ABSTRACT
Local communities in Portugal still believe in the power and capacity of the nation state to drive major changes in the locality, namely those imposed by globalization and sustainable development. The Portuguese nation state is simultaneously trying to cope with the deleterious consequences of economic globalization while taking advantage of emerging opportunities at various levels. However, this response requires more holistic approaches. Globalization cannot be addressed solely in its economic dimensions, and sustainability cannot be regarded exclusively as an environmental challenge. Perhaps as a consequence of this bias, national strategies to overcome the impacts of a globalizing world on sustainable development and on democracy are still lacking in Portugal. The Portuguese case studies examined here are the local community of Peniche, a coastal fishing town in the western region of mainland Portugal, and Vale do Ave, a region in the north-west heavily dependent upon the textile and clothing industry. In the last decade, both fishing and textile industry activities have been affected by challenging policies towards free trade and market liberalization, as well as by policies that might be seen in the global economic context as somewhat protectionist. This is the case of the CFP. The huge investments made in Portugal in the fisheries and textile and clothing sectors between 1989 and 1998 brought significant improvements to the communities of Peniche and Vale do Ave, mostly in terms of infrastructure. However, they had low or even negative impacts in many sustainability indicators of those local communities.
