Who governs? Portugal and the new webs of global governance

José Manuel Pureza

The post-Westphalian map of governance
is being turbulently elaborated. The modern
institutional and regulatory culture
persists, but now in combination with
processes of internationalization of political
authority which deprive the State of
its monopoly in this matter. The “global
web” is the metaphor for this multiplicity
of levels of global governance.
The insertion of Portugal into this process
of transformation is ambivalent. On the
one hand, it continues to occupy a subaltern
position in the world stage, something
which is especially evident in the direction
taken by most of the recent institutional
reforms in what concerns the denationalization
of the State. However, on the other
hand, Portugal is also associated with signs
of new formulas for international governance,
characterized by a militant articulation
between the State and the non-State
for the defense of an agenda that will
change international relations.