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1. The Atlantic Centrality of the Azores

Author:
Jose Manuel Bolieiro
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Human history has centered on strengthening relations between communities and taking advantage of political circumstances based upon economic, social, and cultural factors. These relationships stem from the capacity for mobility that gives human beings their planetary status. The Azores, an archipelago of nine islands in the center of the North Atlantic, have played a decisive role in affirming the international community since the fifteenth century. Inhabited by the Portuguese, these islands proved to be a beneficial support point for the imperialist aspirations of the small European state, which has always shown a great maritime vocation. In the national context, the Azores have, on several occasions, come to the fore in significant events throughout Portugal’s history. In the sixteenth century, following the dynastic crisis initiated by King Sebastião’s death and the legitimate succession of Felipe II of Castile, the Azores were the last bastion of the movement actively seeking to prevent the establishment of a personal union under Spanish monarchy. Although the islands’ resistance was short-lived, the historic feat in defense of Portugal’s sovereignty against the imperialist aspirations of its Iberian neighbor endured in Portuguese collective memory.
Topic:
Development, History, Geopolitics, Autonomy, and Geography
Political Geography:
Portugal, Atlantic Ocean, and Azores

2. The performance of the Portuguese Armed Forces and the relevance of military capabilities in 21st century: The different perspectives of citizens and militaries

Author:
Paulo Jorge Gomes
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
A high performance level in a public organisation is fundamental. The Portuguese Armed Forces can influence the environment, both external and internal, and should therefore have a high performance level and adequate development of military capabilities. For that, it is fundamental to understand the importance of military capabilities for combatting the threats of the 21st century. This paper aims to analyse the influence of military capabilities for combating the current threats and risks in fulfilling the various operations, and for optimising the performance of the Portuguese Armed Forces. A quantitative analysis was carried out from citizen and military convenience samples through correlations between variables, as well as measures of central tendency like mean and standard deviation. The results show that the development of military capabilities has a positive effect on the performance of the Portuguese Armed Forces, combatting conventional threats and risks, as well as threats to civil protection. This capabilities performance is related with the execution of military operations (external and internal). Therefore, a proper development of military capabilities (output) with a special focus on human resources and privilege and the efficiency and quality of the missions (outcomes) are essential to combat the threats of the 21st century.
Topic:
History, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, Economic Security, and Perception
Political Geography:
Europe and Portugal

3. Brazilian Foreign Policy from Lisbon to Bandung

Author:
Marcelo Alves de Paula Lima
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
Drawing from constructivist scholarship, this article dwells on the relations between Brazil and the Afro-Asian world based on the writings of diplomat Adolpho Justo Bezerra de Menezes, who advocated a larger commitment of the Brazilian foreign policy to the Global South. The author acted both as a norm entrepreneur who problematized Brazilian belonging to the West and a practical-intuitive historian who used the past to show that the ties uniting Brazil to Asia and Africa were tighter than those uniting it to Europe.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, History, Global South, Constructivism, and Adolpho Justo Bezerra de Menezes
Political Geography:
Africa, Asia, Brazil, South America, and Portugal

4. La génesis ibérica del moderno poder naval (The Iberian Genesis of Modern Sea Power)

Author:
Manuel Vila González
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
En las postrimerías del siglo XV surgió de la mano de los dos pueblos ibéricos atlánticos una revolucionaria aproximación al uso en beneficio propio del mar, caracterizada por tener que enfrentarse al reto de la navegación oceánica y de la exploración de nuevas tierras, algo jamás siquiera concebido con anterioridad. Como ya había ocurrido en otras etapas históricas con otros protagonistas, la principal motivación para lanzarse al mar fue económica. Sin embargo, la escala geográfica del empeño en esta ocasión dio lugar a una nueva era, caracterizada tanto por un acelerado desarrollo científico como por una globalización del comercio, de la política, de la tecnología y de la cultura (el lenguaje, la educación y el cristianismo). Portugal conquistó los océanos con el ánimo de establecer una red de enclaves comerciales, creando el molde de lo que desde entonces se ha considerado el lógico proceder de las potencias marítimas, empeñadas en moverse con libertad por los mares que unen las colonias con la metrópoli. De esa guisa, lo que desde hace apenas poco más de un siglo se denomina poder naval no era sino la parte del poder marítimo que se encargaba de proteger el comercio propio de la ambición ajena. España, sin embargo, acometió una epopeya similar con una mentalidad más territorial (y más patrimonial), debido a la cual los mismos océanos pasaron a ser considerados parte integrante de las posesiones monárquicas como vínculo que unía las distintas partes del reino. Esa asunción engendró un concepto nuevo de poder naval, por el que en tiempo de paz complementaba al poder marítimo, que se convertía en tributario del primero en caso de conflicto bélico. Lo que los tratadistas clásicos anglosajones (Alfred T. Mahan y Julian S. Corbett, en particular) describieron como poder marítimo y naval al estudiar la historia basándose en fuentes documentales británicas no es más que la trasposición de los principios que rigieron la constitución del Portugal renacentista en una talasocracia de ámbito planetario. El caso español es mucho más complejo, pues no solo fue igualmente ignorado en los estudios histórico-estratégicos tardo-decimonónicos y posteriores (no solo anglosajones, lo que es aún más inexplicable), sino que se mantiene en la bruma de lo inexplorado al no haber tenido continuidad histórica reconocida, lo que ha contribuido a impedir una comprensión adecuada de la dimensión histórica del éxito (por su resiliencia, durabilidad, prosperidad…) del “imperio” de la Monarquía Hispánica.
Topic:
Navy, History, Maritime, and Seapower
Political Geography:
Europe, Spain, and Portugal

