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72. La démocratisation en Géorgie à l'épreuve des élections
- Author:
- Salomé Zourabichvili
- Publication Date:
- 04-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
- Abstract:
- A peine trois ans après la Révolution des Roses qui a porté au pouvoir en Géorgie le gouvernement libéral et pro-occidental du président Mikhaïl Saakachvili, la tenue des élections locales et municipales le 5 octobre 2006 soulève des questions importantes sur l'évolution du régime politique. Pourquoi consacrer une étude à une élection apparemment secondaire : un scrutin local dans un petit pays, qui plus est extérieur à l'Union européenne ? Pour la majorité des observateurs, certes assez distants de la réalité géorgienne, la situation politique ne soulève pas d'inquiétude particulière car la Géorgie bénéficie toujours de la bonne image bâtie sur le renversement pacifique du régime Chevardnadze en novembre 2003. En juin 2005, le président Bush a salué ce pays comme le « fleuron de la démocratie » ! Et, en effet, la Géorgie reste, avec l'Ukraine, en dépit des difficultés qui se font jour, un des îlots de démocratie dans l'espace post-soviétique.
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Georgia
73. Sovereignties, the World Conference against Racism 2001 and the Formation of a Dalit Human Rights Campaign
- Author:
- Dag Erik Berg
- Publication Date:
- 04-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
- Abstract:
- This paper examines how the World Conference against Racism in Durban 2001 intensified an old debate in India about caste and race. The controversy arose after the 'National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights' wanted to present caste discrimination in Durban as equivalent to racial discrimination. The Indian government protested, and distinguished sociologists entered the fray by claiming that race is a western concept which cannot be compared to caste, strengthening the official position. Conceptual logic became central to the debate. First, the position represents conventional knowledge, which reflects the anti-colonial attempt to define race as being irrelevant to India. But, secondly, the scholarly discourse acted to exclude oppression from the debate in clear contrast to the Durban agenda on racism and intolerance. The debate showed, broadly, how Durban represented a transformative potential by connecting global racism discourse to the moral status of an embedded postcolonial state. Further, the paper argues that the dominating conceptual focus reflects a paradigmatic individualism, which informs the scholarly approach to modern caste formations. While individualist approaches exclude Dalit rhetoric as subjective, they do not sufficiently acknowledge that the exclusionary logics inflicted on Dalits in modern bureaucratic institutions is a racial dynamic. To shed light on the Durban controversy, the paper outlines the larger background to caste in India and provides examples of Dalit discourse. It also presents the formation of the hum an rights network and controversial issues regarding the way they define themselves as NGOs, Dalits and Christians. These attributed properties were fundamental for the debate(s). Durban cannot be seen as an episode with tangible empirical impact. Rather, the debate was an intense moment in an ongoing historical argument about hierarchical practices and equality in India as well as about its moral status in the global community. In December 2006, however, at an international conference in New Delhi, the Prime Minister of India compared the Dalit situation to apartheid.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Poverty, and Race
- Political Geography:
- India, East Asia, Asia, New Delhi, Kurdistan, and Durban
74. 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
75. Le Sangh Parivar et la diaspora hindoue en Occident : Royaume-Uni, États-Unis et Canada
- Author:
- Ingrid Therwath and Christophe Jaffrelot
- Publication Date:
- 10-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
- Abstract:
- « Long-distance nationalism », an expression coined by Benedict Anderson, is often used in reference to transnational political activities. But the dynamics of this expatriate nationalism tend to be neglected. Mere nostalgia or even spontaneous mobilisations are evoked to explain this phenomenon. They, however, fail to explain the mechanism that lies behind « long-distance nationalism ». This paper wishes to highlight, through the example of the Hindu nationalist movements, the implication of political entrepreneurs in the country of origin and the instrumental dimension of « long-distance nationalism ». The Sangh Parivar, a network of nationalist Hindu organisations, was indeed replicated among the Hindu diaspora and its structure was litterally exported by a centralised body located in India itself. Of course, the spread of the Sangh Parivar and of its Hindutva ideology abroad was greatly facilitated by local policies like multiculturalism and by the rise of racism in the countries of emigration. A comparison of Hindu nationalist outlets in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Canada brings to light the two main factors in instilling « long-distance nationalism » : a favorable local context for ethnic mobilisation among migrants on the one hand, and a centralised organisation in the country of origin on the other hand. Eventually, the engineering of long-distance Hindu nationalism from India questions the changing nature of nationalism in a globalised world.
- Topic:
- Globalization, Nationalism, and Post Colonialism
- Political Geography:
- United States, United Kingdom, America, Canada, India, East Asia, and Asia
76. Religion et « idée nationale » dans la Russie de Poutine
- Author:
- Alexandre Verkhovski
- Publication Date:
- 07-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
- Abstract:
- Depuis le début des années 1990, tous les observateurs politiques s'accordent sur le constat suivant : après le démantèlement de l'URSS, la Russie n'a pas su élaborer une vision claire de sa nouvelle identité. Le Président Poutine l'a lui-même admis. Les citoyens éprouvent encore des difficultés à intégrer le fait que la Russie soit un Etat, et non plus un empire1. On retrouve cette même réticence dans la vision véhiculée par l'élite au pouvoir, une vision communément appelée « idée nationale ».
- Topic:
- Nationalism
- Political Geography:
- Russia
77. Biélorussie 2006. Manipulation électorale dans une dictature post-soviétique
- Author:
- Jean-Charles Lallemand
- Publication Date:
- 06-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
- Abstract:
- Lors de l'éclatement de l'Union soviétique en 1991 et de la chute du parti unique, les élites dirigeantes des quinze républiques nouvellement indépendantes semblaient converties au principe démocratique de l'élection libre et pluraliste. Quinze ans plus tard, plusieurs Etats post-soviétiques connaissent au contraire le renforcement de régimes présidentiels autoritaires. Tout en organisant des scrutins pseudo-concurrentiels à échéances régulières, les élites au pouvoir manipulent sans scrupule les élections pour renforcer leur emprise autoritaire. Parmi ces pays, la Biélorussie d'Alexandre Loukachenko est un modèle du genre : elle n'a pas connu de scrutin libre et honnête depuis 1996.
- Topic:
- Politics and Elections
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Belarus
78. Vladimir Putin and The Russian Television "Family"
- Author:
- Floriana Fossato
- Publication Date:
- 01-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
- Abstract:
- On 27 November 2006 in the Moscow Kremlin Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated the 75th anniversary of Russian television with eight hundred journalists and top television managers. A very important occasion indeed. The Russian president sent messages of congratulations to a huge amount of organizations, but welcomed in person to the Kremlin only selected representatives of the most important ones, these days mainly the various branches of military and security organs. Television would seem an anomaly here, but it is not, since Russian officials and political advisers like to conceptualize television – so often used as a tool of manipulation- as “the Kremlin's nuclear weapon.”
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Government, and Nationalism
- Political Geography:
- Russia
79. 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
80. 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