Who is who? A sociographic portrait and recruitment channels of Portuguese mayors (2021-2025)

CIES-Iscte has released a set of new open-access CIES e-Working Papers, including “Quem é quem? Retrato sociográfico e canais de recrutamento dos e das autarcas portuguesas (2021-2025)” [Who is who? A sociographic portrait and recruitment channels of Portuguese mayors (2021-2025)], by Margarida Estêvão.

Since the April Revolution of 1974, local government has become one of the central pillars of Portuguese democracy. Yet, despite its political and symbolic relevance, Portuguese academic research has tended to focus on central government, leaving local politics relatively unexplored.

Based on an ongoing doctoral project, the paper seeks to address this gap. Drawing on a national survey of mayors in office (2021-2025), it offers a descriptive statistical analysis and a sociographic and biographical profile of current mayors in Portugal, shedding empirical light on how the local political elite is recruited and renewed.

The findings portray local government as a paradoxical space: one that reproduces classic patterns of elite selection, while also opening up opportunities for the social diversification of political representation and for strengthening local political legitimacy.

The papers are available in the Iscte Repository.

Originally published by CIES-Iscte.