Yves Schemeil

 Yves Schemeil

Pr. of political science, University of Grenoble Alpes & Institut Universitaire de France (Global & Comparative Politics); visiting scholar, Grenoble Ecole de Management

Location Grenoble, France

Activity

  • @VincentBernier To better understand my point, you can read Karl Polanyi's enlighening analysis of the building of free markets by public authorities: https://books.google.fr/books?id=xHy8oKa4RikC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

  • TThere are surveys and opinion polls many countries (Arabarometers, Africabarometers Asiabarometers, World Value surveys, etc.)

  • Well taken, but I do it elsewhere, for another type of audience, can't do better, sorry!

  • Modernity is addressed in another step.

  • OK, it is not “democracy” as we know, it is just a way to redistribute resources to everyone according to his or her merits. So, it is a “fairnesscracy”! Now, Pharaohs (and Chinese emperors) had to make the world continuously alive in outer space, and being fair was part of the plan. Pharaohs, at the very least, also collected advices, and could not make any...

  • Sorry about that! They are not all as difficult to read, you can skip these ones.

  • You are right, David: French revolutionaries promoted "positive liberty" (to quote Isaiah Berlin), which paved the way to individualism ("in a Republic, I can do whatever I want"), and then tried to emancipate foreign peoples against their will; The Soviets imposed communitarianism from the top, until individual hopes to live a better life ousted them from...

  • Great comment, thanks!

  • @AlanT Well, there are other steps in which your agument is supported by my own analyses, so be patient!

  • Hi Fatima, thanks for these relevant comments, answers to come in the next steps and all along the course! In the meantime, we can have a look at the way the WHO and the UNWTO (for tourism) address the covid-19 challenge.

  • I'll focus more on MNCs in the two additional weeks that will complete this course next Fall.

  • Thank you for noting this, I revised the text accordingly (don't know where does the mistake come from, though...).

  • Jonathan, thank you for this legitimate call for clarification. The core meaning of "liberal" in economics (noteworthy, Anglo-American) is the absence of state intervention on markets. In the social sciences (especially European) it could mean "tolerant to differences in lifestyles, moral and religious beliefs, etc.". Since imperialism and protectionism are...

  • YES!!!

  • Malik, you are welcome to the next section of my Global Studies program (on "cultures and organizations"), in which the stress is put on IOs. Then, whe can resume our dialogue. Starts May 18.

  • Agreed!

  • Thanks for this very valuable comment, I shall investigate about that, promised! Note that in modern Egypt utilities were the main sources of profit for foreign corporations (in Cairo or Alexandria, for instance). Monopplies over water provision were apportioned between the British, the French, and the Italians.

  • You're wright, unfortunatly. Just type the following sentence in a Google search and you'll get the PDF:" Andrew Linklater, The English School Conception of International Society: Reflections on Western and non-Western Perspectives"

  • You are welcome!

  • Perhaps you could try the French version?

  • Just think of the production and distribution of goods (whis is about real things, i.e. substantial) and their financial translation into written accounts (abstract and formal).

  • This discussion about winners and losers will come at a later stage, please wait.

  • Emily, wait until May 18: the next session of the 'cultures and organizations" course will be online, with answers to your questions.

  • Yes, but we don't know the direction of the causal link: is London Labour because it is multicultural or is it multicultural because it has always been less conservative than other regions of the UK?

  • To these inevitable burdens, especially in regimes where democratic control is a major principle of government, is added the population’s degree of compliance with the compulsory nature of the measures taken, which depends on both ideology and culture.

  • Recently, public policy studies have highlighted the importance of four factors that have so far been neglected: the instruments that allow a decision to be matured; the need for impact assessments that are efficient enough to compare alternative solutions and their consequences; the unavoidable cross-checks carried out by administrative and political...

  • Because the virus is borderless, health cooperation suffers from these distinctions. Contagion is made more difficult to combat by the fact that the measures taken in one place are contradicted by the absence of corresponding measures next door.
    As in the case of climate change, it is difficult to bring about joint action decided on multilaterally, each...

  • To these inevitable burdens, especially in regimes where democratic control is a major principle of government, is added the population’s degree of compliance with the compulsory nature of the measures taken, which depends on both ideology and culture.
    Whether a state population is guided by individualistic or by community values influences the way it behaves...

  • Does the Coronavirus contradict the theories?
    Governments are hesitating between war and peace: they use military methods, resources, and vocabulary in peacetime. They navigate between selfishness and altruism.
    On the one hand, they attribute the responsibility for the crisis to their suppliers or their neighbors and only help them once the danger has passed...