5. The Ambiguity Towards Portugal’s African Colonies (1953-1985): Defining Aspects of Brazil’s African Policy

Author:
Kamilla Raquel Rizzi and Patrick Bueno
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
The Portuguese colonization, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, was the first bond established between Brazil and the African continent, and it was especially deepened by the slave trade. With the Brazilian independence in 1822, as well as with the end of the slave trade across the Atlantic, between 1845 and 1850, there was a gradual movement away from said continent, once the imperial foreign policy axis was now directed towards the River Plate, to the South, as well as to England, Western Europe and the North of the global system. In the 20th century, along with the two World Wars, the creation of the United Nations, and the Cold War, Brazil’s international projection was drawn according to the opportunities presented in this new world system. The aim of the present paper is thus to analyze the ambiguity between Brazilian political discourse and foreign practice with regard to the Portuguese colonies. The research problem consists in identifying which aspects have exerted an influence on the definition of Brazil’s African policy. As a research question, it is assumed that Brazil, since the Independent Foreign Policy (IFP), with its discourse of non-alignment with the powers of the world system, the identification with the Third Worldist theses, and based on the politics of the “3Ds” (development, decolonization and disarmament), supported the anti-colonial principle and was an advocate for the self-determination of peoples. However, an ambiguity was evident by the official political alignment with Portugal, due to the 1953 Treaty of Friendship and Consultation.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, History, and Colonialism
Political Geography:
Africa, Brazil, and Portugal

6. Uses, Reuses and Abuses: Crossing “Borders” and “Luso-Africanities” in the Historiographies of Angola, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau for the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries

Author:
Alec Ichiro Ito
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
Contrary to a historiographical study, this article is an essayistic reflection on some notions and understandings that run through African studies about the Portuguese expansion in West and Central West Africa. Therefore, we will not dwell on the conditions of production, ideological affiliations or trends that competed for the elaboration of historical narratives, but on the “itinerant sharing” of ideas, the circularity of conceptual uses and reuses and the “general solutions” provided for some canonical problems. In this sense, we are influenced by a reflection proposal presented by Leila M. G. Leite Hernandez (2014). Our objects of analysis are the most influential works that address the stories of Angola, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau for the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. What are the shares and circularities that mesh the notions of border and Luso-Africanity? How are these ideas associated with meetings and contact studies? Is the notion of boundary necessary for the contemporary epistemic paradigm? Are there risks in neglecting it? These are some of the problems that will be analysed through the text.
Topic:
History, Colonialism, Borders, and Geography
Political Geography:
Africa, Portugal, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Cabo Verde

7. From Mandela to Zuma: The Importance of the Southern Atlantic Region for South Africa’s Foreign Policy

Author:
Anselmo Otavio
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
As it is known, Ceuta’s conquest by Portugal in 1415 initiated the discovery and, consequently, strategic transformation of the Southern Atlantic region by European powers. It is important to consider, first, that these actions were a process, since from the 14th century the necessary conditions for maritime expansion were being created by Portugal. Secondly, the arrival at Ceuta represented not the end, but the beginning of a phase marked by the search for an alternative maritime route that would connect Europe to India and would grant the Portuguese Crown access to spices from India’s territory. Although this process was initiated by Portugal, it is a fact that, throughout the centuries, countries like Spain, the Netherlands and England have also pursued the same development. From then, the territories belonging to the South Atlantic coast have been impacted by European powers, since, due to colonization, they were encompassed by different political and economic dynamics. While Lisbon connected Brazilian and Angolan territories through a relationship based on the purchase and sale of slave labor, the Netherlands at first, England later, comprised the Cape Colony to the Afro-Asian dynamic, keeping this territory’s interactions circumscribed to their respective colonies in the Asian side.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, History, and Colonialism
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, and Portugal

8. Crown, Empire and Nation (1807-1834)

Author:
Miriam H. Pereira
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Before 1807, in Portugal the new liberal ideals had mainly an indirect influence, reflected in the enlightened elite. The wave of a more profound political change came about only in the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the whole Iberian area was involved in the European wide struggle between old regime and the new liberal society and state, that was enhanced by the Napoleonic wars. Between 1807 and 1820, Portugal went through one of the most complex period of its whole History, when the British informal occupation of twelve years, followed the French invasion, short but very destructive. The Crown survived in the hands of the House of Bragança and kept Brazil and the rest of the its colonial territories for over a decade. This makes the Portuguese and Brazilian history of this period somewhat different from that of both Spain and its American colonies. It provides an interesting case for the study of the evolution of three main institutions and political concepts involved in the end of the Old Regime: the Crown, the Empire and the Nation, whose changes during this period are analysed in this paper..
Topic:
Civil Society and History
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, America, Europe, Brazil, South America, and Portugal