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441. Counting the Costs of Somali Piracy

Author:
Raymond Gilpin
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Roughly the same size of France and six times the size of the U.S. state of Virginia, Somalia has a 3,025 km coastline (longer than the U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico, which is some 2,700 km ) on the northeastern corner of Africa. Its recent history has been marred by violence and instability. Since the fall of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, there have been more than a dozen attempts to forge political consensus and establish a functioning central government. 1 Although the Transnational Federal Government was established in 2003, with its capital in the southern city of Mogadishu, it remains fairly ineffective. De facto, Somalia is governed by a system of clans operating in three relatively autonomous regions – Somaliland in the northwest, Puntland in the northeast and Central Somalia in the central and southern regions.
Topic:
Crime, International Law, and Maritime Commerce
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, France, Mexico, Somalia, Virginia, Puntland, and Mogadishu

442. An Agenda for NATO

Author:
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
NATO's 60th anniversary, celebrated in April with pomp and circumstance by the leaders of nearly 30 allied states, generated little public interest. NATO's historical role was treated as a bore. In the opinion-shaping media, there were frequent derisive dismissals and even calls for the termination of the alliance as a dysfunctional geostrategic irrelevance. Russian spokespeople mocked it as a Cold War relic. Even France's decision to return to full participation in NATO's integrated military structures -- after more than 40 years of abstention -- aroused relatively little positive commentary. Yet France's actions spoke louder than words. A state with a proud sense of its universal vocation sensed something about NATO -- not the NATO of the Cold War but the NATO of the twenty-first century -- that made it rejoin the world's most important military alliance at a time of far-reaching changes in the world's security dynamics. France's action underlined NATO's vital political role as a regional alliance with growing global potential. In assessing NATO's evolving role, one has to take into account the historical fact that in the course of its 60 years the alliance has institutionalized three truly monumental transformations in world affairs: first, the end of the centuries-long "civil war" within the West for transoceanic and European supremacy; second, the United States' post-World War II commitment to the defense of Europe against Soviet domination (resulting from either a political upheaval or even World War III); and third, the peaceful termination of the Cold War, which ended the geopolitical division of Europe and created the preconditions for a larger democratic European Union. Even France's decision to return to full participation in NATO's integrated military structures -- after more than 40 years of abstention -- aroused relatively little positive commentary. Yet France's actions spoke louder than words. A state with a proud sense of its universal vocation sensed something about NATO -- not the NATO of the Cold War but the NATO of the twenty-first century -- that made it rejoin the world's most important military alliance at a time of far-reaching changes in the world's security dynamics. France's action underlined NATO's vital political role as a regional alliance with growing global potential. In assessing NATO's evolving role, one has to take into account the historical fact that in the course of its 60 years the alliance has institutionalized three truly monumental transformations in world affairs: first, the end of the centuries-long "civil war" within the West for transoceanic and European supremacy; second, the United States' post-World War II commitment to the defense of Europe against Soviet domination (resulting from either a political upheaval or even World War III); and third, the peaceful termination of the Cold War, which ended the geopolitical division of Europe and created the preconditions for a larger democratic European Union.
Topic:
NATO and Cold War
Political Geography:
Russia and France

443. Sarkozysm: New European and foreign policy into old French bottles?

Author:
Ulla Holm
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
The Gaullist French president Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that France has to break with French past policies. The break refers to the launch of a new French European policy, re-enter in NATO's military integrated structure, up-grading of human rights in international politics and a new World Order. However, the analysis demonstrates that Sarkozy does not break with the past. Sarkozy's activism, his permanent speed and change of issue hide the fact that he continues Charles de Gaulle's and late president Francois Mitterrand's European and foreign policy which was guided by the concept of a 'European Europe', a multipolar world, France being allied to the US but not aligned and France as a politically visible actor in Europe and in international politics. The means to accomplish French European and foreign policy visions changes according to the specific European and international situation. The re-enter in NATO's Military integrated structure is such a change, but Sarkozy does not break with the past concept of not being automatically aligned with the US. Sarkozysm exists, but as we argue in this working paper Sarkozysm is an amalgam of past policies whose purpose is to satisfy all French societal layers and to strike a balance between Gaullism and Mitterrandism.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and NATO
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and France

444. Historical and political sociology of the EU: What's new in France?

Author:
Didier Georgakakis
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Political Sociology
Abstract:
This article provides an overview of the hundred or so papers in historical and political sociology of the EU published in France over the last two years (particularly around the sociology of knowledge and sociology of trajectories and positions of the social agents and groups who make up the European political space), and analyses some of their contributions to the international debate, focusing notably on the central political and institutional space of the EU.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, Political Economy, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Europe and France

