Anti-Nuclear Mobilisation and Environmentalism in Europe: A View from Portugal (1976-1986)

Abstract

The article addresses the rise of anti-nuclear mobilisation in Portugal in the 1970s against the backdrop of similar movements across Western Europe. After performing a brief review of the literature on social mobilisation against nuclear energy, an overview is provided of the available sociological literature on environmental mobilisation in Portugal, mostly developed in a comparative southern-European perspective. The second section adds new empirical evidence on Portuguese anti-nuclear mobilisation, and its connection with environmental mobilisation, based on in-depth research conducted through both archival scrutiny and oral history interviews. In the conclusion, a fresh perspective is offered on the contribution of the Portuguese case to the advancement of research on the relationship between anti-nuclear and environmental mobilisation in Western Europe.