Contenu du sommaire

A central question of political theory has long been how to reconcile the democratic ideal – where the people rule – with the reality of political power that is restrained and limited in various ways. This question has recently been raised in the debate on the European Union's “democratic deficit”. A neo-Madisonian discourse has emerged that identifies in the EU's multi-level governance a contemporary version of Madison's separation of powers and checks and balances. This article develops a critique of this discourse by revisiting Madison's writings and highlighting his republican vision of democratic legitimacy whereby institutional limitations to power are legitimized through their relationship with the principle of popular sovereignty.

En France, scientific networks have managed to get a monopoly on vine and wine know-how by pushing for nationalized control over authorized wine-making techniques. In 1998, the French government made the most of their assessments to counter the European Commission's efforts to encroach on that sector. Meanwhile, international scientific networks based on new kinds of expertise were formed at about the same time. Some French scientists got involved and, in those networks, found arguments to challenge the established academic hierarchy. They emphasized the rise of the “new consumer”, whose tastes would bring about a change in existing oenological practices. In order to gain control over policymaking in this sector, the Commission appropriated their findings. This concatenation of knowledge transfers shows how scientists are involved in legitimizing European policies.

What do stakeholders represent in the multi-stakeholder processes aimed at developing CSR standards ? To answer that question we use writings in political philosophy on the concept of representation. Our thesis is that the concept of a stakeholder is ambiguous because what stakeholder categories represent can be either a perspective or an interest. The preferred conception of representation should inform the method used to select and categorize stakeholders. Based on this theoretical framework, the foregoing article undertakes an empirical analysis of the multi-stakeholder process set up to draft ISO 26000, a new international standard to guide organizations in matters of social responsibility.

The rise of the Internet has shifted the boundaries of political participation. Nowadays, activists can get involved in a party without joining it. This article retraces the stages that led to the socalled “Engagement 2.0”. Transforming the Socialist party into an e-party involved admitting new forms of political activism and reconciling the real and online worlds, i.e. adjusting the Socialist organization to the digitized world we live in. This gradual conversion, which has been anything but unidirectional, has been carried out in keeping with internal rules and strategies. In fact, the digitization of partisan commitment appears to be closely related to the presidentialization of the Socialist organization as a whole.

Based on the French translation of a book by Peter Winch, this article reassesses the tendency in political science – and, more broadly, in the social sciences – to adopt the naturalistic view that the phenomena those sciences explore exist independently of the viewpoints of members of society involved in their production. In this sense, the contrasting positions taken by Bruno Latour and Pierre Favre, published in issues 58 (4) and (5) of the RFSP, turn out to be similar : both posit that what is and is not political can be determined without reference to specific practices.