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Mr. Yashiro drew on his experience as a senior executive in the oil and banking industries in the United States, Japan, and China, to compare economic prospects and corporate cultures in Japan and China. Mr. Yashiro began by outlining some of the key reasons behind Japan's post-bubble economic malaise. With American industry in decline in the late 1970s and early 1980s, excessive hubris among Japanese corporate leadership combined with a strengthened yen following the Plaza accords to help create a domestic economic bubble. The result has been stagnant growth and loss of competitive edge for Japan since the bubble burst in the early 1990s. Mr. Yashiro went on to explain lessons that Japan should learn from the bubble experience. Lack of international perspective, English skills, scarcity of foreigners among senior corporate leadership, the seniority-based promotion system, and risk-averse behavior continue to hinder Japanese corporations' global competitiveness and the expansion of Japan's economy. Moreover, lack of clear national goals, exemplified by former Prime Minister Abe's stated goal of a "beautiful Japan," is the most significant roadblock to renewed economic and political strength. Reflecting upon his recent experience working to reform Chinese state-owned banks, Mr. Yashiro outlined several key challenges on the path of continued growth. Chinese financial institutions, which recently had bad asset problems similar to those experienced by Japan, have largely taken care of them by transferring them to asset management companies. Moving forward, China must maintain its high rates of economic growth to avoid further nonperforming loan problems. Chinese banks must continue to develop a strong credit culture and risk management skills, prevent irregularities, and improve profitability through services other than loans and deposits. In contrast to the Japanese corporations, Mr. Yashiro described the eagerness of Chinese banks to tap into the skill and experience of foreigners. Already benefiting from infusions of Western capital, by absorbing foreign expertise Chinese financial institutions will soon be among the leading banks in the world, according to Mr. Yashiro. In Tokyo, on the other hand, it is rare to see foreigners among senior banking executives, and without fresh ideas and perspectives, Japan will struggle to compete globally.

Taking as its starting point the commonly held claim about the obscurity of the concept of sovereignty, the article first identifies a fundamental paradox between the classical Westphalian notion of state sovereignty and human rights. In the rhetoric of international politics, attempts to establish the responsibility of states to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms within their jurisdictions are often countered with claims referring to the "sovereign equality" of all states and the subsequent principle of non-intervention. The article suggests that in a more contemporary understanding of sovereignty the responsibility of a state to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms is seen as a constituent ingredient of the state itself. The chapter continues to elaborate how this change has come about. The classical notion of sovereignty is illustrated through a reading of Bodin's Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576). In Bodin's world, sovereignty is a constitutive element of the state, and the possibility of a multitude of sovereign entities in a global world logically denying the possibility of any "supra-national" normative framework is still a minor consideration. This possibility is only worked out with the emergence of international law. In both classics such as Emmerich de Vattel's The Law of Nations (1758) and more contemporary treatises such as Lassa Oppenheim's International Law (1905), state sovereignty has become conditional to recognition by other sovereign states and a subsequent membership in the "family of nations." The conditional membership in the "family of nations" involves a contradiction: a sovereign state must act in a "dignified" manner, it must use its sovereignty with "restraint" by respecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of its citizens, i.e., it must employ its sovereignty in a non-sovereign way. This restriction of sovereignty, addressed as "ethical sovereignty," becomes a constitutive element in a post-Westphalian state and a central ingredient in the contemporary doctrine of humanitarian intervention. The article further criticizes the various uses (and abuses) of "ethical sovereignty" in the regulation of "failing" and "rogue" states and concludes by identifying its general political dangers. Finally, with reference to Jacques Derrida's Rogues (2003), the article suggests a more radical reappraisal of the concept of sovereignty. Adapted from the source document.

