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55301. Latin Democracy and Its (Increasing) Discontents

Author:
Mark Falcoff
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Though summer is still with us in the northern hemisphere, Latin America languishes deep in the winter of its discontent. Ten years after the international scene was transformed by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, many Latin Americans have become disillusioned with their role in the new world order. The principal problem is that in spite of vigorous, in some cases drastic, market reforms, most of the region’s economies are in the doldrums. More to the point, in spite of a significant return of foreign investment to the area in the early 1990s, the number of Latin Americans living in poverty has increased. Public services have deteriorated or in some cases even disappeared. And crime is rampant everywhere, even in cities such as Buenos Aires, where until ten years ago inhabitants boasted-with reason-that their streets were safer at 3 a.m. than those of New York or Los Angeles in daytime.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Democracy, and Investment
Political Geography:
South America and Latin America

55302. Nicaragua on the Brink–of What?

Author:
Mark Falcoff
Publication Date:
10-2001
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
On November 4, Nicaraguans will go to the polls to select a president, vice president, and all sixty-six members of their unicameral congress–an event that on its own merits would hardly deserve much attention on the part of foreign observers. But the drama unfolding in that tiny country is characteristic of many small (and not so small) Latin American countries today: the inability of democracy alone to address effectively some of the fundamental problems of society. Nicaragua also provides some interesting insight into the peculiar pathologies that afflict postrevolutionary states, and as such may provide some light on what we can expect in post-Castro Cuba and even, eventually, in post—Chávez Venezuela.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Cuba, Latin America, and Nicaragua

55303. Argentina Votes–but for What?

Author:
Mark Falcoff
Publication Date:
11-2001
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
On Sunday, October 14, Argentines went to the polls to culminate what must surely have been the most ideological, hard-fought, and potentially decisive legislative election in their country’s history. At stake were all seventy-two seats in Argentina’s senate (chosen for the first time by popular vote[1]) and half of those in the Chamber of Deputies. What made the exercise particularly fraught with political significance was the fact that—coming as it did in the third year of a deep recession—the outcome was bound to be unfavorable to President Fernando de la Rúa, now midway through his four-year term. Given the parlous economic indicators—a near record 16 percent unemployment, laggard or negative economic growth for many months, drastic cuts in social spending with apparently more to come—the fact that the opposition Peronist Party won control of the senate and a plurality in the lower house can hardly be considered a surprise. But more serious still was the fact that, with few exceptions, candidates from the president’s own Radical Civic Union (and its coalition partner) ran against him with equal, if not greater, zeal. To the extent that the election was a plebiscite on de la Rúa’s stewardship, the vast majority voted “no.” What it voted for, however, is far from clear.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Politics, and Elections
Political Geography:
Argentina and South America

55304. Communists of Moldova and the Future of the Country's Ethnopolitical Conflicts

Author:
Pritt Jaerve
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
The plans of the communists of Moldova to take their country to the Russia-Belarus Union and to give Russian the status of an official language, if carried out, may contribute to the resolution of existing ethnopolitical conflicts in Moldova. However, the same plans might lead Moldova towards a federation, trigger ethnic mobilisation of the titular nation and create new dimensions of ethnopolitical tension in Moldovan society.
Topic:
Communism, Minorities, Ethnicity, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Europe and Moldova

55305. Testing Macedonia

Author:
Farimah Daftary
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
The Macedonian state is being tested from all sides: by the NLA which is waging guerrilla warfare, by the ethnic Albanians who are presenting great demands, and by the international community which is exercising pressure on it to address ethnic Albanian grievances. But the Macedonian population, too, is being tested on its ability to resist provocation to engage in acts of inter-ethnic hatred; it must therefore demonstrate that the claim to being a model of peaceful inter-ethnic relations is well deserved. At the time of writing, a state of war has been averted. Furthermore, on 14 May, after lengthy negotiations, a new "government of national unity" faced its first day of work. The idea to form a broad coalition was set forth in March 2001 as a means of addressing the crisis with the participation of all political parties with representation in Parliament. However, there were many issues to be resolved between the two main (ethnic) Macedonian parties, the VMRO-DPMNE and the opposition Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM), especially over the issue of early elections and distribution of ministry seats. Negotiations with the PDP were also tough (the PDP was demanding a ceasefire against the NLA before joining the coalition but it was more probably weighing the losses in NLA-sympathiser votes that it might incur by joining the government). While the support of the ethnic Albanian community of Macedonia for the violent tactics of the NLA seems to be quite low still, all will depend on whether the politicians will manage to put personal interests aside and reach an agreement as to how to address their grievances. It would be dangerous on the part of the Macedonian government to underestimate the readiness of ethnic Albanians in Macedonia to take up arms. What is also needed, in addition to high-level political dialogue, is a broad civic debate at the intermediate and grassroots level. Already, many initiatives have been launched to establish roundtables on inter-ethnic relations involving political leaders, minority representatives, experts, civil society, etc. In order to create the right conditions for genuine dialogue, what is needed is a common civic framework for resolving the question of inter-ethnic relations. The MHC calls for a citizen's approach as well as adherence to multiculturalism rather than bi-culturalism which would allow for identification with more than one ethnicity. The urgency of such a broad dialogue on legislative reform, decentralisation and other issues is evident for what is at stake is stability as well as longterm prospects for majority-minority accommodation not only in Macedonia but also in the whole of Southeast Europe. It is unfortunate that violence was needed to place the issue of inter-ethnic relations at the top of the Macedonian political agenda
Topic:
Multiculturalism, Minorities, Ethnicity, Diversity, and Decentralization
Political Geography:
Europe and Macedonia

