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Path dependence and political bargaining in the elaboration of contents of authoritarian constitutions: the Portuguese Constitution of 1933

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2025

Paula Borges Santos Open the ORCID record for Paula Borges Santos [Opens in a new window]
Paula Borges Santos*
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Portuguese Institute of International Relations, NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
*
Email: pbsantos@fcsh.unl.pt
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Abstract

This article examines the process of drafting the authoritarian Portuguese Constitution of 1933, which took place during the military regime. The aim is to identify the powers involved, their objectives and the strategies they developed, and to find insights that shed light on the adoption of constitutions by authoritarianisms. The results suggest that conflict between political forces is endemic to the constitutional process, and that those who hegemonise support and aim to demilitarise the system are able to impose the new constitution even without guaranteeing the existence of democratic political parties. There is also a promising point of analysis: the emergence of an authoritarian constitution is based on path dependence, ie, it has many links with the material constitutionalism that precedes it, where there are already normalised authoritarian elements.

Keywords

Constitutionconstitutional makingauthoritarianismPortugal

Information

Type
Dialogue and debate: Symposium on Authoritarian Encounters with Constitutional Liberalism in Interwar Europe
Information
European Law Open , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , December 2025 , pp. 838 - 852
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

1. Introduction

In May 1934, Karl Polanyi commented on the event of the Austrian Constitution as being the legal landmark of a new society, as the State was founded upon a corporate structure. He classified it as novel because, in his words, ‘such a state has never existed before, [. . .] States founded on corporatism are unknown in history’. Considering that Dollfuss’s regime was part of the Fascist constellation, which he understood to be led by Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, Polanyi focused his attention on the contrast between the alternative offered by Austria and the other two powers, observing that their dictators had been cautious in managing constitutional change.Footnote 1 Reflecting on the choices made by the drafters of that constitution, he formulated two questions that remain on the agenda of scholars of authoritarian constitutionalism today: the first posed the problem of whether the drafting and adoption of a constitution really made a difference in the construction of the State in an autocracy; the other asked what could truly be known regarding the real intentions and ideas of the statesmen leading those projects. He would not answer either question but, significantly, noted that resorting to corporatism, with the creation of specific bodies whose representatives were appointed by the State or the Catholic Church, was not enough to create a functional society. He argued that it merely served to abolish democracy in Austria.

For some reason, whether voluntary or involuntary, Polanyi overlooked the fact that, in Portugal, a year earlier, in April 1933, a likewise undemocratic regime had published a new Constitution, defining the country, for the first time in its own (national) history, as a ‘unitary and corporate republic’. Also, in this case, the Constitution opened a new chapter in Portuguese public law, and corporatism emerged as an alternative and programmatic plan to be carried out by the State itself. Having enshrined solutions of a corporate nature different from those in the Austrian Constitution, the Portuguese constitutional text (like the regime) later proved to possess extraordinary longevity; its end was determined, many decades later, by the military coup of 25 April 1974, which prompted the transition to democracy. Its durability, however, did not negate Polanyi’s diagnosis regarding the historical non-existence of the corporate State. Indeed, despite the 1933 Constitution promoting the construction of a corporate republic, the regulation of economic activities remained under the control of the Government, which oversaw corporate bodies and only granted them limited authority in matters related to labour relations, assistance, and welfare. Similarly to what the eminent scholar had identified in the Austrian case, the Portuguese Constitution contributed to the suppression of democracy in the country.

Revisiting the two questions mentioned above, and the fruitful insights that recent studies on authoritarian constitutionalism have generated, this article explores the drafting of the 1933 Constitution, taken as given that the context in which it was elaborated was authoritarian and that the constitutional matrix emerging from it was authoritarian in its nature. The importance of the Portuguese case for constitutional history and the development of constitutional theories has been neglected, even in most comparative studies. However, the analysis of this national case offers several benefits to the field of legal knowledge. It not only reveals how conflict between political forces is endemic to the constitutional ordering process of a non-democratic regime, but also permits the identification of a promising analytical point to clarify results obtained in other studies: the emergence of an authoritarian constitution is based on path dependence, ie, it has many links with the material constitutionalism that precedes it, with its already normalised authoritarian elements.

In line with what Michael Wilkinson proposes, it examines how authoritarian elements manifested themselves in the material constitutionalism of the Republic and how authoritarianism was consolidated in the constitutional solution of 1933. It goes beyond the emergency response and the suspension of the norm, to scrutinise the norm itself and the constitutional culture that surrounded the agreement and investigates not only what benefits the ruling class discerned in drafting a constitution, but also what roles and instrumental purposes they would assign to it.Footnote 2 These aspects will also be dealt with in relation to the currents of opinion and political forces that proved to favour constitutional thought. They competed with ideas, which presupposed the existence of enemies, in a Schmittian sense, internal and ideological, and reflected fear or disbelief in the solutions of their opponents. From this equation, the identification of what Michael Wilkinson called ‘material constraints’ capable of shaping constitutional alternatives will result and thus avoid the trap identified by Gunter Frankenberg of conceiving authoritarian constitutional thought as a ‘deviant or distorted liberalism’.Footnote 3 Finally, it will be shown that being on the periphery of Europe did not make Portugal impermeable to the legal thinking that circulated and was in vogue in Europe from the first decade of the 1900s, to the point that the history of the drafting of the Portuguese Constitution of 1933 can also be traced as a ‘tangled legal history’.Footnote 4

The article unfolds in five sections. In section 2, I characterise the material conditions that corrupted democratic liberalism in Portugal between 1911 and 1926 and speculate on the existence of an authoritarian material constitutionalism throughout the republic. I argue that this reality paved the way for the construction of authoritarianism after 1926 and the adoption of an authoritarian constitution in 1933; section 3 presents the forces that manifested themselves between 1926 and 1933 regarding the constitutional question and shed light not only on the differences among them, but also on their common ground. I show how widespread some notions were among the various currents, for example disbelief in Parliamentarism or strategies of authoritarian containment; in section 4, I present the constitutional drafting process, emphasising the existence of various centres with constituent power and the political bargaining associated with the process. This, I believe, has been overshadowed by the excessive prominence given to Oliveira Salazar, often referred to as the ‘provider’ of the constitutional text (in the sense of being its creator in a top down processFootnote 5 ). Section 5 provides a preliminary view of legal survivals and legal transfers in the new constitution: one, of an internal scope, related to the retrieval of aspects of both the 19th-century Portuguese liberal constitutionalism and the republican model; another, of an external scope, involving, for example, appropriations of the German Constitution of 1919.

