From Land-Tenure Cleavage to Contentious Politics – the Intertwined Role of Catholic Church Hierarchy and Politics in Madeira Island | Da Clivagem Fundiária à Política Contenciosa

This article explores the protest events that evolved and led to popular mobilization in the Madeira Island. The long-lasting contentious tension and collective resistance amongst the local community (Ribeira Seca, Machico) vs. the Catholic Church hierarchy and regional power structures, during ex-ante and post-democratic periods were exposed throughout a process-based approach. It illuminates the waves and cycle of protest events by putting in place the historical and political context; the relation amongst the actors (institutional vs. non-institutional) involved; the mechanisms that linked those events; the claim-making and its repertoires of action, and the outcomes of contention. How does land-tenure cleavage structured politics in the Madeira Island? The findings suggest that the protests which evolved locally (Ribeira Seca, Machico) were driven by historical and territorial context and the interaction of institutional and non-institutional actors paved way to the cycles of contestation. In addition, the paths under which democratization took place and institutional dynamics, were shaped by those processes at the regional level. This article constitutes an important contribute to the understanding of the processual roots and the mechanisms that contributed to popular mobilization in Madeira Island. It also illuminate the causal pathways of Madeira Island political system over the last century, in particular the implication of the pre-existing structures to democratization and the pattern of regional democracy that we have today.