This paper discusses a multifaceted notion of security, combining both its social and its civil dimension. Whereas official surveys and barometers of security for the last decade reveals that the majority of the population in Portugal considers this a secure country in terms of criminality, it also shows that citizens, in terms of their daily lives and immediate worries, are increasingly concerned with unemployment or precarious social and economic conditions. Therefore, the present crisis is not limited to its economic dimension. The dramatic impact on the European social model has also turned it into a social crisis, causing the breakdown of the models of social reproduction built over the last decades, bringing into question not only markets but also institutions and social relations.
This presentation discusses the relations between internal security policies and economic and social circumstances, defining both the weight of policies and the role played by the state in providing for social security of its citizens, as well as how the rule of law insures civil security of different populations, when the discourse of the state of emergency – used to justify harsher political measures, at the expenses of civil rights and liberties – is becoming an endemic feature of Portuguese society.