  • Scholars who believe in the strength of selfish power and those who promote united institutions cannot explain everything. This is why political philosophy sometimes comes to confuse their forecasts.
    It tells us that states exist above all so that citizens know who they must help first: compatriots, followed by vulnerable foreign residents, then residents of...

  • Coronavirus and this course
    We are currently experiencing serious health and environmental crises that pandemics and recurrent disasters are making more visible than ever.
    Do they reinforce, nuance or invalidate researchers’ analysis of globalization, which always situate international relations between two poles: war and trade?
    In the academic world, we...

  • Coronavirus and this course. Tackling problems alone means selfish attitudes return and the national interest triumphs, alongside relative power (“what influence a state has over all others”) as the two only guiding principles.
    Tackling problems together involves the concerted action of the most democratic regimes so that people’s happiness spreads (“who do I...

  • Coronavirus and this course. Tackling problems alone means selfish attitudes return and the national interest triumphs, alongside relative power (“what influence a state has over all others”) as the two only guiding principles.
    Tackling problems together involves the concerted action of the most democratic regimes so that people’s happiness spreads (“who do I...

  • Yves Schemeil made a comment

    Coronavirus and this course: see my comment at the end of the next article.

  • Coronavirus and this course
    We are currently experiencing serious health and environmental crises that pandemics and recurrent disasters are making more visible than ever.
    Do they reinforce, nuance or invalidate researchers’ analysis of globalization, which always situate international relations between two poles: war and trade?
    In the academic world, we...

  • A lot is left for the next course, "cultures and organizations", starting May 18!

  • My gratitude goes to you all, as committed contributors to the improvement if this course! You will not benefit from incoming (and slow) revision of the text, unfortunately, but they will owe to you.

  • YouYou are right, climate change is a terrible challenge (I repeated this several times all along the course) but, as any other risks or threat, what is promising is that we are witnessing some organization of the world – look at how the WHO is currently tackling the covid-19 disease. The WMO and IPCC, plus UNEP, and a large number of specialized NGOs...

  • This is a review of every possible sources of fear, and, yes, they are heterogeneous – in a way, what your comment points out is the absence of proportionality, likeliness, and scope of causes of worry. I ‘Grenoble’ could do better I would be the first to applaud. This is a list of facts and not a theoretical synthesis

  • @AndrewManning Andrew, welcome back! Although this series of steps could look gloomy, there ill be more positive statements and forecasts in the steps to come, as in the next course (cultures and organizations) since international institutions may offer solutions to any global problem. Pedagogy is a difficult exercise: you must address topics one by one,...

  • About Japan: first, civility was the only way to make the various communities of these islands (but Hokkaido) cooperate long time ago; second, as states can be very democratic domestically though imperialistic beyond borders, a society can be civil on its national territory and very rude outside. The point is note to give awards to best performers, just to...

  • Andrew, please see my answer to Hamish. Let me add just this, as a rejoinder to your comment: the issue addressed here is the opposition between greed or egoism on the one hand, and a demand for a more popular equality, on the other hand. This is also a conflict between autocracy and democracy (as convincingly shown by John Dunn, from Cambridge, in his 2005...

  • @HamishMorrison Hamish, I understand your surprise. This statement refers to the Gini coefficient, as measured by the UNDP (see the table at 2'50 – which would be advantageously placed when I talk about inequalities within the major rising powers of the BRICS, i.e. Russia, China, Brazil, as well as Nigeria and above all South Africa are the most unequal of the...

  • Joyce C. Oates, Hazards of time travel: quoted on a slide at 8:32' of the video

  • elf shukr

  • Marcia, I cannot make myself plain to you, unfortunately, but I keep trying. I do not say that Continental Europeans or American cultural liberals are more morally virtuous than the British leavers and the US Republicans, on the contrary: the latter are more moral than the former because they are faithful to their constituents.

  • Again, Marcia, please reconsider your judgment: I do not take side in the conflict between the Conservatives in both countries (and you may add Australia as well). On the contrary, I use empathy to find them rational motivations beyond any ideological contest.
    The key § here is: “it is of course the role of the national authorities to defend the interests of...

  • To Marcia: This is a misunderstanding! In the whole paragraph, words matter, you should not focus on some and forget the rest. If “changes are not as radical as they seem”, this is consistent with what you point yourself (Britain will definitely trade with everyone). If it was “apparently” claimed during the Brexit 2016 campaign (the context changed since)...

  • The conventional wisdom among scholars is that North and South are to be understood as "the Global North" and "the Global South", meaning both Western and rich versus non Western and not so affluent.

