'It all comes down to the oil crisis of 1973' - Is this an adequate explanation of the global recession of the later-1970s and 1980s?
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
The historian Eric Hobsbawm's assertion that ‘any historian who puts major change in the configuration of the world economy down to bad luck and avoidable accidents should think again' provides a useful theoretical objection to the contention that the economic crisis years of the late...
A City in the Republic: Machine politics in New York City
Essay - 2 pages - Political science
A City in Republic offers a new study on the emergence of machine politics in New York City during the antebellum years. It adds a new perspective on the origins of a political system, which were common in the larger cities throughout the United States from the mid-nineteenth until the...
Politics of Baltimore City: City council observations and related thoughts
Essay - 2 pages - Political science
Although a Monday afternoon scheduling more or less precluded the possibility of my attending a meeting of the City Council over the previous weeks, I have been able to watch a recorded meeting on television - a medium that in and of itself presents a set of questions different from those that...
Exploring the relationship between democracy and MDG progress
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
The Millenium Development Goals of 2000 focused the international community on the development and health advances of the developing world. To succeed in completing these goals, massive amounts of aid have been sent to developing countries, though many conditions have been attached. Many...
Financing the campaigns during the US Presidential elections
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
The ability to finance a campaign can be the most powerful asset of a candidate. An issue that can arise is how great of a role campaign finances play on the success of the candidate. The ability to raise more money than the opponent gives the candidate an advantage and the ability to donate more...
States and Federalism: Who should have more power - the state or federal government?
Essay - 2 pages - Political science
The states and federalism discussion examines whether or not the federal government wields too much power over the state government. This argument has been going on since the creation of the United States in the 1700s. It started when the states were attempting to replace the Articles of...
The political system of Saudi Arabia
Essay - 10 pages - Political science
The genesis of the modern Saudi state: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was formed recently after their warriors struggled against the Ottoman hegemony. But to took three attempts to actually impose their authority. The history of the modern Saudi state is based on the theological-political alliance...
The situation of the extreme right-hand side in Europe
Essay - 7 pages - Political science
In his book, "Europe on black shirt: extreme European Right from 1945 to today", Pierre Milza mentioned about the breakthrough of national populism, and its roots in the European political landscape. The main danger comes from its position as an emblem of social protest. Jean Guy Prevost...
Movements of the extreme right in Europe
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
On November 11, 2007, a young Spaniard was killed in a clash that pitted anti-fascist militants and a neo-Nazi youth group affiliated with the Spanish National Democracy. On October 21, 2007, the UDC party strengthened its position as the leading political force in Switzerland. This party,...
Are there limits to the capacities of the president of the United States?
Essay - 9 pages - Political science
"The best government is which governs least." This quote from the third President of the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson, raises explicitly the central issue that transcends the American political system, namely the extent of presidential powers.It is interesting to note that the...
Relationship between Moldova and European Union
Essay - 8 pages - Political science
The Economist recently published an article on Moldova entitled “the country that Europe forgot” describing the tiny Republic which, due to an unhappy combination of economic, political and geopolitical factors, is the “last in the queue for love and attention”. Such...
Pakistan: what is national identity?
Essay - 12 pages - Political science
With around 140 million people, Pakistan gained the status of a nuclear power in 1998, but also came to be known as a rogue state ('rogue stat') in the eyes of the United States. Under the international spotlight since the Afghan crisis of autumn 2001, and following the attacks of September...
The extreme right parties in Western Europe
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Europe is experiencing since the mid-1980s (west) and since the fall of the Berlin Wall (East) a radicalization that political observers describe by different names. This is called "rise of the extreme right" or "radical right". It evokes the irresistible rise of "populism" or...
Relations between the executive and legislative branches in Great Britain
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
The power in Britain adopts a particular shape. The organization of this power is first formed by an unwritten constitution. It is separate from the Monarch, the Prime Minister and also the Parliament. This leads us to question the executive and legislative branches. The executive power heads...
Civil Society NGOs & Private Sector Com-panies: Towards Cooperation?
Essay - 14 pages - Political science
In 2005, DuPont, an American chemical company and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an environmental advocacy group, engaged in a partnership aiming at ensuring responsible development of a new high-tech domain, nanoscale materials. The project was also aimed at communicating with the global...
