Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de Sciences Po

The State in Africa is one of the important and compelling texts of comparative politics and historical sociology of the last twenty years. Bayart rejects the assumption of African 'otherness' based on stereotyped images of famine, corruption and civil war. Instead he invites the reader to see that African politics is like politics anywhere else in the world, not an exotic aberration.Africans themselves speak of a 'politics of the belly' - an expression that refers not only to the necessities of survival but also to a complex array of cultural representations, notably those of the 'invisible' world of sorcery. The 'politics of the belly' attests to a distinctively African trajectory of power that we need to understand as part of a long-term historical development.While acknowledging the insights of Western social scientists from Weber to Foucault, Bayart never loses sight of the realities of African politics and social life and he is careful to allow African voices - from the 'small boy' in the street to the 'big men' in the presidential palaces - to speak for themselves.This new edition of Bayart's classic book includes a new introduction on Africa in the world today.This book has established itself as an indispensable text on the state and politics in Africa. It also provides a nuanced reading of what we have come to call 'development' and opens the way for a more general reflection on the invention of politics in African and Asian societies.

Journal Article Africa in the world: a history of extraversion Get access J-F Bayart J-F Bayart Centre d'tudes et de recherches internationales, Paris, France Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 99, Issue 395, April 2000, Pages 217–267, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/99.395.217 Published: 01 April 2000

The values of 8,841 managers and organization employees from 43 countries were surveyed. The range of nations included paralleled many of those surveyed by Hofstede (1980) but added also substantial samples from ex-communist nations. Questionnaire items focused primarily on measures of universalism-particularism, achievement-ascription, and individualism-collectivism. Multidimensional scaling of country means revealed three interpretable dimensions. The relation of these dimensions to the results of earlier large-scale surveys and to a variety of demographic indexes is explored. It is found that there are continuing substantial differences in modal cultural values of organization employees and that these are largely consistent with differences reported by others. The present results suggest that the dimensions defined by Hofstede as individualism-collectivism and power distance may be better defined as representing varying orientations toward continuity of group membership (loyal involvement/ utilitarian involvement) and varying orientations toward the obligations of social relationship (conservatism/egalitarian commitment).

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 Africa's largest formal economy and the continent's 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.

This volume aims to provide a new framework for the analysis of securitization processes, increasing our understanding of how security issues emerge, evolve and dissolve. Securitisation theory has become one of the key components of security studies and IR courses in recent years, and this book represents the first attempt to provide an integrated and rigorous overview of securitization practices within a coherent framework. To do so, it organizes securitization around three core assumptions which make the theory applicable to empirical studies: the centrality of audience, the co-dependency of agency and context and the structuring force of the dispositif. These assumptions are then investigated through discourse analysis, process-tracing, ethnographic research, and content analysis and discussed in relation to extensive case studies.

Ethnopharmacological knowledge is common and import among tribal populations but much of the information is empirical at best lacking scientific validation. Despite widespread use of plant resources in traditional medicines, bioassay analysis of very few plant species have been conducted to investigate their medicinal properties, and to ascertain safety and efficacy of traditional remedies. The present study analyses indigenous uses of medicinal plants of far-west Nepal and compares with earlier ayurveda studies, phytochemical assessments and pharmacological actions. A field study was carried out in Baitadi and Darchula districts of far-west Nepal. Group discussions, informal meetings, questionnaire surveys and field observations were employed for primary data collection. Voucher specimens were collected with field notes and codes and deposited at Tribhuvan University Central Herbarium (TUCH), Kathmandu. Only 50% of species surveyed shared common uses with ayurvedic medicine. This implies that these herbal remedies are part of an independent health care system in the Nepal Himalaya, which is indigenous and influenced by ayurveda. The folk uses of some of the species were contradicting to those of ayurveda and phytochemical bioassays. A detailed phytochemical study on those species would be an important line of research.

Recueil d'articles parus de 1992 à 2009.

This article demonstrates how the work of Pierre Bourdieu offers a productive way to practice research in international relations. It especially explores the alternatives opened by Bourdieu in terms of a logic of practice and practical sense that refuses an opposition between general theory and empirical research. Bourdieu's preference for a relational approach, which destabilizes the different versions of the opposition between structure and agency, avoids some of the traps commonly found in political science in general and theorizations of international relations in particular: essentialization and ahistoricism; a false dualism between constructivism and empirical research; and an absolute opposition between the collective and the individual. The “thinking tools ” of field and habitus, which are both collective and individualized, are examined in order to see how they resist such traps. The article also engages with the question of whether the international itself challenges some of Bourdieu’s assumptions, especially when some authors identify a global field of power while others deny that such a field of power could be different from a system of different national fields of power. In this context, the analysis of transversal fields of power must be untied from state centrism in order to discuss the social transformations of power relations in ways that do not oppose a global/international level to a series of national and subnational levels.

