Critique internationale - Content
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Donald L. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001, 588 pages.
Nuttall (Sarah), Michael (Cheryl-Ann), eds., Senses of Culture. South African Culture Studies, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000 XIII, 559 pages.
Wachtel (Nathan), La foi du souvenir. Labyrinthes marranes, Paris, Le Seuil, 2001, 501 pages.
Roger (Antoine), Les grandes théories du nationalisme, Paris, Armand Colin, 2001,183 pages.
Ferme (Mariane C.), The Underneath of Things : Violence, History and the Everyday in Sierra Leone, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001, 287 pages.
[Crackling on the lines of reform. The liberalization of telecommunications in Morocco]
The liberalization of telecommunications in Morocco is closely linked to the royal succession, partly for chronological reasons, and partly because it reveals the workings of a political transition that was desired at the top and received a large consensus. The triumph of "transparency" evident in the relative success of the process and the consistency of the accompanying legislation with international norms cannot, however, conceal the persistence of ways of working inherited from the previous era, with the overwhelming predominance of royal power, the partly deliberate creation of legal and administrative loopholes making way for arbitrary intervention, the continuation of secrecy and informal relations that are at the very heart of the Makhzen. The result is a sometimes paradoxical interplay of tensions in which actors end up in spite of themselves playing the opposite role from what could have reasonably been expected.
[When AIDS is witchcraft. A challenge for democracy in South Africa]
In South Africa AIDS arrived on the heels of democracy, posing a political challenge for the new government. First of all because it is a major public health crisis, the scope of which the authorities did not grasp in time and which they have so far managed rather badly. But also because, due to the specific nature of AIDS, it has spontaneously awaken suspicions of witchcraft among the population. Interpreting the calamity in terms of witchcraft comes down to attributing its origin to another's malevolence. The result is a vicious circle of doubts and accusations that undermines family and neighborly relations and makes it impossible to build community networks of trust. Furthermore, the tendency to interpret everything, including public policy, in terms of conspiracy damages trust in the legitimacy of institutions.
[The Euro, a factor in the remodeling of the international monetary system ?]
The Euro, while fully playing its role as a stabilizer, has been disappointing so far due to its enduring weakness against the dollar. This can be explained in part by the fact that the dollar is the currency of a political entity, which thus has all the necessary legitimacy to pursue its economic policy through monetary means, whereas the mandate of the European Central Bank is of a purely technical nature. The EU monetary policy is not an economic policy. It remains framed by restrictive rules instead of guiding principles. Companies, few of which export on a regular basis in any case, do not consider the arrival of the euro as an event likely to change their strategies, except for certain trailblazers. And even less is known about the way in which the everyday user of the physical euro, in circulation beginning January 2002, will perceive the change. The fact nevertheless remains that the monetary union is a great achievement in the building of Europe and is considered a real model in many areas of the world, in particular Southeast Asia.
