situation may also be understood against a broader context of political participation. In chapter 6, Guya Accornero traced a larger contextualisation of recent protests by examining the ‘reverberations’ of the 1974 revolution in the Portuguese anti-austerity cycle of protest. The impact of the revolutionary period extends far beyond the intense political and civic activities that revolved around that time. The stance and discourses of more recent protests parallel some of those present in the democratic claims of the revolutionary period, noticeable in the ideological justifications (the so called ‘April values’) and nature of the slogans and practices adopted, some of them explicitly evoking the connection between the two moments. This sort of actualisation is also noticeable in the

216  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões

way in which different generations of protesters converge in organisational platforms created during the height of the crisis. One of those claims that emerged with great force and intensity right from the very first major demonstration in 2011, known as ‘Geração à Rasca’ (Desperate Generation), concerned precariousness and its proliferation in the most varied sectors of the Portuguese economy and society. This demonstration, which is discussed in different ways in different chapters, represented a very significant moment of collective expression, with an increased impact on social networks, that later spread to other more traditional spheres and media. This was the first major protest where, similar to other countries, digital media were used as instruments of political mobilisation, free of organisational and party structures, thus bringing a widespread appeal, including reaching out to people who did not normally participate politically or were not linked to political organisations. Keeping in mind the attention and enthusiasm created by social media in recent protests worldwide, it is inevitable to consider the importance of such media forms, seen as key instruments when it comes to organising and divulging political events. This was the case of Portugal as examined by José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões and Ricardo Campos in chapter 8. The analysis of the anti-austerity protest cycle is incomplete if we do not take into account digital media and its role within the formation of a ‘new grammar’. Such a ‘new grammar’ includes already known practices as well as new ones, connected to the uses of digital media and tools in activism and public participation. The public space of protest that arises is characterised by its hybridism, where online and offline practices intertwine in a variety of ways. This is also a space shaped by the combination between different media, in a landscape that has become increasingly convergent. Young people, usually considered politically indifferent, seem to have ‘naturally’ adapted to such a ‘new grammar’, through informal practices and flexible engagement with collective protest. This is noticeable in the prominent presence of youth in many protests, as well as in their engagement in social movement activities. The motto of the ‘Geração à Rasca’ demonstration was to denounce the ever increasing labour and social precariousness that was affecting a considerable portion of the working population, mainly (but not exclusively) the youngest. In a sense, it represented a kind of valve that exploded, bringing with it a resounding public warning concerning the problems of precariousness, a situation becoming increasingly common to many thousands of people, which, up until then, had been restricted to family circles, friends or co-workers. In summary, therefore, one of the primary results of the major demonstration in 2011 was to turn precariousness into a public problem that now concerned everyone.

Conclusion | 217

Although the issue of precariousness was considered an ‘effective problem’ in the political programmes of those parties who stand further to the left of the political spectrum (BE and PCP), utilised to defend labour policies capable of stopping the growing efforts to deregulate labour laws and unprotected labour laws, the fact of the matter is that the resolution of precariousness, as a political claim, was very much limited to a few partisan and union initiatives. It was largely due to the ‘Geração à Rasca’ demonstration that precariousness eventually entered the political lexicon, increasingly becoming part of the programmes and political actions of the parties (including that of the Socialist Party – PS) and labour unions. Although it was not the only motive for political contestation, it is simply not possible to dissociate and separate the dynamics and actions carried out by the various social movements and their younger protagonists from the demands brought up by the struggle against precariousness at that time. In attempting to frame this issue, José Soeiro examined, in chapter 5, the emergence of the ‘precariat class’ and its political involvement in dealing with policies of austerity under the governments that ruled during the economic crisis, tracing the origin of involvement of what is defined as a ‘precariat society’. Although many of the existing groups organised around precarious work claims had existed prior to the height of the crisis, the cycle that started in 2011 has worked as a catalyst of collective action to represent a series of broad issues related to the political struggle against austerity and social inequalities. Organisations have taken on the task of fighting for the ‘recognition’ of unnoticed or unrepresented segments of working people demanding the ‘redistribution’ of economic wealth and changes to the economic system. This has been mostly done through actions aimed at changing the labour laws by placing pressure on the State. Needless to say, young people were not the only protagonists of the protest, far from it; nor were they the only victims of the austerity policies and the adjustment programme imposed by the so-called Troika. However, it seems clear that many of the actors who led and organised protests and participated actively in the demonstrations were young individuals, especially those who were experiencing and suffering first-time (post-graduation) labour market setbacks. For this reason (among others as well), the organisation of a book that sought to study and analyse these different dimensions – social protest, precariousness and young people – is fully justified. In fact, many young people lived out the torments of precariousness as something that drastically limited their quality of life and opportunities, further struggling with the possible alternative of emigration, in the hopes of finding better work opportunities abroad. As the chapters, especially

