Regeneration Flashcards
How did Saldanha lead Portugal after taking power?
- Oversaw first stages of regeneration with centralized military government
- Ruled by iron fist - brought back death penalty for religious crimes and increased censory suffrage
- Supported by D.Maria II and Quadruple alliance
- Aimed to deradicalize politics and create a moderate political class
- Headed up coalition party between Setembristas and Chartists
What were the key challenges facing Saldanha upon taking power?
- Inability to collect taxes
- Lack of recuperation from Brazilian independence, reliance on remittances
- Economy dominated by agriculture
- Public deficit and increased public spending
- Intense political cleavages and entrenched party interests
Why was Portuguese society not in a position to modernise in the 1850s?
Society was split between legal, urban life and an increasingly disconnected rural world, entrenched in the clandestine.
What were the key political parties of the first stages of the regeneration?
- Partido Regenerador (1851-56)
- Partido Historico (1856-59)
- Coalition between both parties (1865-68)
What did the ‘acto adicional’ of 1851 stipulate?
- A democratic conciliation between both parties to solve intense political cleavages.
What were the key political changes seen under the Partido Historico?
- De-radicalization of setembristas
- Reconciliation of church-state relations
- Acceptance of more radical sectors in the cortes
What were the key political changes seen under the coalition government?
- Marginalization of radical fringe in government
- Counter effect - strengthening of republican movement through clandestine networks. New urban movement established through press, clubs, petitions etc. (massification of politics)
What economic developments were experienced under Saldanha?
- Creation of Bank of Lisbon and Bank of Portugal - creation of new urban aristocracy
- New booms of cork and port industries
- Political stability meant opening to new foreing markets
- Colonial products re-exported - key exports of cotton, cocoa and coffee essential to breaking in to international market
- Pursual of protectionism to protect national industry and increase government income
Why did Saldanha’s reform struggle to foster industrialisation/modernisation?
- Portuguese economy still dominated by agriculture - made up a large proportion of GDP
- Industry in Porto still small scale, and development only seen in cities - gap to most European countries
- Local markets still at the centre of regional trade due to small internal market. - since most of the country still worked as peasant farmers, low increases of per capita income prevented an internal market from developing
- Exportation economy, importing of goods
- Lack of roads and infrastructure meant inability to expand trade - lack of customs protection and reliance on England
- Cork and port wine struggled to penetrate international markets due to lack of demand
- Continuation of slave trade prevented agricultural development - weight on re-exportation
What happened in 1857 which was significant for church-state relations?
New concord signed with the Vatican
What aspects of Portugal’s social makeup prevented a kickstart to modernisation?
- Lack of population distribution - 60% of country worked in agriculture in 1890
- Illiteracy and a lack of civic culture in rural Portugal deepened divides with the political elites in the cities
Why was social development unequal during early stages of the regeneration?
- All local powers in rural settings were condensed together, while urban life saw a proliferation of bodies and bolstering of civic culture.
- Caciquism and clientelism dominated countryside + suffrage was still limited due to a lack of literacy.
How was infrastructure developed by Fontes and the Regenerador party during early stages of the regeneration?
- Road network and railways increased, but still parallel to roads and rivers
- Public work projects allowed for greater access to primary materials and improvement of trade networks
- New means of communication, transport links worked to bolster industry
- More population connected to the coast
How does Fontes de Melo Pereira embody social change?
- Came into public governance as a young engineer - symbol of new modernist, progressive generations.
- Aimed to improve public works and pursued enlightened ideas of development.
What parties developed during the 1870s as a result of new civic culture?
- Socialist Party, Republican Party and Progressive party - developed due to new civic culture of working classes in the cities
What was Rotavism and how did it impact the Portuguese political climate?
- System in which power consistently shifts between liberal and conservative parties
- Lasted in Portugal from 1879-90
- Led to greater stability and more space for industrialisation and modernisation
- Growth of state bureaucracy and rationalisation of administrative practices.
- Public works a new priority of the period.
What key socio-economic issues faced Fontes and his plans for reform?
