Housing and Citizenship: Building Social Rights in Twentieth-Century Portugal

Abstract

Abstract This article investigates the origins of modern citizenship in Portugal through the example of the historical construction of housing as a social right. It argues this process owes much to the centralisation and strengthening of the state undertaken by Salazar's ‘New State’ (1933–74), whose transformative project changed the nature of the relationship between the governing and the governed, making political claims based on social rights plausible. The ensuing political dynamic changed the nature of the social contract in Portugal, tying the legitimacy of the state to the provision of social rights, a factor which eventually contributed to the dictatorship's demise.