55306. Croat Self-Government in Bosnia - A Challenge for Dayton?

Author:
Florian Bieber
Publication Date:
05-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
In addition to these factors contributing to the establishment of the Croat selfgovernment, economic/criminal factors most certainly played a role.22 As the response of the HDZ to the takeover of the Hercegovačka Banka seems to suggest, the economic interests of the party and its leadership were threatened by the change of government in Bosnia and the more assertive policies of the international community in Bosnia. The Croat self-government is beyond doubt a considerable challenge to the Dayton Peace Accords. The demand of the Croat leadership for a third entity can only be dismissed with difficulty in light of the existence of a Serb entity. Despite this development being a challenge to the existing arrangement, the argument can be made that some effects have been positive. The call by the HDZ for Croat soldiers to desert the Federation army and the public display of the parallel Croat power structures have given the High Representative an opportunity to render the Federation more effective by excluding those officials, who have not only now, but throughout the past five and a half year, obstructed the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords.
Topic:
Governance, Minorities, Leadership, Ethnicity, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Europe, Croatia, and Bosnia and Hercegovina

55307. Armenian Minority in Georgia: Defusing Interethnic Tension

Author:
Natalie Sabanadze
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
July 2000 was the deadline for the withdrawal of two Russian military bases in Vaziani (near Tbilisi) and in Gudauta (Abkhazia). The agreement on Russian military withdrawal was reached at the 1999 OSCE summit in Istanbul, according to which the first two bases would be withdrawn by July 1 of the current year, to be followed by the two remaining bases in Javakheti (Southern Georgia) and Batumi (Western Georgia) in the near future. Russia did not meet the deadline on the Gudauta base, which has become the main source of renewed Georgian-Russian political confrontation over the past few days. However, as the talks on withdrawal intensified, the issue of the Javakheti base also came to the fore. Javakheti is the southernmost region of Georgia where the local population is predominantly Armenian. Similar to Abkhazia, the situation in Javakheti is very sensitive and could be exacerbated by the Russian military withdrawal which is strongly opposed by the local Armenian population. This at first sight benign case of base closure is thus likely to involve broader issues of regional political alliances, competing national interests, minority policies and a potential risk of yet another ethnopolitical confrontation in the region. Among the most common descriptions of Javakheti found in both journalistic and scholarly literature is that of a "potential zone of conflict", "area waiting to explode" and in the more radical accounts 'the second Nagorno-Karabakh'. Despite many contrary predictions, Javakheti managed to maintain peaceful interethnic relations and to survive in peace and relative stability. However, in order to maintain the fragile peace and cooperation much has to be done in terms of minority protection and power-sharing structures within Georgia. What follows is a brief discussion of the Armenian minority in Georgia in the context of ongoing regional geopolitical changes, interests and vulnerabilities of the states involved. In addition, Javakheti here is regarded as a zone of ethnopolitical tension which requires serious efforts, and well-developed preventive measures to avoid its deterioration into a zone of conflict.
Topic:
Minorities, Ethnicity, Conflict, and Protected People
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Georgia

55308. Hegemon on the Offensive: Chinese Perspectives on U. S. Global Strategy

Author:
Yong Deng
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
YONG DENG examines Chinese perceptions of and reactions to the U.S. global power status and grand security strategy after the cold war. He shows that conflict between the United States and China is structural and has been on the rise. The author believes there is a real danger of an escalation of balancing and counterbalancing unless a mechanism of peaceful change is devised.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, National Security, and Hegemony
Political Geography:
China and United States of America

55309. What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process

Author:
Jerome Slater
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
JEROME SLATER examines the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 2000 and argues provocatively that contrary to the prevailing view, it is Israel rather than the Palestinians that bears the primary responsibility, not only for the latest breakdown but for the entire course of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948.
Topic:
Territorial Disputes, Negotiation, and Peace
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

55310. A House and Senate Divided: The Clinton Legacy and the Congressional Elections of 2000

Author:
Gary C. Jacobson
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
GARY C. JACOBSON asserts the 2000 election and its bizarre aftermath in Florida accurately reflected the configuration of partisan politics that crystallized during the Clinton administration: close partisan balance in Congress and in the electorate; distinct regional, cultural, and ideological divisions between the parties' respective electoral coalitions; and a sharp partisan polarization among political elites, echoed, though more faintly, in the broader public. The trends that produced this political configuration predated the 1990s, but they accelerated during the Clinton years, and Clinton himself was a catalyst in their development.
Topic:
Elections, Domestic Politics, Political Parties, Polarization, and Bill Clinton
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

55311. Why Americans Deserve a Constitutional Right to Vote for Presidential Electors

Author:
Demetrios James Caraley
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
DEMETRIOS JAMES CARALEY argues that the Constitution needs to be amended to give Americans the constitutional right they believed they had but the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore denied--the right to vote for and select the president.
Topic:
Elections, Constitution, and Domestic Politics
Political Geography:
United States of America

55312. After the Storm: U.S. Policy toward Iraq since 1991

Author:
Daniel Byman
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
DANIEL BYMAN argues that criticism of U.S. policy toward Iraq is often overstated and fails to appreciate the accomplishments of the Bush and Clinton administrations. The author discusses which mechanisms have proven particularly effective but also analyzes the room for improvement in U.S. policy.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, National Security, Politics, Clinton Administration, and George H. W. Bush
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

