*** ALAIN TOURAINE: Le nouveau siècle politique. Editions du Seuil (25 bd Romain-Rolland, F-75014 Paris. Emaill: contact@seuil.com – Internet: http://www.seuil.com ). 2016, 201 pp, €17. ISBN 978-2-02-133194-3.
This book arises from the deeply held belief that France, just like the countries surrounding it, is exiting from industrial society without having any clear idea about what’s to replace it. Internationally renowned sociologist Alain Touraine is of the opinion that we have entered a new world, a world of the ‘communication society’ that has taken over from the ‘manufacturing society.’ Thus, a new political century has begun, rendering the old left-right divide out-of-date and leaving the citizens of France disorientated – just like the rest of Europe, although this is not the concern of the author of these pages. He has devoted the book to setting out paths to be taken now to properly handle the challenges posed by this ‘new political century.’
He addresses his writing to the French ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, but his remarks include many aspects that are useful beyond the confines of the Hexagon. For example when he observes that in the communication society that we now live in, power is no longer solely exercised over objects, but ‘seeks to dominate representations, opinions, decisions, life choices and everything concerning the personality, without giving up control over material goods.’ Clearly, he assures us, we are facing a ‘power that tends to be total, both economic, political and cultural.’ Faced with this danger, he says it is illusory to think that any social movement could arise with any hope of success. No, what needs to be opposed to this is ‘a more comprehensive movement that is itself also more total, based on an invocation of democracy and human dignity, which are above all ethical principles.’ The measured attitude of the French after the Charlie Hebdo massacre leads him to sense the advent of this, while their closed attitude – and that of the Europeans – on the question of refugees confirms at the same time that they will have to fight against both ‘the total power of empires’ and ‘identity and Coummunitarist obsessions,’ the latter being the consequence of a ‘rapprochement between nationalism and populism that could give rise to a new fascism.’ Clearly, says Alain Touraine, ‘it it high time to civilise the State’ and to place a wager on the ‘ethical conception of human rights’ that he sees gradually being asserted, slowly but surely, before his eyes, ‘in a political and ideological context of the decomposition of democracy.’ There is a strong conviction that ‘only the demand for the dignity, freedom and equality of human beings can allow the organisation of big ethical and democratic movements’ such that he invites his readers in these chapters to consider from a different viewpoint the national question, the religious question and secularism, the anti-terror fight and, finally, the ecological question.
One of the conclusions he draws is that that ‘the fight against the National Front must be made a priority, which will imply the reintegration into economic and social life of the men and women who have been thrown into exclusion and precariousness.’ This is obvious, and this lesson clearly does not only apply to France. Most of the other observations he makes apply equally to Europe as a whole. However, one question arises, which is: why does this intellectual claiming to be in the ‘tradition’ of the ethical left incarnated by Jacques Delors and Michel Rocard show himself to have such cold feet about Europe? If he wants to civilise States, then why does he give them the mission of being ‘effective political agents for demands for freedom, equality and dignity’? Why does he decree that there is no way ‘for opting for a federal Europe’? A mystery. Unless perhaps it’s out of … ignorance. After all, doesn’t the author make De Gaulle the father of Franco-German reconciliation, totally ignoring Robert Schuman? Seeing him judge that ‘the European institutions, the Council of Europe and the European Commission have no democratic legitimacy, despite the progress made by the European Parliament’ confirms at any rate at least that Pic de la Mirandole has not yet found a successor… Michel Theys
*** STEPHEN COLEMAN, ANNA PRZYBYLSKA, YVES SINTOMER (Eds.): Deliberation and Democracy: Innovative Processes and Institutions. Peter Lang (42-50 Eschborner Landstraße, D-60489 Frankfurt. Tel: (49-69) 780700 – Fax: 78070550 – Email: frankfurt@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). Warsaw Studies in Politics and Society, No. 3. 2015, 313 pp, €53.20, £43, $69.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64826-1.
