Critique internationale - Content
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Guy Hermet, Les populismes dans le monde. Une histoire sociologique (XIXe-XXe siècles), Paris, Fayard, 2001, 479 pages.
Ashforth (Adam), Madumo, A Man Bewitched Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2000, 255 pages.
Harding (Jeremy), The Uninvited. Refugees at the Rich Man’s Gate, Londres, Profile Books, 2000, 128 pages.
Macgaffey (Janet), Bazenguissa-Ganga (Rémy), Congo-Paris. Transnational Traders on the Margins of the Law, Londres, The International African Institute; Oxford, James Currey; et Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2000, 190 pages.
Sartori (Giovanni), Pluralismo, multiculturalismo e estranei. Saggio sulla società multietnica, Milan, Rizzoli, 2000, 128 pages.
Rusconi (Gian Enrico), Come se Dio non ci fosse. I laici, i cattolici e la democrazia, Turin, Einaudi, 2000, 167 pages.
Florini (Ann M.), ed., The Third Force. The Rise of Transnational Civil Society, Washington, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2000, 295 pages.
Davis (Deborah S.), ed., The Consumer Revolution in Urban China, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000, 366 pages.
Liu Xin, In One’s Own Shadow. An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post-Reform Rural China, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000, 245 pages.
Lü Xiaobo, Cadres and Corruption. The Organizational Involution of the Chinese Communist Party, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2000, 368 pages.
Mueggler (Erik), The Age of Wild Ghosts. Memory, Violence and Place in Southwest China, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001, 360 pages.
Hsu (Madeline A.), Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home. Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882-1943, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2000, 271 pages.
Leifer (Michael), ed., Asian Nationalism, Londres, Routledge, 2000, 203 pages.
Ondaatje (Michael), Le fantôme d’Anil, Traduit de l’anglais par Michel Lederer. Paris, Éditions de l’Olivier, 2000, 301 pages.
[A political Europe via the currency and the market]
The two major projects undertaken in the building of Europe since the nineteen-eighties (the single market and the single currency) would appear to be exclusively economic, drawing sustenance from a fundamental event of that period: the reappearance of the market as organizing principle of the economy. Hence the widespread feeling of a political deficit, or a "soulless" Europe. In fact, to meet a broad range of demands, promoters of Europe have deployed a wide variety of market rationales (the market as substantive reality, as normative ideal, as forum for development and as political horizon), of which only the first is practically purely "economic". European construction is decidedly a political process, and in this sense a "political Europe" already exists. However, the overall consistency of the process can only be seen in retrospect, and the lessons that can be drawn from it for the future are in no way immediately obvious.
[Islam and political power in Malaysia. A singular course]
While, in the nineteen-eighties, the governments of many countries with mainly Muslim populations came up against opposition parties and often violent Islamic mobilizations to which they often responded with violence, Malaysia managed to avoid this spiral. This was thanks to the amazingly enduring alliance between Dr Mahathir, an advocate of a modernist and pragmatic Islam, and Anwar Ibrahim, who entered politics by way of radical Islamism. This alliance led to a very special kind of state Islamism, which reached it apogee in the first half of the nineties. The Asian economic crisis of 1997 and Anwar Ibrahim's disgrace in 2000 initiated a period of uncertainty for the nation. Worse, the borderlines between government and opposition were henceforth defined in terms of morality and religion, not politics, which makes for a dangerous situation.
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[Large dams, global flows and ordinary people]
Since the nineteen-eighties, major dam building projects have been running into increasingly determined local resistance that is now relayed by powerful national and international action campaigns which sometimes manage to halt project completion. Behind these conflicts lie more fundamental questions, those of development choices and the sharing of their costs and benefits. They illustrate a major aspect of globalization: the emergence of global networks and transnational alliances in which some see the rise of a "global civil society". The case of the large dams exemplifies the problems of effectiveness and legitimacy facing these movements and the power struggles occurring in this new arena.
[International finance, micro-loans and religion of the civil society in Egypt]
NGOs have been a particularly effective form of development technology in the past years especially because they are seen as representatives of local "communities", the "civil society" and "informal economy", all currently fashionable notions. Some of them manage "micro-loans" (financed with international aide and transiting through local banks) granted to workshop owners in the informal sector. Observation of these mechanisms in some neighborhoods of Cairo points up the illusory nature of aid thereby provided to the urban poor (despite arguments presenting micro-loans as instruments of empowerment), as well as the disciplinary role played by these NGOs (committed to overseeing the reimbursement of these loans, granted at market interest rates), which thus takes over for that once exercised by international organizations, particularly the IMF, over national governments.
[Anti-globalization networks]
Beyond the noisy anti-globalization demonstrations that have been taking place during the various meetings of the world's leaders, a new brand of movement is taking shape on the world scale, focusing on four major themes: canceling the debt of developing nations, reforming international financial institutions and putting an end to structural adjustment programs, taxing short term capital movements, and setting new rules for international trade. These objectives are not without their contradictions, and the mobilization they give rise to are not devoid of power plays. This was evident in the organization and outcome of the Porto Alegre "counter-summit" held in January 2001, where these movements did, however, demonstrate their capacity to organize, think about the future and present a high profile.
[Players and issues of an ambiguous process. The birth of a "Civil International"]
If an "international civil society" indeed exists today, this term can only refer to an extremely fragmented arena characterized by great inequality among players, hackneyed arguments that ill conceal the absence of common values, modes of legitimization that are moving away from classic models of political representation, and a lack of accountability. However, major transnational mobilizations and international advocacy networks are a real fact that should be examined in the light of the actual battles they fight. This investigation brings to the fore not only the transnational nature of these movements but the ongoing preponderance of the national and intergovernmental spheres, although the latter is being supplanted in certain areas by direct negotiation between private actors, including those in the profit-making sector.
