Gay rights in Canada and the US
Essay - 4 pages - Social, moral & civic education
From an external point of view, Canada and the United States are sometimes considered as pretty similar countries, concerning cultures and policies. However, these two countries can have very different behaviours on some issues. This is the case in the domain of gay and lesbian rights, and...
Judicial activism in Canada
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
In 1982, Canada has known a very significant shift with the adoption of the Charter of Right of Freedom. Before this date, Canada only had a Bill of Rights (1960's) which was a statute and did not allow the courts to restrict the action of the Parliament. But the 1982 Charter of Rights and...
The Iranian Issue: The emergence of a main potential threat for the international security
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
The Iranian regime appears to be one of the main present sources of threat for the international order and security. The nuclear programme that has been undertaken by its president Ahmadinezhad is raising strong tensions between this country and the main part of the rest of the world, even though...
Australian culture, between complex and suspicion?
Essay - 3 pages - Social, moral & civic education
In his review of My life as a fake, Blake Morrison makes the following observation: “Carey is fascinated by what the hoax says about Australian culture - both its “terror of being out of date” and its suspicion of European-style bullshit […].” Do you agree with Morrison's...
The democratic deficit and the role of the EU Parliament
Essay - 3 pages - European union
Since the beginning of the 90's and the end of the “permissive consensus”, the democratic deficit of the European Union has increasingly become high on the agenda of scholars and decision-makers. Defined as “the growing dissonance between the essential requirements of modern...
How far have the French succeeded in imposing a necessary reduction on the role and power of the state?
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
The French state has always occupied a central and essential role and has over the years taken measures to reduce state power. This necessity has to be related to the unprecedented shift in the balance of power, when the Socialists won the elections in 1981. For the first time during the Fifth...
French citizenship is relatively open to immigrants while German citizenship is relatively closed. Discuss with reference to post-war immigration to France and Germany
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
Mobs recently occurred in France in dozens of poor districts in reaction to the death of two young men. As most of the population of these districts is made up of immigrants or descendants of immigrants, the emphasis has been put by some of the most prominent members of the government such as...
"Britain for and against Europe", by David Baker & David Seawright
Essay - 5 pages - International relations
This study, by a group of important political thinkers, provides an analysis of the often problematic relationship between Britain and the European Union. The book opens with a general review of the history of this relationship since 1950. This is followed by ten chapters by other researchers,...
Coal: energy of the future or energy of the past?
Essay - 4 pages - Ecology & environment
In 2006, Doctor Heinz Scholtholt, member of a German firm of the energy industry (STEAG), pretended that Germany could become the worldwide leader of the coal industry by developing new clean coal technologies. Less than a year later, the German coalition's government has decided to stop its coal...
The Nature of Man "early Modern" anthropological suppositions and their role in the construction of the State
Essay - 4 pages - Social, moral & civic education
The opposition between the Ancients and the Moderns is often criticized. If there is anything like this, one may find it in the opposition of natural rights. In classical natural right, the nature is an essence to be realized; it is an aim, not a presuppose of society. On the contrary, in early...
From Washington to Post-Washington Consensus: A Global Analysis
Essay - 9 pages - Economy general
During the 90s the Washington Consensus was the most popular economic framework used not only by Latin America but by countries all around the world. As Naim (2000) expresses, the term Washington Consensus soon acquired a life of its own, becoming a brand name known worldwide and used...
What are the causes and the consequences of division within the mainstream Right, and to what extent has the creation of the UMP in 2002 created a new unity?
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
The French party system has traditionally been very divided. However, the Fifth Republic is the most “efficient” and stable democratic regime France has ever experienced. Despite this, there still appear to be divisions between the mainstream Right. Therefore, to begin with, the...
Conservative welfare states and the challenge of universal citizenship
Essay - 8 pages - Social, moral & civic education
When the newly unified Germany implemented in 1883 the first health insurance system, it paved the way for further moves towards extensive provision of public welfare for workers, but it also introduced a substantive change concerning the relationship between the state and the citizens. Basically...
Churchill & Roosevelt during the Second World War: The Special Relationship
Essay - 9 pages - International relations
The 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the American fleet in Pearl Harbor. From then on, the war is no more only European but officially global. The next day, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States, declared war on Japan. With the coming into play of the American giant, the...
The rising Level of Xenophobia: Being a Black African Foreigner in South Africa
Essay - 6 pages - Social, moral & civic education
Despite the transition from a very authoritarian regime to a young democracy, post- Apartheid South Africa has not yet managed to get rid of the racist burden that undermines South African political life. Racism is still deeply entrenched within the South African mentality and constitutes a real...
