baumgarten - geração à rasca and beyond. mobilizations in portugal after 12 march 2011

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2013 61: 457 originally published online 17 April 2013Current SociologyBritta Baumgarten

and beyond: Mobilizations in Portugal after 12 March 2011Gerao Rasca

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Gerao Rascaand beyond:Mobilizations in Portugalafter 12 March 2011

Britta BaumgartenCIES (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology) Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract

This article analyses the Portuguese mobilizations that started with the Gerao Rascain March 2011. The author argues that international events and the import of ideasfrom movements abroad had an important impact on the organizational structure andthe claims of the Portuguese mobilizations. The nation-state, however, remains a veryimportant factor in activism: organizational structures as well as claims are to a great

extent country-specific. The article provides also an overview of the protest events andthe field of actors involved in the organization of protest. Data come from 10 monthsof field research, which included participant observations, in-depth interviews and theanalysis of websites and mailing-lists.

Keywords

Gerao Rasca, Portugal, transnational activism

IntroductionThe Portuguese protest of the Gerao Rasca(The Desperate Generation) on 12March 2011 was the biggest demonstration in Portugal since the Carnation Revolutionof 1974. This protest was the first of a series of national demonstrations that have tobe regarded as part of a bigger picture of worldwide mobilizations against austeritymeasures and for participatory and deliberative democracy. The date of 12 March2011 was also a starting point for remarkable changes in the organizational structureof Portuguese mobilizations. Although the main trade unions remain important actors,civil society activists managed to organize large public protests independently for the

first time that year.

Corresponding author:

Britta Baumgarten, CIES Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, University Institute of Lisbon,Travessa do Giestal 5 RCE, 1300-277 Lisbon, Portugal.Email: [email protected]

CSI61410.1177/0011392113479745Current SociologyBaumgarten2013

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458 Current Sociology Monograph 2 61(4)

This article focuses on the mobilizations that have taken place in Portugal startingon 12 March 2011, and takes into consideration an international framework of protest.Portuguese activists have recognized the high importance of internationalization, andinternational events have undoubtedly played an important role in the organization of

Portuguese activists. However, this article argues that their activities are predomi-nantly oriented towards a national framework. This low degree of internationalizationof the Portuguese activism is explained by two factors: (1) the movement is relativelynew and internationalization takes time to develop; (2) although various new groupswith different aims and practices developed in 2011, the classic model of activismthat strategically targets the nation-state and that is thus more oriented towards anational framework of action prevails in the Portuguese protests. From the transna-tional perspective Portugal is an especially interesting case because (1) Portugal wasone of the first countries within the cycle of large protests all over the world in 2011

that referred to each other; (2) the framework of the Portuguese mobilizations is onthe one hand very international (worldwide economic and European debates on howto resolve the crisis; impact of international actors on Portuguese politics, etc.) whileon the other hand a great part of the political decision-making is still based at thenational level, which suggests state actors as the main target of the claims, and (3)there is one major national event in the history of Portuguese protest, the CarnationRevolution in 1974, that still plays an important role in the contemporary protests. Sofar the entanglement of national and transnational aspects of the current activism inPortugal has not been analysed.

Data for this article were gathered during 10 months of field research, which includeparticipant observations of the preparation of protest activities, the organization of popu-lar assemblies and work meetings of different activist groups1in Lisbon. Furthermore Iconducted in-depth interviews with activists, and followed Internet activities of thegroups. The time period covered by this article is 12 March 2011 until July 2012. Thisarticle focuses on the Lisbon movements with only some reference to other regions ofPortugal.

The national framework and transnational cooperation

in social movement research

Transnational activism (Tarrow, 2005) is nothing new. It has been widely studied bysocial movement scholars, particularly since the rise of the global justice movement(GJM) (Della Porta, 2007; Olesen, 2010; Smith, 2002; for an overview see: Van Dykeand McCammon, 2010). Research on transnational social movements is often placedwithin a framework of costs and benefits and observes how actors deal with givenobstacles mainly using the concept of strategic actors. Furthermore, there is a focus onalready existing global actors, like the Global Social Forums, the GJM, or transnational

advocacy networks (Bandy and Smith, 2005).Talking about transnational activism often implies a notion of the nation-statebeing in the process of losing some of its importance due to the various processes ofglobalization (Tarrow, 1998: 181182). However, the nation-state still plays an

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important role in the transnational cooperation of social movement actors. For mostglobal movements, the nation-state remains the main target (Johnston, 2011: 197);thus, claims are still predominantly directed towards politicians at the national level.The levels of state intervention and the main areas of state engagement (e.g. social

welfare, the way the economy and the society are regulated) provide different frame-works for social movements action. Furthermore, the organizational structure of civilsociety is very much affected by the nation-state, through, for example, state spendingand regulation (Johnston, 2011). Countries differ in structural aspects of civil society(e.g. segmentation, networks of cooperation) but also in the openness or closure of thepolitical system. All these factors impact the support base for a movement (Melucci,1996: 323).

