Les Cahiers européens de Sciences Po
DAGEFÖRDE, Mirjam. Concepts of Congruence and European’s evaluation of representation. A micro-level-analysis. Les Cahiers européens de Sciences Po n°03/2016.
SCHMIDT, Vivien A. The Crisis of European Union Studies seen From the US: EU Studies are ‘Widening’ and ‘Deepening’ even as EU Theories of Widening and Deepening are in crisis. Les Cahiers européens de Sciences Po n°02/2016.
FROMAGE, Diane. European Economic Governance and Parliamentary Involvement: Some Shortcomings of the Article 13 Conference and a Solution. Les Cahiers européens de Sciences Po n°01/2016
Books
APPLETON, Andrew M., ELGIE, Robert, GROSSMAN, Emiliano, et al (dir.). The Oxford Handbook of French Politics: Toward a Comparative Politics of France. Oxford : Oxford University
- The first comprehensive and comparative overview of political science research on France
- Features contributors from leading and emerging scholars in the field
- The Oxford Handbook of French Politicsprovides a comprehensive and comparative overview of the French political system through the lens of political science.The Handbook is organized into three parts: the first part identifies foundational concepts for the French case, including chapters on republicanism and social welfare; the second part focuses on thematic large-scale processes, such identity, governance, and globalization; while the third part examines a wide range of issues relating to substantive politics and policy, among which are chapters on political representation, political culture, social movements, economic policy, gender policy, and defense and security policy.The volume brings together established and emerging scholars and seeks to examine the French political system from a comparative perspective. The contributors provide a state-of-the-art review both of the comparative scholarly literature and the study of the French case, making The Oxford Handbook of French Politics an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the foundations of contemporary political life in France.
VITALE, Tommaso et BIORCIO, Roberto. Italia civile : Associazionismo, partecipazione e politica. Roma: Donzelli editore, 2016. 250 p. (Saggi. Storia e scienze sociali).
In French: Une profonde transformation politique et sociale a touché l’Italie au cours des vingt dernières années. Ce changement ne pouvait qu’impliquer le monde associatif, la partie la plus active et sensible de la société civile. Engagés dans de multiples activités, les réseaux associatifs favorisent la propagation de la culture démocratique et de la solidarité sociale en renforçant les liens entre les personnes et l’efficacité des politiques publiques. Jusqu’aux années 1990, leur action a été étroitement liée à celle des autres acteurs politiques, en premier lieu les partis. L’effondrement de ces derniers aurait dû également entraîner les associations. Au contraire, la sphère politique a considéré la société civile comme une ressource, voir même comme la principale ressource pour la refondation et l’innovation de la politique. Militants, dirigeants et cadres associatifs ont été cooptés dans la sphère politique; le monde associatif a été mis au centre du débat public. Dans un tout nouveau contexte, les responsabilités des associations ont augmenté, les poussant à aller au-delà de leur rôle traditionnel d’« école de la démocratie » pour suppléer, différemment, à certaines des tâches traditionnellement dévolues aux partis politiques et aux institutions publiques. Ce livre, résultat d’un travail collectif, reconstitue l’histoire de la participation des associations en Italie, de Tangentopoli à maintenant, s’intéressant plus particulièrement à la Lombardie, une zone très riche en réseaux associatifs. L’approche sociologique nous plonge dans les pensées et les comportements des citoyens engagés dans les groupes, les comités, les clubs, les centres communautaires, les syndicats, les mouvements et associations. Une attention particulière est accordée à l’inégalité des sexes, à la dimension religieuse et aux rapports des volontaires à la culture politique de la gauche. Les entretiens, sondages et observations recueillies au cours des deux décennies sont utilisés pour décrire le profil, les différences et les transformations des militants de tous les secteurs associatifs. Ce qui émerge est une histoire unique de la participation sociale, et de ce qu’elle a offert à la démocratie en Italie.
Editorships of Special Issues
BEZÈS, Philippe, CHIAPELLO, Eve, DESMAREZ, Pierre, (dir.). Dossier-débat le gouvernement par les indicateurs. Sociologie du Travail. novembre 2016, n° 58. (The Tension between Knowledge and Power through Government by Performance Indicators)
At national as well as at international level, it has become frequent to use indicators to set quantified goals and to monitor the evolution of public policies and bureaucracies. Social science research dealing with the development of performance measures is extensive and related to various intellectual traditions. Many consider this movement as a component of the neo-liberal turn and as an expression of the New Public Management. This symposium explores the tensions between the use of indicators and the exercise of power, underlining the ambivalence of this relationship, figures being both feared and desired. Three interdependent dimensions are differentiated to analyse the government by numbers: the challenges of knowledge, the logic of power and the types of publicisation that are linked to them. The four collected papers mainly deal with questions related to the monitoring of the results of public policies, discussed by authors belonging to various disciplines. They remind us that the definition of indicators plays a role in the manufacturing of political problems. They confirm how important it is to analyse in depth the way numbers are created and computed as well as the management and government devices in which they are embedded. Finally, they show that the government by indicators often triggers new forms of bureaucratisation.
Articles in Peer-reviewed Journals
BOISSEUIL, Clément. La rigenerazione urbana: welfare e workfare?: Uno studio comparativo tra Francia e Stati Uniti. Italian Journal of Social Policy / Rivista delle politiche sociali. September 2016, n° 1, p. 3-16.
