Search

This paper will propose an interpretation of the way French political theory has become increasingly influenced by its American and Canadian counterparts to include notions of culture and identity in theoretical and sociological analyses of immigration and integration. While French authors have been extensively read and discussed in many fields of North American social and political sciences for quite a long time, France was until very recently suspicious, if not outright hostile, to ideas and theories developed on the other side of the Atlantic regarding the inclusion of minorities and their rights. A strict understanding of the French Republican model of integration and assimilation contributed to a widespread rejection of American and Canadian ideas regarding integration, and specifically multiculturalism and minority rights, which were often accused of leading to notions of communitarianism, and, by extension in a traditional French understanding, to racism. While it is true that such ideas were never unanimously accepted in North America, they were almost universally and strictly rejected in France, and not seriously taken into consideration and extensively discussed: ‘communitarianism’ was mainly used as a slogan, its philosophical underpinnings were not rigorously challenged. Yet, if it took 17 years to see John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice translated and discussed in France, the debate in the country has progressively opened to new considerations regarding identity and politics and the organization of pluralism. In this paper I will analyze the rise of this new acceptance, focusing particularly on the ongoing debate regarding secularism in French schools and the most recent stages of the Muslim veil controversy in the country. I will thus propose a discussion about the circulation of ideas and theories across the Atlantic, and see how images of North American theories are shaped and organized in recent French political thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes current state policies toward religion in schools in three self-professed secular states, the United States, France, and Turkey. It explains the reasons for policy diversification between these cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper simultaneously questions the application of public policy categories developed by Lowi and Tatalovich and Daynes examining gay policy formation in France and the United States and the subsequent impact on public opinion [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom about the behavior of New Left parties in Europe. I test the hypothesis that the institutional context influences party behavior by looking at the strategic decisions of the French Green Party from 1997 to 2002 in various electoral contests. I demonstrate that in order for the Greens to compete with the larger more established parties, they have to recognize the demands of different institutional contexts and act accordingly. Specifically, I explore the circumstances under which the party decides to enter into a pre-election alliance with the Socialists for the legislative elections and when it does not. I find that the existence of a pact in the previous election, the vote shares of the Greens? presidential candidate, the mainstream right, and the extreme right in the preceding elections have the greatest influence on whether the parties will enter into a pre-election alliance in the subsequent legislative contest. Moreover, once the district has been chosen for an alliance, the higher the vote share of the extreme right, the more likely there will be a Socialist candidate, supported by the Greens. The higher the mainstream right?s vote share, the higher the probability that there will be a Green candidate, supported by the Socialists. I argue that the strategic decisions of the Green Party have important implications both for the outcome of the pending election as well as for the future of the party as a viable competitor in the French political space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of events that constitute a widely perceived threat to public safety and life style on expressed commitment to tolerance of out groups. Using the 2000 and 2005 World Values Survey we measure the level of tolerance toward Muslims in particular and toward out-groups in general France, which experienced Muslim led riots, and the Netherlands, which experienced a public assassination involving Muslims and one by another culprit before and after those events. Both countries have expressed concern about significant minority Muslim populations. We expect to find a deterioration in civil liberties values not only respecting Muslims but an increase in hostiliity toward out-groups in general. In this age of a perceived conflict between Western countries and Islamist extremists, preservation of our commitment to civil liberties values has become a widespread concern. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares and contrasts the discourses and practices of intra-EU migration in France and the UK. In both, emigration and immigration are significant and contemporary facts of national life; in each, traditional patterns are being challenged; and in both cases, scare-mongering in this regard has been a dominant feature of recent discourse. In particular, the free movement of people associated with the 2004 and 2007 (but especially 2004) enlargements of the EU posed specific policy challenges to political leaders and local communities alike. In France, the phenomenon contributed to the rejection of the EU’s Constitutional Treaty; in the UK, the government failed first to predict the numbers of economic migrants from East Europe, and then to count them once they had arrived. Both countries, finally, are experiencing significant cross-Channel mobility: a microcosm of intra-EU migration per se. France is for sale, it would appear (cheap houses), while the French are for hire (cheap labour). These stereotypes should tell us something about the range of political discourses we can expect when exploring the characteristics of intra-EU mobility, and the relations between movement on the one hand, and public policy on the other. