The construction of the Estado Novo in the editorials of the Diário da Manhã

Abstract

This article analyses the construction of the Estado Novo during the 1930s through a reading of the Editorials in the Diário da Manhã newspaper. It begins by establishing the connections between the newspaper’s appearance in 1931, the emergence of the União Nacional in 1930 and it Legislations, approved in 1932. The article then shows how the DM became the official organ of the dictatorship’s «political party» and explores how the journal presented the Estado Novo’s ideology, a nationalist reaction to the individualism and demoliberalism that had characterised the old Republic and were defeated in the Revolução Nacional. The article goes on to explain the formation of the Constitution in 1933, describes the Corporatist foundations of the República Unitária, and explains the workings of the School in the context of Carneiro Pacheco’s educational reforms. The conclusion takes the form of a brief examination of relations between Portugal and Spain between the end of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship (1931) and the end of the Civil War with the victory of the Francoist forces supported by Italy, Germany and Portugal.