Files
Abstract
This paper examines local responses to macro processes of change that took place in Portugal during the last decade, which was highlighted by the accession of Portugal to the European Community in 1986, the revision of the Community's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 1992, and the new Agreement on International Trade (1993). A strong modernlzing impetus at the national level could not be maintained by the feeble and unprepared public and private structures in the countryside. What seems to be specific to the global-local interaction in Portuguese rural areas is the generalized inability of different strata of the rural population to take advantage of the new opportunities afforded by globalization for their own benefit. Consequently, new vulnerabilities and dependencies arose, including the abandonment of farming, the decline of traditional production, the collapse of modernizing programs, distrust of state proposals, and the general spread of a pessimistic state of mind, discontent and revolt.