1. The full text of the law can be found in Collecção de documentos acerca de sociedades cooperativas (Lisboa, 1871), 26–31.

2. The first legislation specifically dealing with cooperatives was the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, approved by the British parliament in 1852 and substantially modified in 1862. Prussia and France passed their own laws on cooperatives in March and July 1867. The French law was actually implemented three weeks after the Portuguese law, though the French proposal was nearly two years older. The complete text of the British Industrial and Provident Societies Act, along with English translations of the Prussian and French legislations, can be found in Blake, William, Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, 1867 (Washington, DC, 1870)Google Scholar.

3. At the time, the only organization with features loosely resembling those of a modern cooperative was the Associação Fraternal dos Fabricantes de Tecidos e Artes Correlativas, established in Lisbon in 1858. See Costa Goodolphim, José Cypriano, A Previdência: Associações de Socorros Mútuos, Cooperativas, Caixas de Pensões e Reformas, Caixas Económicas (Lisboa, 1889), 51 Google Scholar.

4. Hill, Michael, The Public Policy Process (New York, 2013)Google Scholar.

5. Kingdon, John, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (New York, 1984)Google Scholar; Kingdon, John, “Agendas, Ideas, and Policy Change,” New Perspectives on American Politics, edited by Dodd, Lawrence and Jillson, Calvin (Washington, DC, 1994), 215–29.Google Scholar

6. Zahariadis, Nikolaos, Ambiguity and Multiple Streams, edited by Paul Sabatier and Christopher Weible, Theories of the Policy Process (Boulder, 2014), 25–58 Google Scholar.

7. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 116.

8. Herweg, Nicole, European Union Policy-Making: The Regulatory Shift in Natural Gas Market Policy (Cham, 2017), 28 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 188.

10. On the constructivist approach to policy evaluation, see, for example, Mark Bovens and Paul t’Hart, Understanding Policy Fiascoes (New Brunswick, 1996); and Stewart, Jenny, Public Policy Values (Hampshire, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. The indicators used to describe both the elite’s and the workers’ perceptions are loosely based on Marsh and McConnell’s heuristic for measuring programmatic policy success. See Marsh, David and McConnell, Allan, “Towards a Framework for Establishing Policy Success,” Public Administration 2 (2010), 564-83. doi: 10.1111/j.167-9299.2009.01803.x CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Portuguese Commercial Code, approved by the Charter of Law of June 28, 1888.

13. Da Costa, Ramiro, Elementos para a História do Movimento Operário em Portugal, vol. 1 (Lisboa, 1979)Google Scholar.

14. In 1826, the Portuguese Cortes were divided into two chambers: the Chamber of Peers, composed of hereditary members appointed by the king, and the Chamber of Deputies, who were elected by male voters who met certain income requirements. Although, beginning in the 1850s, a series of electoral reforms gradually eased voting restrictions, the franchise remained narrow until the end of the Constitutional Monarchy, in 1910. On this, see Opello, Walter, Portugal’s Political Development: A Comparative Approach (Boulder, 1985)Google Scholar.

15. Fernando Taveira da Fonseca, “Elites e Classes Medias,” in História de Portugal: O Liberalismo, vol. 5, ed. José Mattoso (Lisboa, 1998), 393–407; and Pedro Tavares de Almeida, A Construção do Estado Liberal: Elite Política e Burocracia na Regeneração, 1851–1890 (PhD thesis, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1995).

16. The ideological roots of the elite can be traced back to the Peninsular War. The French invasions of 1807 and 1808 facilitated the spread of Enlightenment ideals among Portuguese intellectuals, merchants, and members of the military, sowing the seed of a revolt against the traditional structures of the ancien régime. On the intellectual roots of nineteenth-century Portuguese liberalism, see Silbert, Albert, “Les Invasions Françaises et les Origines du Libéralisme au Portugal,” Revista de História das Ideias 2 (1980), 231–47. doi: 10.14195/2183-8925_2_6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Pedro Miguel Martins, “Left and Right in the Nineteenth Century Ideological Debate: The Case of Portugal (1820–1910)”, in Left and Right: The Great Dichotomy Revisited, ed. João Cardoso Rosas and Ana Rita Ferreira (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2013), 140–64.