218  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões

those corresponding to the first part of the book, demonstrated, precariousness affected (and still affects) not only material conditions, but also the more existential dimensions of the life of these individuals. In chapter 1, Renato Miguel Carmo and Ana Rita Matias explored different situations of precariousness within the labour market (non-remunerated internships, temporary contracts, false self-employment known as ‘recibos verdes’, etc.), centring their analysis on young adults who possess higher education qualifications and reside in urban areas. Through the examination of life courses, the mix of precarious situations comes to the forefront, all of which suggest a generalised tendency of what is perceived as being atypical. The generalisation of precarious situations is in part a consequence of the deregulation of labour relations and laws, stimulating the loss of social rights and job protection and, to some extent, transforming precariousness into a ‘way of life’. As a consequence, processes such as ‘hyper-flexibility’, ‘hyper-fragmentation’ and ‘hyper-commodification’ of labour become common. In chapter 2, Magda Nico challenges the very notion of precariousness as related to young people’s recent life trajectories in the labour market. Precariousness, it is argued, should not be regarded as the ‘new normal’, even if the opposite idea has been ideologically built as a hegemonic interpretation in prevailing academic work. In order to empirically substantiate this hypothesis, the author presents data collected at two different time periods – 2009, a period prior to the escalation of the economic crisis, and 2016, the ‘post-crisis’ period – with the same interviewees characterised as young, middle-class adults. The results confirmed the hypothesised assertion that precariousness should be disputed as the ‘new normal’. Portugal went through difficult years during the crisis period, having witnessed a significant reduction in disposable income (especially wages and pensions), public service provision and investments (in education and health especially), the rising of unemployment figures to around 17% in 2013 (with the unemployment of young people almost reaching 40%), as well as record-breaking out-migration that grew continuously during the time period under scrutiny (Cantante and Carmo 2018). Faced with these and other processes of social and economic setbacks, it became quite evident among the left-wing parties, trade unions and social movements that there was a need for a political response built around an alternative agenda that would include the re-establishing of wages and economic and social recovery. This alignment would imply a programmatic and political convergence of the various parties along with the main trade union confederations. With this established motive, several political forces and movements emerged in the public space (among which we emphasise the Congresso Democrático das Alternativas [Democratic Congress of Alternatives] and the citizen’s

Conclusion | 219

candidacy Livre/ Tempo de Avançar [Free/ Time to Advance]) demanding that an authentic progressive convergence be established. This general demand ended up being effectively achieved through the actions of parties which were already a part of the political and electoral spectrum. In this manner, in contrast to what happened in other countries (such as Greece, Spain, Italy and France), no new and congregating forces (from outside the already established party system) emerged in Portugal, as it was already existing political parties that had taken up the causes – the Left Bloc (BE), the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Greens Ecologist Party – the same parties that would permit a Socialist Party minority government in the October 2015 legislative elections. The so-called Geringonça (meaning contraption) permitted the concretisation of an economic recuperation programme that provided proven returns, particularly in relation to the reconstitution of incomes, continuous declining unemployment as well as economic growth. Beyond this, in the last years the country has also experienced a relatively relaxed social environment resulting from the accomplishment of mutual objectives and actions established by parties, labour unions and other social movements. Jonas Van Vossole explored this very issue in chapter 9, from the point of view of different electoral moments that occurred between 2013 and 2015. The main argument of this chapter is that the elections ‘played a role in the re-articulation of a new democratic hegemony’. The results expressed through different electoral processes reflect the ability of the political system to accommodate change, especially in the most recent political arrangement. The elections worked as a way of politically ‘punishing’ the governments for their austerity policies. In a way, the legislative elections were an example of the ability of the electoral system to reorganise itself. The specificity of the exceptionally short-term government that came out of the elections is only matched by the political arrangement of Geringonça. As is highlighted in this chapter, this political arrangement has somehow ‘normalised’ the system by incorporating the ability to ‘tame’ the democratic crisis. As a consequence of the above, we are now, therefore, at a time of transition, moving away from the period marked by austerity. In a way, we can now say that Portugal is moving towards a post-austerity political and social time period supported by the implementation of policies that, in a general way, fall within the ideological quadrant of social democracy (Carmo and Barata 2017). Despite this, even though the current environment is now one of recovery and pacification, it is still difficult to determine how to go about characterising this new era. Although the reality of the country is much better in socioeconomic terms, there are still groups within Portuguese society that remain relatively unprotected or in a very weak situation. This

