A study coordinated by Marcelo Camerlo and António Costa Pinto for the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation analyzed ministerial profiles in Portugal over 50 years of democracy and arrived at a conclusion that contradicts the existing literature on ministerial recruitment. Instead of governments turning to technocrats and independents during periods of economic crisis, the data shows that when inflation and unemployment rise, executives tend to reinforce the weight of ministers with greater political roots, who offer greater internal cohesion, coordination capacity, and political trust.
The statistical analysis used two variables to measure economic pressure: annual inflation variation and the unemployment rate. The results indicate that rising unemployment is associated with a reduction of specialist politicians and a statistically significant increase in the proportion of political ministers. Annual inflation variation also does not produce significant effects on the appointment of external ministers or experts, but is associated with an increase in the proportion of political ministers. Even in technical portfolios, there is no significant increase in the presence of independent experts.
The study also reveals that Luís Montenegro presents governments more partisan than António Costa. In Costa's executives, partisan ministers represented about 52% to 53%, while in Montenegro's governments, since 2024, they represent about 69% to 71%. Among partisan ministers, the so-called "heavyweights" predominate—that is, top leaders of party organizations, who represent 70% and tend to occupy the most politically relevant portfolios. More than a third of ministers had no party affiliation, but a significant portion is classified as "semi-independent," people formally without a party but with longstanding political collaboration with parties.
The Portuguese ministerial elite is highly qualified, with 98.4% of ministers having higher education and 78% having professional experience relevant to the portfolio they hold. However, the direct correspondence between academic background and ministry is relatively low, at only 21%. The authors conclude that Portugal developed mechanisms to combine technical competence and political control, in a phenomenon they call "endogenous technocratism." In Portugal, crisis seems to call rather the politician in whom the party trusts than the technocrat.
