Desenvolvimento como liberdade

: o caso da Frente Atlântica do Porto

Abstract

The Porto Atlantic Front is an association of municipalities recently formed by Matosinhos, Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia. In the actual context of governance, of the Portugueses State organization and its different levels of power in the national territory, the three municipalities see advantages in coordinating efforts for the development of their territories and populations. In this study we analyze the impact on Development as Freedom of three alternative organizational scenarios for the Porto Atlantic Front: i) the present scenario, the existence of the Porto Atlantic Front as an association of municipalities with no other changes to the Portuguese State organization (FAP 1); ii) the scenario of the existence of the Porto Atlantic Front with the direct election of the Porto Metropolitan Area (FAP 2); iii) the scenario of the existence of the Porto Atlantic Front with the direct election of the Porto Metropolitan Area and the election by the municipalities of the Coordination and Regional Development Commissions (FAP 3). The impact analysis considers the dimensions corresponding to the instrumental freedoms proposed by Amartya Sen: i) political freedoms; ii) economic facilities; iii) social opportunities; iv) transparency guarantees; v) protective security. The results show that the mere existence of the Porto Atlantic Front (FAP 1) has positive impacts on Development as Freedom of the three municipalities. The results also show that the alternative scenarios accentuate these positive effects, by enhancing the performance capacities of the Portugueses State at the metropolitan level (FAP 2 and FAP 3) as well as at the regional level (FAP 3).

Date of Award	20 Jul 2016
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Leonardo Costa (Supervisor)