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The search for religious moderates preoccupies analysts of both American and international politics. However, much of this analysis is deeply flawed, seeking religious leaders from Kansas to Karachi who fit comfortably into a liberal-democratic mold. This paper examines the amorphous concept of the “religious moderate,” and distinguishes distinct forms of moderation that one could seek from religious civil society groups. Such a nuanced look at religious moderation is an important step in increasing social science’s grasp of the dynamics of religion in contemporary international politics. Religious moderation is heavily influenced by national-level variables, especially a state's tradition of religion-state relations. Thus, attempts to export "religious moderation" should be undertaken with great care. The distinct treatment of Muslim civic assocations in France and the United States demonstrates two quite different takes on moderation, and the implications that conceptions of moderation have on the make-up of religious civil society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resurgence of the far-right in European politics has caused alarm. Political observers have looked on anxiously while far-right parties in Austria and Italy have participated in the governing coalitions of those countries. In 2002, Jean Marie Le Pen stunned the world with his advancement into the second round of the French Presidential election. Why is the radical-right so strong right now? In this paper, I have examined this question and offered some insight into how far-right parties rose to prominence in France, Italy, Austria, and Belgium. I hypothesize that voters who supported far-right parties in the last parliamentary elections have less trust in both domestic and supranational political institutions, follow politics less closely, are more likely to feel alienated, and are more likely to feel that immigrants take away jobs than their counterparts who supported mainstream parties. My findings reveal that these hypotheses were accurate in France and Belgium, but did not correctly depict the sentiments of Italian far-right voters. This finding suggests that far-right parties are perhaps not as similar as some people believe, but are characterized by different platforms that appeal to different bases cross-nationally. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The comparison of the United States, France and Poland provides an excellent example of three dramatically different social, political, & cultural contexts which have politicized religion throughout their history in different ways and with different consequences. The purpose of this comparative analysis is to capture the relationship between the processes of politicization of religion and the attitudes of the three selected societies toward the teaching of natural sciences, & especially of the theory of evolution. .x000d.In this paper, the politicization of religion is analysed in the following areas: the processes of the separation of church and state; the extent to which religious identification has played a role in the shaping of the national self-identification; and the unique characteristics of the three national religious dialects. The relationship between these aspects of politicization of religion and the level of religiosity and scientific literacy of the three socio-cultural settings is illustrated by the existing data. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French National Front constitutes the emblematic example of a successful minor party with a highly malleable, radical ideology, in a system with in-built majoritarian tendencies. This paper examines the sources of the FN’s electoral support, given the structure of French political institutions. The FN is frequently characterised as a “far right” party, yet studies suggest that a substantial proportion of its support comes from those whose political preferences lean towards the left, and even the far left. The two-round system used in France provides an opportunity to investigate this using electoral data. The voters who cast the ballot for third party candidates in the first round are typically forced to choose between a leftist and a rightist candidate in the second round. This process constitutes an intertemporal ticket splitting mechanism where the voter splits her ballots between the most preferred party in the first round and the party representing her personal left-right orientation in the second. We use a simplified version of multilevel techniques for ecological inference to examine the pattern of ticket-splitting by Le Pen’s voters in the first round of the most recent Presidential election. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1980s green parties across Europe have made substantial electoral gains and have on occasions taken part in governmental coalitions. Throughout this period green parties have presented themselves as staunch defenders of the environment, although mainstream parties have recently disputed their ownership of this issue. This paper explores the possibility that these electoral successes might be linked to the occurrence of environmental disasters provoked by major oil spills and serious incidents at nuclear power plants. Our study focuses on the French Green Party. We carry out a multilevel analysis based on data for the 12 national elections that took place between 1981 and 2007 to determine the effects of environmental disasters on electoral results. We hypothesize that the effects of such disasters on voters are likely to be strongest within electoral districts that have been hurt by a disaster, or that share essential characteristics with regions hit by a disaster. