Ratages tous azimuts en développement international

La question du développement en Afrique a été perçue, dès 1962, par l’agronome René Dumont, comme le fait d’une occasion perdue. Mais peu à peu, ce diagnostic lucide a fait l’objet d’une vulgate colportée jusque dans les salons diplomatiques et enceintes officielles du développement international, de Washington à Paris en passant par Londres et Ottawa. Sujette à toutes les complaisances, la critique du développement international est elle-même devenue une « occasion perdue ». Mais en remontant la piste historique, on constate que les séquelles postcoloniales, tant politiques qu’économiques, ont façonné le contexte dans lequel les Africains se sont vus durablement privés de l’occasion de prendre en main leur destin. C’est ainsi que la structure économique extravertie et le poids d’une dette insolvable ont projeté plus profondément encore les pays africains dans la dépendance et la tutelle au monde industrialisé, en particulier à travers les programmes néolibéraux de la Banque mondiale, quelle que soit la mouture sous laquelle ils s’affichent (ajustement structurel ou lutte à la pauvreté). Dans cette veine, le critère de sélectivité dans l’aide publique au développement, mis en avant par l’institution internationale, et qu’adopte notamment le Canada, ouvre la porte aux abus de toutes sortes que commande le réalisme politique.

Ratages tous azimuts en développement international

La question du développement en Afrique a été perçue, dès 1962, par l’agronome René Dumont, comme le fait d’une occasion perdue. Mais peu à peu, ce diagnostic lucide a fait l’objet d’une vulgate colportée jusque dans les salons diplomatiques et enceintes officielles du développement international, de Washington à Paris en passant par Londres et Ottawa. Sujette à toutes les complaisances, la critique du développement international est elle-même devenue une « occasion perdue ». Mais en remontant la piste historique, on constate que les séquelles postcoloniales, tant politiques qu’économiques, ont façonné le contexte dans lequel les Africains se sont vus durablement privés de l’occasion de prendre en main leur destin. C’est ainsi que la structure économique extravertie et le poids d’une dette insolvable ont projeté plus profondément encore les pays africains dans la dépendance et la tutelle au monde industrialisé, en particulier à travers les programmes néolibéraux de la Banque mondiale, quelle que soit la mouture sous laquelle ils s’affichent (ajustement structurel ou lutte à la pauvreté). Dans cette veine, le critère de sélectivité dans l’aide publique au développement, mis en avant par l’institution internationale, et qu’adopte notamment le Canada, ouvre la porte aux abus de toutes sortes que commande le réalisme politique.

Religión, utopismo y realismo político en el renacimiento

This article examines the opposition between utopism and political realism in the context of Renaissance. First, it analyzes the question about the historical continuity or rupture of Renaissance from the Medieval imaginary. After that, it considers the question of religion in Moore ́s Utopia and Campanella’s City of the Sun and compares them with Machiavelli’s texts. Finally, it thinks about the relationship between Renaissance utopism and religion.

Razones para la guerra en la sociedad global

In this article I develop an analysis in the context of the global society, a context split into its practical subsystems, due to the prevailing logic of confrontation and violence. Some of its expressions are studied, in the fields of international law and geopolitical relations between given societies. Also discussed are analyses of the relations between religions and cultural systems, from the perspective of mutual destruction logistics. In a context of violent interactions through diverse levels of social reality, I claim for a different strategy to guide social practices, from the recognition of universal human rights for concrete human beings, understanding that such recognition implies reducing the historical production of deaths, and the magnification of human life and of the conditions for its reproduction.

Raymond Geuss’ radicalization of realism in political theory

Raymond Geuss has been viewed as one of the figureheads of the recent debates about realism in political theory. This interpretation, however, depends on a truncated understanding of his work of the past 30 years. I will offer the first sustained engagement with this work (in English and German) which allows understanding his realism as a project for reorienting political theory, particularly the relationship between political theory and politics. I interpret this reorientation as a radicalization of realismin political theory through the combination of the emphasis on the critical purpose of political theory and the provision of practical, contextual orientation. Their compatibility depends on Geuss’ understanding of criticism as negative, of power as ‘detoxified’ and of the critical purchase of political theory as based on the diagnostic engagement with its context. This radicalization particularly challenges the understanding of how political theory relates to its political context.

