guya accornero
ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL), CIES-IUL, Faculty Member
- Political Science, Political Sociology, Social Movements, Democratization, Students, Revolutions, and 10 moreCultural change, Political Extremism/Radicalism/Populism, Fascism, Protest, Portugal, Anti austerity Protests, Protest Movements, Contentious Politics, Student movements, and Political Violenceedit
- I am an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE-IUL) and Integrated Resear... moreI am an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE-IUL) and Integrated Researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL), where I co-coordinate the Research Group on 'Politics and Citizenship' and I participate, as an elected member, to the Scientific Commission. I am the Principal Investigator of the FCT funded Project 'HOPES: HOusing PErspectives and Struggles. Futures of housing movements, policies and dynamics in Lisbon and beyond’, and co-chair of the Council of European Studies Research Network Social Movements. I have published articles in journals including Mobilization, Social Movement Studies, Journal of Contemporary Religion, West European Politics, Estudos Ibero-Americanos, Democratization, Culturesedit
Portugal started to suffer the impact of austerity measures as of 2010. Since 2011, these measures were intensified in the context of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which agreed the terms of financial assistance to the government... more
Portugal started to suffer the impact of austerity measures as of 2010. Since 2011, these measures were intensified in the context of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which agreed the terms of financial assistance to the government by the EU-IMF-ECB ‘troika’, bringing a set of harsh economic and social consequences to the life of Portuguese citizens. Although it is always difficult to establish a clear causal link between the economic context and the mobilizations processes, in the past few years Portugal has experienced its strongest cycle of mobilization since the revolutionary period (1974-1975). However, in contrast to other southern European countries, these social mobilisations did not result in the emergence of strong new political actors, or a sustained threat to the consolidated party system. Nevertheless, there were significant changes to the political landscape, particularly with the creation of an unprecedented strategic alliance between left-wing parties following the October 2015 elections. Seeking to explain these developments, this chapter complements our earlier work by tracing the evolution of the ‘dynamics of contention’ in Portugal since 2011, paying particular attention to facets of embeddeness and institutionalisation of Portuguese civil society and party systems.
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This paper analyses the consequences of political engagement on the life of Portuguese militants who mobilized between the mid Sixties and the mid Seventies, that is, in the last phase of the Estado Novo authoritarian regime. By means of... more
This paper analyses the consequences of political engagement on the life of Portuguese militants who mobilized between the mid Sixties and the mid Seventies, that is, in the last phase of the Estado Novo authoritarian regime. By means of open questionnaires and in-depth interviews, I will reconstruct the life trajectories of militants – mainly students – of the radical left. The main objective is to understand how the militancy implied a secondary socialization and how this experience changed according to the changes occurring at a political level. The underlying idea is that mobilization in an authoritarian context has specificities in terms of biographical effects, only in part due
to political repression. This specificity has significant consequences on the very possibilities to reinvest the activist’s skill, to conceive and foster family and friendship. These effects became paradoxically clearer at the moment when the regime ended.
to political repression. This specificity has significant consequences on the very possibilities to reinvest the activist’s skill, to conceive and foster family and friendship. These effects became paradoxically clearer at the moment when the regime ended.
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Questo volume raccoglie i risultati delle ricerche di alcuni studiosi italiani che si sono occupati del Portogallo da diverse prospettive. Esplorando vari ‘percorsi’ delle scienze sociali e umane, dalla metà dell’800 ai giorni nostri, il... more
Questo volume raccoglie i risultati delle ricerche di alcuni studiosi italiani che si sono occupati del Portogallo da diverse prospettive. Esplorando vari ‘percorsi’ delle scienze sociali e umane, dalla metà dell’800 ai giorni nostri, il libro offre uno spaccato sul paese iberico che illumina, attraverso analisi rigorose e originali, gli aspetti che lo contraddistinguono a livello storico, politico, sociale e artistico. Primo e ultimo impero coloniale dell’occidente, luogo di una delle più longeve dittature contemporanee, geograficamente situato nell’Europa del sud, ma allo stesso tempo bagnato dall’Oceano Atlantico, il Portogallo offre svariati punti di riflessione su continuità e discontinuità rispetto al bacino in cui si trova e ai fenomeni che l’hanno attraversato.