Douglass North emphasized that our capacity to deal with uncertainty effectively is essential to our succeeding in a non-ergodic world. He explained that an ergodic phenomenon has a underlying structure so stable we can develop theory that can be applied time after time, consistently. In contrast, the world with which we are concerned is continually changing: it is continually novel. According to Douglass North the main responsibility of governments in managing the impact of the potentially catastrophic events that arise in a non-ergodic world is to mange society's response to them so as to enable the society to adapt to them as efficiently as possible. It is crucial, therefore, that the methodologies used to understand the exceedingly complex, perhaps intrinsically random, phenomena measured in the time series of natural climate and geophysical phenomena, inform governments as accurately as possible of the future uncertainty of the likely pattern of development indicated by the time series. Classical time series analysis (that features, for example, in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) necessarily underestimates future uncertainty, whereas a stochastic approach using scaling methodologies estimates future uncertainty more accurately. Variations in the quantity, intensity and distribution over the Earth of solar output, including electromagnetic radiation, matter and the Sun's electromagnetic field, (including the impact of cosmic rays modulated by solar activity), the variable gravitation force the Sun exerts on the Earth, the Moon and the Moon and the Earth as a system, with total solar activity modulated by gravitational interaction between the Sun and the solar system, and interactions between these processes is hypothesised to be main source of the stochastic regulation of the climate. Interaction between the totality of solar influence and the major atmospheric/oceanic oscillations is a key way in which the stochastic regulation proceeds. The presentation examines these themes by reference to time series analysis of river flow and sunspot data, concluding with an outline of the strategic policy advice that scientists might present to the Australian Government, having regard to the relationship between Australia's episodes of flood, drought and bushfire on the one hand, and global atmospheric oscillations, oceanic variables and the Sun's variable activity on the other.

An analysis of the current economic and geopolitical processes on the Eurasian continent shows the growing importance of natural gas in the competitive struggle unfolding among the leading industrial countries and organizations for priority access to primary energy sources. There are many reasons for this keen interest in natural gas. First, the industry's experts are forecasting a probable change in the traditional structures of world energy consumption in the next few decades due to the anticipated drop in oil production at currently exploited fields, which will have a detrimental effect on the overall world production of this primary energy resource. Despite directly opposite forecasts that rely on positive estimates of land-based, deep sea, and offshore oil reserves, pessimistic moods nevertheless prevail. Moreover, the forecasts of an increase in global energy consumption, the growth rates of which can no longer be fully met by oil as in the past, are another reason for the growing interest in natural gas. Yet one more important reason for this is environmental protection, particularly where the Western political-economic expanse is concerned. Keeping in mind that environmental levers are becoming an important tool in the policy of Western countries, adherence to environmental requirements and preservation of the biosphere could artificially whip up natural gas consumption rates throughout the world. Western environmental organizations are becoming increasingly adamant about reviewing the energy consumption structure of other states and demanding a transfer to more environmentally friendly types of energy. There is talk that natural gas is becoming the frequent focus of attention due to the extreme politicization of the oil factor. According to some data, in recent years political risk has hiked up the price of a barrel of black gold by 75-80%. However, it should be kept in mind that politicization of the natural gas factor is also only a matter of time. It is actually already becoming increasingly clear. There is nothing surprising in this, since it is an objective process characteristic of any sphere that plays a specific role in the development and security of the economic system of a particular state or interstate organization. Several multidirectional trends are promoting and will continue to promote politicization of the gas factor in Eurasia in the next few years.

The Air Force is currently undertaking one of the largest manpower transformations since its creation in 1947 through a program entitled Force Shaping. By separating 40,000 active duty members, to include 8,000 Company Grade Officers (CGOs), the Air Force intends to balance the skills of its personnel to meet the requirements of the Global War on Terror. Given these increasing operational commitments, issues impacting personnel retention decisions within a leaner force should command our attention. As personnel resources decrease and operational requirements increase, the likelihood of military members experiencing conflicts between work and home life may also increase. As such, this research examined the impact of work and family influences on CGOs' decisions to stay or depart the service. Data to investigate this impact was collected via web-based surveys of CGOs from three CONUS-based Air Force units. Specifically, a construct entitled work-home conflict, which describes the conflicts resulting from competing role demands of family and work, was used to predict retention decisions of military officers--a population that has been largely unrepresented in the management literature.Results indicated that work-related variables, such as work overload, stress, and advancement expectations, appeared to have no significant impact on CGOs' turnover intentions; a finding contrary to previous work-family literature which suggests work-related experiences are more likely to predict turnover intentions than family-related issues. Perceived family satisfaction with military life did significantly impact retention decisions, suggesting members considered their families' satisfaction with military life above their own work-related attitudes when making retention decisions. Finally, results indicated that as family members' general satisfaction with military life improved, a corresponding positive impact on the members' willingness to remain in the service resulted. Because results indicated family satisfaction with military life appears to affect members' retention decisions, the policy implications of this research are significant. As the value of the role that family satisfaction plays on members' retention decisions becomes more evident, strategic decision-making related to retention programs should incorporate more family-centric components. By developing retention programs that consider and overtly embrace the "whole family," the Air Force may increase the possibility of retaining its best personnel while also encouraging and retaining the support of their families.

