Segurança e Defesa

Effects of Institutional Commitment, por João Marques de Almeida

As the Portuguese prime minister Mário Soares stressed, in applying for EC membership Portugal was also seeking a European and democratic identity. Likewise, after having applied for membership, Portugal became a member state of that security organisation in 1988. This turn to Europe and to its political and security institutions was, domestically, associated with democratic stability and, externally, meant Portugal’s integration in the Western European security community. To understand the impact of such an integration on Portuguese security policy, the present text – the second part of the essay fully published in the fourth number of “Cadernos do Lumiar” – discusses a few points on the concept of a pluralistic security community and how it applies to Western European security. Here, the focus is on two defining principles of such a community: pluralistic democracy and state sovereignty.