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rousseau’s Social Contract provides an ideal theory of the political association, yet, in certain remarks throughout the text, most markedly in Book IV, he provides a non-ideal theory that has been largely ignored or treated as sub-textual evidence of a quite different theory. The tension between these competing parts of the text can be resolved if one views The Social Contract as providing both ideal and non-ideal theories threaded together in order to combine right and interest, justice and utility. Although the ideal theory is rooted in democratic notions of popular sovereignty and liberty, the non-ideal theory responds to problems in founding and administration with palliatives such as balance of powers, “term limits,” oversight, mutual restraint, and civil religion/civic virtue. His presentation of non-ideal theory is seen most markedly in his discussion of the Roman Republic and stems from an concern with the inevitable degeneration and corruption of human things and the problems inherent in democracy, perfect denaturing and citizen craft, and the concerns of public versus private interest. This paper will also show how non-ideal theory informs his dealings with the constitutional projects for Corsica and Poland. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines selected aspects of the changing public/private interface in the mediatization of politicians in contemporary France. It argues that there is normative confusion surrounding attempts to establish an agreed dividing line between the public and the private in both politicians' mediated communication and journalists' political coverage. Such confusion is a product of mutually reinforcing changes in the interdependent relationship between three sets of actors: politicians, journalists and the public. Politicians need to use the media for the purposes of self-publicity and the projection of a coherent electoral image; journalists operate in highly competitive media markets which are dominated by the pursuit of audiences and advertising revenue; and the public as voters have become disenchanted with the political class, while as media users they have become accustomed to the exposure of the private lives of celebrities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how different approaches to national identity and ethno-racial diversity bear on the political commitments of immigrants in Canada, the United States and France . ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates how the dissident print media of Cotonou, Benin, has helped this West African republic navigate it way from the French colonization through independence, and ultimately to a politically charged, multi-party democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Election posters are a defining mark of campaigns in many countries, with French legislative candidates spending on average over 20% of their campaign communication budget on them alone. This paper addresses the question of the communicational purposes that candidates assign to posters. Drawing on the cognitive psychology, on research in emotion in politics and on visual grammar research, I argue that candidates use posters both (1) to provide factual information and (2) to visually signal their viability in elections. Through content analysis of 256 candidate posters in the 2007 French legislative elections, using a computer software to compare information and visual areas in posters, I find that: (a) all candidates provide some factual information cues (i.e. they want voters to "know" them); however, candidates with high winning potential are significantly more likely to use posters for visual self promotion than information. (b) These same candidates are significantly more likely to signal they possess excellent candidate credentials, through eye contact and photographic choices (enticing voters to "love" them). (c) Candidate eye-contact making in posters significantly increased their vote share in the first round of the 2007 legislative elections (even controlling for incumbency and other high elected office), suggesting that this signaling in poster content is purposive. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the democratic role of the French Senate?an institution constitutionally designated to represent the French people that is, however, paradoxically unfamiliar to and disliked by the very citizens it was established to represent. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some recent French contributions to the debates concerning the role of multiculturalism and group rights in the quest for a coherent foundation for democratic communication and citizenship in an age of value pluralism. French neo-republicanism, as articulated since the late 1980s – and as illustrated in successive Headscarf controversies since 1989 -- has appropriated the assimilatory republicanism of the Third Republic in order to religitimize the French “exception culturelle,” in part through a devalorization of partial associations and intermediate cultural attachments. However, a number of theorists, such as Joel Roman, Farhad Khosrokhavar, and Alain Touraine (centered chiefly around the review Esprit), are interrogating the possibilities for a chastened French multiculturalism that recognizes and harmonizes a plurality of ways of being French, while avoiding the standard multicultural bete noire of communities “closed in upon themselves.” My paper highlights how this novel endorsement of a multicultural republicanism reflects a new understanding that French republicanism’s thoroughgoing secularism and rigid neutrality in the public sphere is no longer pragmatic, given the contemporary challenge of value pluralism. My paper shows that the foundations for such a multicultural republicanism would of necessity be found in associative life, rather than in the endorsement of a certain highbrow French “exception culturelle.” The paper also explicates the relevance that French discussions of multicultural republicanism might have for anglo-american political theory. Marxism’s eclipse – and the subsequent rise of prescriptive, applied, explicitly normative research by anglo-american political