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541. Theater and Radical Politics in Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria: 1860-1914

Author:
Ilham Makdisi
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
In the last days of October 1909, a play celebrating the life and work of Francisco Ferrer was performed in Beirut. Ferrer, a Spanish social and political activist whose ideas combined elements of anarchism and socialism, had been executed three days before. Ferrer was a pedagogue who had created a modern curriculum and established modern schools in Barcelona based on the principle of “class harmony,” a project very similar to the ideas behind the Université Populaire that appeared in France at the same time. Ferrer's ideas enjoyed tremendous popularity throughout the world 3 both because of his pedagogy as well as his ideology, which combined Freemasonry, free thinking, a strong class consciousness, anarchism, and anticlericalism. He became an icon of the world's leftist movements in 1909, when he was falsely accused by the Spanish Church and condemned to death because of his alleged involvement in an anarchist “terrorist” attack. His trial and condemnation triggered demonstrations and protests throughout the world, from Italy to Mexico.
Topic:
Political Violence, Armed Struggle, Insurgency, and Culture
Political Geography:
Middle East, France, Arabia, Spain, Mexico, Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria

542. Inequality and Mortality: Long-Run Evidence from a Panel of Countries

Author:
Ricardo Hausmann and Edwin Lim
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
We investigate whether changes in economic inequality affect mortality in rich countries. To answer this question we use a new source of data on income inequality: tax data on the share of pretax income going to the richest 10 percent of the population in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US between 1903 and 2003. Although this measure is not a good proxy for inequality within the bottom half of the income distribution, it is a good proxy for changes in the top half of the distribution and for the Gini coefficient. In the absence of country and year fixed effects, the income share of the top decile is negatively related to life expectancy and positively related to infant mortality. However, in our preferred fixed-effects specification these relationships are weak, statistically insignificant, and likely to change their sign. Nor do our data suggest that changes in the income share of the richest 10 percent affect homicide or suicide rates.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, Ireland, and New Zealand

543. Relics of Cold War: Defence Transformation in the Czech Republic

Author:
Miroslav Tuma
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:
On 28 October 1918, the newly created Czechoslovak Republic—incorporating the historic Czech lands (Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia) and Slovakia— declared its independence after three centuries under Austrian and then Austro- Hungarian rule. This First Republic, initially led by its popular first president, Tomá G. Masaryk, lasted until the resignation of his successor, Edvard Bene, in October 1938. This followed an agreement between France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom forcing Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Germany. From March 1939 until the end of World War II Czechoslovakia was split into the German Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia and the nominally independent Slovakian State, which was also under de facto German control. Czechoslovakia regained its independence in 1945. The Communist Party took over government in 1948 and in 1955 Czechoslovakia signed the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (the Warsaw Treaty) along with Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union and, from 1956, the German Democratic Republic. A period of hardline communist rule followed. Attempts at democratic transformation in 1968, the so-called Prague Spring, were ended by a Soviet-led invasion by the forces of fellow Warsaw Treaty Organization members in August 1968, after which the leading reformists were replaced with orthodox Communists. Czechoslovakia's Communist regime relinquished its monopoly on power in November 1989 following more than a week of popular demonstrations, a series of events known as the Velvet Revolution. A former dissident, Václav Havel, was elected president of the renamed Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. On 1 January 1993, the federation was peacefully dissolved and the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic (Slovakia) became independent democratic states. In 1999 the Czech Republic joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and in 2004 it joined the European Union.
Topic:
NATO and Cold War
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, and Slovakia

544. French foreign policy and the limits of Europeanisation

Author:
Pernille Rieker
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This article focuses on the changing French position on EU enlargement. The aim of the analysis is to study the interplay between the foreign policy of the EU and the foreign policy of France, but also between the official French foreign policy and the French public opinion. Most of the literature on EU enlargement underestimates the importance of public opinion. This article is therefore an attempt to present a more comprehensive understanding of the changing French position on enlargement by combining a top down with a bottom up approach. By doing this the analysis do not consider whether enlargement is good or bad, but rather how a member state's position on this issue may change both through a process of Europeanisation and as a result of changes in domestic public opinion.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and France

545. From Common Defence to Comprehensive Security: Towards the Europeanisation of French Foreign and Security policy?

Author:
Pernille Rieker
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This article looks at the relationship between European integration and national foreign and security policy - specifically, how and to what extent the development of a specifically European (EU) foreign and security policy leads to adaptation and change in national foreign and security policy. The theoretical point of departure is an interest in national changes in response to EU norms. It will be argued that national approaches tend to adapt to norms defined by a community to which they are closely linked; that this adaptation takes place over time, through a socialisation process; and that it may also, in the end, lead to changes in national identity. This argument challenges the common assumption of IR theory that national identities and/or interests are fixed and independent of structural factors like international norms and values. The empirical focus is on changes in French foreign and security policy since the early 1990s. How and to what extent has the dominant French national discourse on foreign and security policy changed since the early 1990s? And if so, how are these changes related to the European integration process in general, and to the development of a European foreign and security dimension in particular?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
Europe and France

