Critique internationale - Content
No Abstract
No Abstract
[Associations and Parties in Russia: What’s at Stake in the Game of Differentiation]
In his public statements, Vladimir Putin has extensively drawn upon the theme of the separation of parties and associations, a deliberate gesture towards the political debates of the early 1990s. At the time, it was a question of putting an end to the fusion of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and social organizations. Though the context is no longer the same – today’s political space is tightly controlled by the authorities, with the administration striving to drive a wedge between liberal parties and human rights associations – this theme has returned to center stage over the past decade. This example sheds light on the process by means of which liberal political theories are reinterpreted in contemporary Russia. By forcing differentiation between liberal parties and human rights associations, the state encourages the reintegration of each into an administrative sphere that now serves as the “political” field. The requests of associations are no longer transmitted via political parties to elected institutions such as the Parliament but are rather addressed by committees and councils appointed by the authorities. In other words, the differentiation of parties and associations facilitates the de-differentiation of these actors and the state.
[Opposition through Law: The Popularization and Political Uses of the Law of Co-Ownership in Post-Communist Russia]
In the early 1990s, a law was passed in the framework of a new, supposedly democratic round of Russian economic privatization authorizing the legal occupants of state-owned apartments to convert their renters’ rights into title deeds. At the time, the law of co-ownership became an object of political and activist involvement alike. The diverse forms taken by this involvement can be seen via an analysis of the legal popularization brochures that have been collected in the offices of Housing Solidarity, a Muscovite movement created by a diverse variety of groups to combat the new Housing Code of 2005. Some members of this movement sought to do away with the Code’s liberal bent by reviving the political tradition of “self-governance” at the level of the apartment bloc. Other members, closer to the parliamentary opposition, held that the creation of legal expertise would allow users to be supplied with personalized advice while leaving it up to the legal system to translate the demands it received into jurisprudential progress. The study of these divergent views of the proper use of the law opens the way for an examination of the more or less legitimate forms of political opposition in contemporary Russia.
[Young Protester Movements in Russia: Opposition in and by the Street (2005-2010)]
What rationales and forms of action have the young protesters of Russia’s liberal democratic opposition adopted on the eve of the 2011-2012 electoral cycle? Empirical field data reveals the manner in which these actors conceived of and carried out their mobilization between 2005 and 2010 despite small numbers, meager material and organizational resources and the constraints imposed on their efforts by the machinery of the state. In order to take to the streets – their sole outlet for political action and expression – activists “juggled” several different modes of action. For some of them, these were part and parcel of routine activist practices. For others, they were a matter of necessity and innovation. Through their dynamic interactions with the state, the activists thus sought, not only to adapt their forms of mobilization to the structural conditions of action, but also to push back the limits of what is possible and acceptable in the street. While they help to keep their protest movement going, these strategies have not allowed young actors to break away from their political marginality or status as “street opposition” in the period studied.
[How to Distinguish between Art and Activism: Dramatic Protest in Contemporary Russia (2000-2010)]
Inspired by anti-globalizationist, “orange-revolutionary” tactics and reviving a part of the Russian and Soviet heritage, the dramatic protests that have taken place in Russia over the past decade are reflections of its closed political space. The frequent conflation of art and activism notwithstanding, it is worth distinguishing between the contradictory rationales that motivate artistic groups (maximum performative coherence and verisimilitude in the interests of increasingly direct confrontation) and activist collectives (widely reported actions combining parody and literal declaration). While artistic groups quarrel with one another over who is the author of protest actions, activist collectives are divided by “political” efforts to appropriate a common action at the expense of the anonymous “citizen’s fight”. In the case of joint artistic-activist initiatives, the experience of coalition reveals a conflict of objectives, with radical spontaneity (artists) at one extreme and an appeal to “ordinary people” (activists) at the other. Behind the anti-authoritarian movement’s apparent unity, the mutual openness of art and activism in a Russia newly aware of protest might well accentuate these different ways of acting and taking a stand.
