Continuity and change in the recruitment: Portuguese administrative elite, 2000-2020

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the pattern of recruitment of top officials has undergone some changes. Today we have a greater presence of women in the administrative elite and an acceleration of the aging trend, a strengthening of skills in public management and even a greater diversity of geographic and university backgrounds. At the same time, there are certain legacies from the past that persist: the presence of lawyers and the Lisbon Faculty of Law; the difficult access of women to the top of Ministries of Foreign and Home Affairs, or Defence; as well as the presence of professors in the administrative elite; the relative importance of being born, studying or living in the capital.