Jean-François Bayart

End Game South of the Sahara? France’s African Policy

Paris has never stopped considering its African policy as simply an instrument within its power policy. From the imperial dream of the end of the nineteenth century to the orderly withdrawal of decolonization and, to the conservatory administration of cooperation, the continuity has been obvious. At least in the last two phases of this continuum, France has exercised its supremacy south of the Sahara as part of its effort to spread its interests on a world scale. The diplomatic clientele which Africa has provided — and more precisely, the set of votes that it brought her within the United Nations — had the advantage of guaranteeing its seat as a permanent member of the Security Council, of increasing the hearing of resolutions which it intended to have passed on world affairs and of protecting it from very massive attacks against nuclear tests or its pending problems of decolonization in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. More generally, the existence of a continental atmosphere of French predominance (as witnessed by the nebulae of French-speaking communities, the franc area and the Franco-African Summits) has for a long time increased the influence of the Elysee diplomacy, including diplomacy within the European field.

Postcolonial Studies: A Political Invention of Tradition?

It is misguided to imagine that French researchers and French universities are unaware of postcolonial studies. In reality, forms close to this school of thought emerged very early in the French university context, but they were obliged to take other academic traditions into account. The contribution of postcolonial studies to an understanding of the historicity of societies that were colonized by their metropoles, and of the colonial legacies left behind, thus appears limited from the point of view of a historical sociology of politics inspired by Marx and Weber.Неверно считать, что французские исследователи и французские университеты не в курсе постколониальных исследований. На самом деле во французском университетском контексте формы мысли, близкие постколониальной критике, возникли очень рано, но они были ориентированы на другие академические традиции. Настоящая статья ставит своей задачей выявить эти формы мысли и показать, что с точки зрения исторической социологии политики, восходящей к Марксу и Веберу, вклад постколониальных исследований в понимание колонизированных обществ и колониального наследия достаточно скромен.

La globalisation capitaliste repose sur une énorme contradiction

Volontiers provocateur, Jean-Francois Bayart juge alarmiste l’idee d’une reconfiguration des conflits due a l’epuisement des ressources naturelles. Les deux principaux foyers de violence resultent selon lui des contradictions de cette globalisation, qui ouvre les frontieres pour les capitaux, biens et services, mais les ferme pour les populations et pour les narcotiques.

Et si l'Europe faisait fausse route dans la crise iranienne ?

Alors que les faucons, aux Etats-Unis mais aussi en Europe, preconisent, au-dela de sanctions et des embargos, la riposte militaire, Jean-Francois Bayart invite les bellicistes a ne pas oublier les erreurs d’appreciation et les mensonges qui ont precede l’intervention en Irak. Dans cette optique, il passe en revue les arguments susceptibles de ne pas repondre a l’escalade iranienne par une nouvelle guerre.

Effets d'aubaine

Les Etats-Unis se sont portes garants de la reconstruction de l’Irak, mais sont confrontes a une societe eclatee et petrie de contradictions ethniques, religieuses, politiques, historiques. Dans cette societe blessee, les sentiments a l’egard des nouveaux bâtisseurs sont ambigus.

The Criminalization of the State in Africa

This book examines the growth of fraud and smuggling in African states, the plundering of natural resources, the privatization of state institutions, the development of an economy of plunder and the growth of private armies. It suggests that the state itself is becoming a vehicle for organized criminal activity. The authors propose criteria for gauging the criminalization of African states and present a novel prognosis: they distinguish between the corruption of previous decades and the criminalization of some African states now taking place. Major operators are now able to connect with global criminal networks. Also, the notion of social capital has led to current attitudes towards the use of public office for personal enrichment, or even systematic illegality. Looking at South Africa, the authors examine the decades-long tradition of association between crime and politics in this area. South Africa is now the centre of important international patterns of crime, notably in the drug trade. It has Africas largest formal economy and the continents largest criminal economy. Considering the economic origins of official implication in crime, the authors conclude that new forms of corruption have been unintentionally helped by liberal economic reforms.