Critique internationale - Content
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[Critical Republicanism vs. Conservative Republicanism: Rethinking “Reasonable Compromises”]
A re-examination of two heavily covered 2008 legal battles – the “virginity” and “burqa” affairs – illustrates the capacity of the secular spirit to resist the religious spirit in France. These two affairs served as occasions for confirming and consolidating the republican consensus that had in 2004 been forged over the law prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols in public schools. This consensus places strict limits on the recognition of cultural and religious (especially Muslim) religious particularisms in the Republic. Some of its ambiguities, however, are worth unpacking – in particular, the confusion between arguments drawn from republican law and those drawn from French culture. In contrast to this conservative republicanism, critical republicanism takes care not to posit that the institutions and norms specific to a particular community – up to and including that of the French Republic – are necessarily in keeping with republican principles. While it is absent from the Stasi Commission Report (France 2003), a similar line of reasoning can be found in the Bouchard-Taylor Report, which offers a republican justification for certain practices based on “reasonable compromises” (Québec 2008).
[Death at All Costs: Justifications for Capital Punishment Among American Believers]
The question of the death penalty in the United States reveals a near-systematic discrepancy between the opinion of believers and the official position of the church to which they belong. What is the significance of this discrepancy? In addition to supplying evidence of the weak normative capacity of churches, an empirical study carried out in three American churches sheds light on the registers that compete with and even supplant that of religion, bringing a new perspective to bear on interpretations that assign an over-determining power to the religious spirit in American political life. The secularization of American society has not, it turns out, resulted in the disappearance of the religious lexical field but is rather reflected in the combination of the religious register with other registers and a fluid circulation between these various types of discourse. More particularly, if one attends to the manner in which the religious register is employed, it becomes clear that it serves as a repertory from which believers can draw tools for elaborating their opinions. This leads to sometimes radical reinterpretations of the literal meaning of utterances – rendering the execution of criminals, for example, an “act of mercy”.
[The Figures of Post-Soviet Secularism in Russia]
The Russian state is formally secular. Several elements, however, suggest that the principle of secularism has run out of steam in Russia. These include the absence of real debate concerning this particular question, growing state control over social forces, the increasing visibility of the Russian church in public spaces1 and the persecution to which many religious minorities are subjected. In addition to supporting this observation, which is based on a normative approach to secularism, a consideration of the social construction of relations between church and state allows one to assess the degree of secularization attained by Russia. This is the result of conflicts and compromises between social actors who identify with secular principles or who, conversely, condemn them in order to advance their own positions. In Russia, relations between politics and religion are defined according to the principle of “hierarchized pluralism” and are explained by the predominance of the collective over the individual in representations. As a central element of tradition, religion is a legitimizing factor of the social order. Representations of secularism, for their part, draw upon the Soviet heritage as well as liberal perceptions.
1.See Kathy Rousselt, “Russie: le grand retour de l’orthodoxie?”, Politique internationale, 119, Spring 2008, pp.233-247.
[Is Secularism a Lost Cause in Israel? Strengths, Weaknesses and Change]
Secular? Theocratic? The case of the Israeli state defies the usual categories and gives rise to much confusion; for this reason, it requires a nuanced approach. The secular cause is itself divided over the strategy to pursue. For moderates, the religious monopoly in the area of personal law must be broken by demanding, in particular, that civil marriage be made an option alongside religious marriage. For radicals, by contrast, arrangements of this type, however important they may otherwise be, only mask the intrinsic ambiguity that stems from the close ties between nation and religion (and not just between synagogue and state). After examining the political, cultural and demographic factors that have in recent decades given increased weight to religious forces in political and social life, one should take stock of the factors that provide a counterweight to religious expansion. These include the active intervention of the Supreme Court in religious affairs, the preponderance of a secular ethos shared by the economic, political and intellectual elites centered in Tel-Aviv and the presence of CIS immigrants – a portion of whom are not Jewish according to religious criteria – and immigrant workers who have long resided in Israel.
[Transnational Itinerancies: A Look at Afghan Migratory Networks]
This article seeks to illustrate the virtues of taking a transnational approach by drawing upon the ethnography of the social networks that the Hazaras, a group originating in central Afghanistan, have created between their country of origin, Pakistan, Iran, North America and Australia. Several theories are advanced. The social life of the Hazaras is not structured by reference to a common place of residence but rather by effective ties of solidarity and mutual aid that cut across international frontiers. The phenomenon of mobility is constitutive of their way of life at both the socio-cultural and economic levels. Even in time of war, the flight from violence is not always incompatible with a genuine migratory strategy. Dispersal can be the result of a planned choice by which members of family groups seek to diversify their means of subsistence while diminishing the risks attendant upon uncertainty. Describing the circulatory territories of the Hazaras thus allows one to put the distinction between forced and voluntary migration into context.
[Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Yiwu: New African Trading Posts in China]
Alongside the large-scale commercial efforts that have been deployed on the African continent on the initiative of the Chinese authorities, other, more discreet dynamics have emerged from the bottom-up. Indeed, a portion of the Chinese products that were until recently shipped by Chinese merchants all of the way to Africa via Dubai are today directly purchased at the source by Arab and sub-Saharan traders. The aim of this study is to shed light on the emergence of this economic system, which is contributing to the reorganization of Sino-African relations. We first reconstruct the various steps in the eastward movement of Arab and sub-Saharan merchants. Though they have neither the same demographic weight nor the same financial spread, these two groups of entrepreneurs both supply vast markets. We next describe the various figures of African traders and present the spatial reconfigurations that have been generated by their presence in the cities of Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Yiwu.
[Cuban Catholicism Faced with “Post-Communism”]
As the Cuban regime transitions from “Fidelism” to “Raulism”, questions arise concerning the Catholic world’s place in “Post-Communism”. However, after many years of confrontation with a power that dominates the greater part of the political, social and cultural fields, the resumption of real influence over Cuban society is far from given. In spite of a unique institutional position vis-à-vis the regime, the Catholic Church remains marginalized. The Church’s lack of social grounding and difficulty overcoming its colonial past both contribute to its isolation. In these circumstances, the Catholic hierarchy draws on field work that is more pastoral than political. Some Catholics are nevertheless seeking to contribute to the emergence of a hypothetical “civil society” by transforming the religious institution into a para-political actor capable of preparing the way for “post-Communism”. This effort endeavors to rehabilitate Catholicism vis-à-vis the Cuban past and Cuban present alike. It also seeks to redefine civic and moral norms in order to actively participate in future efforts at national reconciliation. These efforts nevertheless remain limited by the structural weaknesses of the Cuban church and the ambivalence of its choices.
De quelques ouvrages récents sur le Hezbollah
Emmanuelle Saada, Les enfants de la colonie : les métis de l’Empire français entre sujétion et citoyenneté, Paris, La Découverte, 2007, 335 pages.
Philippe Droz-Vincent, Vertiges de la puissance : le « moment américain » au Moyen-Orient, Paris, La Découverte, 2007, 370 pages.
Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Odysseys : Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007, IX-374 pages.