Also, discourses are to a great extent still nation-based. They are dominated bynational media and centred on national issues. They influence internal discourses in local

social movements. As comparative studies show, there are great differences in framesacross countries (Ferree et al., 2002) that cannot be interpreted as purely strategic choicesmade by social movement actors. Besides, most social movements are to a great extentbased on activist groups that centre their day-to-day activism at the local and nationallevel. They have developed their specific subcultures (Johnston, 2011; Moore andRoberts, 2009) in long-term internal processes of interaction. These subcultures include,for example, specific practices, values and narratives.

Differences at the transnational level are favourable as a source of inspiration for newpractices, knowledge and different experiences. Movement actors benefit from joint cam-

paigns and solidarity between movements; they meet and, in some cases, they become atransnational movement (Tarrow, 2005: 164).2Thanks to these international exchanges,new action forms and new worldviews are often taken up and integrated into the nationalcontext (McAdam and Rucht, 1993; Soule, 2007; Tarrow, 2005). The exchange of ideasand practices across borders always entails selection and interpretation (Strang and Soule,1998: 266). Transnational frames have to be translated into the national context in orderto gain resonance within this new framework (Olesen, 2005: 431434).

As mentioned earlier, the Portuguese mobilizations starting in 2011 are to be regardedas part of a bigger picture of worldwide protests. The year 2011 is particularly interesting

to analyse transnational cooperation of social movements. During that year, social move-ments became extraordinarily visible throughout the world and strongly referred to eachother. Forms of action, such as the occupation of central public spaces and the organiza-tion of public assemblies, were transferred. The actual movements, however, cannot beregarded as aglobal social movement. Their aims are too diverse and, apart from thenumerous informal ties established between them and punctual cooperation (joint daysof action, informal exchange of information over the web), there is no established struc-ture of cooperation (for an overview of 2011 mobilizations, see Tejerina and Perugorra,2012), like for example in the GJM (Della Porta, 2005). Within this framework of the2011 protests it is exciting to observe how social movements relate to groups and eventslocated in other countries. This article builds upon insights of the literature on transna-tional activism to observe how a social movement that is (mostly via the Internet) situ-ated in a globalized net of communication refers to this context in its daily work.



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The context of mobilization in Portugal: Civil society,

protest antecedents and organizational structures

Civil society has traditionally been weak in Portugal. Compared to Northern European

countries, Portuguese people are less involved in civil society groups and are less politi-cally active (Fernandes, 2012; McCloughan et al., 2011). During the Estado Novo(19261974), political activism was largely repressed and steps were taken to depoliti-cize the population. During the revolutionary period of 19741975 various attempts toorganize civil society were undertaken by political parties, trade unions and citizengroups.3Portugals transition, between April 1974 and the end of 1975, was an extremecase of high participation and popular mobilization through a variety of forms. [and]saw an explosion of associative movements concerned with every aspect of social life(Fernandes, 2012: 11). This short time of high political participation was followed by a

long period of low participation (De Sousa Santos and Nunes, 2004; Hamann andManuel, 1999). Today, the majority of the Portuguese population does not believe in theefficacy of political participation and trust in institutional politics is very low (Pinto etal., 2012). Although demonstrations are generally welcome in the rhetoric of the politicalelite (Fishman, 2011), political participation in activist groups and demonstrations inparticular are disapproved of by many Portuguese. This poses serious difficulties forcivil society groups. Groups remain small, and activists report a lack of support, particu-larly in smaller cities. There is a constant debate within and among groups about how toattract new participants and engage them in politics. New activists also cannot be

recruited easily through personal networks.The actual mobilizations are connected to earlier mobilizations with an internationaldimension: protest against the involvement of the International Monetary Fund inPortugal in 1983, against Portugal joining the European Union in 1986 and mobilizationof the global justice movement (GJM) after 1999 including the Social Forums.Portuguese protests against the Iraq War in 2003 were important as a part of mobiliza-tions in various cities around the world (Walgrave and Rucht, 2010). The May Daydemonstrations, organized by a Portuguese activist platform since 2007 (Feixa et al.,2009), are part of a European phenomenon that started in 2001 in Milan, Italy (Mattoni,2006). All mobilizations share a refusal of neoliberal models and were also organized inparticipatory processes without great impact of the trade unions. The GJM was an espe-cially important antecedent in terms of practices of decision-making: here the principleof consensus was practised for the first time. With the rise of this movement, particu-larly after 1999, the locally based citizen movements also re-emerged in Portugal. Theyoperated mainly at the local level and were largely ignored by the media (De SousaSantos and Nunes, 2004: 11). While the earlier mobilizations were neither based on astable network of civil society actors, nor resulted in such a network, in the GJM groupsfrom various areas, like the feminist, LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender),student, ATTAC and ecological movements, worked together in the Social Forums with

political parties from the left and with trade unions (Nunes, 2011). The networks builtin these times, however, did not continue after the failure of the Portuguese SocialForums. To this day, most activist groups maintain only informal sporadic contacts toactivists abroad.



