Fascist Era Elites (3): Salazar’s ministerial elite, 1933-44

Abstract

This article analyses the composition and modes of recruitment of Salazar’s ministerial elite during the ‘fascist era’. The main characteristics of the Estado Novo’s governing elite was that it belonged to a small and exclusive political and bureaucratic class that almost completely dominated the senior ranks of the armed forces, the senior administration, and the universities - within which the legal profession was strongly represented. Salazar’s single party, being kept organizationally weak and dependent, was never an important element in either the political decision-making process or in the selection of the ministerial elite.