Secularism has long been the language of most public servants and many scholars in the Western world, enabling both groups to work and live as though religions were irrelevant to their respective fields. This perspective has meant that religious phenomena have been ignored or reduced to other categories such as civil society, humanitarianism or as part of a definition of “civilization.”
From the beginning of the twentieth century France’s foreign and defence policy has been impaled on the horns of a dilemma: whether to seek a European or a transatlantic solution to her security problems. Since coming to power in 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy appears to wish to embrace both routes in equal measure. If French history is anything to go by he may not be able to sustain that position for long.
Contemporary social discourses are relegating the need to keep fighting for gender equality, mistakenly thinking that perhaps ‘addressing’ gender is the same as ‘normalising’ gender politics. It is against this landscape that Lady Catherine Ashton becomes the first High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The mood in the UK towards the EU is currently one of angry resignation. We are angry because Lisbon has been such a dishonest and anti democratic process. We were thrilled when France and Holland voted the constitution down. What part of “No” don’t they understand, we bellowed across the Channel? Why can’t they get this democratic thing? If you ask the public you accept their verdict. Sometimes the people know best.
If there is no consensus on an international agreement on climate change, it will not be due to some irrelevant ‘-Gate’, but rather, due to the political economy of climate change. What this particular ‘-Gate’ has done is mar the scientists, not the science supporting climate change.
A recent report indicated that President Obama had finally made a security policy related decision—not on his Afghanistan strategy which is yet to be announced– but rather on whether or not his administration would seek to have the US sign the treaty banning the production and use of anti-personnel land mines, a treaty that 156 other nations have already signed.
Whilst the European media is full of stories about the new President of the European Council and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, the third development of an EU Ministry of Foreign Affairs appears to have fallen off the radar, despite fierce turf wars erupting across Brussels as to its proper role.
However big the political odds are, a rational-pragmatic input by the FDP could constructively impact the foreign policy discourse in Europe’s largest country
As I’ve hacked my way through the thicket of the Great Debates these thirty-odd years past, I’ve increasingly wondered what my students must have made of my passion for ideas which appear at odds with the lives they lead – even, indeed, the countries they have come to know.
How can a new treaty ensure more potent action? Further complicating matters is the fact that European governments are said to favor a new Kyoto-style agreement that sets relatively firm emissions targets. The news this week was confusing, but much evidence suggests that any new agreement on climate change will have to wait until 2010.
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