The Opposition Parties' Behaviour in Portugal Between Internal Constraints and External Challenges

The opposition’s behaviour has been traditionally thought to be affected by the features of the political system in which it operates. However, systemic factors have proved to be necessary but not sufficient in order to explain the opposition’s conduct in European parliamentary democracies. Recent research, in fact, has found a high level of consensus in the law-making process in countries considered very different one from the other, but the reasons behind this evidence have rarely been investigated. This invites us to explore which non-systemic variables could affect the opposition’s behaviour and determine its (more or less) consensual conduct in parliament. The Portuguese case provides an excellent opportunity to do that, given the presence of a variety of political conditions. In particular, in recent years, it offers an insight into the impact of the economic crisis on the opposition’s behaviour and, more in general, it allows the comparison of the opposition’s conduct in different institutional contexts, notably vis-à-vis majority and minority governments, i.e. when its choices have very different political and policy implications.