Résumé et Texte intégral mis en ligne le 15 juillet 2009 et accessibles à partir de l'adresse suivante : http://espacepolitique.revues.org/index284.html ; National audience ; Le présent article propose de poser des jalons de réflexions pour construire une géographie politique de l'environnement. Depuis qu'elle est constituée en école nationale, la géographie française n'a jamais vraiment réussi à considérer la question environnementale, fondamentalement politique, comme faisant ontologiquement corps avec son champ d'intervention. Malgré les enjeux contemporains environnementaux, elle continue de le faire. D'abord parce qu'elle n'a pas définitivement abandonné l'idée selon laquelle le retrait de la discipline vis-à-vis de l'environnement viendrait de sa capacité spécifique de distanciation objectivante. Ensuite parce qu'elle n'arrive pas à capitaliser un savoir propre sur l'environnement alors que d'autres disciplines, comme la biologie, ont trouvé une visibilité nouvelle par ce biais. Quand bien même les géographes s'intéressent à cette question, ils laissent trop souvent de côté les réflexions sur les politiques de la nature et sur les tensions heuristiques nature/culture pour rester dans une vision en phase avec le corpus historique de la discipline. Pourtant, post-déterminisme et globalisation imposent une révision en profondeur des schémas épistémologiques de la discipline. La conservation de la biodiversité comme zone d'expérimentation de nouveaux paradigmes et l'apparition contraignante d'un nouvel espace d'action cosmopolitique illustrent très bien cette nécessité. Parce que la conservation a longtemps matérialisé des positions opposées de l'écologie et de la géographie dans leurs façons de gérer l'espace et leurs liens au politique, les géographes n'ont que très peu étudié ce domaine d'activité. Il est pourtant historiquement traversé par des phénomènes proprement géographiques. Désormais inscrite dans les politiques de développement, la conservation se « transnationalise » et se localise simultanément. Déplacée d'une enclave naturelle vers une arène politique, elle peut aussi être envisagée comme un lieu d'expérimentation d'une nouvelle façon d'habiter le monde, à la fois postnaturelle et post-nationale. De façon concomitante, les processus de mondialisation, les questions de changements globaux, imposent un nouvel univers conceptuel fait de disjonctions, d'hybridation, d'interdépendances et d'interrelations. Un nouveau champ d'expériences et de responsabilités globales et individuelles est ouvert. Ces nouveaux espaces d'action, dépassant l'État-nation et le clivage nature/culture requièrent un tournant épistémologique. Ce pourrait être celui d'une nouvelle géographie politique de l'environnement, une géographie cosmopolitique.