18. Bonifácio, Maria de Fátima, Seis estudos sobre o liberalismo português (Lisboa, 1991)Google Scholar.

19. Martins, “Left and Right.”

20. In August 1820 a group of liberal militants rose up against the ancien régime, opening a fourteen-year period of political upheaval and civil wars between authoritarian absolutists and forward-looking constitutionalists. The victory of the latter, in 1834, led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy that would last until 1910. See Bonifácio, Maria de Fátima, O século XIX português (Lisboa, 2002)Google Scholar.

21. Ferreira, Silvestre Pinheiro, Projecto de um banco de socorro e seguro mútuo (Paris, 1836)Google Scholar, Projecto d’associação para o melhoramento da sorte das classes industriosas (Paris, 1840).

22. During the wave of liberal revolutions that swept Europe in 1848, impoverished artisans and unskilled factory workers of the most advanced industrial nations emerged as a distinct social force, bearing a new demand for a better distribution of the benefits of industrial capitalist growth. Those events had a profound impact on thought of the most progressive members of the Portuguese ruling elite, who thereafter ramped up their efforts to improve the living conditions of the country’s small but expanding working class. On the effects of the 1848 European revolutions in Portugal, see Maria Manuela Tavares Ribeiro, Portugal e a Revolução de 1848 (Coimbra, 1990).

23. José Félix Henriques Nogueira, Estudos sobre a Reforma em Portugal, vol. 2 (Lisboa, 1855).

24. A railway engineer by training, Sousa Brandão was living in Paris at the time of the 1848 revolutions. Upon his return to Portugal, he founded the journal Ecco dos Operários in collaboration with the typographer Francisco Vieira da Silva and the novelist and journalist António Pedro Lopes de Mendonça. In the political sphere, the journal advocated for wider civil rights, including universal suffrage; in the economic realm, it supported industrialization and mechanization but contested the unfair distribution of surplus value between labor and capital.

25. Francisco Sousa Brandão, “Essencia das associações, sócios honorários, discussão,” Ecco dos Operários, Revista Social e Litterária, November 30, 1850, 1–3, at 1.

26. Francisco Sousa Brandão, “Indústria typográphica,” Ecco dos Operários, Revista Social e Litterária, June 18, 1850, 4–5, at 5.

27. From 1851 until the end of the 1860s, two main political forces—the Historical Party and the Regenerator Party—succeeded each other in power, giving rise to an institutionalized political arrangement that became known as rotativismo. On this, see António Pinto Ravara, “Os partidos políticos liberais na primeira fase do rotativismo parlamentar, 1851–1865,” Análise Social 2 (1976): 363–67.

28. António Martins da Silva, “As finanças públicas,” in História de Portugal: O Liberalismo, vol. 5, ed. José Mattoso (Lisboa, 1993), 381–91.

29. José Miguel Sardica, “A política e os partidos entre 1851 e 1861,” Análise Social 2 (1997): 279–333, at 285.

30. Costa Goodolphim, A Associação.

31. Ribero, José Silvestre, História dos estabelecimientos científicos, literários e artísticos de Portugal nos successivos reinados da monarchia, vol. 11 (Lisboa, 1883), 3 Google Scholar.

32. Villaverde Cabral, Manuel, O desenvolvimento do capitalismo em Portugal no século XIX (Lisboa, 1977), 167–68Google Scholar.

33. José Tengarrinha, “As greves em Portugal: Uma perspectiva histórica do século XVIII a 1920,” Análise Social, 3–4–5 (1981): 573–601, at 583–84.

34 Marx, Karl, “Documents from the International Workingmen’s Association,” Socialism and Democracy 2 (2004): 39–58, at 42. doi: 10.1080/08854300.2014.913836.Google Scholar

35. Costa Goodolphim, A Previdência, 115–19.

36. The bill was promoted by Robert Aglionby Slaney, a prominent member of the Whig Party. On this, see Torben Christiansen, Origin and History of Christian Socialism, 1848–1854 (Copenhagen, 1962).

37. Ian Snaith, Regulating Industrial and Provident Societies: Co-operation and Community Benefit, in Regulating Enterprise: Law and Business Organisation in the UK, ed. David Milman (Oxford, 1999), 163–95.