55313. Making the Grade 2000: Second Annual Review of Fissile Material Control Efforts

Author:
Kevin O'Neill
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
A little over a year ago, ISIS initiated an annual review of fissile material controls covering a broad spectrum of initiatives. To do so, 19 separate initiatives were identified and assessed. Based on this assessment, grades were awarded on a scale of A, B, C, D, and F, where an “A” is excellent and an “F” is failing. Numerically, an “A” corresponds to a numerical grade of four, and an “F” to zero. The results of the first review were disappointing. Only 12 of the 19 initiatives received a passing grade of “C” or higher. The average grade of the initiatives was a “C”-showing an unfortunate level of mediocrity across the fissile material control agenda. In ISIS’s 2000 review, we found that the outlook is worse today than it was a year ago. Rather than make progress during the past 12 months, the overall fissile material control agenda fared poorly. The average grade of the identified initiatives fell from a “C” to a “C-minus.” This overall finding is borne out if one looks at the individual grades assigned to each of the 19 identified initiatives. ISIS judged that five initiatives remained essentially static, nine received lower grades, and five initiatives received higher grades.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Fissile Material, and Nuclear Energy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

55314. Information Management in the Field of Security Policy in SEE -- 1st Workshop of the Study Group: "Crisis Management in South East Europe"

Author:
Tufik Burnazovic, Athanasios E. Drougos, Gustav E. Gustenau, Wolf Oschlies, Dragan Simic, Avgustina Tzvetkova, Biljana Vankovska, and Vladimir Šaponja
Publication Date:
05-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Austrian National Defence Academy
Abstract:
Secessionist conflicts have become a major feature of the European political landscape in the 1990s. International response to them has varied from full-scale military intervention to half-hearted mediation, generally providing for freezing of most active hostilities and for addressing most urgent humanitarian needs. Europe in the 1990s saw more “peace” operations on its soil than any other region in the world, but still was not able to find satisfactory answers. Kosovo is a tragic illustration of that and the deployment of NATO troops after a massive use of airpower still lacks the framework of a political plan and appears very tentative and opportunistic. Several specifically European factors define the perspective of a possible new wave of secessionist conflicts in the region.
Topic:
Security, NATO, International Cooperation, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe and Balkans

55315. What kind of Democracy, Whose Integration? Construction of democracy and integration into the EU of Estonia

Author:
Kristi Raik
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Abstract:
Integration into the European Union has for many years been one of the top priorities of the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), playing a central role in both their foreign and domestic policies. Preparing for membership in the EU is in many ways connected to the development of democracy in these countries. The Union has declared support to democracy in the applicant countries to be one of the main priorities of eastern enlargement. In addition to concrete support, however, I argue that the relevance of the EU for democracy in the CEECs is even more due to indirect influence – integration is a dominant issue in the domestic politics of these countries and therefore an important part of continuous (re)production of democracy. This paper studies what kind of democracy has been constructed in one of the eastern applicant countries, Estonia, in the course of integration into the EU It analyses firstly the different conceptions of democracy that have been presented and put into practice as part of that process. Secondly, it places integration into the EU in the context of democratic politics of Estonia, asking whether preparations for EU membership have left room for more than a formal democracy to function.
Topic:
Democratization
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Estonia

55316. The Evolution of Russian Grand Strategy -- Implications for Europe's North

Author:
Henrikki Heikka
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Abstract:
A study about Russian grand strategy is certain to raise more than a few eyebrows among observers of Russian foreign policy. How can one possibly assume that in a country with constantly changing prime ministers and an economy on the verge of bankruptcy there could be a commonly accepted Grand Plan about anything? Moreover, the record of post-cold war Russian foreign policy is so full of reckless moves and unpredictable u-turns, that it seems rather far-fetched to suggest that there could be, even in theory, a common logic behind it. Judging by the steady flow of publications on the role of self-interested politicians, parties, business elites, and organizational and bureaucratic actors in the formation of Russian foreign policy, it does indeed seem that most scholars see Russia's external policy driven by the day-to-day power struggles of various groups within the Russian political elite rather than by a common national strategy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

55317. A friend in need or a friend indeed: Finnish perceptions of Germany's role in the EU and Europe

Author:
Tuomas Forsberg
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Abstract:
Finland is often seen as a country whose view of Germany has traditionally been more positive than that of the average of the European countries. According to an opinion poll that was conducted in 1996, 42 % of the Finns have a positive view, 47 % a neutral and only 6 % a negative view of Germany and Germans. This positive attitude is not only a result of the large amount of cultural and trade contacts or societal similarities, shared Lutheran religion and German roots of Finnish political thinking but derives also from the historical experience that Germany has been willing to help Finland in bad times. Although this view is not necessarily correct when judged against the historical record and although it is not unanimously shared by all Finns, it provides the necessary starting point when assessing Finland's view of Germany in today's Europe.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Finland, and Germany

55318. A Security and Stability in Northern Europe – A Threat Assesment

Author:
Jochen Prantl
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Abstract:
The accession of Finland and Sweden as well as the ongoing enlargement process, which offers the perspective of EU membership to the Baltic States, has put the question of security and stability in Northern Europe on the Agenda of the European Union.
Topic:
Security and Development
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Finland, Asia, and Sweden

55319. POST-NEUTRAL OR PRE-ALLIED? Finnish and Swedish Policies on the EU and NATO as Security Organisations

Author:
Tuomas Forsberg and Tapani Vaahtoranta
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Abstract:
At the beginning of the 21st century – a decade after the end of the Cold War – two major developments characterise the transformation of the European security landscape. The first development is the NATO enlargement and its evolving strategic concept that was applied in the Kosovo conflict. The second is the EU enlargement and the construction of the European security and defence policy (ESDP) for the European Union in close contact with NATO. Each and every country in Europe is forced to outline their interests and stance towards these developments.
Topic:
Defense Policy and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe and Kosovo