Maģistra darbs "Latvijas loma Eiropas Savienības migrācijas politikas ārējās dimensijas veidošanā" ir veltīts izvērtējumam par Latvijas līdzšinējo dalību iniciatīvās, kas izriet no Eiropas Savienības migrācijas politikas ārējās dimensijas pamatprincipiem un prioritātēm. Darbā tiek analizēti šādi jautājumi: 1) migrācijas jautājuma definīcija un tā problemātikas raksturošana, kā arī aktualitātes pamatošana gan globālā, gan Eiropas Savienības mērogā; 2) Eiropas Savienības migrācijas politikas vēsturiskās attīstības un jautājuma tiesiskā regulējuma Eiropas Savienībā izpēte; 3) Eiropas Savienības migrācijas politikas jēdziena skadrojums un tā īstenošanas raksturojums; 4) Latvijas migrācijas politikas attīstības, šī brīža problemātikas, aktualitiāšu un prioritāšu raksturojums gan iekšpolitikas gan Eiropas Savienības kontekstā; 5) Latvijas līdzšinējās dalības Eiropas Savienības migrācijas politikas ārējās dimensijas veidošanā analīze. Maģistra darbā mērķa sasniegšanai ir izmantotas tādas kvalitatīvās metodes kā normatīvo aktu, dokumentu un zinātnskās literatūras analīze, kā arī līdzšinējo empīisko pētījumu un datu analīze. Maģistra darba rezultātā ir izdarīti secinājumi attiecībā uz Latvijas neaktīvās līdzšinējās dalības Eiropas Savienības migrācijas politikas ārējās dimensijas veidošanu galvenajiem iemesliem un iespējamo situācijas maiņu nākotē. ; Master's thesis "Latvia's role in creation of the EU migration policy's external dimension" is dedicated to the assessment of Latvia's previous participation in initiatives that result from the basic principles and priorities of the EU migration policy's external dimension. The following issues are analysed in this paper: 1) Definition of migration and characteristics of its problems, motivation of its topicality in the global range and on the EU level; 2) Analysis of the EU migration policy's historical development and research on migration's legal regulation in the EU; 3) Explanation of the definition "EU migration policy" and characteristics of its implementation; 4) Characteristics of Latvia's migration policy's development, current problems, characterization of topical issues and priorities in the context of Latvia's domestic policy and the EU. 5) Analysis of Latvia's previous participation in creation of the EU migration policy's external dimension. Such qualitative methods as normative acts, analysis of documents and academic literature, as well as analysis of current empiric research papers and data, are used in master's thesis for achieving the set objective. At the end of master's thesis conclusions on the main reasons of Latvia's inactive previous participation in creation of the EU migration policy's external dimension and possible future change are made.

International intergovernmental organizations and developed countries recognize the Kazakhstan economy as the most dynamically developing in the post-Soviet expanse. Kazakhstan is the first CIS state to be endowed with the status of a market-economy country by the U.S. and European Union. Development of the Kazakhstan economy in recent years has been promoted by the stabilization on the world financial markets and the favorable price situation on the commodity markets, which stimulated and then led to the rapid growth of the global economy. The upswing in the world economy increased the demand for primary products and had a favorable effect on the economy of developing countries. Beginning in 2000, the country's economic development has been moving forward in leaps and bounds. The average annual rate of Kazakhstan's GDP increment for 2000-2006 was more than 10%, and the GDP in nominal terms and in the dollar equivalent increased approximately three-fold during this period. The high prices for Kazakhstani export goods, primarily for energy resources and metals, was the main factor in economic growth. The annual rise in the price of oil, followed by that of other primary products, was particularly conducive to boosting the domestic economy. At the same time, the export volumes also rose, which in general ensured a significant annual increase in profit for exporters and the inflow of freely convertible currency revenue into the country. The development of the export branches pulled the rest of the economy along with them. Growth of the domestic economy is promoted by the strong tax policy, stable budget balance, rational exchange policy, and increase in real personal incomes. Strengthening of the stabilization trends designated in 2000 was reflected in the increase in the main macroeconomic indices: the GDP, output of industrial and agricultural production, retail goods turnover, freight shipment, fixed capital investments, and foreign trade turnover. The country's financial position also stabilized. The fact that during these years, the republican budget had either a net surplus, or a small deficit is sufficient proof of this. A rather moderate level of inflation and a relatively steady national currency exchange rate to the dollar were maintained, while the National Bank's gold and currency reserves and Kazakhstan's international reserves rose.

