Are liberty and security inconciliable?
Worksheets - 2 pages - Political science
The striking and massive waves of harms that are threatening the society explain and justify a radical change in our scheme of civil liberties. Generally speaking, people are ready to sacrify a part of their rights and liberties in order to improve their physical security. The main issue is that...
The nature of present-day public administration theory
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
“A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation”. This quote from Edmond Burke can be applied not only to the state but also, to some extent, to the field of public administration. Indeed, a book such as The Public Administration Theory Primer (2003),...
The power of eminent domain in the United States of America
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Since its self-declared independence in 1776, the United States of America has always shown its will to become a grand nation. To fulfill this dream and set itself up as one of the greatest powers in a various domains on the international scale, it has gone through centuries of expansion. As a...
Roadblocks, Forces and Reform in Egyptian Politics
Thesis - 6 pages - Political science
The 2005 elections deemed to be promising for Egypt. Hosni Mubarak had himself claimed to come “out of my full conviction of the need to consolidate efforts for more freedom and democracy.” The “reform” agenda had been initiated by the President himself, beginning with his...
The Tyranny of Real Time and the Intensification of the Spectacle
Thesis - 5 pages - Political science
While screening clips of American soldiers fighting in Iraq and analysis of the “insurgency” spews forth from the mouth of an “expert” on the conflict, Fox News's scrolling news ticker reports Homeland Security's terrorist alert level on loop, warning its viewers that...
Fear of being black. The situation of black Haitian people in the Dominican Republic
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
I don't have personal fears but like many of you I'm deeply afraid of extreme human behaviours. I was in Haiti and several times I heard people talk about their neighbour state, the Dominican Republic. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island, Hispaniola, but they seem to...
Politics and Power in Scotland and Wales from 1966 to 1999 ? The Devolution
Essay - 75 pages - Political science
Since 1997 and New Labour's landslide victory, there has been a flurry of legislation in the UK, eg with relation to the House of Lords, party funding and freedom of information, in an attempt to change and modernize the institutions of the country. What is known as devolution? Devolution...
China and the USSR in the 1950's: Has China been a satellite-State of the Soviet Union?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
Stalin used to say: “Sincere diplomacy is no more possible than dry water or wooden iron”: this quote can perfectly apply to the relations that the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union have fostered during the first years of the creation of the People's Republic of China....
Mao's reforms: A total failure? - publié le 06/12/2007
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
“In time of difficulties, we must not lose sight of our achievements.” This quotation from the Communist leader Mao Tse-Tung (1893-1976) could perfectly apply to his economic policy. When Mao came to power in October 1949, China was out of a decade of war and its economy was still very...
Compare and contrast the causes and nature of the two 1917 Russian Revolutions - publié le 05/12/2007
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
“Every social group, every nationality, every region, every town, every village, had its own revolution”, wrote Christopher Read and indeed, 1917 proved to be for Russia a year of turmoil and change. Traditionally, however, 1917 is known as a year of two revolutions, February Revolution...
Judaism and Rechtsstaat
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
The modern political philosophy, influenced by the Enlightenment and the ideal of individual liberty developed by Locke, considers that the political sphere must be independent from the religious sphere. In Israel, this separation between the State and the religion is not so clear. The...
Towards a democratisation of the Middle-East?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
The Middle East has traditionally been a region where democracy has never really managed to break through. The times of the caliphs had been replaced by a more or less violent period of colonisation. When the time for decolonisation finally came, most of the states -some more or less artificially...
What's wrong with the elite theory of democracy? - publié le 27/11/2007
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
The elite theory of democracy has emerged out of two major concerns of its precursors: no theory of democracy until now has given leadership the importance it ought to have, and none has really settled the issue of whether the common man is up to the task of governing a modern and large society....
The Democratic Deficit in the EU
Essay - 7 pages - Political science
For years, the European construction appeared to be legitimate through a 'permissive consensus' since no significant opposition to the integration process was to be noticed. Nevertheless, a major debate underlined a 'democratic deficit' in the 1980s, denouncing that the European...
Was there ever any realistic chance of an accommodation between the United States and the People's Republic of China in 1949/50?
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
In early 1949, China was a nationalist country, ruled by Chiang Kai-shek and sustained by the United States. At the same time, the Chinese Communists were rebelling and ruling large parts of the country, and were constantly progressing. It was obvious that they were soon going to rule the...
To what extent does multiculturalism in developed liberal democracies adequately address the issue of religious diversity?