55320. Histoire Vs Mémoire En France Aujourd'hui

Author:
Jacques Revel
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
École des hautes études en sciences sociales Jusqu'à une époque très récente, l'expérience historique de la France et la mémoire dont elle était porteuse étaient pensées dans les termes d'une histoire; et cette histoire ne s'énonçait pas, elle ne se pensait pas n'importe comment: elle pouvait être diverse et contradictoire, mais elle avait ses formes et elle obéissait à des règles. Les choses ont bien changé. En grossissant et en simplifiant les choses, on pourrait dire que la France est devenue depuis une vingtaine d'années le lieu d'une entreprise mémorielle proliférante et multiforme. Une bonne part de notre traditionnelle activité narcissique-mais aussi de notre investissement sensible-a trouvé à se reconnaître dans la production de mémoire, sous toutes ses formes. J'en retiens trois, pour aller au plus simple.
Political Geography:
France

55321. Women In The French Resistance: Revisiting the Historical Record

Author:
Claire Andrieu
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
If the Resistance as a whole is part of French identity, the different types of resistance, among them that of women, do not benefit from the same status. On the contrary, official commemorations of the Resistance are based upon two implicit statements: that the Resistance and the nation are somewhat equivalent - the Resistance being viewed as the uprising of the whole nation - and that to differentiate among the resisters would go against the very principles of the Resistance, its universalism, its refusal to make any distinction in race or origin. The assimilationism that is part of the ideology of the French Republic hinders the recognition of particularisms, whether regional, cultural or gendered. The Resistance has two national heroes, General de Gaulle since 1940, and Jean Moulin since 1964, both male and French. But no group has yet demanded the implementation of an affirmative action policy for the process of heroization. The French fear of multiculturalism -or any recognition of particularisms - could be sufficient to explain the slow development of women's studies in France, and indeed, the history of women resisters has not yet been studied as much as that of the Resistance as a whole. There were other factors that prevented it from developing. After reviewing the available bibliography, I propose some new directions of research which - as elementary and unsophisticated as they are - may break down some stereotypes and allow us to glimpse some aspects of the Resistance that traditional history has neglected.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
France

55322. Abdelmalek Sayad And The Double Absence: Toward a Total Sociology of Immigration

Author:
Emmanuelle Saada
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
At the time of his death, the sociologist of immigration Abdelmalek Sayad (1933-1998) was putting the final touches on a collection of his principal articles-since published under the title La Double Absence. The publication of this collection provides, I think, a good occasion for introducing Sayad to the anglophone public, which to date has had almost no exposure to his work. In France, Sayad's sociology has been essential not only to the study of Algerian immigration, but to the understanding of migration as a "fait social total," a total social fact, which reveals the anthropological and political foundations of contemporary societies. The introduction of this exceptional work to American specialists of French studies is timely, moreover, because immigration and more recently, colonization have been among the most dynamic areas of research in the field in the past few years.
Political Geography:
America and France

55323. Dossier: Charting the Future of French Farming: Introduction

Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Farmers still count for a lot in France, despite their shrinking numbers. Scarcely four per cent of the workforce now earns a living in agriculture. Yet, every politician knows that the country has a huge stake in farming-France is second only to the United States as an agricultural exporter-and that farmer unions wield clout. Farmers have cultural leverage as well. Rolling fields and rural hamlets still figure prominently in most people's mental image of what makes France French and its social fabric whole. Even so, the future for many farmers is anything but secure. Global competition, EU enlargement, and scientific advances will continue to reshape the conditions of agricultural production and marketing. Farm subsidies could well diminish under pressure from trade negotiators or from voters at home who wish to put tax revenues to other purposes. Many a small family farm could go under for lack of young men and women willing to wager their futures on a farming career. Meanwhile, big growers will no doubt find ways to raise more food on less land with fewer hands. Ineluctable though these trends may be, however, French farmers have an impressive record of fighting back in the face of adversity. Their militance, combined with a strong tradition of state protection and public pride in the land and its products, make it certain that agriculture will remain one of the more important, and contentious, arenas of debate in the new century.
Topic:
Agriculture
Political Geography:
United States and France

55324. Farming Visions : Agriculture in French Culture

Author:
Susan Carol Rogers
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Peasant Fever That Goes Beyond Corporatism," "Peasants: Old-Style and Modern." Such headlines led stories in the French press about the August 1999 attack on a MacDonald's deep in the French hinterlands by a group affiliated with the farmers union Confédération Paysanne. The incident, noted in the American press as a colorful example of Gallic excess, drew weeks of substantial and sympathetic attention from the French press and general public, inspired vocal support from politicians across the political spectrum, and catapulted the group's leader, José Bové, to the status of national hero. Part of the significance attributed in France to the event, as suggested by the headlines above, lay in claims that this action represented a radical new departure for farm organizations: unlike previous farmer protests-habitually no less symbolically-charged, well-orchestrated, or widely supported-this one, it was frequently said, spoke to issues of concern to society as a whole, not simply to the corporate interests of farmers.
Topic:
Agriculture
Political Geography:
America and France

55325. Craintes Et Espoirs Des Agriculteurs Français

Author:
François Clerc
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le bilan que les agriculteurs français peuvent présenter de leurs efforts au cours du dernier demi-siècle devrait les remplir de confiance en eux-mêmes. Ils sont parvenus à produire en abondance. Entre 1951 et 1997, la quantité de blé livrée a été multipliée par quatre et par cinq dans un secteur moins stratégique, celui des haricots verts. Entre 1980 et 1997, le volume de la production agricole française a augmenté de 30 pour cent. L'agriculture française nourrit des consommateurs dont le nombre a augmenté de plus de 40 pour cent en cinquante ans et le déséquilibre des échanges commerciaux a changé de sens. L'agriculture et les industries alimentaires qui lui font suite ont porté la France au rang de second exportateur agro-alimentaire mondial.

