The geography of the nationalist right in Portugal: outlines of an emerging process

Madeira, Paulo Miguel Fernandes; Silva, Katielle Susane do Nascimento; Malheiros, Jorge Silva Macaísta

doi:10.1590/2236-9996.2021-5102.e

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dossiê: geografia do ressentimento • Cad. Metropole 23 (51) • May-Aug 2021 • https://doi.org/10.1590/2236-9996.2021-5102.e copy

The geography of the nationalist right in Portugal: outlines of an emerging process

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

The emergence of the nationalist right in Portugal in the legislative elections of 2019 is contextualized here in the framework of similar populist phenomena that have emerged in Europe in recent decades and in the geography of discontent associated with them. An analysis of the territorialization of the votes for this new party, named “Chega” (Enough), at the municipal level presents a pattern that does not match what electoral geography has been in Portugal since the 1974 democratic revolution. The correlations with a wide range of variables point to base voters associated with some elements of social and economic disadvantage and strongly motivated by identity issues. At the same time, the sociology of Chega voters presents some surprising aspects when compared to what is known about most European cases.

electoral geography; geography of discontent; Portugal; nationalist right; European populism

Dimension	Variable	Year
Electoral	% of valid votes for Chega	2019
	% and rate of variation of valid votes (PS, PSD, PCP, PNR, CDS, IL, PAN and BE)	2015-2019
	% and rate of abstention variation	2015-2019
Sociodemographic	% Resident gypsy population***	2014
	% Female population	2011
	% Illiterate Individuals****	2011
	% Individuals with schooling up to the 9^thgrade	2011
	% Individuals with secondary education	2011
	% Individuals with higher education	2011
	% Illiterate individuals and schooling with up to 9^thgrade	2011
	% Young resident population (15-29 years)	2011
	% Adult resident population (30-64 years)	2011
	% Elderly resident population (65 and over)	2011
	% Foreign population	2019
	% Non-EU foreign population	2019
	Variation rate Foreign population	2010-2019
	Variation rate Non-EU foreign population	2010-2019
	Variation rate Total resident population	2001-2011 and 2009-2019
	Ageing index	2001, 2011, 2015 and 2019
	Variation rate Aging index	2015-2019 and 2011-2019
Economic	% Employed population in the secondary sector	2001 and 2011
	% Unemployed*****	2011, 2015 and 2019
	% (index number) Purchasing power per capita	2017
	Beneficiaries of Social Insertion Income	2015 and 2019
	% Employed population	2001 and 2011
	Variation rate Unemployed	2011-2015 and 2015-2019
	Variation rate Beneficiaries of Social Insertion Income	2015-2019
	Variation rate Employed population	2001-2011
	Variation rate Employed in the secondary sector	2001-2011

Party	Ideology	Vote in 2019 (%)	No. of deputies in 2019	Parliamentary representation since
Chega	Nationalist and Populist Right	1.29	1	2019
National Renewal Party (PNR)*	Conservative Nationalist Right	0.33	0	*
Liberal Initiative	Right-wing liberalism in all domains	1.29	1	2019
CDS-PP	Conservative Right – Christian Democracy	4.42	5	1976
Social Democratic Party (PSD)	Center-Right Economic Liberalism	27.76	79	1976
People-Animals-Nature (PAN)	Animalist party with an inclination towards the left	3.32	4	2015
Socialist Party (PS)	Democratic socialism/social-democracy (center-left)	36.34	108	1976
Free	Left libertarian with tendency towards democratic socialism	1.09	1	2019
Left Bloc (BE)	Left libertarian with tendency towards democratic socialism	9.52	19	1999
Portuguese Communist Party (PCP)**	Communism	6.33	12	1976

	Pearson’s Correlation
% National Renewal Party (PNR) (2019) Abstention variation rate 2015-2019 % of population aged 15 and over with secondary schooling (2011) % of gypsy population % vote for the Portuguese Communist Party-PEV-2019 party % of foreign population (2019)	0.555 0.533 0.470 0.457 0.420 0.342
% vote for the Social Democratic Party (PSD) (2019) % employed population in the secondary sector (2011) Aging index variation rate (2011-2019) Aging index variation rate (2015-2019) Left Bloc (BE) vote variation rate (2015-2019) % of population aged 15 and over with schooling up to the 9th year Socialist Party (PS) vote variation rate (2015-2019)	-0.551 -0.481 -0.466 -0.410 -0.43 -0.397 -0.362**
% of votes for Chega (2019)CHEGA (2019). Programa Político 2019. Disponível em: https://partidochega.pt/programa-politico-2019/. Acesso em: 27 ago 2020. https://partidochega.pt/programa-politic... : Dependent variable

Model (stage)	Variable	R	R²	Adjusted R²
1	% National Renewal Party (PNR) (2019)	0.555	0.308	0.305
2	Abstention variation rate (2015-2019)	0.670	0.448	0.444
3	Aging index variation rate (2011-2019)	0.703	0.495	0.489
4	% of Beneficiaries of Social Insertion Income (2015)	0.735	0.541	0.534
5	% of population aged 15 and over with secondary education (2011)	0.760	0.577	0.569
6	% of Beneficiaries of Social Insertion Income (2015)	0.785	0.616	0.608
7	Employed in the secondary sector variation rate (2001-2011)	0.800	0.640	0.630

	Pearson’s Correlation
% of gypsy population % of Beneficiaries of Social Insertion Income (2019) % of Beneficiaries of Social Insertion Income (2015) % Unemployed population (2019) Variation rate for PAN (2015-2019) % Abstention (2019) % young population 15-29 years (2011) % National Renewal Party (PNR) (2019)	0.533 0.472 0.439 0.375 0.361 0.354 0.350 0.349
% employed population in the secondary sector (2011) Aging index (2019)	-0.385 -0.351
% of votes for Chega (2019)CHEGA (2019). Programa Político 2019. Disponível em: https://partidochega.pt/programa-politico-2019/. Acesso em: 27 ago 2020. https://partidochega.pt/programa-politic... : Dependent variable

Model (stage)	Variable	R	R²	Adjusted R²
1	% of Beneficiaries of Social Insertion Income (2019)	0,472	0,223	0,215
2	% National Renewal Party (PNR) (2019)	0,632	0,400	0,389
3	Left Bloc (LB) variation rate (2015-2019)	0,684	0,468	0,453
4	% employed population in the secondary sector (2011)	0,707	0,500	0,481
5	% of Beneficiaries of Social Insertion Income (2019)	0,726	0,526	0,504
6	PAN variation rate (2015-2019)	0,740	0,547	0,521
7	% of vote for the PCP-PEV (2019)	0,753	0,566	0,536

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[TFN1001] * The PSD and CDS parties ran in the 2015 elections as a coalition. Thus, we consider the two parties together for the 2015-2019 variation.

[TFN2001] ** The PCP party runs under the acronym CDU in coalition with a small ecological party that has never run for elections alone.

[TFN3001] *** Data existing only for 113 municipalities in mainland Portugal; the remaining municipalities were excluded from the calculation of this correlation, which therefore considers only 113 units of analysis.

[TFN4001] **** Data on education levels refer to individuals aged 15 or over.

[TFN5001] ***** The unemployment figure includes only unemployed people registered in employment and vocational training centers and not the total number of unemployed people.