On the Political and Administrative Reform of the Portuguese State

Abstract

The Portuguese government has an on-going State reform. In this article we analyse the impact of three reform scenarios: the on-going reform (CREC), scenario based on supra municipal territories of the type NUTS 3 (CNUTS), and scenario based on regionalization (CR). The analysis includes several dimensions: overall organizational consistency (balancing central and local powers), rationalization of territorial policies, vulnerability to lobbies, quality of political parties members, economic competitiveness, social and territorial cohesion, quality of Democracy, operational costs. Results show that CREC is more of the same and thus not promising, particularly in what concerns the control of public expenditure. CR is the most interesting scenario but difficult to implement immediately. CNUTS is the most promising scenario, allowing Portugal to evolve into CR, if the society desires so.