Transformative realism: reflections of reality in political avant-garde and contemporary fine art film - Spanish Labyrinth, south from Granada

A turn towards documentary modes of practice amongst contemporary fine art video and filmmakers towards the end of the 20th Century, led to moving image works that represent current social realities. This drew some comparisons of these forms of art to journalism and industrial documentary. The practical research is embodied in a single screen film that responds to recent political and ecological realities in Spain. These include the mass demonstrations that led to the occupation of Madrid’s Plaza del Sol and Spain’s in 2011 and largest recorded forest fires that spread through Andalusia in August of the following year. The film, titled Spanish Labyrinth, South from Granada, is a response to these events and also relates to political avant-garde film of the 1930’s by re-tracing a journey undertaken by three revolutionary filmmakers, Yves Allegret, René Naville and Eli Lotar, in 1931. The theoretical research for this project establishes an historical root of artists’ film that responds to current social realities, in contrast to news media, in the Soviet and European avant-garde movements of the 1920s and 1930s. The main aim of this method is to argue the status of the works that I identify, both avant-garde and contemporary, as a form of art that preceded a Griersonian definition of documentary film.

In pursuit of an architecture realism

The noble idea of studying seminal works to ‘see what we can learn’ has turned in the 1990s into ‘let’s see what we can take’ and in the last decade a more toxic derivative ‘what else can’t we take’. That is my observation as a student of architecture in the 1990s, and as a practitioner in the 2000s. In 2010, the sense that something is ending is clear. The next generation is rising and their gaze has shifted. The idea of classification (as a means of separation) was previously rejected by a generation of Postmodernists; the usefulness of difference declined. It’s there in the presence of plurality in the resulting architecture, a decision to mine history and seize in a willful manner. This is a process of looking back but never forward. It has been a mono-culture of absorption. The mono-culture rejected the pursuit of the realistic. It is a blanket suffocating all practice of architecture in this country from the mercantile to the intellectual. Independent reviews of Australia’s recent contributions to the Venice Architecture Biennales confirm the malaise. The next generation is beginning to reconsider classification as a means of unification. By acknowledging the characteristics of competing forces it is possible to bring them into a state of tension. Seeking a beautiful contrast is a means to a new end. In the political setting, this is described by Noel Pearson as the radical centre[1]. The concept transcends the political and in its most essential form is a cultural phenomenon. It resists the compromised position and suggests that we can look back while looking forward. The radical centre is the only demonstrated opportunity where it is possible to pursue a realistic architecture. A realistic architecture in Australia may be partially resolved by addressing our anxiety of permanence. Farrelly’s built desires[2] and Markham’s ritual demonstrations[3] are two ways into understanding the broader spectrum of permanence. But I think they are downstream of our core problem. Our problem, as architects, is that we are yet to come to terms with this place. Some call it landscape others call it country. Australian cities were laid out on what was mistaken for a blank canvas. On some occasions there was the consideration of the landscape when it presented insurmountable physical obstacles. The architecture since has continued to work on its piece of a constantly blank canvas. Even more ironic is the commercial awards programs that represent a claim within this framework but at best can only establish a dialogue within itself. This is a closed system unable to look forward. It is said that Melbourne is the most European city in the southern hemisphere but what is really being described there is the limitation of a senseless grid. After all, if Dutch landscape informs Dutch architecture why can’t the Australian landscape inform Australian architecture? To do that, we would have to acknowledge our moribund grasp of the meaning of the Australian landscape. Or more precisely what Indigenes call Country[4]. This is a complex notion and there are different ways into it. Country is experienced and understood through the senses and seared into memory. If one begins design at that starting point it is not unreasonable to think we can arrive at an end point that is a counter trajectory to where we have taken ourselves. A recent studio with Masters students confirmed this. Start by finding Country and it would be impossible to end up with a building looking like an Aboriginal man’s face. To date architecture in Australia has overwhelmingly ignored Country on the back of terra nullius. It can’t seem to get past the picturesque. Why is it so hard? The art world came to terms with this challenge, so too did the legal establishment, even the political scene headed into new waters. It would be easy to blame the budgets of commerce or the constraints of program or even the pressure of success. But that is too easy. Those factors are in fact the kind of limitations that opportunities grow out of. The past decade of economic plenty has, for the most part, smothered the idea that our capitals might enable civic settings or an architecture that is able to looks past lot line boundaries in a dignified manner. The denied opportunities of these settings to be prompted by the Country they occupy is criminal. The public realm is arrested in its development because we refuse to accept Country as a spatial condition. What we seem to be able to embrace is literal and symbolic gestures usually taking the form of a trumped up art installations. All talk – no action. To continue to leave the public realm to the stewardship of mercantile interests is like embracing derivative lending after the global financial crisis.Herein rests an argument for why we need a resourced Government Architect’s office operating not as an isolated lobbyist for business but as a steward of the public realm for both the past and the future. New South Wales is the leading model with Queensland close behind. That is not to say both do not have flaws but current calls for their cessation on the grounds of design parity poorly mask commercial self interest. In Queensland, lobbyists are heavily regulated now with an aim to ensure integrity and accountability. In essence, what I am speaking of will not be found in Reconciliation Action Plans that double as business plans, or the mining of Aboriginal culture for the next marketing gimmick, or even discussions around how to make buildings more ‘Aboriginal’. It will come from the next generation who reject the noxious mono-culture of absorption and embrace a counter trajectory to pursue an architecture of realism.