2. From the First Republic’s authoritarian constitutionalism to the 1933 authoritarian constitution: path-dependence

Established in 1910 by a military coup that overthrew the constitutional monarchy, the Republic was plagued from its first weeks until its fall in 1926 by a deep crisis of the state and intense social turbulence. Its ruling elites maintained the illusion of achieving political liberalism (of which the 1911 Constitution was a corollary), assuming that republicanism was the heir to the liberal order. However, it was the most radical sections of the Portuguese Republican Party (PRP) that governed for almost all that time, in overt tension with every tradition of limited government.Footnote 6

Since the Provisional Government (1910–1911), the leaders of the PRP had sought to build a strong state, which formally clashed with the idea of parliamentary democracy. Contrary to the republican program itself (as published from at least 1870), the electoral legislation of the Provisional Government and the Executives after 1912 did not expand the mechanisms for electoral participation.Footnote 7 Suppression of parliamentary democracy also occurred through the Executive’s systematic use of emergency powers to bypass Parliament and make extensive use of decrees and ordinances. In 1912, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1925 in response to union uprisings or civil–military movements that threatened the survival of the governments,Footnote 8 the Executive declared a state of siege in parts or all of mainland Portugal and the islands, totally suspending constitutional guarantees. In May and July 1917, a wave of (albeit less violent) strikes led to the suspension of constitutional guarantees in Lisbon when trade union offices were closed and the leaders of the trade union movement were arrested or deported. On other occasions, however, the approval of bills declaring a state of siege was obstructed and rejected by deputies from the moderate republican parties in opposition, who denounced these initiatives as scandalous ‘arbitrariness’ on the part of the government or a ‘legal monstrosity’ that was not being ‘used as it should be’. The weakening of Parliament marked the years after 1914, when the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Senators began to function without holding the elections stipulated in the Constitution. This opened a cycle of illegitimacy in these bodies and recurring doubts about the nullity of the laws promulgated and the decisions taken there. The political debate, in which legal experts participated, often resorted to constitutional arguments.Footnote 9 In 1921 and 1922, the instability of the government and the lack of lasting political alliances also led the President of the Republic to dissolve Parliament.

Used regularly from the beginning and throughout the Republic, various decrees, some with the force of law, blatantly contradicted the guarantees expressed in the 1911 Constitution,Footnote 10 restricting civil libertiesFootnote 11 (in particular freedom of the press,Footnote 12 and religious freedomFootnote 13 ). Others allowed heads of local authorities, military officers, and judges to be forcibly removed and replaced,Footnote 14 and largely transformed the judicial system.Footnote 15 Until 1926, the administration of justice was directed primarily toward political repression, through the militarisation of criminal justice, the creation of special criminal courts, and the prosecution of special cases.Footnote 16 A political police force, tasked with secretly monitoring and preventing political crimes, was created in 1922.Footnote 17 Other decrees regulated prices and various economic activities, limited private initiative and introduced a high degree of uncertainty (incompatible with the satisfactory functioning of a free market) into the economic system, which was plunged into a deep recession.Footnote 18 This happened mainly after Portugal joined the World War I, but continued after the conflict as a government strategy for economic and financial rehabilitation. Representatives of interest groups, supported by members of parliament, often accused governments of denying them autonomy and of using the war as a pretext for statist behavior.Footnote 19 The confrontation between these forces and the executives intensified after the imposition of severe restrictions on banking activities in 1922 and the end of the regime governing the free marketing of cereals in 1923, with the government forcibly closing down the Lisbon Trade Association in 1925.Footnote 20 Unable to revive the economy, leaders also revealed their inability to deal with social issues.Footnote 21 Despite the social question being given prominence in the republican discourse, which rejected both liberal and socialist solutions, they did not improve the social situation. Their policies (legislation in 1919 and 1920 imposing an eight-hour working day and compulsory social security contributions) not only failed to contribute to the idea of redistributing the national income, but also increased unemployment, led to a fall in wages and provoked accusations of violating freedom of association.Footnote 22 Faced with growing opposition from the unions and civil servants, the executives suppressed strikes, imposed compulsory redundancies on the latter, and in 1924 continued (as they had since 1911) to deport activists to Africa without trial.Footnote 23

While the formal government weakened parliamentary democracy by decree and created a crisis of representation, informally it was further weakened by the use of paramilitary violence by groups organised by the authorities. Some were part of the public administration (the ‘parish councils’), others used the state machinery (for example, military barracks) and gathered around them thousands of individuals (the so-called ‘volunteer battalions’) who spread what one historian has described as ‘mass terrorism’.Footnote 24 In this environment, the left-wing forces were divided in their relationship with the Republicans. The socialists resisted the subordination imposed on them by the radicals of the PRP and, in 1921, the General Confederation of Workers (a single trade union made up mostly of anarchists) warned of the danger of a military dictatorship being established.Footnote 25

