Winter districts

Photo: Staircases of St Charles station, Marseille. (CC) Oleeve

Essays & debates

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For an ecological democracy

by Dominique Bourg & Kerry Whiteside (01-09-2009)

Our consumption continues to increase and the planet is bloodless. Confiding our salvation to technological progress and the economy is an illusion. Because the solution is political: it is to the refoundation of our representative democracy that we must tend.

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The return of pirates

by Éric Frécon (04-09-2009)

A new threat weighs on globalization: since 2008, public governments and opinions have moved from the explosion of maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia. For Eric Frécon, the military option chosen is ineffective to fight against a scourge which prospered against the backdrop of degradation of the living conditions of coastal populations.

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After the Stiglitz report, how to measure wealth ?

by Nicolas Delalande & Audrey Williamson (15-09-2009)

For more than ten years, sociologist Dominique Méda has criticized the inadequacies of GDP. One of the first, she underlined the inability of this wealth indicator to take into account inequalities, social health and environmental degradation. The life of ideas collected his analysis after the publication of the report coordinated by Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi.

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Where the rebels have gone ?

by Nicolas Delalande & François Jarrige (21-09-2009)

Before being known for his analysis of “ short XX^e century », Eric Hobsbawm was a great historian of revolt and rebels. Fifty years after his pioneering books on the subject, he returns to the place occupied by revolt in his historical work, and on the new forms which it takes in the context of the current economic crisis.

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Do we still live in a class society ?

by Olivier Schwartz (22-09-2009)

Social disadvantage, conversion of part of the categories superior to the culture of performance, reluctance of part of the modest categories to policies too oriented towards the poorest. These are the three facts which, according to Olivier Schwartz, can constitute sources of difficulties in reconstructing a city of similar. From this panorama, it appears that France is both more and less a classes company than around forty years ago.

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Elements of reflection on the measurement of “ diversity »And discrimination

by Daniel Sabbagh (13-10-2009)

At the request of the Committee for the measurement and evaluation of diversity and discrimination (Comedd), instituted by the President of the Republic in March 2009, Daniel Sabbagh gathered a set of observations for more or less immediate use, of which he offers a synthesis here.

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Protectionism, internationalist liberalism

by David Todd (20-10-2009)

Protectionism does not date from the 1930s, but was invented from the XIX^e A century by German, French and American theorists with British commercial power. For historian David Todd, this genealogy – often overlooked – attenuates the suspicions of nationalism that weigh on the protectionist idea.

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Rebellious on prescription: Eminem or intoxicated America

by Sylvie Laurent (23-10-2009)

Eminem, like millions of Americans, is very quietly supplied with his pharmacist. At a time when the country is wondering about the future of its health, the inspired artist thus reveals the unavored panacea of ​​American society and throws a shouting light on the question of dependence in America today Hui.

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Internet democratic virtues

by Dominique Cardon (10-11-2009)

How to characterize the political forms of the Internet revolution ? In this essay, Dominique Cardon highlights the tensions that cross the network of networks, in particular the radical equality of Internet users, the extreme visibility of subjectivities, the production of new solidarities, the construction of legitimacy. Dive into “ Internet democracy ».

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Horizon 2020: Four scenarios for the economy of the Parisian metropolis

by Frédéric Gilli & Vincent Gollain & Ludovic Halbert & Hélène Perrin Boulonne (17-11-2009)

While the proposals of architects have been the subject of strong media coverage, the economic issues of Greater Paris are left out. However, they constitute the key elements of the development of the projects presented. What will be the face of the Parisian metropolis in 2020 ? Four scenarios are offered here.

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J Street, the lobby of the “ silent majority »»

by Pauline Peretz (20-11-2009)

According to its conservative rivals, J Street would threaten the unity of the Jewish community and discredited the positions of the Israeli government. For liberal Jews, it represents a chance to be heard in Washington. Portrait of a lobby that claims the right to criticize Israel.

Recovery

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Where social democracy is ?

by Antoine Colombani (14-09-2009)

It is paradoxically when the economic crisis seems to give it reason that European social democracy questions its survival capacities. In this context, the file published by the International Critical Review invites us to replace intellectual and normative issues at the heart of the social democratic project.

