From Islam en France to Islam de France: contradictions of the French left's responses to Islam

ABSTRACT

The political class in France, especially the left, has been profoundly shaped by the revolutionary heritage of 1789. Determined to combat the determinisms that fractured French society under the ancien régime, such as religion, the individual was reconfigured, first as a citizen and then, by the left, as indistinguishable from a class, the proletariat. While in both cases the conceptualization of the individual had the benefit of unity and clarity, the abstract nature of these notions too often left out those very factors that are most significant to those individuals themselves for their self-definition. Moreover, the social transformation of France since the 1960s has exposed the culture-specific conditioning that underlay the apparent neutrality of the conceptualization of the individual bequeathed by 1789. Raymond explores how the left has struggled with its intellectual heritage in its relationship with minorities, especially Muslims, from the xenophobic populism of the Communists in the early 1980s to the recognition proposed by some Socialists during their last period in government. Paradoxically, the institutional accommodation reached with the Islamic community by the centre-right governments of the past decade, notably the creation of the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (French Council of the Muslim Faith) in 2002, built on the initiatives of previous Socialist administrations. They set the course for a better integration of the Muslim community by transforming Islam en France (Islam in France) into an Islam de France (French Islam). But in spite of the initial impetus given by the Socialists to the institutional assimilation of Islam, their reactions to the emergence of a French Islamic identity remain contradictory. The question therefore persists as to whether the left in France, impregnated by a historically conditioned secularism, can be reconciled with a community defined by its faith through the emergence of a ‘Gallican’ Islam, or whether the time has come for a fundamental reappraisal of the ideology of the French left, and even the Republic itself.     

试论科举制的废止与清末知识分子的边缘化

在中国传统政治形态中,“士”处于政治社会权力架构的中心地位,而科举制是其制度化的保障。清末科举制的废除促使皇权国家趋于解体,同时也开启了“士”向“知识分子”的社会转化。伴随着这个过程,中国知识分子群体在政治社会结构中的中心地位不断边缘化,从而使清末边缘化知识分子兴起,而参与“革命”表达这一集团重新寻求政治社会“中心”位置的努力。     

The French communist party from 1958 to 1978: Crisis and endurance

Despite its constant preaching for collaboration with the socialists, the PCF has failed to pursue this line either during the events of 1968 or during the electoral campaign of 1977/78. This resulted in electoral defeats for both parties, in mutual recriminations and in internal crises. Unlike the PS, the PCF has always succeeded in overcoming its recurrent crises. This stability is due, in our opinion, to the enduring support the communists enjoy among the working class and other groups in French society, whose socio‐economic marginality and problems of identity are reflected in the PCF's ambiguous attitude to France's political system.     

From 'welfare without work' to 'buttressed liberalization': The shifting dynamics of labor market adjustment in France and Germany

Abstract.  During the past decade, prevailing scholarship has portrayed France and Germany as suffering from a persistent syndrome of 'welfare without work' entailing a vicious circle between stubbornly high rates of unemployment and non-wage labor costs. Scholars blame this disease on dysfunctional political arrangements, deep insider-outsider cleavages and failed systems of social partnership. As a result, the two countries are said to be more or less permanently mired in a context of high unemployment that is highly resistant to remediation. This article departs from this conventional wisdom in two important respects. First, it argues that France and Germany have undertaken major reforms of their labor market policies and institutions during the past decade and remediated many of their longstanding employment traps. Second, it shows that the political arrangements that adherents of the 'welfare without work' thesis identify as reasons for sclerosis have evolved quite dramatically. The article supports these arguments by exploring some of the most significant recent labor market reforms in the two countries, as well as the shifting political relationships that have driven these changes. In both countries, recent labor market reforms have followed a trajectory of 'buttressed liberalization'. This has involved, on the one hand, significant liberalization of labor market regulations such as limits on overtime and worker protections such as unemployment insurance. On the other hand, it has entailed a set of supportive, 'buttressing' reforms involving an expansion of active labor market policies and support for workers' efforts to find jobs. The article concludes that these developments provide reasons for optimism about the countries' economic futures and offer important lessons about how public policy can confront problems of labor market stagnation.     

From subjectivism to constitutionalism: the intellectual journey of James M. Buchanan through his Italian heroes

Quack medicines were prepackaged, commercially marketed medicinal concoctions brewed from “secret recipes” that often contained powerful drugs. Governmental regulation of them in late nineteenth-century England is heralded as a landmark of public health policy. We argue that it’s instead a landmark of medicinal rent-seeking. We develop a theory of quack medicine regulation in Victorian England according to which health professionals faced growing competition from close substitutes: quack medicine vendors. To protect their rents, health professionals organized, lobbied, and won laws granting them a monopoly over the sale of “poisonous” medicaments, most notably, quack medicines.

     

The West European communist movement in the late twentieth century

This article evaluates the impact of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe on the West European communist movement. The state of the movement before 1989 is examined, followed by an analysis of the different trajectories of the parties after the revolutions and an assessment of their future prospects. It is argued that the momentous changes of 1989 have witnessed the passing of the West European communist tradition and that, while some communist parties live on, it is no longer fruitful to regard them and the ex‐communist parties as one ‘family’ or to study them under a common framework.     

The Cold War culture of the French and communist parties

This study is a comparative essay about the ‘Cold War culture’ of the two main communist parties of Western Europe, the French and the Italian, during the tense period of 1947–53. Both parties had a common Marxist ideology and used similar elements of propaganda: anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, defence of ‘national independence’, defence of the Soviet Union, and the struggle for peace. However, while the French communist ideology was completely focused on the Soviet position, the Italians tried to maintain a limited autonomy for their parliamentary activity and their reactions to national issues. The reception and use of communist ideology and propaganda by some social categories of population, especially among the working classes, is then examined. The essay concludes with a reflexion on the notion of the ‘culture of war’ in France and Italy.     

《共产党宣言》社会批判思想的现实启示

本文试图依据《共产党宣言》中的社会批判思想,辩证地分析资本主义在社会发展中的作用,思考在建设社会主义和谐社会的过程中怎样利用资本的积极性,防止其消极性,既能促进效率,又能利于公平,既能利用资本的能量,又能对其有效地控制。思考马克思恩格斯在《共产党宣言》中对资本主义的深刻剖析,以及对后人的警示,利用资本之利,警惕资本之害,以利于改革开放和社会主义建设事业的顺利发展。     

Soviet venality: A rent-seeking model of the communist state

While the recent Fall of Communism has focused the interest of economists on the admittedly fascinating problems associated with the ongoing economic reform process, the study of the functioning of actual communist economies still seems mired in the conventional model of central planning. This model is predicated on the assumption that communist rulers are unselfish drones who single-mindedly maximize the public interest. Our article proposes an alternative, public choice model. We suggest that the Soviet-style system represents a modern incarnation of the mercantilist economies of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, and that venality, not ideology, drives these economies in practice.     

法国价格管理经验及其对我国的启示

本文对法国的价格管理体制作了介绍,比较了法国在宏观价格管理和微观价格管理方面与其他国家相比不同的特点和做法,并提出了可供我国在价格管理方面加以借鉴的两条经验,即转变价格管理方法和建立农产品价格调整基金.