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991. Myths and Realities in the 2006 "Events"

Author:
George Ross
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The "events" around Dominique de Villepin's abortive promotion of the CPE in spring 2006 were seen by many as a great popular victory in the defense of France's social model and another, albeit modest, version of May 1968. Others, particularly Anglophone neoliberals, saw them as proof that the French were incapable of reform. Both conclusions were wrong. The events and defeat of the CPE may have been enjoyable for many involved, but they resolved none of France's underlying and debilitating economic problems. On the other hand, the neoliberal view that the French are averse to real social policy reform is incorrect. Instead, the unresolved dilemmas surrounding the CPE episode are in large part the product of a particular strategy of reform, the "social management of unemployment," that has nourished and intensified dangerous–– unavowed––social dualism in France. The present problem, illustrated indirectly by the events, is that political actors and social partners are unable to cooperate sufficiently to confront this dualism.
Topic:
Reform
Political Geography:
France

992. Le CPE est mort––et maintenant?

Author:
Erhard Friedberg
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The failure of the CPE does not prove the impossibility of reform in France, but rather illustrates political actors' incompetence when it comes to developing and leading reform efforts. The article argues the foregoing thesis by reviewing different moments when competence in these matters would have been able to make a difference. It then examines the collateral damage of this aborted reform with regard to the adminstration's capacity to act and with regard to the French political landscape from now until the 2007 presidential elections.
Topic:
Reform
Political Geography:
France

993. Review Essay -- Saving France's "Lost Boys": Vichy and the Reform of Juvenile Justice in France

Author:
Laura Lee Downs
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
In 1944, Léo Joannon's now-forgotten film Le Carrefour des enfants perdus opened in cinemas across France. The film (which starts in August 1940) recounts the struggle of impassioned journalist Jean Victor and a small group of friends to found a new kind of reform school without locks on the doors or bars on the windows, a vocational school for the professional training of delinquent youth whose methods were to be based on forging bonds of trust with the young offenders, rather than on their simple repression.1 Victor and his friends had all experienced firsthand the terrible bagnes d'enfants (children's penal colonies) of the Third Republic's pitiless juvenile justice system in their youth, and the story of the Carrefour (as their school was named) turns on the dedicated faith of these men in the abilities of children, even those deemed "guilty" in juvenile courts, to remake their own lives along healthier lines. Over the course of the film, the adventures of the Carrefour's 400 "enfants perdus" unfold inside an unexpected blend of progressive pedagogy (confidence in the children) and Vichy's fascistic elevation of the chef (organization of the school in hierarchically-ordered teams, run by older street toughs who are converted from caïdisme to the purer, if no less masculinist, ideology of the chef).
Topic:
Reform
Political Geography:
France

994. National Accountability Strategies for Developing Countries

Author:
Terry F. Buss and F. Stevens Redburn
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)
Abstract:
The National Planning Department (NPD), Office of the President, Republic of Colombia, contacted the Academy seeking technical assistance in crafting a national accountability strategy for Colombia under President Uribe.The Academy worked with NPD on the strategy which is being tested in Colombia as 2005. This paper is a review of the issues prepared for NPD.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Governance, and Reform
Political Geography:
Colombia

995. Towards a More Employment-Intensive and Pro-Poor Economic Growth in Bolivia

Author:
Luis Carlos Jemio and Maria del Carmen Choque
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)
Abstract:
The reform program and growth pattern exhibited by the Bolivian economy in the last decade did not favour employment creation and consequently not an effective reduction of poverty. During the last decade, those sectors where the bulk of employment is concentrated, presented the lowest growth rates of GDP, labour productivity and real incomes. The present paper analyzes in detail the two sectors where the bulk of employment and poverty is concentrated (agriculture and the urban informal sector) in order to determine the critical constraints to improvements in productivity, employment generation, and reductions in poverty.
Topic:
Poverty, Reform, Employment, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:
South America and Bolivia

996. Putting the Cart Before the Horse? Privatisation and Economic Reform in Afghanistan

Author:
Anna Paterson, James Blewett, and Asif Karimi
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)
Abstract:
This briefing paper holds that before embarking on the privatisation of enterprises that are not doing much harm in fiscal terms, the government should implement structural reforms to ensure adequate investment legislation, improved security and infrastructure and streamlined and strengthened regulation
Topic:
Security, Privatization, Infrastructure, Governance, and Reform
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Middle East

