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15821. La Politique Comme "Culture Sensible": Alain Corbin face à l'histoire politique

Author:
Christophe Prochasson
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Qui n'aurait de l'oeuvre d'Alain Corbin qu'une connaissance superficielle pourrait soutenir que l'étude de la politique n'y trouve guère sa place. L'historien ne s'est-il pas d'abord tourné vers l'examen attentif des structures profondes, du mental qui organise la vie de tous les jours, commande ses dérives, gouverne les sentiments et les passions qui s'y déploient? Quoi de plus contraire donc à la politique telle que ses représentations les plus communes nous la donnent aujourd'hui à voir: une activité rationnelle, où la cognition semble l'emporter sur l'émotion, lieu de la résolution technique des problèmes quotidiens, espace d'affrontements idéologiques? On pourra sans mal juger naïve cette imagerie. Elle n'en est pas moins courante. Et ce n'est rien dire qu'Alain Corbin n'y cède point! Traite-t- il pour autant la politique avec désinvolture? C'est le contraire que je souhaiterais mettre en évidence. Il y a d'ailleurs belle lurette que les lecteurs les plus attentifs de Corbin savent de quoi il retourne: il arriva même à un recenseur des Filles de noce 1 de présenter l'ouvrage comme le plus grandlivre d'histoire politique de l'année.

15822. Torpor And Rage: From Haute-Frêne to Hautefaye

Author:
Arthur Goldhammer
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Alain Corbin is a historian of astonishing range.1 Two of his works, The Life of an Unknown and The Village of Cannibals, exemplify the breadth of his historical vision. The latter reconstructs a murder that takes place in the village of Hautefaye in 1870, while the former recovers the lost world of a forgotten man who, as it happens, died within a few years of that event. The Village is thus a study of what Corbin calls, in the preface to The Life, "a fortuitous event" that casts "a brief and lurid light on the myriads of the disappeared." But such events were, as Corbin reminds us, "exceptional, products of a paroxysm offering momentary access to an underlying reality without telling us much about the torpor of ordinary existences." The torpor of ordinary existences: the phrase is striking, and it is not only an apt description of the life of Louis-François Pinagot but also an important clue to what Corbin believed was missing from the reigning schools of French historiography.

15823. Une "Histoire Au Second Degré": Le style d'Alain Corbin

Author:
Michel Beaujour
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
L'historiographie pratiquée par Alain Corbin implique, comme condition de possibilité, l'existence d'une archive d'observations "sociologiques" contemporaines des modes de vie que l'historien évoque, à son tour, dans une perspective épistémologique et idéologique propre à la fin du vingtième siècle. Il faut qu'un discours de type (pré) ethnographique, sociologique, géographique, hygiénique, médical, etc., soit constitué dès le dix-huitième et le dixneuvième siècle pour que Corbin ait la possibilité de pratiquer aujourd'hui ce qu'il appelle selon les contextes une "histoire culturelle" , une "histoire des mentalités" ou bien une "psychohistoire", etc.

15824. L'impossible Présence De L'historien

Author:
Stéphane Gerson
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Parti "sur les traces d'un inconnu" au dix-neuvième siècle, Le Monde retrouvé de Louis- François Pinagot marque, non pas un tournant, mais une étape significative dans l'oeuvre d'Alain Corbin. Ce livre détonne dans l'historiographie contemporaine, interpellant ses lecteurs dans sa conception et dans sa rhétorique. Il le fait dès ses premières pages, surtout dans ses premières pages: un "prélude" singulier, mélange de voix, de genres, de caractères typographiques qui appréhende Louis-François Pinagot, l'énigmatique sabotier percheron, dans sa présence et dans son absence. "Louis-François Pinagot a existé", lance Corbin en ouverture, avant de présenter l'ouvrage, un peu plus loin, comme une "méditation sur la disparition". Le prélude renvoie à Pinagot, mais aussi à un auteur qui se découvre dans ce même espace liminal entre absence et présence. On trouve d'une part l'historien qui intervient comme sujet (le "je") et comme personne (avec sa biographie, ses convictions et incertitudes, ses émotions ), l'historien qui adopte de multiples figures et acquiert, au sein d'une relation personnelle avec cet individu, une visibilité qu'il n'avait pas dans les écrits antérieurs de Corbin; d'autre part, l'historien qui, loin de se complaire dans cette visibilité, tente de la cantonner, s'estompant, se dérobant, rechignant à se mettre en avant.

