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21. CERI: Public Administrations and Modes of Government in the Face of Europeanization: A Comparison between Southern Europe and Eastern Europe

Author:
Béatrice Hibou and François Bafoil
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Enlargement today is a priority on the European agenda. Examining Portugal and Greece from a comparative perspective with respect to Poland, this Study analyzes the original and specific paths each of these national configurations have taken as regards administrative and institutional changes, particularly through the regional dimension, policy reorientations and modes of government. Given the large body of acquis communautaire that must be integrated, the nature of Commission involvement and the highly regulatory nature of European directives, this dimension emerges as the most significant in the process of Europeanization: public administration acts as a filter in this dynamic and nation-states are paradoxically strengthened by European integration. This comparison is an opportunity to underscore the importance of innovations and the singularity of modes of government, suggesting that certain arrangements put into practice in cohesion countries may provide sources of inspiration for the new entrants, which are faced with similar problems of administrative competence, bureaucratic blockages and political and state legacies that are remote from the European model of public administration, civil service organization and rules. With the effect of European constraints, a threefold dynamic is at work: a dynamic of delegation, or privatization, through the creation of agencies, offices and institutes, a dynamic of politicized (re)centralization, and a dynamic of political, institutional and social innovation. Thus components of these models are constantly borrowed and reshaped, hybrid constructions are formed and configurations take shape that are no less European than what can be found in the "heart" of Europe.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

22. CERI: Barter and Inter-business Transactions in Russia: Trade Normalization in View after the Ruble Crisis of 1998?

Author:
Caroline Dufy
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Barter was a prominent issue in public debate during the 1990s in Russia: it prompted a more overall reflection on the nature of the Russian economy and the aim pursued by economic reforms. These major issues shaped a number of divisions: the government opposition portrayed barter as one of the pernicious effects of economic policies that gave priority to finance to the detriment of the national productive sphere. For others, it was to be interpreted as the legacy of the Soviet industrial sector and its lack of competitiveness.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

23. CERI: Developing Border Cooperation between China and Russia

Author:
Sébastien Colin
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Since the resumption of talks between China and Russia – still the Soviet Union when this occurred in the mid-1980s, relations between the two countries have been particularly dynamic. On the international level, the two countries in fact share the same viewpoint on a number of issues. These mutual concerns led to the signing of a strategic partnership in 1997, then a new treaty of friendship in 2001. The complementarity between the two countries in the energy and arms sectors also stimulates cooperation. However, this alliance is not without its limits. The United States, its primary target, can easily short-circuit it, as it did just after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In the field of cooperation, the intensity and structure of trade between the two countries are both inadequate. The rise in trade during the 1990s was very uneven and marked by a drop between 1994 and 1996. The main causes of this are situated at the local echelon along the Chinese-Russian border. After the dynamism characteristic of the 1988-1993 period, the opening of the border triggered new problems, such as illegal Chinese immigration in the little-inhabited border zones of Russia. Although this trend caused friction among the local Russian population, it was mainly the retrocession of certain Russian territories to China when the border was demarcated between 1993 and 1997 that radicalized the inhabitants, paralyzing border cooperation. The Russian and Chinese government played an active role in attempting to resolve most of these disputes, as the Tumen program illustrated. Since then, the various authorities in the two countries have tried to revitalize border cooperation, but a number of problems remain that are mainly economic in nature and vary depending on the border region.
Topic:
Development and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, and Asia

24. CERI: The United States and Europe and the conflict in Colombia

Author:
Frédéric Massé
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
The conflict in Colombia has, in the space of a few years, become a real headache for the United States as well as for Europe. Countless human rights violations, forced population displacement, drug trafficking and terrorism make Colombia a textbook case for examining the entire range of security problems today. With the launching of Plan Colombia in 1999, the United States considerably increased its aid to the country. Today, the American administration actively supports Alvaro Uribe's government in its fight against guerilla movements, labeled "narcoterrorists," and rumors of armed intervention regularly resurface. Having long remained on the sidelines of the "Colombian tragedy," Europe seems to be relegated to playing second fiddle. The military option represented by Plan Colombia had opened up a political spaced that the Europeans began to occupy. But with the break-off of peace negotiations, this space has shrunk and has maybe even disappeared for good. In the face of American efforts to monopolize management of the Colombian conflict, it is in fact hard to see how the European Union can return to the forefront in this area of the world that remains the United States' preserve. All the more so since virtually no voices can be heard asking the Europeans to counterbalance the United States.The situation in Colombia is a new illustration of the state of U.S.-European relations today, between competition, a search for complementarity and a mutual lack of understanding.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
United States, America, Europe, Colombia, and South America

25. Les marchés de la vertu : la promesse des fonds éthiques et des micro-crédits

Author:
Javier Santiso
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Ethically correct policies sometimes, even often, skeptics will say, simply reflect a good grasp of where one's interests lie. The creation of an ethical fund or involvement in a micro-finance program may only be a way of pandering to the times or improving one's self-esteem in a convoluted fashion. However, these tributes to virtue nevertheless raise a number of contemporary questions and issues. The sums invested in ethical funds are far from merely symbolic. In the United States, one out of every ten dollars is invested in "ethical" financial instruments. In Europe, they are developing quickly. As for micro-loan experiments, from Bangladesh to Bolivia, the profitable results they have yielded to all parties are proof that they warrant taking an interest in them. As the present research emphasizes, the use of ethical funds and micro-loans, although it may not bridge the gap between past and future, nevertheless shows promise for the years to come: it provides a temporal horizon that the commonly-called international civil society takes part in shaping.
Topic:
Civil Society and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Bangladesh, United States, Europe, and Bolivia

26. Analyser les modes de représentation des intérêts dans l'Union européenne : construction d'une problématique

Author:
Sabine Saurugger
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
This article presents conceptual tools to analyse interest representation in the European Union. On the European level, no formal system of representation can be found, but rather a patchwork of representation modes. These modes are influenced by forms of political exchange specific for each country and each political domain, which interact with opportunity structures at the European level. Analysing interest representation in a system of governance, either national, European or international requires taking into account the relations which link interest groups with political and bureaucratic actors at the national level, acknowledging the changes in these relations and to insert all that in a system of governance where actors must find solutions to problems in the management of public policies and not to forget political power games and hierarchies amongst actors. The first part of the article analyses briefly the development of interest group studies in comparative politics as well as in international relations and presents the attempts to systematize these studies undertaken since the 1990. In the second part, I analyse more specifically the network approach, which allows to overcome the cleavage between pluralism and neocorporatism in the study of the relationships between interest groups and state actors. In presenting a critical analysis of the general ideas of the network approach, I propose specific conceptual instruments helping to structure research on interest groups in the European Union.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

27. CERI: New Perspectives on EU-Member State Relationships

Author:
Simon Bulmer and Christian Lequesne
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
This paper aims to review the "state of the art" for examining EU-member state relations. It recognises first of all that EU-member state relationships are interactive. Member states are key actors in making EU policy, and their role in this process is central to policy-making studies. However, European integration has an important impact upon the member states: the phenomenon that has come to be termed Europeanization. We review the literatures concerned with these two directions of flow: the analytical issues raised and the theoretical perspectives deployed. We then turn to the empirical literature on EU-member state relationships, and how it operationalises the theoretical literatures (if at all). This empirical literature tends to be organised in two ways: individual or comparative studies of member states' relationships with the EU; or studies of the impact of the EU on types of political actor/institution or on policy areas/sectors. We review both these literatures. On the basis of the identified strengths and weaknesses in the different literatures examined, we suggest a research agenda for future theoretical and empirical work.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe