ABSTRACT
D.Corkill explores the changing nature of integration of the Portuguese economy into the European and global economy. He points to the key role played by Portugal in the historical processes leading to the creation of the global economy, but also the degree of isolation which Portugal experienced from international economic developments for a large part of the twentieth century. From this standpoint globalisation attempts to grasp the economic, political and cultural transformation of modern society resulting from increased global interconnectedness, such that flows of goods, information, ideas, capital and people are more intense, occur more rapidly, and across a wider geographical space. As Portugal seeks to establish a new place and identity within Europe, and negotiate the uneasy transition towards convergence with the economic and political structures characteristic of the modern democratic states of northern Europe, it is confronted by an array of tensions and paradoxes rooted within unfolding processes of change.