This broad picture shows how the Republic developed a material authoritarian constitutionalism that disguised and/or contradicted the democratic principles enshrined in the 1911 Constitution. This situation can be distinguished from a situation of weakness or deadlock in the Republic’s political and economic systems. Note how this material authoritarian constitutionalism began to take shape during the Provisional Government and developed continuously until the fall of the regime, marking the exercise of power by the executives. While deliberately choosing to maintain the characteristics of the political system, they operated opportunistically in relation to the 1911 Constitution, ignoring constitutional rules and procedures, as mentioned above. This reality facilitated the emergence of authoritarianism, which gradually consolidated after the military coup of 1926 and proved to be inseparable from the solutions adopted in the authoritarian constitution of 1933 itself. In fact, the strategies of the Executives between 1910 and 1926, even the more moderate ones, paved the way for: the people’s and organised interests’ preference for depoliticisation and technical governments (in response to the successive failures of the executive, to political and social conflicts, and also to failed efforts at economic recoveryFootnote 26 ); acceptance of the leading role and involvement of military personnel of various ranks in political life (which contradicted their proclaimed aims of returning to the barracksFootnote 27 ), the desire for corporative solutions (the idea of organic representation seduced more and more republicans dissatisfied with the dysfunctions of parliamentarianism)Footnote 28 and diminished rejection of dictatorial projects (understood in the classical sense as a dictatorship limited in time and for the fulfillment of a specific taskFootnote 29 ). In the military regime established after 1926, these sensitivities, which had grown clearly and audibly, without repudiating considerable diversity among politicians and jurists, made it possible to buck the principles of democracy, civil and political rights, and the liberal ideology of the market, and move towards authoritarianism in a relatively short period of time. That is, to an autocratic state that was permanent and no longer exceptional, ready to eliminate any political obstacle, and to impose order and new objectives on the state and society, dismantling institutions and social contracts that had existed until then. The authoritarian government implemented in the first days after the fall of the republic found support among moderate republicans, ‘supporters of the presidential system and many conservatives disillusioned with the parliamentary experience’,Footnote 30 and was notable for the predominance of military leaders in the highest political positions (the Presidency of the Republic, the Presidency of the Government, and the various ministries) and by their intervention in all areas of the state’s relations with society. In the midst of an overwhelming succession of governments and military attempts to hegemonise the situation in their favour, the President of the Republic, General Óscar Carmona, emerged as the new regime’s tutelary figure and, from July 1926, showed an unusual capacity for political survival. Until April 1928, this military man was the head of state and government, and only in that year was he elected by direct universal suffrage. On 9 June, the bicameral Parliament was closed by decree and did not reopen. Then followed the publication of decrees with the force of law, which expanded the powers and functions of the head of state, changed the configuration of the executive and legislative powers, and dissolved the bicameral Parliament; the Republican Constitution of 1911, although not repealed, lost its legitimacy.Footnote 31 From 1928, after changing the economic model established in 1890 with a medium-term austerity program (compulsory cartelisation, quotas, industrial conditioning, credit reorganisation), Finance Minister António Oliveira Salazar (gradually) became the strongman in the government, with solid support from employers’ associations and low-ranking military personnel.Footnote 32 Between 1926 and 1930, the republican political parties were also whittled away (a consequence of their internal weakness prior to the military coup, as well as the subsequent exile of some of their main leaders, arrests, and deportations of several militants), although they were not outlawed.Footnote 33 However, the main divisions of the period and political decisions, such as the drafting of the constitution, did not require their intervention, indicating how completely they were sidelined. They also faced competition from new projects and forms of organisation, sometimes based on magazines with a strong ideological identity (integralist, Catholic, national syndicalist). The new regulations on freedom of association, assembly, and information, published between 1926 and 1929, kept these groups and publications, as well as most of the press, under state control, prolonging the practices of the Republic.Footnote 34 The greatest obstacle to any party activity, however, was the emergence of the National Union (UN), founded in 1930 as the only political grouping recognised by the government (with the exception of the Monarchist Cause, which continued to exist under political authorisation). On the social level, accused of participating in armed movements to overthrow the military regime, workers’ associations were dissolved (but trade unions were maintained) and the right to strike was abolished, although strikers were not criminalised until 1932. With striking and lock-out being punishable, the number of deportations to the colonies of union leaders and the destitute increased.Footnote 35

From all these material conditions, we can infer continuity with ‘authoritarian political technology’ (to use Gunter Frankenberg’s term),Footnote 36 developed by the Republic. While deepening its authoritarian practices, the new regime nevertheless took a step forward (compared to the republican past) by opting in 1933 for the constitutionalisation (either in the form of principles or concrete rules) of certain mechanisms, which thus became permanent (losing their exceptional character). These involved: concentrating power in the government, with a reduction in the role of Parliament (Articles 50 and 108, § 1); the State becoming highly interventionist in the economy (Articles 30 to 41); and strict control of floating debt was promoted (Article 67 and § 1). For the first time, the principles of representation of interests (Articles 18, 19 and 102) and of business organisation (Article 34) were also enshrined, fulfilling aspirations that dated back to the last quarter of the 19th century and that had resurfaced in the work of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1911 Constitution.Footnote 37

3. Divisions over the constitutional solution to be established

In the first fortnight after the 1926 military coup, the President of the Republic and the Minister of Justice announced their intention to present the country with a new constitution.Footnote 38 However, between June 1926 and October 1931, disagreements arose within successive governments over the form of the constitutional process and what would be enshrined in it. Divisions resulted from the struggle for power in the new regime and the need to distance opponents, with confrontation occurring mainly between the military chiefs involved in the 1926 military coup and civilian elements of various cabinets, who were backed by currents of opinion in favour of different constitutional solutions and regimes. On one side of this dispute were generals Ivens Ferraz and Vicente de Freitas (both heads of government and holders of various ministerial posts between April 1927 and December 1931), and on the other, the Minister of Finance, Salazar, seconded by other ministers, also civilians. Each group vied to get the President of the Republic, Óscar Carmona, to support the solutions they advocated.

These generals counted on the support of a broad current of opinion formed by high-ranking military officers from both branches of the Armed Forces (Army and Navy), several of them also members of those governments. Champions of a republican ethic, they were committed to preserving symbols of the Republic, as well as its ideal of progress and freedom. They considered the regime, established in 1926, a necessary dictatorship, but one that should be temporary. Vacillating between two solutions: adapting the Constitution of 1911 (through reform) or drafting a new constitutional text, they advocated for a strong Executive, backed by the political police and censorship, capable of maintaining order and containing the actions of the opposition and of trade union forces, under threat of imprisonments or deportations. The aim was to enshrine a presidential regime with a bicameral parliament (the lower house, elected by direct suffrage, the upper, by indirect suffrage, with representation of social interests). While some supported the project of a secular State (established after 1911 by the strongly anticlerical PRP), others were more receptive to compromises with the Catholic Church, in the spirit of the so-called ‘decree of personality’ of July 1926.Footnote 39 The re-establishment of favourable conditions for the creation of political parties was one of their points of honor, it being unclear whether they were betting on existing parties or on new party formations.Footnote 40 On the whole, the actors involved in this current did not have a clear doctrinal position on democracy as a regime, form of governance, or even an ideal. They maintained communication channels with some intellectual circles (such as Renovação Democrática or Seara Nova), not seeking the direct exercise of power but only the participation of citizens in the construction of a new model of society and its relations with the State. What they had in common was their rejection of an authoritarian government for an indefinite period of time and the suppression of political freedoms.

Against this current of opinion was one formed among the power circles in Lisbon, with Oliveira Salazar as their pivot. This mostly comprised civilians, high-ranking public servants and local authority officials (several militants from the republican parties), university professors (some also ministers after 1926), liberal professionals, businessmen, and landowners. Because its most prominent figures had, in the recent past, been distinguished Catholic leaders (such as Salazar himself), their opponents, supporters of a secular project, classified them as backward Catholics. Many, however, were not believers. On the religious question, they were divided between the defenders of the rights of the Catholic Church, who favoured a return to a regime of union of Church and State, and those who favoured the regime of separation of Church and State, aspiring only to mitigate the most hostile aspects of the separation model created in 1911. Of illiberal inclinations, they rejected the establishment of a pluralist democracy, focused on denouncing the failure of the Parliament and political parties, and valued the intermediate bodies of society (economic and moral corporations, such as universities or charities) and their role in the election and representation of legislative chambers.Footnote 41 Divided over the question of regime (ie, whether to restore the monarchy or maintain a republic), they agreed that restoring the monarchy would be inappropriate because it would make it impossible to control and maintain power, and they linked the constitutional problem to the question of the temporary nature of the dictatorship. Nevertheless, despite considering it the best solution for the alleged ungovernability caused by the parties, they did not discuss its duration. They advocated the drafting of a new constitution and refrained from calling elections, but frequently promised to seek the best way to return power to the people. This demagogic promise was never founded on a real intention to establish a Christian democracy (in its political sense) in the country.Footnote 42