- Despite a lessening reliance on subsistence farming, the majority of the country was still employed in Agriculture
- Taxes mainly indirect (e.g from consumption) and other taxes were met with strong local resistance
- Slave trade dented by established of free womb law and its abolition in 1878
How did the reliance on agriculture begin to fall by the 1870s?
- Import substitution pursued by Fontes meant subsistence was not as necessary
- Increased urban migration as large-scale industry is developed + increasing specialization gives more opportunity for work.
- Greater importation/opening to foreign markets
- Property legislation is non-inclusive thus rural population becomes increasingly poor and small.
What key issues did the regeneration have with representation?
- Only 10% of the population could vote in 1878 (40% of population), and this was reduced in 1880 as the political oligarchy was reinforced through caciquism
- Elections were fraudulent and served to confirm the choices of the king
What electoral reform was made in 1878, and what were its impacts on the political system?
- Widening of suffrage and eligibility
- Republicanism enters parliamentary fight
- Conservative sectors benefit from rural vote
Why was the colonial question increasingly significant during Fontes’ pursual of development
- The Berlin Conference created new regulations for colonization and its impacts on trade - the African Empire was now a new necessary for capitalist growth
Why did the regeneration government fail to establish ‘New Brazils’ in Africa?
- Lack of appeal for European emigrants to establish settler communities
- Coastal presence primarily for extractivist economy, rather than production
What key issues prevented Fontes from fostering cohesive development?
- State intervention remained weak. The focus on public works did not compensate for a lack of investment in public services
- Public spending still remained higher than fiscal state revenue
Agriculture still accounted for double the GDP of industry - Public pessimism remained ever-present in the public sphere
How did the development of civic culture impact the political climate?
- Politics became increasingly massified
- Multiple new routes for political involvement
- ‘Povo’ question and issues over representation reignited
How did the working class develop during the regeneration?
- Increasingly defined by class conscience and had a greater ability to unify
- New urban movement to the cities bolstered civic culture and socio-political development - factory population tripled in size in Lisbon
- New waves of socialism and republicanism encaptured hopes of rising social classes
- Greater visibility through creation of unions, their own press and new forms of self-education
How did the aristocracy develop under the regeneration?
- New bourgeoisie oligarchy established in the cities due to increased banking opportunities
- Continued to profit from reorganization of public policy and manoeuvres over land ownership
- Retained influence through titles and family endogamy
How did the urban middle classes develop under the regeneration?
- New urban literate class, capitalizing on new progressive reforms. Heightened importance for civic intelligentsia.
- Had more political relevance and consistently upheld values of justice, harmony and equality. - new aspirations for the future
What new political ideas were being developed among urban classes during the regeneration?
- Pursual of modernist and positivist ideas to surpass slow capitalist development
- New intelligentsia questioned aristocratic values and their privilege, wand wanted to approximate the ‘real’ country to the ‘legal one’
- Questioned emergence and morals of new bourgeoisie.
- New frameworks discussed to end political centralization
What new questions arose at the end of the 19th century in relation to social progression (Casino Conference)?
- New discussion of customs and taste of urban classes, resentment of bohemian lifestyles of the bourgeoisie.
- Absolutism as a cause for the fall of the ‘povo’
- Resentment over creation of a new political oligarchy despite promises for greater representation
- Corruption (both material and spiritual) of the clergy
- Parasitic nature of the aristocracy
- Class consciousness increasingly relevant, particularly with creation of the ILO.
What did the Casino Conference (beginning of new modernist movement) call for?
- End to artistic sentimentalism
- Realism and naturalism needed to reflect the real, and show effects of social intervention
- Political revolution to end the fontist oligarchy
- Called for reason and science and anti-religious rhetoric in political development - positivist ideas
How was agriculture developed under Fontist reform?
- Production still dominated by wine and wheat
- Property restructured - substantial increase for cultivate land
- Technology did not play an important role - only 8 thrashing machines were used in Portugal in 1890
Why was emigration a problem for development during the regeneration?
- Between 1850 and 1890, 500,000 Portuguese left the country, mainly to Brazil
- Both rural and urban migration - led to less subsistence farming but a lack of manpower and increasing reliance on remittances.
