Contenu du sommaire : Politiques

Thé Management of Political Label Consumption Official recognition of cause such as that of consumers gives rise to the institutionalization of new label This tends to impose itself on the State in two ways First it defines specific area within the political and administrative field with its experts its recognized partners etc and secondly it brings an injuction to act which for the political personnel is specified in the demand to have policy Observations within the Ministry of Consumer Affairs Ministère de la consommation in 983-85 make it possible to describe the actions through which the agents concerned implement policy Alongside various technical measures which may respond in part though this is difficult to determine to the existence of autonomous bodies committed to the label of consumption the officials mainly seek to act by modifying mental structures They help to bring into existence whole spectrum of new concepts rights consumer information safety quality etc. and to envisage various questions from the standpoint of the consumer and they seek to demonstrate the consistency of this policy with the central themes of the overall policy especially in the economic sphere Their commitment to the label never goes so far as to prevent them wondering to some extent in the same way as the sociologist does about the degree of adequacy of their political action to the social reality which provides its rofson etre Depending on the conditions prevailing in the political and administrative field the agents are inclined either to enthusiastic optimism or to scepticism

Family Policy and the Transformation of the Political and Administrative Field The family policy pursued in France is indicative of the evolution of the structure of power relations within the political and administrative field Originally and well before the Liberation in 1945 which marked the definitive institutionalization of the collective management of families assistance to families was the work of numerous movements and associations of many different political and ideological tendencies Nonetheless despite this heterogeneity all the actors involved in promotion of cause which had to be defended on the political terrain were activists generally acting in an uncoordinated way however there was no lack of endeavours at unification and rationalization all through this historical evolution which saw the defence of the family move from the status of private interest with strong ethico-religious or ethico-medical connotation to the status of general interest with technocratic and economic component The evolution of family policy is characterized by twofold phenomenon On the one hand the taking-up of this new political product by the administrative and political field which was made possible in period of national reconstruction by the rise within the field and then the domination of cadre of senior civil servants which found in the creation of the Ecole Nationale Administration one of the foundations of its legitimacy and one of the principles of its specific identity This ascension occurred chiefly at the expense of the politicians and more generally of the activists of all causes as well as of experts with political dimension On the other hand the process of the division of bureaucratic labour leads to specific contradiction which characterizes this new mode of domination of technocracy over the State this is that the public undertaking of consultation and negotiation increasingly takes place at the expense of the technical work of giving substance to the decisions resulting from the activity of coordination And this can lead to paralysis of political activity

Sports Policy The failure of the sports policies launched in the 1950s by the leaders of the French Tennis Federation FFT -who did not succeed in winning recognition for club leaders- raises the question of the conditions required for the implementation of sports policy Entirely financed by the members of the clubs the practice of tennis was until the late 1970s organized and managed at regional level without the league officials really having recourse to the federal services But as the local leaders found themselves unable to respond to the big increase in the demand for tennis in the 70s and 80s they appealed to the FFT for the training of officials the management of national ranking and help with the construction of courts The effect of this was to set up relation of dependence between the FFT and the clubs the minimum condition for national sports policy The development policy of the 70s and 80s took account of the diversity of the interests and the constraints imposed by agents placed in relations that are both competitive and complementary who pursue different objectives in promoting tennis On the one hand the federations -including the FFT which received delegation of power from the State-developed an official tennis aimed at increasing the number of certified trainers training them and producing national sporting elite On the other hand there are the promoters who the better to serve essentially economic interests adapted the rules of official tennis to the demands of television by emphasizing the spectacular aspects rather than sporting competence Between these two poles are the professional players who seek to profit both from the prestigious sporting titles and from the cash prizes

Social Engineering Form of Company Sociability Starting from study of advertisements job offers management handbooks business school lectures consultancy reports minutes of meetings and direct observations this article offers conceptual framework for describing one of the forms of control of affects and management of inter-personal relations most typical of the managers of major French companies in the 1980s This activity is given the name social engineering and is defined as set of rational strategies postulating and maintaining other irrationality The article puts forward an ideal definition of the situations of social engineering and of its components These are contractual relationship between client and social engineer mobilization of expertise to analyse target population and to act on it without it being aware of this for number of sometimes hidden purposes using rationalized techniques evaluation of the results which the target population which is rarely consulted is unable to challenge Finally the article shows the incompatibility of social engineering with the normative ideal of science and the complexity of the exchanges that are set up between the social sciences and social engineering