546. French foreign policy and the limits of Europeanisation. The changing French position on EU enlargement

Author:
Pernille Rieker
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
This article looks at the relationship between European integration and national foreign and security policy - specifically, how and to what extent the development of a specifically European (EU) foreign and security policy leads to adaptation and change in national foreign and security policy. The theoretical point of departure is an interest in national changes in response to EU norms. It will be argued that national approaches tend to adapt to norms defined by a community to which they are closely linked; that this adaptation takes place over time, through a socialisation process; and that it may also, in the end, lead to changes in national identity. This argument challenges the common assumption of IR theory that national identities and/or interests are fixed and independent of structural factors like international norms and values. The empirical focus is on changes in French foreign and security policy since the early 1990s. How and to what extent has the dominant French national discourse on foreign and security policy changed since the early 1990s? And if so, how are these changes related to the European integration process in general, and to the development of a European foreign and security dimension in particular?
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Europe and France

547. As UN Ceasefire Resolutions Loom, Diplomatic Gaps Remain

Author:
David Makovsky
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
As diplomacy to end hostilities between Israel and Lebanon intensifies at the United Nations, with a first resolution passed perhaps on Monday, conceptual gaps between the parties remain. The differences range from substantive to procedural. France has been at the center of diplomacy surrounding the passage of a UN Security Council resolution, since it is expected to lead the multinational force to southern Lebanon. From the outset of its consultations with the United States, which are at the center of UN diplomacy, France has sought two Security Council resolutions; this plan has won the backing of U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. The first resolution would declare an immediate ceasefire and establish general principles to guide the period after the ceasefire. The second resolution would, among other things, define the scope and mission of the multinational force.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, France, and Lebanon

548. Bad Riddance: The Dangers of Deportation as a Counterterror Policy

Author:
Emily Hunt
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Sami al-Arians plea agreement, unsealed last week in Tampa, Florida, has been almost universally billed as a domestic counterterrorism victory. Al-Arian pleaded guilty to providing financial and material support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a U.S. specially designated terrorist group, and agreed to be deported. He is one of a small but important number of U.S. deportees (out of approximately 200,000 annually) who have connections to international terrorism.Many in the United States will say good riddance to people like al-Arian, a sentiment shared by a substantial portion of Europeans whose governments are increasing their own efforts to send terrorist suspects back to their countries of origin. Since the July 7 London transit bombings, Britain has signed deportation agreements with Jordan, Libya, and Lebanon, and is negotiating a similar one with Algeria. Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands have all recently introduced or passed legislation that will facilitate deportation on national security grounds, while the French for their part wonder why other Western democracies have been so slow to catch on. France has been deporting terrorist suspects and other extremists for more than a decade, including more than a dozen radical imams in 2005 alone. American and European deportation policies differ in key areas. U.S. policy is aimed at lawbreakers generally, whereas Europe, because of its more ingrained challenge of domestic radicalism, targets extremist imams and other purveyors of jihadist ideology who can have a pervasive radicalizing effect on a community. Nevertheless, the same rationale underpins deportation on both sides of the Atlantic, and enthusiasm for the policy seems almost universal. Sending problem immigrants back to their native countries allows Western governments to deal with extremists outside the framework of domestic legal codes that remain woefully ill-equipped to address the threat of terrorism. Deportation minimizes the need to adopt draconian measures such as indefinite detention. It is counterterrorism on the cheap, and has become the policy of first choice for domestic law enforcement agencies that lack the personnel and resources to conduct adequate surveillance on all potential terrorists. But although deportation of terrorist suspects may be the most appealing of several bad policy options, it is by no means a perfect solution. Deportation is designed to displace the threat, but it may ultimately create a host of other challenges for the West in Muslim countries and ultimately on its own territory.
Topic:
Government and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, America, Europe, Middle East, France, Libya, London, Palestine, Germany, Algeria, Spain, Lebanon, Italy, Jordan, and Netherlands

549. Concentration among the Rich

Author:
Anthony B. Atkinson
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to examine the concentration of wealth among the group of top wealth holders, defined as those with wealth in excess of a high cut off. The paper begins by considering the definition of this cut off, analogous to the definition of a poverty line at the other end of the distribution. It then considers what can be learned about the proportion classified as 'rich' and about the concentration among the rich from four non-survey sources: journalists' lists, estate data, wealth tax data, and investment income tax data. It starts off from the world's billionaires in 2006, but is particularly concerned with changes over time within countries, taking France, Germany, the UK, and the USA, to illustrate the different sources.
Topic:
Civil Society, Demographics, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany

550. "Disproportionate" Criticism - Israel Will Not Back Down, and Europe Owes Its Thanks

Author:
Joshua Muravchik
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
No sooner had Israel raised its hand in self- defense when Finland, speaking as the rotating president of the European Union, denounced it for “the disproportionate use of force.” This position, echoed by France, Spain, the United Nations, and others, is wrong legally, morally, and strategically. From a legal standpoint, Israel is the victim of multiple unprovoked aggressions. It withdrew entirely from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005. (Both of these occupations had come about as acts of self-defense: the former against rocket fire from Lebanon in 1982, and the latter against a war of annihilation declared by Egypt in 1967.) From the time of its withdrawal from Gaza, not a single day had passed without rockets being fired into Israel. Now from the north as well as the south, Israel finds hundreds of rockets being fired across its border. Even if these were aimed at military installations, it would be a clear-cut act of war. To make it worse, these rockets are aimed randomly at cities and other civilian population centers, making them not only acts of war but war crime.
Topic:
International Relations and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Israel, Finland, France, Gaza, Spain, Lebanon, and Egypt