Contenu du sommaire : La mise en politique des idées

The political implementation of ideas. For a social history of ideas in a partisan environment
This article is an introduction to the thematic dossier on the political implementation of ideas, i.e., the processes by which they are produced, circulated, and/or appropriated in a partisan environment. Beyond the presentation of the various contributions, it aims to show what the social history of political ideas can contribute to the understanding of the place, value, and uses of ideas within or at the margins of political parties in the contemporary period. Focusing on the study of minor intellectual literatures, it takes political ideas seriously by showing that they are also practices that should be analyzed according to a specific methodology. Seeking to analyze both the social properties of actors and the inherent logic of social spaces, in addition to taking into account historicity, this article consists of an undertaking to contextualize political ideas that breaks with the thoughtless continuities at the heart of the history of classical ideas such as the author, the work, the influence, or the tradition. Finally, in order to understand the uses made of it by various actors, it contributes to opening the black box of the production and appropriation of partisan ideas.

Between “economic beliefs” and party constraints
In 1947, the French Communist Party (PCF) set up an economics department to collect information for its leaders. The creation of this body and its journal, Économie et Politique, occurred in a context marked by the rise of the figure of an expert with specialized knowledge and the dissemination of economic belief, i.e., the imposition of an understanding of the social world through an economic lens. However, this innovation threatened the internal balance within the PCF, where most of the political staff came from the working class and were attached to certain fundamental doctrinal principles. Depending on their resources and the political situation, the members of the economics department were more or less inclined to comply with the party's existing standards, restricting them to a role of illustrating its partisan positions. This article shows the efforts made by members of the economics department to accommodate the party rules and to harmonize them with the knowledge they had gained from other areas. It explains the conflicts within the economics department and how they were politicized when they became embedded in the struggles within the political leading group.

Putting into the party versus putting into politics
This article examines the ways in which political ideas are spread and appropriated in the United Russia party, created in 2001 to support Vladimir Putin and has been the overwhelmingly dominant party for more than fifteen years at all levels of power. It shows how a think tank, the Center for Social-Conservative Policy, was put in charge of the work that led to the formulation of a second definition of conservatism used by United Russia representatives to define themselves. This definition differed from the first one, more consensual one that was formulated by experts and academics. Using content analysis and fieldwork involving semi-participant observation at the Center, this article analyzes how the concern to make the notion of conservatism accessible to the population has encouraged the politicization of issues related to family and sexuality.

The Party, the expert, and the economic theories: the French Socialist Party (1971-1981)This article uses the social history of economic ideas and applies it to the case study of the French Socialist Party (PS), from its “rebirth” under François Mitterrand in 1971 to the latter's victory in the 1981 presidential election. This theoretical approach offers two methodological interests. First of all, it highlights an original configuration within the PS, in which the ideas it promoted were considered as a crucial weapon in the political contest. Most of its ruling elites took an interest in theoretical issues, which convinced them to systematically justify their political decisions by mobilizing a (more or less) complex theoretical apparatus. Second, the social history of economic ideas developed in this article is also a contribution to the wider debate on expertise and experts engaged in politics. Examining the economic history of the PS through the lens of its experts questions the widespread belief depicting the Western parties of government as “political corporations” only concerned with gaining power. Throughout the 1970s, the PS was also a receiver, a producer, and a mediator of heterodox economic ideas, such as the American neo-Marxism or the French “regulation theories.” Yet the party's use of various forms of media (including conferences, books, brochures, newspapers, and journals) to promote its rejuvenated economic program underscores the existence of a strong concern for ideas, which existed neither in the previous period under Guy Mollet's leadership nor afterwards.

The socio-political career of the expression “the great replacement” among right-wing party networks in Germany: The case of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) partyThis article recounts the socio-political career of the expression “the great replacement,” coined by French writer Renaud Camus, within the party networks of Alternative for Germany (AfD), a newly founded party that has been represented in the Bundestag since 2017. It shows that while appropriating a foreign reference allows German right-wing activists to rehabilitate a racist discourse by circumventing the stigma associated with Nazi parlance, the main reason behind the widespread circulation of this expression within the party itself is to be found in the reactivation of preexisting networks (those of the New Right and of the Identity movement) that largely penetrate party structures, in a context of intra-party struggles about the definition of the “AfD” brand. The circulation of the “great replacement” reference within the party is indeed tightly linked with an attempt to transform it into an identitarian, movement-based force, against the background of a twofold fight: a fight related to the definition of the party's borders vis-à-vis its external environment, and a fight about the definition of speech norms within the organization, especially in relation to Nazi parlance.

The career of “security” in the socialist milieu (1993-2012). Sociology of a partisan conversion
This article analyzes socialists' conversion to “security” since the mid-1990s, which has long remained a typical issue of the right and the far right-wings. Using the concept of career applied to political ideas, the study has two main aims. First, by exploring the discursive, textual, and organizational forms of this conversion's objectification, it analyzes the conditions that make this poaching in opposing lands possible. Second, by following a process-based approach of socialist appropriations of “security,” it measures their very erratic aspect. Shaped by contradictory logics, party conversion is thus far from existing in the form of a linear sequence (doctrinal appropriation, programmatic elaboration, electoral mobilization, and jurisdictional implementation). The institutionalization of “security” depends on whether the value of this issue can or cannot be monetized on differentiated political markets. The study draws upon public and private archives, a corpus of articles, and a number of field interviews with the actors most directly involved in this conversion's dynamic.

Activists locked in their role? Young protesters in the face of repression in Belarus
Using the example of youth protest activism in Belarus, this article analyzes the diversity of the effects of repression on youth collective action. By focusing in particular on the lived experience of risk situations by the young activists and on their first confrontation with repression – soutki, i.e., short-term sentences – as well as on the imprints that these experiences leave on their social and militant trajectories, it highlights the mechanisms behind the socialization to the repression, which takes place gradually during their activism. The article also shows that while repression reinforces young activists' determination to challenge the authorities and strengthens their collectives, in the long run it locks them into a social and political marginality from which it is difficult to escape. In this respect, exile offers them a way out of this repressive universe, along with the possibility to continue their fight for the promotion of democracy in Belarus from abroad.

“You will find a way to be a leader”. Coopérative training and workers' resistance in a factory taken over by its employeesCooperative and Participative Companies (sociétés coopératives et participatives, SCOP) have been the subject of renewed interest since the mid-2000s in France. This old model has made a reappearance in particular thanks to certain wage battles whose ultimate aim is for the workers to take over the company. This craze has been made possible by the semi-generalized misunderstanding of SCOP, including among employees engaged in recovering their working tools. Using an investigation within a factory taken over by its employees in metropolitan France, this article aims to examine the way in which the employees are educated about the democracy of the company by the main cooperative organization of France, the Confédération générale des SCOP. The investigation shows that this organization's work of support does not attempt to propose tools that will allow for better power distribution in the company, but instead trains a new class of virtuous bosses. This ambition is nevertheless hindered by highly unionized employees who refuse to reproduce the scheme that existed before the takeover. But in the absence of innovative models, they tend to “unionize” their cooperative practices, ultimately deviating little from a traditional hierarchical model.