Critique internationale - Content
No Abstract
No Abstract
[Options and Trends in the Funding of European Universities]
The analysis contained in this article is based on empirical data for about 100 universities in eight European countries. The findings show that it is erroneous to speak of state withdrawal, widespread recourse to the private sector funding as a primary source (with the partial exception of the United Kingdom), or of an overall decrease in available resources. However, a trend can be noted toward a more market-based and competitive allocation of public resources. But most countries except for the UK seem to be seeking trade-offs that, while introducing competitive and selective elements, essentially preserve most of the continental model of higher education. The latter is characterized by an active state role in institutional management, largely free access to higher education and limited specialization of institutions as regards their mission (education vs. research) and their reputation (international vs. regional).
[The Competitive State and the Mobilised Market: Higher Education Policy Reform in the United Kingdom (1980-2007)]
Funding and regulatory frameworks based on neo-liberal market mechanisms have been introduced alongside changing forms of state governance as the most appropriate and effective way of governing contemporary higher education systems in many countries. Many existing accounts of the relationship between the state and the market treat the two modes of co-ordination as existing in an antagonistic relationship. This article, however, argues that there is increasing evidence that higher education can be increasingly regulated by the state while simultaneously opening up to market forces. Furthermore, rather than pulling in different directions, increasing articulation between the two modes of co-ordination may occur. The article presents this alternative conception of the relationship between the state and the market by considering the case of policy change in the United Kingdom. It focuses on policy change in relation to student funding and the management of learning and teaching to show the articulation between state and market co-ordination. While both modes of control appear to be increasing, state accountability appears to be the dominant mode of co-ordination in the present phase of reform. At the same time, bureaucratic forms of co-ordination have been shown to provide the context for some elements of a market to work as well as actively mobilising market mechanisms in the furtherance of political agendas. However, the market mode of co-ordination, however restrained, managed and controlled, has its own logic and power and may establish changes in culture and path dependencies which are likely to impact on the future functioning of the higher education system. Such developments may lead to further shifts in the state-market articulation.
[Transnational Higher Education: a New Strategic Issue?]
Throughout the 1990s, transnational higher education, i.e. everything involving international student and teacher mobility, curricular exchanges and inter-institutional educational cooperation, has grown considerably and constitutes one of the most notable forces transforming higher education systems. This article documents the growth and diversification of transnational higher education and analyzes the strategies of various countries and higher education institutions, which can be spurred on by motives as diverse as mutual comprehension, improve quality and competitiveness of their higher education offer, attracting talents, the construction of a service export industry. It argues that the various forms of transnational higher education should continue to grow in the coming decades, whether there is international convergence or diversity of national strategies.
[Global University Hegemony]
In this era institutions located in the United States exercise an extraordinary global hegemony in higher education, research and codified knowledge that supports American foreign policy and the world role of that nation in other spheres. American global hegemony in education and knowledge does not altogether negate the potential for bricolage, local translation and adaptation, mimed conformities, the diverse editing of universal rules, and other local variations on identity. But it has set in train powerful material forces that favour cultural and linguistic conformity and support specifically American interests, belying the potential of global convergence and integration to operate in a multilateral fashion and carry more plural cultural contents. The first part of the paper considers Gramsci’s theorization of hegemony in the context of the relational field of higher education and research. The second part maps the American global hegemony using selected data, focusing on the structural conditions of hegemony, the global academic role of the English language, the concentration of leading researchers and the directions of flows of published knowledge, the attractor function of US universities as the 'world doctoral school' and in academic migration, and the normative impact in policy and university management of models of the research university and commercial vocational education grounded in American practices. The Americanization of knowledge and university education sustains an Americanized global civil society, and supports the US domination of global political economy, popular ideas and images in film and consumption, cultural life and military supremacy in a mutually reinforcing process. By the same token, achieving a greater plurality in language, knowledge and research are crucial to a more plural world and more egalitarian political economy.
[Social Democrats in Government and the Variety of Capitalism in the Czech Republic]
Social Democrats dominated the Czech government from 1998 to 2006. Their impact on the type of capitalism in that country is analysed with an adaptation of established approaches to varieties of capitalism. Vaguely defined neo-liberal and social-democratic trends reached an implicit compromise after 1989, but economic difficulties led to a reopening of basic questions after 1998. The Social Democrats drew inspiration primarily from western European allies. The most open conflicts affecting the type of capitalism centred on the state budget. Without a parliamentary majority, the Social Democrats had to seek compromises and choose priorities such that the budget was central to developments in other spheres. The dominant trend in the business sphere was towards foreign ownership, leading to a weakening of trade union influence in the employment relations sphere and in political life in general. Weaker unions meant weaker opposition to neo-liberal pressures in the welfare sphere, but the Social Democrats resisted pressures for dismantling the ‘social state’, but other possible priorities suffered, such as a more progressive tax system or state support to industry and innovation.
[Protesting in Postapartheid South Africa]
Starting from the cycle of social protest that South Africa has been experiencing since the late 1990s, this article sheds light on the evolution of the space of social movements since apartheid ended. Taken as a framework for Black political expression in the 1970s and 80s, the space of social movements was drained of meaning with the advent of democracy in 1994. De-ranked and partly neutralized given its main actors' ties to the ANC-led government, it has recently been the backdrop for the emergence of new organizations challenging the socioeconomic policies conducted by the "liberating party." We will in particular study the terms of postapartheid reconfiguration of the space of social movements, the motives of rivalry taking hold between new organizations and the ANC, as well as the preferred practices of movementist activists.
[The Ethics and Politics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention ]
Armed humanitarian intervention, also covered by the concepts of "right” or “duty to interfere" and "duty to protect," is a military intervention in foreign territory that aims to put a stop to serious and widespread human rights violations. This practice being defined according to its aim, in order to be humanitarian, armed intervention depends entirely on the "rightful intention" of the intervening state, a rationale that tends to underestimate the weight of politics in the ethics of intervention. But to what extent, and how far, should the intervening state be disinterested? This article sets out first of all to offer a realist critique of the traditional criterion of "rightful intention" and suggests that the "disinterested" requirement of the intervening state be discarded. It then examines the case of Iraq, wondering whether it can be considered as a humanitarian intervention. It goes on to reconstruct a pragmatic and essentially consequentialist ethic of humanitarian intervention without the "rightful intention" criterion, but based on a dual evaluation that would avoid or at least limit the use of the humanitarian label as a pretex
À la mémoire de Youri Aleksandrovitch Levada
Pauline Peretz, Le combat pour les Juifs soviétiques : Washington-Moscou-Jérusalem, 1953-1989, Paris, Armand Colin, 2006, 384 pages.
Marlène Laruelle, La quête d'une identité impériale : le néo-eurasisme dans la Russie contemporaine, Paris, Pétra, 2007, 316 pages
Anne Daguerre et Corinne Nativel (eds), When Children Become Parents : Welfare State Responses to Teenage Pregnancy, Bristol, Policy Press, 2006, 254 pages.