  • Yves Schemeil made a comment

    Thank you for your first reactions, we'll do whatever we can to make it as easy as possible (considering the complexity of the world we live in)

  • We are considering this for the next session, thank you for suggesting it

  • Hello Wayne, good points, my reply follows in two steps. Thank you for having launched this important discussion, you gave me an opportunity to clarify these arguments, as far as I can.

  • Now, I have a more general comment. Confusion between two types of heterogeneity (i.e. as a source of difference and as the roots of divergence) is conducive to misunderstandings. My point here is rather simple: where boundaries between social entities have been erased or concealed behind a grand national narrative there are fewer causes of internal then...

  • Allow me first to reply to each point separately.
    1) Overall there is a robust correspondence between the map and the table, safe for Angola, and possibly Columbia. Admittedly, the first section of the chart is more consistent than the second.
    2) The text reckons the oddness of Canada’s location, and the level of heterogeneity in New Zealand is debatable...

  • To Naledi Nsimang: Finding accurate and updated maps that can be used freely in such a course is more difficult that you imagine. As the tone of the whole article evidences well, the purpose of this step is to promote the rights of indigenous societies, hence there is no intention to harm anyone–it is this other way around! Due to the absence of any iconic...

  • Thanks!

  • Thank you for telling me! Hope you're still online.

  • Dear Estelle, just give me an email address to which I can send you this paper.

  • This is a field of growing concern, albeit very much fragmented by su-regions and countries. You may use that link: https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/the-coming-war-in-asia-why-it-is-hard-to-imagine-the-unimaginable/
    Alternatively, you can try this: "Power Transition in Asia" (Routledge, 2016;...

  • This will be the case in each of the next reading sessions. Here are only mentioned heterogeneous titles that give some insight about the variety of issues addressed by scholars in the realm covered by the course. Most libraries have free access to them. If there is one paper that you would like to read in particular, just ask and we shall try to see how to...

  • Ella, this is the way politcal scientists analyze domestic and international forms of authroritarianism. Contrary to psychoanalysts, they are not focusing on the reasons why this person rather than another becomes an authoritarian leader. What is at stakes in geopolitics is merely domestic politics and international strategy.

  • Glad to entertain you. Now, if you could give me examples of this "hilarious" English, we could take stock of our remarks and make the necessary changes. Sorry about lagging so much behind the shedule of the course and your comments, but it is never too late to say that your help is much welcome.

  • The point is: for some people in some countries family is a value, an iconic representation of society, which has not disappeared with the alleged triumph of individualism. Ads, TV shows, and political campaigns manipulate such icons to increase their audience, using stereotypes that work (or are supposed to work). It is precisely because real families have...

  • Please read the text carefully: this is but the ideological programm of "nativists", not an endorsement of its content!

  • To Lesley: this is a mere depiction of how imperialism was justified at the onset, followed by the humanistic duty to provide aid after decolonization. This does not mean that imperialism was "good", or that the woes of colonization could ever be balanced by compassion, not at all.

  • Abraham, I just realized when questioned about the paragraph that it was too short to make myself plain. The crux of the matter is this: when European scholars visited a non European country in the 18th an 19th centuries they were so impressed by such an ancient cultural heritage that they soon viewed it as a "mystery", beyond rational understanding - a stance...

  • Noted!

  • ...and thanks for the tip!

  • I agree! I do the same with Lebanon.

  • Well, Robert, when this article was written the Irish conflict was over for decades. Several other calls to arms are not listed here, like those claimed by ISIS (I will update the content soon) because I try to offer a large coverage of the world. Among the French "yellow vests" some publicly considered to make use of military weapons as a way to oppose the...

  • Yves Schemeil made a comment

    Bonjour Étienne, la plateforme étant anglaise on ne peut rien faire pour les vidéos. En revanche, les articles en VF devraient inclure toutes les illustrations. Nous allons vérifier que c'est possible, mais ça prendrait du temps ! Il faudrait insérer toutes les illustrations dans les PDF français. Monstrueux.

  • Additionnally, diplomats share the so-called "intercultural competence", as a component of their ... diplomatic culture, which goes beyond their national identity.

  • This text is a good discussion of the concept of culture and how it plays a role in IR: just consider that my perspective is different, since culture must be understood in the plural (there are different "cultures" even in such a united nation as Japan). Moreover, cultures play a residual role in the negotiation process (diplomats first make rational decisions...

  • As for reconciliation, Susan, just look for the "Truth and reconciliation' pocess" in various countries, plus studies about "recognition", forthcoming in this course. To make peace with people belonging to other cultures and other "civilizations" one has to forgive but not to forget, but it is also of the essence to accept the Other as he or she is - see:...

