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AbstractThe heuristic suitability of dominant Western geopolitical approaches to the Ukrainian crisis is examined through an examination of their epistemological foundations. The most influential discourses today, essentially culturalist, derive from widely disputed paradigms of International Relations and have trouble overcoming the methodological biases and limitations of realist, statist, or neorealist approaches. Deconstruction of the various models reveals the self-same ethnocentric and prescriptive notion of a world order that serves as a foundation for a full-blown “hegemonistic consensus.” Such a vision of international relations however, structured around the assumption of u.s. pre-eminence, is unable to address the complexity of a conflict reducible neither to age-old Russian imperialism nor to a return of the Cold War.

Keywords: géopolitique, conflit ukrainien, Occident, identité et culture russes, convention hégémoniste, Geopolitics, Ukrainian conflict, the West, Russian identity and culture, hegemonistic consensus, Geopolítica, conflicto ucraniano, Occidente, identidad y cultura rusas, convención hegemónica

SummaryThis paper attempts to explain why we are presently witnessing the decay of the public space and the "ethnicization" of social relations in Quebec. The appeal to the right of law and minority rights are inscribed in a trend toward the judicialization of social relations and the constitutionalization of rights, a trend specific to the post-1982 Canadian context. In this regard, a series of political choices made in Canada have led to the fragmentation of identities and the submission of legislative bodies to the courts. With this, we have begun to witness the birth of a particularist, biocultural type of citizenship and a regression of democratic debate within a space that is no more than a site for the confrontation of particularist rights. After having shown how this situation skirts the fundamental democratic issue of a political community, the authors examine the Canadian and Quebec situations. Transformed into a judicial community, Canada is inhibited from constructing a true pan-Canadian political community, while Quebec is experiencing difficulty in giving life to a viable, shared Francophone political culture within a society which has become pluricultural and multinational. In light of this current global crisis of democracy, the authors propose the reinvention of the political community on a broader basis and a rethinking of the exercise of democracy within supranational institutions predicated on the durability of individual national units.

Keywords: démocratie, identité, communauté, national, supranational, droits, judiciarisation, tribunal, État, législatif, democracy, identity, community, national, supranational, rights, judicialization, courts, state, legislative, democracia, identidad, comunidad, nacional, supra-nacional, derechos, judicialización, tribunal, Estado, legislativo

AbstractNeglected since his death after having been all at once criticized and hailed during his lifetime, Raymond Aron's approach challenges any easy classification within the discipline. An interesting attempt has been proposed by Michael Doyle, who considers Aron to be a constitutionalist realist. While basically agreeing with this proposal, our contribution purports to show that Aron actually was a neo-classical realist before the term was invented. After recalling Aron's common points with Morgenthau's classical realism and Waltz's neo-realism, the article analyses the numerous epistemological and ontological affinities linking the French IR scholar to the contemporary North-American neoclassical realists who ignore that they ignore Aron.

Keywords: Aron, Relations internationales, réalisme classique, néoréalisme, réalisme néoclassique, Aron, International Relations, classical realism, neorealism, neoclassical realism, Aron, Relaciones Internacionales, realismo clásico, neorrealismo, realismo neoclásico

This paper examines how the 2010 Citizens United cases and the rise of Super-PACs threaten to corrupt the U.S. electoral system. During the last presidential election, rich contributors and private companies spent more than 730 million dollars on electoral ads through Super-PACs. I show that this influx of money into political advertisement threatens American democracy with “grey corruption” by making questionable practices banal and blurring the boundaries between what is lawful and what is not. It does this in three ways. (1) When financial support to a candidate is unlimited, it may be thought of as bribery; (2) many of the advertising techniques employed by Super-PACs do not aim at convincing voters but at corrupting their political judgment; (3) lastly, this financing system creates major inequalities in political influence, which contribute to corrupting democratic affairs by fostering their privatization by a wealthy few. I show that the Supreme Court's refusal to consider any of these as sources of corruption relies on a mistaken view of democracy as a system of free competition for political power. Instead, once we ground democracy in an equality requirement, the corrosive effects that this campaign finance system has on U.S. democracy become clear.

AbstractGenerally speaking, social scientists have adopted either one of two attitudes toward politics. On the one hand, they have evacuated politics from their work and have sought objectivity in order to gain the status of science. On the other, they have integrated it, arguing that science is conditioned by its social environment and is thus not only an intrinsic part of politics but an essential element of the polity. In that view, theory is linked to the interests of those who make it and to the classes to which they belong.We may wonder however if these interpretations of the relationship between theory and practice are inescapable. Indeed, we may question if social sciences are really and definitively trapped in this dilemma of being either science or ideology.We believe that there is a way out, that there is an alternative understanding of this relationship. Michel Foucault has shown—with his studies on madness, prison, clinic, sexuality, human science…—that historical and political investigations are intimately linked. He argues that, far from excluding each other, these two activities are of the same nature, part of a similar search for understanding. It is this conception that we want to further analyze here. It rests on a work ethic that asks that we re-examine the principles governing our practices of knowledge—the imperative of thruth—and most importantly, the identity of the one who knows. Such an ethic promotes an experience of politics quite different from the one that has structured our behavior for two centuries.