About

Our mission is to:

In a rapidly changing world, our think tank aims to develop research, policy papers and education on the rules-based global order founded on the three main pillars of liberal democracies: the rule of law, checks and balances and free speech. Those have been the foundations for the achievements that we prize in the Western world, and that so many people in other regions fight for: Peace in most of our countries for one of the longest periods in history, the decline in violence and in poverty, the advance of women and minorities’ rights.

The rules-based global order is being challenged on many fronts: the retrenchment of the US, Brexit, the growing paralysis of its institutions such as the WTO, external competition from regions with alternative values and rules. At the same time, the many trade agreements that the EU and other countries and regions negotiated over the last few years suggest that multilateralism, though not striving, is not quite dead yet. Nevertheless, as we look into the future, we must know that change is inevitable.

First, we need to rethink the global order’s institutional setting. Since WW2, links were based on States and large supra-national institutions such as the European Union and the World Bank, who act mostly as fora for international cooperation and debate amongst States. Many of those institutions urgently need reform. Crucially, we need to include in the multilateral debate emerging countries and a broader base of civil society groups and associations, companies and universities.

Second, we need to find ways to engage with competitor models of governance. How do we deal with States that trade internationally but uphold very different, sometimes opposing values to those that are the founding pillars of liberal democracies: the rule of law, checks and balances to power and free speech? Do we engage, do we challenge them or do we attempt to find a balance of power? How do we face up to regions that have leaped in technological development and innovation?

Finally, we need to tackle global challenges such as global warming or the effects of digitalisation, effectively, finding opportunities for smart green development, and not losing sight of the core values of liberal democracies and multilateralism.

The objective of our think tank is to engage the civil society, academia and businesses in looking for answers to some of these challenges.

As we reach the middle of the decade, we also reach a moment of intermediate assessment of the transformations that the 20s of the 21st century bring us. The preliminary conclusion is that these could well be a true transformation of global society, marked not only by the many rapid transformations in industry and technology, but also in the habits and standards of society. Taking due account of the differences, the first years of this decade have already brought significant change compared to the world we knew at the beginning of 2020. Since the beginning of the decade, we have experienced events with an impact on a global scale: a health pandemic, the return of war to Europe and a new iron curtain between west and east, economic turmoil and return of inflation to the developed world, changes in trade and geopolitical patterns considered traditional.

Will these trends that have shaped the world as we know it continue? And at what pace? The climate emergency remains alive, as does the need for developed countries to combat growing inequalities and worsening social tensions. At a societal level, the need for discussion around the implementation of a renewed social pact and measures to restore the credibility of democratic institutions in the West increases. At the same time, there are technological transitions that require complex decisions on the part of institutions and political decision-makers given their potential to bring great benefits, but also enormous challenges and risks for society.

The world is changing rapidly on a number of fronts, whether due to technological innovations that can shape and create risks in the social structure or given the clock against which the implementation of various measures depends on the ability of different states to act within a framework of international cooperation. These structural changes will require a series of public policy responses, and greater demands regarding the involvement of the private sector. But above all, they require the creation of an ecosystem of cooperation between countries that allows access to clean energy technologies and reliable capital to implement measures that conflict with economic and industrial interests. The responses to a new situation will result from a delicate exercise of balancing wills in a scenario marked by military conflicts that will have to migrate to the sphere of diplomacy and by the return of the iron curtains between West and East, at a time when the economy will feed greater political polarization, and regional inequalities in access to means and resources can also lead to greater situations of future conflict and less cooperation. These will undoubtedly be complex factors to manage, but decisive for cooperation on the crucial challenges of this decade at a global level.

The International Affairs Network will seek to promote positive reflection by society on the challenges of this decade, focusing on Portugal’s position in the face of a Europe undergoing social and economic change, with the aim of contributing to this structural debate.