Citizens’ Perspectives on the Amalgamation of Submunicipal Entities in Portugal: Recovering the often Neglected Perspective on Territorial Reforms

The amalgamation of civil parishes in Portugal, which took place in 2013, was one of the most relevant and impactful aspects of the local governance reform formulated by the 2011-2015 Portuguese Government, deeply influenced by the austerity scenario and the Economic Adjustment Programme signed with the so-called Troika. The main officially reported goals of this reform were to promote cost-reductions, to create economies of scale and to enhance the quality on the services provided by the civil parishes to the citizens. These goals were therefore in line with the ones reported for the amalgamation of municipalities in several European countries for the past few decades, with the main difference being the governance level in which the reform was to take place in Portugal. This reform was made mandatory by the Central Government on a nation-wide scale, although municipal councils have been given a chance to propose (non-binding) amalgamation strategies. The reform was therefore deeply criticized for being too oriented for cost-cutting purposes and for being too top-down, since it arguably neglected local specificities, the wills from local elected representatives and the sense of belonging from citizens. The still scarce studies about this reform in Portugal have been focused on its legal framework, as well as on the underlying political and technical processes. One exception is a study by António Tavares and Miguel Rodrigues who published a paper in 2015 analyzing the political and economic impacts of this reform. All these studies have however neglected citizens’ perspectives about the process and consequences of this reform, which we consider to be a problematic gap on the studies about territorial reforms because local governments (particularly, submunicipal entities) are arguably the level of governance which are prone to promote a closer relationship between government and citizens but also because citizens are the ones most affected by the reforms. The main goal of this paper is thus to assess what is the citizens’ level of knowledge about the amalgamation process, what are their opinions about the direct result of the amalgamation and what are their perceptions about its consequences on local governance and service provision. We also analyze if citizens’ responses are influenced by variables such as age, seniority as resident, level of political involvement in local governance, place of residency (having their own parish council in the same place or not) or the municipality’s stance towards amalgamation (pro or against). To do so, we launched a survey on 728 citizens from 4 municipalities in the Region of Aveiro, two of them having been pro-amalgamation and the other two having been against the reform.