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59401. Screening France

Author:
Brigitte Humbert
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
American films about France or French people seek to maintain a certain level of Frenchness, usually through superficial traits and stereotypes, while also naturalizing them for perceived American expectations, including a taste for romance, a clear demarcation between good and evil, a certain type of action, and happy closure.
Political Geography:
America and France

59402. Gopnik and Company: A Literature of Accommodation

Author:
Edward C. Knox
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
In search of authenticity and a tradition of quality, and as a response to an increasingly standardized US, personal narratives set in Paris or the provinces recount attempts at cultural integration, through mastery of French cooking, learning French, or redoing a house into a home.
Political Geography:
United States

59403. Catholic Culture in Interwar France

Author:
Philip Nord
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
French Catholicism experienced a renaissance in the interwar decades, which expressed itself in a variety of forms: associational activism, cultural production, and political organizing. The new Catholic activism left a mark on the life of the late Third Republic; it played a well-known part at Vichy; and it made a major, if not always acknowledged, contribution to the renovation of French public life in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Political Geography:
America and France

59404. Remembering the Battle of Paris: 17th October 1961 in French and Algerian Memory

Author:
Joshua Cole
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
In October 1961, an as yet undetermined number of Algerian protesters were killed by the police in Paris while demonstrating for Algerian independence. In the last two decades, these killings have become the focal point of a public controversy in France, as questions about the memory of the Algerian war converged with debates about immigration and citizenship in the 1980s and 1990s and with the willingness of the French state to confront the crimes committed during the last phase of decolonization between 1945 and 1962. Most commentaries have emphasized the connections of this debate with an earlier bout of French soul-searching over the question of the Vichy government's collaboration with Germany during World War II. This connection seemed all the more relevant when the man who was the prefect of police in Paris in 1961, Maurice Papon, was accused and eventually convicted of assisting in the deportation of Jews from Bordeaux in 1942-1944. This article argues that the public attention to the connections between Maurice Papon and the Holocaust have obscured the extent to which the debate in France about October 1961 has been driven by developments in Algerian politics in the last four decades. The extent to which historical accounts of the events of October 1961 are shaped by very contemporary political concerns presents particular challenges to the historian, who must find a way of retelling the story without merely reproducing the ideological conflict that produced the violence in the first place.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Paris, France, Germany, and Algeria

59405. Réformer les retraites en France

Author:
Bruno Palier
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le système français de retraite présente de façon typique, voire caricaturale, les caractéristiques des systèmes continentaux de protection sociale, qualifiés de conservateurs et de corporatistes par Gosta Esping-Andersen 2. Ce système d'as-surance vieillesse, financé en répartition, vise au maintien du revenu des salariés et garantit des prestations relativement généreuses aux travailleurs mais se soucie peu des plus pauvres ou de ceux (surtout celles) aux carrières discon-tinues et aux faibles revenus. Ce système, obligatoire, n'est pas géré directement par l'État mais par les partenaires sociaux, représentants de ceux qui cotisent et bénéficient du système. Dans la mesure où chaque catégorie professionnelle atenu a conserver son propre régime de retraite, le système est très fragmenté.
Political Geography:
France

59406. Humanisme et Terroir: The Culture of Genetically Modified Crops in France

Author:
Kerry Whiteside
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The cultivation of genetically modified crops has re-energized a tendency within French culture to apply broad, humanistic values to social and technological trends perceived to endanger them. Humanists invoke qualitative standards of refined taste, social equity, humane work conditions, aesthetic satisfaction, and critical political engagement in their judgments. The spread of transgenic plants challenges humanistic culture to the extent that biotechnological innovations are perceived to be driven by narrower considerations of scientific curiosity, agronomic advantage, and corporate profitability. The French state has had to balance a desire to put those techno-economic interests in the service of its international standing and an imperative to respond to skeptical citizens intent on having more say in decisions affecting the quality of their lives. Consequently, the state has experimented with new participatory practices designed to register concerns that might be shortchanged in the culture of political and scientific elites.
Political Geography:
France

59407. Le Système Politique français après les élections de 2002 en France: The Culture of Genetically Modified Crops in France

