Cordon sanitaire is a French phrase that, literally translated, means quarantine line. Though in French it originally denoted a barrier implemented to stop the spread of disease, its use in English is almost always metaphorical and political, and refers to attempts to prevent the spread of an ideology deemed unwanted or dangerous, such as the containment policy adopted by George F. Kennan against the Soviet Union. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The term disease refers to an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs function. ... In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope where a comparison is made between two seemingly unrelated subjects. ... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... Containment refers to the foreign policy strategy of the United States in the early years of the Cold War in which it was to stop what it called the domino effect of nations moving politically towards Soviet Union-based communism, rather than European-American-based capitalism. ... George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as the father of containment and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. ...

Diplomacy

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau is credited with the first use of the phrase as a metaphor for ideological containment. In March of 1919 , he urged the newly independent border states that had broken away from Bolshevist Russia to form a defensive union and thus quarantine the spread of communism to Western Europe; he called such an alliance a cordon sanitaire. This is still probably the most famous use of the phrase, though it is sometimes used more generally to describe a set of buffer states that form a barrier against a larger, ideologically hostile state. According to historian André Fontaine, Clemenceau's cordon sanitaire marked the real beginning of the Cold War: thus, it would have started in 1919 and not in 1947 as most historians contend it did. Georges Clemenceau, by Nadar. ... In a European context, the term Border states policy, and Border states in a specific sense, refer to attempts during the interbellum to unite the countries that had won their independence from Imperial Russia due to the Russian Revolution, the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and ultimately the defeat of Imperial... Bolshevist Russia is a common term that refers to the Bolshevik side in the Russian Civil War, or more specifically the Russian government between the October Revolution (November 7, 1917) and the constitution of the Soviet Union (December 30, 1922). ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. ... A buffer state is a country lying between two rival or potentially hostile greater Powers that by its sheer existence is thought to prevent conflict between them. ... André Fontaine is a French historian and journalist (March 30, 1921). ... For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ...

Electoral politics

Beginning in the late 1980s, the term was introduced into the discourse on parliamentary politics by Belgian commentators. At that time, the Flemish nationalist and right wing Vlaams Blok party began to make significant electoral gains. Because the Vlaams Blok was catalogued as a racist group, the other Belgian political parties committed to exclude the party from any coalition government, even if that forced the formation of grand coalition governments between ideological rivals. Commentators dubbed this agreement Belgium's cordon sanitaire. In 2004, its successor party, Vlaams Belang changed its party platform to allow it to comply with the law. While no formal new “cordon sanitaire” agreement has been signed against it, it nevertheless stays uncertain whether any mainstream Belgian party will enter into coalition talks with Vlaams Belang in the near future. Several members of various Flemish parties have questioned the viability of the cordon sanitaire. Critics of the cordon sanitaire claim that it is also undemocratic. A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modelled after that of the United Kingdom. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. ... Anthem De Vlaamse Leeuw (The Flemish Lion) Location of Belgian Flanders in Europe The Flemish Region Capital Brussels Official languages Dutch1 Recognised regional languages Flemish: Dutch Brussels: French and Dutch Government  -  Minister-President Kris Peeters Area  -  Total 13,522 km²   sq mi  Population  -  2006 [1] census 6,078,600   -  Density... Nationalism is an ideology that creates and sustains a nation as a concept of a common identity for groups of humans. ... In politics, right-wing, the political right, or simply the right, are terms which refer, with no particular precision, to the segment of the political spectrum in opposition to left-wing politics. ... Note that Flemish Block turned themselves into Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang) since their condamnation in 2004 The Flemish Block (Dutch: Vlaams Blok) was a Flemish far-right nationalist political party which rejects the state of Belgium, calling for political independence for the Flemish half of the country. ... 1. ... A grand coalition is a coalition government in a parliamentary system where political parties representing a vast majority of the parliament unite in a coalition. ... Vlaams Belang (English: Flemish Interest) is a Belgian political party. ...

With the electoral success of extremist parties on the left and right in recent European history, the term has been transferred to agreements similar to the one struck in Belgium: Extremism is the act of taking a belief, political view or ideology to its most literal extreme. ...

• After German reunification, East Germany's former ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED), reinvented itself first (in 1990) as the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and then (in 2005 before the elections) as the Left Party, in order to merge with the new group WASG that had emerged in the West. Over the past fifteen years, all other German political parties have consistently refused to consider forming a coalition with the PDS/Left Party on a federal level, while on state levels, so-called red-red coalitions with the SPD were formed. This applied only to a few former GDR states in the north-east until since 2001, such a coalition also took over the city-state of Berlin, considered by some a late triumph of those who had built the Berlin Wall. The possibility of such a coalition became a crucial aspect of the campaigns before and the negotiations after the 2005 elections to the German Bundestag: theoretically, the outgoing SPD-Green government could have stayed in power by forming a tri-partisan coalition, with either the Left Party or the FDP. As the FDP had declined such a traffic light coalition in advance and the SPD had promised beforehand not to extend the red-red coalitions to federal level, the SPD had to choose the sole remaining option, entering a grand coalition with conservative parties. As the CDU had gained more votes, this gave them the chancellorship.

