Critically assess available explanations of the rise of the National Front, and assess and explain its impact on French politics
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
The National Front was founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen and since the 1980s has managed to enter French political life. The European elections of 1984 saw the National Front gain 11% of votes, and in the parliamentary elections of 1986 and 1988, the National Front won 10%. The presidential...
How far have the French succeeded in imposing a necessary reduction on the role and power of the state?
Essay - 8 pages - Political science
The French state has always occupied a central and essential role and has over the years taken measures to reduce state power. This necessity has to be related to the unprecedented shift in the balance of power, when the Socialists won the elections in 1981. For the first time during the Fifth...
Explain why French trade unions, which enjoy so little support, nevertheless seem to exert considerable political influence
Essay - 7 pages - Political science
In France, trade unions were legalised in 1884, but developed very slowly. Trade unions have never enjoyed phenomenal support in France as in the post-war period approximately 35% of workers belonged to a trade union as opposed to a mere 8-9% nowadays, which is by far the lowest proportion...
Compare and contrast the working conditions, aspirations and prospects of French students entering higher education in the 1960s and those entering higher education since the 1990s
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Students entering the French higher education system in 1960 and since the 1990s will have undergone quite different experiences. However, so will the students entering higher education in France at the beginning of the 1960s compared to those entering towards the end of that very same decade....
Discuss de Gaulle's handling of the Algerian War and consider some of the ways in which he exploited the crisis to political ends
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
In 1954, the discontent displayed by Algerian rebels, the Front de Libération National, demanding independence, turned into war and was not settled until 1962, with the involvement of the French national hero, General de Gaulle. The situation in Algeria was different to that in Tunisia or even...
Why was there a counterrevolution or counterrevolutions?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
As J.C. Martin noticed, the awkward itinerary of the Comte d'Antraigues may be an outstanding example of the characteristic ambiguity of counterrevolution. After having published a scathing criticism of nobility in 1788, he turned out to be, from 1790, a strong-willed counterrevolutionary...
Cuban immigration in the United States
Essay - 2 pages - Political science
The United States of America has always been an immigration Land. 301 Million Whites, Blacks, Latinos and Asians, subdivided in different ethnic groups are living together. Because of the all-known complicated relationship between Cuba and America, one of the most interesting immigration is the...
The universal human rights concept and its roots in Western political thought
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Commitment to the idea of cultural relativism is usually seen as precluding the acceptance of the idea of universal human rights. But is relativism against universalism a false dichotomy? Can we construct a “differentiated universalism” or a “non-ethnocentric universalism”?...
China's propaganda system
Essay - 2 pages - Political science
Propaganda was the most obvious mechanism used by Mao and the Communist Party to transform Chinese society after the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. For decades, propaganda had been a part of everyday-life in china. It exists in various forms such as songs, paintings,...
Environmental justice movement
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
Broadcasted in 2000, Erin Brockovich could be a great illustration of the "environmental justice movement". Indeed, while no one takes her seriously, a young woman begins to investigate a suspicious case involving the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. She discovers that the company is trying...
Contraception as a development tool in Latin America
Essay - 8 pages - Political science
Family planning is “a program to regulate the number and spacing of children in a family through the practice of contraception or other methods of birth control.” This paper looks at the relationship between the three components of the Human Development Index, respectively education,...
How did the feminist politics appear in the nineteenth century?
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
The nineteenth century was very significant for women, mainly because they were at a turning point in their living conditions. It was ascertained that their place was at home and they were not able to think, unlike men. This situation was considered as unbearable by a growing number of women and...
"Discussion about the limitations of liberal feminism with particular reference to the construction of gender and across class, race, ethnicity and religious belief
Essay - 7 pages - Political science
Feminist ideas and feminist politics have emerged because of the fact that in nearly all societies which divide the sexes into differing cultural, economic or political spheres, women are less valued than men (Robert Shoemaker and Mary Vincent 1998, 36-8). The current study will focus not on the...
Has European integration contributed to save or to undermine the nation state?
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
In 1882 Ernest Renan declared: “a Nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which, in truth, are really one, constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories, the other is the...
British housing policies Case study: Impact on the social exclusion experienced by the Pakistani minority
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
Water and food are commonly accepted as the basic needs of life. Housing, by providing us a shelter, is also necessary so that you survive. Therefore it is also a fundamental need. However, every house should not only be a shelter, but also a real home. What makes a house a home is a complex...