"Discussion about the limitations of liberal feminism with particular reference to the construction of gender and across class, race, ethnicity and religious belief
Essay - 6 pages - Social, moral & civic education
Feminist ideas and feminist politics have emerged because of the fact that in nearly all societies which divide the sexes into differing cultural, economic or political spheres, women are less valued than men (Robert Shoemaker and Mary Vincent 1998, 36-8). The current study will focus not on the...
"What is queer theory and how does it explain the production of knowledge about sexuality?"
Essay - 5 pages - Social, moral & civic education
Introduction Applied to homosexuals, queer was initially a term of homophobic abuse, and while it retains that meaning, it is also now used as a neutrally descriptive term. (As an ethnic label, black has made the same semantic journey.) Queer is also provocative: a pejorative and stigmatizing...
Crisis? What crisis? Darfur
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
Is there a crisis in Darfur? This question looks at first sight rather provoking; everybody is aware of what is happening there. It is one of the main international hot spots. All the more so as the horrible events in Darfur are everything but new. However, this conflict takes place while the...
Explain the chief causes of the conflict in Chechnya
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
The conflict in Chechnya constitutes one of the most burning issues of the post Cold War Russian federation politics. Actually, the two wars, that took place under Yeltsine's and Putin's presidencies, from 1994 to 1996 and from 1999 to 2001, and even to nowadays, have been the most important...
How successful are the attempts to create a citizenship of the European Union?
Essay - 4 pages - European union
Although the formal concept of European citizenship appeared for the first time in the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, the idea thereof goes back to the early years of the European construction. The Treaty founding the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 instituted a “basis for a broader...
Russian and east European politics
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
Full democratization does not necessarily follow regime change. Hybrid or ‘grey democracies' have also emerged after 1989. Choose two countries from the former Soviet bloc, one from the countries recently admitted to the European Union and one such as Ukraine, Belarus, or Moldova and...
Explain why French trade unions, which enjoy so little support, nevertheless seem to exert considerable political influence
Essay - 7 pages - Political science
In France, trade unions were legalised in 1884, but developed very slowly. Trade unions have never enjoyed phenomenal support in France as in the post-war period approximately 35% of workers belonged to a trade union as opposed to a mere 8-9% nowadays, which is by far the lowest proportion...
The respective cultural and social significance of the landlord, middleman and tenant in Irish life in the period 1780 - 1914
Essay - 4 pages - Social, moral & civic education
According to the Census of 1851, it appears that there were 570, 338 tenants farmers in Ireland who accounted for over half of the rural population. This census also shows that 10, 000 landlords owned most of the land. These numbers show an unfair domination of the land by landlords. And...
The characteristics of traditional French social movements
Essay - 5 pages - Social, moral & civic education
The events of May-June 1968 in France broke out in the wake of an international wave of protest that occurred previously in many countries such as the United States, Germany and Italy (Duyvendak 1992, 137-138). The events of 1870, 1919 and 1936 provide also many examples of disruptive and short...
The future of multilingualism in European institutions
Essay - 7 pages - European union
The progressive enlargement of the European Union brings about many questions, among which linguistic diversity deserves to be explored. In light of the changes brought about by globalization and the resulting emergence of a so-called “global” language, the relevance of cultural...
Despite its oil wealth, account for the instability of the Persian Gulf region
Essay - 5 pages - Economy general
The Persian Gulf region is known for being a very important area in terms of geopolitics. It holds up to 57% of the world's crude oil reserves and produces 27% of the global oil.Useless to say how vital to the world energy supply this region is and how extreme the tensions generated by this...
How did the feminist politics appear in the nineteenth century?
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
The nineteenth century was very significant for women, mainly because they were at a turning point in their living conditions. It was ascertained that their place was at home and they were not able to think, unlike men. This situation was considered as unbearable by a growing number of women and...
Explain and Illustrate the concept of "limited war" in the context of the cold war
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
After 1945, the parallel rises of US and USSR, emerged two superpowers in competition at all levels, fighting for hegemony on the post war world. Characterized by the possession of the nuclear weapon, obtained and used in 1945 by the United States and developed in USSR in 1949, this new conflict...
Europeanization of politics and society: Domestic change and the question of a European Social Model
Essay - 5 pages - European union
Europeanization is an elusive concept because of the variety of meanings it refers to. Scholars such as Featherstone (2003, 6-12) often distinguish several usages according to various outcomes of European change, for instance the emergence of new forms of governance or the process of national...
To what degree does the evidence of contemporary cross-strait relations support the view that Taiwan and Mainland China are experiencing not only economic but also political convergence?
Essay - 5 pages - International relations
In 1949, after having lost the Chinese Civil War against the CPC, the Kuomintang retreated from Mainland China and established a government in Taipei, the largest city of the Taiwan Island, while continuing to claim its sovereignty over the whole China. At the same time, the People's Republic of...
