Contenu du sommaire : Représentants et représentés : élus de la diversité et minorités visibles

Is an ethnic divide emerging among working-class voters? This article presents the results of a field study carried out over seven years in a social housing complex in the northern suburbs of Paris. One of the conclusions of the study is that individual and collective identities as well as social relations are, in a neighborhood of this sort, largely structured by categories of race and ethnicity. We find that ethnicity itself, as understood and produced by voters, is one of the determinants of identity-based voting. The subjective relationship to national origin, and, more broadly, the “ethnicization” of cognitive frameworks, are keys to understanding why French citizens of African origin (who make up about half the population of the housing project in question) vote almost exclusively for the left, while a significant proportion of “native” French voters vote for the National Front or, in the most recent presidential election, for Nicolas Sarkozy.

Voting behavior among ethnic minorities in Brussels Over the past few years, ethnic minorities of immigrant origin have become a non-negligible segment of the electorate in Belgian cities. This article presents the first analysis of voting patterns among ethnic minorities in Belgium using exit poll data for local elections in three municipalities in Greater Brussels. We endeavor to ascertain whether immigrant voters of non-European origin exhibit a marked preference for any particular party that cannot be explained by other sociodemographic variables. According to the theory of structures of discursive opportunities, one might expect the ethnic vote to be less significant in the Belgian context, where ethnic movements are discouraged. However, there appears to be a relatively pronounced preference for Belgian candidates of foreign origin in Brussels.

Ordinary ethnic categorizations and their relation to politics. Though recent studies have shown that ethnicity plays an increasingly important role in shaping identities and social relationships in French suburbs, it is still unclear how ethnicity impacts political behavior. On that head, ethnicity is often treated as an independent variable, which does not help in figuring out the process by which it informs political behavior. This paper explores that process based on interviews of youths of non-European descent in Vaulx-en-Velin, a suburb of Lyon. It proposes a typology of the ways in which people draw perceptual maps and symbolic boundaries and construct identities according to geographic, ethnic and social criteria. It then examines how those distinctions translate into personal politics.

Whom do representatives of “diversity” represent? With the exception of the far right, every French political party nowadays claims it can do a better job of representing “diversity” in French society by increasing the number of “diversity” representatives. But why is the purported need for such “diversity” representation now deemed a matter of course in France? Is it a matter of winning over the voters whom these officials are supposed to represent? And which voters do they actually represent? Conversely, if these minority representatives are not meant to represent any particular category of voters, is it simply a matter of equal access to public office (and not of representation per se)? These questions are explored in the foregoing article. Given that “diversity” is a vague category – which, incidentally, largely explains its success – the article analyzes how French political parties and minority candidates make use of this buzzword and what meanings they ascribe to it. It goes on to point up the friction engendered by “diversity” politics in a system of representation based on traditional Republican principles that are inimical to minority representation.

Malevolent disinterestedness. In his critical examination of economic models, Jon Elster shows that people are often more motivated by their emotions (“passions”) or a conception of justice (“reason”) than by self-interest. But their disinterestedness can be either benevolent or malevolent towards others. As Elster confines himself to an analysis of altruism, I argue here that more importance should be given to “evil” human passions as well, such as malice or hatred, to duly account for a number of significant social situations.