Finally, there was a current of opinion that had less to do with the direct dispute for power and more to do with wanting to influence Salazar, in competition with his direct supporters. This was formed by intellectuals linked to Integralismo Lusitano and garnered sympathy among a segment of lower-ranking military personnel, who identified with the rhetoric of fighting republicanism and restoring the monarchy. Like the other currents, there were no concrete objectives for struggle, and the strategy, from 1930 onwards, involved infiltrating the State apparatus in technical and political positions. Between 1931 and 1932, a few courted German nationalism and Italian fascism, entertaining the idea of revolution and the cult of violence, eventually establishing the National-Syndicalist Movement, which was outlawed in 1934. Detractors of liberal democracy, some voicing a preference for theorisations of so-called ‘organic democracy’, proposed the creation of a unicameral and corporate parliament and of corporate councils dependent on ministries, and administrative decentralisation. They categorically rejected class struggle, and the most dogmatic aimed for the extinction of traditional unions. They welcomed the establishment of a confessional State and supported the existence of a ‘natural’ constitution. This did not coincide, except partially, with an existing social and political State. Thus, the written constitution would acquire value only when indispensable conditions for the survival and preservation of the political community were revealed in history.Footnote 43

It is important to note that these three currents did not correspond to any traditional support for political ideologies, having rather the profile of fluid groupings, without institutionalisation or concrete programs. As such, they did not act on behalf of specific interest groups, and their political proposals did not aim to correspond to doctrinal foundations. Unified by unstable alliances, they nevertheless maintained a competitive relationship despite sharing references. In fact, all three converged on the ideal of a strong executive, the perceived need for a technical treatment of political matters, and anti-parliamentarism. The latter, however, did not imply a desire to destroy the parliamentary institution. Rather, it was a desire to correct or moderate its excesses or imbalances. In this sense, they did not question the functions of the parliament, but rather its correlation with other powers, while advocating a different legitimacy for parliamentary representation. The second and third currents also emphasised the importance of social order values over fundamental rights, which were considered secondary to the interests of State and society. In line with the practices of the material authoritarian constitutionalism experienced during the Republic, the alleged need to maintain public order at the expense of suppressing fundamental freedoms was also normalised, including by the first current. The first two currents maintained the goal of institutionalising the new constitution throughout the constituent process, which did not prevent its actors from updating their preferences. This update occurred, in the case of the current supporting Salazar, as the next section will show, from negotiation aimed at defeating opponents and unequivocally securing control of that process in its final phase.

4. A ‘closed assembly’ constitutional process

Gradually, between mid-1930 and 1932, Salazar and his supporters strengthened their position. Two factors contributed to this. First, the fatigue felt by the military chiefs heading the various governments formed during those years. Despite managing to crush revolts and conspiracies prompted (the last in August 1931) by republicans hostile to the regime and supported by anarcho-syndicalists, socialists, and members of the civilian militias (still operational, despite the disintegration of the PRP), they did so at a high social cost. These victories did not prevent the destruction of several cities, hundreds of deaths and injuries, and thousands of prisoners and deportees. The weakness of those military chiefs also grew in proportion to their failure to remove Salazar during the formation of new governments.Footnote 44 The second factor involved the cementing of a tactical alliance between the head of State and Salazar. The former continually thwarted attempts to remove the finance minister, insisting on his staying in the executive and on his economic and financial policies. For his part, Salazar would endeavour to elevate the Presidency of the Republic, whether by proposing an increase in its powers within the framework of a constitutional solution or by projecting it as a guarantor of the stability of the regime in the making.Footnote 45 With the latter argument, he distinguished President Carmona from the other military chiefs, whom he accused of making risky decisions (in the regime’s architecture and in the economyFootnote 46 ).

It was in this context that Salazar, relying on rising political power and emerging as an unusual case of political survival and government strongman, began to oversee the dossier for preparing the new constitution. Documentation from that time does not clarify why the finance minister assumed this burden (whether he claimed it or had it assigned to him). In any case, his status as a University of Coimbra law professor gave him an advantage over any other government member. After presenting concrete ideas for a constitutional program in July 1930, some 1931 documents prove he was heavily involved in the architecture of the constitutional process.Footnote 47

Little is known about how the process unfolded, but empirical evidence points to a strategy woven between the President of the Republic and the Government. All ministers participated in the constitutional discussion held in the Council of Ministers (although Salazar played a key role in leading it). After the government’s failure to organise elections (summer of 1931), these two centres of power rejected the convocation of a constituent assembly, opting instead for a more easily controlled closed process. In order to discuss the draft constitution (and the most important laws concerning the plan for reorganising the state, such as the administrative and electoral codes and the laws concerning the corporatist organisation), they created the National Political Council (NPC), a consultative body created to advise the head of state and the Council of Ministers.Footnote 48 The rivalry between military chiefs and the faction led by Salazar manifested around the competencies and composition of the NPC, playing out the question of the government’s greater or lesser autonomy. Faced with Salazar’s predominance in the government, the former sought to expand the powers of the NPC, but were unsuccessful and their (initially defended) obligation to give prior authorisation for the approval of the aforementioned diplomas was abandoned. In the composition of the NPC, a balance was achieved between personalities affiliated with the military chiefs and supporters of the finance minister.

After the publication of the decree creating the NPC, the constitutional process began with the Council of Ministers meeting to evaluate the first version of constitution proposal drafted in January 1932, by Salazar and Domingos Fezas Vital, also a professor of law at the University of Coimbra (from a draft prepared by a lawyer friend of the finance minister, Quirino de Jesus). Until the summer, over nineteen meetings (some presided over by the Head of State), the Council of Ministers revised and amended eight versions of the constitutional text. This would indicate heavy negotiation in this forum, and the multiple versions of the text show that the most substantive changes concerned the organisation of state powers, civil service, and the construction of public opinion. The presence of President Carmona at some of the meetings indicates that his mediation was deemed necessary. Alone or accompanied by Fezas Vital, Salazar controlled the drafting of each version, incorporating changes requested by the Council of Ministers. Two other legal scholars, Martinho Nobre de Melo and Manuel Rodrigues Júnior, members of the NPC, and former ministers, were consulted.

