This article explores the transformation of the conduct of public action by the start-up. It conceptualizes a start-up spirit, understood in the Weberian sense, and underlines its transformative effects. The analysis of four field surveys highlights different forms of startupization of public action...
Since the mid-2000s, research policies have undergone dramatic transformations. In western countries, the creation of new public agencies, the generalization of project-based funding and the reforms of research assessment have deeply modified the governance of research. Building on the French case,...
In this article, we analyse the changing role of the French State in handling soldiers who died serving their country (also known as “Morts pour la France”). More specifically, we closely examine the process through which governments have institutionalised their commitment to take care of the repatr...
This research studies the role of the Fondation de France (FDF) in the development of palliative care in France. While the history of palliative care in France has been the subject of major studies over the last twenty years, the role of the FDF has hardly be noticed. However, the FDF developed many...
This article analyses parliamentary questions on posted workers in the French National Assembly in order to study whether and how French MPs ‘take ownership’ of European policies. Like many other European issues, the posting of workers attracts the attention of parliamentarians because it can trigge...
How do scientists contribute to the production of public policy? To answer this question, this article sets out to analyse the political role played by scientists broadly defined - academics, experts or practitioners claiming to master specialized knowledge – and this by using the concept of “co-pro...
This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the making of diaspora policies and, more specifically, of the impact on them of the introduction of special representation in the home-country Parliament. Based on an in-depth study of the first MPs for French residents overseas during th...
This article assesses the political orchestration of the decline of the French coal industry which lasted for almost half a century. It analyses governmental capacity to construct “economic failure”, one that in the case of mining has had strong social as well as spatial impacts. The paper examines...
Whilst the planning model of the Commissariat Général du Plan and the forecasting model of the DATAR both fell into disuse during the 1980s, over the period 1990-2000 notions of anticipation, planning and the spatial regulation of territorial development were resuscitated in France. Since the Pasqua...
The placing of musculo-skeletal disorders (MSDs) for slaughterhouse inspectors on the political agenda is concomitant with reflections over the transformation of public action. This article aims at demonstrating how occupational health issues reveal and underline the “bankruptcy” of state action. It...
Economic growth is a major part of representations of the economy. This article sets out the conditions under which this increasingly important figure was naturalized in France. In so doing, it provides a key example of the role of the state in the disembedding the economy. Specificially, the activi...
The article compares legal reforms of the status of women in Morocco and Senegal in order to understand what can enlighten their enactment in the first country and not in the other. In these two countries (and regions), which are rarely compared, the analysis of the activists’ itineraries and their...
Based on an analysis of the treatment of sports-related issues within the French Communist Party (PCF) since its creation, this article proposes to question the common representations that envisage the doctrinal construction within partisan organisations as a centralised process involving a reduced...
This article focuses on how political parties contribute to the elaboration of tax policies. Based on interviews, observations and the analysis of official documents that took place or were released between 2010 and 2017, we aimed at analyzing the new wealth taxes suggested by various left parties....
A blind spot in the literature is the way in which the so-called “government parties” anticipate having to carry out policy reforms. By combining the exploitation of archives and prosopographic data with interviews conducted with Socialist Party cadres and “experts” who have collaborated with the pa...