Number of results to display per page
Search Results
42. Nigeria's Paris Club Debt Problem
- Publication Date:
- 08-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- Intense domestic pressure has convinced Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to seek a deal that would eliminate the country's $31 billion of debt owed to the governments of the U.K., France, and other aid-giving countries that use the Paris Club process to restructure debt that countries cannot repay. The Paris Club creditors have proposed an unprecedented operation—its first-ever buyback at a discount—that would cancel all of Nigeria's debt to them in exchange for a cash payment of roughly $12 billion.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Debt
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United Kingdom, Paris, France, and Nigeria
43. Allons enfants de *quelle* patrie: Breton Nationalism and the French Impressionist Aesthetic
- Author:
- Paul-André Bempéchat
- Publication Date:
- 01-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Since its annexation by France in 1532, preserving Brittany's cultural identity has been dependent upon the fluidity of its political relationship with France. As the French Republic came into existence, laws were enacted to suppress minority languages across the Hexagon in favour of French. After the Revolution of 1789, the only language to be used officially, universally and exclusively in matters of education and civic administration became French, at a time when less than half the territory we recognize as France indeed spoke the language. Repressive, violent retaliatory measures were taken whenever linguistic resurgence arose, and such tactics only fueled the flames of nationalism. It was in 1839, at the height of European Celtomania, that the vibrancy of Brittany's ancient culture gained in both stature and appreciation. This revival had been generated by the publication and enormous international success of La Villemarqué's Barzaz Breiz ("Songs and Ballads of Brittany"), the cornerstone of Brittany's cultural renaissance. When France fell to the Germans in 1870, a wounded Republic felt even more artistically vulnerable to the onslaught of German Romanticism that had beset the nation since Wagner's operatic successes of the 1840s. A "national nationalism" came into the fore as Camille Saint-Saëns founded the Société Nationale de Musique, whose mandate became the "de-Germanization" of French music, and a rediscovery of all that was musically French. France's cultural vulnerability opened a window for Breton literati and musical illuminati towards greater artistic expression. Refusing the wave of nationalism to pass them by, Breton composers began to assert their cultural identity by reviving ancient, modal Church canticles, folk melodies and traditionally Celtic instruments. As the tonal matrices of French post- Romanticism congealed into Impressionism, Breton musical Romanticism and Impressionism also entered the foreground of French musical life. By 1910, l'Association des compositeurs bretons was founded by Les Huit (Louis Aubert, Charles-Augustin Collin, Maurice Duhamel, Paul Ladmirault, Paul Le Flem, Paul Martineau, Joseph-Guy Ropartz, and Louis Vuillemin). Affectionately nicknamed La Cohorte bretonne ("The Invading Breton Troop") by critic René Dumesnil, the Association commissioned and launched Breton and Breton-inspired compositions in the national capital until the outbreak of World War I. After the Great War, Paris' greatest fear for the security of the Republic was the festering autonomist movement in Alsace, just regained after the Armistice. In extenso, Breton autonomist movements also presented a threat, and this led to further, violently repressive measures outlawing the speaking of the Breton language and the holding of Mass in Breton. Fearing that the impetus provided the cultural faction of Le Mouvement breton would wane, and coinciding with Maurice Duhamel's political address to the Bretons at the Congrès breton of 1929, Paul Ladmirault composed his own cultural epistle to Breton artists, L'Exemple des Cinq Russes in 1928. Ladmirault heralded the province's cultural originality and independence and aligned her struggles for recognition with those of the Russian musical nationalists, The Mighty Five (Mili Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modeste Moussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov), a generation earlier. Seeing that this movement had, after a half century, finally earned its rightful place within the musical Pantheon, Breton composers finally found the requisite impetus to develop their own, distinct cultural patrimony.
- Topic:
- Nationalism and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Paris, France, and Germany
44. Chechnya Weekly: Is Georgia Starting To See Chechnya Moscow's Way?
- Author:
- Lawrence Uzzell
- Publication Date:
- 05-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- Georgia's new government under President Mikheil Saakashvili may be tilting toward Russia on Chechnya-related issues in order to win concessions in other areas. In early May, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights sent an open letter to Saakashvili expressing concern over two Chechens living in Georgia, Islam Khashiev and Hussein Alkhanov, who may have been secretly handed over to Russian authorities even though a Tbilisi court had acquitted them of violating border regulations. The two have disappeared and reportedly are now in Russian hands.