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According to my fieldwork data, many activists participated in social movementgroups long before 2011. Networks of activist groups were created but today of theseonly the May Day platform remains. Thus none of the earlier international platformsplayed a role in the 2011/2012 protests. The international dimension of protests grew

between 1992 and 2002; however, it remained weak when compared to local and nationalprotests (De Oliveira Mendes and Seixas, 2005: 123).

A short overview of recent mobilizations in Portugal

Before 12 March 2011 large protests against cuts in state spending and labour marketreforms in Portugal were mainly organized by big union confederations: the GeneralConfederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP Confederao Geral dos TrabalhadoresPortugueses) and the General Workers Union (UGT Unio Geral de Trabalhadores).

This dominance of union-led mobilization ended with the protest of the Gerao Rasca(the desperate generation), organized independently from the trade union confederations.The participation of 200,000500,000 protestors, according to different sources, made itthe largest demonstration in Portugal since the 1974 Carnation Revolution.4The daymarked a turning point; after this protest, the level of mobilization by civil society actors5increased, including the birth of various new activist groups and cooperation networks.New initiatives and movement platforms rose and various political events and jointactivities were initiated. Although the number of participants in the March 2011 protestwas not reached again until 15 September 2012, there were several other massive street

demonstrations connected to the economic crisis. I distinguish them in three categories:

1. Union-led demonstrations and general strikes.These protests are nothing new inPortugal (Estanque, 2010). Since 2007, however, some activist groups have triedto gain visibility within these protest events. They advocate for the rights ofgroups that tend not to be represented by trade unions, e.g. migrants, women andprecarious workers. Trade unions organized demonstrations on 1 May and 1October 2011, and on 11 February 2012, and two general strikes combined withdemonstrations on 24 November 2011and on 22 March 2012.

2. Independent protest events and social movement platforms. Although activistgroups have always organized smaller demonstrations, large protest eventsorganized without union participation are a new phenomenon in Portugal thatbegan in May 2011. The activist platform 15O, that formed during the occupationof Rossio Square, called for protests on the international day of action of 15October and on 24 November 2011, and 21 January and 22 March 2012. Theinternational day of action on 15 October was the 150s most successful protestevent. It was part of an international event that took place in 82 countries to pro-test for a political system in favour of the people instead of the financial elites,and for more influence of the people (15october.net/).

3. Occupation of public spaces.6Beginning on 20 May 2011, the first occupationsof public spaces were initiated as rather spontaneous actions by small groups.Protestors occupied central locations in four major Portuguese cities the largestof which was Lisbons Rossio Square, where up to 100 people camped overnight



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for 15 days. From 15 October to 12 December 2011 Ocupar Lisboa, the OccupyLisbon Movement, occupied a small area in front of the Portuguese parliament.An occupation of the large Eduardo VII Park in Lisbon was planned severalmonths in advance in weekly meetings by the activist platformPrimavera GlobalPortuguesa(Global Portuguese Spring) and took place as part of the internationaldays of action on 1215 May 2012, called Global Spring (takethesquare.net/2012/03/04/call-for-a-global-spring-in-may-2012/).

The three protest categories differ in their structure of organization, but also in thetype of participants. The first type of protest, union demonstrations and general strikes,is based on a top-down organization that involves considerable financial resources.These protests are characterized by the display of standardized posters and flags, and therepetition of a stock of slogans, with almost no individual forms of expression. Most

participants are older than 40 and members of the unions. The second type, instead, ofteninvolves a long planning process consisting of open public assemblies where participantsjointly decide upon posters and routes in endless debates. Individual posters and slogansare welcome as long as they do not contradict core values of the movement platforms.Before the demonstration there are public events of painting individual posters and at theend of the demonstration there is almost always a public assembly, including an openmicrophone. These demonstrations are more diverse than the first type. The third typediffers from the second type mainly in the concrete form of action. In Portugal, mostparticipants in the occupations do not stay overnight. During the daytime there are vari-

ous assemblies, workshops and meals organized by the participants.

Organizational structure of social movements involved

in the 2011 demonstrations

Even though there are many experienced activists in Portugal, most of the main groupsinvolved in the 2011 demonstrations have arisen since 2007. In addition, the demonstrationof 12 March 2011 gave rise to various new activist groups and new forms of action through-out the country. Thus, many activists regard 2011 as a time of new departures. In the fol-

lowing short overview of those groups active in the recent demonstrations I distinguishbetween (a) classic activist groups, primarily fighting for specific, more or less alreadydefined rights;7 and (b) groups promoting predominantly civil society participation andpublic debate; groups that do not have fixed goals but prefer openness, the construction ofalternatives and a joint process of finding solutions: the PPA groups8(see Figure 1).