38. Schulze-Delitzsch’s proposal encountered initial resistance from conservative politicians, who regarded cooperatives as the expression of a radical, democratizing movement. For details on the process that led to the passing of the Prussian law on cooperatives, see Tucker, Donald S., The Evolution of People’s Bank (New York, 1922)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and James Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1978), 91–94.

39. The cooperative sector feared that the legislation would function as an instrument of government control, and thus pressured the government to introduce substantial alterations to the original proposal. See Hubert-Valleroux, Pierre, Les associations coopératives en France et a l’étranger (Paris, 1884), 230 Google Scholar; Des sociétés de coopération et de leur constitution légale (Paris, 1865); and Lucien Coutant, L’évolution du droit coopératif de ses origines à 1950 (Reims, 1950).

40. Ivan Emelianoff, Economic Theory of Cooperation: Economic Structure of Cooperative Organizations (Davis, CA, 1995), 1–12.

41. Brett Fairbairn, “The Meaning of Rochdale: The Rochdale Pioneers and the Co-operative Principles,” Occasional Paper Series, Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, 1994. Retrieved from http://purl.umn.edu/31778.

42. João de Andrade Corvo, Economia política para todos (Lisboa, 1881).

43. Decree law n. 267, of November 23, 1865.

44. João de Andrade Corvo, “Draft law n. 20F (Cooperative societies), explanatory statement,” Official Gazzette of the Portuguese Government, February 22, 1867, 543–45, at 544.

45. Andrade Corvo, “Draft law n. 20F,” 545.

46. Cooperative Societies Act of 1867, article 3 (n. 1), article 20, and article 21. See Collecção de documentos, 26–31.

47. Cooperative Societies Act of 1867, article 7 (n. 8), and Model Bylaws for Consumer Cooperatives, article 17. See Collecção de documentos, 26–31 and 36–41.

48. The journal appeared simultaneously in France and Belgium under the tile “Le Travail: Organe international des intêrêts de la classe laborieuse, revue du mouvement coopératif.” It was first published in July 1866 and discontinued two years later.

49. Andrade Corvo, “Draft law n. 20F,” 544.

50. Saving banks had been established by a government decree at the dawn of Portuguese liberal monarchy to broaden the access to financial services to the working classes. Unlike cooperatives, these banks were managed by state-appointed officials and therefore relatively outside the influence of depositors. See Costa Goodolphim, A Previdência, 137–51.

51. See, for example, Auguste Casimir-Périer, Les sociétés de coopération, La consommation, le crédit, la production, l’amélioration morale et intellectuelle par l’association (Paris, 1864), 29; Des sociétés de coopération, 4.

52. Andrade Corvo, “Draft law n. 20F,” 544.

53. Chamber of the Gentlemen Deputies of the Portuguese Nation, “Draft Law n. 46 (Cooperative societies), joint opinion of the Committee on Commerce and the Arts and the Committee on Civil Law,” Official Gazzette of the Portuguese Government, June 7, 1867, 1803–4, at 1803.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Chamber of the Most Worthy Peers of the Realm, “Draft Law n. 168 (Cooperative societies), joint opinion of the Committee on Legislation and Agriculture, and the Committee on Commerce and the Arts,” Official Gazzette of the Portuguese Government, July 19, 1867, 1990–91, at 1990. The Peers initially proposed two minor technical changes to Andrade Corvo’s bill; one was to ease the process of registration of new ventures (article 3, n. 1), and the other to eliminate the provision mandating the government to develop model bylaws for different types of cooperatives (article 20). These proposed amendments were briefly discussed on June 19, 1867, but were ultimately dismissed so as not to delay the passage of the legislation.

59. See Ministerial Orders (Portarias) of July 25, 1867, and of October 3, 1871. The full text of the consumer and housing bylaws can be found in Collecção de documentos, 36–41 and 64–71. The model statutes for credit cooperatives were published in Collecção official da legislação portugueza (Lisboa, 1873), 73–95.

60. See Spognardi, Andrés, “Cooperatives and Social Capital: A Theoretically-Grounded Approach,” CIRIEC Journal of Public, Social and Cooperative Economy 97 (2019), 313–36. doi: 10.7203/CIRIEC-E.97.12563 Google Scholar.

