A QUESTÃO DO FIM DO TRÁFICO DE ESCRAVOS EM PORTUGAL: APORTES DA TEORIA DA MUDANÇA INSTITUCIONAL GRADUAL

Abstract:
The paper seeks to explain why the end of the
slave trade in the Portuguese colonies south of
the Ecuador was actually implemented through
a treaty signed between Portugal and England
six years after Marquis de Sá da Bandeira had
signed a decree abolishing the slave trade, and
also after the establishment of an authoritarian
government  that  set  a  new  period  of  validity
of  the  Constitutional  Charter  of  1826.  To  that
end, we apply the theory of gradual institutional
change. We conclude that the particularities of
the Portuguese political scenario in the first half
of the 19th century, the institutional architecture
of  the  Portuguese  liberalism  at  the  time,  and
the absence of actors with veto power, led to a
context in which coups d’état, pronouncements
and  political  violence  became  instruments  of
alternation in power. So the institutional change
that  allowed  the  conclusion  of  an  agreement
that   had   been   negotiated   for   decades   by
Portugal is identified as an institutional change
by substitution.  It was carried out by a member
of the so-called setembrismo movement led by a
liberal left group that established a centralized
and  more  moderate  government,  and  which  is
held  responsible  for  laying  the  foundations  of
the new Portuguese State

Keywords: Portugal,  end  of  the  slave  trade,
theory of gradual institutional change, political
science and history