Contenu du sommaire : RFSP (1951‐2021) : 70 ans de science politique

Raymond Aron was an pioneer in the study of international relations, but his value has yet to be fully recognized given his sparse reception in the field. This article will look at the reasons for this paradox. Often grouped under the umbrella of American political realism, Aron stands out through his focus on ideological factors and on the variable of the political regime. While helping to disseminate the ideas of others, he also elaborated his own well-defined theory, whose scope was situated somewhere between the humanities and the social sciences. Aron is finally being rediscovered amidst the contemporary desire to go beyond traditional paradigms. Reading Aron invites us to step outside the confines of political science, both in relation to the present (in order to transform history into an asset) and in relation to the imperatives of political action (in order to adopt the reflexive perspective of political theory).

Rereading Isaiah Berlin's 1961 article in the Revue française de science politique on the issue of political science forces us to revisit a number of questions in light of the discipline's historical developments in France. When examining the distinctions between political theory and political science on the one hand, and between political theory and political philosophy on the other, different issues are at stake : the connection between empirical observation, logical analysis, and conceptual history ; the tension between the rational and the reasonable ; and the practice of social reflexivity that lies at the intersection of historical processes, normative choices, and the values inherent to various lifestyles.

This article looks at Daniel Gaxie's contribution to the sociology of political parties and activism : his article titled “Économie des partis et rétributions du militantisme“ in the Revue française de science politique, 27 (1), February 1977, p. 123-154. It will focus on the professional dimension of the rewards offered by parties. By drawing on French and international research, this article will provide empirical data to confirm the central role played by the distribution of political positions, with a view to understanding the economics of contemporary political parties. This analysis prompts us to investigate the partially blurred distinction between professionals, activists, and staff, as well as how the distribution of positions is influenced by the electoral cycles that are inherent to political parties.

This reasoned overview of French electoral sociology begins by highlighting the primary mechanisms that have been used over the course of the last fifty years to account for electoral behavior, while also showing how competing models and new methodological opportunities have been developed in adaptation to the national context. Second, it evidences how recent changes in the French party system have resulted in an unprecedented challenge to the dominant electoral models. Third, it discusses several theoretical and institutional hindrances that French electoral sociology will face in the near future.

This article examines how the article penned by Pierre Muller, “Les approches cognitives des politiques publiques“ (Revue française de science politique, 50 (2), April 2000, p. 189-208), has been at the forefront of the struggle to establish public policy analysis as an essential subfield of political science. We shall look at the major issues of the socio-political order, on the one hand, and of the autonomy of public policy, on the other, that underpin his research problematic centered around the idea of the référentiel, or cognitive and normative macro frame of reference. We shall also revisit certain dimensions of this analysis, including how it differs from other competing theories, and provide an overview of the debate about the référentiel which, unlike some other ideas spearheaded by Muller, has largely lost its central position in the political sociology of public policy. The paper shows how rescaling processes and the multiplications of actors and policies have made less relevant the search for a macro cognitive and normative framework within a national settings. This has led to the development of approaches in terms of discourses, ideas argumentations, more limited and situations. However, the climate crisis might bring back the question of the “global“.

This article examines the seminal post-scriptum penned by Olivier Fillieule regarding militant careers in a 2001 issue of the Revue française de science politique. It explores what made this text possible, its contribution to the field, the controversies it provoked, and its intellectual legacy, in turn proposing a complementary program designed from the perspective of the sociology of public action and the State. In breaking down disciplinary silos, this article investigates State and institutional dimensions of political (dis)engagement. Two possibilities are suggested : on the one hand, integrating the economics of relations to the State (the plural socialization to the State of individuals) into the dynamic analysis of political investment, and on the other hand, taking a serious look at the relational hypothesis that explains how the State can shape situations of (de)mobilization (the contribution of public institutions to the constitution of situations) through public action.

This article seeks to contribute to the social history of political science by conducting a critical study of the Revue française de science politique (RSFP). Through this targeted analysis, the article will attempt to illustrate what can be gained by investigating the history of an academic journal with regard to understanding the genesis of a scientific discipline, as well as how the evolution of this discipline has in turn influenced the journal. In addition to the content published (a valuable subject from the perspective of intellectual history), we shall also look at the actors who shaped the journal – and thus, the budding discipline – and their editorial choices (what we shall call the journal's “paratext”). Far from revealing the rapid construction of French political science, the first two decades of the RFSP (1951-1970) illustrate the pragmatism of its founders and their desire to endow the discipline with sound methodological tools and (especially bibliographic) references. This pragmatism would come to justify some of the journal's later developments, including some of the hesitations and piecemeal choices that are often associated with the elaboration of scientific knowledge.