220  |  Renato Miguel Carmo and José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões

is indicative of the fact that social and labour problems persist, and, in certain sectors of economic activity, have worsen or stagnated as is the case with various forms of precariousness. This is to say, therefore, that one of the main demands of the protests brought about in 2011 (that of labour market precariousness) is still far from being resolved, despite recent efforts to combat it in the public sector. To conclude, we point out that the present time of change is also characterised by a landscape no longer marked by social protest. Most of the social movements that played a part in the Troika years faded away, some ending their activities outright. This reduction in demonstrations, however, is of some concern given that the proper functioning of democracy requires a dynamic, demanding civil society that is able to put pressure on political and union forces, not only with the aim of resolving persistent structural issues and societal imbalances, but also to incorporate new agendas of transformation, and of social and cultural emancipation. This is now the great challenge of political and social forces, especially in today’s more complex and diversified landscapes, where arenas of participation are no longer limited to traditional means and themes, but instead expand into new contexts (now mediated by networks and technology), making the convergence of multiple spheres of reality (public or private, competitive or cooperative) possible, in order to enable new forms of expression and collective action. Renato Miguel Carmo is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology of University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL) and research fellow at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL), Portugal. He is Director of the Inequality Observatory and Deputy director of CIESIUL. Issues such as social and spatial inequalities, public policy, mobilities, social capital, and labour relations have been at the core of his research projects. His recent publications have appeared in Geoforum, Journal of Civil Society, European Societies, Sociologia Ruralis, Time & Society, Sociological Research Online, European Planning Studies and others. José Alberto Vasconcelos Simões holds a PhD in Sociology from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at New University of Lisbon (NOVA FCSH), Portugal, where he teaches in the Department of Sociology, and is also a researcher at CICS.NOVA (Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences). He has been researching youth cultures, children/youth and digital media, as well as activism and social movements. He coordinated the ‘Networked Youth Activism’ project (2014–2015) and the Portuguese participation in the European study ‘Net Children Go Mobile’ (2013–2014). He is currently

Conclusion | 221

working on ‘ArtCitizenship’ (2018–2021), studying the activism and creative practices of young people in Portugal. He has published extensively on the above mentioned subjects.