philosophers theorizing citizenship and multiculturalism -- have issued in a relative absence of empirical, sociological accounts of multicultural citizenship. My paper illustrates the central role played by social theory and empirical investigation (vis-à-vis immigrants’ motives, the unintended consequences of existing institutional arrangements, etc.) in the work of the new French multiculturalists. These thinkers tend to eschew the legislative mode of neo-republican discourse, which seeks a thoroughgoing refounding of political community (methodologically not unlike post-Rawlsian attempts at a refounding of political community through the overlapping consensus) on explicitly philosophical foundations. Echoing John Dunn, my paper highlights the importance of historical and empirical social theory – in this case to better understand the social and institutional processes that would facilitate the successful integration of minorities in the nation-state. In the quest for a sociological, rather than philosophical, foundation for multicultural citizenship, I show how the French discourse of new citizenship politics, demonstrated in the work of Said Bouamama, Pierre Bordieu, and Catherine Wihtol de Wenden – and instantiated in the rights-based political praxis of the antiracist movement – provides a participatory foundation for the chastened French multiculturalism sought by Roman, Khosrokhavar, and Touraine. Lastly, the paper demonstrates the historical lack of emphasis on participation and agency in the French republican project and suggests how an emphasis on civic engagement would help to mitigate the problematic tension caused by republicanism’s tendency to valorize a nation-wide communitarian virtue and multiculturalism’s ineluctable drift towards a diverse roster of particularist virtues. The paper concludes by sketching a chastened normative vision of a participatory multicultural citizenship that is attentive to a sociological account of the really existing norms that are employed and enforced for purposes of citizen integration as well as the really existing social inequality occasioned by globalization, monetarism, and the retreat of the welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers governments that yield concessions to small regional political parties that campaign for secession. These parties are not violent and participate in elections- but they do have violent counterparts. The existence of these counterparts increases the bargaining leverage of regional parties vis-à-vis the central government by furnishing an implicit and credible threat of violence. Governments offer concessions to separatist parties in exchange for peace. This bargaining game between the government and the leader of the separatist party is modeled in two ways. This paper was motivated by observations of non-violent separatist parties with relatively stable, but minimal, vote shares that are able to secure considerable concessions from central governments, such as in Quebec and in the Basque Country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the strategic placement of women candidates in French legislative elections. The earliest studies of gender disparity in representative institutions argued that electors were systematically biased against women candidates. Women tend to be better represented in parliaments elected by proportional representation than by plurality rule. Incumbency advantage is another important factor affecting the electoral fortunes of women legislators.

Deep ecologists never seem to explicitly invoke the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but their philosophy nonetheless mirrors his with striking fidelity. Both rely on pseudo-historical states of nature, in which humanity existed in state of perfect freedom, as the basis of their theories. They both blame intellectual and technological progress, indeed Reason itself, for disintegrating the state of nature and chaining a corrupted humanity to the evils of society. Both find modern politics eminently unnatural, and yearn for a return to lost innocence. Knowing full well that the conditioning of the modern psyche precludes such a return, both set to work on a radical paradigm shift that would make the return somewhat more plausible. These parallels are so conspicuous that one wonders why deep ecologists have not harnessed Rousseau’s infamous skills as a wordsmith to promote their agenda. Indeed, one could not blame them for directly co-opting The Second Discourse, or Emile, or Reveries of the Solitary Walker, or many of Rousseau’s other writings as comprising the development of a proto-deep ecology. Rousseau even records an experience of oneness with nature on the shores of Saint-Pierre that reflects profound ecocentric sentiment. Rousseau is hardly an obscure philosophical figure; the lack of Rousseauean imagery in deep ecological thought cannot be attributed to ignorance. I argue instead this curious omission reveals an apprehension among deep ecologists, concerning both how they wish to be perceived politically, and how they think about their own political agenda. While they might welcome a connection to the Rousseau of The Second Discourse, deep ecologists fear taking the next step, which brings them to the Rousseau of The Social Contract. To put it differently, while deep ecologists should endorse Rousseau’s analysis of the human relationship with nature and his excoriation of modern politics, they would prefer to avoid the accusations of totalitarianism that would accompany accepting the whole Rousseauean package. But there is more to this story. I argue that this reticence reveals that deep ecologists face the very same tensions between natural living and political tyranny that plagued Rousseau throughout his career. Rousseau knew the state of nature was irrevocably lost, and he therefore aimed to recreate as much of its happiness as he could. Yet this was impossible without the political sea change of The Social Contract; we couldn’t be happy again unless we were forced to be free. For the