Volume 27, numéro 3, 1996

EN :

The European Union (EU) does not typify any of the political union models that were proposed for the basis of Us formulation. Quite to the contrary, the Maastricht Treaty interweaves components of these prototypes, with the end result being rather disconcerting at a conceptual level. The Treaty does stipulate, however, that an Intergovernmental Conference take place in 1996-97; an important item on the agenda mil be defining the political union model that will set the stage for further European integration. This paper identifies and analyses the alternative political union models available to EU members, and attempts to discern which of them will, in most likelihood, be selected by the Conference. They are grouped into jour categories: status quo, federation, renationalisation and confederation. These models, each in their unique style, address such issues as alleviating the democratic deficit (explored further in paper) and buttressing the legitimacy of Brussells' institutions. The paper suggests that the Conference will ultimately choose between the status quo and confederation options ; but, faced with the difficulty of predicting which of these choices will win favour - especially given the debate unfolding on eastern EU expansion - it does not attempt to pinpoint the outcome of the Conference. It does conclude, however, that the renationalisation and federation options are not realistic in light of their weak foothold in Europeans' political culture.

EN :

This article explores the relationship between environmental changes and the reform process at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). The basic question it seeks to answer is : how does an organization self-produce in conditions of intense environmental change ? International organizations, while carrying out their mission, are constantly called upon to take notice of changes in their environment and to make accordingly whatever adjustment is required. This adaptive process serves two main purposes : first, to facilitate the pursuit and attainment of the objectives of the organization and, second, to help the organization self-produce, for international organizations like any other social System self-produce through the action it exercises on it self. The reform process undertaken at UNIDO beginning in the late 80s clearly bears out that contention. It sheds light on the conditions and difficulties that surround the undergoing reform process at the United nations.

EN :

The formulation of a policy that will satisfy several values and interests more or less compatible is a classic problem of political decision making. This phenomenon by which there can be, in a foreign policy issue for example, several divergent values and interests was named value-complexity by Alexander George. When facing a value complexity problem, a decision maker must choose some values and some interests over others. The choice he makes will not necessarily be the one made by other decision makers. This can result in a serious impediment to the decision making process.

The American foreign policy towards the Middle East faced, for the major part of the Cold War era, a value-complexity problem because it looked to reconcile four hard-to reconcile values and interests. The Reagan government was confronted rather acutely with this problem in the making of its Iranian policies. The administration was split in at least two factions over Iran : one who thought primarily of containing the Soviet Union in the Middle East region and the other for whom the political stability of moderate regimes threatened by revolutionnary Iran should be the most important priority. The existence of these factions, consequence of value-complexity, produced the making and the implementation of two distinct Iranian policies.

EN :

Yugoslavia's loss of strategic value since the end of the cold war has determined the scope of us engagement in the War s of Yugoslav Succession. In June 1991, therefore, the us allowed the EC and the UN to preserve Yugoslav unity and then contain the effects of the several wars launched by Serbia in the region. Bill Clinton, after rejecting George Bush's policy of "Realpolitik" during the 1992 election campaign in favor of defending the victims of aggression, quickly confirmed the essential continuity of us policy in the Balkans. Throughout the Clinton Presidency, the us has sought to contain the effects of the Yugoslav wars rather than reverse the consequences of aggression, and has relatedly sought to exclude the possibility of a significant combat role for us ground forces. Rhetoric aside, us policy has sought to encourage a settlement that reflects the military facts on the ground. The Dayton accords of November 1995 reflect these considerations in detail. Whatever the long-term effects of the Dayton "peace", one consequence is certain : the marginalization of Western Europe as a foreign policy actor within Europe itself

EN :

Since 1960, the French African Policy has been based on a military, economic, and cultural cooperation. Behind the official goal, that of development aid, lie the French geopolitical priorities. Since general de Gaulle, the French diplomacy is obsessed by the international place of France in the World. The influence of France in Africa is an integral part of this. Therefore the cooperation between France and Africa is clientelist : the economic and financial aid provided by France is exchanged with the French privilege of an economic and political influence within the African states, which includes military support in situations of border conflict and even domestic « disorder ». This conception of the relationship between France and Africa has not really changed with the French presidents who have followed general de Gaulle. Consequently, the French government institutions of cooperation with Africa have been in the same situation since the sixties. The result is such a complex, obsolete and inefficient labyrinth that the real execution of French African policy is carried out in non-official political and business networks. A radical reform of this policy is now necessary, due to the new international context : the end of the Cold War, the French involvment in the European process, and the increasing dependance of Africa on the Bretton Woods institutions.

EN :

The author analyzes the post-Cold War international arena thoroughly, be delineating one by one Us different systemic, geopolitical, hegemonic, and strategic metamorphoses. The emergence of a fragmented transnational subsystem — the social component of the international System — has made this era fertile ground for third-wave conflicts, i.e. cultural conflicts or shocks between civilizations. The lack of any recognized leadership and the collective exercise of the system's governability may lead one to observe that armed violence is being waged by means other than those of major inter-state wars. In such a context, one may deduce that emphasis on the concept of collective security is working to the detriment of defence-minded thinking and to the benefit of strategies for active and very early conflict prevention. The entire realm of strategy is thus open to a wide-ranging, Worldwide arena. The main consequences have been an end to the old custodial arrangements of geopolitics, thereby transforming NATO in Europe, and a renewed activism in Asia, where the trend is towards creation of a specific security subsystem. These transformations of the international System have brought about metamorphoses in the notions of enemy, boundary, conflict, and power. Such changes also highlight the « rationality deficit » now affecting the System and the proliferation of the notion of « meaning », which is everywhere lacking in consistency. The shifting of the security dilemma to the subnational, internal level has accordingly resulted from the breakup of nations and the decolonization of empires. The author concludes that it may prove useful, even valuable, to try and identify the normative elements of the post-Cold War international System and to outline, however imperfectly, the new distribution of international power. The reader will also find afresh look at the doctrinal debate about international System theory and about the epistemology of the discipline that deals with it.