15825. Intervention Au Colloque De New York University

Author:
Alain Corbin
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Vous admettrez aisément que je n'ai pas manqué d'éprouver, au cours de ces deux journées, un sentiment mêlé de surprise et d'étrangeté. Étant loin d'estimer mon travail digne d'une telle attention, je suis très touché du regard porté sur lui par l'ensemble des participants à cette réunion. Cela dit, Priscilla Ferguson nous a proposé une explication de l'intérêt paradoxal suscité par mes travaux: la Frenchness de mes French Stories ferait que mes livres plaisent aux lecteurs anglo-saxons, ou les agacent. Je veux dire aussi ma reconnaissance. L'identité de chacun de nous se forge sous le regard de l'autre. Aussi est- il évident que, de ces deux jours, je vais sortir transformé. Vous m'avez éclairé sur moi- même; à cela près que je discerne dans vos propos un trop-plein d'indulgence. Les contempteurs ne sont pas ici, si ce n'est par l'écho de quelques recensions ironiques.
Political Geography:
New York

15826. The Relationship Between France And The United States: Reflections for an American Audience

Author:
Lionel Jospin
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Since the relationship between France and the United States is going through a difficult period, we must find opportunities to talk things over. It is true that it is not always easy to broach the subject of this relationship between the US and France in a balanced and reasonable way. We idealize its past and blacken its present. On the one hand, invoking the illustrious names of such figures as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Pierre- Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, or the marquis de la Fayette romanticizes the actually very complicated political and diplomatic process that brought France to America's aid during the War of Independence. Neither the monarchical France of the Ancien Régime, nor that of the revolutionary Terror that led up to the Caesar-state of Bonaparte could have been in perfect symbiosis with the young American democratic republic, despite our shared Enlightenment references.
Political Geography:
United States, America, and France

15827. Review Article: Making A Colonial Culture? Empire and the French Public, 1880-1940

Author:
Edward Berenson
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Did ordinary citizens support empire? Did a broad public respond to the plethora of colonialist propaganda, ideas, and images that circulated during the era of high imperialism (1880-1940)? Historians of French colonialism have joined their British counterparts in a renewed scholarly debate over public attitudes toward overseas expansion. Although a few historians have maintained that empire enjoyed wides pread support, until recently the consensus in both the French and British literature has been that imperialism interested elite groups far more than average citizens. Working people, according to most scholars, have been influenced least of all.
Topic:
Culture

15828. From Ravensbrück to Algiers and Noisy-le-Grand: Dialogues with Deportation

Author:
Donald Reid
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Germaine Tillion and Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz drew on their experiences as deported resisters at the Ravensbrück concentration camp to put forth narratives of deportation with compelling sets of imperatives for survivors and their audiences: Tillion placed the experience of camp prisoners in a continuum of clochardisation preceded by slavery and colonialism, enterprises in which France played a larger role than Germany, while de Gaulle Anthonioz extended the camp experience past 1945 to the creation and maintenance of an underclass in advanced capitalist societies like France. Reflection on their years at Ravensbrück encouraged Tillion and de Gaulle Anthonioz to look upon those left outside of prosperous postwar France - clochards in Algeria and the desperately poor in France - as being of the world they had lived in in the camps. This encouraged them to revisit their experience as providing understanding and insights for the survival and resistance of these disinherited.
Political Geography:
France, Germany, and Algeria

15829. Elections: Explaining the Timing of the French Socialist Party's Gender-Based Quota

Author:
Katherine A. R. Opello
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
This study uses the case of the French Socialists to show that electoral incentives best explain the timing of party officials' quota decisions. It would be easy to assume that the ideological predispositions of party officials and the agendas of women's organizations and party feminists would be determinant here, but there are two main reasons why this is not the case. First, non-electoral explanations, like ideology, fail to consider the constraints imposed on actors by the electoral system. If political actors try to ensure that they win an electoral game defined by the existing electoral system, it seems unlikely that non-electoral concerns would outweigh strategic or electoral ones. Second, evidence suggests that PS officials responded to feminists' requests for gender quotas only when they had electoral incentives to do so. Specifically, women's organizations' demands for quotas were met when these organizations posed an electoral threat, and PS feminists' quota proposals succeeded when party officials had electoral incentives to co-opt them.

15830. L'Autonomie corse face à l'individualisme de la République

Author:
Elisabeth Vallet
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Les évolutions amenées par la révision constitutionnelle du 28 mars 2003 -la plus importante depuis 1958 - présentent le risque de transformer un État nation en un État groupusculaire et consacrent le principe d'une décentralisation "dissymétrique". Dans ce contexte, transposer à la Corse par exemple le raisonnement qui a conduit à la reconnaissance en 1998 de l'existence du peuple kanak pourrait durablement fragiliser les fondations de l'État. Pour autant, les dispositions constitutionnelles présentent une élasticité qui permet de "supporter des interprétations très diverses". Elles offrent notamment la possibilité d'un glissement vers la forme hybride de l'État autonomique. Si cette mutation contrevient à la perception traditionnelle de l'unité étatique, elle met un terme aux pragmatismes de circonstance et au traitement conjoncturel des revendications régionales.

