Nouvelles publications
5 juin 2017
Des droits des mères à ceux des enfants ? Les réformes du régime québécois de pensions alimentaires pour enfants
Joanie Bouchard (candidate au doctorat), Maxim Fortin (candidat au doctorat) et Marie Hautval ont publié un article dans Droit et société. Ce dossier sur la justice familiale et les inégalités sociales a été coordonné par Émilie Biland (professeure associée), Aurélie Fillod-Chabaud et Gabrielle Schütz.
Dans les années 1990, la question des pensions alimentaires pour enfants a été inscrite à l’agenda politique québécois via la mise en place d’un système de perception et de fixation des pensions ainsi que par leur défiscalisation. À travers l’analyse des débats parlementaires, ainsi que d’une trentaine d’entretiens réalisés avec des acteurs, politiques, administratifs, associatifs et professionnels ayant participé à ces réformes, nous nous intéressons à la façon dont ceux-ci ont mobilisé les droits des destinataires de ce système. Notre étude montre que l’enjeu initial d’aider les mères monoparentales pauvres fut détrôné par le principe de l’intérêt de l’enfant, intégrant à présent les droits des pères. L’État, légitimant ces dispositifs sous l’angle de la justice sociale, y a également trouvé son compte du point de vue des finances publiques.
Frozen Conflicts and Internal Dynamics of De Facto States: Perspectives and Directions for Research
Madgalena Dembinska et Aurélie Campana (professeure) ont publié un article dans l’International Studies Review.
The complex architecture of fragmented authority in the international system remains under-theorized. Understanding the world of separatist regions that turn into de facto states is high on the research agenda. While patron states are said to be a necessary condition, we argue that it might not be a sufficient one to explain the varying degrees of survival/endurance of de facto states. This analytical essay is an effort to establish directions for research that would better account for the variation among cases by integrating their internal dynamics with what we already know about the role of external factors. Adopting a political sociology perspective, this article focuses on understudied aspects of internal processes and points to the role of local elites in state and nation-building during civil wars and after violence declines. We contend that such a perspective helps to account in a more comprehensive way for the processes underlying the status quo while, at the same time, analyzing the interplay between external and internal dynamics of frozen conflicts. We show that students of de facto states would gain from employing literatures on state-building and nation-building to articulate an analytical framework that would reassess the role of local elites in building a state and a nation, and analyze the societal (un)responsiveness as well as the strategies of passive or active accommodation, resistance or opposition within de facto states’ populations.
Global Ecopolitics Revisited
Towards a complex governance of global environmental problems
Philippe Le Prestre (professeur) a publié un livre aux éditions Routledge.
Faced with worsening environmental indicators, cooperation hurdles, and the limited effectiveness of current institutions, reforming international environmental governance has proven elusive, despite various diplomatic initiatives at the United Nations level over the last two decades. Overcoming the current dead end, however, may rest less in devising new arrangements than in challenging how the problem has been approached.
Presenting a multifaceted exploration of some of the key issues and questions in global ecopolitics, this book brings together recent advances in research on global environmental governance in order to identify new avenues of inquiry and action. Each chapter questions elements of the current wisdom and covers a topic that lies at the heart of global environmental governance, including the reasons for engagement, the evolving relationship between science and policy, the potential and limits of the European Union as a key actor, the role of developing and emergent countries, and the contours of a complex governance of international environmental issues.
Laying the foundation for rethinking at a time of great transformation in global ecopolitics, this book will be important reading for students of environmental politics and governance. It will also be of relevance to policy makers with an interest in going beyond the prevailing discourse on this crucial topic.
Islamism in Mauritania and the narrative of political moderation
Francesco Cavatorta (professeur) et Raquel Ojeda Garcia ont publié un article dans The Journal of Modern African Studies.
The rise of Islamism following the Arab Spring has renewed interest in the democratic credibility of Islamist parties and movements. Focusing on the case of Mauritania's Islamists this article analyses the validity of the moderation hypothesis and argues that for some Islamist parties, moderation, when historically situated, has always been a key trait. The case of Mauritanian Islamism is interesting because it takes place within an intellectual and geographical place that straddles both the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa, therefore providing insights on how Islamism has become an influential ideological framework in both worlds, that are much less separate than superficially believed.
Permanent Campaigning in Canada
Alex Marland, Thierry Giasson (professeur) et Anna Lennox Esselment ont codirigé un livre aux University of British Columbia Press.
Election campaigning never stops. That is the new reality of politics and government in Canada, where everyone from staffers in the Prime Minister’s Office to backbench MPs practise political marketing and communication as though the official campaign were still underway.
Permanent Campaigning in Canada examines the growth and democratic implications of political parties’ relentless search for votes and popularity and what a constant state of electioneering means for governance. With the emergence of fixed-date elections and digital media, each day is a battle to win mini-contests: the news cycle, public opinion polls, quarterly fundraising results, by-elections, and more. The contributors’ case studies – on political databases, the strategy behind online political communication, the politicization of government advertising, and the role of the PMO and political staff – reveal how political actors are using all available tools at their disposal to secure electoral advantage, including the use of public resources for partisan gain.
This is the first study of a phenomenon that has become embedded in Canadian politics and government. It reveals the extent to which political parties and political staff have embraced non-stop electioneering, and the consequences for our democratic processes and institutions.
Regards Politiques
Dossier : Citoyenneté(s)
Un tout premier numéro de la revue scientifique étudiante de science politique Regards politiques est paru. Gustavo Gabriel Santafé (étudiant au baccalauréat en science politique) y a écrit un article.
La notion de citoyenneté est une dimension essentielle à la vie politique. Dans le contexte national et international actuel, la thématique de la citoyenneté est plus que jamais à même de susciter une variété de questionnements. Voilà ce qui a guidé le premier appel de textes de la revue Regards politiques.
Pour nourrir cette réflexion, le premier numéro propose trois textes de qualité ayant été unanimement recommandés par les comités d’évaluations par les pairs ainsi que par des évaluateurs externes, dans la plus fidèle tradition de l’édition savante.
The Trade Regime as a Complex Adaptive System: Exploration and Exploitation of Environmental Norms
Jean-Frédéric Morin (professeur), Joost Pauwelyn et James Hollway ont publié un article dans le Journal of International Economic Law.
While the trade regime is often analyzed under the metaphoric assumptions of Newtonian mechanics, we propose an alternative, more organic representation. We argue that the trade regime seems to evolve as a complex adaptive system, at the edge of order and chaos. Drawing from a dataset of 280 different types of environmental provisions found in 680 trade agreements, we show how both the trade regime and the norms contained therein unfold by remaining stable (but not static) and dynamic (but not chaotic). Trade negotiators simultaneously explore new grounds by introducing legal innovations and exploiting known territories by adopting existing norms. Our analysis suggests that, even as the regime grows in the number and length of agreements, there are exploratory and exploitative processes at work. These twin processes can explain that the trade regime appears neither more fragmented/heterogeneous nor more centralized/homogenous than it was fifty years ago, despite its substantial expansion. This hypothesis is at the core of the research agenda that this paper lays out.