The classic groups

Many groups protesting precarious work and life situations, such as FERVE (Fartas/os

dEstes Recibos Verdes[Tired of the False Green Receipts]), PI (Precrios Inflexveis[The Inflexible Precarious]) and Intermitentes do Espectculo (On-and-off ShowArtists), emerged in 2007, when the first May Day protests took place in Portugal.These groups established forms of cooperation with unions; they supported striking



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workers and organized joint public debates (Marques Neves, 2011). The 3Rs (Renew,Rebuild, Rejuvenate), an initiative of teachers directed against cuts in state expendi-

tures, especially in education, was born in 2009. A further initiative of this kind is theCADPP (Committee for the Annulment of the Portuguese Public Debt) that calls for thePortuguese foreign debt to be cancelled. The movement of unemployed workers,Movimento Sem Emprego(MSE), was founded in February 2012 and has received a lotof attention since then.

The PPA groups

Then there are groups that focus predominantly on participation, public debate and alter-

natives beyond the state. I therefore call them PPA groups here. They mainly came intobeing after 12 March 2011. The 12 de MaroandMovimento Geraesare movementsthat predominantly promote democracy. Both focus on deficits in the democratic deci-sion-making process and work on policy proposals. After the demonstration on 12 March2011,Movimento 12 de Maro[M12M], for example, organized theForum das Geraes(Forum of the Generations), a forum to debate solutions to the economic crisis, whichthey defined moreover as a political and social crisis.

TheIndignados de Lisboaorganize assemblies in public places with the aim of politi-cizing people, discussing urgent problems and organizing protest activities. The assem-

blies are open to all kinds of proposals, which are then developed in working groups.Currently there are assemblies in some districts of Lisbon and in some cities in the northof Portugal. The first national meeting of the Portuguese assemblies took place inCoimbra on 14 January 2012.

Figure 1. Overview of the groups, platforms and locations of activism involved in the2011/2012 mobilizations.



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Anonymous Portugalis fighting against censorship and for a free Internet. Activistsof this group provide the technical support meetings for the movement platforms andprotest events, e.g. setting up live streams or building platforms for informationexchange. Although this group operates mainly through the Internet, some activists in

this group join in the various assemblies of theIndignadosand have taken part in occu-pations and other events of the various platforms. Further there are various groups thatpractise alternative ways of living and founded their platform Convergir(Converge)on 15 September 2012.

Verdadeira Democracia Jis a group inspired by the Spanish 15M. It was created atRossio Square and ran the occupation. As the name indicates, this group aims at partici-patory forms of democracy and a better control of politicians. Ocupar Lisboais a smallgroup that organized the occupation in front of the Portuguese parliament from 15October to 12 December 2011. During this time they held several assemblies to talk

about alternative ways of democracy and of living together. The proper functioning ofthese two groups depended on the common occupied space: the location and the event.Thus they also belong to the third category.

Platforms, locations and events to organize mobilization

Cooperation between all groups is organized by platforms and through public events.May Day is a movement platform that has mobilized since 2007 each year from Februaryto 1 May against all forms of precarious work. 15O, the most important movement

platform of 2011, as mentioned earlier was created with the occupation of Rossio Squarefrom 20 to 22 May 2011. It embraced up to 38 activist groups and holds public assem-blies and debates.Primavera Global Portuguesais a platform that was founded to pre-pare Portuguese protest and occupations during the international days of action startingon 12 May 2012. It included a wider variety of activists than 15O, but did not continuework after the respective events it was created for. The meetingActivarwas organizedon 21 and 22 April 2012 to present the work of the groups, exchange information andmake contacts.

TheIniciativa de Auditoria Cidad(IAC) is an initiative of trade unionists, politicians

and activists from various groups that emerged with the intention of auditing Portugalspublic debt, to discover the origins of the debt, its contents and the contracts related to it.In contrast to the activist group CADPP it does not call for the complete annulment of thepublic debt, but is trying to find out which parts of the debt are illegal.

Furthermore, there are some physical spaces of activism: RDA 69 was founded in2010 and is a building run by activists where political debate and dinners take place anda bicycle garage is run. Similar to this is the Casa Viva in Porto. This has comprised sofar the occupation of two buildings. Es.Col.A da Fontinha a former school in Porto thathad been closed down was occupied in April 2011 and occupants were evicted on 19April 2012. The building was used as a cultural space and according to my intervieweeswas an important meeting place for many activists in Porto. Less than a week after theeviction from Fontinha, So Lazaro 94, an abandoned building in Lisbon, was occupiedas a spontaneous action of solidarity. Until eviction at the end of May 2012, the buildingwas used for activist meetings, cultural events and included a small give-away shop.