15831. Mixité sociale et habitat des familles immigrées: Perspective historique

Author:
Catherine Grémion
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Ainsi, la conjonction de trois facteurs-les mouvements de mobilité spatiale et résidentielle chez les uns, la progression des mesures en faveur du droit à la vie familiale et la fin de l'emploi faiblement qualifié chez les autres-a-t-elle contribué à générer une situation nouvelle et créé un phénomène spécifique, les "quartiers en difficulté". La tendance à l'exit 21 des plus qualifiés de ces habitants, qui quittent ces lieux pour des zones plus favorisées, se voit contre-balancée par un attachement réel d'une forte proportion de ses membres à un mode de vie spécifique.

15832. What Do the French Think of Us? The Deteriorating Image of the United States, 2000-2004

Author:
Richard Kuisel
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
What do the French think of Americans and the United States? This is a grand question whose answer reveals a crucial dimension of the current tension in Franco-American relations. It is also a question that can be answered reasonably well. Transatlantic troubles have stirred interest in ascertaining the state of public opinion. The result is an extraordinary number of comprehensive surveys conducted over the last five years. The US Department of State, for example, has systematically monitored French attitudes. So have many French and American polling agencies like SOFRES, CSA, and the Pew Center. Foundations like the French-American Foundation and the German Marshall Fund of the US have also sponsored research. Between fifteen and twenty thousand Frenchmen and women have recorded their opinion in such surveys. This evidence provides a unique opportunity for research into how the man- or woman-in-the-street views the United States.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
United States, America, and France

15833. The Iraq Crisis and France: Heaven-Sent Opportunity or Problem from Hell?

Author:
Charles Cogan
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The level of damage from the March 2003 imbroglio in the UN Security Council remains to be thoroughly assessed, particularly in view of the continuing violence in Iraq. In a sense, this crisis was a heaven-sent opportunity for France to stand for a principle and at the same time maintain its reputation of being able to face up to the United States, in this case threatening the use of a powerful diplomatic tool at its disposal, the veto in the UN Security Council. The crisis that landed in the Security Council represented a unique way for France to assert its "difference" from the United States, which it had been seeking to do, with varying degrees of success, since de Gaulle's time. The French could hardly be expected to pass up such an opportunity, especially since, as they saw it, the issue was crystal clear from the point of view of logic: The United States had failed to make the case for invading Iraq that had any contemporaneity to it-Resolution 687 was twelve years old. The question of "Why now?" had not been satisfactorily answered.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and France

15834. La Commission Stasi vue par un de ses membres

Author:
Jean Baubérot
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
République, appelée plus généralement "Commission Stasi," du nom de son président, a joué un rôle central dans l'adoption de la loi du 15 mars 2004 interdisant le port "ostensible" de signes religieux à l'école publique. Pourtant, dans le rapport qu'elle a remis au président de la République le 11 décembre 2003, la question des "signes religieux" à l'école n'occupe qu'environ huit pages sur les 151 qui constituent le rapport. Ce rapport propose vingt-six mesures, et seule celle sur les signes religieux a été adoptée par les députés et les sénateurs pour avoir force de loi. La commission a-t-elle été "trahie"? Certains de ses membres l'affirment. Pour ma part, je ne le pense pas. Il est vrai que je n'ai pas voté cette proposition d'interdiction, et j'ai été moins surpris que mes collègues par la tournure des événements. Par ailleurs, étant à la fois historien et sociologue, j'ai tenté-au fur et à mesure du déroulement des travaux de la commission-de comprendre ce qui se passait et dans quel contexte cela advenait. C'est de cela dont je voudrais rendre compte.

15835. Lifting the Veil

Author:
Patrick Weil
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
On July 3, 2003, President Jacques Chirac set up an independent commission to study the implementation of the principle of laïcité [secularism] in the French Republic. I was a member of that commission, chosen most likely for my expertise in the field of immigration policy and nationality law and as a former member of the High Advisory Council on Integration. I arrived with the idea that a law was probably unnecessary for resolving the problems. Yet, after four months of public hearings involving representatives of all religious confessions, political parties, unions, NGOs, and above all actors on the ground-principals, teachers, parents, students, directors of hospitals and jails, company managers - I endorsed a report recommending twenty - five different measures, including the ban on conspicuous religious symbols in public schools. In this essay I would like to explain why.
Topic:
Law

