Potugal didn't have much influence in Europe, but had tremendous influence on politics in South America, Africa, Oceania and Asia, including other european nations' policies in those world theaters.
In fact, as I said before there will always be different opinions, different point of views,
Holders of global leadership
Global leadership is, of course, an analytical concept, one that finds its anchorage in a theoretical system, and in this case, that of evolutionary world politics. It is not chiefly a term of self-designation, one that was used by those we describe here as ‘holders of global leadership” (that is, world powers). Nor was it a term of general political discourse and current usage. It is of some interest to take note of the terms that were contemporaneously used for those powers that our matrix predicts acceded to such a position at the culmination of their learning cycles, in the phase of execution.
The flexibility that is the hallmark of these leadership arrangements is reflected in the variety of terms that have denoted that phenomenon.The King of
Portugal assumed, in 1500, the title of “Lord of the Conquest, Navigation, and Trade in Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India”. That was not a claim to territorial conquest or to rule over any of these areas, but one asserting a right to control traffic and trade between the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, i.a. by means of establishing forts and trading posts in those waters. That right was in fact exercised fairly effectively over the following century, and was backed up by a the treaty of Tordesillas, that partitioned the global ocean space between Portugal and Spain. (Modelski and Modelski 1988:39-40,58).
The
Dutch Republic acted out its claim to global leadership by becoming the principal opponents of the Spanish King’s claim to “universal monarchy”, the advocate of the freedom of the seas (mare liberum) in the face of Portuguese-Spanish monopoly, and the anchor of Calvinist alliances against the Counter Reformation. Having achieved these goals, it became the emporium mundi, the center of world trade, but also the home of the Elect. In British and French eyes, though, it turned into the center of global arrogance, and in the Treaty of Dover (1670) the Dutch were condemned for daring to set themselves up as “arbiter and judge over all other potentates” (Modelski and Modelski 1988:184).
British assertions of an exceptional position in world affairs took two forms. In the European theatre, William III of Britain, the Dutch holder who ascended the English throne, laid claim “to hold the balance of Europe” (1701), and the general peace settlement of Utrecht (1713) that terminated this particular period of global war, confirmed the balance as the fundamental principle of peace, and in effect endorsed that claim. In the world at large, Britain asserted a “dominion of the seas” best expressed in the words of the popular song (1734) boasting that “Britannia rules the waves”. Both forms were reaffirmed in the Vienna treaties of 1815, that settled the affairs of Europe following the principles of balance but left extra-European matters and naval problems to British discretion.
The
United States initially assumed a role that resembled the earlier British stance; participating as one of a set of four “Great Powers” in the European settlements that followed World War II, albeit in a clearly commanding position (even more obviously so in East Asia, and on the seas and in the air). As the cold war progressed, and was seen in “super-power” terms, the term “leader of the free world” was used, and also that of “command of the seas”. In the 1990’s, “global leadership” made an appearance in Presidential statements, and most recently, the concept of “indispensable nation”, as well as that of “hyper-power”.
This makes it clear that global leadership (that needs to be contrasted with the more expansive one of ‘world leadership’) has in the real world and in political experience denoted a limited but in fact critical set of global responsibilities, involving both the defeat of imperial ambitions of continental proportion, and the condition of oceanic communications. Taking shape principally at the close of global wars, it did not amount to ruling the world but it did involve the shaping of the global layer of interactions, and assuring autonomy in the central precinct of the world system. But its continuing rights and responsibilities over the whole term of office have been left mostly unspecified, and open to continuous reinterpretation.
Does Portugal satisfy the requirements of of the concept of ‘global leadership’?
Critics who view Spain as more powerful tend to overlook the long history of Portuguese explorations and the effort deployed in mounting what were in effect the first operations of global reach. Not only was a great navy (Modelski and Thompson 1988:Ch.7) deployed over inter-continental ranges, but the other “must-dos” of aspirants to global leadership: a lead economy, an open society, and awareness of global problems (Modelski 1996; documentation in Modelski and Modelski 1988:Chapter 2) were also well in evidence.
Did Britain in fact carry through her leadership through two cycles ofglobal politics?
While writers such as Immanuel Wallerstein or Paul Kennedy have little trouble seeing Britain in a leading role, they date different periods for that condition, and do not differentiate between her two terms of office. On the present analysis, it was the Dutch led by William of Orange who, about 1689, co-opted the British into a world role, such that, with the Treaty of Utrecht, the (Georgian) 18th century became, in fact, their initial term of office. That was the time when “Anglomania” first took hold of the European imagination (Buruma1998) as shown i.a. in the writings of Voltaire or Schiller, or in the political and legal analyses of Montesquieu. Britain held the balance of power in Europe, and dominated the seas, with only one brief interruption of the War of American Independence. Hardly anyone questions the role of Britain in the (Victorian) 19th century. The issue of the two British terms of office is important because it suggests that rather than an often implied one-term tenure, the norm in contemporary global politics (also supported by the two earlier Song cycles) might be a two-term office holding"
Source,
Global leadership in an evolutionary perspective