Author:
Gérard Grunberg
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The first round of the French presidential election of 2002 seemed to confirm and worsen the representation crisis, the loss of influence of the main political parties, and the weakening of the right/left division. The strength of the French political system seemed threatened. Yet, the political reality that came out of the 2002 elections is quite different. The end of the "cohabitation" regime restored the power of the president and a unified leadership. The two main parties - the RPR, transformed and expanded into the UMP - and the Socialist Party, were strengthened in their own camps and collected together more than 90 percent of the seats. The UMP holds the majority in the National Assembly. The high participation of voters in the second round of the presidential election showed the isolation and powerlessness of the National Front. All in all, the political system took the assault fairly well. The Fifth Republic remains and functions. Much to the contrary, the defeat of the left and its growing divisions are serious reasons for the Socialist Party to worry. Its credibility is weakened, and the dominating power on the political spectrum is the UMP.
Political Geography:
France

59408. Contradictions in the Carribbean: Martinique and the 2002 French National Elections

Author:
William F.S. Miles
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Results of the French legislative elections in 2002 reflect great ideological diversity among the electorate of the overseas department of Martinique. They also belie the apparent political uniformity as expressed in the preceding presidential elections. (In Martinique, incumbent President Jacques Chirac had just received his highest score of any voting district in the Republic.) One staunch pro-statehood incumbent lost to a Socialist; the pro-Chirac mayor won by the greatest margin of any district; an incumbent backed by Aimé Césaire was defeated by an ex-Communist; and the pro-independence incumbent deputy narrowly defended his seat from a pro-statehood challenger. The elections were also marked by a record number of candidates, low voter turnout, clientelistic politics, and the power of mayoralty. These results put Martinique out of step with the French nation as a whole. Wishing to remain within France, but struggling to remain something other than France: Martinique's contradictory political culture endures in the Caribbean. The editor wishes to include here, with apologies to the author, the acknowledgements, which were inadvertently omitted as the proofs went to press. They read: "Fieldwork for this research was made possible by a sabbatical leave from Northeastern University. From September 2001 through June 2002 the author was visiting researcher with the Centre de Recherches sur les Pouvoirs Locaux dans la Caraïbe (CRPLC) at the Schoelcher (Martinique) campus of the Université des Antilles-Guyane. Special thanks go to CRPLC director Justin Daniel. Prof. William Miles".
Political Geography:
France and Caribbean

59409. Review Essay - Is the King Dead? Performing Sovereignty in the Modern Era

Author:
Sheryl Kroen
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
It is common practice among early modern French historians to interpret society, culture, and politics through an analysis of the metaphors, narratives, and rituals that mediated the relationship between sovereigns (kings and queens) and the nation. La Mort du Roi: Un essai d'ethnographie politique comparée transposes this practice to the modern period, in particular by focusing on the discourses and rituals surrounding dying and dead heads of state in France and elsewhere. It was the death of François Mitterrand in 1996 that provided the inspiration for this transposition, worked out in a year-long seminar organized by Jacques Julliard in 1996 and 1997 at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.
Topic:
Sovereignty
Political Geography:
France

59410. Fireball on the Water: Naval Force Protection-Projection, Coast Guarding, Customs Border Security Multilateral Cooperation in Rolling Back the Global Waves of Terror...from the Sea

Author:
Irvin Lim
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
The Maritime Terrorist Threat is a hydra that continues to pose a clear and present danger to world commerce and, ultimately to the very well being of nations. The global stream of explosive carnage with truck bombs in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) on 13 May 2003, gas station bombing attacks across Pakistan on 15 May 2003, truck bombs in Casablanca (Morocco) on 16 May 2003 and in Jakarta (Indonesia) on 5 August 2003 serve as gruesome reminders that the war on global terrorism is far from over. In fact the war is getting tougher. We have not yet seen 'the turning of the tide'. A new wave of attacks is imminent around the world. More than on land and in the air, the vast maritime domain makes policing a Herculean enterprise, and it continues to be vulnerable to potentially devastating terrorist attacks. The paper argues that in order to effectively deal with the common threat of maritime terrorism, the world's naval forces and their respective home-front elements such as coastguard, costums, and port authorities must work hand-in-glove with the shipping community to enhance multi-agency integration and to forge great multilateral cooperation in order to protect vulnerable hulls and safeguard homelands at ports and at sea. It stands to reason then that the protracted, if not interminable fight against maritime terrorism remains to be urgently joined and decidedly joint in effort.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jakarta, and Riyadh