The NPC revised the constitutional proposal on 5 May 1932, after its approval by the Council of Ministers. At the request of President Carmona, the NPC commented on the possibility of promulgating a new constitution and on the most expeditious procedure for doing so. Regarding the first point, there was no unanimity about the political timing. Some advisors, close to Salazar, one being former Minister of Justice, Mário de Figueiredo, argued that the corporate elements on which the new regime was to be based were not yet organised. While this led nowhere, approval of the Constitution was met with further resistance when Salazar, as government spokesperson, defended his decision to hold a plebiscite. Despite expressing distrust of suffrage, he emphasised the need to preserve the link with popular sovereignty, in order to lend legitimacy to the constitutional process. This position was opposed by those who favoured the convening of a constituent assembly to revise the proposed constitution, and by those who opposed the plebiscite, considering it an inappropriate instrument for the full approval of the text. The former included personalities associated with the solutions defended by the first current of opinion. The latter, which in turn included advisors belonging to Salazar’s supporters, argued that the plebiscite should only cover the principles of political organisation. They also criticised the options included in the referendum, namely the form of election of the sovereignty bodies (indirect election of the Head of State and the Chamber of Deputies, with the participation of a number of intermediate bodies). The government’s position prevailed.Footnote 49

The intense political crisis that occurred in the weeks that followed did not prevent the constitution proposal from being submitted to public consultation (without a closing date) on 28 May. This left the Executive unable to impose the constitutional text and meant they had to share, albeit under strong political control (via State censorship), its contents. This openness paved the way for various criticisms of the proposal’s articles. The most salient issues addressed the constraints imposed on fundamental guarantees and the role of courts in matters of unconstitutionality, the election of the head of state by direct suffrage of family heads, the subversion of the principle of separation of powers, and the artifice of corporatist organisation without any tangible existence. While supporters of the military chiefs were disappointed with the initial three points, the distrust of equipping the regime with a corporatist physiognomy was particularly evident among sectors supporting Salazar.Footnote 50

The imminent threat of a crisis leading to the dissolution of the Executive prompted the head of state to consult with the NPC, seeking guidance on whether the newly constituted Executive should uphold the constitution proposal. The decision was to keep the proposal (whether unanimously or not is unknown), albeit with the possibility of making amendments. The NPC did not reconvene prior to the plebiscite to the constitution. It exhausted its constituent role in the middle of the constitutional process, and did not revise other legislation as had been planned.Footnote 51 Salazar’s appointment as head of the Executive impacted the constitutional process. In the following months, until the constitutional plebiscite, he focused mainly on his political survival (countering new conspiracies for his removal), the cohesion of his government, and setting limits prior to the ratification of the future constitution. In negotiations on the constitution, he did not compromise with integralist elements, who sought backstage agreements, nor with republican military chiefs (who proposed the election of a constituent assembly, which would have the power to freely modify the constitutional projectFootnote 52 ). Concurrently, he lessened the military legitimacy to claim exclusivity of civilian leadership over the regime,Footnote 53 reinforced the project of a single party (taking on the presidency of the National Union), altered the functioning of the Executive (replacing frequent Councils of Ministers with meetings between the head of government and the ministers), intensified the use of decrees with the force of law (signed only by himself and by the ministers responsible for the matter in question), and criminalised certain political actions of the opposition.Footnote 54

This strengthening of the Government, achieved cumulatively over eight months, led to the end of the public consultation period (without any announcement to this effect) and the adoption of a decision on the ratification of the constitution. Almost simultaneously with the selection of procedures to be established for the plebiscite, Salazar, meeting again with the Council of Ministers and the Head of State, secured the final formula of the constitution in February 1933. The Executive (the body that, strictly speaking, had become the sole depository of constituent power), benefiting from the fragmentation and weakness of forces pursuing different goals, retained most of its initial preferences and closed the constitutional process to its advantage. At this stage, there were few but significant changes to the constitutional text, namely: the (re)designation of the republic as ‘corporatist’ (Article 5)Footnote 55 ; the introduction of the possibility of re-election of the Head of State for an immediate term (Article 72, § 1); the granting of a lifetime mandate to State Councilors (previously limited to five years) (Article 83, 6); the requirement for ministers’ legislative proposals to be submitted to the head of the Government, ending their direct submission to parliament (Article 112); the restriction of the legislative power of the chamber of deputies to the approval of framework laws (addition to Article 92); the election of the head of State by direct suffrage of citizens over 35 years old and with Portuguese nationality by birth (Article 73); the election of the chamber of deputies by direct vote (abandoning the appointment of 45 deputies by indirect suffrage) (Article 85). Except for the last two amendments, proposed by elements associated with the first current,Footnote 56 no concrete proposals from the public consultation were retrieved. The new changes responded to the criticism of Salazar’s supporters within the NPC and the government, represented a strengthening of the head of government in the political system, and also mitigated the corporate experience at the political level (in the elections for the Presidency of the Republic and the Chamber of Deputies). This victory also meant that the currents with more radical projects (both within the republican orthodoxy and in the integralist line), although offering competition (especially the military chiefs), were less successful in harmonising agendas and projecting, with their proposals, the (artificial) construction of a political centre. Indeed, the final proposal for the Constitution assumed a centripetal force and stabilised Salazar’s political authority.

Through a corporate-style plebiscite, in which family heads registered in the 1932 electoral census were able to vote, the Constitution proposal was approved on 19 March 1933, with 60 per cent favorable votes. Abstention was high and counted as votes in favor. This mechanism, provided for in the decree that established the plebiscite (Article 4, § 1 of decree no. 22 229 of 21 February 1933), reveals how the Government had envisaged this possibility, possibly based on the idea of weak voter mobilization, even while expecting majority support.

5. Legal survivals and legal transplants verified in the new Constitution

The 1933 Constitution proved to be a skillful composition combining elements of the country’s constitutional tradition and elements of modernity, anchored in the post-World War I European constitutional experiences, such as that of Weimar in 1919, and in its underlying public law, legal sociology, and philosophical references. In 1933, the liberalist Constitutions (1822 and 1838) were followed, namely the discrimination of the parts of the territory (mainland, islands and colonies) (Articles 1 and 2). This implied a material limit to the State’s action, despite the classification of the republic as unitary. In the hierarchy of matters, the 1933 document opted for the example of the 1911 Constitution, first presenting rights and then the organisation of powers. In this version, individual guarantees appeared as a natural limit to the various powers. Likewise, the republic was maintained, but its full democratic sense was rejected, as had already been the case in 1911,Footnote 57 both by the limitations introduced to suffrage in elections – for local power, in which only family heads and moral and economic corporations participated (Articles 17 and 19), and for the Head of State (Article 73) -, and by the reduction of the powers of the chamber of deputies (Articles 91 and 92). Moreover, ministers did not have joint responsibility and only the head of the Government was accountable to the president of the Republic for general policy (Article 107).

