secretPOL | The PIDE and Portuguese Society under the Salazar Dictatorship 1945-1974: Fear, Self-Policing, Accommodation.

Summary
The Salazar regime was the longest-lasting dictatorship in Europe in the Twentieth Century. If the Military Dictatorship from which it emerged is taken into account, it lasted 48 years, from 1926 to 1974. Like the other dictatorships born in the inter-war years, it relied heavily on its secret police (PIDE) for stability. This research programme aims to reconceptualise the relation between the PIDE and Portuguese society in order to reach a more complete understanding of the regime’s exceptional durability. By drawing on developments in the international bibliography of totalitarianisms, of everyday life under a dictatorship, and of denunciatory practices, it challenges the established interpretative paradigm which sees the relation between the PIDE and society almost exclusively as one of top-down repression imposed upon a nation of passive victims. Its core argument is that the relation between the PIDE and Portuguese society was far more multi-facetted, dynamic and interactive than has been acknowledged until now. This research project posits as its main underlying thesis the notion that the Salazarist system was normalised by many Portuguese citizens as part of the structure of everyday life. Society adapted to the institutional framework imposed by the regime - including the secret police -, acting on the opportunities that opened up rather than remaining dependent or passive. If the role of society in the perpetuation of the Salazarist order is to be duly assessed, the framework of interaction between society and the secret police must be apprehended with recourse to a novel analytical prism (focusing on ordinary citizens instead of on the small minority of oppositionists who have monopolised the attention of historians so far), new research methodologies (oral history and opinion surveying) and original archival material (the letters of denunciation held at the PIDE Archives in Lisbon).
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/842320
Start date: 17-06-2019
End date: 16-06-2021
Total budget - Public funding: 147 815,04 Euro - 147 815,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

The Salazar regime was the longest-lasting dictatorship in Europe in the Twentieth Century. If the Military Dictatorship from which it emerged is taken into account, it lasted 48 years, from 1926 to 1974. Like the other dictatorships born in the inter-war years, it relied heavily on its secret police (PIDE) for stability. This research programme aims to reconceptualise the relation between the PIDE and Portuguese society in order to reach a more complete understanding of the regime’s exceptional durability. By drawing on developments in the international bibliography of totalitarianisms, of everyday life under a dictatorship, and of denunciatory practices, it challenges the established interpretative paradigm which sees the relation between the PIDE and society almost exclusively as one of top-down repression imposed upon a nation of passive victims. Its core argument is that the relation between the PIDE and Portuguese society was far more multi-facetted, dynamic and interactive than has been acknowledged until now. This research project posits as its main underlying thesis the notion that the Salazarist system was normalised by many Portuguese citizens as part of the structure of everyday life. Society adapted to the institutional framework imposed by the regime - including the secret police -, acting on the opportunities that opened up rather than remaining dependent or passive. If the role of society in the perpetuation of the Salazarist order is to be duly assessed, the framework of interaction between society and the secret police must be apprehended with recourse to a novel analytical prism (focusing on ordinary citizens instead of on the small minority of oppositionists who have monopolised the attention of historians so far), new research methodologies (oral history and opinion surveying) and original archival material (the letters of denunciation held at the PIDE Archives in Lisbon).

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

MSCA-IF-2018

Update Date

28-04-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.3. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
H2020-EU.1.3.2. Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
H2020-MSCA-IF-2018
MSCA-IF-2018