Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Retracing Protest Publics in Portugal: A Generation in Trouble

2019; Springer International Publishing; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-030-05475-5_6

2511-2201

Cristina Montalvão Sarmento, Patrícia Oliveira, Patrícia Tomás,

Aging, Elder Care, and Social Issues

In 2008–2010, Portugal and other Southern European markets were hit by the financial crisis. Since then, new forms of political protests emerged in the Portuguese political arena. The pioneering protest, called Geração à Rasca—Generation in Trouble—was a demonstration that took place on March 12, 2011, in Lisbon and Porto, the two largest Portuguese cities. This type of protest, here called protest publics, was self-organized outside government structures and mainly organized through social networks, signals the emergence of a crisis of the country’s democratic institutions and generates political change. The aim of this chapter is to analyse these protest publics in Portugal. The inquiry will show how the protests stimulated the emergence of a left coalition that has ruled Portugal since November 2015, the so-called geringonça (contraption, satirical expression of an unusual coalition), marking one of the largest transformations of the political scene since democratization.