Translating fascism in Portugal: Mainstream dailies and authoritarian stabilisation (1922-1928)

Abstract

This study analyses how authoritarian ‘stabilisation’ became publicly thinkable in Portugal from 1922 to 1928 via a connected press. Using Diário de Notícias and O Século as primary sources (1922-1928) and the Italian Corriere della Sera as an external counterpoint, it reconstructs the framings through which Italian fascism circulated as a repertoire of order, discipline, and executive insulation. This study shows that regime change hinged less on activist minorities than on shifts within mainstream arenas of legitimacy targeting urban literate audiences. It argues that repeated press narration normalised exceptional solutions as national ‘corrections’, facilitating the passage from parliamentary crisis to dictatorship and foreshadowing Salazar’s consolidation.