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Questo volume raccoglie i risultati delle ricerche di alcuni studiosi italiani che si sono occupati del Portogallo da diverse prospettive. Esplorando vari ‘percorsi’ delle scienze sociali e umane, dalla metà dell’800 ai giorni nostri, il... more
Questo volume raccoglie i risultati delle ricerche di alcuni studiosi italiani che si sono occupati del Portogallo da diverse prospettive. Esplorando vari ‘percorsi’ delle scienze sociali e umane, dalla metà dell’800 ai giorni nostri, il libro offre uno spaccato sul paese iberico che illumina, attraverso analisi rigorose e originali, gli aspetti che lo contraddistinguono a livello storico, politico, sociale e artistico. Primo e ultimo impero coloniale dell’occidente, luogo di una delle più longeve dittature contemporanee, geograficamente situato nell’Europa del sud, ma allo stesso tempo bagnato dall’Oceano Atlantico, il Portogallo offre svariati punti di riflessione su continuità e discontinuità rispetto al bacino in cui si trova e ai fenomeni che l’hanno attraversato.
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I was proud to be part of this excellent volume.
Research Interests: Political Sociology, Social Movements, European Studies, Social Movement, European Politics, and 8 moreSocial Movements (Political Science), Social movements and revolution, Urban Social Movements, New social movements, Movimientos sociales, European Social Movements, Antiglobalization Social Movements und Social Movements/Civil Society
Bringing together over forty established and emerging scholars, this landmark volume is the first to comprehensively examine the evolution and current practice of social movement studies in a specifically European context. While its first... more
Bringing together over forty established and emerging scholars, this landmark volume is the first to comprehensively examine the evolution and current practice of social movement studies in a specifically European context. While its first half offers comparative approaches to an array of significant issues and movements, its second half assembles focused national studies that include most major European states. Throughout, these contributions are guided by a shared set of historical and social-scientific questions with a particular emphasis on political sociology, thus offering a bold and uncommonly unified survey that will be essential for scholars and students of European social movements.
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Histories of Portugal’s transition to democracy have long focused on the 1974 military coup that toppled the authoritarian Estado Novo regime and set in motion the divestment of the nation’s colonial holdings. However, the events of this... more
Histories of Portugal’s transition to democracy have long focused on the 1974 military coup that toppled the authoritarian Estado Novo regime and set in motion the divestment of the nation’s colonial holdings. However, the events of this “Carnation Revolution” were in many ways the culmination of a much longer process of resistance and protest originating in universities and other sectors of society. Combining careful research in police, government, and student archives with insights from social movement theory, The Revolution before the Revolution broadens our understanding of Portuguese democratization by tracing the societal convulsions that preceded it over the course of the “long 1960s.”
In this article, I analyze how former activists opposed to Estado Novo, Portugal's fascist regime, see their past, as well as the emotions and perceptions associated with it. I argue that what Antonio Costa Pinto called a "double legacy"... more
In this article, I analyze how former activists opposed to Estado Novo, Portugal's fascist regime, see their past, as well as the emotions and perceptions associated with it. I argue that what Antonio Costa Pinto called a "double legacy" shapes these activists' process of remembering. This means that the legacies of dictatorship in Portugal's consolidated democracy are strongly shaped by how it ended and by how democracy was implemented in the country-that is, through a revolution and a radical "cut with the past." I use semistructured interviews and open questionnaires to study how former activists are affected by and contribute to building this double legacy. By adopting an interactionist perspective and by bridging the scholarship on transition and oral history, this research aims to strengthen the dialogue between social movement and memory studies, and also stresses the relevance of the co-construction of individual and collective memory.
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This article reconstructs the life trajectories of Portuguese radical left activists who mobilized against the Estado Novo authoritarian regime between the mid 1960s and the mid 1970s. It analyses the consequences of political engagement... more
This article reconstructs the life trajectories of Portuguese radical left activists who mobilized against the Estado Novo authoritarian regime between the mid 1960s and the mid 1970s. It analyses the consequences of political engagement on the political and life trajectories of the activists across three different institutional settings: an authoritarian regime (until 1974), a revolutionary process (1974–1975) and a democracy (from 1976 onwards). The aim is to understand how the engagement and its consequences changed according to the changes at a political level. The underlying question is ‘what became of the radical activists who mobilized against the Portuguese dictatorship in the late 1960s’? To address this question, I adopt a longitudinal perspective, which contextualizes the present life of the former activists in a longer process, composed of different phases of engagement, activism, prison, disengagement, reconversion and life as former activists. I understand these phases as strictly interconnected to the organizational dynamics (groups and networks) and the political processes.
