Contenu du sommaire : World Policy Conference 2008

The Bush era has had a profoundly unsettling effect on international relations. Whoever sits in the Oval Office on January 21, 2009, will immediately have to set priorities among the many severe challenges awaiting him.

The Russian leadership clearly understands that Russia needs real strategic partnerships. In practice, however, the Kremlin is reluctant to forge them because international solitude is hard-wired in its strategic mindset.

Is Japan an absentee power? Or is it that Japan exists but its existence goes largely unnoticed? Given that its Gross National Product is second only to the United States', such questions seem strange. It is as if the Japanese state did not exist but the Japanese market existed as part of the global market.

One of the most important questions today concerns the extent to which the Chinese regime will be able to transform itself, to respond to the internal challenges it faces, and to play a positive role in world affairs.

Today India is still outside the UN's sanctum sanctorum, and its relative contribution to global trade has increased only marginally. Yet India's perception of itself has changed dramatically, as has its image of the world and, just as important, the new image the world has of India.

On a world scale, the EU functions as an economic and monetary center, and as a successful laboratory of regional integration. However, it is not considered a major geopolitical actor, due to the lack of unity among the views and actions, expressed and perceived, of its Member States.

If the two main dimensions of independence are self-rule and self-development, Africa has slid downward on both dimensions over the last half century. Yet, further implosion is not the dominant scenario What is more likely is the continuation of “democratic autocracy.”

Since the dawn of the 21st century, and particularly since September 11, 2001, which is widely considered to be a turning point, unrest in the Middle East has intensified and has been expanding eastward. From Lebanon to Pakistan, crisis fronts have multiplied.

Unlike in Iraq or Sudan, there is a solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict, even for the most difficult issues. But the crisis of leadership on both sides makes the prospect of an imminent peace deal remote. Public opinion on both sides has grown more difficult to read.

Global governance is a horizon. However, like any historic process, global governance emerges from historic dynamics that can, at any moment, break, become deformed, or produce unforeseen effects. The line between horizon and mirage is thin and unpredictable.

The world economy has certainly grown much richer, but it is not as homogeneous as it was once expected to become. We are not witnessing the undisputed expansion of pure market forces; rather, we are entering an era of competition among different forms of capitalism.

No one today contests the fact that the world is facing an enormous double challenge: to supply humanity with enough energy to support its continued development while simultaneously curbing global warming by cutting our use of greenhouse gases.

Since 2001, three trends have characterized the development of Jihadist terrorism: the return of Arab volunteers from Afghanistan to their home countries, the emergence of new organizations only loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda's change from organization to ideology.

We are concerned here with what makes the political problem of the politics and policies of international migration today. Our aim is to identify some of the major blind spots in migration policies the way they are in general. This broad approach makes it possible to identify the most critical shortcomings of migration policies.