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The field of activists within the Portuguese mobilizations is broad and, althoughthere is some overlap between activists who belong to various groups at the same time,it is to a certain extent divided. Apart from the distinction between what I have calledthe classic and the PPA groups, there is the reformist versus revolutionary division,

with some of them favouring improvements within the existing system, and othersfighting for a revolution. Further contested questions are whether they should cooperatewith members of the unions and political parties, and whether to advocate for the can-cellation of Portugals public debt. Not only are the activists personal backgroundsrather similar within than between the groups, there are also long-term friendshipsbetween activists of the same group.

The groups cooperate mainly to join forces in street protest and to exchange informa-tion. The Portuguese government and the international economic system serve as com-mon opponents. The movements do not differ largely in their practices, decision-making

and participation. As cooperation with stronger partners, like the trade unions, is difficult(Marques Neves, 2011) and other options, like most NGOs, church groups or the major-ity of the local associations, are not available as partners in protest, cooperation betweenthe movement groups themselves remains one of the few options to gain strength. A lookat the antecedents of the actual mobilizations shows that there have been several instancesof closer cooperation before, always in times of larger mobilization. In these times activ-ists tend to put their efforts into the often very time consuming meetings.

International dimensions of the Portuguese mobilization

References to international events

There is generally a great openness to ideas from abroad among the Portuguese activists.Messages about events in other countries are sent via mailing lists and Facebook, andfilms about protest events in other countries are shown in public. Demonstrations on 15October 2011 and 12 May 2012 were organized as a part of international days of action.

The Arab Spring and its claim for democracy became a key reference for all largedemonstrations in 2011. It was not only strategically used in calls for protests and mani-festos by social movement actors. It was also widely referred to by journalists and por-trayed mainly positively. As already shown in this article, international movements andevents had largely impacted Portuguese politics before.

The occupation of Puerta del Sol in Madrid in May 2011 had a huge impact on thePortuguese mobilizations: it gave birth to the occupation of four public places in Portugal.The occupation of Rossio Square in Lisbon started as a demonstration of solidarity9withPuerta del Sol by mainly Spanish protestors in front of the Spanish consulate in Lisbon.Later they went to Rossio Square, where many people joined their protest. The Portugueseactivists imported forms of action, like the occupation of public space, and the Spanishmanifesto was read out those assembled at the occupation. The occupation of Rossio

Square was an important starting point for many groups, including the platform 15O.Apart from international events, however, there is a great importance of national

events. The Portuguese demonstrations of 12 March 2011 were inspired by a songperformed at a huge concert in Lisbon. On 24 January, the Portuguese band Deolinda



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performed Parva que sou! (How stupid I am) for the first time. This song is about theprecarious situation of a generation of educated young people.10Many activists mentionthe experience of having listened to this song as a starting point for the mobilizations of12 March 2011. The organization of the demonstrations started less than two weeks after

the performance and the call for protests refers to the generation of young, well-educatedbut precarious or unemployed people with no hope of escaping their situation, which thesong is about. The self-description of the protestors as Gerao Rasca (TheDesperate Generation) in addition refers to the same term used for the Portuguesestudent demonstrators in 1992.

Ideas from abroad

Portuguese activists have for a long time imported slogans, repertoires and forms of

action, like the practice of assemblies and the occupation of public spaces. Ideas for newforms of movements were also taken from abroad: particularly Indignados de Lisboa,OcuparandAnonymous. These groups tend be more international in their demands, butthey do not automatically have a close contact with similar movements in other coun-tries. In the case of theIndignados, the principle of organizing and the name was inspiredby the Spanish Indignados. Ideas are exchanged loosely via the Internet and throughprivate contacts of individual activists. Generally, there were only a few internationalmeetings that had an impact on the organizational structure of the Portuguese activists.The initiative for a citizens audit of the Portuguese debt (IAC) is the result of a success-

ful international meeting of about 130 activists from several countries. It was organizedin cooperation with the Open Civic Forum in Iceland and part of a series of meetingsthroughout Europe. According to my interviews and observation of meetings, there is agreat interest in international cooperation. It is highly valued and possible activities withactivist groups from abroad were discussed frequently. In practice the ideas are thenoften not continued because local issues come first and absorb all resources.

With regard to international claims and frames, a special focus is set on social move-ments from other countries facing austerity measures and heavily indebted. The protestsin Greece have been used as a thread, claiming We consider ourselves Greek. The slo-

gan Spain! Greece! Ireland! Portugal! Our struggle is international! was prominentlyproclaimed during the 2011 demonstrations. It was meant to show the internationaldimension of the protest and similarities in the political and economic framework.

