Contenu du sommaire : Varia

The « long timers » at the summit of the American State
The extensive circulation of American elites between politics and public administration on the one hand, and civil society on the other, is one of the fundamental elements underpinning the thesis of the weak American state. The image of the “revolving door”, which encapsulates the idea of professional mobility back and forth from the private to the public sector, implies a fragmented state, open to external pressures from a variety of social groups. This article, by contrast, focuses on “long timers” in health and national defense policy: political appointees and congressional staffers who occupy senior positions for an extended period of time in Congress and in the executive branch. This focus allows us paint a different picture. We document career and professional trajectories marked by a strong commitment to a given policy area, often predating entry into the public sector, and centered on key power positions in Washington. Circulation, we note, is frequent between these positions in the public sector. While these findings do not in and of themselves allow us to fully assess the influence wielded by these actors, this study identifies the social and political resources and forms of specialization which predispose them to play important roles in shaping public policy.

The French reform of assistance to dependant people and decentralization
Avoiding the alternative between the convergence and the resilience of welfare regimes, the French reform of providing specific assistance to dependent people took a unique and firm direction. Developed at the crossroads of social protection and decentralization issues, understanding the reform requires the study of reciprocal influences between the challenges and issues related to solidarity and those related to decentralizing power to the French Departments. On the one hand, the reform strengthened the prerogatives of a “welfare Department” whose action increasingly reaches beyond traditional frameworks of social assistance. On the other hand, in keeping with the logics of decentralization promoting a less administrative and more personalized form of intervention, the reform also reflects a State strategy of transferring increasingly costly policy programs to local governments. This financial instrumentalization ultimately represents the price paid by the French Departments to preserve their existence.

Public sector occupations seized by privatization
The public policy of promoting high performance sports, which has generated little research in political science or sociology of public action in France, provides a fertile ground for analyzing the way in which the reconfiguration of public action redefines the organization of work in occupations related to the state. While various forms of privatization which characterize these reconfigurations question the monopoly of expertise and the autonomy of technical sports advisors who are responsible for the implementation of this policy, the article will point to another, more fundamental problem around the debate on their institutional position which crystallizes the essential tension between the state and interest groups.

Transnational norms for sustainability
Many initiatives are implemented at all levels of governance in order to reshape globalization and mitigate its environmental and social negative impacts. Private voluntary standards are one type of these initiatives, promoted by networks of NGOs, producers and firms. These market-based instruments are proliferating since the end of the 1990s in a number of fields: garment, mining, forests, fishing, and agriculture. Their main specificity lies in their inclusive and participative multi-stakeholder governance structures. Based on two cases in the field of agriculture (soy – RTRS – and palm oil – RSPO), this paper describes the privatization of the deliberation processes at stake. Through an assessment of the ability of the various actors in accessing and influencing the decision process and the framing of the debate, it questions the legitimacy of these devices.

The emergence of the question of climate change in the WHOIn 2009 climate change was institutionalized as a specific program (GWP) within the World Health Organization (WHO). However, at the time, this was not a new problem for this body. This article aims to grasp the emergence of the question of climate change and examine the apparent changes linked to its institutionalization. The history and issues of our topic will provide insights into the modes, opportunities and barriers to change within this complex and little known organization. One of the main features of the development of the climate issue is the structural tension which the GWP sought to address, between forces for reform (the international context and an internal coalition of actors) and organizational inertia. Emphasizing a biomedical definition of health rather than an environmental one, these internal logics constrained the institutional progress of the climate issue and weighed on its definition. From this angle, the GWP represents only a marginal and constrained adjustment. However, this institutionalization provoked discreet, yet pivotal transformations of the framing of the climate issue, as certain actors seized upon the new opportunities and eventually succeeded in promoting their own ideas and interests.