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This article focuses on student opposition to the Portuguese Estado Novo regime, examining the links between the dynamics of mobilization and radicalization and the emergence of new political actors before the fall of the Salazar... more
This article focuses on student opposition to the Portuguese Estado Novo regime, examining the links between the dynamics of mobilization and radicalization and the emergence of new political actors before the fall of the Salazar dictatorship on the one hand, and the revolutionary process which characterized the Portuguese transition on the other. The 25 April 1974 military coup d'état that overthrew the Estado Novo triggered what later came to be known as the ‘third wave’ of democratization; but the Portuguese transition was characterized by elements of rupture that were much more significant than those observed in the subsequent democratization processes of Spain and Greece. This rupture was a result of the form of regime change – a military coup d'état – and was sustained with the mass social mobilization that followed. While key studies have stressed that the political crisis after the fall of regime was the fundamental cause of this exceptional mobilization, the argument advanced in this article is that the pre-revolutionary cycle of protest also explains the particular characteristics of the Portuguese transition.
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Em tempos recentes tem-se debatido muito as mobilizações anti- austeridade ocorridas na Europa do Sul desde 2010. Os comentadores frisaram a emergência de novos atores políticos, tais como o “precariado”, organizados em movimentos pouco... more
Em tempos recentes tem-se debatido muito as mobilizações anti- austeridade ocorridas na Europa do Sul desde 2010. Os comentadores frisaram a emergência de novos atores políticos, tais como o “precariado”, organizados em movimentos pouco estruturados com base nas tecnologias de informação e co ica o t po to st s o i tos r t a di ica s b ac t deste ciclo de protestos e como é que interagem com os atores políticos tradicionais? Utilizando Portugal como um caso-estudo, este artigo traça o mapa das ações políticas reivindicativas anti-austeridade entre os anos de 2010 e 2013, revelando a pa or ica ais co p a o d os ator s tradicio ais i c i do os si dicatos e os partidos políticos de esquerda, emergem como atores-chave, facilitando e nutrindo a mobilização intermitente de novas formas de ativismo, procurando ao mesmo tempo ganhar com elas acesso a novas clientelas eleitorais.
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The 40th anniversary of the Portuguese revolution took place in 2014 in a context of deep social and economic crisis. In common with Greek, Spanish, and to an extent, Italian citizens, the Portuguese had suffered, in the previous three... more
The 40th anniversary of the Portuguese revolution took place in 2014 in a context of deep social and economic crisis. In common with Greek, Spanish, and to an extent, Italian citizens, the Portuguese had suffered, in the previous three years, from the imposition of drastic austerity measures of fiscal contraction. These measures, aside from worsening the economic situation and increasing unemployment, have deeply undermined what in the country are considered the “conquests” of the 25 April 1974 revolution that ushered in Portugal’s democracy – a set of social rights in terms of labour law, healthcare and access to education. As in other countries, these conditions have not gone unchallenged by civil society, and there has been an intensification of protest. If the “conquests of April” seem to be targeted in particular by the austerity measures, references to the revolution have returned to be a constant element in the contestation of the “troika’s” impositions.
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This ‘Authors Meet Critics’ symposium focuses on two books edited by Jan Willem Duyvendak and James M. Jasper, Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest and Breaking Down the State: Protestors Engaged. Both books make bold... more
This ‘Authors Meet Critics’ symposium focuses on two books edited by Jan Willem Duyvendak and James M. Jasper, Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest and Breaking Down the State: Protestors Engaged. Both books make bold attempts to develop and apply a strategic interactionist perspective in social movement studies by focusing on the interplay of micro and macro processes and decision-making in a range of protest movements. Critical interventions from Aidan McGarry, Robert J. Davidson and Guya Accornero raise a number of questions relating to the core arguments of the books, the key findings and the conceptual advances. Duyvendak and Jasper then address these challenges by drawing attention more acutely to the role of agency in social movements and highlighting significant critiques of the current state of the art in social movement scholarship.
This ‘Authors Meet Critics’ symposium focuses on two books edited by Jan Willem Duyvendak and James M. Jasper, Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest and Breaking Down the State: Protestors Engaged. Both books make bold... more
This ‘Authors Meet Critics’ symposium focuses on two books edited by Jan Willem Duyvendak and James M. Jasper, Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest and Breaking Down the State: Protestors Engaged. Both books make bold attempts to develop and apply a strategic interactionist perspective in social movement studies by focusing on the interplay of micro and macro processes and decision-making in a range of protest movements. Critical interventions from Aidan McGarry, Robert J. Davidson and Guya Accornero raise a number of questions relating to the core arguments of the books, the key findings and the conceptual advances. Duyvendak and Jasper then address these challenges by drawing attention more acutely to the role of agency in social movements and highlighting significant critiques of the current state of the art in social movement scholarship.
