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7621. Exception Taken: How France Has Defied Hollywood's New World Order

Author:
Jonathan Buchsbaum
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
In Exception Taken, Jonathan Buchsbaum examines the movements that have emerged in opposition to the homogenizing force of Hollywood in global filmmaking. While European cinema was entering a steady decline in the 1980s, France sought to strengthen support for its film industry under the new Mitterrand government. Over the following decades, the country lobbied partners in the European Economic Community to design strategies to protect the audiovisual industries and to resist cultural free-trade pressures in international trade agreements. These struggles to preserve the autonomy of national artistic prerogatives emboldened many countries to question the benefits of accelerated globalization. Led by the energetic minister of culture Jack Lang, France initiated a series of measures to support all sectors of the film industry. Lang introduced laws mandating that state and private television invest in the film industry, effectively replacing the revenue lost from a shrinking theatrical audience for French films. With the formation of the European Union in 1992, Europe passed a new treaty (Maastricht) that extended its legal purview to culture for the first time, setting up the dramatic confrontation over the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) in 1993. Pushed by France, the EU fought the United States over the idea that countries should preserve their right to regulate cultural activity as they saw fit. France and Canada then initiated a campaign to protect cultural diversity within UNESCO that led to the passage of the Convention on Cultural Diversity in 2005. As France pursued these efforts to protect cultural diversity beyond its borders, it also articulated "a certain idea of cinema" that did not simply defend a narrow vision of national cinema. France promoted both commercial cinema and art cinema, disproving announcements of the death of cinema.
Topic:
Film
Political Geography:
France
Publication Identifier:
9780231543071
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

7622. What Slaveholders Think: How Contemporary Perpetrators Rationalize What They Do

Author:
Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Drawing on fifteen years of work in the antislavery movement, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick examines the systematic oppression of men, women, and children in rural India and asks: How do contemporary slaveholders rationalize the subjugation of other human beings, and how do they respond when their power is threatened? More than a billion dollars have been spent on antislavery efforts, yet the practice persists. Why? Unpacking what slaveholders think about emancipation is critical for scholars and policy makers who want to understand the broader context, especially as seen by the powerful. Insight into those moments when the powerful either double down or back off provides a sobering counterbalance to scholarship on popular struggle. Through frank and unprecedented conversations with slaveholders, Choi-Fitzpatrick reveals the condescending and paternalistic thought processes that blind them. While they understand they are exploiting workers' vulnerabilities, slaveholders also feel they are doing workers a favor, often taking pride in this relationship. And when the victims share this perspective, their emancipation is harder to secure, driving some in the antislavery movement to ask why slaves fear freedom. The answer, Choi-Fitzpatrick convincingly argues, lies in the power relationship. Whether slaveholders recoil at their past behavior or plot a return to power, Choi-Fitzpatrick zeroes in on the relational dynamics of their self-assessment, unpacking what happens next. Incorporating the experiences of such pivotal actors into antislavery research is an immensely important step toward crafting effective antislavery policies and intervention. It also contributes to scholarship on social change, social movements, and the realization of human rights.
Topic:
Human Rights, Sex Trafficking, and Slavery
Political Geography:
India and Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231543828
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

7623. Towards Enhancing the Role of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the Country's Democratic Development

Author:
GFSIS
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:
The publication includes research findings assessing the attitudes and perceptions within the Georgian Orthodox Church on the issues of domestic and foreign policy and recommendations for enhancing the Church’s role in the country’s democratic development. This study was conducted in the framework of the project “Investigating the Attitudes of the Georgian Church on Democracy and Development” supported by the National Endowment for Democracy
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7624. Georgia-EU: Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area

Author:
Kakha Gogolashvili
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:
The European integration has a narrow and broad understanding. The narrow sense of this term implies the processes taking place within the EU - legislative harmonization, deepening of joint policies, relations within the common market, economic and monetary union.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7625. Chronic Poverty and Income Inequality in Georgia