Essay - 9 pages - Political science
In recent years diversity in developed liberal democracies has deeply increased. Indeed, in European countries, as in America or in Australia many migrants came to work. Whereas the first migration movements happened within Western countries (e.g. many Italians and Poles came to France to work in...
Did Thatcherism bring an end to the 'post-war consensus?'
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
Since 1979 the so-called 'Thatcher experiment' or the 'Thatcherism' was at the centre of many debates, partly because Mrs Thatcher's government has broken with many features of the postwar consensus and partly because her government's record is contested (Kavanagh, 1987,...
McIntyre, W. David. British Decolonization: "When, why and how did the British Empire fall?"
Book review - 3 pages - Political science
In this book David McIntyre, Professor of History at the University of Canterbury, gives a detailed account of a most important episode of British and global history, that is the fall of the British Empire. The decolonization process that took place mainly after the Second World War was sudden...
The Welfare State in America after the Great Depression and World War II
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
The U.S. government's response to the Great Depression and World War II represented a compromise between those who hoped to expand the powers of the state and American citizens' traditional distrust of the government. Evaluate the evidence for this statement. “Government, even in its best...
The endurance of the "Islamic World" from the seventh century to the nineteenth century
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
The expansion in Islam was a long process, occurring through centuries. The conquests were led in the name of the Prophet Muhammad. However, these victories were also the expression of the triumph of a people over the first Empires dominating the Middle East. From the seventh century and the rise...
Violation of Human Rights at Guantanamo Bay
Worksheets - 4 pages - Political science
After 09/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration declared war to Al Qaeda. As Commander in chief of the Armed Forces, President Bush authorized the detention of non-American citizens considered as "enemy combatants" (Fogarty 2005, 54). A classified report prepared by Defence Department...
Quebec separatism
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
One of the main concerns since the creation of the Canadian Confederation in 1867 has been the Quebec question. Nowadays, it is still a big issue in Canadian politics. Quebec has always appeared as a 'distinct society' within the country. It is the core of the main cleavage in Canada: the...
Judicial activism in Canada
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
In 1982, Canada has known a very significant shift with the adoption of the Charter of Right of Freedom. Before this date, Canada only had a Bill of Rights (1960's) which was a statute and did not allow the courts to restrict the action of the Parliament. But the 1982 Charter of Rights and...
Gay rights in Canada and the US
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
From an external point of view, Canada and the United States are sometimes considered as pretty similar countries, concerning cultures and policies. However, these two countries can have very different behaviours on some issues. This is the case in the domain of gay and lesbian rights, and...
Social policy and practice in Canada, a history, by Alvin Finkel
Book review - 4 pages - Political science
Social Policy and Practice in Canada is a history book, which deals with the birth and the evolution of the Welfare State in Canada since pre-confederation times. It aims at narrating but also analyzing the social policy, defined as a “set of non-market decisions, public and private, that...
Opposition in Japan
Essay - 8 pages - Political science
In Japanese, the opposition is known as 'mannen yatou', or 'one thousand year opposition party'. As this phrase testifies, there is a structural incapacity of the opposition parties to get into power. It refers to all the political parties that are not in power, that is to say,...
Japan and the European Union: from political ties to the birth of a political relationship
Essay - 10 pages - Political science
In 1989, President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, complained, when visiting Prime Minister Kaifu Toshiki, about the lack of political visibility in their relationship. Traditionally, EU-Japan relationship has always been based on economic grounds, mainly trade and investment, which...
Japan's security relations with South Korea
Essay - 7 pages - Political science
In spite of the cultural closeness between Japan and South Korea, the relations between the two countries have been no exception to the general rule that the immediate neighbours often find it hard to live in harmony. Their relationship actually suffered from a long-standing enemity, the origins...
The Contemporary Politics of Japan: why is it so controversial that Prime Minister Koizumi continues to visit Yasukuni Shrine?
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
On October 17, 2005, Prime Minister Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine for the fifth time. These visits immediately ignite reactions from China and Korea, with violent demonstrations and official protests. Indeed, each of the Prime Minister's visit to the Shrine is an object of controversy....
To what extent have the various processes of regionalisation in Europe over the last 40 years been driven by a common set of factors?
Essay - 8 pages - Political science
Ever since the early 60s, there were various processes for regionalisation in Europe. Time for the revalorisation of regional cultures, dialects and accents , it was also the time when De Gaulle tried to launch its first unsuccessful regional reforms . Some time later, in the early seventies,...