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On 25 April 1974 the Portuguese New State, in force for forty years, was overthrown by a peaceful military coup led by the Armed Forces Movement (MFA). 1 Th e MFA presented a democratising programme that included the establishment of a... more
On 25 April 1974 the Portuguese New State, in force for forty years, was overthrown by a peaceful military coup led by the Armed Forces Movement (MFA). 1 Th e MFA presented a democratising programme that included the establishment of a civilian government and free elections. After more than a decade of war on various fronts in Africa, the military also initiated a process of de-colonisation that quickly culminated in the granting of independence to the former colonial peoples. Th is event not only represented a social and political rupture and a founding moment but it also fl ung open the gates to the development of various fi elds of studies in Portugal in the areas of sociology , political science and history, which had been censured and held back during the dictatorship. Following well-founded studies in modern history and with a Marx-ian approach, the fi eld of the social and economic history of Portugal was brought to light, after being set aside for many years in favour of a history aimed at glorifying Portugal's magnitude, especially the history of its discoveries. Th e generation of scholars exiled and trained in various countries, notably France, who returned to Portugal after the revolution, were of special relevance in this process. Groundbreaking work on the agrarian issue, the introduction of capitalism, the emergence of the proletariat and the class struggles in Portugal, among other events, began to appear in publications, and social confl ict was for the fi rst time at the centre of the offi cial academic research agenda in Portugal. 2 On the other hand, the Portuguese revolution not only opened up the possibility of studies on the role of social confl ict and class struggle in the country's history, which had of course been completely absent during the dictatorship, but it also ended up becoming a new fi eld of research in which social movements theory was applied for the fi rst time. Th is chapter will begin with an overview of these studies, before turning to the research on pat
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Institutions: CIES-IUL (hosting institution; www.cies.iscte-iul.pt); ICS-ULisboa (www.ics-ulisboa.pt) In the early 21st century, housing has returned to the centre of struggles and political debate in the Western world. In Southern... more
Institutions: CIES-IUL (hosting institution; www.cies.iscte-iul.pt); ICS-ULisboa (www.ics-ulisboa.pt) In the early 21st century, housing has returned to the centre of struggles and political debate in the Western world. In Southern Europe, housing crises, and intensifying dynamics of gentrification and touristification, have contributed to the emergence of new housing social movements around issues such as displacement, and social and economic exclusion. Strongly affected by these trends, Lisbon is in the midst of a perfect storm for housing, generated by the intersection of the long wave of economic crisis and austerity with recent touristification, gentrification and massive real estate investment. At the same time, demographic changes (e.g. ageing, migrations and mobility) are reshaping local urban identities, which are reflected in new forms of housing activism. Social movement, urban policy and demographic studies seem to have dealt with housing in a compartmentalised way. By focusing on the city of Lisbon, a case paradigmatic of contradictory trends but still under-theorised, HOPES aims to intertwine these analytical fields. Moving from the micro and meso dimensions of housing activism, HOPES will enlarge its scope to macro aspects such as national housing policies and global trends. HOPES' main questions are: how, and to what extent, do new housing movements mirror wider housing policies and dynamics? Which are the reciprocal influences between movements, political actors and globalising trends? What are the possible scenarios and futures in terms of housing and urban trends? HOPES adopts an interdisciplinary perspective and a mixed methodology. First, HOPES will analyse and cross information on new housing activism (ethnography, protest events and frames analysis), policy (critical policy analysis) and dynamics (mapping and demographic analysis) in housing in Lisbon. This study will be enriched by an action research partnership with the housing association Habita, and by cooperation with the FCT funded project exPERts on rehousing policies in Lisbon metro. Second, HOPES adopts a foresight approach to reflect on possible futures for Lisbon. Through qualitative analysis, secondary case studies – whose selection is justified in a framework of a 'generative' approach to urban comparison – will be developed in two US cities: New York City, paradigmatic of economic growth, successive waves of gentrification and organised housing movements; and Memphis, paradigmatic of long-term austerity, public housing crisis and civic struggle. The secondary cases will be used to build scenarios of competing futures for Lisbon; and compared with the trends analysed in the city. Theory-wise, HOPES will enrich and integrate different conceptual fields – social movement, urban policy and demographic studies – and provide an innovative way to look at housing. Practice-wise, HOPES will contribute to grassroots and institutional debate and action through the understanding of the way housing policies can shift toward (un)desirable futures.