As had been the case in all Portuguese Constitutions (1822, 1826, 1838, and 1911) since liberalism, the right to property and its transmission (Article 8, n 15), as well as the rights of association, assembly, expression, and education were recognised. It was determined, however, that they would be regulated by special laws (Articles 4, 5, 14, 20 § 2), as was also stipulated in the 1911 text.Footnote 58 The guarantee of the inviolability of the domicile was limited (Article 6), clashing with the Portuguese tradition that understood it as an extension of individual freedom. It allowed for arrest without formal charges (Article 20 § 3). However, while in 1911 this was allowed only in cases deemed as high treason against the State, permission was now extended to crimes attempted or committed against state security, counterfeiting, fraudulent bankruptcy, manufacturing or using explosives. Following previous constitutions, adversarial proceedings continued to be assured (Article 10), as well as the inadmissibility of the death penalty (except for war crimes) (Articles 10 and 11), or the possibility of the habeas corpus guarantee (introduced in 1911), albeit under particular restrictions (Article 3, n 20, §§ 3 and 4).

In some aspects of political organisation, and especially in the regulation of social and economic activity, the drafters of the 1933 Constitution innovated and showed influence from the 1919 German Constitution.Footnote 59 This justified, for example, the strengthening of the executive power (Articles 70, 107, and 108), the declaration that the Government is formed by the Prime Minister and the ministers (Article 106); the adoption of a monogamous family concept, legitimised by marriage, with the elimination of the possibility of divorce (Articles 11 and 12, n 1), and the extent to which economic and social matters were addressed (Articles 29 to 41), with the State assuming the right and duty to defend health, nutrition, and public hygiene (Articles 6 and 40). Going beyond the recognition of the right to public assistance, as stated in previous Constitutions (1838 and 1911), the State committed to promoting solidarity, welfare, cooperation, and mutualism (Article 41). No economic bodies with legislative functions were created (the Corporate Chamber would only have advisory functions, Article 103), unlike the Reichsrat or the Economic Council of the Weimar State. The logic of balances between economic powers was also not applied, and the rejection of class struggle was evident, both in the omission of trade union freedom and in the prohibition of strikes and lockouts (Article 39), as well as in attributing the capacity to conclude collective labor agreements to economic corporations rather than to unions (Article 37).

In the organisation of powers, the 1933 Constitution also introduced some constitutional discontinuities. For example, it established that the acts of the Head of State must be countersigned by the relevant minister or by the entire Government (except for the appointment and dismissal of the head of Government), under penalty of nullification (Article 82). Partly following Duguit’s realist doctrine, sovereignty was declared to reside in the nation (according to the Constitution of 1822) and to be exercised by political bodies (Article 71), although it did not belong to them.Footnote 60 The division of powers was omitted, and legislative power designation was eliminated. It was established that the executive power could regulate legislative matters through decrees, assuming responsibility for them before the chamber of deputies (Article 108, n 3), in line with a notion that the executive power could not be limited to the execution of the law. On the judicial level, the institution of the jury was eliminated (which, since the first decade of the 20th century, had been severely criticised, especially for the alleged professional incapacity of the jurors to resolve legal cases), and the power to declare laws unconstitutional was taken away from the judiciary and given to the Chamber of Deputies on the initiative of the government (Article 122).

6. Conclusions

This article shows that when an autocratic military regime is being established, the fiercely competing ambitions regarding the drafting of a new constitution not only pit military forces against civilian forces, but also create divisions within the latter. That the ones in a position to control the drafting of the new constitution are those who enjoy broad popular support (as Salazar did) and set as their goal the demilitarisation of the system, even without ensuring the existence of democratic political parties. These two points, which can be drawn from the case of the Portuguese Constitution of 1933, highlight the conditions of emergence and stabilisation of constitutions in autocracies.

It also shows the success of a new authoritarian constitution depends on the adoption of (supposedly) representative institutions and the enshrinement of rights, even if merely objective ones. Apparently, their acceptance helps to minimise opposition fears about constitutional provisions that encourage government control over the other organs of the political system, or the fact that some fundamental rights are subject to later regulation through ordinary legislation. However, these last two aspects seem to be tolerated by a population used to accepting authoritarian leadership. Thus, the 1933 Constitution validates considerations in the literature on the functions of authoritarian constitutions by confirming that the constitutional text is a useful and not dispensable institution at the time of the consolidation of power of the victorious faction to overcome internal problemsFootnote 61 and strengthen the population’s belief in the government.

Finally, the case of the Portuguese Constitution of 1933 shows how the process of drafting an authoritarian constitution is based on path dependence, with many links to the preceding material constitutionalism where already normalised authoritarian elements can be found. This justifies the high dependence on national models for a number of provisions, even if the elements of innovation are based on imported legal models and adapted to the national reality. I believe that this point in the analysis is sufficiently fruitful to be tested in future research and to generate new questions. One of them is whether this path dependence manifests itself in other authoritarian constitutions, historical or currently operating. If so, it would be interesting to see whether it is associated with specific varieties of authoritarianism.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers, participants at the Workshop Authoritarian Encounters, in Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena in 11 December 2023, for useful comments on drafts of this paper, in particular Michael A. Wilkinson, for the invitation, and Jakub Szumski for the communication.

Funding statement

Financed by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (Portugal), under the UID IPRI project.

Competing interests

The author has no conflicting interests to declare.

References

1 K Polanyi, ‘Corporative Austria: A Functional State?’ 51 (1934) New Britain Weekly 743–4.

2 M Wilkinson, ‘Authoritarian Liberalism as Authoritarian Constitutionalism’ in HA Garcia and G Frankenberg (eds), Authoritarian Constitutionalism (Edward Elgar Publishing 2019) 319.

3 G Frankenberg, Authoritarianism: Constitutional Perspectives (Edward Elgar Publishing 2020) xvi.

4 T Duve, ‘European Legal History – Concepts, Methods, Challenges’ in T Duve (ed), Entanglements in Legal History: Conceptual Approaches (Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Open Access Publication 2014) 29–64.

5 For example, see P Velez, ‘Do Discurso Constitucional do Estado Novo’ in F Fernández-Crehuet and A Hespanha (eds), Franquismus und Salazarismus: Legitimation durch Diktatur? (Vittorio Klostermann 2008) 635–67; António Araújo, A Lei de Salazar (Tenácitas 2012).

6 The PRP, also called the Democratic Party, was a single party until 1913, when internal divisions led to the formation of two other republican parties, the Unionist Party and the Evolutionist Party. After that, it became the dominant party because it controlled the elections and secured a majority in Congress (made up of the lower and upper houses). It united the urban petty bourgeoisie and rural landowners, identified itself with extreme nationalism, and had armed civilian groups that used indiscriminate violence against other republican and monarchist forces to destroy their newspapers and disrupt demonstrations. The radical sectors of the party identified with the French republican tradition of 1793 and the legacy of the so-called Portuguese ‘September Revolution’ (setembrismo). On the emergence of radicalism within the framework of 19th-century liberalism in Portugal, see MF Bonifácio, Seis Estudos sobre o Liberalismo Português (Editorial Estampa 1991) 268–79.

