Presidential elections and Europe: the 2012 game-changer

Abstract

As well as marking 60 years since the signature of the Treaty of Rome, 2017 will see the 10th presidential election of France’s Fifth Republic. The overlap between the question of Europe and the election to France’s highest office provides the framework for this article to explore the development of the European debate in France. Prior to 2012, and despite the increasing and undeniable salience of it for French domestic concerns, the question of Europe is widely considered to have been a secondary issue in presidential elections. Focusing in particular on the period since the pivotal debate and referendum on the Maastricht Treaty and the intervening transition from ‘permissive consensus’ to ‘constraining dissensus’, this article will explain how and why Europe has seemingly defied logic to remain on the margins of successive election campaigns, before presenting the 2012 presidential elections as a game-changer on how the question of Europe featured. The conclusion offers a discussion on the ramifications for future presidential elections, starting with that of 2017.     

Contentious Realities: Politics of Creating an Image Archive with the Negev Bedouin in Southern Israel

This paper discusses the politics of creating an image archive amidst local Bedouin historicity in Southern Israel. To do so, it summarizes an archival initiative conducted during my fieldwork in Rāha?, Israel between 2011 and 2013, which broadly examined the presence and values of images in their society. I suggest that members compete over historical resources in attempts to augment limited cultural capital in the Negev, making efforts to collect and exhibit ‘shared’ histories contentious. This is particularly the case when local societies consider archival images rare artefacts and thus objects to be owned and protected. This paper concludes that control over archives and image objects, and the past, present, and future ideals to which they are used, is far from uniform amongst peripheral peoples in the Middle East. Visual evidence and the histories and presents it serves are indelibly localized within the prevailing status negotiations and current spatial divisions between Bedouin members in the Negev.     

The Promise of Patronage: Adapting and Adopting Neoliberal Development

Abstract:  Much of the literature on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and development suggests that a top-down process is underway which leads to the dispersal of neoliberal ideals. Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research in Rajasthan, India, this paper examines how a poverty alleviation project "fits" into competitive  and  co-operative socio-economic relations already operating on the ground. It argues that in contradiction to neoliberal notions of empowerment espoused by project policies, both NGOs and their constituents have an interest in establishing and maintaining patronage networks that stabilize relationships of dependency. The paper concludes that neoliberal development projects serve to enable patron–client relationships between NGOs and villagers, and enroll the state in the continuing provision of benefits beyond those planned by the project.