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ARTICULI
ARTICULI
Abstract
After the independence of Algeria in 1962, separatist movements in French colonies emerged, especially in the Comoros and Djibouti. The countries respectively achieved independence in 1975 and 1977. During the 1960s and 1970s, the French government abandoned its repressive policy and sought to help the territories attain independence. However, the whole process never came to an end in the Comoros islands, since Mayotte forwent independence, despite the various condemnations from international authorities. Mayotte retained its link with France thanks to the enthusiasm of the former supporters of French Algeria. In Djibouti, violence brought about violence. The executive power strongly repressed demonstrations, but it also had to face the violence of some separatists, who took hostages to make their voice heard. France finally left the territory but maintained an important military base in the country. This paper aims at examining these events. It also questions the divided reactions of the French political forces. The left parties quite unanimously denounced electoral fraud and supported independence, whereas Gaullists and liberals wavered over the attitude – intransigence or flexibility – to adopt.
Keywords
Comores, decolonization, Djibouti, politics, violences
FABIEN CONORD, Professor, University of Clermont Auvergne, fabien.conord@uca.fr.
Abstract
This article presents a defence of gender-based affirmative action programmes against its critiques. It starts from an overview of the history and main criticisms addressing affirmative action programmes, and then proposes several arguments against these criticisms. Several rationales are to be found at the core of this article: first, women still face discrimination in regard to access to education and employment. This position relies on the statistical data referring to both the U.S. and the E.U. Second, gender-based affirmative action should be treated differently than race-based affirmative action since women’s discrimination on the labour market stems mainly from traditional gender norms largely exerted within the family and exercised through state’s family policies (e.g. childcare policies). Third, despite the fact that the article defends gender-based affirmative action against the main critiques, it also argues that this measure alone is an inefficient method to tackle gender inequality. The article concludes that gender-based affirmative action programmes are not effective methods to tackle gender inequality because they address only one part of the problem, namely gender inequality encountered in the public sphere (education and employment), while completely ignoring family and caring responsibilities.
Keywords
affirmative action, equality of opportunities, gender equality, gender quotas, gender mainstreaming
OANA CRUSMAC, Ph.D. Student, SNSPA, oana.crusmac.14@politice.ro.
Abstract
The variations of presidential, parliamentary and semi-presidential systems of government represent the main framework of analysis of this study. Extremely different factors of the political process and inter-institutional relations, which are the conditions for defining different systems of government, can be indicators for distinguishing typical and atypical systems of government. In this sense, the purpose of this article is to determine whether the peculiarities of the institution of the vote of no confidence in governments in several post-Soviet semi-presidential countries (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia) can predetermine the atypicality of these systems of government. It is argued that the atypicality of the post-Soviet semi-presidentialism is often due to the fact that parliaments have the right to cast the votes of no confidence in governments, but the latter come in force only when they are supported by presidents, who may be empowered to choose between the dismissal of governments and the dissolution of legislatures. On one hand, such systems of government definitively tend to be semi-presidential. On the other hand, the atypical responsibility of governments to parliaments denies the semi-presidential nature of systems of governments largely in favor of presidentialism. This determines that against the backdrop of traditional generalizations of different systems of government, they are formally and actually constructed as “constitutional hybrids” in six post-Soviet countries (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia) and therefore can be positioned both as cases of atypical semi-presidentialism and instances of incomplete presidentialism. At the same time, such cases are unique and must be classified as exceptional ones.
Keywords
system of government, semi-presidentialism, the vote of no confidence in government, atypicality, post-Soviet countries
VITALIY S. LYTVYN, Associate Professor, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, vitaliy.lytvyn@lnu.edu.ua.
IHOR Y. OSADCHUK, Associate Professor, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, ihor.osadchuk@lnu.edu.ua.
Abstract
The Central European countries have been members of the European Union (EU) since 2004. During the process of their transformation towards democracy and market economy, the four Visegrad countries (V4) – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia – were strongly supported by Western European EU members, particularly Germany, which was especially interested in the EU Eastern enlargement. Later on, Germany undertook a similar approach in assisting the transformation towards democracy and market economy in the countries included in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative, forming the Eastern dimension of the European Neighborhood Policy. Unlike in the past, however, current Berlin policy-makers are no longer willing to support an Eastern enlargement of the EU. Nevertheless, Germany expects the V4 to intensively engage with the EaP countries (i.e. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) and to share their experiences from the political and economic transformation they underwent. The V4 countries, having regularly stressed the importance of deeper and wider cooperation within the EaP, have proved able to meet German expectations concerning their role in the EaP project. In a period marked by numerous disputes between the V4 states and Germany (with the migration crisis at the top of the list), the convergence of Germany’s preferences with those of the V4 countries within the EaP initiative is an encouraging sign of a continuing intensive and deep cooperation among Germany and the V4 countries.
Keywords
Germany, Visegrad countries, the Eastern Partnership
ZDENĚK KŘÍŽ, Associate Professor, Masaryk University, zkriz@fss.muni.cz.
JANA URBANOVSKÁ, Assistant Professor, Masaryk University, urbanovska@fss.muni.cz.
STANISLAVA BRAJERČÍKOVÁ, Ph.D. Student, Masaryk University, brajercikovastanislava@gmail.com.
Abstract
The article evaluates the representation of three Southeastern European countries – Slovenia, Romania and Croatia – in the staff of the diplomatic service of the European Union, European External Action Service in the period of 2012-2017. The assessment is focused on the development of the representation of these countries in the three most important categories of the EEAS Staff – AD Staff, AST Staff and Contract Agents. The study tries to find an answer to the question of the extent to which the representation of the individual states in the EEAS is adequate, with the basic method of evaluation being a comparison of the given state’s percentage of the European Union’s overall population versus its percentage of the overall number of EEAS officials in any particular category.
Keywords
the European External Action Service, the nationality structure, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia
ERIK PAJTINKA, Assistant Professor, Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica, erik.pajtinka@umb.sk.
PETIA GUEORGUIEVA, ANTONY TODOROV (dir.), A la recherche de la représentation perdue. Nouvelles voies à l’ouest, à l’est et au sud, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2017 (ALEXANDRA OPREA) (pp. 129-134)
PETIA GUEORGUIEVA, ANTONY TODOROV (dir.), A la recherche de la représentation perdue. Nouvelles voies à l’ouest, à l’est et au sud, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2017 (ALEXANDRA OPREA) (pp. 129-134)
ANDREI MURARU, Vișinescu, torționarul uitat: închisoarea, crimele, procesul, Iași, Polirom, 2017 (VLADIMIR ADRIAN COSTEA) (pp. 134-141)
STEPHEN M. WALT, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy, New York, Straus & Giroux, 2018 (ROBERT MANEA) (pp. 141-144)
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