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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
It is understandable that, since the fall of the Berlin wall, researchers interested in the social and political upheavals brought about by this phase of history should have concentrated their attentions on what had been the immediate sphere of influence of the Soviet centre of power. However we are within our rights today to ask why our understanding of the structural (economic and social) transformations in what is conveniently called the ‘post-communist’ period and space, and of post-bipolarisation regional relationships, should be confined to that region of the world corresponding to the ex-USSR and the Eastern countries.
1. These notions in themselves have given rise to contradictory debates. Both these debates and the contradic tions that they emphasise reflect our lack of distance from the too-recent period of after-bipolarisation'. However we must embark on the next phase of questioning the meaning and significance of terms such as ‘transition' and the ‘reconstruction of identities', notions of democratisation and more precisely that of the ‘postcommunist spaces' (for example, can we say that Algeria or Egypt were communist? Can we say that China or Cuba are no longer communist? …). The questions presented in this article must be seen as tools for awakening critical thinking.
2. The globalisation movement necessarily goes hand in hand with a strong sense of identification and roots.
3. This notion was presented on a plate by the politicians. It has been appropriated by researchers, who carry it at arm's length, without questioning its meaning. Very few of those I have read or heard have seemed to stop or hesitate when they use this term. On the contrary, this convenient notion, used everywhere by everyone, provided them with a comfortable support on which to elaborate their discourse. I have the impres sion that this notion of transition, though fundamentally historical, was accepted without demeure and was now being used simply to ‘link' and to provide a support for arguments that were themselves scientific. In 1989 or 1990, I might perhaps have used the term transition in a convenient way, without paying it any particular attention, because at that time a word was needed to refer to a phenomenon that had suddenly appeared. Today this term requires clarification in the context of a scientific approach, outside the determinism in which it has been enclosed.
4. Central and East European countries. This is the current name of the ex-Eastern bloc countries.
5. The inverted commas signify that neither side implemented the model they were proposing.
6. Economically speaking, and from the point of view of freedoms, this model is no more convincing than that of the market economy recommended by the World Bank during the 1980s and 90s. However it remains hard to say whether, on the social level, in other words the level of general well-being (the principle of universal access to education, culture, music, scientific research, without discrimination on grounds of sex, skin colour or racial or geographical origins …), it did not bring about development in a positive direction … But that is another debate.
7. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was created on 15 April 1994 by the Marrakech Accord, which completed the Uruguay round of negotiations (86-94). This was the last cycle of the GATT (General Agreement on Tarifs and Trade). The WTO effectively began functioning in January 1995. Since then it has replaced the GATT (for more detail see my doctoral thesis: Le libre échange dans l'agriculture: entre le mythe et la pratique ou l'Uruguay round, de la norme libre-échangiste à la réalité interventionniste).
8. Originally the WB and the IMF were precisely supposed to exert their influence to bring to fruition a plan for economic development and monetary stability. The WTO agreements represent a desire to influence the rules governing international exchange and the modalities of the organisation of production and trade.
9. The implementation of reform was influenced far more by the loans and financial help these countries (of the Eastern bloc) received, and which they could no longer do without, than by any preoccupation with harmonising the progress of their reforms with that of their participation in the GATT. It was the results of their reforms that were consolidated by the GATT.
10. Annual Report of the WTO, 1996.
11. Extract from the speech given in Washington on 4 March 1998 by the Director General of the WTO, at the Brookings forum on 'The Global Trading System: a GATT 50th Anniversary Forum' WTO NEWS: 1998 PRESS RELEASES: PRESS/94 4 March 1998 http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres98_e/pr94_e.htm
12. As we cannot cite every agreement, we mention these as examples.
