The Cooperative Movement in Portugal beyond the Revolution: Housing Cooperatives between Shifting Tides

This article analyses the development of the housing cooperative movement in Portugal from the 1974 revolution to the present day. It is driven by the desire to answer historically grounded questions concerned with the impact of the democratization process and the democratic experience in the path taken by Portuguese cooperatives. As such, the study deals with particular issues rather than large-scale structures, processes and patterns of change and does not aim to make broad generalizations. The strategy is essentially interpretive, since the main focus is on the culturally determined intentions of the agents involved in the process, gathered through interviews with relevant actors and documental analysis.