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The power of images

by François Brunet (23-09-2009)

Founding book of visual studies, Iconology of Wtj Mitchell offers a new science of the image, understood as a general study of representations. The author reports on the creation, functioning and power of images, when their presence is more imposed every day.

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Bathing in troubled water

by Emmanuel Fureix (30-09-2009)

The assassination of Marat, “ The friend of the people “, By Charlotte Corday constitutes a real” trauma ». Guillaume Mazeau returns to him all his place, and above all all his ambiguity and conflictuality, in the history of the Revolution of course, but also more generally in our national history.

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What remains of dance

by Bernard Sève (05-10-2009)

The different systems invented to note the dance have never managed to integrate into choreographic practices. The works absorb almost entirely in performance and are only transmitted by tradition, more gesture than orally. The very idea of ​​work is therefore, in dance, problematic. From this observation, Frédéric Pouillaude made a leading aesthetic reflection.

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Neuroethics, a new border for the humanities

by Stanislas Dehaene (06-10-2009)

That teaches us the science of the brain on our judgments and our moral behaviors ? Two books deal with the question by presenting a new discipline: neuro-ethics.

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Can we reform the police ?

by Jacques de Maillard (12-10-2009)

After several scandals in the 1980s and 1990s, the British police experienced profound reforms: introduction of management and quantified indicators, reflection on the relationships between police and minorities, participation of civilians in the maintenance of order. A useful comparison to understand the singularity of the police institution on this side of the English Channel.

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NUDGE or benevolent paternalism

by Emilie Frenkiel (22-10-2009)

In NudgeRichard Thaler and Cass Sunstein are inspired by behavioral economics to offer original solutions to various public health, savings or ecology problems. The book, whose impact on the Obama administration or the British conservatives is undeniable, is a real political bestseller.

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Multilingualism is a humanism

by Leyla Dakhli (04-11-2009)

“” The language of Europe, said Umberto Eco, this is the translation ». In an essay on political resonances, François Ost takes up arms for the diversity of languages ​​and their irreducibility. The translation takes place first within the same language, and must be freed from the myth of the single language.

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Fragments of “ 1989 »»

by Wojtek Kalinowski (09-11-2009)

What does it mean “ The historic year of 1989 For the populations that experienced it ? The 1989 work east of Europe responds by multiplying the entry points and the analysis scales, deliberately remotely holding the great commemorative accounts which abound at the moment.

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Choice time: middle classes facing school

by Georges Felouzis (11-11-2009)

How and why do you choose your school ? Agnès Van Zanten provides very finely documented answers to the mechanisms of school choice in the perspective of a sociology of social classes. His book can also be read as a sociology of the middle classes through school choices.

Books & Ideas

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Hijab: the fight continues

by Joan W. Scott (08-09-2009)

Two Books Study The Relationships Between European Societies and Their Muslim Minorities, in the Wake of the Hijab Controversy. Joan W. Scott Claims that Critical Republicanism, as defined by Cécile Laborde, leads us to question the republican value of Actual Institutions and Norms. It appears that France is not too republican, but not republican enough.

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The invention of the European Citizen

by Étienne Pataut (16-10-2009)

It is in the European Court of Justice that community citizenship is being built. Ruling After Ruling, Decision After Decision, The Court Confers Rights Upon European Nationals and a Little More Substance to Political Europe.

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Karl Polanyi, The Market and Socialism

by Arnault Skornicki (22-10-2009)

Is Society Sengeted to Endure the Law of the Market ? The Publication of A Number of Essays by Economist Karl Polanyi Hitherto Unpublished in French Gives Us the Opportunity to Re-Discover Democratic Socialism as Championed by the Author of The Great Transformation. His thinking on political power’s capacity to organize Economic Exchanges Still Applied.

– The Family is Priceless

by Jeanne Lazarus (26-11-2009)

Exploring the Relationships Between the Economy and the Family Through the Issue of Financial Compensation for the Death of A Child or Decisions Relative to Food Allowance, the Work of Viviana Zelizer Shows How the Family Has Been Become A Sacred Sale the End of the 19th Century and is now considered to be Shielded from the World of Economics.