7 In the very first elections of the Republic, the PRP restricted the right to vote so that only between 5 and 10 per cent of the population voted. An electoral system of majority representation in multi-member constituencies with restricted suffrage was designed, with no need to vote in constituencies where no more than one list was presented (these candidates were declared elected). In 1913, a new electoral law restricted voting rights to men over the age of 18 who were in full possession of their civil and political rights and could read and write. This, however, excepted those on active military service and the police. For a summary of elections and electoral laws in the period 1910–1917, see JB Serra, ‘A evolução política’ in F Rosas and MF Rollo (eds), História da Primeira República Portuguesa (Tinta-da-China 2010) 100–12.

8 The declaration of a state of siege was the subject of the following legislation: Decree of 30 January 1912 and Law of 3 February 1912; Decree of 20 April 1916; Decree n 3150 of 20 May 1917; Decree n 3245 of 12 July 1917; Decree n 4891 of 12 October 1918; Law of 13 December 1918; Decree n 5110 of 19 January 1919.

9 LB Chorão, Política e Justiça na I República (Letra Livre 2018) 66–7, 71.

10 R Ramos, História de Portugal: A Segunda Fundação (Editorial Estampa 1994) 451–3, 469–70.

11 Some examples: Decree n 2270 of 12 March 1916, empowering the police or administrative authorities to curb any ‘abuse or lack of civility against public interests’; Decree n 2305 of 30 March 1916, prohibiting Portuguese citizens between the ages of 16 and 45 from leaving Portuguese territory; Law n 545 of 20 May 1916, imposing the supervision and censorship of postal correspondence.

12 Some examples: the law of 9 July 1912, which ordered the confiscation of newspapers that attacked republican institutions; law no 495 of 28 March 1916, which subjected the press and all publications to preventive censorship for the duration of the state of war; decree n 2322 of 8 April 1916, which prohibited the existence of wireless telegraph stations owned by private individuals; ordinances n 1182, 1183 and 1184 of 28 April 1916. Decree n 2322 of 8 April 1916 prohibiting the existence of wireless telegraph stations for reception and transmission belonging to private individuals; decrees n 1182, n 1183 and n 1184 of 28 December 1917, restricting freedom of the press and the publication of new periodicals; Decree n 4927 of 31 October 1918, which placed preventive censorship under the control of the Minister of War and the military authorities.

13 The main restrictions on religious freedom were imposed by the law of 11 April 1911 on the separation of the State from the Churches (which deprived the Catholic Church of its legal personality, expropriated its movable and immovable property, prohibited public demonstrations of worship or faith and the creation of religious associations), but also by the expulsion of several bishops from mainland Portugal (with the exception of the Bishop of Beja) in 1911 and 1912, and of some priests in 1915 (decrees of 28 July 1915). Despite long discussions within the PRP and between it and the moderate parties about changes to the law of segregation after 1913, the most aggressive aspects of the law were not abolished until 1926.

14 Some examples: the decree of 8 October 1910, replacing the administrators of all municipalities; the decree of 28 December 1910, punishing opponents of the monarchy with imprisonment; the decree of 14 January 1911, ordering the transfer of judges from the Lisbon Court of Appeal to Angola; the 1921 reorganisation of the National Republican Guard, one of the police forces.

15 Some examples: the laws of 23 October and 19 November 1911, granting the trial of political crimes by a special court created for this purpose; the laws of 11 March and 8 July 1912 and decree n 4726 of 15 August 1918, granting the trial and punishment of political crimes by the ordinary courts; the law of 12 July 1912, granting the appointment by the Government of the magistrates in charge of inspections and punishments, and the appointment by the Superior Council of the Judiciary of the magistrates in charge of inspections and investigations; Law of 18 January 1913 determining the cases in which the Supreme Court of Justice has jurisdiction to review convictions handed down by a military tribunal prior to March 1911; Law of 21 September 1915 defining the crime of high treason; Decree n 2867 of 30 November 1916, which reintroduced the death penalty for certain crimes provided for in the Code of Military Justice; Decree n 5368 of 8 April 1919, which gave the Executive disciplinary powers over judges and civil servants.

16 JA Barreiros, ‘Criminalização política e defesa do Estado’ 17 (1982) Análise Social 818–21; PP Albuquerque, A Reforma da Justiça Criminal em Portugal e na Europa (Almedina 2003) 419–21.

17 Decree n 8435 of 21 October 1922, establishing the State Security Preventive Police.

18 Some examples: the decree of 6 April 1915 setting up a commission in each municipality to regulate food prices; decree n 3738 of 10 January 1918, dissolving all administrative bodies and ordering the civil governors to appoint new administrative commissions for the municipalities and parish councils.

19 Chorão (n 9) 403–6.

20 Decree n 10515 of 6 February 1925.

21 C Oliveira, O Operariado e a República Democrática (1910–1914) (Seara Nova 1974).

22 NL Madureira, A Economia dos Interesses. Portugal entre as Guerras (Livros Horizonte 2002) 37.

23 Some examples: the law of 30 April 1912 (Art 5); the ministerial decision of 18 March 1924 to terminate the contracts of civil servants; the order of 5 July 1924 to deport workers and trade unionists.

24 VP Valente, A República Velha (1910–1917) (Gradiva 1997) 15–16.

25 A Pinto, ‘A transformação política da República: o bloco radical’ in F Rosas and MF Rollo (eds), História da Primeira República Portuguesa (Tinta-da-China 2010) 446. LG da Silva, Da Eficácia da Convenção Coletiva (Imprensa FDUL 2022) 671–2.

26 Ramos (n 10) 609.

27 LB Chorão, A Crise da República e a Ditadura Militar (Sextante 2010) 204.

28 [Interview with António Sérgio], Seara Nova, 300 (1932) 178 and 190; B Machado, O Projeto de Constituição (Author’s edition 1932) 17–18.

29 JTM Colaço, Da Vida Portuguesa. Algumas Ilusões…Alguns Votos (Livraria Férin 1925) 31–5; B Machado, O Estado Novo Ditatorial (Author’s edition 1931) 6–7.

30 M Caetano, A Constituição de 1933: Estudo de direito político (Coimbra Editora 1956) 2.

31 Decrees of 9 and 19 June 1926, Decree n 12740 of 12 November 1926.

32 AJ Telo, ‘A obra financeira de Salazar: a ditadura financeira como caminho para a unidade política, 1928–1932’ 128 (1994) Análise Social 782–97; AJ Telo, Primeira República II. Como cai um regime (Editorial Presença 2011) 277–8.

