Identidades e estratégias no poder local: as contrariedades da afirmação hegemónica: Identities and strategies in local Government: the contrarieties of hegemonic affirmation

Local government appears us as a place where multiple events and protagonists converge. When we enunciate its power as discourse, configured in an attempt of hegemonic affirmation, we see in this movement the moulding of the agents’ identities and strategies, which are then revealed as never entirely materialized, as subjected to contrarieties. The relevance of municipalities was here weighed in view of a questioning of the implications of the fact that these units have a marginal statute in the context of the political systems, marginality that in the Portuguese case, as some studies demonstrate, seems intensified. Therefore, in a first impression, Portuguese local governments, while displaying a discourse particularly directed to the cancellation of difference and conflict, does not seem to meet the requirements to constitute, in a democratic context, an instance of plural competition between contending political projects. However, this marginality also suggests the hypothesis that, in the field, there are significant contrasts, including some dynamics that may, in some cases, contribute for the revitalizing of local government. Therefore, we were also led to a search, mainly in the discursive level, of the different ways of living and saying this power, looking for to establish a bridge between the diversity of theoretical perspectives and the plurality of forms that the presence of local government assumes.