Socialist Realism instead of Formalism : the Formation and Development of the Soviet Music Control System 1932-1950

Whereas it has been widely assumed in the public that the Soviet music policy system had a “top-down” structure of control and command that directly affected musical creativity, in fact my research shows that the relations between the different levels of the music policy system were vague, and the viewpoints of its representatives differed from each other. Because the representatives of the party and government organs controlling operas could not define which kind of music represented Socialist Realism, the system as it developed during the 1930s and 1940s did not function effectively enough in order to create such a centralised control of Soviet music, still less could Soviet operas fulfil the highly ambiguous aesthetics of Socialist Realism. I show that musical discussions developed as bureaucratic ritualistic arenas, where it became more important to reveal the heretical composers, making scapegoats of them, and requiring them to perform self-criticism, than to give directions on how to reach the artistic goals of Socialist Realism. When one opera was found to be unacceptable, this lead to a strengthening of control by the party leadership, which lead to more operas, one after the other, to be revealed as failures. I have studied the control of the composition, staging and reception of the opera case-studies, which remain obscure in the West despite a growing scholarly interest in them, and have created a detailed picture of the foundation and development of the Soviet music control system in 1932-1950. My detailed discussion of such case-studies as Ivan Dzerzhinskii’s The Quiet Don, Dmitrii Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, Vano Muradeli’s The Great Friendship, Sergei Prokofiev’s Story of a Real Man, Tikhon Khrennikov’s Frol Skobeev and Evgenii Zhukovskii’s From All One’s Heart backs with documentary precision the historically revisionist model of the development of Soviet music. In February 1948, composers belonging to the elite of the Union of Soviet Composers, e.g. Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, were accused in a Central Committee Resolution of formalism, as been under the influence of western modernism. Accusations of formalism were connected to the criticism of the conciderable financial, material and social privileges these composers enjoyed in the leadership of the Union. With my new archival findings I give a more detailed picture of the financial background for the 1948 campaign. The independent position of the music funding organization of the Union of Soviet Composers (Muzfond) to decide on its finances was an exceptional phenomenon in the Soviet Union and contradicted the strivings to strengthen the control of Soviet music. The financial audits of the Union of Soviet Composers did not, however, change the elite status of some of its composers, except for maybe a short duration in some cases. At the same time the independence of the significal financial authorities of Soviet theatres was restricted. The cuts in the governmental funding allocated to Soviet theatres contradicted the intensified ideological demands for Soviet operas.

Why Ideas Matter in International Relations : Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism, and the Moral Construction of Power Politics

Williams, Mike, 'Why ideas matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism, and the Moral Construction of Power Politics', International Organization (2004) 58(4) pp.633-665 RAE2008

Machiavelli’s Walls: The Legacy of Realism in International Relations Theory

In this paper we argue that Niccolò Machiavelli has little to do with Realism in International Relations theory. By concentrating, as Machaivelli did, on the walls that define political relations—both inside and outside the polity—we find his insights deeply rooted in the specific political contexts of Sixteenth century Italy. Others may wish to generalize from them, but Machiavelli did not. In fact, as we show, Machiavelli was mindful of the difficulties of generalizing about walls and acknowledged the dangers political actors faced in navigating between the internal and external walls of the polity. We examine the geopolitical contours of Machiavelli’s walls and seek to demonstrate how morality is present in these historical spaces. In contrast to Realists, Machiavelli was ready and willing to make ethical judgments. We argue that theorists of international politics should exercise care in reaching for Machiavelli as the iconic thinker for making sense of anarchy in world politics. This article concludes by suggesting that the ideology of Machiavellianism has obscured deeper understanding of the particular contexts of Machiavelli’s own world.

The inadequate dominance of realism : an analysis of the U.S. war on terror /

There has been and will continue to be substantial debate over how the international system can best be characterized. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that the international system can best be characterized by the essential features of realism, but the use of realist policy prescriptions are inadequate when applied independently to deal with the threat of terrorism as it exists today. In order to demonstrate this an examination of realism in the international system, U.S. foreign policy, and case analysis of Afghanistan and Iraq will be undertaken to demonstrate that although realist policy prescriptions do have a role in dealing with modem transnational security threats, these prescriptions on their own are inadequate when dealing with terrorism.

Realism and politics in alienated space: Trevor Griffiths's plays of the 1970s in the television studio

The television studio play is often perceived as a somewhat compromised, problematic mode in which spatial and technological constraints inhibit the signifying and aesthetic capacity of dramatic texts. Leah Panos examines the function of the studio in the 1970s television dramas of socialist playwright Trevor Griffiths, and argues that the established verbal and visual conventions of the studio play, in its confined and ‘alienated’ space, connect with and reinforce various aspects of Griffiths's particular approach and agenda. As well as suggesting ways in which the idealist, theoretical focus of the intellectual New Left is reflexively replicated within the studio, Panos explores how the ‘intimate’ visual language of the television studio allows Griffiths to create a ‘humanized’ Marxist discourse through which he examines dialectically his dramatic characters' experiences, ideas, morality, and political objectives. Leah Panos recently completed her doctoral thesis, ‘Dramatizing New Left Contradictions: Television Texts of Ken Loach, Jim Allen, and Trevor Griffiths’, at the University of Reading and is now a Postdoctoral Researcher on the AHRC funded project, ‘Spaces of Television: Production, Site and Style’, which runs from July 2010 to March 2014.

Waltz and the world: neorealism as international political theory?

The recent recovery of an empirically and ethically richer realist tradition involves an explicit contrast with neorealism's more scientistic explanatory aspirations. This contrast is, however, incomplete. Although Waltz's theoretical work is shaped by his understanding of the requirements of scientific adequacy, his empirical essays are normatively quite rich: he defends bipolarity, and criticizes US adventurism overseas, because he believes bipolarity to be conducive to effective great power management of the international system, and hence to the avoidance of nuclear war. He is, in this sense, a theorist divided against himself: much of his oeuvre exhibits precisely the kind of pragmatic sensibility that is typically identified as distinguishing realism from neorealism. His legacy for a reoriented realism is therefore more complex than is usually realized. Indeed, the nature of Waltz's own analytical endeavour points towards a kind of international political theory in which explanatory and normative questions are intertwined.

The new localism, anti-political development machines, and the role of planning consultants: lessons from London's South Bank

This paper draws on a study of the politics of development planning in London’s South Bank to examine wider trends in the governance of contemporary cities. It assesses the impacts and outcomes of so-called new localist reforms and argues that we are witnessing two principal trends. First, governance processes are increasingly dominated by anti-democratic development machines, characterized by new assemblages of public- and private-sector experts. These machines reflect and reproduce a type of development politics in which there is a greater emphasis on a pragmatic realism and a politics of delivery. Second, the presence of these machines is having a significant impact on the politics of planning. Democratic engagement is not seen as the basis for new forms of localism and community control. Instead, it is presented as a potentially disruptive force that needs to be managed by a new breed of skilled private-sector consultant. The paper examines these wider shifts in urban politics before focusing on the connections between emerging development machines and local residential and business communities. It ends by highlighting some of the wider implications of change for democratic modes of engagement and nodes of resistance in urban politics.