References Accornero, G., and P.R. Pinto. 2015. ‘“Mild Mannered”? Protest and Mobilisation in Portugal in Times of Crisis, 2010–2013’, West European Politics 38(3): 491–515. Baumgarten, B. 2013. ‘Geração à Rasca and Beyond: Mobilizations in Portugal after 12 March 2011’, Current Sociology 61(4): 457–73.  . 2016. ‘Time to Get Re-organized! The Structure of the Portuguese AntiAusterity Protests’, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 40: 155–87. Cabral, M.V. 2014. Dimensões da Cidadania: A Mobilização Política em Portugal numa Perspectiva Comparada. Porto: Edições Afrontamento. Cantante, F., and R.M. Carmo. 2018. ‘Emprego e desemprego em Portugal: tendências recentes e perfis’, in R.M. Carmo, J. Sebastião, J. Azevedo, S.C, Martins and A.F. Costa (eds), Desigualdades Sociais: Portugal e a Europa. Lisbon: Mundos Sociais, pp. 67–80. Cantante, F. 2018. O Mercado de Trabalho em Portugal e nos Países Europeus: Estatísticas 2018, Lisbon, Observatório das Desigualdades, https://www.observatorio-das-desigualdades.com/observatoriodasdesigualdades/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/o-mercado-de-trabalho-em-portugal-e-nos-pac3adses-europeus.pdf (accessed 6 December 2019). Carmo, R.M., and A. Barata. 2017. ‘The “Contraption” and the Future of Social Democracy: The Government Experiment in Portugal’, Open Democracy, https:// www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/renato-miguel-do-carmo-andrbarata/contraption-and-future-of-social-democracy-gov (accessed 2 May 2017). Carmo, R.M., and A.R. Matias. 2018. ‘Unemployment, Precariousness and Poverty as Drivers of Social Inequality: The Case of the Southern European Countries’, in R.M. Carmo, C. Rio, and M. Medgyesi (eds), Reducing Inequalities: A Challenge for the European Union? London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 45–61. Estanque, E., H.A. Costa and J. Soeiro. 2013. ‘The New Global Cycle of Protest and the Portuguese Case’, Journal of Social Science Education 12(1): 31–40. Simões, J.A., R. Campos, I. Pereira, M. Esteves and J. Nofre. 2018. ‘Digital Activism, Political Participation and Social Movements in Times of Crisis’, in I. David (ed.), Crisis, Austerity and Transformation: How Disciplining Neoliberalism is Changing Portugal. Lanham: Lexington Books, pp. 71–90.

Index

action repertoire(s) 2, 72, 82, 86, 103, 110, 132, 139, 145, 171, 198. See also protest(s) activism 57, 141, 149, 159, 167, 171–72, 215, 216. See also digital activism; protest Artivism, 151 forms of action 7, 137, 138, 149, 150, 151, 154 and friendship 64, 140, 141, 143, 151, 154, 155, 157, 215 grammar(s) of 7, 142, 158, 163, 164–65, 167, 170, 171–74, 181 model/type of 149, 151 new forms/ways of 5, 75, 138, 141, 143, 158, 172, 174 organisation 140, 142, 143, 144, 152, 155, 177 (see also collective actors) political 55, 67, 129, 139 spaces 142, 146, 159; of sociability 100, 103, 109 activist(s) 3, 57, 58, 59, 62, 65, 66, 68, 74, 84, 99, 104, n111, 128, 131, n133, 137, 139, 141, 143, 144, 148, 150, 152, 155, 159, 160, 168, 170, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 189, generations 128, 130 relationship(s) 138, 140, 142, 155 veteran 69, 129, 137 young/younger 59, 61, 137, 140, 165, 174 activist groups 68, 137, 141, 143, 144, 147, 149, 150, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 178, 215. See also social movements aims 137, 142, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 156, 158

alliances 110, 139, 141 alliances with institutional actors 77, 83, 153–154, 214 closed 149, 157, 159 deliberation 141, 153, 155, 156 demands/claims 103, n112, 139, 148 hybrid organisations 55, 63, 69 institutionalisation 148, 159, 160, 189 internal culture 139 internal dynamics 88, 149, 150 lack of openness 145, 149, 156 organisation 137, 141, 142, 144, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 157, 159 openness 141, 148, 149, 155, 156, 157 radicalisation 148 self-organised 98, 100, 109, 145 and spaces 139, 140, 142, 145, 149, 155, 159 agency 29, 33, 35, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 46–47, 98, 142 resilience 33, 35, 39, 46–47 resistance 33, 38, 47 self-agency 100 strategic adaptation 33, 39, 40, 42, 46 and structure 35, 40, 43 anti-austerity 3, 117, 119, 128, 129, 131, 215, 216, 219 activism 138, 142 campaigns 75 claims 4, 168 cycle/period 6, 7, 58, 72, 81, 84, 117, 119, 215, 216 field 102, 174 government 196 mobilisations 73, 85, 129 programme 195 position 194