Modern globalization courses, primarily focused on integration of global production and capital funds markets, as secondary, unwanted effects, have globalization of poverty, organized crime, migrations and organized illegal migrations, as their result. So, at the beginning of a new millennium, illegal migrations obtain new dimensions, take new organized forms and capacities, and have new complex negative effects for safety at national and international level. Former spectrum of organized illegal migrations menacing effects, primarily expressed through indirect state security destabilization due to political and economic pressures from international community, and because of passive attitude towards problem, that is, through violation of internal stability and state institutions functioning, are complemented with citizens' safety violation by set of criminal acts, misdemeanors and sociopathological deviations related to illegal migration, illegal migrants families endangerment in a domain of physical, health and eco­nomic safety and structural endangering of victims' safety, through unscrupulous exploitation and keeping in submissiveness by various violent methods. Metamorphosis of organized state border crossing, points out that this is not just an "offense against state" which violates national sovereignty and endangers national security, but a form of multi-violation of wide spectrum of illegal mi­grants' human rights, which, no doubt, present social and personal safety endangerment. Problem complexity of organized illegal migrations requires complex safety­criminalistics reaction, in other words, engaging of security system to prevent and avoid their consequences, and giving help and support to victims, by government and non-government subjects, that is, through cooperation mechanisms between several countries or international organizations, considering current safety standards. ; Sve organizovaniji pristup u regrutovanju, transportovanju, prihvatu i eksploataciji međunarodnih ilegalnih migranata za posledicu ima nove višestruke negativne efekte po ljudsku, socijalnu, nacionalnu i međunarodnu bezbednost. S druge strane, tradicionalne kriminalističke, mahom represivne metode postale su nedovoljne za sprečavanje, otkrivanje i presecanje mreža krijumčarenja i eksploatacije migranata. Zbog toga je neophodno rekonceptualizovati tradicionalne pristupe u suprotstavljanju ovom bezbednosnom riziku prenošenjem težišta sa represivnih na preventivne metode, zasnovane na obaveštajnom radu, analitičkoj proceni i prognozi rizika. S tim u vezi, autor je predstavio svoje viđenje mogućnosti korišćenja tradicionalnih policijskih i modernih obaveštajnih metoda za prikupljanje obaveštajnih informacija, kao i pravce reforme aktuelnih analitičkih procenjivačko-prognostičkih aktivnosti, u svrhu suprotstavljanja ilegalnim migracijama.

"Ecologization" is the word chosen by the Ecodevelopment, a French multi-disciplinary research unit, to qualify the current trend of European Union agricultural and rural policies and its effects on agricultural production systems. Two main research programs have been identified. The first analyzes the process itself, the gradual extension of the sphere of agricultural and rural activities affected by environmentally oriented policies: from the periphery to the core of the agricultural sector, from limited agri-environmental rules to cross compliance. The second examines the process of designing new agricultural production models aimed at fulfilling these new obligations. In the first part of the presentation, examples of social science research are developed, focusing on biodiversity conservation, the alternative between considering environmental demands as constraints or at the contrary opportunities for inventing an ecologically based agricultural production, and the consequences of these policies on social equity for farmers and consumers. The second part of the presentation examines the empirical results at the light of three theoretical streams of environmental social sciences: Ecological Modernization, Treadmill of Production and Political Ecology. The heuristic value and the limits of each of these theoretical approaches are identified. Ecological Modernization is valued for its assessment of innovations in the production and production/consumption systems, but can be questioned on the assertion of the capacity of the capitalist production system to internalize by itself ecologization demands. Treadmill of Production is valued for its interest for the leading part of social movements in building local and global alternative production and consumption systems, but is weaker when taking into account the development of ecologization in public policies. Political Ecology is valued for its focus on the institutions that convey the policies of ecologization and on the nature of institutional changes that they generate, but is weaker in its analyses of the roots of ecological crises and on the assessment of the technical innovations promoted by these institutions. In conclusion, the relevance of choosing the world "ecologization" is discussed as compared with other terms which are propound to designate the trend of European Union agricultural policy: "greening", "multi-functionality", "sustainable agricultural development"…

