Tiago Carvalho, integrated researcher at CIES-Iscte and visiting assistant professor at the Department of Political Economy at Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, will soon launch his new book: “Contesting Austerity – Social Movements and the Left in Portugal and Spain (2008-2015)”, in which he discusses and compares the protests against austerity in Portugal and Spain during the Eurozone crisis and the Great Recession, between 2008 and 2015.

In the author’s assessment, while in Spain a wave of mobilizations, which lasted three years and involved different political actors, led to a transformation of the party system, in Portugal the institutional change was limited, with unions dominating the protagonism of the protests, and mobilization of social movements only in specific cases.

The research carried out demonstrates that the different trajectories and results, in both countries, are related to the nature and configuration of the actors during the mobilization process, and, while in Spain they presented a relative autonomy among themselves, generating a political transformation deeper, in Portugal the dominance of institutional actors limited the extent of these changes.

Award from the Portuguese Association of Political Science (APCP)

The investigations carried out by Tiago Carvalho have gained notoriety within the academic field of “Political Science and International Relations” in Portugal, having his doctoral thesis, “Contesting Austerity: A Comparative Approach to the Cycles of Protest in Portugal and Spain under the Great Recession (2008-2015)” was distinguished with the prize of the Portuguese Association of Political Science (APCP), aimed at stimulating creativity and rigor in research work in these research areas.

About Tiago Carvalho

Tiago Carvalho, integrated researcher at CIES-Iscte and visiting assistant professor at the Department of Political Economy at ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, participates in the project “HOPES: HOusing PErspectives and Struggles. Futures of housing movements, policies and dynamics in Lisbon and beyond (2018-2021, FCT, PTDC/GES-URB/28826/2017)”, coordinated by Professor Guya Accornero, with whom she co-coordinates the “Monthly Seminar on Social Movements and Action Policy”. Tiago Carvalho received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, with a thesis on the anti-austerity protest cycle (2008 and 2015) and was a researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore, in Florence, and at the Free University of Bolzano.