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Portuguese opinion of the "Assembleia da Rep'°blica" (Portuguese parliament)

January 21, 2003

In a recently published study, the «Adelino Amaro da Costa» prize, various researchers in the fields of social science and constitutional law analysed Portuguese political institutions. The most significant results concern the evaluation of these institutions by Portuguese citizens.

Under the aegis of the Instituto de Ci'™ncias Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa (ICS-UL), this study tries to answer, among others, the major questions regarding the Assembleia da Rep'°blica (AR) and the Parliament: How do the Portuguese assess the performance of the AR? What legitimacy does the parliamentary institution have and what confidence do they place in it? How have these attitudes and values evolved throughout the history of Portuguese democracy? How can they be explained? The main source of this data is the group of answers given, between 1986 and 2001, to the Expresso-Euroexpans'£o panel (published monthly since 1986) and the collection of the Eurobar'³metro between 1997 and 2000.

The majority of international studies point to the existence of a decline in confidence in relation to democratic institutions, with a few important exceptions. Attitudes of confidence in these institutions seem to be more sensitive to a series of changes, dictated be it by factors linked to economic performance (measured by the unemployment rate, for example), be it by greater exposure to means of social communication or in periods of electoral campaign.

The coefficients of variations of the popularity index of AR and the President of the Republic are smaller than that of the government, indicating less of a sensibility to fluctuating factors regarding the assessment. On the other hand, the "popularity" of AR shows a similar level and bears a strong correlation to that of the government, long term. The fact that the evaluation of the President, government, and AR are all statistically significant suggests that, for citizens, the action of political institutions is assessed as a whole, being broadly determined by a group of political and economic variables that influence the global assessment of the performance of the whole political system. This global assessment includes the police force, the armed forces, the legal system, the church, the media and large companies.

The main objective of the reform of AR in 1993 was that of "dignifying the parliament", "opening it up to citizens", making the work of specialized commissions public, increasing the number of parliamentary debates, giving greater value to role of individual members and perfecting the functioning of the government's institutes of parliamentary control. However, this parliamentary reform does not seem to have produced any major effect in the way the Portuguese assess the performance of the institution. But analysis of the data allows for some optimism: comparatively speaking, AR seems to be seen as a legitimate institution, in a generally positive way, although with little enthusiasm.

Education, age, sex, professional situation, income and exposure to the television mass media do not explain the feelings of trust or distrust regarding AR. On the contrary, they are better explained by political attitudes. Regardless of political persuasion, those individuals most interested in politics are less likely to trust in parliament, and those most detached tend to trust the institution more. In Portugal there is a relationship between the degree of politicisation of individuals and a more critical view of democratic institutions. The individual variable that best explains confidence in parliament is if those asked declare their intention to vote for party that supports the government. Institutional confidence in parliament depends on the degree of satisfaction with government and/or identification with the party in power.

But the most surprising results is connected to the direct relationship between a characteristic of electoral systems and institutional confidence in parliaments. The results allow us to conclude that the personalization of elections and of the vote given by the electoral system is, with the economic performance of each country (measured by the unemployment rate), the most important variable to explain the levels of confidence in parliament. But its impact is negative: the more possibilities the electorate is given to express its preference for candidates and not just for parties, the less confidence they tend to have in the parliamentary institution, regardless of social status, political, economic and institutional attitudes. These results confirm studies that show that systems that include uninominal candidature tend to generate less satisfaction with democracy among citizens.

Observatório da CiÙncia e do Ensino Superior