Semi-peripheral Financialisation and Social Reproduction: The Case of Portugal

Abstract

Portugal, a semi-peripheral country within the world economy, has followed financialisation processes similar to and distinct from those of core countries. This article reflects on the factors that have shaped social reproduction in Portugal by examining the differentiated ways through which finance has interacted with the provision of housing, pensions and water and their variegated impacts. Based on these three case studies, the article discusses the constraints on, and pressures for, continued expansion of finance in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. It underlines the subordinated and uneven nature of Portuguese semi-peripheral financialisation, the role of European integration in its unfolding, and concludes that the promotion of the interests of finance located in major advanced capitalist countries, and of the national and international institutions under their influence, has resulted in growing social and spatial inequalities.