Dissent in a party-based parliament: The Portuguese case

With a focus on the Portuguese case, this article shows how MPs express disagreement with their parties in a highly cohesive and party-dominated parliament. We review the features that explain why the Portuguese institutional framework reinforces party control over the parliamentary mandate and discuss the different ways Portuguese MPs express party dissent. In the last section of the article, we analyse data on voting for a period of just over 30 years. Contrary to what the literature tells us, Portuguese MPs have been breaching voting discipline regularly since 1976