Critique internationale - Content
[Fundamentalists at the United States Supreme Court]
This essay focuses on the political, social and ethical dimensions of the judicial battle over the nominations to the US Supreme court. It starts by underlining the radical turn to the far right this institution has taken. It then proceeds to demonstrate gross inconsistencies in the process thus engaged, both at the doctrinal and methodological levels.
[Turkey and Europe: Embodiment of the State and Representation of Society in the 20th Century]
In the debate surrounding Turkey’s integration into the EU, the country is often presented as an imperfect democracy, with a democratization process hindered by the Turkish state itself. Drawing both on Ottoman history and political philosophy, this article argues that the object is to be examined with respect to its degree of democracy is less the state per se than its relationship to Turkish political society, and that this relationship is structured more around an opposition between the rulers and the ruled – an Ottoman legacy – than around distinctions derived from the theory of representation, in contradistinction to modern democracies. In fact, the very nature of the Ottoman state – defined by an original combination of dynastic legitimacy, autocracy and elite reproduction – isolated the Sultan’s Empire in its final years from the trends toward democratization that European political societies were experiencing. Analyzing the elements of continuity between the republican and imperial states and societies – revealed by the recent Ottomanist historiography – leads to emphasizing the extent to which the still perceptible Ottoman political figuration has paved the way for the construction of Kemalist state nationalism and has limited the emergence of a democratic culture of representation that conditions its integration into the EU.
[A Radical Nationalist Party in Bulgaria: Ataka or the Tribulations of Post-Communism]
Ataka’s victory in the June 2005 legislative elections came as a surprise. This nationalist coalition borrows its platform both from the extreme right (anti-Turk and anti-Roma sentiments) and the extreme left (anti-Americanism, nostalgia for an authoritarian socialist state) while cultivating a degree of anti-Semitism. Two months earlier, Bulgaria had signed its Accession Treaty to the European Union. With a steady growth rate, rising foreign investment and the gradual catching-up of the new middle class’ incomes, the country seemed about to complete its post-communist “transition.” What does the emergence of a radical political group signify this late in the course of change? Volen Siderov’s party scores first of all translate the rejection of a political class accused of defending individual interests at the expense of the common good. This success also reflects the tensions caused by the brutal post-communist transformations and the disorientation that has accompanied them. Last of all, they indicate frustrations with respect to an international community (the IMF, the United States and the European Union) that has obliged the country to enact unpopular measures in the name of standards that it often disregards itself. It would be unwise to turn a deaf ear to the questions raised by Ataka. Notwithstanding Siderov’s electoral gains, these issues are due to remain in the public space for a certain time.
[Democratic Globalization and the Authoritarian Syndrome. Remarks on the “Arab Exception”]
The Arab world is said to be an authoritarian exception on a worldwide scale. This argument, supported by the scholarly literature, coincides with the advent of a unipolar world order identified a democratic globalization. It raises three sets of questions. What does ‘exception’ mean and what are its implications? The democratic rule argument has actually only criticized exceptionality and promoted its abolition since September 11, 2001. The relatively new stigmatization of the Arab exception is mainly based on an electoral deficit, with the underlying supposition that like all others, Arab societies would like to become democratic, and they could and should. To what extent is the Arab world a relevant unit of analysis of authoritarianism? Beyond interpretations centered on coercive capacity and those claiming an intrinsically Arab authoritarianism, Arab regimes do seem to share certain features. This Arab dimension is characterized by conflicts focused on norms rather than on the representation of interests. It is thus conducive to government by self-proclaimed guardians of these norms. Is such an observation enough to make the exception argument relevant? Arab regimes are undergoing changes that may lead to a consolidation of authoritarianism. Consolidated authoritarianism corresponds to some inherent trends of democratic globalization. Hence, political science would be better off discarding its erroneous assumptions about the new international order, that is, the democratic univocity of globalization and the very notion of Arab exception.
[The Internationalization of Transitional Justice: The Hissène Habré Case]
In examining the determinants and outcomes of the democratization process, scholars have often underestimated the use of law by reducing it to a mere instrument to legitimate political domination conquered by other means. Through analysis of the different attempts to put former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré on trial, those initiated by the Chadian government, the victims’ association and national and international NGOs, we argue that the outcome of any democratization process depends on the legal choices made by the different actors involved.
