Resumen de Portugal and peacekeeping: a new foreign policy strategy?
Over the past few decades, and in the context of post-Cold War UN-led interventions, a number of countries have been promoting a committed and structured involvement in peacekeeping operations. As they claim positive domestic and international effects of such involvement, states are looking for specific strategies linking foreign policy goals, security issues and improving their defence capacities. Portugal is one of the cases where peacekeeping effectively changed the country's foreign policiy. It has gained a more global perspective (and allegedly explanded its global geopolitical impact), and it further linked foreign policy with security and defence interests, decreased the scope of security threats and risks, as well as improving national defence experience and aptitude. In this chapter, we will address this issue on two main levels: both how policy-makers in Portugal see, defend and adbance peacekeeping as a crucial element in the country's external action, as well as how researchers in Portuguese foreign and diplomacy as well as security and defence studies assess and analyse the participation of Portugal in such activities. We will also look into what these views would prospect, regarding the country's foreign stance, and what would they imply regarding the contemporary features of security and defence. Thus, the text will be divided in three main sections: an introduction to the issue of peacekeeping in foreign policy agendas; an historical assessment of Portugal as a security provider through peacekeeping activities; the policy-makers views on peacekeeping and how scholars perceive the same issue. Our claim is that peacekeeping can already be considered as a new strategy developed in the realm of Portuguese foreign policy (and, consequently, with goals and purposes subordinated to the strengthening of the country's foreign stance, generally speaking), despite the fact that both policy-makers' positions and the positive consequences of such strategy are not yet fully accounted for.