55326. La Loi D\'orientation Agricole Comme Enjeu De Société

Author:
Bertrand Hervieu
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Pour le Gouvernement français, l\'ambition du projet de loi d\'orientation agricole, voté le 26 mai 1999, était de redéfinir la place de l\'agriculture dans la société du début du XXIe siècle et d\'assurer son ancrage dans le territoire. Face à l\'ouverture des marchés et à l\'évolution des comportements des consommateurs et des citoyens, l\'enjeu est de renforcer les liens entre l\'agriculture et la nation au plus près du terrain et d\'inscrire les projets agricoles dans des projets de société. La présentation de ce projet de loi a fait l\'objet de nombreuses interventions des ministres de l\'Agriculture et de la Pêche, Louis Le Pensec et Jean Glavany. Nous présentons ici une synthèse de ces discours qui a fait l\'objet de diverses notes internes au ministère de l\'Agriculture et de la Pêche et d\'une publication sous forme d\'un supplément du Bulletin d\'information du ministère de l\'Agriculture. La loi a été publiée au Journal Officiel de la République française le 10 juillet 1999.
Topic:
Agriculture

55327. Tragédiens Et Comédiens: Les Corses et l'État français

Author:
Jean-Louis Fabiani
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le philosophe d'origine corse Jean Toussaint Desanti faisait un jour remarquer lors d'une soutenance de thèse que la Corse avait été "oubliée par la science". Il entendait probablement rappeler le fait que l'anthropologie et les sciences sociales avaient implicitement considéré que l'île dite "de Beauté" ne méritait pas véritablement d'investissement savant. Il y a plus : dans un univers social régi par des règles contraignantes de correction à l'égard des catégorisations ethniques, les plaisanteries publiques sur les Corses présentent encore aujourd'hui en France un caractère tout à fait licite. La stigmatisation de la paresse insulaire et les allusions aux penchants délinquants de la population en fournissent une illustration quotidienne. On peut considérer que le fait de se moquer, pas toujours gentiment, des Corses, constitue un espace résiduel pour la liberté de propos dans un régime d'autocontrôle généralisé à propos des qualifications à caractère ethnique. Il faut dire aussi que les Corses n'ont jamais été considérés positivement par l'intelligentsia de gauche.

55328. Of Linguistic Jacobinism And Cultural Balkanization: Contemporary French Linguistic Politics in Historical Context

Author:
Paul Cohen
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
In few countries has language played a greater role in constituting national identity than in modern France. French is first and foremost a political idiom, enshrined by the leaders of the Revolution and the Third Republic as the language of the Republic and the Nation. The French state promotes the use of French at home and throughout the world through an array of government institutions, including the Académie française, the Ministry of Culture and the agencies responsible for France's francophonie policies. The French language also represents a highly charged common cultural ground marking the boundaries of French society.3 Whether in informal conversation and public debate, in annual rituals like Bernard Pivot's televised "concours de dictées," or on the editorial pages of national newspapers, the French betray an intense awareness of linguistic issues. The defense and illustration of French has long been for French intellectuals and leaders a passionate vocation.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
France

55329. Domestic Constraints On French Nato Policy

Author:
Anand Menon
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Since 1966 and even before, the policies pursued by France toward NATO have been both the object of a certain amount of Gallic pride and the source of considerable confusion, not to say irritation, among France's partners. Why have these policies been pursued? The aim of this article is to address this question by means of an examination of the domestic pressures and constraints that have helped to shape France's policies toward NATO. It reveals a striking paradox: the decision-making arrangements that developed around and emerged out of de Gaulle's single-minded quest to achieve international independence for France were specifically designed to provide him with the freedom to pursue policies of his own choosing. They increasingly came, however, to hamstring the efforts of French political leaders to do likewise, particularly when, in the aftermath of the Cold War, they came to realize that traditional Gaullist policies were no longer serving France as well as they once had.
Topic:
NATO, Cold War, and Development
Political Geography:
France

55330. Protestations Collectives D'une Minorité Socio-Économique En France

Author:
Frédéric Royall
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le 7 janvier 1998 plus de 50 villes françaises sont touchées par des manifestations nationales de sans-emploi et de leurs sympathisants pour réclamer une amélioration du sort des chômeurs. Le 13 janvier 1998 une deuxième journée nationale de protestation regroupe plus de 50 000 manifestants et touche 76 départements. Le gouvernement ayant commis l'erreur de ne pas avoir pris très au sérieux ces manifestations se trouve rapidement obligé, au grand dam de sa politique budgétaire, de débloquer un milliard de francs en aides financières d'urgence. Près d'un an plus tard à Marseille, le 3 décembre 1998, de 10,000 à 15,000 personnes proclament haut et fort leur hostilité à la politique gouvernementale. La semaine suivante, le 10 décembre 1998, 2000 personnes défilent à Paris et près de 3000 autres manifestent à Marseille. Si ces journées nationales d'actions de décembre 1998 ont témoigné des capacités encore réelles de mobilisation des collectifs de chômeurs (sous forme de manifestations), les organisations de défense des chômeurs peinent à susciter ensuite l'enthousiasme de leurs militants et sympathisants et à dépasser le stade des agitations ponctuelles et localisées en se basant sur un répertoire d'actions collectives classiques.
Political Geography:
France

55331. Debates Events -- Profession : "Messager culturel": Entretien avec Laure Adler, Directrice de France-Culture

Author:
Martha Zuber
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Une histoire? Un patrimoine? Une institution? France-Culture est tout cela. Petite chaîne prestigieuse, sans publicité, avec 80 millions de francs de budget annuel inchangé. C'est l'exception culturelle de la radio française. La chaîne rassemble une centaine de producteurs permanents (les réalisateurs des programmes), 450 000 auditeurs ou moins d'un pour cent de l'audience radiophonique en France. Certains de ses auditeurs se sont regroupés en une association présidée par un haut fonctionnaire au Ministère de l'emploi. Un personnel fortement attaché à l'identité de France-Culture, 116 avenue du Président Kennedy où sont installés studios et bureaux. Une radio unique au monde qui émet vingtquatre heures sur vingt-quatre de "la culture" tout au long de l'année. Elle se distingue par ses émissions exemplaires, souvent longues, traitant de sujets pointus : des reportages sérieux précédés par des enquêtes en profondeur et des radio-fictions de qualité, avec des pièces de théâtre spécialement écrites pour la radio.
Political Geography:
France

