With the level of intensity that we know today, globalisation is a relatively recent phenomenon. However, we have to go back to the 15^th century to uncover the origins of this process. The Portuguese discoveries campaign gave rise to a new era and prompted globalization.

Globalisation does not have a consensual definition and is often applied incorrectly. Due to its almost excessive use in qualifying new phenomena, it is starting to become saturated. Since the distance between all and nothing is very short, and due to it being used to define almost everything, the word globalisation is losing its meaning.

However, we can say it is a process of intensification of the social, economic and political relations, of mobility growth, and increase of information and knowledge dissemination. This enables the approach of remote agents and countries, emphasising interdependence at different levels [1] .

Interdependence can be seen as situations in which actors or events mutually affect each other in different parts of a system. It means mutual dependence [2] . This mutual dependence is a result of the intensification of the relations between those actors and the increasing complexity thereof.

However, the current state of the globalisation/interdependence process owes a lot to the advances in science and the technological applications that support several spheres, amongst which communications and transportation. As the costs associated to these applications have decreased, their use became more widespread by an increasingly greater number of individuals. The massification outcome in the use of new technologies results in the growth and intensification of interdependence.

By minimising the difficulties associated to distance, the advances in science have therefore allowed the globalisation intensity to increase, thereby changing the acquired concepts of time and space. These advances have not had a perfect development, however – there have been stages in which the driving forces have been stronger.

Hence, where has this topic, covered by this edition of Thema Questions, come from?

According to Malcolm Waters, “the globalisation path, such as we are currently experiencing, started in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, «at the beginning of modern age». It was around that time that humanity became aware that it lived in a globe”. Waters also states that “[...] until then, the inhabitants of Eurasia, Africa and Australia totally ignored each other’s existence” [3] . 

These peoples first came into contact with each other as a result of the Portuguese discoveries. As a driving force to the globalisation process, the discoveries should only be compared in terms of relevance to the most recent developments in science and technology, which have materialized not just in faster means of transport, but above all in the new information and communication instruments, from satellite transmission to the Internet.

Also at the time, the developments in science and the application of new technologies were the aspects that created the supporting basis for the Portuguese campaign. Portugal’s maritime expansion project was aimed at creating an alternative to the trade monopoly that Venice held at the time. Portugal therefore needed to discover and control alternative trade routes. In this his way, the country furnished itself with the means to cope with such a large undertaking.

In order to achieve his objectives, Prince Henry created the famous Sagres School, which he would later run. Sagres School became the most advanced navigation study and research centre of the time, gathering experts in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, navigation, geography, cartography and construction of maritime instruments.  Sagres School was the starting point from where the navigation pilots set off to fulfil the discoveries campaign.

With groundbreaking knowledge and instruments for the time, as well as innovative ships, Portuguese navigators opened the way to the knowledge that other continents existed, and to the communication between the different regions of the world. 

In the XV century, they left the scantiness of their territory in the Iberian Peninsula and made their way southwards, progressively following the African coast. The successful navigators returned to Portugal to prepare new exploratory missions. Within the scope of this campaign, they kept on continuously arriving at unknown places.

Some feats achieved by Portuguese navigators:

-          In 1434, Gil Eanes sailed beyond Cape Bojador.

-          In 1455-56, Cadamosto arrived at Cape Verde Islands.

-          In 1471-72, João de Santarém and Pedro Escobar discovered São Tomé e Príncipe.

-          In 1487, Bartolomeu Dias managed to successfully round the Cape of Good Hope, after former unsuccessful attempts that took the life of many navigators.

-          In 1492-98, João Fernandes Lavrador and Pedro de Barcelos arrived at Greenland and Newfoundland.

-          In 1498, Vasco da Gama arrived at Calecute, in India. He left Portugal in 1497 and returned only in 1499.

-          In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral arrived in Brazil.

-          We were the first Europeans to trade with China and Japan.

-          There are some historic elements that refer that we were the first ones to have had contact with Australia [4] .

These discoveries were possible particularly due to the development of innovative ships – vessels and caravels impelled by sails and with pioneer navigation instruments – and the skill of pilots who had graduated from Sagres School. Later, the trade route controlled by Portugal started being patrolled by another type of ship, which also portrayed the naval development of Portugal – the galleons.

About half a century after Vasco da Gama completed the first all-water trade route between Europe and Asia, Portugal had already established a wide network of fortresses along the way. Modelski mentions that if we compare a map of 1550 displaying the global distribution of Portuguese fortresses, this distribution will not be very different from a contemporary map portraying the network of military bases of the United States abroad [5] .

In 1515, a considerable infrastructure had already been established overseas. That infrastructure constituted a rudimentary global political system, involving fortresses, alliances, a regulation method and later a maritime patrol system that protected transit ships along the trade route.

Later on, around 1540, with an already consolidated presence in the East, we created the Portuguese State of India, which was a political and administrative entity separate from Portugal, ruled by a viceroy that had almost all the powers. The first fortresses were established and the purely diplomatic and mercantile presence gradually became more military in nature.

Around that time, when we had already consolidated positions along the coast of Africa, the colonization of Brazil began. With it, a communication system started operating between different locations.

For almost a century, Portugal held an international leadership position and from that it shaped the evolution of world politics towards globalisation. Modelski uses the term global leadership without intending to refer to leadership as of world empire or hegemony, due to normally being associated to political domination or economic supremacy.  In the Portuguese case, it was not about that kind of leadership:

“By leadership I mean being first in (that is, innovating), and contributing substantially to, resolving critical global problems, and to building global political structures in response to such problems. In the XV century, that would mean leading in discovery and exploration; that which in Portuguese history goes by the name of «descobrimentos», was the first inkling of the possibility of a global system in a network mode, a system for facilitating and regulating oceanic and inter-continental exchanges without world empire” [6] .

When promoting the discoveries, Portugal incited globalisation, insofar as it created the first intercontinental communications and trade system by sea, an alliance system, and the embryo on an economic integration system between Europe and the colonies in Africa, the East and Brazil.

Until today Portugal still has a legacy from those times of supremacy. An example of this is the number of Portuguese-speaking people in the world. According to data published by UNESCO in 1999, Portuguese is the 6^th mother tongue most widely spoken in the world, with about 170 million speakers. It holds the position of being the 3^rd most widely spoken European language, with the particularity of having a greater number of speakers outside the country of origin [7] . For a country with only 10 million inhabitants, this is a very important factor in terms of external affairs. The proximity of contact through the language, as well as a common past, is a valuable potential in the relationship between the eight countries [8] sharing it.

Being in the forefront of progress in science is one of the main factors that, associated to conditions of stability, organisation and favourable circumstances within an external environment, determine the leadership of a political organisation. This was valid at the beginning of the globalization process, the same way it still is today. Portugal lost its leadership mainly due to having been surpassed by other countries in navigation techniques.

In the 15^th century, sailing in the caravels, or nowadays surfing the web, it has been the progress of science that has enabled the discovery of new oceans. It was as fascinating at that time as it is today. At present, with the number of scientists currently developing their activity supported by consistent R&D projects, it is natural that new oceans are more frequently discovered, and that new driving forces are successively and continuously encouraged towards globalisation.

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Portuguese Version