Plausbility Check: Portuguese Monarchy into the present?

The capitulation of Rhodesia from the Pink Map to British pink is what caused it, so you would want to look over that. Do you mean to have it keep going until present day undisturbed, or would you allow it to be invaded like Norway where they aboloshied the monarchy or like in Spain where they set up a vacant throne? Would you accept a monarchy? Does the royal family need to remain the same? Perhaps you could try marriages with the Brazilians. *Twangs banjo*
 
Did it really cause it or was it more like the final straw? Besides just like the kingdom of the Netherlands was forced by France and Britain to recognize Belgium and to accept the end of the kingdom of the 'United' Netherlands, which resulted in the abdication of king William (Willem) I in favor of his son William (Willem) II; so will Portugal be forced to back down against Britain. Unpopular, frustrating and it will hurt the national ego, but it is the political reality. Which gives me the impression, that the Portuguese monarchy had more problems at the time.

It could either stay a monarchy with a monarch or monarchy with an empty throne like Spain or Hungary (from 1920 to 1946).

I'm not so sure about the role of the Portuguese monarch at the time, but it will more symbolic. If anything in a surviving monarchy, the king of Portugal will either have role similar to the Queen of the Netherlands or the king of Belgium with some influence or a real pure symbolic role like the king of Sweden.
 
The capitulation of Rhodesia from the Pink Map to British pink is what caused it, so you would want to look over that. Do you mean to have it keep going until present day undisturbed, or would you allow it to be invaded like Norway where they aboloshied the monarchy or like in Spain where they set up a vacant throne? Would you accept a monarchy? Does the royal family need to remain the same? Perhaps you could try marriages with the Brazilians. *Twangs banjo*

Well, the capitulation from the Pink Map was the spark that started the crisis of the monarchy, but I think it's too unidimensional and oversimplistic to explain the fall of the portuguese monarchy only with that. In fact I think we can wonder wether this capitulation wasn't a symptom rather than a cause. Leaving aside the butterflies that pushing for the Pink Map would have in portuguese history (probably for the worse) it alone wouldn't have saved the monarchy, which was rotten long before and faced many other problems.

You have to consider the effects of the deep economical crisis Portugal suffered in the late 19th century, with a bankrupcy in 1891 and how that changed the mind of the portuguese elite and their considerations about the economical governance of the country. In short, lacking credit and lossing markets for their agricultural exportations led to the reconsideration of certain politics, implementing several protectionist measures and allowing for a relative political and economical rise of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie and a growth of the internal investments. As consequence, for example, Lisbon population grew a 44% between 1890 and 1911, and Porto's a 40% in the same period (data after Fernando Rosas)

So, we have the crisis of legitimacy with the monarchy lossing traditional supporters, but also the economical crisis, a rising industrial class and a rising urban popualtion under a political system (the liberal monarchy) that restricted tremendously the political participation and was anchored in the electoral fraud, the clientelism and a power pact between the two main parties since the mid 19th century. Thus, the old structure was surpassed by the events in the 1890's and was even more surpassed by the internal evolution of Portugal in the 1910's and was apparently unable to react properly to them.

Perhaps some of the portuguese members can correct me if I have said something wrong, but it seems to me that the Pink Map episode was "only" an straw on a serioulsy wounded camel.


So, adressing the OP question, I'm not an expert in portuguese history so I can only give you a generic response, but I think you need deep structural reforms at least in the mid 19th century to avoid the 1890's crisis. Easy to say, but hard to do, I know. Otherwise, perhaps there is a possibility to avoid the final fate of the monarchy in those delicate 20 years between 1890 and 1910 if the crown tries to gain to their cause some of the traditionally marginalized social and political groups, opening the political participation (instead of restricting it even more as they did in OTL), but I guess that would also mean lossing more of the traditional supporters and trouble from them.

Cheers.

Edit: Sorry Janprimus for repeating your point about the Pink Map. I write really slowly.
 

Vitruvius

Donor
It seems agreed that it was a multi-faceted issue. I'm curious though about the consequences of retaining the monarchy under Manuel II past 1910. Unless we butterfly away the Regicide and let Luis Filipe produce an heir or assume that Manuel produces an heir as King that he wasn't able to do as pretender then the Braganca-Coburg line ends with Manuel II as it did OTL.

Would the monarchy really be continued long term if the heir was a Miguelist? Especially given the fact that they were barred from returning to Portugal under a law of banishment. Or would they try to select a distaff branch even if it was foreign. The main female lines descending from Maria II were the Kings of Saxony and the Princes of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Selecting a deposed German Prince (this would be post WWI) seems as problematic as a Miguelist. Might a succession crisis prove to be yet another 'final straw' for the monarchy?
 
It could. I am rather a fan of succession disputes, not because I like bloodshed but because I like the intricacies involved. I am intensely familiar with the disputes over the vacant thrones of France, Italy, Russia, the Two Sicilies, Saxony and even Jerusalem, plus the occupied thrones of Britain and Spain. I have a clear view on each and every one of them and am quite confident in my own mind as to who is the proper claimant/occupant. Well, maybe not Jerusalem, and Portugal also defeats me entirely, the question of who could properly claim its throne making the Schleswig-Holstein Question look like 'What is the sum of 2+2?'

However, in the event of Portugal's monarchy surviving under Manuel II and his still having no obvious heir I think a successor would have been found. The problem is that under Portugal's last monarchical constitution there is no clear heir, to put it mildly, and since Portugal is not now a kingdom that constitution is incapable of being amended. Had the kingdom continued then it would have been, in favour of one potential heir or another.

How to get Portugal's monarchy to survive I have no idea. As people have already pointed out this would depend on the country's socio-economic circumstances in the day, which I know little about, my interest being in the dynastic and legal questions. Avoiding the murder of King Carlos and his heir, so that the youthful and inexperienced Manuel was not pitchforked into the situation, surely could not have hurt, though, however dire Portugal's circumstances were.
 
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