Las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicaciones (TIC), están revolucionando todas las áreas del conocimiento y actividad de los seres humanos, junto a los cambios globales en los ámbitos sociocultural, político y económico, estas están reconfigurando el comportamiento de la humanidad, así la democracia y los conceptos de política pública evolucionan y adoptan nuevas formas. Los mecanismos tradicionales de representatividad política de los ciudadanos empiezan a ser cuestionados y surgen alternativas de legítima auto representación que aprovechan la tecnología, para permitir la manifestación de la voluntad del individuo en cualquier momento y desde cualquier sitio. El importante cambio experimentado, en un contexto de globalización ha generado la reflexión sobre la relevancia de su uso en los gobiernos y las instituciones del Estado, que permitan en primera instancia la prestación de servicios gubernamentales más eficientes, con resultados más eficaces, que permitan potencializar la democracia a favor del ciudadano a través de procesos de transparencia, gobernabilidad y participación ciudadana. En ese sentido, el objetivo de ese estudio es investigar sobre la forma en que las TIC inciden en el fomento de condiciones para la gobernabilidad, proveen de mayor transparencia a la gestión pública e impulsan la participación ciudadana en el país. Por otra parte, las Entidades Gubernamentales asumen nuevos desafíos, de allí que se plantea como propuesta la implementación de un Portal Web para el Ministerio de Gobierno que proporcione información con valor público, que satisfaga los requerimientos de la comunidad, a través de la prestación de un mayor número de servicios e información vía Web, que cumpla con la Ley de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información Pública y su Norma Técnica para su aplicación. ; 1. LA GOBERNABILIDAD EN EL ECUADOR 2. LAS TECNOLOGÍAS DE LA INFORMACIÓN Y COMUNICACIONES (TIC) Y LA SOCIEDAD DE LA INFORMACIÓN Y EL CONOCIMIENTO 3. LAS TECNOLOGÍAS DE LA INFORMACIÓN Y COMUNICACIONES EN EL FOMENTO DE CONDICIONES PARA LA GOBERNABILIDAD 4. PROPUESTA PARA LA IMPLEMENTACIÓN DE UN PORTAL WEB PARA EL MINISTERIO DE GOBIERNO QUE CUMPLA CON LA LEY DE TRANSPARENCIA Y ACCESO A LA INFORMACIÓN PÚBLICA 5.CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES

SUMMARY Female Criminality Moterų nusikalstamumas Women's social situation and status have changed, and now demographical indices show that male criminality is significantly higher, although there are more women than men. Many countries of the world have this situation, but female criminal behaviour became an important research subject of criminology, because the following question remained open: Why is male criminal behaviour different from the female one under identical crime circumstances? The main theories explaining female criminality are the subject of this thesis. There are many scientific interpretations, but so far, none was able to explain female criminality because many statements remained ungrounded. Female criminality in Lithuania during the period from 1918 to 1939 could be just defined by means of common characteristics due to various political, economical and social reasons of this period. Between WWI and WWII, Lithuanian female criminality was influenced by unemployment, consequences of global economical crisis, attitude towards women's status in the society. Criminal structure of this sex was determined by rather small spectrum of offences, however, female criminality increased since the twenties of 20th century. In the Soviet period, there were few researches of female criminality, because the opinion dominated that criminal behaviour of this sex was not important in respect of common criminality. After analysis of various publications and criminological books of this period, the conclusion can be made that soviet criminologists paid great attention to criminality of other countries: they considered it as a result of capitalistic order. During late years, the rate of female criminality remained constant. Certain trends of increase could be determined while analyzing specific criminal acts, e.g. falsification of documents, robbery or deception. But the rate of acts of violence (murder, serious damage of health) is decreasing. During the last 16 years, women's criminal behaviour was influenced by diverse economical, social, political and legal processes. When prevention of female criminality is analyzed, it is necessary to pay attention to reasons and factors that influence it and cause commitment of illegal acts. To implement the prevention of female criminality more efficiently, it is important to research the areas of life where women's negative personal features and circumstances well – disposed to criminal activities are generated.