Cambodia, Somalia, Mozambique, Bosnia, Haiti, Sierra Leone—all have been the subjecct of interventions by armed UN units sent to stabilise societies riven by political and ethnic antagonism. Apart from anecdotal reportage, little is known or has been investigated about how local inhabitants in these and other cities interact with and respond to peacekeepers in their midst. Most studies of post-conflict situations focus on political elites, the demobilisation of armed groups and the question of whether externally determined criteria for state reconstruction have been met. In Peace Operations Seen From Below, Béatrice Pouligny argues that much of what is being re- built in societies emerging from war – or in some cases what is continuing to be destroyed – often lies in the ‘ordinary’ daily lives of both local populations and the staff of UN missions. These on-the-ground realities are often overlooked by outsiders, yet they may prove to be as important as political negotiations at the ‘centre’, debates in the UN Security Council or hearings before an International Criminal Court. Central to Pouligny’s study is the key role played by local interlocutors. Her close analysis of several UN interventions, based on first hand observation of how local people intermingle with UN soldiery and civilians, sheds light on a neglected but crucial dimension of international peace enforcement.

This article is a revised version of the 2006 Martin Wight Memorial Lecture and examines the placeof regional states-systems or regional international societies within understandings of contemporary international society as whole. It addresses the relationship between the one world and the many worlds-on one side, the one world of globalizing capitalism, of global security dynamics, of a global political system that, for many, revolves a single hegemonic power, of global institutions and global governance, and of the drive to develop and embed a global cosmopolitan ethic; and, on the other side, the extent to which regions and the regional level of practice and of analysis havebecome more firmly established as important elements of the architecture of world politics; and the extent to which a multiregional system of international relations may be emerging. The first section considers explanations of the place of regionalism in contemporary international society and the various ways in which the one world aff ects the many. The second section deals with how regionalism might best be studied. The final section analyses four ways in which regionalism may contribute to international order and global governance.

The commentary raises political questions about the ways in which data has been constituted as an object vested with certain powers, influence, and rationalities. We place the emergence and transformation of professional practices such as ‘data science’, ‘data journalism’, ‘data brokerage’, ‘data mining’, ‘data storage’, and ‘data analysis’ as part of the reconfiguration of a series of fields of power and knowledge in the public and private accumulation of data. Data politics asks questions about the ways in which data has become such an object of power and explores how to critically intervene in its deployment as an object of knowledge. It is concerned with the conditions of possibility of data that involve things (infrastructures of servers, devices, and cables), language (code, programming, and algorithms), and people (scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, information technologists, designers) that together create new worlds. We define ‘data politics’ as both the articulation of political questions about these worlds and the ways in which they provoke subjects to govern themselves and others by making rights claims. We contend that without understanding these conditions of possibility – of worlds, subjects and rights – it would be difficult to intervene in or shape data politics if by that it is meant the transformation of data subjects into data citizens.

The failure of the worlds’ governments to agree on a binding global forest convention at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit led many leading environmental groups to advance eco‐labelling ‘forest certification’ programmes that, they hoped, would achieve greater success in implementing sustainable forest management. Eschewing traditional State‐centered authority, supporters of this ‘non‐State market driven’ (NSMD) approach turn to customers of wood products to create compliance mechanisms, either through positive incentives such as market access or price premiums, or negative incentives such as ‘direct targeting’ or ‘boycott’ campaigns. Understanding how such systems might ‘ratchet up’ global forestry standards, we argue, requires that existing scholarship place greater attention on the role of public policies in helping to facilitate the impacts of private solutions. Specifically, we argue that scholars and practitioners need to assess strategic decisions not only on the basis of their appropriateness at present, but what they might do to trigger a global ‘race to the top’ at a later time.

dans le monde : une histoire d'extraversion par Jean-François Bayart L'Afrique, aussi loin que remonte l'histoire, est restée fermée, sans lien avec le reste du monde ; c'est le pays de l'or, replié sur lui-même, le pays de l'enfance, qui, au-delà du jour de l'histoire consciente, est enveloppé dans la couleur noire de la nuit », écrivait Hegel 1 .L'abondante littérature journalistique ou académique qui aujourd'hui parle ad nauseam de la marginalisation du sous-continent, ou de sa « déconnexion », fût-ce « par défaut » 2 , ne fait que reprendre le poncif hegélien de l'« enclavement » de cette partie de la planète.Et, pour ce courant de pensée, la banalisation de la guerre comme mode de régulation politique, depuis une dizaine d'années, nous dit que le jour du Salut n'est décidément pas proche.Devraient suffire à nous en convaincre ces terribles messagers amputés que nous envoie la rébellion sierra-leonaise, l'enfer dantesque du génocide des Tutsi rwandais en 1994, ou la progression de la pandémie du sida, cette sinistre compagne des conflits, qui décime les populations que ces derniers ont épargnées. «

