European Institute

Reviewed By Laura Kayali, European Affairs Editorial Assistant

“French Children Don’t Throw Food,” “French Women Don’t get Fat,” and “A Year in the Merde…” Our French culture, way-of-life and worldwide known flaws have been extensively dissected by Anglo-Saxons in effort to grasp what makes the French so … French.

As a French citizen, I was very interested in reading a foreign perspective on France. External points of view are often magnifying glasses and, as I am currently discovering a different culture myself, as an intern in the United States, I was curious to know what it was like for a Briton to live in my home country. I was also expecting to be annoyed by another Brit making fun of French customs and culture. But I have to admit that Piu Marie Eatwell did her homework and I developed a grudging respect for the book, which could easily have degenerated into tired clichés --just another futile effort by the English to understand their neighbor. This book, highly irritating at times, will probably not be loved by the French, but it will likely command respect.

 By Armen V. Sahakyan, Master of Arts candidate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Over the course of the past 18 months a new foreign policy doctrine has emerged in the Republic of Azerbaijan. This shift was formally codified on December 3, 2014 in a largely unnoticed 50-page Russian language memo penned by Ramiz Mehdiyev – the long-serving chief of President Ilham Aliyev’s Administration – who calls primarily for a distancing from the West because of the latter’s “unfair” criticism of Azerbaijan and “unthankful” attitude for all the sacrifices that Baku has made.

This shift comes at a troublesome time, as the deterioration of relations between the West and Russia have placed Baltic, Eastern European, and South Caucasian states alike on heightened alert due to the increased unpredictability and volatility of the geopolitical situation. Azerbaijan is no exception.

By Michael D. Mosettig, former Foreign Editor of PBS News Hour

In contrast to the American model of computer generated projections and losing and winning candidates speaking to supporters in separate rented hotel ballrooms (or in the case of Barack Obama in 2008, an entire city park), elections in the United Kingdom are low key affairs.

From thousands of polling stations, paper ballots are gathered in town and borough halls. As the candidates and their local agents watch, clerks assemble stacks of ballots marked usually in pencil for each House of Commons candidate in a constituency. (Only two constituencies across the entire country vote directly for the person who could become prime minister) As the count goes on, the candidates can tell by the size of the stacks if they are going to win or lose. And then in displays of stiff upper lips, they go on stage together in the late night or early morning hours to hear the town clerk officially announce the results. The process is as charming as it is technologically out of date, but then again, it has never produced anything as disastrous as the Florida U.S. presidential ballot count in 2000. On a national level, the television networks try to project which party will win, but those exit polling projections have been notoriously wrong in the past.