Author:
Merab Kakulia
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:
Poverty alleviation still remains one of the key challenges for Georgia, as for any sovereign country. According to our calculations, in 2016, every seventh family consumed less than the subsistence minimum. Further, following a significant decrease in 2012-2014, the poverty level did not substantially change in 2015-2016; which means that the mentioned decrease might be of episodic nature and in reality there is serious risk of an increase in the scale of poverty. In 2014-2016, the situation became even more complicated, since the trend of reduction in the difference between the income levels of the richest and the poorest people, observed before, almost came to a stop. This points to the need for further economicstatistical research into poverty and inequality, and the implementation of a more effective policy for poverty reduction
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7626. Belt And Road Initiative, The Russian Factor And Main Challenges For Georgia

Author:
Vladimer Papava
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:
Beijing’s new global project Belt and Road Initiative (DRI) includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7627. EU-Georgia Relations Future Perspectives

Author:
Kakha Gogolashvili
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:
This paper discusses the main stages of the development of EU-Georgia relations as well as important achievements and existing challenges
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7628. Crafting Resistance through Narratives in Afghanistan

Author:
Tahir Ul Mulk Kahlon
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Abstract:
Narrative offers an evocative opportunity to understand the power of knowledge manipulation within the public policy system. Despite the influence of narratives in designing, formulating, and implementing of public policies, it is a relatively nascent concept in public policy studies.The war in Afghanistan truly represents a battle of narratives. This paper takes a Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) approach to explore the narratives used by resistance forces in Afghanistan within the belief system of a religion. It acknowledges that narratives matter and that by studying the same, one can construe their influence on policies. The paper finds that resistance groups such as the Taliban, mobilize support and operate in battlefields across Afghanistan; simultaneously bolstering their legitimacy and community influence garnering support from within and outside Afghanistan.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7629. Transcript: The Warren and Anita Manshel Lecture in American Foreign Policy by Robert O. Keohane

Author:
Robert O. Keohane
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Centerpiece
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
n this talk, I will revisit a question that Joe has asked in his work over the last twenty-five years: “Is the American century over?” Joe has given this question a consistently negative answer, and has recently, in a book with this title, extended his expected time frame for the American century to 2041. Before reaching this conclusion, Joe directly addressed the question that seems central to me: Will its internal cultural and political divisions decisively weaken the United States in world politics? He pointed out that “culture wars could adversely affect American power if citizens become so distracted or divided by domestic battles over social and cultural issues that the United States loses the capacity to act collectively in foreign policy” (ACO: 73). But in his answer he claimed that “past culture battles over slavery, prohibition, McCarthyism, and civil rights were more serious than any of today’s issues” (ibid). He did not expect disruption of American power as a result of internal social divisions.
Topic:
Nationalism, Hegemony, Geopolitics, and Populism
Political Geography:
United States and North America

7630. Mixed, Perilous and Other Migrations: Do African Lives Matter?

Author:
Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Ìrìnkèrindò: a Journal of African Migration
Abstract:
This is a trying period for anyone that pays attention to African migration. Migrants’ gruesome deaths while in transit are given more coverage. Of these, those in the Mediterranean Sea, and to a lesser extent, the Sahara Desert make it more into the news. But there are also deaths in places in-between. Some are reported. Others are not. One only gets glimpses of such deaths when repatriated migrants mention or lament them. There has been more coverage of Libyan “Slave auctions,” at least after CNN released taped evidence from such markets (Elbagir, Razek, Platt, & Jones, 2017). The African Union (AU) and selected African states, including Nigeria, (which by dint of its sheer population size in the African continent, has more citizens caught up in the movements of migrants intent on getting out of their countries to realize dreams of social, economic and political security elsewhere), belatedly responded (Ibuot & Okopie, 2017; Daily Nation, 2017; Busari, 2017). Some have not bothered to do so. It is amazing that Nigeria and other African countries have embassies and diplomatic representative in Libya, yet, there was no previous report, awareness, response, nor were any measures whatsoever taken to document, respond to, and correct the abuses of citizens and violation of their human rights. What then is the value and utility of diplomatic representation? How do African governments understand their responsibilities to citizens? What is the function of the media in these countries? What is the duty of the AU?
Topic:
Diplomacy, Government, Human Rights, Migration, Media, and Violence
Political Geography:
Africa and African Union