Coordination: João Relvão Caetano; Vice-coordination: Mário Filipe da Silva

Presentation

This Group will seek, in the first place, to contribute to the deepening of knowledge on the epistemological status of Global Studies, as a scientific area at a crossing point for different knowledges. Although a predominantly political and juridical reading of global phenomena is sought, this will always be done in dialogue with other areas of knowledge from different scientific domains. Just as important as the relations between Politics and Law and History, Education or Philosophy, from a global perspective, are their relations with, for example, the Neurosciences or Etiology, according to the best scientific tradition. We are supported not only by the work carried out by social scientists
(see, for example, the work of António Marques Bessa entitled “The idea of man in the social sciences”, 1995), but also by work on the intersection of the Social Sciences with the Natural Sciences and Engineering carried out, for example, at Caltech.

The Group’s task is also to investigate the relations between Politics and Law within the ongoing globalization process. The interactions between Politics and Law in the international community have undergone major transformations in recent decades, following the end of the Cold War and the intensifying of contacts on a global scale. Thus, traditionally, to understand the international community, we studied international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO and the European Union with their founding and framing instruments from an essentially static perspective in order to understand the international community. Today we study, for example, the relationships between sovereign states and international justice, a field in which the debate on human rights is particularly relevant, from a dynamic perspective. Also relevant are questions concerning how to enforce human rights protection instruments, whether by the UN or within the scope of military interventions, as well as the role of international courts (for example, ad hoc tribunals or the International Criminal Court).

The reality of European Union politics and law has also become much more complex in recent decades as a result of the deepening of the European integration process. Although the European Union is not a federation, European policy is the main factor in rationalising national policies, while most of the internal relations between states are regulated by European law. In this context, the European Union takes on an innovative nature compared to classic international organisations, with implications for relations not only between and with states, but also with the broader world, given that the European Union has the competence, for instance, to negotiate state-binding international agreements.

If, on the one hand, globalisation has brought greater integration between States and a new rule of law, in a framework of increasing sharing of sovereignty, on the other hand, national States continue to have interests outside the European Union. In Portugal’s case, transatlantic relations and relations within the CPLP are of particular importance. In this context, it is worth highlighting the importance of defending the Portuguese language within the CPLP as one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, and one which can contribute to the worldwide geostrategic balance.

Globalisation has also brought new sources for research interest, for example, in the field of education and sports. In the field of education, particularly in the area of higher education and science, the role of universities and reference research centres should be highlighted, as they are now important actors on a global scale, whose organisation and operation forms need to be studied. In the field of public policies, one also intends to study, and to give two examples and having Universidade Aberta’s streategic mission as reference, the policies for the promotion of distance education and language policy.

Multilingualism is what holds the human species together, which is socially separated by many languages. This statement reflects an essential idea of the social implications of languages for human relationships and various groups’ relationships among themselves. In an increasingly global society, multilingualism continues to play a key role in communication between the speakers of over 6000 languages, enabling the barriers imposed by monolingualism to be overcome. Language management (planning) implies a thorough understanding of multilingualism and social structures, as well as of the multidimensional social, demographic and, of course, political space, which thus leads to the temptation, not only by the political power but also by organized actors in civil society, to act on the linguistic phenomenon in order to enhance or reduce the influence of languages in societies, particularly in shared spaces. Studying and reflecting on these phenomena caused by the efforts by the various powers, which deliberately act to produce social changes, whether benign or not, is the research base in this area, which will be all the more relevant if it is able to contribute and interpret the contributions of the Social Sciences that inevitably interact in the phenomena that imply behavioural changes at the level of language use.

In this Global Politics and Law Group research on language rights lies at a focal point, as it has become increasingly relevant in this century.

These are just some of the topics to be developed in the Research Group, in which researchers from the fields of Political Science, International Relations, Law, Language Policy, Sociology, History, Education, as well as researchers from the Natural Sciences and Engineering, in the new fields of intersection with the Social Sciences and Humanities, are invited to participate.

Objectives

• To deepen research in the epistemological field of Global Studies, from the perspective of political and legal studies.
• To reflect on the implications of the globalization process in the reconfiguration of political and social processes and the role of actors (States, international organizations and new actors).
• To identify global problems with a political and legal dimension and set up interdisciplinary teams to solve them.
• To promote reflection on issues and problems of global politics and law.
• To promote the development of new political and legal concepts suitable for understanding the contemporary global world.
• To establish innovative dialogues in the field of contemporary political and legal thought.
• To contribute to the deepening of knowledge of public policies on science and higher education on a global scale.
• To deepen the knowledge about the role of languages in the globalization process.
• To promote joint collaborations and publications in indexed scientific journals in the areas of Global Studies, Political Studies and Law.

Projects and initiatives

• “The University in the 21ST Century.”
• “Global history of political thought in Portugal”.
• “Global history of the Portuguese language”.
• ” Diplomatic memories of Timor’s frustrated independence (1974-1976)” – already submitted to FCT.