Police authority and popular behaviours (Lisbon, c. 1867-1910)

Abstract

The founding of the modern state implied enacting legislation designed to ensure the hegemony of state power throughout the entire extent of both the territory and the population. In seeking to instil compliance with the law and penalise any infractions, the state implemented mechanisms able to achieve such objectives. Correspondingly, in the Portuguese society of the second half of the 19th century, the establishing of police forces represented a central factor within the framework of a more global dynamic striving to build and strengthen formal mechanisms for social control and the imposition of state power. Henceforth, these police forces would play an important role in the development of the state and the domination and control that it wielded and, over the course of time, gradually substituted by other forms of policing, including measures involving popular participation within the scope of ensuring public law and order prevailed.