Presentation: one state, several nations - Pakistan and its identity issues.
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
In this presentation, we will not deal with the context of the independence of Pakistan in 1947. However, since Pakistan is a very young country, its creation plays a large role in the difficulties it encounters in its nation-building. The partition of India, in 1947, is the result of a long-term...
Habermas and Rorty - the existence of universal human rights
Essay - 4 pages - Political science
Human rights have been taken for granted in the Western world. It was asserted that they were universal and every human being was entitled to them on the ground that he or she was human. These rights are considered as inalienable since they are inseparable from the human nature. The challenge is...
The rise of Beirut as the capital city and its implications for the Lebanese nationalism
Essay - 9 pages - Political science
Lebanon is a very complex entity. We need to understand some concepts about the historical features of the country to grasp a better understanding of its current state. First, Modern Lebanon is part of a larger unit: historical Syria, as opposed to the present Syrian Arab Republic, which now...
Democratization versus Rule of Law
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Professor Daniel Saadoun distinguishes three features that are deemed essential in a modern democracy: universal suffrage, the inscription in the preamble of the Constitution of a set of rules that the State cannot modify or erase and the obligation for the State to look after all the rules...
The rise and limits of populist parties and movements in Europe
Essay - 6 pages - Political science
Any success of a populist party is often considered as a threat, a rise endangering Democracy. Even if there is a lot of passion over this issue, it is true that there has been a rise of populist parties in Europe, from the 1980s to late 1990s, a rise which has stabilized or reversed recently....
Do the U.S. really constitute a united country?
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
The people who wrote the Constitution and those who voted it had a goal to create that is “a more perfect union”. Still what is the measure of the perfection? Two hundred years of independent history, of steady and reputed democracy? What does “a union” mean? Finally, does USA...
Improving women's condition
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Introduction Each year, on march 8th , the media speak about women's condition insofar as it is « The International Women's day », a kindly initiative in a world where they represent the half of the population. Nowadays, women are still discriminated against : inequalities at work or...
Limits to transnationalism in social movements: The case of the farmers' protests in the European Union
Essay - 13 pages - Political science
Farmers are among the most vigorous protestors against the European Union. However, contrary to some other groups, the farmers fail to cooperate. Transnational movements are quite rare, and quasi inexistent. It is for this reason that it is interesting to focus on this group in order to...
The Proliferation of Local Governments
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
According to John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, "individual liberty is individual power". Applied to local governments, this motto seems to be a good general explanation for their recent proliferation: it is a quest for independence and liberty that seems to have led...
Minority Political Incorporation in San Diego
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
As San Diego's first Latino mayor, succeeding a White Republican, the key issue of your mandate will be the political incorporation of minorities that mobilized to elect you. Your election is a beginning: minority groups legitimately expect a change in city politics: they want a true...
Post communist transition - Paper 3
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
After the collapse of the Soviet system, corruption in post-communist countries surged. Some of the post-communist nations were more successful in dealing with corruption than others. Do you believe that corruption was and still is a big obstacle to the development of these nations? Please...
In your view could the collapse of socialism/ communism have been avoided or postponed in Central and Eastern Europe?
Essay - 3 pages - Political science
The main issue is indeed to know whether the system of the Soviet Union could have been reformed in order to last longer. Some reforms could have been conceivable but they were so deep, so huge that it would have led to a complete transformation of the whole system with, for example, redefining...
News media : is the "fourth estate a power?
Essay - 7 pages - Political science
Today, the permanent and instantaneous flow of information pass through a wide range of channels, called 'the media'. There are two types of channels: print media (e.g. newspapers) and broadcast media (e.g. television, radio). It is precisely the capacity to create information, that is at...
Can an ethical case ever be made for the use of torture during interrogation?
Essay - 11 pages - Political science
In the ancient Greece and Rome, the testimony of a slave would not be taken into account in a judicial investigation, unless the statement had been obtained after the subject was submitted to torture. Nowadays, although torture has been banned from legal systems and condemned at the international...
What are the main obstacles to the provision of global public goods?
Essay - 5 pages - Political science
Global public goods are hard to define. Even though, there is a consensus about the definitions of public goods and collective goods, there exists different approaches. Public goods are supposed to be available for all and they are characterized by two principles: non-rivalry, which means that...