It is clear to many in Europe – and not just in Europe - that democracy is not doing very well at the moment. This book’s editors confirm this in the introduction, and paint a very gloomy panorama: criticising the media for paving the way for ‘a predictable cast of "out of touch" political characters,’ political parties having ‘turned themselves into marketing organizations’ and cultivated pseudo-values destined solely to attract ‘the median voter,’ ‘increasingly managerial’ governments using ‘a language of spin that constrains political choice and feeds distrust,’ a public sphere whose ‘impact on real decision-making is evanescent’… Should one therefore resign oneself to inhabiting democracies that, among other things, are becoming ever unfairer in practice? The authors brought together in these pages don’t think so, feeling that this bad situation is because what is ‘largely missing from everyday politics is a culture of deliberation in which citizens are encouraged to share and contrast their preferences and values.’ The authors are even convinced, as described by Stephen Coleman (professor of political communication at Leeds University’s Centre for Digital Citizenship), Anna Przybylska (head of Warsaw University’s Centre for Deliberation at the Institute of Sociology) and Prof. Yves Sintomer (Université Paris VIII, active at the Centre Cultures et Sociétés Urbaines), that ‘contrary to what some of the Founding Fathers of modern republics pretended, democratic deliberation has shown that it need not to be restricted to the parliamentary arena of elitist circles and that it can thrive within a much wider public sphere.’ The fifteen chapters making up this book are therefore devoted to the potential for a deliberative approach, particularly in the light of the experience of ‘deliberative mini-publics,’ in other words ‘a kind of political laboratory in which the deliberative ideal can be tested and developed’ without claiming to replace the institutions of representative democracy or direct democracy. Emerging from a conference organised at Warsaw University, the book reports on the results achieved by researchers in this connection, going beyond European and North American experiences. It is divided into four sections, the first on contemporary challenges and new approaches to the public sphere, notably in terms of the media. The second focuses upon a specific deliberative technique - the Deliberative Poll - and compares findings emanating from this practice in different political and cultural contexts. In the third section, eight academic experts deal with ‘the formidable challenge of determining what constitutes deliberative quality’ and in the final section, others consider the issue of democratic deliberation and deliberative democracy in connection with the complex challenges to be taken up by contemporary politics. (MT)
*** STELLA LADI, VASILIKI DALAKOU: L’analyse de la politique publique. Editions Papazisi (2 rue Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 – Fax: 3809020 – Email: papazisi@otenet.gr – Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2016, 294 pp, €15. ISBN 978-960-02-3235-6.
How and why do governments act on time (or late) to the public problems facing them? What are the consequences of this? What comes into the category of public problems? How are government programmes drawn up? Who are the players in public policy and how is the latter described globally? These are some of the main questions to which the authors of this book, now in its second edition, provide answers based on their analysis of public policies using an international bibliography. Prof. Stella Ladi (who lectures in Europeanization and public policy at the Pantheon University in Athens) and Prof. Vasiliki Dalakou (International Institute of Administrative Sciences) aimed in this book to lay the foundations for an understanding of the theoretical and practical frameworks of public policy, clarifying basic concepts such as the public sector, the public interest, government and/or governance, before presenting the various public policy players, internal or external. The following chapters are devoted to the different stages of the public policy cycle, implementing the government’s programme, drawing up policies and taking decisions, along with policy implementation and assessment. They then analyse the ideal types of public administration and governance, along with modern reformist trends. The final chapter is devoted to the influence of globalisation and Europeanization on member states’ public policies. This is a reference book describing the main theoretical trends, each topic being enriched with empirical examples illustrating the range of models that have been developed and their different international applications. The book is aimed above all at students and researchers, although a much wider audience could also benefit from this introduction to a subject that surrounds us in everyday life. (AKa)
*** STATHIS KALIVAS: La montée de la démocratie chrétienne en Europe. Editions Piotita (2 rue Smirnis, GR-16672 Vari. Tel: (30-210) 9215842 – Fax: 9214693 – Email: info@piotita.gr – Internet: http://www.piotita.gr ). 2015, 380 pp, €26.50. ISBN 960-7803-28-0.