How adequate is the question of sovereignty in the political disputes within Britain about the desirability of joining the European communities? (1945-1973)
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
Britain was one of the first countries to imagine a European grouping after the Second World War. In Zurich, on 19 September 1946, Churchill called for a 'United States of Europe', which would be based on cooperation between France and Germany. Yet he saw no place for Britain in this...
Dr. Strangelove or How I stopped worrying and learned to love the BOMB
Essay - 2 pages - Political science
The nuclear proliferation is associated with the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapon-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations, that are not recognized as 'nuclear weapon States' by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Indeed, with the end of the...
The response of the Republican administrations of the 1950s and the Democrat administrations of the 1960s to the domestic problems they faced
Essay - 8 pages - Political science
Burning bras, rebel “teenagers”, rioting black Americans, burning cities, angry students and happy hippies are only a few amidst a veritable panoply of symbols of an exploding and ebullient young America struggling to find itself throughout the vibrant fifties and sixties, an era of...
What is queer theory and how does it help explain the production of knowledge about sexuality?
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
The term “queer” is slang for homosexual. It is also a synonymous of odd, curious or suspect. It is also the most recent in a series of words that have constituted the semantic field of homosexuality. But “queer” is not simply the latest example in a series of words that...
What is the importance of the public/private distinction in feminist theories?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
“Liberalism has only one overriding aim: to secure the political conditions that are necessary for the exercise of personal freedom” . This is why liberal theory has been constructed around a dichotomy between the public and the private sphere: securing individual freedom. Freedom is...
Try and identify Jonathan Swift's political stands
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
To put it simply, party politics in England during the 18th century were practiced in two different camps - Tory and Whig. Globally, the differences of opinion between the two were based on three key topics - (1) the origin of government, (2) the position of the Church in society and (3) the role...
Describe what you would want to tell the white community about how the legacy of our history helps to explain racial divisions and disparities that persist today
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
America has a long history of racism and discrimination against its Black community. One has to keep in mind the centuries long history of slavery which came to an end only over one century ago in the South. It is also necessary to remind of how close to us is the end of segregation, as its...
Monroe Doctrine, Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, and Spanish-American war
Essay - 2 pages - Political science
The Monroe Doctrine was setout in 1823 by the president Monroe under the influence of John Quincy Adams. It expressly advocates the US to intervene in Latin America if any European power was to interfere in internal affairs of the Latin American countries. The purpose was limit the European...
What was the nature of the power of the precolonial Southeast Asian state and the power of the peasantry? Was there a shift in the balance of power between the state and the peasantry with the advent of colonialism? Did it become less or more 'rational'
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
Southeast Asia is not an homogeneous region. That is why it can hardly been analysed as a whole and therefore must be divided into several groups. Concerning the issues related to the relations between the state and the peasantry, South East Asia countries belong mainly to two groups. According...
Justice depends on the identification of the individuals with their community
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
Seyla Benhabib in The Claims of Culture reported the case of a young Laotian American woman abducted from her work at Fresno State University and then raped. Her assailant, a Hmong/Laotian immigrant, argued that among his tribe this behaviour is the customary way to choose a bride. He uses...
British Politics and Society since 1940: From Blitz to Blair
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
"Let's be frank about it, most of our people have never had it so good? (Harold Macmillan, 1957). To What extent did the dominance of the Conservatives between 1951 and 1964 rely on affluence and social change rather than politics? Following the 1945's General Elections defeat, no one...
Politics of the European Union
Essay - 11 pages - Political science
Since its foundation in the late 1950's, the European Union has seen its membership growing from 6 to 27 countries in 2007, with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania. The process might not stop at this point, as other countries such as West Balkans, Turkey, and eastern countries (former parts of...
Pluralism, democracy, and citizenship
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
‘Most people think that democratic decisions have special moral force - which we have good reasons to obey laws that are democratically chosen. If this is true, why is it true? If it's not true, why is it not?' Democracy is commonly regarded as the best, or the least bad, political system...
The Politics of Development
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
"What are the diverse meanings of ?development'? How do they reflect the different interests that are involved? The idea of development was first evoked by former US President Truman in 1949, in the context of dawning cold war opposing western economies to communism, in order to justify the...
Liberal feminism, a white, racist bourgeois movement?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
Women have always been considered as the ‘weak sex', in opposition to the ‘strong sex' represented by men. Hence, they have always suffered from being oppressed and subordinated to men. Yet in order to be no longer discriminated against a condition which they did not chose, women...