In this thesis I study the role of culture in the context of social movements. I argue that the role of concrete cultural forms in protest movements' action has undergone a rather small interest in the Finnish study of social movements. I examine culture in social movements by looking at the "cultural turn" in social sciences, the rise of "new social movements" and through the theorizing of Pierre Bourdieu, Sarah Thornton and Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison. I conceptualize culture as both the concrete cultural praxis (e.g. music, art, dancing) and as a semiotic and cognitive system behind all action. As an empirical case study, I adopt a cultural perspective towards one protest movement, the Finnish Reclaim the Streets –movement, which I consider as a cultural and expressive form of collective action. The Reclaim the Streets -demonstrations are political carnivals, acts of non-violent civil disobedience. The idea is to block a city street from car traffic for couple of hours or one day. A party is held on the street. The idea behind the protest is a critique of private traffic and of global capitalism. Using qualitative methods I examine the role of concrete cultural forms, such as music, visual art and bodily habitus in the Reclaim the Streets –protest. My empirical data consists of 5 theme interviews with the protestors, analysis of flyers, posters and www-pages produced by the activists (micro-media) and an ethnographical participatory observation with one activist group in organizing a Reclaim the Streets –event, and attending 3 Reclaim the Streets –protests in 2 different Finnish cities. I analyze this data qualitatively by looking up themes according to my research questions. The results of my thesis show that the cultural forms that the protestors are using have important functions in the protest. I divide these functions to pragmatic and symbolic functions. The pragmatic functions are related to the protestors' subcultural capital, their ability to utilize subcultural resources and cultural meanings in order to recruit sympathizers and make the protest event work. On a symbolic level, according to my theoretical interpretation the cultural forms are representing a counter-cultural authenticity which opposes a constructed commercial mainstream. I theorize that this performed countercultural authenticity is an important aspect in producing the movement's cohesion and cognitive praxis in Eyerman and Jamison's terms.

La loi du 21 août 2003 a instauré le droit pour toute personne d'obtenir un relevé de sa situation individuelle au regard de l'ensemble des droits qu'elle s'est constitué dans les régimes de retraite légalement obligatoires. La reconnaissance par la loi du droit nouveau est l'aboutissement d'une prise de conscience de l'insuffisance et de la dispersion des informations données en règle générale par les institutions de retraite, en comparaison des besoins des assurés et de leurs attentes. Les travaux du Conseil d'orientation des retraites ont en particulier, dès leurs débuts, dressé ce constat. La loi a non seulement posé le contenu du droit nouveau, mais elle a également créé l'outil rassemblant les organismes de retraite pour le mettre en œuvre, le groupement d'intérêt public « GIP Info Retraite ». La forme juridique du groupement d'intérêt public est apparue particulièrement adaptée pour coordonner les actions d'organismes de retraite dont les statuts juridiques sont très différents. Dès lors, la communauté des organismes de retraite s'est attachée au sein du GIP à concevoir et à construire les documents et les instruments indispensables à la mise à la disposition des assurés des informations les concernant. Les assurés recevront dès 2007 des informations détaillées sur leurs droits à retraite. La réponse apportée ainsi à leurs besoins objectifs sera originale puisqu'elle résultera d'une coordination inédite jusqu'alors, englobant des aspects stratégiques, techniques et de communication. Aujourd'hui, le projet initié au lendemain du vote de la loi a franchi une première étape de conception. Au cours de cette étape, pendant les années 2004 et 2005, le mode de fonctionnement du GIP a été précisé, puis les documents destinés aux assurés et les échanges de données entre les systèmes d'information ont été définis. Les conséquences d'un envoi unique sur la visibilité de chaque régime pour l'assuré ont également été analysées. Après la conception, une deuxième étape de réalisation a été entreprise, en 2006, avec la mise en relation effective des systèmes d'information des régimes et la construction des outils communs indispensables. Enfin, en 2007, la troisième étape du projet aura une dimension dominante de communication, pour préparer et accompagner l'envoi du relevé de situation individuelle et de l'estimation indicative globale et répondre aux vœux du Conseil d'orientation des retraites, contribuant ainsi à conforter le contrat social sur les retraites entre les générations.