224 | Index

protest(s) 6, 57, 58, 82, 85, 128, 137, 138, 143, 147, 156, 180, 209 social movement(s) 6, 7, 74, 80, 88, 137, 138, 143, 145, 155, 159, 169, 195, 198 struggle against 77, 80, 87, 119, 208, 215 Arab countries 168. See also protests ‘Arab Spring’ austerity 1, 3, 9, 63, 72, 75, 78, 79, 81, 83, 86, 87, 89, 91, 96, 105, 118, 125, 128, 130, 159, 164, 171, 195, 197, 206, 208, 214, 217, 219 context 55, 78, 80, 94, 110, 125, 129, 130, 137, 171, 194, 198 fight/protest(s) against 67, 74, 76, 85, 143, 150, 158, 164, 101, 127, 132, 137, 140, 142, 143, 144, 147, 155, 158, 207, 217 government 200 ideology 124 measures/policies 1, 2, 5, 13, 17, 38, 65, 72, 73, 75, 76, 81, 84, 85, 93, 102, 109, 122, 124, 125, 126, 129, 137, 144, 148, 159, 167, 168, 187, 190, 191, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 205, 207, n210, 213, 214, 217, 218 period 76, 123, 132 post- 5, 102, 165, 213, 218 programme 1, 3, 4, 5, 13, 73, 122 144, 214, 217, 219 ‘society of’ 73 Brazil n112, 166, 168, 169, 180 Brazilian uprisings 170 Carnation Revolution/25 April 1974 96, 102, 117, 118, 120, 126, 138, 156, 163, 187, 189, 199, 205, 207, 208, 215 ‘April values’ 119, 123, 124, 128, 130, 131, 132, 215 memory 128, 129

citizenship/citizen 65, 86, 105, 119, 120, 125, 145–46, 165, 166, 172, 175, 193, 214 Citizens’ Candidacies 192 Citizens Legislative Initiative 104, 105 civil society 72, 76, 78, 82, 156, 220 ordinary citizens 3, 169 surveillance 171, 179 civic engagement. See political engagement/participation collective action 4, 5, 6, 11, 33, 35, 42, 66, 69, 72, 87, 96, 99, 101, 102, 103, 110, 142, 215, 217, 220. See also protest(s) collective actors 6, 73, 80, 82, 84, 172, 173, 175, 177, 181. See also social movements new/emergent 1, 2, 74, 76, 80, 81, 87, 88, 164, 167, 168, 214 collective identity/identities 75, 76, 76, 127, 129, 138–142, 155, 156, 157, 158, n160, 176, 215 and backstage of protest 138–142 strong 141, 150, 156, 157 weak 140, 141, 157, 158 commodification 28, 93, 109, hyper- 29, 218 communication 150, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 181, 182 alternative 181 audience(s) 164, 175, 180 centralised and unidirectional 175 channel(s)/circuit(s) 172, 174, 175, 180 circular/closed, 177 digital 172, 173, 182 hybrid 181 ideological 175 and information 172, 177, 178 information and communication technologies/ICT 74, 77 internal/external 174, 179 mass-self communication 175 model(s) 175 multiple forms of 165, 170, 176

Index | 225

online and offline 6, 102, 103, 139 (see also internet and the streets) open 157 platform 176 political 175 propaganda, 175 public 173 constitution 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 130, n133, 190, 191 contentious 117 actors/players 118, 125, 126, 127, 130 period 69, 163 politics 125, 140 resources/structures 131, 132 crisis 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, n9, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 43, 46, 47, n51, 72, 73, 76, 77, 81, 84, 144, 165, 169, 171, 172, 174, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 128, 130, 132, 187, 189, 190, 193, 206, 208, 209. See also austerity 2008 1, 5, 38, 55, 74, 93, 121, 167 bailout 73, 82, 122, 165, 168 (see also Troika) economic/financial 1, 2, 13, 15, 17, 19, 23, 38, 43, 55, 57, 69, 74, 80, 87, 93, 109, 121, 124, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 213 effects of 40, 43, 46, 48–51 European Central Bank (ECB) 1, 55, n70, n89, 165, 168 European Commission (EC) 1, 55, 57, n70, 75, n89, 122, 165, 168 international Monetary Fund (IMF) 1, 55, 57, n70, 75, n89, 121, 122, 123, 165, 168 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) 72, 122, 191, 194, 200 political 120, 122

