Institutional and tribal roots of corruption in Portugal – Observer
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The Empire’s monocephaly was always a strong feature of the organization of the territory and the construction of the Portuguese State over the centuries. Around 1800, Lisbon represented 55% of the total national urban population, Porto 13.75% and Braga did not reach 5.5%. No other reference country in Europe, whether Great Britain, Holland or France, had such a concentration of urban population in just one city. In fact, the European experience after the fall of Rome is well known. An impressive network of powerful cities spread across the continent full of production and some of them the birthplace of the Renaissance.
Note the case of Holland to illustrate the abnormality of the Portuguese case in the European context. In the same period of 1800, the three most urbanized cities were (% of the Dutch urban population):
- North Holland: 33%
- South Holland: 24%
- Gelderland: 7%
The urbanization process in Portugal happened late, slowly and far from the evolutionary processes that occurred in its European counterparts. This fact had a very important evasion in the way in which, over the centuries, power was decentralized, or not, and wealth distributing, or not.
It was only in the second half of the 20th century that the territorial legitimization of the State was achieved through an investment effort in the interior. There were three factors behind this historical delay:
- The homogeneity of identity around a concept of Nation since shortly after its formation (since the 13th century, according to José Mattoso), causes and consequences of the absence of ethnic or territorial cleavages;
- a model of taxation and public finance based on tax revenue generated by the re-export of colonial products and not on internal revenue from the kingdom that requires an economic and administrative organization of the national territory, despite the legislative action of Mouzinho da Silveira, for almost 200 years , for a reform and modernization of the State.
- a huge economic and social disparity between Lisbon and the rest of the country which resulted, at the economic level, in alienation of the capital’s elites and, at the political level, in the attraction of the interior by the urban caciquism, further accentuating the already fragile empowerment of the interior.
How, then, is a nation “organized” without an organized and legitimized State throughout the territory? Organized into tribes and families. And what two fundamental socio-economic characteristics does this kind of revealing proprietary organization? On the one hand, internal ties (in Group) very strong; on the other, external ties (outer group) very weak mediated by a very homogeneous national identity. And what was the result at national level of this asymmetry of molds in Group and outer group? A very undeveloped shared concept of common and public space.
Few will dispute that family ties in Portugal are strong. Not only does the concept of family easily include three or four living generations (grandparents, parents, brothers/sisters and children) and also cousins, cousins, uncles and aunts, which contrasts greatly with, for example, a Scandinavian society or Anglo-Saxon, as well as the amount and diversity of interactions between them and them is high.
What about external ties between families? The report The Values of the Portuguese: European Value Study Results by Alice Ramos and Pedro C. Magalhães prepared for the Gulbenkian Foundation, which portrays Portuguese society in its 30 years, gives us the answer. “We continue to be among the Europeans who have the least confidence in their fellow citizens.” In other societies “a high generalized interpersonal trust indicates the perception that others do not want (or at least not how) to systematically seek benefits for themselves to the detriment of our interests.” (see the two figures immediately below)
Confirmed as theses of strong ties in Group and weak ties outer group, what evidence is there about the deficit of a common culture of common and public space? The same report indicates that the Portuguese and Portuguese are “among those who are least involved in volunteer activities.”
The phenomenon of corruption and related criminality in Portugal, among other phenomena such as nepotism, conflict of interests and revolving doors, has deep institutional and social roots that need to be identified and corrected, if not amputated. After that, the fight against corruption and social injustice requires, however implausibly it may happen, a national pact between PS and PSD or, alternatively, a firm disposition of an effective semi-presidentialism that pushes the Parliament towards a national goal with vision, methodology, resources, deadlines, goals and evaluation over time. We will all be few because the fight against corruption is a battle between tribal traditions and nation building.