The Foz Coa rock art case: towards a new relationship between science and policy making in Portugal?

In a less-industrialised country like Portugal, the relationships between scientific expertise and the public decision-making system have been negatively marked by the low relevance assigned to science by public decision-makers and by the lack of a scientific culture in society at large. Decision-makers have shown the propensity, either to disregard scientific opinion, or to manipulate it, whenever it does not meet their political objectives. This statement is confirmed by the direction followed by science-based social and political controversies occurred in Portugal in recent years. However, in the Foz Coa rock art controversy (1994-95), pressure by Portuguese archeologists eventually led the new Government, empowered in late 1995, to lean towards their position, which favoured the preservation of the pictures, in spite of the fact that this would imply discontinuing the building up of a dam where important investments had already been made. What does this case tell us about political and administrative culture towards science in a peripheral European country, as well as about the possible consequences of contingent political change in that regard? What can be learned regarding the strategy used by scientists to put forward their claim for the rock paintings preservation? Does this case, and the decisions taken on it, announce a new era in the relationships between scientific expertise and public decision in Portugal?.