55332. In Memoriam: Gordon Wright (1912-2000)

Author:
Richard Kuisel
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The new millennium brought the loss of the most eminent American historian of modern France. Gordon Wright, emeritus professor of history at Stanford University, died on the 11 th of January in his California home. Gordon Wright was a member of a generation that matured during the war who managed to combine academic life with public service. Born in Washington State into a family of farmers, teachers and preachers, he attended Whitman College. His first encounter with France came in 1937 as an American Field Service fellow. Although he originally wanted a career in the diplomatic corps, he took his Ph.D. in history at Stanford in 1939, published his thesis on the presidency of Raymond Poincaré,1 and began his academic life at the University of Oregon. The war interrupted the peace of academia. While serving as a liaison with the State Department in 1944 he was assigned the job of leading a convoy of vehicles and personnel from Lisbon to Paris to help set up the embassy.
Political Geography:
America, Washington, France, and Lisbon

55333. Gérard Noiriel's Third Republic

Author:
Robert O. Paxton
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Gérard Noiriel, Les Origines républicaines de Vichy (Paris: Hachette Littératures, 1999). This book has raised hackles in France, and one can see why. It is by turns illuminating, tendentious, and pugnacious. At its best it accomplishes first-rate historical work. Its central four chapters make an enduring contribution to understanding the exclusionary project of Vichy France. Polemical first and last chapters detract somewhat from this achievement. Noiriel's powerful central chapters address a key conundrum about Vichy: How did the odious discriminatory and exclusionary measures taken by Pétain's governments, so manifestly contrary to French republican values, find such broad acquiescence among the mainstream republican elite?
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
France

55334. Ordinary Antisemitism and Vichy: Anti-Jewish Policy The Role of the Legal Profession

Author:
Vicki Caron
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Robert Badinter, Un Antisémitisme ordinaire: Vichy et les avocats juifs (1940-1944) (Paris: Fayard, 1997). Richard H. Weisberg, Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France (New York: NYU Press, 1996). Among the hundreds of scholarly books and articles on Vichy France and the Jews that have appeared in recent years, the focal point of attention has increasingly shifted away from the state and toward the less scrutinized and more nebulous field of public opinion. Several works on this topic, such as John F. Sweet's Choices in Vichy France: The French Under Nazi Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), Pierre Laborie's L'Opinion française sous Vichy (Paris: Seuil, 1990), and Philippe Burrin's, France under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise (New York: New Press, 1996) have provided synthetic overviews of public responses to the anti-Jewish laws and policies of the Vichy regime as part of a broader analysis of public opinion toward Vichy. Others have focused more narrowly on the reactions of specific interest groups-the Catholic and Protestant churches, the civil service, university administrators and professors, and various liberal professions, especially lawyers and doctors - in an attempt to understand the precise mechanisms by which the exclusionary regime functioned, as well as to explore the impact of the segregation of Jews on the day-to-day lives of Jews and non-Jews alike.
Political Geography:
France

55335. Introduction

Author:
Laura Frader
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
An American scholar is often struck by the absence of race in France as a category of analysis or the absence of discussions of race in its historical or sociological dimensions. After all, "race" on this side of the Atlantic, for reasons having to do with the peculiar history of the United States, has long been a focus of discussion. The notion of race has shaped scholarly analysis for decades, in history, sociology, and political science. Race also constitutes a category regularly employed by the state, in the census, in electoral districting, and in affirmative action. In France, on the contrary, race hardly seems acknowledged, in spite of both scholarly and governmental preoccupation with racism and immigration.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
America and France

55336. Republican Antiracism And Racism: A Caribbean Genealogy

Author:
Laurent Dubois
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
In the Département d'Outre-Mer of Guadeloupe, a schoolteacher named Hugues Delannay presents me with a conundrum that has preoccupied him for a long time. He has been teaching in a lycée for over twenty years in Basse-Terre, the island's capital, and has had many brilliant students who, when they take their baccalaureat examinations, get mixed results. Normally, they excel on the written portions of the examination. Consistently, however, they do worse on their oral examinations, which drags down their grades. Why? It is not that their speaking skills are not up to par-far from it, he tells me, these students are articulate and speak impeccable French. There is, according to Delannay, a simpler, and ultimately more disturbing explanation. The examiners who give these students low grades in their oral examinations almost always come from metropolitan France. When they are face-to-face with the students, they of course notice their race (usually they are black, of African and/or Indian descent, as are most people in Guadeloupe) and this informs the grades they give. The students are, he believes, quite simply the victims of well-ensconced structural racism.
Political Geography:
Africa, India, France, and Caribbean

55337. Culture-As-Race Or Culture-As-Culture: Caribbean Ethnicity and the Ambiguity of Cultural Identity in French Society

Author:
David Beriss
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
"Notre père, un nègre de la Guadeloupe, a coutume de rétorquer à ceux qui, en France, l'importunent au sujet de sa couleur ou de son origine: "Je suis Français depuis 1635, bien avant les Niçois, les Savoyards, les Corses ou même les Strasbourgeois." Yes, but aren't these people black?" This is perhaps the most common question Americans ask about my research among West Indian activists in Paris and Martinique. It is asked in a tone that suggests that the answer itself is obvious and, more than that, that the questions I ask about West Indian claims to identity would be almost moot if I were to just get that answer through my head. This question has always confused me. "It's not that simple," is my usual response, but the truth is that I have always suspected that these people know something about the significance of blackness that I have failed to grasp. Most of these commentators on my research, I should point out, are not social scientists. But there is a social science variant to this question. Among colleagues, it takes the form of a directive: "You really have to deal with race more directly." This suggestion that I examine race generally raises another question. Are French people white?
Political Geography:
America, India, and Caribbean