Translated by Barbara Harshav

Qu'est-ce que la domination ? Comment s'exerce-t-elle ? Par quels mécanismes se reproduit-elle ? Quels sont les critères et les pratiques qui permettent aux pouvoirs de se légitimer ? De quelles manières y participons-nous ?... En relisant Marx, Weber, Gramsci et, plus près de nous, Bourdieu ou Foucault, Béatrice Hibou s'affronte à son tour à l'une des questions centrales de la théorie politique et sociale, celle de l'exercice de la domination d'État. Dans cet ouvrage, l'auteure renouvelle cette problématique avec une approche alliant comparatisme, analyse du quotidien et économie politique. Elle met en évidence les dispositions, les compréhensions et les pratiques qui rendent la domination concevable, supportable, voire acceptable ou rassurante. Celle-ci apparaît d'autant plus insidieuse et indolore qu'elle renvoie souvent à la question du désir d'État. Pour mener à bien cette démonstration, Béatrice Hibou s'appuie sur une analyse de situations autoritaires ou totalitaires - en particulier sur la reprise des cas paradigmatiques du fascisme, du national-socialisme et du socialisme soviétique - qui nous permet aussi de saisir ce qu'est la domination dans le cadre démocratique contemporain. Ce faisant, elle nous fournit les instruments nécessaires à l'élaboration d'une critique renouvelée des dérives du politique dans la cité contemporaine.

Abstract This article offers a critical analysis of aid programmes aimed at supporting local civil societies in post-conflict peacebuilding (PCPB). Such programmes are often seen to carry the best hopes for a genuine democratic counterweight to existing power-brokers and to hold the key to the building of a ‘new’ society. But, in their interventions, outsiders tend to forget the large diversity of local civil societies, creating many counter-effects in the way international programmes purport to support or empower local people. The resulting consequences affect the ways in which international and local actors interact in post-conflict contexts and, accordingly, the ways in which actual ‘civil society’ may contribute to PCPB. A close analysis of these elements reveals larger political ambiguities present in PCPB strategies and actions. The article ends with a series of recommendations to support a better understanding and acknowledgment of local processes and resources in any aid programme, as well as greater accountability on the part of outsiders.

A qualitative shift is underway in the nature of labor protest in China. Contrary to prior literature that characterized strikes as being largely defensive in nature, the authors suggest that since 2008, Chinese workers have been striking offensively for more money, better working conditions, and more respect from employers. They explain these developments using a “political process” model that suggests economic and political opportunities are sending “cognitive cues” to workers that they have increased leverage, leading them to be more assertive in their demands. Such cues include a growing labor shortage, new labor laws, and new media openness. Their argument is supported by a unique data set of strikes that the authors collected, two case studies of strikes in aerospace factories, and interviews with a variety of employment relations stakeholders.

Deportation, understood as the physical removal of someone against their will from the territory of one state to that of another, has moved to the forefront of academic and policy agendas. Although there is a growing literature on legislation and policy, there is very little in-depth data on what happens post-deportation. In this article, we examine possible post-deportation outcomes. We argue that, whatever reasons existed for people to migrate in the first place, deportation adds to these and creates at least three additional reasons that make adjustment, integration, or reintegration difficult, if not impossible. These include the impossibility of repaying debts incurred by migration, the existence of transnational and local ties, the shame of failure, and the perceptions of ‘contamination’. We draw on a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data gathered in Europe and Afghanistan to argue that many deported Afghans at- tempt and succeed in re-migrating.

Cet article propose une analyse comparée des discours sur l’élargissement entre 1970 et 2013 afin de mettre en lumière les constantes discursives structurant la forme qu’adopte l’organisation politique européenne. À partir d’une grille de lecture tirée de la déclaration Schuman (1950), le discours de l’européanité est d’abord défini selon quatre propositions sur sa nature. Ce discours est ensuite déconstruit suivant les thèmes récurrents de l’origine, du devenir, du sens et de l’espace. En conclusion, il est montré que la construction européenne se produit dans une permanence discursive qui précède et dépasse les capacités stratégiques supposées ou le potentiel de socialisation passive des acteurs européens.

With an official population approaching fifteen million, Karachi is one of the largest cities in the world. It is also the most violent. Since the mid-1980s, it has endured endemic political conflict and criminal violence, which revolve around control of the city and its resources (votes, land and bhatta—‘protection’ money). These struggles for the city have become ethnicised. Karachi, often referred to as a ‘Pakistan in miniature,’ has become increasingly fragmented, socially as well as territorially.\nDespite this chronic state of urban political warfare, Karachi is the cornerstone of the economy of Pakistan. Gayer’s book is an attempt to elucidate this conundrum. Against journalistic accounts describing Karachi as chaotic and ungovernable, he argues that there is indeed order of a kind in the city’s permanent civil war. Far from being entropic, Karachi’s polity is predicated upon organisational, interpretative and pragmatic routines that have made violence ‘manageable’ for its populations. Whether such ‘ordered disorder’ is viable in the long term remains to be seen, but for now Karachi works despite—and sometimes through—violence. (Publisher's abstract)