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11. L'invention de l'aide française au développement Discours, instruments et pratiques d'une dynamique hégémonique

Author:
Julien Meimon
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Dans le contexte international mouvementé de la fin des années 1950, la Ve République et ses dirigeants mettent en scène la fin du système colonial, c'est-à-dire de l'ensemble de ses institutions emblématiques : ministre et ministère de la « France d'outre-mer », corps administratifs de fonctionnaires coloniaux, et filière de recrutement (École nationale de la France d'outre-mer) disparaissent au profit d'un nouveau dispositif relativement complexe labellisé « coopération », et dont le ministère éponyme jouera un rôle important jusqu'à la fin du XXe siècle. La naissance de ce nouveau dispositif, résultant de l'éclatement de l'empire colonial, est largement associée à la problématique de l'aide au développement, et repose essentiellement sur des agents formés par les institutions coloniales, en quête de reconversion. C'est ce paradoxe d'une « nouvelle politique » incarnée par des agents imprégnés d'une culture coloniale que nous analyserons ici, en centrant notre regard sur ses modalités pratiques et discursives. On y décèlera l'une des faiblesses initiales de la politique africaine de la France, et l'une des raisons de son effritement progressif jusqu'à aujourd'hui.
Topic:
Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and France

12. L'invention de l'aide française au développement. Discours, instruments et pratiques d'une dynamique hégémonique

Author:
Julien Meimon
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
In the turbulent international context of the late 1950s, the French 5th Republic and its leaders orchestrated the end of the colonial system, i.e. all of its emblematic institutions: the French “Overseas” ministry and minister, the administrative corps of colonial functionaries and standard recruitment path (the École nationale de la France d'outremer ) disappeared, setting the stage for a new, fairly complex system labeled “ Coopération.” The ministry of the same name was to play a major role up until the end of the 20th century. This new system, which came about as a result of the breakup of the colonial empire, is closely related to the issue of development aid and relies essentially on civil servants having received their training in the colonial institutions and seeking for redeployment. This study analyzes the paradox of a “new policy” embodied by officials infused with a colonial culture, focusing on their reconversion in terms of deeds and discourse. This will point up one of the initial weaknesses of France's African policy and one of the reasons that it has slowly crumble.
Topic:
Development and Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and France

13. Le débat russe sur l'informel

Author:
Myriam Désert
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
What are the roots of the informal sector and what effects does it have? Is it a blessing or a curse? Changes in post-Soviet Russia contribute new food for thought to a debate that had previously been nourished primarily by considerations on the situation in developing countries. In Russia can be observed processes of formalization – and “deformalization” – of the rules governing not only the practices of economic actors, but also in the rarified distribution of public services publics. The analysis of actual informal practices feeds thinking about the relations between economic and political changes: what impact do they have in setting up a market economy and the rule of law, and in the reconfiguration of both the economic and social arena? An investigation into the way Russian academic circles and social actors view the informal sector sheds light on the various behavioral determinant: reaction to the economic context, cultural roots, social beliefs, and so on. The case of Russia illustrates how the informal sector is not only a mode of action that circumvents legal guidelines, but also a mode of sociability that rejects anonymous social relations. It helps examine ways to reinject the social aspect into economics.
Topic:
Government, Political Economy, and Privatization
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

14. Les sciences sociales et le « moment colonial »: de la problématique de la domination coloniale à celle de l'hégémonie impériale

Author:
Romain Bertand
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
The idea that the colonial past keeps surfacing in contemporary political situations has been turned by some post (-) colonial theoreticians and militant writers into an irrefutable statement of fact. Yet this analytical stance is supported by little empirically grounded research. A host of creative new literature about modern age “colonial situations” indeed help us reach a better, more nuanced understanding of what colonial domination was all about. But they often fail to capture the vernacular, non-European historicity of the “colonial encounter”. In the case of Southeast Asia, local political societies were engaged in state-formation processes long before the arrival of the Europeans: In Insulindia and in Indochina, there actually existed local imperial societies, into which the European colonial order of things became embedded. Viewed from this perspective, the “colonial situation” was a moment in long-term Euro-Asiatic imperial histories that mixed together numerous and sometimes contradictory understandings of imperial power and prowess. Talking about imperial hegemonies hence might help us escape modernist analytical dead-end.
Topic:
Imperialism and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe, Israel, and East Asia

15. CERI: Solving Europe's Binary Human Rights Puzzle. The Interaction between Supranational Courts as a Parameter of European Governance

Author:
Laurent Scheeck
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
As the European Union has become ever more powerful in terms of political output, it has also turned out to be a potential source of human rights violations. While national governments have disagreed on setting up consequential control mechanisms for several decades, the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights pre-empted intergovernmental choice. The European courts' paths unexpectedly crossed when they were both impelled to work out a way to deal with a twofold human rights conundrum situated at the EU level. Turbulent interaction between Europe's two supranational courts has not only led to a relative improvement of the protection of human rights, but has also deeply transformed the course of European integration. The courts' increasingly nested linkage has given rise to new forms of supranational judicial diplomacy between European judges. As a result of their evolving relationship, which is simultaneously underpinned by competitive and cooperative logics, the traditional opposition between an "economic Europe" and a "human rights Europe" has been overcome and the EU's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights is high on the political agenda. Yet, this process of integration through human rights remains a fragile and incomplete endeavour. Just as in co-operative binary puzzles where two players must solve the game together and where both lose as one of them tries to win over the other, solving Europe's binary human rights puzzle has required of European judges a new way of thinking in which it's not the institutions, but their linkage that matters.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