democracy 6, 73, 81, 96, 99, 120, 123, 124, 126, 128, 130, 132, 148, 153, 187–191, 193, 200, 205, 208, 209, 220 democratic crisis 124, 187, 192, 219 democratic history 193, 197 democratic practices/processes 3, 131, 139, 152 democratic revolution 96, 188, 205, 206, 207, 208 democratic values 119, 129 direct 126 liberal 188, 190, 209 participatory/participative 3, 191, 208 Portuguese 66, 120, 128, 130, 163, 189, 199, 202, 205, 208 real 102, 130, 153, 187, 190, 209 representative 81, 209 social 191, 207, 219 transition to 118–119 dictatorship 117, 119, 124, 128, 163, 199 digital activism 171–72, 174, 176, 180, 181 digital causes/rights 178–80 digital circuits/networks 164, 181, 171–73, 174, 176, 180. See also communication digital media/tools 2, 7, 165, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 216, 220 counter information/alternative voices, 176, 177 functions in activism, 165, 175 polarised discourses, 170, 171 promotion of minority causes, 176 and public sphere, 181 surveillance/monitoring of citizens, 171, 179 DIY (Do It Yourself) 166, 182

debate(s) 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158, 159, n160, 197 spaces 139, 145

elections 7, 8, 54, 83, 102, 118, 119, 120, 122, 125, 126, 129, 187, 188, 190–204, 207, 210n, 219 European elections 188, 191, 193–197

226 | Index

local elections 191, 193, 207 Europe/European 1, 2, 4, 13, 14, 15, 57, 72, 74, 77, 77, 78, 82, 92, 94, 97, 98, 109, 119, 121, 123, 125, 133n, 163, 164, 165, 169, 172, 169, 190, 199, 205, 206, 213, 214 European Union/Community 13, 14, 96, 121, 190, 201, 205, 208 Southern n30, 56, 69, 72, 73, 75, 76, 132, 167, 168 fixed-term contracts 92, 96, 104, 107 Greece 1, 4, n30, n70, 118, 123, 167, 180, 198, 199, 208, 214 hegemony 176, 187, 188, 219 institutional/traditional political actors 1, 3, 107, 165, 167, 181, 214 government(s) 1, 2, 3, 5, 38, 49, 57, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 72, 83, 93, 95, 102, 107, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, n133, 152, 157, 167, 168, 188, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, n211, 217, 219 See also parties; trade unions internet 78, 15, 159, 167, 179 as cause (see digital activism) computer attacks 171 free software 179 as ‘guerrilla terrain’/arena 171, 173, 179 live streaming 172 open source software 179 open social web 179 and the streets 167, 172, 180–81 web 2.0 138, 147 websites 152, 175, 177 job/contractual insecurity 2, 14, 15, 17, 54, 92, 98, 109, 213

labour market 5, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 27, 40, 41, 42, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 62, 68, 72, 73, 75, 217, 218, 220 media 6, 47, 64, 67, 69, 86, 100, 103, n133, 141, 152, 194, 196, 198, 204, 216 alternative/independent 141, 177, 179, 181 channels outside traditional 172, 175, 180 citizen journalism 177 convergent ecology 167, 175 indymedia/independent 86, 177 newspaper 145 TugaLeaks 178 traditional 168, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180 WikiLeaks 178 meeting(s) 141, 143, 144, 145, 155. See also public assembly/assemblies as arena 142 closed/private 144, 155, 156 national 145, 146 and political debate 145, 147 and social relations 142 methodology 8, 17, 34, 73 exploratory research project 174 interviews 7, 17, 33, 37, 57, 74, 144, 164, 174 mix method strategy 174 participant observation/fieldwork 74, 144 qualitative approach 7, 165, 174 snowball sampling 174 mobilisation(s) 55, 59, 73, 81, 97, 100, 110, 118, 119, 120, 121, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 167, 174 and digital media 173, 171, 175, 180, 181 difficulties 147, 148 digital as cause for 172, 178 (see also digital causes/rights) individuals not usually involved 168 mass 143, 163