For more than a century, Christian democratic parties dominated political life in Western Europe. In other words, while religious fundamentalism is largely seen these days as the main enemy of the post-Cold War democratic world, politics in this world have for a long time been partly based on religion, and remain so today. Hence this book, which is an attempt to elucidate the mystery. What is Christian democracy? How were Christian democratic parties set up? Did they assert themselves with the support of the Church against the will of the State, or did the State endorse their rising power? How did Catholic political identity gradually insinuate itself and become installed? It is to these questions that Stathis Kalivas, professor of political science at Yale University, provides answers which are enlightening for people wishing to understand the political situation in many countries of Western Europe and, more generally, the dynamic of relations between Church and State. (AKa)
*** ANASTASIOS-IOANNIS METAXAS (Eds.): La science politique, enquête interdisciplinaire et transversale sur le fonctionnement de la politique. Organum: l’indice sérologique interdisciplinaire, une répartition analytique des volumes I-X (Vol.10). Editions Sideris (116 rue Solonos, GR-10681 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3833434 – Fax: 3832294 – Email: contact@isideris.gr). 2016, 185 pp, €0. ISBN 978-960-08-0724-0.
As indicated by the subtitle of the tenth and last volume in this series, this Organum includes: i) an interdisciplinary terminology in a general index incorporating the alphabetical indices of Volumes I to IX ; ii) a detailed summary in the form of a table of contents that allows the user of this last volume to have a broader picture of questions dealt with by the authors without having to systematically refer back to the volume in which the topic was covered in detail. This tool also allows curious readers to find out how frequently the various authors use the same terms. This also highlights the affinities and influences characterising the political act itself with the adoption of concepts which, from period to period, determine the flow of thought. Finally, the "Notifications" explain to the reader the detailed reasoning behind such a colossal work. (AKa)
*** Fedechoses… pour le fédéralisme. Presse fédéraliste (Maison de l'Europe et des Européens, 242 rue Duguesclin, F-69003 Lyon. Internet: http://www.pressefederaliste.eu ). December 2016, No. 174, 40 pp, €8. Annual subscription: €30.
In this issue of Fedechoses, the editorial is replaced by a transcript of the speech made by MEP Jo Leinen at the last Congress of European Federalists in which the current president of the European International Movement calls for people to leave their ‘national trenches’ and hold a ‘third Convention.’ Particular attention is paid to the UEF, which celebrated its 70th anniversary on 15 December 2016, with four contributions being devoted highly appropriately to the history of this birth. In a footnote, veteran Jean-Pierre Gouzy has the very good idea of recalling the history of the naming of this association: ‘UEF originally designated the Union Européenne des Fédéralistes. Later, because of the growing ascendency of English, UEF designated Union of European Federalists or Union des fédéralistes européens. It was therefore decided to keep the acronym UEF, even going as far as playing on this linguistic ambiguity.’ In his usual ‘Letter,’ the same Gouzy has a go at Donald Trump, and has a dig in passing the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, for calling when he convened the European Summit for ‘less integration on the grounds that more integration would jeopardise national identities.’ Other critical views by federalists cover the ideas so unable to generate enthusiasm that are being put forward by most of the candidates in the French presidential elections, a ‘Europe made ill by its States’ and the snubbing that the euro is being subjected to. The walls being re-erected at borders are also criticised, which leads Sándor Hegedús, president of the Hungarian section of UEF, to call in a letter to Elmar Brok, German Christian Democrat MEP and president of UEF Europe, for the ‘political leaders who want to exclude the Hungarian members from the European People’s Party’ to be unreservedly backed in their desire to ‘not be in the same party as people who do not respect European values or democracy.’ The work of the Italian Civil Society Platform is echoed ahead of the ceremonies to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, one of its messages being that it is imperatively necessary to ‘reply to the question of human rights and that the first human right is to have a European democracy where sovereignty belongs to citizens,’ since ‘democratic Europe will only be saved’ if citizens ‘make it change.’(MT)