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Review of International Studies: December 1998, AberyswythAuthor(s): Christopher BishopSource: Foreign Policy, No. 113 (Winter, 1998-1999), pp. 128-130Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149247 .

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Global Newsstand

Gaspard asks provocatively: "Is a democracy without women a democracy?" Some women hold positions of power-for example, Labor Minister Martine Aubry and Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou- but progress has been glacial. France's feminists, Gaspard writes, have all but given up on political office as a means of driving change.

If the constitutional revision passes, parliament will add the follow- ing line: "The law favors equal access for men and women to elections and government posts." But the constitution's preamble, Gaspard observes, already "guarantees in all realms equality of men and women."

In 1982, the French constitutional court struck down a proposed law mandating that woman comprise 25 percent of the ballot for local elections; a revised constitution might allow parliament to con- sider such affirmative action-style laws without running afoul of the court. But the important question, Gaspard argues, is when? Years from now? Decades from now? Nothing short of legislation, Gaspard explains-meaning electoral laws that favor women-will shift the balance toward greater female representation.

Standing in the way of any such legislation, writes Gaspard, is a con- spiracy among men in power who "see in this demand a risk that they will see questions imposed on the political agenda that disturb an ances- tral order. Admit some women into the 'club,' this is difficult but toler- able: these few women can be controlled or eliminated." Some feminists, too, decry quotas as misguided, or-l'horreur-too American. However, increase the number of women in government to 30 percent, Gaspard suggests, and you have an engine for real change. No matter who is right, any victories for women this December will be minimal compared with the ones they will have to claim in the years to come.

-Caroline Benner FP

Review of International Studies December 1998, Aberyswyth

Eighty years have passed since the end of World War I and the begin- ning of what E. H. Carr termed "the science of international politics." For Carr-British delegate at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, asso- ciate editor of The Times, and influential Cambridge historian-inter- national relations was bloody enough to demand the attention not just

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Global Newsstand

of diplomats or soldiers but also of scholars; as he wrote in The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939, it requires "that hard ruthless analysis of reality which is the hallmark of science."

Although Carr was quick to discount his best-known work as a "period piece," The Twenty Years' Crisis remains a classic of interna- tional-relations theory, especially in the United Kingdom. It is there- fore fitting that the Review of International Studies-sponsored by the British International Studies Association and edited at the Universi- ty of Wales in Aberyswyth, where Carr once served as the Woodrow Wilson professor of international politics-should name its first spe- cial issue "The Eighty Years' Crisis 1919-1999."

As editors Michael Cox, Ken Booth, and Tim Dunne argue in their introduction, Carr wrote during a time of transition not unlike our own day: The sense of "crisis" he described in the late 1930s- the collision between utopian systems of collective security and the realities of Nazi power-remains today in the threats posed by weapons of mass destruction, genocide, climate change, the gap between rich and poor, or volatile financial markets.

Although "The Eighty Years' Crisis" is meant to be a survey of current thinking on international relations, it is striking how little seems to have changed over the years. As London School of Economics professor Peter Wilson shows, the "First Great Debate," Carr's attack on the "utopi- anism" of Alfred Zimmern and Arnold Toynbee, was rather one-sided; after World War II and the outbreak of the Cold War, idealism fell out of fashion altogether. However, as University of British Columbia pro- fessor K. J. Holsti points out, similar arguments reemerged in the 1960s when traditionalists and behavioralists debated whether real objectivity or scientific certainty could be achieved in the conduct of international affairs. Even today, scholars such as Michael Nicholson, of the Univer- sity of Sussex, and Georg Sorensen, of the University of Aarhus, find echoes of Carr's thought in the divide between "positivists"-theoreti- cians such as Kenneth Waltz, who emphasize a state's power in an anar- chic system-and "post-positivists" such as Dartmouth government professor Alexander Wendt, who emphasize the way decision makers look at problems.

To complete the parallel with its namesake, "The Eighty Years' Cri- sis" also contains essays on ethics in international politics and the relationship between law and change. David Held and Anthony McGrew, of the Open University, conclude the issue with a well-

WINTER 1998-99 129

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rounded analysis of globalization-an issue where Carr was remark- ably foresighted: "The concept of sovereignty is likely to become in the future even more blurred and indistinct than it is at present." Fifty years after he wrote those words, and eighty years after "the beginning of a science," these essays attest to the longevity of Carr's ideas.

-Christopher Bishop FP

The Seventh Eye July 1998, Jerusalem

"The Israeli public is already highly suspicious of the media," argues Hebrew University communications professor Tamar Liebes as she con- demns political interference in the state-owned Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA). Yet Israel is a nation obsessed with media. Although it has a population of barely 6 million, it boasts one of the world's highest per- centages of adult newspaper readers and publishes more than 1,000 spe- cialized periodicals. This juxtaposition of a keen, almost desperate interest in the news and skeptical, often cynical national personality is reflected in The Seventh Eye, a two-year-old media watchdog published by the inde- pendent Israel Democracy Institute. The title recalls a modem Hebrew expression with Biblical roots, "to check with seven eyes," which implies a thorough examination. Careful observers have noted that the three largest daily newspapers, two Israeli television channels, and the Voice of Israel radio station add up to six main media sources.

Liebes decries Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's appoint- ment of Uri Porat as director-general of the IBA, slamming him as a government puppet. Israeli law mandates that the network must broadcast both entertainment and educational programs that pro- vide wide-ranging coverage of social, economic, monetary, cultural, scientific, and arts policy. However, during his first 40 days on the job, Porat-previously chairman of the board of directors at a pri- vate production company and director-general of the IBA in the late 1980s-increased entertainment broadcasts at the expense of cur- rent-events programming.

Even more unsettling, according to Liebes, Porat has compromised the IBA's status as an independent agency committed to promoting diverse viewpoints. She cites as evidence the director-general's attempt

130 FOREIGN POLICY

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