Critique internationale - Content
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Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Thierry de Montbrial, L’action et le système du monde, Paris, PUF, 2002, 472 pages.
Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Pour un catastrophisme éclairé. Quand l’impossible est certain, Paris, Le Seuil, 2002, 216 pages.
Benton (Lauren), Law and Colonial Cultures : Legal Regimes in World History 1400-1900, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002,285 pages.
[Civil wars in the age of globalizationNew realities, new paradigms]
There are three major theoretical trends offering an explanation for the persistence of wars following the end of the Cold War and the age of globalization. The most influential of them is probably the one that views the difference between wars today and those of the previous period as qualitative, its most credible representative being Mary Kaldor. According to these authors, today's wars are identity-based, their violence is turned mainly against population groups, and their economy is based on pillage, whereas those of yesterday were mainly ideological, seeking to win people to their cause and mobilizing resources to achieve their ends. These theories do not hold up to careful scrutiny. Yet the stakes are sizeable of one considers that, along with the other two theories and despite enormous differences, this trend constitutes a dominant paradigm (which is not, however, the single perspective) that exerts a decisive influence on the policies of the "international community".
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[The Partnership on bureaucratic life-support]
The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, established by the Barcelona Declaration in November 1995 in order to channel dialogue and cooperation between the European Union and countries of the Southern Mediterranean shore, is actually more of a virtual than a political discourse, sustained only through the bureaucracy. Due to a lack of shared vision, a basic disinterest on the part of the EU member-states for the matter, and the hybrid nature of the arrangement, it is paradoxically the bureaucratic machines that keep alive an ailing process disconnected form reality and, in fact, widely criticized. It is true, in counterpoint, that the preeminence of bureaucratic and administrative rationales is largely responsible for the deadlock this Partnership, a distorted and empty shell, has experienced.
[The issue of islamism at the heart of the Barcelona Process]
As soon as it was created in late 1995, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership put peace and stability at the heart of its objectives, considering them particularly threatened by two scourges often associated in various documents and declarations: "terrorism" (meaning "islamism", an essential problem for many of the Mediterranean southern shore states as well as for Turkey), and illegal immigration, an equally crucial source of concern for the northern partners. But whereas in the early years the texts seemed to promote an economic approach to these problems, gradually a security-based approach has won out over everything else. The events of September 11 have only accelerated this trend.
[Their backs to the sea? Southern European countries facing immigration]
In the southern European countries, especially Italy and Spain, immigration, particularly from the Mediterranean's southern shore, began late and did not emerge until much later still as a focus of public debate. When it did, it was then exploited politically, albeit through two very different processes (neopopulist in one place, authoritarian in the other), but in both countries this has led to an absurd deadlock due to the need for immigration and the practical impossibility of banning it. Not to mention the diplomatic consequences for countries that had more or less served as a bridge between the two shores. Given the trouble they themselves have had in dealing with the consequences of their choices, they have tried to impose a more restrictive policy on the European Union. It has become more difficult than ever to break the vicious circle.
[A new wall. Public opinion and the immigrants from the other shore]
A study conducted in five major European Union countries in January-February 2002 shows a convergent evolution in attitudes toward immigrants with respect with prior surveys. The fears immigration triggers are on the rise nearly everywhere. These anxieties - which mainly have to do with employment and personal safety, but also have a cultural component that is no longer insignificant - fairly closely correlate to increasing fears about the enlargement of the Union. The neopopulist discourse heard in certain countries, which has gained popularity in part by merging these two types of concerns, has significantly influenced this trend. Furthermore, wariness toward immigrants from Arab countries has considerably increased as a result, apparently, of the September 11th attacks, making the Mediterranean a new wall that replaces the former East-West barrier.
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