445. Visits of Sovereignty and the articulation of the national and the local in France and Germany on the eve of World War I

Author:
Nicolas Mariot
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Political Sociology
Abstract:
This paper seeks to explore the problems and potentialities of asymmetrical historical comparison by examining visits by heads of State to the provinces in Germany and France on the eve of WW I. This act of political legitimisation and representation is analysed through the lens of the practical organization of the event understood as an administrative routine, thereby bringing into question many of the categories routinely mobilised to describe and to oppose two models of national integration.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and War
Political Geography:
Europe, France, and Germany

446. Identities in Migrant Cinema: The Aesthetics of European Integration

Author:
Jalene Betts
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Although much progress was made in Europe over the last half century with regard to the integration of markets and the near-vaporization of national borders, recent years show that, contrary to the illusion of an “enlightened” continent free from the racism of the past, ethnicity continues to play a role in European culture. As demonstrated by disputes in the Balkan region over Kosovo's independence, debates on the acceptance of new member states into the European Union (in particular Turkey's application for admittance), and growing concerns over immigration in the Netherlands and France, ethnicity seems to prove itself as a thing of the present, not the past. Media coverage of the “problems” of Islam—unemployed “Arab” youths roaming the streets, young girls forced to wear head-coverings by their “sexist” relatives—is a reality, whether or not the claims made by such representations are valid.
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, France, and Netherlands

447. Turkeys Eu Membership in the Eyes of French Decision Makers and Public Opinion

Author:
Mehmet Dalar
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bilgi
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
2 Temmuz 1997 tarihinde Tayland Bahtı'nın devalüe edilmesinin ardından para ve menkul değerler piyasalarında, 1994 yılında Meksika Pesosu'nun devalüe edilmesinin ardından yaşanan “tekila” etkisini fazlasıyla aşan ölçülerde bir dalgalanma meydana gelmiştir. Kriz, ilk olarak, Doğu Asya'nın diğer ülkelerine bir dizi devalüasyon ve borsa çöküşü biçiminde yansımıştır. Sorunun derinlik kazanması ile birlikte, Hong Kong ve Güney Kore dahil, bölgedeki diğer ülkelerin para birimleri spekülatif baskılara maruz kalmıştır. Öte yandan kriz bölge dışına da taşmıştır. Arjantin, Brezilya ve Rusya gibi ülkelerin hisse senedi piyasalarında sert düşüşler yaşanmış ve ulusal para birimlerine dönük spekülatif saldırılar olmuştur. Döviz piyasalarında durum düzeldikçe, Tayland ve Güney Kore'de olduğu gibi, ülkelerin önemli bir bölümünde bankacılık sorunları, belki bunun da ötesinde büyük ölçekli bankacılık krizleri ortaya çıkmıştır.
Topic:
Public Opinion and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and France

448. U.S.-Russia Relations Chronology

Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Government
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Ukraine, and France

449. Secularism in Turkey: Myths and Realities

Author:
Ahmet T. Kuru
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The Prosecutor of the High Court of Appeals opened a closure case against the ruling AK Party by presenting it as the center of anti-secular reactionism in Turkey. The indictment largely reflected four myths embraced by the Turkish establishment: 1) Secularism is a way of life and a constitutional principle; 2) Secularism does not allow religion's impact on social life; 3) Islam, unlike Christianity, is incompatible with secularism; therefore, secularism in Turkey should be restrictive; and 4) Turkey cannot be compared with the US, which is not a secular state, but is similar to France, which is secular. The Turkish Constitutional Court has justified restrictive policies on the basis of these myths. The court should no longer be bounded by its misleading past opinions. It can play an historical leading role with its future decisions by providing new, myth-free perspectives on secularism in Turkey.
Political Geography:
United States, Turkey, and France

450. The “Perfidious Invasion” of 1808: Ideological Disquiet and Certainty in Moratín

Author:
Jes´us P´erez Magall´on
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:
This paper revisits the afrancesados' role in Spanish historiography as well as their political positioning prior to, during and after the French invasion of 1808. Taking the famous playwright Leandro Fern´andez de Morat´ın as a case study, the paper explores his political ideas beyond established labels such as “supporter of enlightened despotism” coined by S´anchez Agesta. To this end the article reviews a variety of Morat´ın's texts, including Carta de un vecino de Foncarral a un abogado de Madrid sobre el libre comercio de los huevos, Apuntaciones sueltas de Inglaterra, Viaje a Italia, a Prologue to Isla's Fray Gerundio de Campazas, as well as Morat´ın's correspondence. The essay argues that despite his confessed social, economic and even political liberalism, Morat´ın never supported any specific form of political organization, neither absolutist nor liberal. His open skepticism locates him beyond prevailing ideologies.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
Europe, France, and Spain