55338. Antiracism Without Races: Politics and Policy in a "Color-Blind" State

Author:
Erik Bleich
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Since the end of the Second World War, millions of immigrants have arrived on French shores. Although such an influx of foreigners has not been unusual in French history, the origin of the postwar migrants was of a different character than that of previous eras. Prior to World War II, the vast majority of immigrants to France came from within Europe. Since 1945, however, an important percentage of migrants have come from non- European sources. Whether from former colonies in North Africa, Southeast Asia, or sub- Saharan Africa, from overseas departments and territories, or from countries such as Turkey or Sri Lanka, recent immigration has created a new ethnic and cultural pluralism in France. At the end of the 1990s, the visibly nonwhite population of France totals approximately five percent of all French residents. With millions of ethnic-minority citizens and denizens, the new France wears a substantially different face from that of the prewar era.
Topic:
Politics and History
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Turkey, France, Sri Lanka, North Africa, and Southeast Asia

55339. Les Politiques Françaises De Lutte Contre Le Racisme, Des Politiques En Mutation

Author:
Gwénaële Calvès
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Il pouvait sembler évident, jusqu'à une période très récente, que la formule célèbre du juge Blackmun selon laquelle, "pour en finir avec le racisme, nous devons d'abord prendre la race en compte" n'avait aucune chance de s'acclimater en France. La culture politique républicaine, exprimée et confortée par des principes constitutionnels fermement énoncés, s'opposait à la prise en compte d'un critère de catégorisation tenu pour intrinsèquement infamant et dénué de tout contenu positif: le droit français contemporain ne mentionne la "race" que pour en proscrire la prise en compte; la seule "race" qu'il connaisse est la race du raciste.
Political Geography:
France

55340. Half-Measures: Antidiscrimination Policy in France

Author:
Alec G. Hargreaves
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Since the Left returned to power in 1997, there have been remarkable changes in the debate over the "integration" of immigrant minorities in France. After a long period in which political elites emphasized the challenges associated with minority ethnic cultures and social disadvantage, the spotlight has shifted to the blockages arising from racial discrimination by members of the majority ethnic population. No less remarkably, there has been a significant abatement in the demonization of so-called Anglo-Saxon approaches to the management of ethnic relations, habitually branded by politicians and civil servants as the antithesis of France's "républicain" model of integration. Whereas British and American policies have encouraged "race" awareness in combating both direct and indirect forms of discrimination and have established powerful agencies to assist minorities suffering from unfair treatment, until recently there was a wide consensus in France that "integration" policy could best be served by erasing as far as possible any reference to ethnicity.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Britain, America, and France

55341. Forum -- Capitalism And Its Spirits?

Author:
George Ross
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalism:Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello (Paris: Gallimard, 1999). Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello's Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalisme is 843 pages long. Its considerable heft, however, has not prevented it from being widely read and commented upon. Herein lies a mystery. Why has such a dense and difficult book struck such a chord? Perhaps the first reason has to do with its general approach. "Spirits of capitalism"-borrowing from Max Weber is intentional - refers to the ways by which capitalism, at heart profoundly amoral, is "moralized." French readers worry, and they should, that contemporary capitalism makes less and less moral sense. Le Nouvel Esprit promises new understanding, if not new morality. To Boltanski and Chiapello, individuals and groups need to acquire sufficient personal commitment, in terms of a sense of justice in operation, to allow the system to function successfully. They see three successive ideal-typical "esprits du capitalisme," each with its own particular mixture of methods of moralization. The contemporary moment, they claim, is a major change from the previous spirit to something quite new. The "justifications" that key actors use to create morally acceptable social environments - and which, in turn, help make structures happen - have been shifting.
Topic:
Environment

55342. Forum -- Deconstructing The Reconstruction Of Capitalism

Author:
Michael J. Piore
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
This is a big, ambitious book with an intricate, engaging, and important argument. I picked it up in Paris in January and read it on the flight home. It made me happy to be an intellectual and a scholar; happy to be able to read French; happy, for the first time I can remember, to have seven and a half hours of uninterrupted time on a transatlantic flight. The book poses the question of why an active critique of capitalism has virtually disappeared in our times. The answer it provides is that capitalism itself has changed in ways that evade the criticisms that had been directed against it in the past. But it argues that these changes themselves are giving rise to a new moral framework from which a new critical perspective is emerging, and attempts to identify what that perspective is.
Political Geography:
Paris

55343. Forum -- Not Your Father's Capitalism

Author:
Donald Reid
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalisme is a socio-cultural response to the neoliberal explanation of the successes and failures of capitalism in France during the last three decades in terms of individual rational actors and markets. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello draw their inspiration from critical readings of sociologists who interpreted earlier incarnations of capitalism, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim. The sesquicentennial of The Communist Manifesto elicited many commentaries praising Marx and Engels for their insightful evocation of the revolutionary nature of capitalism. Starting here, Boltanski and Chiapello point to the contradictory nature of capitalism, which thrives on destruction and expansion, yet requires checking mechanisms to avoid self-destruction through the alienation of precisely those who have driven the processentrepreneurial bourgeoisie, directors, and managers. To the obvious capitalist project of continually creating consumers must be added that of selling capitalism to those producers whose allegiance to capitalism Marx and Engels took for granted.
Political Geography:
France

