Bertrand Badie

La fin des territoires : essai sur le désordre international et sur l'utilité sociale du respect

El autor presenta la emergencia del territorio como concepto politico (las ciudades griegas, los imperios, el feudalismo no funcionan segun nuestra idea de correspondencia absoluta entre espacio de produccion de lo practico y territorio), su universalizacion progresiva, su hegemonia afirmada, en particular por la colonizacion y luego descolonizacion que han podido respetar los modos locales de organizacion de lo politico. Lo que es artificial en Africa, comenta Bertrand Badie, no es el trazado de fronteras, sino el sentido que reviste, en contra de las solidaridades constitutivas de un politico particular. En la segunda parte, el autor analiza las crisis que sacuden el principio de territorialidad desde mediados los anos sesenta. En la ultima parte estudia los modos de regulacion posible de esta crisis del territorio. En efecto, el territorio no ha representado nunca todos los espacios de lo politico, e incluso cuando el discurso politico aparenta hablar de geografia no habla necesariamente de territorio: cuando los israelitas evocan la tierra de Israel, ?hablan de un territorio, de un espacio heredado, de cultura? Parece incluso que bajo la apariencia de un Estado homogeneo, territorialmente definido (Somalia, por ejemplo), perduran otras logicas lo suficientemente arraigadas para impedir el funcionamiento de instituciones estatales. Dicho en otras palabras, casi en todo, y sin duda cada vez mas, se oponen a la logica del territorio (contorno y limites de lo politico en nuestra concepcion occidental), y especialmente en la logica de una politica pensada a traves de multiples espacios, de multiples identidades, no reducibles a la geografia territorial.

Comparative Analysis in Political Science: Requiem or Resurrection?

Comparative method in political science is currently going through a critical time, particularly after the failure of developmentalism, and of the classical paradigm of comparative government. This crisis stems from questioning universalism, monodeterminism and the compartmentalism between political science and history. New paradigms are now conceived in order to overcome this crisis: culturalism, social action, historical sociology. Can they be used to construct a new kind of comparison? Can they deal effectively with the new objects of comparison which derive from the increasing differentiation of political situations and political practices that we currently observe?

Realism under Praise, or a Requiem? The Paradigmatic Debate in International Relations

This article describes how the paradigmatic debate in the field of international relations, opposing Grotius’s tradition of transnational relations to the Hobbes vision of sovereign territorial units in rivalry for power politics, is turning to the advantage of the former. It points out that the current globalization process reinforces the transnational paradigm that focuses on individuals as international actors, with a new configuration emerging in which politics loses the hierarchical position implied by realism. Three kinds of actors (the state, transnational actors, and identity entrepreneurs) are described as promoting a special type of commitment: civic commitment to the state, utilitarian and pragmatic commitment to transnational networks, and a primary commitment to identity entrepreneurs.

French Power-Seeking and Overachievement

Power appears as a paradox in French politics as well as in the French policy. The French sociologist Michel Crozier (1957) pointed to his motherland as “the land of Command” and stressed the exceptional role of power in French political culture. We can hardly find a country in which power was so debated and was finally so inefficient. France was defeated at least three times within one century: the 1871 defeat resulted in the construction of the French Republic; the 1940 trauma has never been overcome and is still ignored by generations of young pupils who imagine that their country was among the “four winners” of the World War II. Moreover, the colonial wars led to a strange combination of military victories and political defeats. Among the P5 members, France was the first to understand that, in the new world, power was not always powerful (Badie 2004).

