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In search of a better image, Russia has created a whole arsenal of soft power since the mid-2000s according to a Western model. However, the impact of these tools was limited: the image of Russia continues to be tarnished by the absence of an attractive model and by the priority it continues to give to military force and methods of influence, far from being “soft”. Since the annexation of Crimea, these latter tools have been considerably strengthened, further degrading the image of Russia. However, part of the international audience, including among Western elites and populations, was seduced by the vigor of the new Russian posture and the assertive political leadership of Vladimir Putin. Russian foreign policy, backed by powerful information tools, is at the heart of the new image of Russia which values its otherness, the legitimacy of its action and the central role in the most important international issues.

Keywords: Russie, soft power, diplomatie publique, influence, image, perception, Russia, soft power, public diplomacy, influence, image, perception

This paper, by exploring the interplay between multilevel stateinstitutions and the organization of civil society, seeks to lay thegroundwork for a deeper understanding of multilevel governance.Institutions within the local state and at higher levels systematicallyshape patterns of local participation in politics and civic life. Inturn, these institutions evolve in ways that patterns of power andinfluence at the local level help to shape. In settled democracies,these configurations of institutions and associations comprise aninterrelated infrastructure that sets terms for collectiveproblem-solving, power relations and participation. Institutionalcomplementarities between forms of local states and patterns of civicorganization have reinforced these systems. These differences accountfor major cross-national contrasts in policy-making and local democracy.

This article analyzes the issue of the United Nations' Security Council interventions in human rights matters. Through reviewing the different Security Council resolutions, this article demonstrates that the Council has integrated human rights as a component of collective security in two ways. First, the Council qualifies massive human rights violations as a “threat against international peace and security,” as long as they have an impact on security and an international dimension. Second, the Council broadened the concept of “international peace and security” for the purpose of simultaneously addressing the different notions of international security, human rights, and development. Collective security is thus extended to include the “human security” and “responsibility to protect” concepts. However, this article finds that the Council's approach is somewhat limited. The use of the San Francisco Charter's Chapter VII as concerns massive and systematic human rights violations is entirely selective. The Council is lacking a program for the inclusion of human rights in its interventions. If it does not fully and completely integrate human rights in its resolutions and deliberations, the Council risks witnessing its legitimacy decrease even further.

The Covid-19 pandemic has struck the Canadian economy hard and Quebec unions have had to quickly make significant adaptations. Based on field research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, in partnership with one of Quebec's main union confederations, our article analyzes the state of union representation in eight economic sectors, with the arrival of the closures linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. The practices before, during and after the pandemic are compared. The argument of our article will be threefold: firstly, on a practical level, our results provide strong evidence indicating that joining a union in times of crisis protects workers from immediate harmful consequences, by reducing the scale of mass layoffs, by facilitating access to protective equipment and by negotiating material compensation for essential jobs. Secondly, the article contributes to the literature on the advantage of unions and on union renewal, as well as to an actor-centric view of labor relations, positioning unions as "strategic actors" (Hyman 2007). Finally, the article supports the idea that unions are agents of "institutional experimentation" (Ferreras et collab., 2020) when there are profound ruptures, creatively using the institutional levers at their disposal and thus shaping the world of post Covid work.

Keywords: COVID-19, unionism, syndicalisme, labor relations, Canada, telework, relations de travail, télétravail

Historically, Ainu policy measures in Japan have always been limited to Hokkaido. However, in the Japanese government's recognition of the Ainu people as indigenous to northern Japan and its environs in 2008, the decision was made to include Ainu living outside of Hokkaido in negotiations over a national Ainu policy. In this paper, I survey the role played by the Ainu political movement in Tokyo in a forty years campaign aimed at equalizing the rights for Ainu irrespective of location and discuss the politics of the government's new position.

Keywords: Aïnous, Tokyo, droits des autochtones, urbanisation, géographie politique, Ainu, Tokyo, indigenous rights, urbanization, political geography

This article is based on an ongoing study of the memory of rights in Quebec community organizations over a fifty-year period (1960-2010), which involves accounts by movement actor-witnesses in five sectors of action, namely women, migration, disability, mental health, and LGBT. The article sets out a preliminary analysis of this material by focusing on 16 of the actor-witnesses that were met with in the sector of migration, and more specifically the main struggles in which they have been involved. Special attention is given to the wording of a legal dispute and on interactions between civil society and the state, especially regarding instances of immigration and labour issues. The wording of the dispute, which is the result of a contention between the actor-witnesses, the groups they represent, and state power and the dominant society, brings to light how legal and human-rights ideas are expressed, transformed, and applied in this specific realm. The concept of the social life of rights is highlighted in connection with collective memory, testimony, and the issue of culture.

Keywords: Saillant, Lévy, Ramirez-Villagra, mémoire, témoignage, droits humains, droits de la personne, reconnaissance, immigration, réfugiés, Canada, Québec, ONG, groupes communautaires, Saillant, Lévy, Ramirez-Villagra, Memory, Testimony, Human Rights, Recognition, Immigration, Refugee, Canada, Quebec, NGO, Community Groups, Saillant, Lévy, Ramirez-Villagra, memoria, testimonios, derechos humanos, derechos de la persona, reconocimiento, inmigración, refugiado, Canadá, Quebec, ONG, grupos sociales

The purpose of this paper is to identify the meanings that secondary school teachers (male and female) in Gabon give to citizenship and citizenship education. Sixty teachers, many of whom teach citizenship education, were surveyed. Set against a background of new social demands, the context of democracy is discussed, the latter requiring a renewed critical look at citizenship education in schools. The points of view expressed by the teachers taking part in the study echo their personal and professional experiences. Although open to participation, they reflect a normative conceptualization of citizenship education as well as an obligation to ensure a stronger citizenship education despite social and educational obstacles.

AbstractAfrican international politics of this beginning of the century is undergoing profound transformations as far as its principles, norms, and working values are concerned. Rule of law, democracy, personal rights, governance, and human security are henceforth fundamental references of African international relations and stand at the same time as ethical constraints on which depends the modernity of the States. The new political morality, which emerges with the help of the continental political civilization, is also a realistic playing field for the construction of a new continental order and for the assertion of symbolic power between States. However, as for every ongoing process, a considerable gap between normative construction and political practices remains.