Index | 227

and material issues/social inequalities 168 networks 141 outside common structures 143 platforms 65, 74, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 88, n89, 100, 100, 137, 143, 168, 173, 189, 216 political/civic, 143, 163, 164, 165 politicising people 156, 158 See also protest(s) parties 75, 83, 84, 88, 139, 154, 167, 181, 188–207 Arco da Governação (‘Arch of Governance’) 189, 199, 203, 205 coalitions 191–195, 196–201, 203–205 ‘Geringonça’ (Contraption) 188, 202–05, 206, 207, 208, 209, 219 Left Bloc Party/Bloco de Esquerda (BE) 102, 107, 149, 154, 190–192, 194, 195, 197, 201, 203, 205 left-wing 4, 5, 59, 64, 65, 75, 83, 104, 153, 160, 188, 189, 190, 195, 197, 200, 201, 205, 207, 218 Portuguese Communist Party/PCP 59, 102, 107, 118, 154, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199, 202–05, 206, 207, 217, 219 Radical Left 82 Social Democratic Centre-Popular Party/CDS-PP 189, 191, 192, 193, 199, 200, 201 Social Democrat Party/PSD 59, 104, 122, 127, n132, 189, 191, 193, 194, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202, 204 Socialist Party/PS 102, 104, 107, 189–195, 197–205, 207 political engagement/participation 3, 5, 54, 69, 70, 119, 125, 140, 143, 153, 166, 167, 173, 175, 180, 182 extra-institutional/informal 1, 75, 77, 82, 166, 172 multiple engagements 54, 60, 68 Portuguese population 167

political system/institutions 4, 166, 168, 172, 215 corruption 54, 169 erosion of image 166 PREC (Revolutionary Process Underway) 118, 119, 120, 121, 125, 129, 130, 131, 132, 138, 199 precariat class, 3, 92, 93, 98, 101, 103, 108, 110, 170 politics of the Precariat 95, 96, 97, 98, 103, 104, 108, 110 formation of the Precariat 93, 97–98, 99, 100, 109 precarious organisations 101, 102–103, 109 precariousness 13, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 54, 55, 56, 58, 62, 66, 68, 69, 71, 169, 170, 171, 214, 216, 217, 218, 220 false self-employed 104, 105, 107, 108 of labour/unemployment 2, 13, 16, 31, 41, 47, 55, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 85, 86, 88, 127, 144, 151, 152, 154, 155, 163, 213 society, 73, 80, 93, 96, 109 precarity 29, 33, 38, 40, 42, 46–51, 55, 97 long-term 47–51 ‘not the new normal’ 33, 38, 42, 46–48 process 33, 40, 42, 47, 50–51 protest(s) 14, 25, 26, 29, 72, 73, 75, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 117, 119, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 146, 164, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 220 12 March 2011 2, 64, 82, 125–127, 143, 163, 167 (see also Desperate Generation) 15 October 2011 64, 82, 127, 144 ad-busting techniques 149 anti-austerity 57, 81, 138, 144, 147, 150, 168, 180, 209, 216 Arab spring 127, 145, 158, 164, 168, 180, 210n

228 | Index

backstage of 138, 141, 155, 156 circuits of 174 (see also internal/ external communication) contentious period/cycle of contention 73, 81, 84, 143, 163, 168 EuroMayDay 98 events 145, 147 framework 143, 147 Desperate Generation/Geração à rasca 2, 64, 70 n, 82, 101, 104, 143, 161, 163, 167, 216, 217 Gezi 166 Grandoladas/grandolar 138, 144 hybrid nature of 164, 166, 167, 170, 180 LGBTTT 150 mass/large scale 144, 146, 158, 159 material turn of 168 no political/partisan affiliation 169 Occupation of Rossio (Lisbon) 143 political opportunity structure 86, 158, 168 Primavera Global 144 protesters profile 169 public/street demonstrations 54, 64, 84, 119, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 144, 146, 154, 158, 163, 170, 173, 174, 213, 214, 217, 220 small/independent 144, 148, 149, 159 spaces, 25, 99 tactics/modes of organisation 148, 149, 148, 170, 173 temporary occupation 173 wave of 163, 164, 167–168 public assembly/assemblies 138, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160n public discourse 24, 38, 151 public sphere 99, 173, 176, 181 and private sphere 167 and youth 166, 167, 182 Research Design 33, 35, 37–39, 43–50 agency-structure scale 35, 43, 46, 47