Nonetheless, the targets of Portuguese protests remained mainly at the national level:claims were directed at national politicians. Adaption to country-specific events, politi-cal decisions, culture and history is very common. The revolutionary period of 1974/1975and its songs are still major references in the mobilization of many activist groups (DeSousa Santos and Nunes, 2004: 12). Many of the banners and posters displayed duringthe 2011 demonstrations refer to Portuguese political decisions and scandals.

Moreover, frames are adapted to the national context. The claim for grassroots democ-racy and wider citizen participation, for instance, is one that has united most movementsat a global level in the large demonstrations of 2011. At the top of their homepage the 12March movement (www.movimento12m.org/) framed this claim in a very Portugueseway, citing Jos Saramago, the Nobel Laureate in Literature: real democracy includes



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the capacity of the citizen to intervene in politics and in all circumstances of public life.Freedom of press and freedom of political organization is only the minimum conditionfor achieving the goal of making every citizen a politician a starting point on the wayto achieve the spiritual and civil riches of the authentic citizen.

Taking a closer look at the single protest events, we observe great differences in theinternational dimension of claims. Table 1 shows the main claims of the activist groupsin the large demonstrations of 2011/2012.11Claims that are referring primarily to a globalcontext and not to national politics and claims that reflect the main claims of the ArabSpring, the 15M in Spain or the Occupy movement (like democracy, transparency, con-trol of banks and capital) are taken as an indicator of a high degree of internationalreferences.

Although the demonstration on 12 March 2011 was inspired by the Arab Spring, theclaims are refer entirely to national politics. International claims and frames have the

highest impact on 15 May. Here also the call for protest included explicit internationalreferences. In reference to the Spanish revolution, the call to occupy locations inLisbon, Oporto, Coimbra and Faro announced on Facebook was named the Portugueserevolution. It made an appeal for solidarity with the Spanish occupations and used theSpanish framework.

For the demonstration on 15 October 2011 the international call for protest was trans-lated into Portuguese (www.15deoutubro.net/manifestos/internacional.html). Two of thethree claims included in the demonstrations banner refer to peoples rights and realdemocracy. In the manifesto of the platform 15O, the protest is explicitly declared as

international. It, nevertheless, adapts an international claim to the national context:According to the constitutional principle achieved on 25 April 1974 the economy must be subordinated to the general interest of society.

The demonstration organized during the general strike of 24 November 2011 wasorganized by 15O, parallel to the demonstration of the two main trade union confedera-tions. All claims relate closely to current national politics. An international reference andthe frame of the 1% versus the 99%, however, were used in 15Os press release and inthe call for protest by the activist group PI.

The calls for protest on 21 January and on 22 March 2012 did not contain any refer-

ences to international events, claims or movements abroad. They referred to the coun-trys specific situation and current political decisions. In reflections on the January 2012protest in activist meetings, the absence of any attempt to relate the protest to inter-national events was criticized as a weakness and one reason for the relatively lowparticipation.

However, the protest on 1215 May 2012 organized by a different platform and beingpart of international days of protest contains mainly international claims.

There are three general trends to be drawn from the description above:

1. Claims refer mainly to national politics when the trade unions call for the pro-test, and when activist groups or platforms call for a protest on the same daythat the trade unions organize a demonstration. The activists seem to haveadapted their claims to this most classic actor and left the international dimen-sion aside.



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2. Claims are more international on international days of action. The activist groupsthen adapt their claims to the international context, just as they adapt claims tothe larger trade unions when these call for protest.

3. The data show a decline in international claims, which is striking in a context ofan extraordinarily high degree of protest activity around the globe and no lack ofinterest among the Portuguese activist groups in international cooperation. In such

Table 1. Overview of main demonstrations and their claims.

Demonstration Organizer Associated tointernationalday of action?

Claimsa

nationalinternational

12 Mar 2011 Various activistgroups

No A right to employment, theimprovement of workingconditions and the end ofprecarious life situations,the right to education, theacknowledgement of qualificationsin salaries and fair contracts (C)

15 May 2011+ occupation Rossio

Sq.

Various activistgroups

Yes Portuguese adaptation of theSpanish manifesto: against the

global phenomenon of the actualloss of rights and opportunities;political institutions have becomean instrument of the economy (M)

15 Oct 2011 15O Yes Participative democracy,transparency in political decisions

End to precarious existences (P)24 Nov 2011Demonstration +general strike

CGTPUGT15O

No Right to work with a contract,suspension of debt payment with apublic audit, keeping 13th and 14thsalaries (P)

12 Jan 2012 15O No Right to work with a contract,against privatization of strategicsectors, suspension of debtpayment and a public audit aboutthis debt (P)

22 Mar 2012Demonstration +general strike

CGTP15O

No Against debt, austerity, precariouslife situation, unemployment,poverty (P)

1215 May 2012 PrimaveraGlobal PT

Yes Reinvent democracy: participation,sharing, transparency, social justiceand environmental protection (C)

aIn most cases the claims coded here are just translations of the main claims; they were put into a succinctphrase when they contained more than a sentence. The main claims were either the only claims or the plac-ing of the claims was used as an indicator for their importance.Source: Own database collected from the respective social movement websites: www.15deoutubro.net/,acampadalisboa.wordpress.com, www.movimento12m.org/, www.primaveraglobalpt.info/.



