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The Portuguese Radical Left Parties Supporting Government: From Policy-Takers to Policymakers?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2019

Elisabetta De Giorgi Open the ORCID record for Elisabetta De Giorgi [Opens in a new window]  and
João Cancela Open the ORCID record for João Cancela [Opens in a new window]
Elisabetta De Giorgi*
Affiliation:
Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy
João Cancela
Affiliation:
Department of Political Studies and IPRI, Nova University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
*
*Corresponding author. Email: edegiorgi@units.it
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Abstract

How do parties that have long been confined to opposition behave once they take the decision to support government? This article analyses the case of the three Portuguese radical left parties that took such a move in the wake of the post-bailout 2015 election. Leveraging the concept of contract parliamentarism and the analysis of different data sources through different methods, we show that the three parties adopted a similar strategy after agreeing deals with the centre-left socialists. Specifically, while keeping close scrutiny on the executive action, the parties have voted consensually on most of the legislation proposed by the government. In exchange, the majority of policy pledges agreed with the socialists were implemented by the beginning of the legislature. Based on these findings, the article underlines the importance for supporting parties of conducting a thorough negotiation of policy goals and the timing of their implementation before joining the government, and of pursuing an autonomous discursive agenda.

Keywords

political partiesradical leftgovernmentoppositionPortugalcontract parliamentarism
Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 281 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press

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