The Powers at Odds with History

The world today is hostage to decolonization, marked by its failures. The old world has been unable to accommodate the new one within the community of so-called “civilized” nations. Yet there are few exceptions, such as in Japan and Latin America, between 1947, date of the independence and partitioning of India, and the last wave of decolonization in the mid-1970s, no one knew how to open the door to the newcomers in a suitable way. In the aftermath of the colonial order, a post-colonial order was rebuilt based on trusteeship over the recently “emancipated” states. This was the purpose of the British Commonwealth, of the “Community” designed by General de Gaulle in 1958, and the notorious “Francafrique.” It was overlooked that these new states had their own histories and could not safely follow down the Western path of nation-building… This chapter explores the concepts of weak states and neocolonialism, how an instrumental vision of the South developed, why the Middle East can be seen as a volcano. It also questions issues of proximity and civilizational depth, the new conflicts and so called multi-level wars, and finally turns to the question of power, its powerlessness, and the power of the weak.

Neoconservatism, Neoliberalism, Neonationalism

The sharp break that began with contemporary globalization followed the double defeat of colonization and of hegemony. The demise of bipolarity led to the end of a protective mechanism that enabled the old powers to hold onto their illusions, their privileges and an outmoded superiority, as they still held sway over the international agenda through the cold war and detente. Defeat on one side, disengagement on the other: the new relationship to the other was becoming an issue. There were three reactions to these challenges, all three expressed through an evolving American foreign policy, grappling more than any of the others with the uncertainties of power. These responses were formed over the course of the last successive presidencies: controlling the entire world, governing it from afar, or withdrawing into the domain of its national interests. George W. Bush was thus the champion of neoconservatism, Barack Obama that of neoliberalism, and Donald Trump of neonationalism. The other powers would align themselves in their own way with these urgently devised inventions.

Exploring the New World

The international arena is inseparable from social actors, their behavior, culture, and expectations. We’ve come a long way since the European concert that brought together princes and dynasts with the same mindset and culture. Today, the politics of diplomacy are perpetually hostage to the density of globalization and the complexity of—sometimes clashing—narratives. The end of bipolarity had fueled the illusion that the United States remained alone on its hegemonic pedestal, a posture which, as we established earlier, has been extremely rare throughout history while, until 1989, the proceeding aspiration only manifested on a diarchic basis, versus the Soviet Union and with it. We also saw that, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unipolar illusion lasted little more than three or four years. After examining the illusions and setbacks of hegemonic power, this chapter turns to the three stages of the American reaction and the appeal and limits of soft power. The author then considers the frustrated Russian empire, the European Union’s lost opportunities, the emerging countries frustrated expansion, and finally turns to China and questions its discretion and assertion.

Bipolarity, Unipolarity, Multipolarity

In talking about the Cold War, the term “bipolarity” is frequently used, including in the very definition of the underlying notion of “polarity.” If we are to put things in perspective with a subject that is more complex than it seems, we must first consider that polarity is an exception in the international history, and then learn to distinguish between power polarity and group polarity, two major realities that are often confused. The former describes competition among states that may claim power status, in other words that have the objective resources to do so and are perceived as such by others. What is the use of being objectively powerful if others fail to acknowledge that capacity? This chapter will first consider issues of nuclear reality and ideological antagonism before questioning the transition from antagonism to diarchy. It will examine the erosion of the bipolar system stemming from the South and from so-called peripheral conflicts, the contentious legacy of non-alignment and the fleeting illusion of unipolarity. Finally, the author stresses what an “apolar” world may be and how it may have finally caused the return of the oligarchic club.

France, from Thwarted Ambitions to the Challenges of Alterity

France was a great power, but that assertion should be explained through a story that must be grasped in all its complexity. First, France was a power at a time when that notion was still imbued with its full meaning. There is a certain synchrony between the central role played by this country since the end of the Middle Ages and the rise of the notion of power as an organizing principle of the international system. It is clear, however, that at the end of the First World War there was a break in France’s international relations and its place in the concert of nations. This final chapter will discuss the notions of power and grandeur, European leadership, Gaullism, postcolonialism and the dilemmas and options of a mid-level power. The author then explores France’s turnaround and neoconservatism, before questioning the country’s capacity to step outside of itself and look beyond November 13th.