997. Provincial Governance Structures in Afghanistan: From Confusion to Vision?

Author:
Sarah Lister and Hamish Nixon
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)
Abstract:
This briefing paper examines the roles of provincial councils and provincial development committees in the context of the government’s vision for reforming subnational governance.
Topic:
Governance, Reform, Local, and Community
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Middle East

998. An Empirical Analysis of Failed Intelligence Reforms Before September 11

Author:
Amy B. Zegart
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
AMY B. ZEGART examines the failures to reform U.S. intelligence agencies before the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. She finds that during the 1990s, intelligence officials and policy makers understood the rising terrorist threat and the urgent need for reform, but failed to address critical organizational deficiencies.
Topic:
Intelligence, National Security, Terrorism, Reform, and 9/11
Political Geography:
United States of America

999. Security Sector Reform in the Western Balkans

Author:
Marina Caparini
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
The states of the Western Balkans region1 differ from other transitional democracies in Central Europe in important ways which affect the conditions and challenges for security sector reform (SSR).2 In their transition from state socialism and authoritarian rule, the Western Balkan societies also bear the lingering material and psychological effects of recent armed conflict and ethnic cleansing. Their security sectors tend to be fragmented, underdeveloped (although some sectors, typically the armed forces, are over-developed for peacetime conditions), over-politicized and structured along ethnic or religious lines. Non-state armed formations, including paramilitary organizations formed along party or ethnic lines, private military companies, criminal groups and guerrilla movements may exist alongside state security structures weakened by corruption. The problems of refugee return, resettlement and reintegration of displaced persons, and return of property remain unresolved in key areas. Individuals and communities continue to be scarred by the psychological traumas inflicted by war and extreme nationalism. Nationalistic (ethnic and religious) divisions persist, and the resurgence of nationalist parties in recent elections throughout the region-followed by the open violence in Kosovo in March 2004-provides daunting evidence of the fragility of both democracy and peace in these societies. In the Western Balkans, the task of SSR must be approached concurrently with post-conflict stabilization. The continued presence of international peacekeeping forces in most parts of the region-including international police forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM*) and the international administrations with wide-ranging internal powers in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo-has interrupted the local authorities’ monopoly of security responsibilities for years at a stretch. The goals of SSR, as normally conceived, can only be reached by completing the localization of security functions as part of the general transfer of authority from international actors to national and regional governments. Plans for this normalization could be interrupted at any time by a resurgence of security problems anywhere in the region. The goals of reform and normalization, and external efforts to promote them, must therefore be conceived more in regional terms than has been the case elsewhere in post-cold war Europe. A special complication is the dispute and uncertainty over the ultimate status of Kosovo, which aspires to independence but has been ruled as a United Nations (UN) protectorate since 1999.
Topic:
Security, Peacekeeping, Armed Forces, Reform, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Turkey, Balkans, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina

1000. Global Imbalances and Financial Reform with Examples from China

Author:
Raghuram G. Rajan
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
I will focus on a familiar issue, the problem of global current account imbalances, and will describe how financial sector reform can help narrow them, using examples from China. The United States is running a current account deficit approaching 6.25 percent of its GDP and over 1.5 percent of world GDP. To help finance it, the United States pulls in 70 percent of all global capital flows. Clearly, such a large deficit is unsustainable in the long run. The current situation has its roots in a series of crises over the last decade that were caused by excessive investment, such as the Japanese asset bubble, the crises in emerging markets in Asia and Latin America, and most recently, the IT bubble. Investment has fallen off sharply since, with only very cautious recovery. This is particularly true of emerging Asia and Japan. The policy response to the slowdown in investment has differed across countries. In the industrial countries, accommodative policies such as expansionary budgets and low interest rates have led to consumption- or credit-fueled growth, particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries. Government savings have fallen, especially in the United States and Japan, and household savings have virtually disappeared in some countries with housing booms. By contrast, the crises were a wake-up call in a number of emerging market countries. Historically lax policies have been tightened, with some countries running primary fiscal surpluses for the first time, and most bringing down inflation through tight monetary policy. With corporations cautious, and governments abandoning the grandiose projects of the past, investment has fallen off. Instead, exports have led growth. Many emerging markets have run current account surpluses for the first time. In emerging Asia, a corollary has been a buildup of international reserves.
Topic:
Financial Crisis, Reform, Finance, Economy, and Deficit
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America