sake of natural, self-sufficient individuality we must legitimize the unlimited, conformist state. There is much inconsistent in Rousseau’s writings, but the connection between The Second Discourse and The Social Contract is sound. If this is true, deep ecologists must come to realize the disquieting implications of their own philosophy. If they wish to avoid incoherent anarchy on one hand and radical despotism on the other, deep ecologists would do well to engage Rousseau as clarifying their central political problem, and take up his cross of looking for solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of political competition as one-dimensional (left-versus-right) is widespread. This single dimension is a useful shortcut for a number of positions on a variety of issues and policies. Nonetheless, political conflict is often multi-dimensional. Using a single dimension for describing political competition in such circumstances is inappropriate. I present a simple model with two dimensions and three actors (constituencies) with preferences over policies associated with each of the two dimensions. I use this model to analyze the most recent presidential elections in three European countries: France, Romania, and Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does identity politics correspond to an interest group model? Does identity work the same for actors empowered through social roles and those disempowered because of racial, gender, or cultural difference? Through research on AIDS activism in France and the U.S., I “bring interests back in” to explain how the politics of cultural difference is part and parcel of the politics of citizenship. Unlike empowered actors and interests, those marginalized from power face cultures of exclusion that enforce their social and political inequality. Before making claims, they must establish their rights as citizens. They do so through movement narratives that situate interests through the characters they describe. Activists tell about their experiences as protagonists, against the antagonists who enforce their marginalization, drawing on the national mythology to give these stories moral force. This means that interests result from specific forms of marginalization, but they are also animated by the way protagonists define themselves as ethical citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the investment allocation of hedge and mutual funds â€" two categories of short-term oriented investors â€" in France and Germany from the mid 1990s to early 2008. Hedge and mutual funds constitute two categories of impatient shareholders with a marked preference for short-term returns on their investments. These investors bring a set of expectations as regards their status and the proper form of corporate governance at odds with the institutional arrangements and practices of the stakeholder orientation of systems of corporate governance in France and Germany. The empirical data presented in this paper for the investment portfolio of short-term institutional investors shows a marked preference for the French market over that of Germany. The argument presented highlights the importance of the firm-level institutional arrangements to account for the diverging ability of French and German firms to attract funds from impatient investors. The implication is that the consequences of increasing capital mobility are strongly mediated by the prevailing national institutional frameworks of advanced capitalist economies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I will argue that there has been a shift in Muslim incorporation policies around the 1990s which privileged a “religious” component. I will explore this in two case studies, Great Britain and France, through a controlled case comparison coupled with a within-case design. Through an analysis of the historical processes, this paper will offer an argument for when and why religion rose in salience when it did -- starting in the 1990s and accelerating after internal security issues connected to the Muslim community in the early 2000s. This paper will then move to a closer examination of the policies to address the issue of Muslim incorporation, paying particular attention to how the British and French governments created new institutions and emphasized funding and research strands to legitimize certain actors, particularly moderate and mainstream Muslims. In looking at the form of policies, this paper will suggest that the important distinction to be made is not between church-state institutional structures but the more general philosophies regarding the role of religion in public life. This will result in a typology of the Anglo-American model versus the Continental European model. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do liberal states have a legal obligation to provide their citizens with the means for an appropriate religious burial? Or would such state involvement violate liberal democratic principles of secularity as the French setting dictates? This paper investigates the nexus between religion and politics, in Netherlands, Norway and France through the lens of burial laws. Each of these countries represents one ideal-type in a tripartite typology; France being ‘separatist’, Norway having an ‘established national church’, and Netherlands being a ‘selective cooperation country’. The paper seeks to understand what the political and legal dynamics are in these three secular democracies when it comes to decisions about limits on religious burial practice. And, secondly, it aims to link this clash between law and religious practice to a discussion about secularism in liberal democratic theory. To what extent can we observe different secular and legal narratives about the required neutrality of the public cemetery? With this empirical information it aims to interrogate, and criticize, a dominant conception of secularism (as strict separation) in political theory. The paper thus combines comparative case analysis with political theory. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers two of Locke’s French enthusiasts: Helvetius and La Mettrie. The paper will reflect on the validity as well consider the political implications of their interpretation of Locke. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the compatiblity between the meaning of the headscarves worn by Muslim highschoolers in French public schools and the core liberal value of gender equality that these same public schools are supposed to defend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates the highly contestedaffair of the headscarf in France in the broader frame of the relation between generality and particularity in the definition of French identity built with republicanism and secularism as its keynotes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores France?s adoption of surprising new legislation against religious signs in public schools. Historical continuities of French political thinking together with recent social and legal developments help explain this decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the role of governance in shaping early childhood education and care policy in France, Sweden, and the U.S. during the 1990s with attention to decentralization, privatization, and administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, by analyzing the recent debates that took place on the headscarf issue in France, I address two questions: How does normative contestation within the discourse of human rights occur? And second, which norms matter under what conditions? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terror attacks of September 11, the detection of local terrorist cells and arrests of terror suspects in several Western European countries as well as the widespread support violent attacks on American targets enjoy among the Muslim populations of Europe, has reopened the question how to best ensure a cohesive culturally diverse society, and whether policies aimed at the preservation of distinct cultural identities for immigrants have been counterproductive, and, indeed, are a threat to the internal safety of states In this paper we explore how the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath have led law and policymakers in France and Germany --two of three Western European countries with the largest Muslim minorities--to effect a fundamental reorientation of their integration policies. This reorientation, we argue, is characterized by a return to an assimilationist approach to integration supplanting cautious attempts at legal/political multiculturalism that had supported the adjustment of key policies (e.g., education, health care) and laws (e.g., dress codes, family law) to reflect the needs of a growing religious minority, which will potentially have an adverse affect on state-minority relations. Neo-assimilationism differs from earlier standard assimilationist (or, integrationist, for Germany) models. The main feature of neo-assimilationism, that gives the state again a central role in the creation of a cultural identity, is the desire to mainstream Muslims, not to turn them into Frenchmen but to integrate them into French/German societies and encourage them to embrace European ideals to avoid a culture clash that, directly and indirectly, might provide a fertile breeding ground for terrorism. The strategy to achieve this goal is new: where earlier attempts focused on the assimilationist power of schools or the law, neo-assimilationism intends to formally institutionalize a moderate Islam, and to tie Muslims and their leaders as closely to the French/German state as possible. Examples of neo-assimilationist policies that have been implemented in France and Germany include granting Muslim communities official state recognition under one umbrella group, thus making them eligible for some state funding for specific projects, creating and funding Muslim schools with teachers selected and paid by and answerable to government officials (the first Muslim lycée opened a few weeks ago), training German and French imams and religious instructors locally thus making the import of potentially radical foreign imams unnecessary, and, most importantly, the creation and election of an official French Muslim Council to represent all Muslims in France and to interact with the French government. In other words, the goal of neo-assimilationism is to create a homegrown French or German Islam where Islam is under close state supervision, and Muslims consider themselves French/German first and Muslims second. While clearly this is not illegitimate goal, it is very questionable how much support a secularization of Islam under the perceived tutelage of the state will enjoy, given the persistence Muslim communities have shown in the last decades to obtain the political and legal accommodation of their cultural traditions and their recognition as an autonomous community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the discourse and strategies of extreme right parties in four European democracies; France, the UK, Germany and Romania. Using text analysis of party manifestoes, we disctinguish four sub-types of extreme right parties. We show that the extreme right party family can be classified into four distinct types based on the insight into the fundamental ideological core and the style of discourse it espouses. We explore the implications this typology has on party competition and the likely electoral success of the party within its given party system. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular accounts of the recent rejection of the Lisbon/Constitutional Treaty by voters in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland have focused on the supposed impact of citizen fears of globalization. This paper examines the impact of globalization on country-level support for European integration. Using an annual time-series index of indicators of globalization combined with Eurobarometer opinion data, I test hypotheses related to the impact of globalization over a 30-year period. Comparisons are drawn between Western and Eastern European member states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender is a social position occupied by men and women and an attribute of social structures including the sexual division of labor, normative heterosexuality, and war and militarism. This paper focuses on the initiatives and responses that states take with regard to gender, race, and ethnicity. In particular, it explores 20th century efforts to improve the political presence of groups constituted by gender, culture, caste, and race in such countries as India, the United States, France, Brazil, and Rwanda. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As he observed the rise of democracy in France and in America, Tocqueville recognized that democracy would foster new habits of thought. Wary of the power that democracy could wield over the intellect, Tocqueville undertook a critical assessment of the mental habits that democracy fosters. He observed that democratic citizenries are disposed to faith in majority opinion, materialism, and progressive accounts of human experience. He also saw that intellectuals often espouse doctrines that cater to these inclinations. As a part of his effort to curb and correct the undesirable mental habits that democracy fosters, Tocqueville offers a critique of doctrines that tend to reinforce the flaws the democratic mind. Implicit in his account of the influence of democracy on the American mind is a critique of the influence of Cartesian science on Europe. This paper undertakes a survey of Tocqueville’s account of the democratic mind, and aims to distill his critique of Cartesian science. In addition to revealing the intellectual liabilities of Cartesian science for early European democracy, Tocqueville’s teaching helps to reveal some of the liabilities of popular science or “scientism” in contemporary democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore the issue of citizenship rights within the framework of the headscarf debate in both France and Germany. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the hypothesis that globalization increases individuals’ feeling of economic insecurity and hence their demand for welfare state expansion using individual-level survey data from Switzerland, France, and the US. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on comparative media effects on European public opinion through an examination of the agenda-setting functions of print media in Ireland and France on the issue of immigration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between French national identity construction and the marginalization of ethnic identities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolution of a new "governing party" that led to the successful election of Nicholas Sarkozy as President, the issues that shaped the campaign and why both socialist and centrist presidential candidates were unsuccessful. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a new approach for analyzing sequences of policy reform, which is illustrated through a comparison of legal setbacks and campaigns for gender quotas in France and Britain. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the decline in support for major political parties in Western Europe, specifically, France, the UK, and German, this paper investigates the relationship between citizens, political parties, and the European Union. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore Constant's conception of modern liberty partcularly how it relates to positve and negative liberty as defined by Isaiaih Berlin. Although Constant was disapproving of the merits of ancient liberty, which Berlin regards as synonomous with positve liberty; Constant was keenly aware of the dangers of an apathetic and egoistic populace, a distinction that Berlin appears to fail to take into account when discussing negative liberty which he values over positive liberty, and which are apparently irreconcialbe. Ultimately, Constant's conception of modern liberty includes both positive and negative liberty. The backdrop of French history during Constant's time I believe is crucial to understanding Constant's thought--particualry the Terror and Napoleon--and how these developments revealed the dangers of both forms of liberty. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of elite alliances on the activity choices of environmental groups in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Relying on a multi-dimensional framework for analyzing social movements with a focus on political opportunity structures, several aspects of elite alliances are analyzed. Results indicate that groups shift tactics in relation to changes in elite alliance structures at the nation state. The degree of green party support, the nature of the party in power and its platform as well as cabinet strength were found to influence activity choices. In addition, it was found that groups often behave counter-intuitively, punishing those allies with whom one would expect they share a common purpose. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper develops and evaluates empirically a signaling model on the use of time constraining rules in legislative bargaining. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers current parliamentary proposals on constitutional reform in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Belgium from historical institutional and social choice perspectives. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper argues that voters respond to globalization by reducing the weight assigned to economic considerations and, to compensate, by increasing the weight assigned to non-economic issues. Analyses of British and French data support the argument. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the French parity law from the perspective of political parties.  Existing theoretical approaches are used in conjunction with individual party priorities to provide a fuller explanation of parties? choice of electoral candidates. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]