Sciences Po Toulouse

... suite, les modalités d'une résistance discrète et/ou déguisée constituent le champ d'exploration privilégié de James C. Scott. ... suite : « Je le dis à mes étudiants : si tout ce que vous lisez c'est de la science politique classique, vous ne ferez au bout du compte que la reproduire. ...

In June 2012, the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) was established with an aim to address the shortcomings of existing EU programmes and provide direct assistance to opposition forces and civil society groups in both the Southern and Eastern Neighbourhood. According to its Statutes, the EED is governed by EU member states and institutions, but is officially registered as a private foundation under the Belgian law. Institutional ambiguity was meant to enable the EED to operate in a more flexible and less bureaucratic manner. Yet, the blurred position of the Endowment has also catalysed a constellation of interests and divergent approaches related to the mere methods and objectives of democratisation policies (regime change vs. incremental transformation, empowering subjects vs. democratising institutions, visibility vs. discrete operations). Through a particular focus on EED interventions in Armenia and Azerbaijan, based on participant observation and a series of interviews conducted in Brussels and the Caucasus, the contribution argues that ambiguity does not represent an obstacle to the operationalisation of the EU democracy support policy. On the contrary, oversights and differences of interpretation about the " problem " to be addressed and the methods to be implemented constitute the very condition of possibility for the autonomisation of democracy assistance and the maintenance of several initiatives in the region.

In 1946, the first resolution on the “political rights of women” was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Since then, the question of women’s rights has almost uninterruptedly remained on its agenda. Up till 2016, nearly 350 resolutions have been regularly and/ or consensually adopted. But does the banalization of this issue suffice to show that the General Assembly has been depoliticized? Has a fundamentally procedural function limited to recognizing and endorsing principles already debated in other spaces been substituted for its “power to debate”? The General Assembly’s apparent neutralization nevertheless does not entail a thoroughgoing evacuation of politics. Contrary to the idea that the politicization of the General Assembly is mainly restricted to its publicly visible divisions, this article seeks to show that such politicization also takes place “by decentering”, through specific registers and in relation to other institutional spaces (world conferences, ECOSOC, Security Council)

Souvent éclipsée par le Conseil de sécurité, volontiers taxée de « bavarde », l'Assemblée générale des Nations unies n'est pourtant pas qu’une scène où viennent se produire, le temps d’un discours, les dirigeants mondiaux. Épicentre d’intenses négociations diplomatiques depuis plus de soixante-quinze ans, elle fait entendre sa voix sur le droit des peuples à disposer d’eux-mêmes, les droits humains, la sécurité, le développement, l’environnement…

Au cœur de l’architecture onusienne dont elle irrigue les institutions, seul forum où tous les pays sont représentés sur un pied d’égalité, l’Assemblée est le centre politique du multilatéralisme et le creuset où se forgent les références communes de notre planète.

In June 2012, the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) was established with an aim to address the shortcomings of existing EU programmes and provide direct assistance to opposition forces and civil society groups in both the Southern and Eastern Neighbourhood. According to its Statutes, the EED is governed by EU member states and institutions, but is officially registered as a private foundation under the Belgian law. Institutional ambiguity was meant to enable the EED to operate in a more flexible and less bureaucratic manner. Yet, the blurred position of the Endowment has also catalysed a constellation of interests and divergent approaches related to the mere methods and objectives of democratisation policies (regime change vs. incremental transformation, empowering subjects vs. democratising institutions, visibility vs. discrete operations). Through a particular focus on EED interventions in Armenia and Azerbaijan, based on participant observation and a series of interviews con...

L’Assemblée générale fait toujours l’objet d’investissements conséquents en ressources humaines et organisationnelles. Ses six grandes commissions concentrent l’activité de la plupart des diplomates des représentations permanentes auprès des Nations unies, et l’ouverture de sa session annuelle reste un moment privilégié pour les personnalités de haut niveau qui viennent y exposer, avec emphase et gravité, leur vision du monde. Tiraillée entre la surmédiatisation de son débat général et l’opacité du travail de ses commissions et de ses organes subsidiaires, l’institution se présente, aux yeux des profanes, comme une institution à la fois ouverte sur l’extérieur et marquée, en interne, par l’enchâssement de mouvements de solidarité et de logiques d’affrontement.

Since the first edition of this paper in August 2010, gender equality advocates and government and civil society actors have highlighted peace processes as a strategic entry point for the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000). The decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the 2011 Peace Prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peacebuilding processes reaffirmed the centrality of women’s contribution to peace, and the essential connection between democracy, justice, and gender equality. For the first time in its history, the Nobel Committee referred to UN Security Council resolution 1325 in its statement, reiterating the decisive importance of women’s leadership in international peace and security. On 22 June 2011, the UN General Assembly also unanimously approved the first resolution (65/283) on peace mediation that has ever been adopted by this body. This resolution encourages strengthening the position of women in conflict resolution efforts and underscores the need for further engagement with civil society to ensure this occurs.
Yet, women’s participation in peace processes remains one of the most unfulfilled aspects of the women, peace and security agenda. Our review of a sample of 31 major peace processes since 1992 shows that women represent a strikingly low number of negotiators, and that there has been little appreciable increase since the passage of resolution 1325 (2000).

Considering recent cases of authoritarian consolidation all over the world, the international call for increased aid to support human rights’ defenders, to bypass authoritarian governments in the implementation of development projects, and to improve the working conditions of non-governmental organizations presumes that a strong “civil society” promotes development through democratization.
However, the effectiveness of the current design of civil society support pro- grams remains a highly controversial issue for academics and development practitioners, who have debated over it ever since NGOs first appeared as recipients of official aid.
The passage from a “transition paradigm” to the “civil society formula” is not only a change of scale. Social practices related to the diffusion of the rhetoric of civil society and the particular social background that Civil Society Organizations constitute ought to be analyzed as such: Who are their members? What are their motivations? What effects does the external intervention in closed regimes produce on the social field, on the repertories of collective action and on the expression of political dissent? Almost 10 years after the “end of the transition paradigm”, is the civil society approach now over?

La valeur pratique des « bonnes pratiques » est principalement tournée vers le renforcement de l’efficacité de l’organisation. Une fois que des « problèmes à résoudre » ont été identifiés, certains éléments de solution sont diffusés et provoquent, par un effet d’entraînement, une tendance à l’uniformisation des pratiques.

Mais cette dynamique en trois temps ne relève pas exactement d’un processus concerté de réforme. Elle procède plutôt d’un mouvement imparfait de coordination entre des acteurs institutionnels dont les expériences particulières et les chevauchements de compétences poussent souvent à la compétition. En d’autres termes, les bonnes pratiques se présentent comme des dispositifs d’action: des instruments d’encadrement et de mobilisation à l’heure où les organisations internationales sont invités à démontrer leurs « performances ».

This contribution makes use of Beissinger’s elite learning model to understand the recent course of events in ‘non-revolutionary’ Uzbekistan (2004–8). The chapter argues that ruling elites learn from prior examples of political action as much as their opponents do, allowing them to pre-empt possible challenges to their posi- tion. The May 2005 Andijan events were neither a failed colour revolution nor an example of civic activism; moreover, no protests have followed electoral frauds in either the parliamentary or presidential elections in 2004 and 2007 respectively, mostly because control over the outcome was pre-emptive. The chapter locates the Uzbek case within the broader set of colour revolutions in order to examine the impact of the ‘power of example’ on altering political outcomes in the country. We argue that prior experiences of political change in the region and in the for- mer Soviet Union combine with national political configuration to work both in favour and against civic activism, with the incumbents learning how to pre-empt challenges.