Critique internationale - Content
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Les deux premiers articles de cette série, où sont abordés les débats qui renouvellent depuis quelques années la vision des Japonais sur leur propre société, sont parus dans les numéros 1 (automne 1998) et 5 (automne 1999) de Critique internationale.
Bittencourt (Marcelo), Dos jornais às armas. Trajectórias da contestação angolana, Lisbonne, Vega (O Facto e a Verdade), 1999, 229 pages
Bowen (John), Petersen (Roger), eds., Critical Comparisons in Politcs and Culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, X-266 pages.
Nabulsi (Karma), Traditions of War. Occupation, Resistance and the Law ,Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, 293 pages.
Weil (François), Histoire de New York, Paris, Fayard, 2000, 381 pages
Sassen (Saskia), Guests and Aliens, New York, The New Press, 1999, XXI-202 pages
Roche (Daniel), dir., La ville promise. Mobilité et accueil à Paris (fin XVIIe-début XIXe siècle), Paris, Fayard, 2000, 438 pages
[Modernizing the administration and learning local democracy. A study on Poland]
Setting up efficient public administrations, particularly at the local level, was one of the main challenges of the post-communist period. But this necessity led to conflicts between two types of actors drawing their legitimacy from different sources: professionalism for the administration, democratic control for the elected officials. The field of employment provides an all the more pertinent example of this phenomenon in that unemployment appeared at the same time as the old regime vanished. The case of Poland points up the oppositions between administrative bureaucracy and political democracy, between the deconcentration of administrative powers and the decentralization of collective action, between economic efficiency and social effectiveness. The study of this case raises the question of the source of control (insiders vs. outsiders) in post-communist transformations
[War and state formation in the Horn of Africa]
War is generally acknowledged to have played a major role in the formation of states and nations in Europe. The lack of a similar process in African countries, which precisely were not created as a result of war among neighbors, supposedly supplies proof by the negative. Studying the relationship between war and state creation in Ethiopia and Eritrea, which may provide the two best examples in Africa, does not confirm the hypothesis that war has a capacity to build nations and states, at least within the scope of a few decades. Certainly war obliged the two entities to organize themselves in a fairly efficiently manner on the administrative and military level. But the result remains extremely fragile and not very persuasive. The requisite constitution of a " imagined community " is a much more complex process than constructivist theories of nationalism tend to believe.
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[Humanity, the elephant and the peasant farmer. The commons and local power]
The concept of "the commons", as regards flora and fauna threatened by extinction, is not self-evident. Their exploitation is regulated by an international trade convention (CITES) in which a variety of interests are represented, except those of the people who cohabit with such species. The total ban on the ivory trade, decided in 1989 under pressure from the major wildlife protection NGOs, which mobilized public opinion, soon showed its incoherence and counterproductive effects: wherefore a certain rehabilitation of the political side of the question as opposed to the view of experts and conservation activists. There is a growing awareness, first, that a total ban is rarely the solution, and second that action, in order to be effective, must be shifted from the locus of regulation toward the actual field of application, which is reflected in the new discourse of management by the local communities. However, this new route is not without its pitfalls.
[Barren lands, Lawless lands. Deforestation in tropical countries]
Two decades ago the world became aware that the rapid destruction of tropical forests required new measures and new forms of management, but no global policy has taken hold. Why not? The concept of "the commons" is of hardly any use in the matter, particularly because of the multiplicity and heterogeneity of actors and the overlapping of forest management problems with those of development in general. The recent infatuation with "local participation" and "regulation by market forces" will perhaps pave the way for solutions. If the decline of tropical forests is inevitable, at least one thing is undeniable: the obsessive anxiety that it causes
[Managing the global commons. Reflections on a change in scale]
Can the lessons drawn from the experience of managing common pool resources - CPR - be applied to global environmental problems (depletion of the ozone layer, loss of biodiversity, global warming)? Whether the question is examined from the angle of the physical, economic or legal aspect of the problems, from that of the actors or from that of the social contexts, one is led to draw very cautious conclusions. The difference in scale is such (especially since achievements in CPR management are often inversely proportional to the dimension of the affected human group) that the transfer of these experiences raises considerable theoretical and practical issues. However, as long as these reservations are kept in mind, nothing prevents us from considering global solutions inspired from experiences in CPR.
[The political issues of climate change. What instruments to accomplish what justice?]
The Kyoto protocol on the reduction of greenhouse effect emissions, signed in 1997 (five years after the Rio Convention on climate change) finally commits developed states to quantitative objectives for reducing their emissions. Why did it take so long to produce such a highly problematic text (it is not known whether the figures are relevant, or how to achieve them, or what will happen in the event of non-compliance)? The "cynical" interpretation which postulates that the normative framework is merely the rhetorical packaging of sordid interest-peddling, does not dismiss the subject. Values, interest and technical considerations overlap. The development of the political issues of climate change is an example of what could be called, in a falsely paradoxical manner, "deliberative bargaining".
