The CFA Franc Zone: a political re-evaluation twenty years after the advent of the Euro

ABSTRACT

Although the CFA monetary union is not an ‘optimal’ currency area as such, it has allowed member countries to benefit from the convertibility guaranteed by the French Treasury and from enhanced policy credibility in achieving low inflation rates.

Both benefits may be under threat. The convertibility is under threat due to the harder budgetary commitments imposed on France by its membership of the Eurozone and the dwindling political interest in the CFA Franc Zone shown in France.

The policy credibility is becoming costlier as evidenced by output-inflation trade-offs, which, although still more favourable than in comparable sub-Saharan African countries, have been declining since the 1994 devaluation period.     

Reviews

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Forward to the past: Organized crime and Cuba’s history, present and future

Before the 1959 revolution, Cuba was virtually a Mafia fiefdom. However, as the future of Cuban leader Fidel Castro—and thus the entire revolutionary regime — becomes increasingly uncertain, there is growing reason to fear that history is about to repeat itself and Cuba will become a focus for organized criminality in the Caribbean, with an impact not just on the regional but global underworld. Cuba and its airspace and territorial waters have become important nodes on smuggling routes into the United States. While Havana may no longer be willing to turn a blind eye to the traffickers’ activities, it lacks the resources to interdict effectively or deter them. However, Cuba is also beginning to suffer from both domestic drug abuse and the first indications of organized criminality at home. This is very limited compared with the strength of Cuban-American organized crime in the United States, but does open up the prospect of these groups exploiting any weaknesses in Cuba to reestablish operations on the island. Although it is possible that the revolutionary regime might survive Castro, at the very least it will experience a turbulent transition, one in which power politics will divert attention from the problem of growing crime. Were the Cuban Communist Party to fall, either to a democratic revolution or a military coup, then either way this would probably generate increased domestic organized crime and open up the country even more rapidly to international criminal influences. Perhaps the final tragedy of the revolutionary regime, born out of a rejection of authoritarian rule and rampant organized crime, is that it will have proven to lay the foundations for an even more dynamic and voracious criminalization of Cuba. This article draws on an earlier, shorter piece: Mark Galeotti, “Organized crime gangs pose threat to Cuban development,” Jane's Intelligence Review, 18, 2 (2006).     

China’s Perspective on Internet Governance: a more Integrated Role in the Global Discussion?

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Based on political and historical sources and on the analysis of Chinese presence within international organizations, this article aims at showing the...