• In the Netherlands, a parliamentary cordon sanitaire was put around the Centre Democrats. When its leader Hans Janmaat was set to speak, most other parliamentarians would leave the Chamber.

• Some (though not all) of the Non-Inscrits members of the European Parliament are unaffiliated because they are considered to lie too far on the right or left of the political spectrum to be acceptable to any of the European Parliament party groups^{[citation needed]}.

• In France, policy of non-cooperation with Front National together with single-seat constituency system leads to the fact, that FN is permanently underrepresented in Parliament (e. g. 0 seats out of 577 in 2002 elections with 11,3% of votes).

• In the Czech Republic, the Communist Party is effectively excluded from any possible coalition because of strong anti-Communism present in most political parties, including the Social Democrats.

• In Estonia and Latvia, "Russian-speaking" parties (ForHRUL and Harmony Centre in Latvia, formerly Constitution party in Estonia) are excluded from participation in ruling coalitions on state level although the estonian side is unable to get enough votes to be there in the first place.

German reunification (German: ) took place on October 3, 1990, when the areas of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, in English commonly called East Germany) were incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, in English commonly called West Germany). The start of this reunification process is commonly referred to... GDR redirects here. ... The party emblem represented the handshake between Communist Wilhelm Pieck and Social Democrat Otto Grotewohl when their parties merged in 1946 The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) (German: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) was the governing party of East Germany from its formation in 1949 until the elections of 1990. ... Party of Democratic Socialism is a political party in India; see Party of Democratic Socialism (India) the former name of a German political party; see Left Party (Germany). ... The Left Party (In German: , officially with a period at the end), formerly Party of Democratic Socialism (Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, PDS) is a left-wing socialist political party in Germany. ... Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (German: or WASG) was a German political party founded in 2005 by activists disenchanted with the Social Democratic-Green government. ... Germany is a Federal Republic made up of 16 States, known in German as Länder (singular Land). ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, November 20, 1961. ... German federal elections took place on September 18, 2005 to elect the members of the 16th German Bundestag, the federal parliament of Germany. ... SPD redirects here. ... The Alliance 90/The Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), the German Green party, is a political party in Germany whose regional predecessors were founded in the late 1970s as part of the new social movements. ... The Left Party (In German: , officially with a period at the end), formerly Party of Democratic Socialism (Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, PDS) is a left-wing socialist political party in Germany. ... Categories: Politics stubs | Liberal related stubs | German political parties | Liberal parties ... Traffic light coalition is a term originating in German politics where it describes a coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the Green Party. ... The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU — Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands) is the second largest political party in Germany. ... ) Categories: Stub | Netherlands political parties ... Hans Janmaat (November 3, 1934 - June 9, 2002) was a far-right politician in the Netherlands. ... The Tweede Kamer (second chamber) is the lower house of the Staten-Generaal, the parliament in the Netherlands. ... Non-Inscrits (English: Non-Attached; the English name is also official, but the French name is prevalent even in English texts) are Members of the European Parliament who do not sit in one of the political groups. ... Established 1952, as the Common Assembly President Hans-Gert Pöttering (EPP) Since 16 January 2007 Vice-Presidents 14 Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou (EPP) Alejo Vidal-Quadras (EPP) Gérard Onesta (Greens – EFA) Edward McMillan-Scott (ED) Mario Mauro (EPP) Miguel Angel Martínez Martínez (PES) Luigi Cocilovo (ALDE) Mechtild... Party groups in the European Parliament combine the MEPs from European political parties, informal European political blocs, and independents. ... This article is about the French political party, not the WWII French resistance movement Front national. ... The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (Czech: Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy) is a political party in the Czech Republic. ... The Czech Social Democratic Party (Czech: Česká strana sociálně demokratická or ČSSD) is the Social Democratic political party in the Czech Republic. ... Par Cilvēka Tiesībām Vienotā Latvijā (abbreviated PCTVL, For Human Rights in United Latvia) is a generally left-wing alliance of several political parties in Latvia, supported mainly by ethnic Russians and other non-Latvian minorities. ... The Harmony Centre (abbreviated SC, Latvian: Saskaņas Centrs, Russian Центр согласия) is a political alliance in Latvia. ... The Constitution Party (Konstitutsioonierakond), known until 11 February 2006 as the Estonian United Peoples Party (Eestimaa Ühendatud Rahvapartei/Obyedinnenaya Narodnaya Partiya Estonii), is a political party in Estonia, mainly supported by the Russian minority. ...

See also

• Buffer zone