The purpose of this article is to analyse the conditions under which referendum campaigns have an impact on voting choices. Based on a model of opinion formation that integrates both campaign effects and partisan effects, we argue that campaign effects vary according to the context of the popular vote (size and type of conflict among the party elite and intensity and direction of the referendum campaign). We test our hypotheses with two-step estimations for hierarchical models on data covering 25 popular votes on foreign, European and immigration policy in Switzerland. Our results show strong campaign effects and they suggest that their strength and nature are indeed highly conditional on the context of the vote: the type of party coalition pre-structures the patterns of individual voting choices, campaign effects are higher when the campaign is highly intense and they are more symmetric when it is balanced.
Cet article analyse l'issue des 71'849 affaires liquidées par le Tribunal fédéral, de 1990 à 2008, en matière administrative. Les résultats empiriques montrent que le taux de succès des recours s'élève à 23% et s'avère remarquablement stable. Il diverge toutefois selon les domaines de politiques publiques et la provenance cantonale des recours. Il est notamment plus élevé quand le recours concerne les assurances sociales (30%), quand l'autorité précédente, dont la décision est contestée devant le Tribunal fédéral, est une autorité judiciaire cantonale (25%), et quand la voie de droit activée est un recours de droit administratif ou un recours en matière de droit public (28%). En matière d'assurances sociales plus particulièrement, le taux de succès est plus élevé lorsque les assureurs recourent (63%) ou lorsque les assurés qui recourent sont assistés par un avocat (29%).
If empirical evidences show that environmental security is on the United Nations agenda, very few studies try to understand the agenda-setting process of this issue. My thesis research intends to fill this gap by analyzing the process of environmental securitization within the organization. Securitization theories and critical security studies propose a first useful set of theoretical tools. Nonetheless, this communication argues that they are not the only ones, and that Political Ecology could bring an interesting different perspective and encourage an interdisciplinary dialogue. By promoting transdisciplinarity, highlighting social and economical dimensions of environmental conflicts and calling attention to the power and knowledge structures beneath the securitization process, Political Ecology proposes highly relevant additions to the study of environmental securitization within the United Nations. This paper argues that this particular example shows the benefits of collaborations between political ecologists and securitization theorists – and, more generally speaking, International Relations scholars – and therefore advocates for more mutual and constructive dialogue among those different schools of thought.
La Confédération helvétique est le pays qui est le moins favorable à une participation au projet de construction européenne. Il constitue l’Etat qui est le plus réticent à la sorte de « contrat social » qui fonde ce projet. L’intérêt didactique du contre-exemple suisse est de rappeler que la création et le développement de l’Union européenne ne résultent pas d’une « nécessité » historique. L’intégration européenne est bien la conséquence de choix sous forme d’engagements et de contrats qui auraient pu être différents. Le cas suisse a ainsi la vertu de remettre en cause certaines conceptions déterministes de la construction européenne. L’intérêt du contre-exemple suisse est de rappeler que la participation à l’UE a résulté de choix politiques, que ceux-ci auraient pu être différents et qu’il peut être intellectuellement fructueux de s’imaginer ce que serait l’Europe sans l’Union européenne.
Terrorism is a threat to democratic government, albeit one with which we may have to live. But what, if anything, does thinking about democracy tell us about terrorism or counter-terrorism? Democracy takes many forms and the inevitable gaps between ideal and reality exacerbate disagreement about what counts, or should count, as an example of democratic government. Nor is the term ‘terrorism’ less opaque. Still, if democracy is valuable, the differences between democratic and undemocratic government should affect the ways we think about the ethical challenges posed by terrorism. Here are three related suggestions about how a commitment to democratic government should affect our thinking in this area. (1) It is a mistake to think that any distinctive policy proposals follow from the ways in which terrorism is exceptional. (2) Sir David Omand’s ‘ethical guidelines’ for fighting terrorism need to be revised. (3) Citizens are entitled to understand and debate the principles of counter-terrorism.
This paper aims at assessing the pacifist claim that the military licence to kill cannot be derived from the right to self-defense. Two clear-cut theories of self-defense, the causal theory and the strong moral theory, fuel two radically opposed conclusions. Indeed, the causal theory supports the classical Just War Doctrine (Walzer),while the strong moral theory supports pacifism. They are two extreme options among a complex set of possible theories of self-defense. I, nonetheless, defend the view that the strong moral theory does remain the most promising one. Whence it follows that, from the point of view of self-defense, pacifism is better established than the classical Just War Doctrine. This Doctrine may only be saved by endorsing rather some form of moral collectivism.
I shall offer here a “dilemmatic” argument for liberal antipaternalism. Either it is the case – as Kantians maintain – that impersonal, impartial and universal rules enjoy ethical priority ; or it is the case – as Communitarians like MacIntyre maintain – that universal rules do not enjoy any such priority. If Kantians are right, then – as suggested by the conventional wisdom of textbooks in political philosophy – State-neutrality towards conceptions of the good is justified. And if Communitarians are right, then – surprisingly – State-neutrality is justified too. Therefore State-neutrality is justified. The first premiss is tautological, and needs no special study. The second premiss, linking the priority of universal rules to State-neutrality, is too well known to deserve our attention. But the third premiss, linking the non-priority of universal rules to State-neutrality, sounds like a paradox. The paper thus focuses on that third controversial premiss.
Alors qu'on la croyait morte il y a à peine vingt ans, la gauche radicale forme pourtant aujourd'hui une galaxie vive et bouillonnante. « De l'extrême-gauche classique à l'altermondialisation », comme l'écrit Philippe Raynaud, la scène politique française fourmille aujourd'hui d'acteurs nourrissant « l'ambition de définir une “autre politique” en rupture avec le consensus libéral [...]
Si personne n'a jamais osé parler d'un « massacre juste », alors pourquoi dit-on qu'une guerre est juste ou pas ? En analysant les argumentations classiques à propos de la guerre pour en éprouver les logiques internes, Nicolas Tavaglione soumet à la critique cette notion de guerre juste, sans jamais se ranger du côté d'un pacifisme absolu et unilatéral. Parallèlement à l'analyse théorique, l'auteur prend plusieurs exemples issus de l'actualité dont l'Irak. Dans ce texte, il propose de maintenir le dilemme moral de la guerre dans toute sa radicalité : entre guerre juste et pacifisme absolu, le choix reste insoluble. Il faut dès lors préconiser une sorte de pacifisme préventif afin de l'éviter.