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a context, we could have expected the 15O to have included more internationalclaims as a sign of increased cooperation. The decrease of international claims inthe protest calls and posters has to be explained by other factors. After October2011 some of the PPA groups that tended to promote the international claims, like

theIndignados de LisboaandMovimento Geraeshad left the platform 15O andthus no longer had an influence on the main claims of the protest posters. Theclassic activist groups promoting social rights and consequently focusing on thestate as a reference for their claims dominated this process from November 2011onwards. It is the decisions taken by 15O that led the development of the mainclaims at demonstrations towards a focus on national claims. But this does notreflect an overall trend towards the national within the Portuguese movement asthe protests on 1215 May 2012 refer to mainly international claims. Participantsof the alternative platform involved in the organization of this event came from a

broad range of groups including PPA groups that had either left or never joined theplatform 15O. Claims were more international at this event, because these groupsare less focused on claims directed at national politicians.

Conclusion

Although there are various ideas imported from the 2011 mobilizations in other coun-tries, the Portuguese protests rely largely on classic social movement groups, whoseclaims are predominantly directed at the nation-state. The theoretical arguments listed in

this article in support of the thesis that the nation-state is still important for social move-ments are confirmed by the data. The state is the main target of the Portuguese protestsand the public discourse is Portugal-specific. Although the economic crisis and the aus-terity measures have affected other countries in a similar way, and although importantdecisions impacting Portugal are taken at the European level, it is still the Portuguesepoliticians that are blamed or called on to act. The organizational structure as well asmost of the claims and frames of the movement remain country-specific.

International events and the import of ideas from movements abroad, nevertheless,had an important impact on the organizational structure and the claims of the Portuguese

mobilizations. Most joint initiatives of the activist groups have their origin in interna-tional events. Activists see their struggles related to the various struggles in othercountries; they import action forms, frames and ideas from other countries. The broadinternational claims, however, in order to resonate, are often adapted to the reality of thePortuguese society.

As shown in the article, the types of claims are also very much dependent on the groupsinvolved in the organization of the protest. Classic activist groups mainly follow the ideaof fighting for the rights of a specific constituency and target the nation-state. Althoughthey support and practise participatory approaches and debates and take part in all plat-forms and events, their focus is on rights guaranteed by the state. These classic demandsare not influenced by the international context but have always been there. Thus the mainclaims of the classic groups are rather referring to national than to the global context.The PPA groups instead promote primarily democracy from below and often also alter-natives to the state. These claims refer more to the international framework. Because of



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the weakness of Portuguese civil society, activist groups are in a difficult position: theirorganizational structures remain weak; there is no widespread recognition of their contri-bution; and there is a lack of trust and strong alliances between them. Internationalizationfor them is a way to become stronger and more visible, but the movement often does not

have the resources and established contacts to act beyond national borders. Thus interna-tional contacts up to now remain mainly at an informal, personal level.

Funding

The researcher is financed by the Portuguese Fundao para a Cincia e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BPD/74743/2010).

Notes

1. Activist groups or social movement groups are the structural part of a social movement, e.g.citizen groups or NGOs. Similar to the term social movement organizations (McCarthyand Zald, 1977) the term stresses the importance of organizational structure in social move-ments. The social movement groups I focus on are characterized by a minimal structure thatconsist of regular meetings with specific practices of debate and decision-making, and ownInternet pages or Facebook sites, so I prefer the term activist groups because only a few ofthese groups are formal associations (e.g. the Precrios Inflexveissince 2012), NGOs aremarginal in the 2011 mobilizations in Portugal and paid work is a rare exception (e.g. someactivists belonging to the feminist organization UMAR). In contrast to the Spanish 15M,Portuguese social movement actors have no problem to use the term activist. Activist thusis used for a single person, to differentiate it from activist groups or social movement groups(used synonymously).

2. Following Tarrow (1998: 184) transnational social movements are regarded as sustainedcontentious interaction with opponents national and nonnational by connected networksof challengers organized across national boundaries.

3. Citizen groups are defined as specific groups belonging to the field of civil society actors.They are organizations of like-minded individuals who pursue policies unconnected with theirvocational concerns (Berry and Schildkraut, 1998: 139). They are independent from tradeunions, political parties or the church, but include NGOs. Citizen groups are characterized bya rather informal structure of decision-making, based on face-to-face meetings of citizens.