61. Collecção de documentos, 80.

62. Ibid., 59.

63. Cf. note 3.

64. From the organizational statutes and the reports that appeared in the worker press, it emerges that most cooperatives were multipurpose; more often than not, they combined various branches of economic activity (e.g., consumption, production, and credit) with mutual aid services and even cultural and social events.

65. Costa Goodolphim, A Previdência, 50.

66. O Protesto Operário, n. 29, September 21, 1884, 2, pp. 1–2; n. 30, September 28, 1884, p. 4.

67. Villaverde Cabral, O desenvolvimento, 277.

68. This conclusion is further reinforced by the fact that not all the extant cooperatives served the interests of the working class. Some of them had been founded by civil servants or members of the state bureaucracy, sometimes with some intervention of state organs on the management of the cooperative affairs. See Costa Goodolphim, A Associação, 140; Costa Goodolphim, A Previdência, 65.

69. In 1881, the worker members of the pioneer Associação Fraternal dos Fabricantes de Tecidos e Artes Correlativas earned an average of 300 réis per day. The employees of the Fábrica de B. Daupias and Cia.—a large textile company from Lisbon—had wages in the range of 600 to 1,000 réis per day. Comissão Central Directora do Inquérito Industrial, Inquérito industrial de 1881. Inquérito directo, segunda parte: visita às fábricas, Livro primeiro (Lisboa, 1881), 132 and 166.

70. According to the industrial survey of 1881, the workers of the Cooperativa Indústria Social received an average daily wage of 800 réis. The workers of L. Dauphinet and Castay—a capitalist firm in the metal-working sector from Lisbon, with similar levels of capitalization and sales—received an average daily wage of 1,000 réis. See Comissão Central Directora do Inquérito Industrial, Inquérito industrial de 1881, 224 and 230.

71. See, for example, Da Costa, Elementos.

72. Costa Goodolphim, Associação, 115; Oliveira, César, O Socialismo em Portugal, 1850–1900: Contribuição para o estudo da filosofia política do socialismo em Portugal na segunda metade do século XIX (Porto, 1973), 146–56Google Scholar.

73. When the workers began to perceive that their interests were not congruent with those of the ruling class, Portugal started to witness an unprecedented wave of labor protests. Some strikes were followed by mass layoffs, and fired workers found themselves encouraged by emergent socialist organizations and leaders to establish their own production cooperatives. See Tengarrinha, “As greves em Portugal,” 583–84; “Os serões,” O Protesto, n. 69, December 1876, 1.

74. Gneco, Azedo, “Letter to Friedrich Engels, April 4, 1876,” in 13 cartas de Portugal para Engels e Marx, ed. César De Oliveira (Lisboa, 1978), 59–66 Google Scholar, at 65.

75. A few cooperatives formed by members of the military operated informally until 1886, when the Minister of War set specific provisions to regulate their operations. By 1889 there were 12 military cooperatives, with a total of 579 members. See Costa Goodolphim, A Previdência, 69; Statutory Order of the Ministry of War, July 1, 1886.

76. O Protesto Operário was established in 1882, from the merger of the preexisting O Protesto and O Operário.

77. “Os empregados públicos fundaram também uma cooperativa,” O Protesto Operário, n. 340, November 4, 1888, 1.

78. “As cooperativas,” O Protesto Operário, n. 340, n. 343, November 25, 1888, 1.

79. Ramos Lourenço positioned himself toward the more moderate end of the socialist spectrum. More radical anticapitalist movements took an even harsher stance against cooperatives. From the pages of their press organ, for example, the anarchists dismissed the cooperative model altogether, condemning it as “harmful to the movement for labor’s emancipation.” See “Aos operários,” A Revolução Social: órgão communista-anarquista, November 1887, Número programma, 4.

80. João Ramos Lourenço, cited in O Protesto Operário, n. 323, July 1, 1888, 3.

81. Spognardi, Andrés, “The Rise and Fall of Industrial Self-management in Portugal: A Historical Institutionalist Perspective,” Journal of Labor and Society 22, n. 3 (2019), 589–605. doi: 10.1111/wusa.12400 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Marie, Pierre, “Les entreprises autogérées au Portugal. De la Révolution des oeillets à l’économie sociale,” RECMA, Revue internationale de l’économie sociale, 342 (2016), 86–100. doi: 10.7202/1038128ar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar