Edito

Focus

Egypt is an authoritarian regime or most exactly an moderate authoritarian regime. This is not the result of the western pressures for democratization but the consequency of a self-evolution. Today, after the failure of the Bush's forced democratization policy, the Egyptian state seems be an example of these "moderate arabs" yet ironically supported by the USA. To understand the nature of the Egyptian state, it is necessary to analyze the complex mechanisms of the political equilibrium rather than to discourse about "authoritarianism" and oppression.

Edito

Focus

On September, 21, the Japanese Liberal-Democratic Party will elect its new president, who will then succeed Junichiro Koizumi as Prime Minister. Shinzo Abe (51), the chosen heir of Koizumi, looks like the sure winner.

Since 2001, Koizumi has remodelled Japanese politics. He successfully enforced his leadership upon a restive governing party, rejuvenated its electoral basis and pushed Japan into the era of political show. He had to accept a lot of compromises to advance his reformist programme, but nevertheless presided over the end (?) of Japanese economic crisis. Riding the neo-nationalist wave, he worked hard to enhance the status of Japan on the international scene – at the price of rising tensions with China and Korea. Mending fences with the neighbouring powers will be a priority for Koizumi’s heir – who also inherits a mammoth public debt, a population who begun to shrink in 2005, a society upset by growing inequalities, but also a nation that has now regained confidence after fifteen years of crisis.

Edito

Edito

Focus

Two years after the last legislative elections, the power party” United Russia, dedicated to backing President Vladimir Putin, commands the political scene. Dominating federal institutions, it has gained a strong foothold in the regions and its leaders boast of its constantly rising membership. United Russia moreover intends to define the entire political offer by claiming to be a centrist group, or a pillar of the center-right, criticizing its adversaries of extremism, no matter what their label. The opposition parties appear in no position to score any significant victories in the next federal elections, scheduled for 2007 and 2008. The forces considered as democrats and“liberals” are having trouble overcoming their defeat in the 2003 legislatives, which deprived them of parliamentary representation at the national level. The Russian Federation Communist Party, which since the early 1990s had been the main opposition force, still has an electorate, but holds only a few remaining positions of power. The nationalist party Rodina (Fatherland), whose score belied all predictions in the last legislative elections, is rent with internal dissensions. The monopolization of political power has had a devastating effect on all of these parties. It has prompted many opponents to join the ranks of United Russia while encouraging the emergence of new rival currents. Such a context further reinforces Russian citizens’ desertion of political parties, as attests the rise, however timid, of social movements detached from existing party structures.

Edito

Focus

“Time has come to move to the next phase of the political process”. Does this seemingly harmless statement made by Kofi Annan mark the first step towards international recognition of Kosovo’s independence, so passionately desired by the province’s Albanian majority ?
After a nearly seven-year-long peacekeeping operation conducted under the aegis of the United Nations, in accordance with Security Council resolution 1244, both representatives of the international community and experts came to the conclusion that it was essential to tackle the question of the status of Kosovo. The Contact group responsible for the province has insinuated that independence could indeed be the outcome.

The following texts highlight the issues at stake during the negotiations that began on February 21 in Vienna and examine the positions and strategies of the different actors: the international community and its representatives, the Serbs and the Albanians.

Edito

Focus

The end of the 20th century witnessed a significant trend of constitutionalization in many parts of the world. Preceding or following a wave of democratization that met with strongly varying degrees of success, the former Soviet bloc countries in particular quickly discarded their socialist conception of law. The constitutionalist trend in these budding democracies was accompanied by two other phenomena: the constitutionalization of politics in old democracies and the promotion of the rule of law by the international community.

In line with their ongoing research into the conditions of the emergence of the rule of law (through the technical modernization of public power) in China, which may (or may not) be followed by a transition to constitutionalism, and possibly the growth of a constitutional democracy, Stéphanie Balme and Pasquale Pasquino organized the biggest international conference ever held in France on Constitutionalism and judicial power in China today on 12-13 December 2005. While this is a recurrent subject in Western democracies,it is, in China’s case, precursory but essential...to continue