15836. European Integration in the Light of the International Relations Theories

Author:
Sinem Akgül Açikmese
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
This article contends that most of the intellectual work on European integration reflect major dichotomies between the theories of International Relations. During the first few decades of the integration process, the core European integration debate involved idealism-oriented neo-functionalists and realism-oriented intergovernmentalist approaches; whereas the current scholarship on European integration mirrors the main division that has emerged within the discipline of International Relations since 1980's between rationalists regarding the integration process as the products conscious member states' behaviour and constructivists focusing on policy-formation based on norms and common values. The main purpose of this article is to analyse the evolution of European integration within the context of the traditional and contemporary debates of International Relations. Since the sui generis nature of the integration process in the shape of the European Union constitutes a barrier to theorizing efforts in general terms, this article argues that each theory can only explain some pieces of the integration puzzle.
Topic:
Government and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Europe

15837. The Realist Theory of the International Relations: Origin, Scope, Critique

Author:
Mustafa Aydin
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
Realist theory occupies a special place in the theoretical development of International Relations discipline. As the dominant theory of the discipline from mid-1930s up until mid-1980s, realism has often been dubbed as the theory of the International Relations because of its overwhelming influence on IR academia. In addition to controversial concepts it brought into IR discussions, realism has served the discipline by pioneering the study of international developments through conceptual analysis instead of traditional methods based on historical, legal, and philosophical studies. Although its various fundamental aspects (such as its conservative approach to world politics, emphasis on state and power, failure to define national interest convincingly, deterministic approach to international politics) have been criticized over the years from many perspectives, realist tradition has re-emerged time and again as the leading conceptual explanation of the discipline. Finally, despite all its exposed weaknesses, the realist theory of IR, with its clear and simple explanations, is still the most widely used approach in the area.
Topic:
International Relations, International Political Economy, and Political Economy

15838. "East" and "West" from the Sociology of Knowledge Perspective

Author:
Sennur Özdemir
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
This study elaborates and (re)conceptualizes the 'east' and the 'west', representing the two distinct historical and 'socio-economic whole from a 'sociology of knowledge' dimension. The most important consequence of the defining characteristics of 'the west' (as being hierarchical, class-based and exclusive), lies in its class-based and partial nature resulting in an identification of knowledge with power. This is also responsible for the 'metaphysical nature' of the 'western' knowledge and science: 'Dualistic-exclusive and polaristic' character of 'western habitus' creating a large gap between 'theory and practice' can also be understood in this context. All these together explain the reasons for not being capable of 'universal and representative' of modern knowledge and science. As a result, this study projects that as 'eastern characteristics' has increasingly become more hegemonical on global level, a transition from cyclically reproducing 'exclusive and contradictory' relational and methodological 'western' 'style' to comprehensive new paradigmatic methodologies and syntheses will be expected.
Topic:
Islam, Religion, and Political Theory

15839. Are Events in Iraq after the Occupation an Ordinary Security Problem?

Author:
Nihat Ali Özcan
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
The US carried out the Iraqi occupation quickly, easily and with few casualties. It put an end to the security bureaucracy in the name of building new Iraq after the war. After a short while it faced unexpected resistance in the regions where Sunnite Arabs live. Insurgents have proved by their choice of targets and use of methods that they have a long-term and systematical resistance strategy. The insurgents could organize quickly because of effective tribal order, power of old security bureaucracy which kept its integrity after the war and refusal of foreign occupation. Insurgents want to control the public in order to get rid of weakness. Therefore, the keypoint of contention is who will control the public. While insurgents commonly use "terror" and "violence", occupiers try on the one hand to make insurgents ineffective, on the other, to win the "heart and brain" of the public. Security questions may spread to whole country in Iraq where there are ethnic and religious struggles. Iraqi Shiites may be involved in the conflict. Kurdish claims on Kirkuk may bring an ethnic conflict to the agenda. If the US administration can't provide stability in Iraq as soon as possible, Iraq may drift into a civil war.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Arabia, and Kirkuk

15840. Future of the European Union: Problems of Legitimacy, Constitutionalisation, and the Ultimate Goal of European Integration

Author:
Sanem Baykal
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
One of the pivotal issues the European Union is trying to solve right now is the link between identity, legitimacy and political order in Europe. This study argues that the Union will have to strike a balance between democracy and efficiency while reshaping its institutional structure, as it can only secure the allegiances of European peoples if it is deemed to be useful and successful by its citizens, while accomplishments would only be regarded as satisfactory when the process is legitimate and democratic. This study illustrates that the Draft Constitution adopts the option of maintaining the essence of the status quo as regards the institutional structure. The democratic and political deficits of the Union need to be bridged by innovative approaches which are compatible with the unique qualities of the Community method. The European Union constitutes a novel type of polity which necessitates original approaches to issues such as democracy, legitimacy and politics.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Europe