The sea as a foreign policy goal? The case of Portugal
| Autor | Pedro Ponte e Sousa |
| Páginas | 715-736 |
715715
CHAPTER 27
The sea as a foreign policy goal?
The case of Portugal
Pedro PONTE E SOUSA*
* PhD candidate in Global Studies. Department of Political Studies, Faculty of
Social Sciences and Humanities, New University of Lisbon (FCSH-UNL).
Researcher at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI).
E-mail: pedrosousa_pps@hotmail.com. e author would particularly like to
thank João Almeida Silveira (New University of Lisbon, Portuguese Institute
of International Relations) for his extensive and constructive criticism of the
arguments presented here.
Summary: 1. I. 2. T P :
. 3. T P -
: . 4. C . 5. R.
1. INTRODUCTION
In Portuguese foreign policy, three pillars have been identied and
described as the more signicant axis of action, with its main features
clear even throughout time, encompassing Europe, the Atlantic, and re-
716 RETOS PRESENTES Y FUTUROS DE LA POLÍTICA MARÍTIMA INTEGRADA DE LA UNIÓN EUROPEA
PEDRO PONTE E SOUSA
lations with the Portuguese speaking countries, each of these pillars be-
ing responsible for more economic and political, defense, or cultural pol-
icies. Currently, these signify respectively, membership of the European
Union and other international organizations, membership of NATO
and the preferential alliance with the United States, and post-colonial
relations, structured in the Community of Portuguese Speaking Coun-
tries – CPLP.
In recent years, some authors have claimed that the sea/ocean/At-
lantic1 should play a key role in the structure and/or goals of the Portu-
guese foreign policy. ey claim that such connection has been lost for
decades but needs to be restored, as to strengthen Portugal’s internation-
al stance. For instance,
«Portugal will only achieve a more favorable position in its various alignments
if it presents itself as worth for its singularities and for the connections that it
can provide in other parts of the world, and it is essential here the resurgence
of the Atlantic axis as a compensating and dierentiating element» (Sá, 2015:
77-78)2.
1 We will use these terms interchangeably throughout the text.
2 «(…) Portugal só conseguirá uma posição mais favorável nos seus vários alin-
hamentos se se apresentar como valendo pelas suas singularidades e pelas
ligações que possa proporcionar noutras partes do mundo, sendo aqui essen-
cial o ressurgimento do eixo atlântico como elemento compensador e difer-
enciador» (translated by the author). It should be noted that this view ts
particularly well with the idea of ‘network as power’ rather than ‘strength as
power’, which some authors claim to be the biggest change in contemporary
foreign policy and national interest (T, 2016). In short, «simple, close,
terriatoralized models for national strategies» focused in «stable, unidirec-
tional and bilateral external aliances», as well as ‘strength as power’ (or, in
other words, the idea of ‘hard-power’) are replaced by «more complex, exi-
ble, multidirectional and multilateral national strategies, and to the presence,
inuence and control of transnational ows», with ‘network as power’ (or, in
other words, an idea in some ways similar to that of ‘soft-power’) (T,
2016: 145, 148).
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