[The Russian Bolshevist National Party: An Unorthodox Endeavor]
The appearance of the Russian National Bolshevik Party (NBP), a small group of young people today banned for “extremism”, was closely linked to the crisis that accompanied the collapse of the USSR, which opened a brief window of opportunity for the emergence of unorthodox political endeavors. The profound changes that have since affected the Party’s platform – in the space of just a few years, it has moved from nationalism to the defense of civil liberties – must be understood in the context of the reorganization of the political landscape that took place during Vladimir Putin’s presidency. With Putin adopting patriotic rhetoric, the Party had to change its pitch in order to retain its stance of radical opposition. Indeed, a survey conducted within the NBP shows that it caters to a very specific activist pleasure: that of playing the game of revolutionary adventure. Beyond the case studied, the pleasure to be had in games organized around extraordinary (because non-routine) scenarios may more generally be considered a reward of unusual political undertakings. As such, it contributes to our understanding of them.
[The Secretary of Defense and the American Civilian-Military Relationship: An Analysis of Robert Gates’ Tenure]
Despite an extensive literature on civilian-military relations in the United States, little has been written about the role of the Secretary of Defense. Institutional data and historical experience nevertheless show that this centrally placed actor in fact plays a pivotal role: his style and place on the presidential team allow him to strike a balance between the needs of the military and political considerations. The example of Robert Gates’ tenure as Secretary of Defense (November 2006 - June 2011) reflects this. The period following the start of his tenure was indeed characterized by a twofold dynamic: the strengthening of the military command and an apparent desire to depoliticize the role of Secretary of Defense. Together, these two processes defined the balance of civilian-military relations as Gates saw them, a balance that is not institutionalized but rather tacit. The informal character of Gates’ style argues in favor of adopting a more dynamic sociological approach in preference to Samuel Huntington’s classic theory of civilian control of the armed forces.
[Feminization of Parliaments, Quotas and the Transformation of Representation in India and Pakistan]
In India and Pakistan, the political representation of women is today presented as a democratic imperative. In 2002, Pakistan (re)established quotas for women in Parliament. In India, quotas only exist at the local level, though there is a project to extend them to the parliamentary level. This development has led to a change of parliamentary lineup and has encouraged the spread of a model according to which representation should “mirror” the population. Omnipresent discussions of the place of women in politics and sexist views of the division of political labor have led politicians to strongly promote the “representation of women”. Yet it is only in Pakistan, where quota mechanisms exist, that women have taken on new parliamentary roles. Confronted by the “threat” of feminization and an erosion of “masculism” in politics, men in both countries have recognized the legitimacy of women’s representation even as they reaffirm traditional models of representation and seek to indirectly discredit female representatives.
[Feminization of Parliaments, Quotas and the Transformation of Representation in India and Pakistan]
In India and Pakistan, the political representation of women is today presented as a democratic imperative. In 2002, Pakistan (re)established quotas for women in Parliament. In India, quotas only exist at the local level, though there is a project to extend them to the parliamentary level. This development has led to a change of parliamentary lineup and has encouraged the spread of a model according to which representation should “mirror” the population. Omnipresent discussions of the place of women in politics and sexist views of the division of political labor have led politicians to strongly promote the “representation of women”. Yet it is only in Pakistan, where quota mechanisms exist, that women have taken on new parliamentary roles. Confronted by the “threat” of feminization and an erosion of “masculism” in politics, men in both countries have recognized the legitimacy of women’s representation even as they reaffirm traditional models of representation and seek to indirectly discredit female representatives.
Bryan L. McDonald, Food Security, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2010, 205 pages.
David P. Forsythe, The Politics of Prisoner Abuse: The United States and Enemy Prisoners after 9/11, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011, XVI-315 pages.
Morten Ougaard, Anna Leander (eds), Business and Global Governance, Londres, Routledge, 2009, XVIII-267 pages.
Philip G. Cerny, Rethinking World Politics: A Theory of Transnational Neopluralism
Wolfram Kaiser, Antonio Varsori(ed), European Union History: Themes and Debates, Basingstoke/New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, X-268 page