16. CERI: Reconciling Enlargement and Security on the EU New Eastern Border. The Romanian-Moldovan Chapter

Author:
Odette Tomescu-Hatto
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
The enlargement of the EU to the Central and Eastern European countries raises interrogations concerning the new borders traced by Brussels between the Member States and their future neighbors. What is the impact of the EU enlargement on the Romanian-Moldovan relations and how might the cooperation between the two countries affect the security of the Eastern border of the EU? The analysis on the one hand of the impact of Romania's preparations for EU membership on its relations with Moldova and the evaluation on the other hand of the limits and success of the European Neighborhood Policy towards Moldova, show that one of the main challenges for the EU will be to reconcile at the same time security and integration.
Topic:
International Relations and Development
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Romania

17. CERI: Les analyses de l'engagement associatif en Russie

Author:
François Dauceé
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Collective mobilizations in post-Soviet Russia constitute an enigma for Western political sociology due to their numerical weakness and their incapacity to strengthen democratic practices in the country. This perplexity can be explained by the unsuitability of the research tools used for their study. Academic research on social mobilization has long been based primarily on postulates concerning the modernization of social movements in a economically and politically liberal context. Western and Russian leaders involved in the transition process demonstrated a will to foster the constitution of organizations independent from the State and the creation of a civil society as an opposition force. In the early 90s, the practices of voluntary organizations in Russia became closer to Western ones. Notions such as "associative entrepreneurship", "professionalization" or "frustration" were shared by Russian movements. However, later evolutions showed the unsuitability of these concepts to understanding the full complexity of these movements. That is why this issue of "Research in question" aims to suggest new theoretical perspectives for studying associations in Russia. These are at the crossroads of various grammars, where civic and liberal principles are combined with domestic and patriotic preoccupations. This complexity, which resists a purely liberal vision of social organizations, draws convergent criticisms against their action. In order to investigate this complexity of practices as well as criticisms, the tools produced by a pragmatic and multiculturalist sociology are useful to show the diversity of social and political bonds that link militants in contemporary Russia.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

18. CERI: Russian Foreign Policy Discourse during the Kosovo Crisis: Internal Struggles and the Political Imaginaire

Author:
Guillaume Colin
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
The Kosovo crisis gave rise to a domestic political crisis in Russia. The NATO bombings called into question the efficiency of Russian foreign policy, which was against them, challenging the worldview that the government conveyed, thereby reinforcing the communist anti-establishment vision. The present article, by analysing the press conferences given by both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Communist Party, argues that each of the two narratives aimed to construct and impose (or defend) its own worldview and dividing principles of the world. In both narratives, this struggle was backed up using very strong political identity myths—namely Russia's relation to the West and the memory of the Second World War—that are referred to in opposite ways. The Kosovo example allows us to highlight the stakes and themes that work their way into Russian foreign policy discourse and contribute to exploiting foreign policy issues in Russian domestic political debate, and also cast light on the distorting effects caused by this instrumentalization.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and NATO
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Kosovo

19. CERI: The European Union's New Neighbours. Identity-based Strategies and Politics in the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova

Author:
Alexandra Goujon
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Since May 1, 2004, the Ukraine and Belarus have become the European Union's new neighbours. Moldova is bound to follow suit with Romania's entrance, scheduled for 2007. Enlargement of the EU to the East has sparked debates on what relations the EU should have with its new border states that are not slated for membership in the near future. The discussion has led to the design of a European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) that blends a regional approach based on shared values with a process of differentiation taking into account the specific characteristics of each country involved. Since their independence, the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova have developed different identity-based strategies that the new ENP hopes to address while avoiding the creation of new divisions. These strategies in fact oppose those who wish to incorporate European values into their country's political model and those who, on the contrary, reject these values. The relationship between identity and politics is all the more crucial for the EU's eastern neighbours since it involves practices with a low level of institutionalization, in the areas of nation-building, the political system as well as foreign policy. A comparative approach confirms the idea that the EU's new neighbours constitute a regional specificity due to their common past as Soviet republics and their geostrategic position. It also points up the differences between these states as they gradually transform into discrete political spaces with nationalized modes of identification and politicization.
Topic:
International Relations and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, Ukraine, Moldova, Eastern Europe, and Romania

20. CERI: Religion and Politics in Greece: The Greek Church's 'Conservative Modernization' in the 1990s

Author:
Anastassios Anastassiadis
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
This article addresses the sensitive question of Church-State relations in Greece. Recent studies have suggested that the Greek Church's discourse was plainly incompatible with modern conceptions of liberal democracy. Populism and nationalism have been the two theoretical concepts used in relation with the Church. Discourse analysis based on public declarations of Church officials has been the main methodological tool. The Greek identity cards' crisis of the nineties has been its testing ground. Through an analysis of this "crisis" this article intends to show that these methods can offer only very limited perspectives of understanding the process for two main reasons. First, they show little interest for sociological analysis and especially for the internal functioning of the Church. Second, discourses are one outcome of the actors' strategies but have to be deciphered and not taken for granted. Analysts disregard one of the main presuppositions of semantics theory: discourses are produced within a specific socio-historical context and according to certain prefabricated schemes. This dual pattern of production allows for continuity as well as for change. Thus, this article also argues that a Church's conservative discourse may be closely related to the efforts of certain actors within this institution to renovate it. While refuting the "clash of civilizations" thesis, this article finally intends to suggest that the renewed interest for religion in general and orthodoxy in particular due to this thesis should be put to use by researchers in order to acquire new and more comprehensive socio-historical accounts of the Greek Church.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe and Greece