[The Status of the Victim in European Policies Combating Trafficking in Women]
Although trafficking in human beings has appeared regularly on the agenda of Western governments, European institutions and international organizations since the beginning of the 90s, research devoted to this issue remains scarce. This article intends to remedy the relative disaffection of political sociology for trafficking issues by showing how they have become a European and international policy issue over the past ten years. Analyzing influences of the discursive dialectic between security and humanitarian approaches leads to posit a marginalization of the victim in European and international beliefs and practices. To what extent can a common policy against human trafficking be devised to counterbalance the competition of interests and a lacking sociology of the victim by conferring on the EU the role of mediator and catalyst?
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[Birth of the Front Islamique du Salut in Algeria: A Politicization Riddled by Conflict]
This article sets out to examine the founding of a political party, the FIS, by combining a configurational approach and an analysis in terms of the social construction of organizations. It first retraces the networks that presided over its structuring into a party, emphasizing in particular the biographies of its founders and their common experiences of socialization in the field of religious activism. The study of their positive perceptions of an unusual national political juncture and competition within the religious sphere enlightens understanding of the practical and symbolic advantages of organizing as a party at a given point in time. Finally, a survey of the founders’ speeches and practices highlights the vague nature of the organization at its inception. Such perspective illustrates the intricate blending of religious and political spheres in the context of regime change in Algeria.
[An Intermittent Party? Activist Involvement and Clientelistic Relations in Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution]
The PRD was brought about with the Mexican “transition” in 1989. Faced with the need to build a party support structure quickly and confront repression in some areas, social leaders made up a large majority of PRD cadres. In their wake they brought activists who, at the local and regional level, individually or collectively, have helped to build up the PRD through a broad partisan network. The access social organizations have had to public and NGO funding has ensured material gains for the activists. Social organizations have thus constituted a reserve army that the party machine can mobilize. This is nevertheless a fluctuating and fragile party structure that depends on social leaders who sometimes may take stances at a distance from the PRD party line.
[Democratization in Poland: The First Law on Parties (1989-1990)]
Far from naturally imposing itself as self-evident, party dominance over political competition in post-communist Poland is the product of a long and contentious process. The study of the conditions under which the first law on political parties was passed in 1990 retraces the symbolic battles that marked the genesis of party democracy, which opposed politicians with different interests who each struggled to impose a legitimate vision of political battle. This contest arises more from the state of the political checkerboard than from legal necessity. This is why the law, at first tabled by communist members of parliament, encountered hostility on the part of Solidarnosc elites, who in the end were won over to it. The study of political codes during a regime change reveals how high the stakes were in defining the actors entitled to participate in democratic representation and in blocking out the contours of the political space.
[The Party Hold on Kenya: A Look at Two Election Campaigns (November 2001 and December 2002)]
African political parties still arouse little academic interest. Indeed, the transition to a multiparty system in the early 1990s did not bring about the expected regime changes in Sub-Saharan Africa. This lack of interest also stems from the impression given by untrained observation of the party system: a dysfunction in relation to an accepted norm, that of Western political parties. This impression often springs from a lack of knowledge of local dynamics. Indeed, in Kenya, party practices attest to their success in gradually corralling the political and electoral fields, sometimes via contradictory actions. More precisely, analysis of their practices during the parliamentary elections of 2001 and 2002 in Eastern Province reveals how political parties have transformed potentially disintegrating tendencies into essential instruments in building up a monopolizing ascendancy over the electoral field. Today, party membership is a mandatory step in entering electoral competition. It has also become an increasingly decisive resource to achieve success at the polls.
Patrick Weil et Stéphane Dufoix (dir.), L’esclavage, la colonisation, et après… France, États-Unis, Grande-Bretagne, Paris, PUF, 2005, 640 pages.
Gallya Lahav, Immigration and Politics in the New Europe : Reinventing Borders, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 316 pages.
Frédéric Bozo, Mitterrand, la fin de la guerre froide et l’unification allemande. De Yalta à Maastricht, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2005, 518 pages.
