A Câmara Corporativa no Estado Novo: composição, funcionamento e influência

This work analyses the role of the Corporative Chamber (Câmara Corporativa) on the Portuguese New State (Estado Novo). As an advisory body in the authoritarian regime, this chamber allowed the organic representation in the legislative function. The corporative organization changed its structure, but had reduced influence on its acts. With a profile both technical and political, it integrated the dictator's counselling system. The chamber, the National Assembly (Assembleia Nacional) and the ministers formed his official council of government. In its origin, the Corporative Chamber replaced the parliamentary committees and balanced the monocameralism with the National Assembly. In private sessions, in small groups of technicians and representatives of the corporative organization, the chamber evaluated the deputies' and ministers' proposals. The Corporative Chamber would never have initiative power in the Assembly and even in the government, where it did have it, it was only seldom practiced. Until 1958 the president of the council conditioned the chamber's composition. When the corporations where created, the chamber's organization was modified, and the responsibility for appointing the majority of its members (procuradores) was transferred to them. The president of the chamber, having the chief of Government's confidence, determined its entire functioning. The chamber's members capacity for intervention was deeply restricted. Under the influence of the president of the Corporative Chamber, the most visible performance came from the elements appointed by the government for their technical skills. The Corporative Chamber advising documents reduced the deputies' initiatives impact and amended the government proposals. Their influence was predominantly technical, but undoubtedly also political.