To evaluate democracies can be a hard task. Mostly, because there is no common acceptation of what is a "bad" or a "good" democracy. This point is, especially because of the previous idea, difficult to scrutinize. Nevertheless, we can make an attempt to better assess democracies if we consider their decision-making process, its control and, the way policy production (legislative behavior) fulfills citizen's demands.

Should we consider that exists different processes in what respects decisions in times of crises, or not? That national strategies are atypical in periods of economical crisis or constraints seems quite observable, but the strategic course of action is also dissimilar?

We plan to test empirically this legislative points analyzing policy preferences of executives in Portugal. Our test will have a time interval of 27 years (Portuguese data) and will count with distinct executives and unlike periods of time, what can give us a broader and more robust audition of our discussion.