  • Not at all! Like John Rawls (the American philosopher who wrote on political liberalism) I think metaphysical and cultural differences must be left at the cloakroom before entering the negotiation hall. Once out, everyone's free to put them on back home.

  • Yves Schemeil made a comment

    Welcome to you all! ready to answer your questions when I can.

  • Well done Anna! Nice design, clarity, good start. And good luck for the rest of the course!
    I refer to it in my own program on global studies (https://www.futurelearn.com/programs/global-studies)

  • Andy, think about the distinction between equality and equity, which is conducive to egalitarianism and justice as fairness, respectively. This opens a lot of combinations (like equality without hard egalitarianism, or equality of conditions without equality of endowments, etc.). Consequently, there may be quite a variety of social structures, all claiming to...

  • Thanks, Rogerio, this is very encouraging for me!

  • To Sarah: I understand your point, theoretically you are right. However, this is what happens now: courts in one country prosecute nationals from another country, following a complaint by a citizen of a third country. Hence, local jurisprudence may be referred to by international courts, and vice-versa. Additionally, social norms (those coined by INGOs and...

  • You are right, the typos come from the replacement of a map by a new version. Done!

  • Plus, a procedural democracy focuses on the due process of law, appeals, and jurisprudence rather than fairness and justice for all according to philosophical and legal doctrine, as in a substantive democracy.

  • e.g. mad cow disease, GMOs, Beef hormone dispute, etc.

  • Good news: Suffice to get a 60% to get the certificate. My decision today. Good luck!

  • @JenniferC It seems hard to check all the stats in such a short span of time. But don't worry: you'll past the post at 60, a major decision made to accommodate your demands.

  • 1888, yes! Done, thanks to you.

  • As for translation, we go from French to English and back, and then again to a final English version in which a new wording is sometimes thought out in English, then translated into French for learners who use the French text and pass the test in this language. We all know how tricky the process may be at times. Dots and comas do matter, as well as the word...

  • The way we proceed is as follows: first a dozen or more questions are designed, then tested by the team and adjusted after the first course run. Questions that seem either too easy or too difficult to answer are then dropped from the set. Due to the substance of the course and the impossibility to have “either…or” type of questions when facts are so complex,...

  • @JenniferC Thank you Jenny, and those who contributed to the discussion. At our end, we need some time to assess the scope of the problem, since we have no previous experience of critics about the tests (it went rather smoothly so far). This will be done next week. Let’s wait and see about what will come out.

  • Well, whatver he is, he makes decisions that impact IOs.

  • Simon, I teach epistemology, with a focus on the comparative history of sciences, and I try to build a political science that could resist stress tests as experiments in physics do. This is why I make these hypotheses: they can be tested, and the several dozens organizations in which I worked, or my student investigated under my supervision, provide ample...

  • At least, gender mainstreaming is gaining momentum in every IO. And several of them are headed by women. Tha's a good start.

  • You are right, the "UN way" is much criticized in other non-UN organizations, and now the WTO itself is paralyzed by Trump. But wait: they do a fantastic job in many realms. I hope to give you some evidence of that.

  • Thanks to you all, your final comments are very much encouraging for the whole team. It is a privilege to share information’s and comments with such an enlightened discussion group while running an online course. As for your core group, it seems the rhythm of each week is very demanding for a lot of other learners (from whom I often get this feedback): they...

  • ...like in this MOOC, made possible by the engineering of social networks operating at world level!

  • To Rohan: You have a point about the former USSR, but this belongs to a past era. Moreover, even in such a centralized and authoritarian state (as in China today) a number of local or sectorial organizations could relay decisions made at governmental level, bend them to gain more feasibility, or just refuse to implement them – all this converging towards a...

  • Sure, but the UNSG has some room of manoeuver and a lot of leverage, hence a large anumber of decisions are discreetly made after Council meetings - and they are tolerated by the vetoing powers.

  • Stats and maps are often inaccurate when examined in detail. One thing is clear: the measured gap between the lower deciles and the upper ones is the key measure of inequality - hence, the top wealthier people in the UK may be so better off than the bottom tier that inequality is greater than, say, in one of the LDCs where, by the way, very few people are...

  • Overpopulation is one factor of arm races, but it is not its unique driver. One of its consequences migration, can occur in less populated countries, because the overexploitation of local resources pushes people to leave their homes and try to find a way of living elsewhere. Hence, we may have absolute and relative overpopulation, the former being about...

  • To Zarina: This linkage is due to the fact that “When populations grow, the sources of risk, threats and cleavages multiply” (as said in the article) because “the need for finite or insufficiently renewable natural resources is increasing the level of risk”. Therefore, governments must provision more resources; they must protect a larger people; they are...