Publications

This paper analyzes European discourses and practices concerning the use of digital tools in the legal framework of participatory democracy, focusing specifically on the French case. If a legal framework is currently developing in France about participatory democracy, it is not really specific to the “local” field, nor is it specific to the use of digital tools. Use of new technologies in local participatory democracy takes place in the general legal framework. Nevertheless, this framework inevitably influences local French practices. In particular, it orientates participative processes towards principles of sincerity, equality, transparence and regularity, even if those principles need to be clarified. These principles are of even more importance ever since the Covid-19 crisis intensified recourse to digital tools. This is notably the case in environmental participation, where these digital tools question the enforcement of the right to take part in environmental decision processes protected by article 7 of the Charter for the Environment.

Malgré le constat quasi unanime d’un déclin de la démocratie en Europe centrale et de l’Est, les pays de cette région du monde forment un paysage démocratique très hétérogène, allant de l’autoritarisme électoral aux démocraties stables, en passant par des formes de régression ou de malaise démocratique. L’analyse comparative de ces pays montre que le semi-présidentialisme, par ses règles formelles et leur exercice effectif, accentue le processus d’érosion démocratique.

L’invasion de l’Ukraine par la Russie de Poutine en février 2022 a fait ressurgir en Europe un type de guerre conventionnelle que l’on croyait disparue. Une majorité d’États dans le monde, notamment mobilisés au sein de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU, l’ont condamnée comme une guerre d’agression. La Russie en paie le prix à travers un certain isolement et son exclusion de nombreuses organisations internationales. Pourtant, deux ans après le début de la guerre, les perspectives d’une paix négociée paraissent assez improbables.

Changes in public opinion and civil society over the last decade have shown that citizens, particularly in old EU Member States, have developed more complex attitudes towards European integration. While the European project was previously generally described as a teleological depoliticized project, aiming at building peace and comforting growth, different competing visions of the European project are nowadays acknowledged and surface among the public on occasions, like referendums or treaty negotiations. While EU official narratives are documented by studies on the European institutions or the visions of leaders and parties, their empirical analysis at the citizens' level is still fragmented. Using focus group data in four countries (France, Portugal, Italy and Belgium) and three social groups (21 group interviews), we provide a comparative qualitative answer to how citizens envision European integration. Our results show that, first, official narratives do not fail to reach citizens, but they are also loosened, contested, and do not systematically produce a sense of common belonging. Second, they highlight the importance of socio-economic contexts, as well as national and personal experience in the re-appropriation of these narratives.

This paper analyzes European discourses and practices concerning the use of digital tools in the legal framework of participatory democracy, focusing specifically on the French case.If a legal framework is currently developing in France about participatory democracy, it is not really specific to the “local” field, nor is it specific to the use of digital tools. Use of new technologies in local participatory democracy takes place in the general legal framework. Nevertheless, this framework inevitably influences local French practices. In particular, it orientates participative processes towards principles of sincerity, equality, transparence and regularity, even if those principles need to be clarified. These principles are of even more importance ever since the Covid-19 crisis intensified recourse to digital tools. This is notably the case in environmental participation, where these digital tools question the enforcement of the right to take part in environmental decision processes protected by article 7 of the Charter for the Environment.

Repas végétariens, confessionnels, d’origine locale et/ou biologique, tarifs modulés, inscription des enfants de chômeurs... Les questions associées à la restauration scolaire sont devenues des enjeux de discorde accompagnant la politisation plus générale des questions d’alimentation depuis la fin des années 1990. Cet article étudie les formes de la politisation des cantines scolaires, autour de deux hypothèses principales. Premièrement, les enjeux de restauration scolaire seraient devenus plus visibles et plus conflictuels à l’échelle nationale parce qu’ils s’inscrivent dans les deux nouveaux clivages qui se sont développés au sein des systèmes politiques d’Europe de l’Ouest, entre identité et cosmopolitisme d’une part, et entre écologie et productivisme de l’autre. Deuxièmement, l’autonomie et la diversité des acteurs locaux dans la mise en oeuvre expliqueraient l’influence limitée et différenciée de cette politisation partisane nationale sur le débat public concernant la restauration scolaire à l’échelle locale. Pour confirmer ces hypothèses, nous analysons de manière quantitative (classification) et qualitative deux corpus de plus de 10 000 articles de presse consacrés à ce sujet, qui permettent de distinguer entre les arènes de politisation nationale et régionale; nous nous appuyons aussi sur cinq études de cas dans des communes rurales des deux départements, à partir de matériaux d’entretiens et d’observation. Ces données confirment l’hypothèse d’une politisation nationale passant par une augmentation de la visibilité et du conflit, ainsi que l’association aux nouveaux clivages, mais indiquent que les effets de cette politisation restent limités et différenciés à l’échelle locale.

Despite the flourishing of Buddhism in the Āndhra region of Eastern Deccan between the 1st century BCE and the 2nd century CE, our knowledge of the role of political power in facilitating its institutional development remains very fragmentary. This article surveys evidence of the involvement of rulers of the Sada dynasty (r. late 1st century BCE–late 1st century CE) in the establishment of monasteries and stūpas in the Krishna and Godavari river valleys. In particular, it discusses an exceptional relief on a coping stone from Amaravati stūpa preserved at the British Museum, whose accompanying inscription has thus far been neglected. A close reading of the iconography of this exceptional piece, in the light of the study of its inscription, shows how the visual narrative is highly relevant to the issue of royal patronage in Āndhra during the period of the Sada rule. Indeed, I argue that the relief showcases the royal establishment of the monastic complex of Rājagiri. In fact, members of the lineage stemming from this monastery played a very important role in the development of the Amaravati stūpa, and endeavored to stress, visually and epigraphically, their proximity to the royal power.

This article studies how social epidemiologists get involved in research carried out on rodent models to explore the biological pathways underpinning exposure to social adversity in early life. We analyze their interdisciplinary exchanges with biologists in a social epigenetics project-i.e., in the experimental study of molecular alterations following social exposures. We argue that social epidemiologists are ambivalent regarding the use of non-human animal models on two levels: first, in terms of whether such models provide scientific evidence useful to social epidemiology, and second, regarding whether such models help promote their conception of public health. While they maintain expectations towards rodent experiments by elevating their functional value over their representational potential, they fear that their research will contribute to a public health approach that focuses on individual responsibility rather than the social causes of health inequalities. This interdisciplinary project demonstrates the difficulties encountered when research in social epigenetics engages with the complexities of laboratory experiments and social environments, as well as the conflicting sociopolitical projects stemming from such research.