Critique internationale - Content
No Abstract
No Abstract
[Negotiating with Nuclear North Korea]
Dealing with North Korea is perhaps one of the most difficult challenges in global politics today. Totalitarian and reclusive, ideologically isolated and economically ruined, it is the inherent ‘other’ in a globalised and neo-liberal world order. The respective approaches are correspondingly divided: a confrontational approach relies on the projection of military threats and aims to undermine the authoritarian regime as fast as possible, leading to a quick disintegration and subsequent absorption. The second approach favours engaging North Korea in political, economic and cultural interactions. The essay outlines why engagement is more suited to diffusing tension on the peninsula and avoid a war. But it also draws attention to key issues that remain largely unaddressed: how exactly people divided by the traumatic memory of conflict and death might coexist in a respectful and non-violent manner, or whether or not forgiveness is necessary to promote reconciliation
[Defector Politics: The political activism of North Korean saet’ŏmin]
North Korean defectors advocating over the cause of North Korean human rights have started to assert themselves on the South Korean political scene. Their activities have attracted controversy in South Korea where much of the population holds it as axiomatic that unification is a future reality and subsequently place great faith in inter-Korean dialogue and economic assistance measures to achieve this goal. The activities of North Korean defectors, advocating for a more pro-active stance by Seoul over the issue of North Korean human rights, fly in the face of these widely held beliefs regarding the desirable trajectory of inter-Korean relations. Defector groups, nonetheless, have continued to proliferate. Recent moves by these organizations, to expand their realm of influence beyond advocacy and into activities such as broadcasting and leadership training, indicates the growing confidence of defector organisations.
[North/South Confrontations beyond the Peninsula: The Koreans of Kazakhstan]
Since the collapse of the USSR, the Koreans of the former Soviet republics have been the object of a struggle for influence between the two Koreas. The relative effacement of North Korea and the ostentatious presence of South Korea in the post-Soviet world tend to lend credence to claims that the North/South confrontation no longer constitutes a relevant paradigm. Yet the fact remains that several categories of agents are involved in the definition of a legitimate collective identity for Koreans and the very configuration of the positions of these identity entrepreneurs is continually evolving in stride with a constantly redefined balance of power. In this relational and dynamic space where the valorization of cultural and, above all, linguistic references constitutes a major issue, North and South employ strategies of influence that inevitably reinforce the two competing poles. On the basis of results obtained in the course of field surveys that were for the most part conducted in Kazackhstan, this study aims to explore the confrontation of North and South Koreans and its effects on the process of (re)constructing the identity of this Korean diaspora.
[The Axis of Vaudeville: Images of North Korea in South Korean Pop Culture]
This paper examines how South Korean understanding of what it means to be-or to have been-a citizen of the DPRK has evolved during the last decade. How does South Korean popular culture reflect that evolution and, in turn, shape ongoing transformations in that understanding? Is the South Korean imagination being enlarged to make room for an inclusive but heterogeneous identity that accepts both parts of the divided nation? Or, conversely, is a hardening of mental boundaries inscribing cultural/social difference in tandem with the previous decade's (anything but linear) progress in political/economic rapprochement? In examining these questions, this paper samples key discursive sites where the South Korean imaginary expresses itself, including music, advertising, television comedy programs, film and literature.
[The Politics of Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation: 1998-2008]
In 1998 North Korea embarked on a path of changes by amending its constitution, introducing “economic measures”, and setting up several enclaves for cooperation with South Korea. Pyongyang’s readiness for exchange and cooperation was supported by Seoul’s liberal government, which stopped waiting for North Korea’s collapse. Two inter-Korean summits occurred in 2000 and 2007, reviving the hope for political reconciliation and closer economic cooperation. However the growth of special economic zones and the development of market economy inside North Korea suddenly stalled in 2008. This paper offers an analysis of links existing between the political factors and socio-economic circumstances of inter-Korean cooperation. The policy fluctuations of Pyongyang and Seoul will be examined in conjunction with the changes in regional politics and popular mood on both sides of the DMZ.
[The Testimony of Women Involved in Anti-Francist Guerilla Activity (1939-1951)]
The experience and action of the women who fought in the armed resistance to Francism from the defeat of the Republicans in 1939 till 1951 has been rendered almost completely invisible. By analyzing an oral archival collection, one may partly reconstruct this experience, understand the reasons for its exclusion from received narratives of the period and present the difficulties today encounted by these former resistance fighters in recounting their “guerilla” past. These obstacles to communication are not only explained by the general characteristics of this past and its repression nor by the effect the refusal to legitimate this armed struggle had on the construction of testimony, even well after the return to democracy. They are in part produced by the influence of past and present gender domination and the use of discursive categories that marginalize the social dimension of the guerilla experience and the central role played in it by women.
[Artic Geopolitics: Are Petrol and Maritime Routes at the Heart of Regional Rivalries?]
In a context marked by climate change and the accelerated melting of the ice shelf in summer, the media regularly refer to the power games that are presently emerging in the Artic. Some observers speak of a “battle for the far north”, a new “Cold War”, even a “mad scramble” among countries bordering the Artic Ocean to control its riches. Yet, beyond these catastrophic and ultimately unlikely scenarios, two questions today pit the five countries of the Artic against one another: that of the status of the North West and North East passages in the event of increased traffic and that of the extension of economic sovereignty to the continental shelf beyond the 200 maritime mile limit of exclusive economic zones (EEZ). Though they are often conflated in the media, these two questions are very different in terms both of the issues at stake and the shifting alliances to which they give rise in the region.
Quelle place faut-il accorder à la religion dans la conduite de la politique étrangère des États-Unis ?
Steffen Hertog, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats : Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2010, XII-297 pages
Gilles de Rapper, Pierre Sintès (dir.) avec la collaboration de Kira Kaurinkauski, Nommer et classer dans les Balkans, Athènes, École française d’Athènes, 2008, 397 pages.