- Topic:
- Security and Ethnic Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Paris, Asia, and Georgia
45. Governing the Capital -- Comparing Institutional Reform in Berlin, London, and Paris
- Author:
- Eckhard Schröter and Manfred Röber
- Publication Date:
- 02-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies
- Abstract:
- The paper examines institutional changes in the political and administrative structures governing the cities of Berlin, London and Paris. In doing so, it analyzes the extent to which convergent trends – driven by forces related to increased international competition and European integration – have shaped recent reforms of the governance systems of these European capital cities.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Government, Politics, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Paris, London, and Berlin
46. Clarifying and Strengthening the Iran-European Nuclear Accord
- Author:
- Patrick Clawson
- Publication Date:
- 11-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
- Abstract:
- On November 25, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors will meet to consider Iran's nuclear program, in light of the November 14 Paris Accords between Iran and Britain, France, and Germany (the E3). If the Paris Accords are going to work as a stepping-stone toward ending Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions -- rather than as a stalling tactic while Iran makes progress on that program -- several steps will be necessary to clarify and build on the Paris Accords.
- Topic:
- Security and Religion
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Paris, France, Germany, and Arab Countries
47. Remembering the Battle of Paris: 17th October 1961 in French and Algerian Memory
- Author:
- Joshua Cole
- Publication Date:
- 09-2003
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- French Politics, Culture Society
- Institution:
- Conference Group on French Politics Society
- Abstract:
- In October 1961, an as yet undetermined number of Algerian protesters were killed by the police in Paris while demonstrating for Algerian independence. In the last two decades, these killings have become the focal point of a public controversy in France, as questions about the memory of the Algerian war converged with debates about immigration and citizenship in the 1980s and 1990s and with the willingness of the French state to confront the crimes committed during the last phase of decolonization between 1945 and 1962. Most commentaries have emphasized the connections of this debate with an earlier bout of French soul-searching over the question of the Vichy government's collaboration with Germany during World War II. This connection seemed all the more relevant when the man who was the prefect of police in Paris in 1961, Maurice Papon, was accused and eventually convicted of assisting in the deportation of Jews from Bordeaux in 1942-1944. This article argues that the public attention to the connections between Maurice Papon and the Holocaust have obscured the extent to which the debate in France about October 1961 has been driven by developments in Algerian politics in the last four decades. The extent to which historical accounts of the events of October 1961 are shaped by very contemporary political concerns presents particular challenges to the historian, who must find a way of retelling the story without merely reproducing the ideological conflict that produced the violence in the first place.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- Paris, France, Germany, and Algeria
48. 17 octobre 1961 - 17 octobre 2001: une commémoration ambiguë
- Author:
- Brigitte Jelen
- Publication Date:
- 03-2002
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- French Politics, Culture Society
- Institution:
- Conference Group on French Politics Society
- Abstract:
- A few months ago, the massacre of Algerian civilians by the French police on October 17, 1961 was finally officially recognized, as the new socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, placed a commemorative plaque on the Pont Saint-Michel. In his declaration to the press, Delanoë was careful to focus on the "Parisian" character of this ceremony, although the 1961 massacre was committed by the French national police. Perhaps Delanoë's noble and courageous gesture hides an ambiguity, an injustice to the victims? In order to understand the symbolic importance of this plaque in the construction of France's official memory of the Algerian war, this essay analyzes how the French government since 1962 has attempted to "forget" the conflict in the name of "national unity," in particular through the use of amnesty laws. In a discussion on forgiveness inspired by J. Derrida, the possibility of a French national memory of the Algerian war (and of the October 17, 1961 event) that would include the voices of the victims is considered.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Paris and France
49. Affirmative Action At Sciences Po
- Author:
- Daniel Sabbagh
- Publication Date:
- 09-2002
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- French Politics, Culture Society
- Institution:
- Conference Group on French Politics Society
- Abstract:
- Unlike in the United States, in France, the main operational criterion for identifying the beneficiaries of affirmative action policies is not race or gender, but geographical location. In this respect, the first affirmative action plan recently designed in the sphere of higher education by one of France's most famous 'grandes écoles', the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, while not departing significantly from this broader pattern of redistributive, territory-based public policies, has given rise to a controversy of an unprecedented scale, some features of which may actually suggest the existence of a deeper similarity between French and American affirmative action programs and the difficulties that they face. That similarity lies in the attempts made by the supporters of such programs to systematically minimize the negative side-effects on their beneficiaries' public image potentially induced by the visibility of the policy itself.
- Topic:
- Education
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, Paris, and France
50. The Quartet, the Road Map, and the Future of Iraq: A Realistic Assessment
- Author:
- Gerald M. Steinberg
- Publication Date:
- 12-2002
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
- Abstract:
- In the wake of the failed Camp David summit of July 2000 and the terrible violence that began at the end of September, there have been many efforts to halt the carnage and revive the negotiations. These efforts included summit meetings in Paris and Sharm el Sheik, the Mitchell Commission, and security plans presented by CIA director George Tenet and General Anthony Zinni. None of these had any visible impact, and the Palestinian attacks and Israeli responses have only intensified.
- Topic:
- Security and Religion
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Middle East, Paris, Palestine, and Arabia