33 Outside the country, the leaders of these groups organised the League for the Defense of the Republic, but its action did not go beyond the production of a few manifestos, and it disbanded in 1931. What remained were the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and the Portuguese Anarchist Union (which, however, had neither acquired nor had a significant support base and continued to focus on active participation in the trade unions), as well as the Portuguese Royalist Action and the Monarchist Cause (organisations that had brought together supporters of the monarchical restoration since 1910).

34 Decrees n 11839 of 5 July 1926, n 14856 of 10 July 1928, and ordinance n 5422 of 14 June 1928.

35 Art 3 of Decree no. 13138 of 15 February 1927; Art 4 of Decree n 21942 of 5 December 1932; Decree n 21943 of 5 December 1932; Bulletin of the Lisbon Civil Government, December 1932 and January 1933, centre pages.

36 Frankenberg (n 3).

37 Materialisation of these principles had been attempted under the presidential government of Sidónio Pais (1917–1918), who changed the composition of the Senate, introducing dual territorial and professional representation, Decree n 3997 of 30 March 1918, Art 2, Arts 124 to 144. However, the abrupt end of the Sidonian consulate caused the measure to be revoked.

38 This issue was not new. The need to change the 1911 Constitution had been a consensus idea in January 1926, even before the fall of the Republic, when parliament approved the anticipation of a constitutional revision to reform legislative power.

39 This decree, signed less than two months before the military coup of 28 May 1926, signaled that the Ministry of Gomes da Costa, the first after the regime break, understood it was advantageous to extend the political climate of non-hostility towards the Catholic Church, inherited from Sidonism and the last Governments of the Republic, as a strategy to foster as broad a social consensus as possible. The diploma granted legal personality to corporations and institutes charged with promoting the worship of any religious denominations. It also determined the return of properties taken from the Catholic Church after 1911, owned by the State and not allocated to public services, in use and administration, intended exclusively for worship purposes. It authorised religious teaching in private schools and public worship, although in a conditional manner. The aim was to eliminate the most severe aspects of the 1911 Law of Separation.

40 I Ferraz, A Ascensão de Salazar (O Jornal 1988) 70–1, 158.

41 AO Salazar, ‘Princípios Fundamentais da Revolução Política’ in Id, Discursos e Notas Políticas 1928–1966 (Coimbra Editora 2015) 69–73.

42 It is of interest to clarify that Salazar did not consider Christian democracy as anything other than the social dimension of Christianity, that is, the contribution of the Catholic religion, through action, to ‘improve living conditions among the popular classes, […] necessary in all regimes and under all governments’. He articulated this position early on, in a conference he gave in 1914, by way of explanation about the meaning of that expression used by Leo XIII, while still a young member of the Catholic Centre. He would maintain this interpretation of Christian democracy throughout his life, even after the development of pontifical thought on the matter, at the end of World War II (AO Salazar, ‘A Democracia e a Igreja’ in MB Cruz (ed), Inéditos e Dispersos. Escritos Político-Sociais e Doutrinários (1908–1928) (Bertrand Editora 1997) 210.

43 For exemple, see Diário de Notícias, 27 July 1932, 1; Revolução, 11 July 1933, 1–3.

44 Between May 1926 and July 1932, when Salazar became the head of the Government, seven cabinets were formed, all under military leadership.

45 AO Salazar, ‘Ditadura Administrativa e Revolução Política’ in Discursos e Notas Políticas (n 41), 63.

46 AO Salazar, ‘O Exército e a Revolução Nacional’ in Discursos e Notas Políticas (n 41), 92-4.

47 National Archive Torre do Tombo, Salazar Archive/CO/PC 5, Pasta 1: Salazar’s manuscript, dated 29 December 1931.

48 Decree n 20643 of 22 December 1931.

49 Minutes n 1 of the NPC, published in Araújo (n 5) 195–9.

50 For example, see R Lordello, ‘Regime sindical-corporativo’ 3 (1933) Cadernos Corporativos 112–16; PT Pereira, ‘Espírito corporativo’ 2 (1933) Cadernos Corporativos 56; Diário de Notícias, 10 July 1932, 1; O Século, 8 July 1932, 1.

51 The NPC met only one more time, on 6 April 1933, weeks after the constitutional plebiscite had been held.

52 This idea was presented in the press in December 1932 through an exposé by General Vicente de Freitas, in what became known as his ‘Constitutional Project’. It advocated the adoption of a semi-presidential system and the restoration of all ‘public liberties and freedom of thought’. Diário de Lisboa, 12 February 1933, 1 and 3; JM Sardica, ‘José Vicente de Freitas before the 1933 Constitution’ 75 (2019) Ler História 25–31.

53 Salazar (n 46) 92–4.

54 Decrees n 21942 and n 21943 of 5 December 1932.

55 This qualifier had already appeared in the first version of the proposed constitutional text but was eliminated in the second version. For further follow up of this issue, see PB Santos, ‘In the Genesis of the Political Constitution of 1933: The Corporate Ideology and the Economic-Social Structure of Portuguese Authoritarianism’ 31 (2018) Estudos Históricos 186.

56 C Leal, Ditadura, Democracia ou Comunismo – O Problema Português (La Coruña 1931).

57 M Souza, Constituição Política da República Portuguesa. Comentário (França Amado 1913) [edition of Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda, 2011], 20–4.

58 Art 14 of the 1911 Portuguese Constitution.

59 In documentation relating to the process of drafting the 1933 Constitution, from Oliveira Salazar’s archive, some working documents show that the drafters studied other constitutions. Among them was the small manual, in vogue at the time, by B Mirkine-Guetzévitch, Les nouvelles tendances du droit constitutionnel (R. Pichon 1931). There is also a manuscript by Salazar with various notes on the 1911 Constitution, the trends identified in the ‘modern constitutions of Europe’ and the structure to be given to the constitutional project (published in Araújo (n 5) 121–8). In several passages of the document, the novelty of the German Constitution of 1919 is highlighted and it is noted that the new Portuguese Constitution should, likewise, bring together ‘matters of an economic and social nature’. Other constitutions are mentioned, revealing knowledge and attention to the international scene, especially in Europe, but only Weimar is taken as a source. This was in line with the proximity of Portuguese jurists to German law, especially public law and administrative law. This same idea is confirmed in Caetano (n 30) 8. For more on this topic, see PB Santos, ‘The Weimar Constitution and Portuguese Authoritarian Constitutionalism’ 20 (2019) Revista de Historia Constitucional 470–98.

60 L Duguit, Traité du droit constitutionnel (Fontemoing 1911) 113–17.

61 DS Law and M Versteeg, ‘Constitutional Variation among Strains of Authoritarianism’ in T Ginsburg and A Simpser (eds), Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes (Cambridge University Press 2014) 173.