In Francia e negli Stati Uniti il degrado del patrimonio immobiliare di edilizia pubblica e la concentrazione della povertà in alcuni quartieri popolari hanno promosso, a partire dall’inizio degli anni 2000, la progettazione di programmi di rigenerazione urbana di ampia portata. Una questione rimane ancora in sospeso: quale profilo dare a questi programmi urbani caratterizzati da finalità sociali? L’articolo si occupa dell’ambiguità che riguarda tali programmi, in particolare nei casi delle città di Parigi e Chicago, osservando l’emergere del workfare come modello principale delle iniziative osservate.
LE GALÈS, Patrick. Performance measurement as a policy instrument. Policy Studies. September 2016, vol 37, n° 6, p. 508-520.
The rise of government by indicators, by figures may reveal a new wave of rationalization organized by the state in the classic Weberian sense. Contemporary forms of government are marked by the rise of indicators, measures and new metrics to compare, certify, codify and evaluate. In many countries, performance measurement has become one of the symbols of the transformation of governance. The paper aims to show how performance indicators are a particular type of policy instrument that increases competitive pressure within societies even if that cannot be analysed only in terms of neoliberalism.
SAUGER, Nicolas et GROFMAN, Bernard. Partisan bias and redistricting in France. Electoral Studies. September 2016, n° 44, p. 388-396.
Decided by the executive, redistrictings in France have been claimed to have substantial partisan bias in favor of the right. We examine the evidence for this claim in terms of France’s left bloc versus right bloc politics, combining information from both the first and the second round of France’s two round electoral system.We also examine data at the constituency level to look at factors, such as malapportionment, that can affect bias. As France is characterized by a pattern of a limited number of redistrictings, population inequalities have grown in legislative constituencies between plans. Although the procedures used to draw constituency boundaries for the French Assembly are rather opaque, and under the control of political authorities, partisan bias appears as minuscule.
TOSI, Simone et VITALE, Tommaso. Modernizzazione, agire di comunità e azione collettiva: alle radici della political economy urbana. Stato e mercato. September 2016, vol 2/2016, n° 107, p. 241-272.
The tradition of Italian comparative political economy – thus of part of economic and political sociology – has distinctive elements that make it original respect to other national sociological traditions in Europe. We trace in Italian community studies of 50′ and 60′ a research tradition deeply inspiring that part of comparative political economy which has faced territories and cities. In these roots it is possible to find a way for inspiring innovative conceptualizations of the «local». Italian community studies have also cultivated an interesting reflection on the relationship between social research and the «political» dimension. It is still relevant, if not urgent. The article reconstructs the origins and the story of the Italian community studies of the 50’s and the 60’s and their legacy for large research programs developed since the 80s in the fields of economic and political sociology. Conclusion focuses on the crux of comparison showing how it constitutes a point of great importance to understand the specificity of the Italian tradition of community studies.
TOSI, Simone et VITALE, Tommaso. Vivere nella comunità locale? Una questione politica nella storia della sociologia urbana italiana. Sociologia urbana e rurale. September 2016, vol 39, n° 110, p. 42-55.
The moment of the Italian Community Studies, between the 50s and the 60s, has left a deep legacy. The article explores a specific dimension of this legacy: the way of thinking about the relationship between local studies and politics/policy. Based on six sections, it firstly explores the main meanings of politics and collective action developed in classic community studies. Then, it deepens the contribution of Danilo Dolci to the reflection on the relationship between community ties, politics and planning. The third section is about its main legacies in the sociology of the 80s. The following section investigates the main reasons that have led to a gap between urban studies and policy in Italy. The conclusion draws some lessons from the internal dialectics in Community Studies between analysis and proposals, between measurement and involvement, and it demonstrate the timeliness of Community Studies, even compared to the most recent debates on the functions of sociology.
Report
HALPERN, Charlotte and PERSICO, Simon. Historical transport policy developments in 5 European capital-cities: do policies matter?: First WP4 technical report: [Technical Report] D4.1., 2016. 131 p.
As part of the CREATE project, the primary goal of WP4 is to analyse the historical ‘Transport Policy Evolution Cycle’ processes in Stage 3 cities, by identifying the qualitative factors that have enabled – or hindered – a shift from Stage 1 “urban congestion growth” to Stage 3“encouraging sustainable mobility and liveable cities” policies, and highlighting lessons to be learnt in order to speedup these processes in Stage 1 cities. This is the first WP4 technical report. It introduces the common analytic framework, methodology and data collection strategy that is applied in WP4. It also provides a first assessment of the spatial and chronological perimeter it targets, a brief mapping out of multi-level institutional and transport governance settings in the five Stage 3 cities, including a chronology of the shift from Stage 1 to Stage 3 and. Most of the work introduced in this report was done in close cooperation with partners across the five cities and with other WPs in the CREATE project. This first internal report is organized in five sections. First it discusses the relevance of the “Transport Policy Evolution Cycle” approach for understanding the long-term evolution of transport policy developments in European capital-cities. Second, drawing on the policy studies and urban governance literatures, it it introduces the common analytic framework for the work done as part of WP4. Third, it introduces the research design, methodology and data collection strategy applied in WP4. Fourth, it develops a short case-by-case analysis of the current state of urban sustainable mobility policies and governance across the five cases under scrutiny. Based on this first case-by case assessment of data availability in all five cities, it discusses next steps.