Social Economy in Politics: An analysis of presidential speeches in Portugal after 1976

Each country gives a different value to the social economy even if it is only compared with the private profit-seeking sector and the public sector. The weight the social economy carries in national economies will influence the relevance that is given to it by the political power, especially by the head of state. Therefore, if this head of state assigns it more or less importance, it may mean the social sector has more or less significance in the economy, or at least in the minds of future entrepreneurs. The value given by the head of state to the entities belonging to the social economy can be deduced from their speeches. In the Portuguese case, to measure the importance given by the Presidents of the Portuguese Republic to the social economy, we ran a content analysis of a total of 3,072 interventions and speeches that occurred between July 14, 1976, and December 31, 2020, which were delivered by five successive presidents. It was concluded, in general, that despite not having ignored it altogether, the presidents elected by universal suffrage after the Carnation Revolution gave a lower value to the social economy.