biographical 35, 37 holistic 33, 39, 46, 48–49 life calendar 43, 44, 45 longitudinal 33, 38, 43, 46, 50 resistance 14, 25, 29, 33, 38, 43, 77, 99, 128, 166, 191 revolution 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133n, 180, 190, 199, 208 self-employed 17, 95, 103, 108–109, 110 social change 34–35, 37–38, 47, 75, 140, 164 generation 34 historical context 35, 38, 47 ordinary people 34, 37 social inequalities 13, 15, 168, 170 poverty 94, 97, 110, 122, 169, 213 (see also precariousness) social media 63, 172, 216 blogs 74, 99, 103, 175, 177 chat 176 Facebook 64, 74, 126, 147, 151, 163, 167, 170, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180; Revolution 164, 171 Forum 176 Google Plus 178 Mumble 179 Skype 179 Twitter 170, 172, 178, 179; Revolution 164, 171 Youtube 103, 175, 177, 179 social movement(s) 72, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, 87, 88, 89, 119, 120, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 139, 189, 193–195, 208–210, 213, 214, 217, 218, 219, 220, 189, 193–195, 208–210. See also activist groups 15M 80, 87, 145, 164, 168, 169, 170 15 October platform/15O 65, 144, 189 affective ties 140 aims 142, 151 alter-globalisation 58, 171

Index | 229

Alvorada Ribatejo/Ribatejo Dawn Movement 137, 143, 144, 147–49, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160–61n anti-austerity 6, 140, 145, 155, 159, 169, 174 anti-copa/World Cup 169 Arab Spring 127, 145, 164, 158, 168, 180, 210 n autonomy 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 87 campaigns 141 Classical approach 151 Classical single-issue 158 as collective actors 2, 73, 80, 84, 141, 164, 214 as contentious politics 140 Exército Dumbledore (Dumbledore’s Army) 137, 144, 149–51, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161n FERVE (Enough of These Green Receipts) 100, 104 frameworks 140 global/international protest 158, 168 ideological commitment 140 Indignados 126, 141, 156, 166, 169, 180, 187, 209 Indignados Lisbon 137, 143, 145–47, 148, 156, 157, 158, 159 Iraq War 171 LGBT 102, 174, 208 new 140 new new 138 Neo-Zapatista 171 occupy 127, 156, 164, 166, 168, 169, 170, 180, 187 organisation 137, 170, 175 Passe livre (Free Pass) 166, 169 Pirate party movement 179 popular support 169 Precários Inflexíveis (inflexible precaires) 54, 55, 57, 59, 66, 67, 68, 100, 104, 105, 156, 176, 189 public image 175 QSLT – Que se Lixe a troika (Screw the Troika) 65, 69, n70, 102, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 144, 189, 207 self-limited radicalism 75, 79, 83



small size 147, 148 and social change 140 as spaces 141 Take the Squares 170 tight membership 140 translocal 180 Unemployment Movement/ Movimento Sem Emprego (MSE) 137, 144, 151–155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 189 Social Research Responsibility 34, 51 Spain 145, 155, 166, 167, 168, 169, 180 state social support/welfare 164, 168 strike(s) 76, 83, 85, 119, 123, 125, 133, 207 general strike 76, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88 See also protest(s) temporary contracts/work 15, 16, 17, 22, 95, 96, 97, 101, 104, 110 Thermidor 205–208 trade unions 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 97, 100, 102, 104, 107, 108, 109, 125, 127, 131, 132, 139, 154, 167, 181, 214, 215, 217, 218, 219 cooperation/articulation with movements/parties 63, 68, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 100, 214, 215 trajectories 19 future 18, 21, 30 life projects 13 Troika 38, 55, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 122, 124, 126, 127, 165, 168, 217, 220. See also crisis Turkey 166, 168, 180 United States 164, 167, 168, 169 unemployment/unemployed 4, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 23, 24, 25, 31, 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 64, 73, 79, 89, 95, 98, 100, 101, 109, 118, 123, 127, 151, 152, 153, 154, 158, 164, 187, 213, 218, 219

230 | Index

workers’ rights 54, 66 youth 13, 15, 17, 19, 31, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 64, 69, 71, 163, 215, 216 activism/political participation 165, 166, 167, 174, 181 apathy/alienation/disenchantment 165, 166 cultures 166 as driving force of social change 2, 164

precarious youth 57, 101, 110, 187, 189, 190, 206, 209 Political action/activism 57, 58, 167 Portuguese 163 and protests 167, 171, 180 young generations 140 young radicals 169 youth unemployment 2, 13, 56