Book Review: Contesting Austerity: Social Movements and the Left in Portugal and Spain (2008–2015) by Tiago Carvalho

The period covered by this book from 2008 and 2015 has been variously described as the credit crunch, the age of austerity, the Great Recession and the death knell of neoliberalism. The 2008 trigger was the collapse of Lehmann Brothers, which led to a wave of popular protests from the Arab Spring to Occupy with seemingly little in common – although the role of social media and information technology were at the fore. It is these similarities and differences in the way in which social movements in Portugal and Spain responded to the crisis which is the subject of Tiago Carvalho’s, Contesting Austerity. Early on he tells us that ‘the impact of structural adjustment programmes are not fixed. Rather the formation of an anti-austerity arena is dependent on the history of past mobilisations and the interactions between institutional and non-institutional players throughout the cycle of protest’ (p. 18).

The Great Recession brought about a triple crisis of banks, public finances and ‘the real economy’ initiated by the financial expansion of unregulated shadow banks, global imbalances and the dependence on credit for consumption. The response, in Spain, Portugal and many other countries – reduction in the state’s budget through a combination of welfare retrenchment, privatization, a roll-back of universal social policies and labour market protection: austerity. But, as Carvalho reminds us this is also class politics ‘under the veil of morality, simplicity and virtue’ (p. 20).

Greece, Spain and Portugal were lumped together as Southern Europe partly because of their route to democracy and EU membership emphasizing their peripheral status. Spain and Portugal implemented budget cuts in 2009 and 2010 carried out by the PS (Partido Socialista) in Portugal and the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Espaniol) in Spain. In the 2011 elections they both lost to right wing opponents. The measures led to waves of protest in both countries. Carvalho is interested in ‘a range of transformation [which] took place in the party system, with the emergence of new political parties and alliances, especially in the form of movement-parties’ (p. 29). He further notes that ‘in Spain, movements must resort more frequently to disruption to attain their objectives, whereas in Portugal, institutional and non-institutional actors engage in a conversation as institutions are more open due to the institutional and cultural legacy of the revolution’ (p. 31).

The book betrays its origins in a PhD thesis with Carvaho’s careful exposition of social movement theory. It is a Polanyian approach combining Contentious Politics and Political Process Theory together with interactionist perspectives (p. 43). He points out that a cycle of protest occurs when protests form a plurality of political and social sectors cluster in a sustained way within a specific territory and introducing novel forms and claims (p. 44). With regard to these claims, Carvalho points out that austerity corrodes democratic legitimacy as it diminishes social rights and thus not only are political claims on democracy in play but also claims for social rights (p. 54).

The book identifies five types of movement active at the time – nationalist movements, housing movements, student and anti-precarity movements, groups critical of the political system and Internet-based mobilizations (p. 83). However, in Portugal ‘trade unions were also important throughout the cycle of protest’ and ‘were the dominant protest actor throughout 2009 to 2015’ (p. 99). In Spain the phenomena of mobilization led by horizontal autonomous groups occupied squares all across the main cities in the country. These occupations lasted for about 2 months and held daily assemblies to discuss matters such as education, healthcare, feminism and democracy (p. 100). Carvalho notes that the Spanish 15-M anti-austerity movement combined existing social movements together with new groups while in Portugal the mobilization took place on the day of a demonstration and was not sustained.

Another contrast is that in Portugal, unlike Spain, few groups questioned the legitimacy of the regime born out of the revolution (p. 107). In Portugal protestors focused on large protest events led by institutional players. There was an apparent lack of direct social action on autonomous culture. In Spain decentralization fuelled mobilization by drawing energy from local groups (p. 109). Carvalho identifies two factors that produced these different trajectories. On one hand, there was a sort of ‘equilibrium’ between players in Spain that was absent in Portugal. In Spain trade unions were delegitimized due to their collaboration with neoliberal reforms. In Portugal the protest movements reinforced the status quo of the regime with the constitution at the centre – top down rather than from grass roots levels (pp. 146–147).

This decentralization and grassroots activity goes some way to explaining the emergence of Podemos. It became, after 2014, the ‘national gravitational force’ around which a variety of players coalesced at multiple levels (p. 164) It also explains the splits in Podemos into; anti-capitalist groups, followers of Pablo Iglesias and Errejonistas who connected with populist Latin American experiences (p. 166). Thus, while in Spain the debate on the left was about the creation of an alternative left platform to the PSOE, in Portugal the discussion was about what kind of relationship the radical left should have with the PS to defend the regime, here social movements did not emerge as an alternative to institutional action but instead came to reinforce it (pp. 173–174).

Carvalho promised to show the importance of the historical context in the contrast between the anti-austerity mobilizations in Spain and Portugal and this is a point well made. It is a complex story and the author takes us through it carefully. He does seem to favour the quantitative over the qualitative. While he interviewed some of the participants there are 26 charts displaying data. We await the oral history of the anti-austerity movements.