Contenu du sommaire

This article seeks to describe the political shift towards increasingly intransigent views on social and employment issues, and, more precisely, the promotion of surveillance and stricter control of welfare recipients. It is based on the analysis of parliamentary questions posed in the French National Assembly from 1986 to 2017 (n = 1 108). At the beginning of the period studied, questions about welfare fraud were rare – in fact, almost non-existent – as were suggestions to increase the monitoring of recipients. Over the years, however, these issues gained in prominence, ultimately becoming a key element of political debate. This evolution revealed a gradual hardening of positions, particularly with regard to the most precarious segments of society, and a concomitant weakening of any discourse that might be critical of such trends. In conclusion, we examine how the widespread dissemination of this issue in political debates went hand-in-hand with increased and stricter control over welfare recipients.

The 2017 legislative elections brought an unprecedented breath of fresh air into the Fifth Republic, marking the arrival of many new faces in politics. How did these newly elected officials, many of whom were unusual recruits, adapt to such a highly codified space ? This question is difficult to answer, given that parliamentary activity has many facets that traditional research methods struggle to account for in a global fashion. In order to describe the diverse forms of parliamentary engagement from a relational perspective, this article introduces the concept of self-organizing maps (SOMs) to reduce dimensionality. After explaining the principles of SOMs, this article will highlight their value in analyzing the parliamentary engagement of the new crop of legislators elected in 2017. Comparing SOMs with a geometrical data analysis underscores the former's value with regard to permitting a granular analysis of parliamentary praxis. More broadly, this text will demonstrate that self-organizing maps can be a useful statistical tool, whether they are employed to reduce and visualize a large data set or to represent a social space.

The hierarchical scheme of far-right political organizations such as the Front National (FN) is usually attributed to a cult of personality or a desire for authority among its members. From a sociological perspective, this article will reflect on the socio-cultural bedrock of the FN partisan hierarchy. Based on the study of politically engaged circles in a number of different territories, this article argues that the vertical organization of the FN is made possible by a pervasive military culture within the party. The over-representation of party members with a military background implies a special relationship to authority, which in turn helps to maintain and justify the FN's hierarchical structure. One of the consequences of this military culture is that internal criticism of leadership and authority are rare, which conversely explains the repeated partisan splits and exclusions that are characteristic of this party.

Ambiguity has now become an indispensable element to understand how consensus-building mechanisms facilitate the adoption of public policies. Increasingly used in analyses of public action, the concept of « ambiguous consensus » can nevertheless lose some of its analytical value when it cuts across opposing categories (first alliances and agreements, for instance, and then oppositions and profound disagreements). If ambiguity is not reduced to the mere transcendence of partisan differences, what does it reveal about the uniqueness of partisan dynamics ? And how do « politics » contribute to the consensus-building required for policies to ultimately be adopted ? Through an analysis of how basic income programs were developed in Brazil in the 1990s, we shall argue that « consensual ambiguity » operates at three different levels : at an axiological level, at the level of partisan differences, and at the level of electoral strategies. This article will look at the complex process of implementing basic income programs in Brazil, including the famous Bolsa Família set up in 2004.

Although the practices of employees with regard to internal corporate affairs and collective bargaining have been studied independently, this article shall investigate, in the case of the French private sector, how these different practices – ranging from workplace elections to strikes – intersect and connect. It shall also uncover their determinants and recent evolution by analyzing answers to the « REPONSE » survey [Relations professionnelles et négociations d'entreprise/Employement Relations and Collective Bargaining]. The majority of employees are little mobilized in the company, while a minority is very involved in protest mobilizations in particular. These two extremes point to the existence of two mechanisms : « de facto exclusion », defined as the inability to participate given the absence of a ballot or other organized collective action, and « self-exclusion ». The former appears to be highly dependent on the internal logic of the economic field. On the contrary, self-exclusion is primarily determined by the individual characteristics of employees themselves : more precarious employees and more senior executives managers tend to have limited participation, especially during workplace elections. In addition, participation within the corporate sphere has been subject to decline since the beginning of the 2000s, even as conflict has grown within certain segments of the salaried workforce.

Proxy voting has become more widespread in recent decades. Based on the Enquête participation électorale [Study of Electoral Participation] published by INSEE in 2017, we shall argue that this alternative to direct voting strengthens electoral participation among the upper classes, and thus also perpetuates voting-based inequalities. Young adults are more likely to participate in proxy voting, even though they also form an important non-voting block. Proxy voting – at least if the 2017 elections are to be viewed as a reference point – accounts for the over-representation of executives and highly educated individuals. In fact, if proxy voting is not included, the voting rate for this group is equivalent to that of those in intermediate sociodemographic categories. Mobility and social resources intersect here : proxy voting is a means used by highly mobile voters with the most social resources, whereas a lack of mobility among lower classes often leads to abstention. Proxy voting thus makes a certain kind of « remote » electoral participation possible.