4. The newspaper O Publicoreported there were about 200,000 protestors (www.publico.pt/

Sociedade/reportagem-um-enorme-e-pacifico-protesto-contra-o-governo_1484523; accessed18 November 2011), while on their website the organizers, M12M, claimed half a million

people took part in the demonstration (www.movimento12m.org/?q=node/15; accessed 18November 2011).

5. Civil society actors here are defined by the classic spatial definition as those groups andorganizations in a society that belong to an intermediate area apart from the state, the com-munity and family life and the economy: associations, free groupings, organizations and non-governmental organizations. To furthermore specify the term I also include characteristicsused in the social interaction approach, namely: independence, self-organization, compro-mise in conflicts and non-violence, the public interest and fundamental recognition of other

attitudes and ways of life (see Baumgarten et al., 2011: 291292). 6. The occupation of buildings, as observed in Spain (Martnez and Garca, 2012), is not a com-

mon practice in Portugal. 7. These groups defend the rights of a group of people, e.g. the precarious worker, the



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unemployed or more broadly the working class and have a rather antagonistic idea of defend-ing these rights against, for example, great capital. The classification of a group as classicactivist group is related neither to the age of the group nor to their organizational structure.

8. Although organizational practices differ between activist groups, this characteristic does not

distinguish the classic from the PPA groups: many practices of meeting and decision-making,a repertoire of action or openness to new members are similar in groups belonging to the dif-ferent types, while they sometimes differ in-between one type.

9. Those kinds of manifestations of solidarity are also found on other occasions, e.g. followingpolice violence against an occupation in Barcelona, or solidarity demonstrations during theelections in Greece.

10. The refrain for example translates: How stupid I am! And I wonder how stupid this world is,where you need to have studied to become a slave.

11. The claims are taken from calls for protest (C), posters calling for protest (P) and from mani-festos (M). The first choice of data was posters because they include a restricted number of

claims that were largely debated in preparatory meetings for the demonstrations. For the dem-onstration of 12 March 2011 I have selected as the data source the text posted on Facebookfor this demonstration, which included a call for protest, because the poster did not includeclaims. It is identical to the manifesto issued on the website of the M12M group (geracaoen-rascada.wordpress.com/manifesto/). For 12 May 2011 the first manifesto produced in theassemblies (acampadalisboa.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/1%C2%BA-manifesto-do-rossio/)was chosen, because it reflects the joint debate of activists from various groups.

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Author biography

Britta Baumgarten, PhD, is a research fellow at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology,University Institute of Lisbon. She studied sociology at the University of Bielefeld and at theISCTE in Lisbon. She worked as a researcher in the project UNEMPOL and as a researcher in the

research group Civil Society, Citizenship and Social Movements in Europe at the Social ScienceResearch Centre Berlin (WZB). Her current research interests are in social movements in Portugaland Spain, transnational activism and civil society.

Rsum

Dans cet article, janalyse les mobilisations portugaises partir de la Gerao Rasca en Mars 2011. Je soutiens que les vnements internationaux et limportationdides de mouvements ltranger avaient un impact important sur la structureorganisationnelle et les revendications de la mobilisation portugaise. Ltat-nation, cependant, reste un facteur trs important dans lactivisme: structuresorganisationnelles ainsi que les revendications sont dans un pays de grande tenduespcifique. Tout dabord, ce document fournira un aperu des manifestations et lechamp des acteurs impliqus dans lorganisation de la manifestation. Alors je meconcentre sur la dimension internationale de la mobilisation portugaise. Les donnesde cet article proviennent de dix mois de recherches sur le terrain, ce qui inclut lesobservations des participants, des entrevues en profondeur et lanalyse des sites webet listes de diffusion.

Mots-cls

Activisme transnational, Gerao Rasca, Portugal

Resumen

En este artculo analizo las movilizaciones portuguesas, comenzando con la Gerao Rasca en Marzo de 2011. Sostengo que eventos internacionales y la importacinde ideas de movimientos en el extranjero tuvieron un impacto importante en laestructura organizativa y las reclamaciones de las movilizaciones portuguesas. El

estado nacin, sin embargo, sigue siendo un factor muy importante en el activismo: lasestructuras organizativas, as como las demandas de los activistas portugueses son, engran medida, especficas de Portugal. Este artculo proporcionar una visin general delos eventos de protesta y el campo de los actores involucrados en la organizacin dela protesta en Portugal. Los datos provienen de diez meses de investigacin de campo,que incluy observacin participante, entrevistas en profundidad y el anlisis de sitiosweb y listas de correo.

Palabras clave

Activismo transnacional, Gerao Rasca, Portugal

baumgarten - geração à rasca and beyond. mobilizations in portugal after 12 march 2011

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