55344. Forum : A Reply

Author:
Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le plaisir principal que l'on peut tirer du fait d'avoir écrit un livre (qui est différent du plaisir que l'on peut avoir pris à l'écrire) est de pouvoir confronter sa propre vision de ce que l'on a fait avec les représentations qu'en donnent différents lecteurs. L'ouvrage ne trouve finalement son achèvement que dans cette confrontation entre un projet d'écriture et les critiques des lecteurs qui, par leurs interprétations, se l'approprient. Ce plaisir est particulièrement grand lorsque, comme c'est le cas du dossier constitué à l'initiative de la rédaction de French Politics, Culture Society, ces lectures, par leur acuité, leur perspicacité et leur diversité, jettent des éclairages nouveaux sur le travail accompli. Nous pouvons dire que chacune des lectures rassemblées ici nous a appris quelque chose sur notre ouvrage, ce dont nous sommes grandement reconnaissants aux quatre éminents spécialistes qui ont pris de leur temps pour décortiquer Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalisme ainsi qu'à l'équipe de la revue qui a suscité cet ensemble de textes.
Topic:
Politics and Culture

55345. Forum -- Making Networks Accountable

Author:
Bruce Kogut
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The book by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello on the new spirit of capitalism returns to the question that puzzled the social thinkers of an earlier time: How does capitalism manufacture the ideological foundations of social peace, despite its hollow spiritual core and its creation of inequities? Their argument, reminiscent of Gramsci's, is that capitalism is richly inventive in appropriating cultural systems to justify itself. To address the ills of contemporary society, one must deconstruct the ideologies that make excessive levels of stress, unemployment, and inequality appear unavoidable. Boltanski and Chiapello cite Durkheim's thesis that capitalism is marred by the insatiable pursuit of self-interest, a view that resonates with the Chinese parable of the mask with no lower jaw. The mask is the face of a god or spirit that in its greed consumed its body and eventually its lower jaw, until it was unable to consume more. Capitalism needs an ideological restraint to this logic, but is unable to generate it by its own tenets. It must borrow elsewhere to justify itself and to preserve its own survival.

55346. Review Essay: Histories of Race in France

Author:
Tyler Stovall
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Tzvetan Todorov, On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). Sue Peabody, "There Are No Slaves in France": The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Patricia M. E. Lorcin, Imperial Identities: Stereotyping, Prejudice and Race in Colonial Algeria (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1995). Maxim Silverman, Deconstructing the Nation: Immigration, Racism and Citizenship in Modern France (London and New York: Routledge, 1992). In the final decade of the twentieth century, few issues have seemed more central, and disturbing, to French society than considerations of race. Questions of racial tolerance and difference have led France to reconsider the cherished right of all those born on the nation's soil to French nationality, have (until its recent split) prompted the rise of the biggest new political party in France since the Parti communiste français, and suffused debates about nationality and citizenship. Such has been the importance of this phenomenon that French intellectuals recently found themselves praising, of all things, the Disney animated version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, because of its topical relevance to the plight of African immigrants seeking asylum in a Parisian church. In contrast to the traditional rosy view of France as a land without color prejudice, race and racism now seem unavoidable aspects of life in the Hexagon.
Political Geography:
Africa and France

55347. Review Essay: French Culture(s) After Empire

Author:
Alice L. Conklin
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Post-Colonial Cultures in France, Alec G. Hargreaves and Mark McKinney, eds. (London: Routledge, 1997). Jean-Loup Amselle, Vers un multiculturalisme français, l'empire de la coutume (Paris: Aubier, 1996). In 1974 France officially closed its doors to immigrants from its former colonies and began debating how best to respect "difference" while preserving a meaningful French identity. The tepid response of the Left to the meteoric rise of Le Pen's National Front soon galvanized France's new "others" into action. A series of now well-known confrontations ensued - the Marche des Beurs, the emergence of SOS-Racisme, l'affaire du foulard, and the sit-in of les sans-papiers. In each of these cases, disadvantaged minorities and their supporters contested the legally exclusive and monocultural definition of the nation that appeared to be taking shape across the political spectrum.
Political Geography:
France

55348. When Needs are Rights: An Overview of UN Efforts to Integrate Human Rights in Humanitarian Action

Author:
Karen Kenny
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Integration of human rights throughout the United Nations system is, and always has been, a legal imperative flowing from the UN Charter. More recently, how- ever, it has also become stated policy of the organization and its component parts. The commitment to integration expressed by the Secretary-General in his reform program of July 1997 builds on the directions in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, to which 171 states agreed in 1993.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Organization, and United Nations

55349. The Problems of Preparedness: Challenges Facing the U.S. Domestic Preparedness Program

Author:
Richard A. Falkenrath
Publication Date:
12-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The U.S. government is now actively engaged in preparing the nation for highly destructive acts of terrorism, especially those involving chemical and biological weapons. This effort involves multiple federal agencies and a wide variety of programs. Collectively known as the “U.S. domestic preparedness program,” these programs are a very recent innovation in American governance. The budget of federal weapons of mass destruction (WMD) preparedness programs has grown from effectively zero in 1995 to approximately $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2000. 1 This made the U.S. domestic preparedness program one of the fastest growing federal programs of the late 1990s.
Topic:
Environment and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

55350. Analytic Models and Policy Prescription: Understanding Recent Innovation in U.S. Counterterrorism

Author:
Richard A. Falkenrath
Publication Date:
10-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The threat of terrorism has received enormous attention in the last decade. Anxieties ran particularly high at the turn of the millennium, which fortunately passed without a major terrorist incident. Virtually all states expend some resources to combat terrorism. The policies, programs, and operations that governments undertake to meet this challenge are known collectively as counterterrorism. Although this term is only a few decades old, the practice of counterterrorism is as old as terrorism itself. Like terrorism, counterterrorism is easily recognized, even if its boundaries are somewhat imprecise.
Topic:
Environment and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States