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What has become of the Russian state twenty years after the collapse of Communism? Why have the rulers and the ruled turned away from democratic institutions and the rule of law? What explains the Putin regime’s often uncooperative policies towards Europe and its difficult relations with the rest of the world? These are among the key issues discussed in this essential book on contemporary Russia by Marie Mendras, France’s leading scholar on the subject.
Mendras provides an original and incisive analysis of Russia’s political system since Gorbachev’s perestroika. Contrary to conventional thinking, she contends that today the Russian state is weak and ineffective. Vladimir Putin has dismantled and undermined most public institutions, and has consolidated a patronage system of rule. The Medvedev presidency is but one chapter in the story. More information
‘A brilliantly textured portrait and fiercely argued exposé of the troubled and troubling political condition of Putin’s Russia. Paradoxically, as Mendras lucidly explains, the Russian state abuses its citizens precisely because it is too weak to control itself. … the most stimulating work yet published on the origins and evolution of post-communist Russian politics.’ — Stephen Holmes, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Marie Mendras is a political scientist in the field of Russian and post-Soviet studies. She is a research fellow with the CNRS and CERI, and a professor at Sciences Po University’s School of International Affairs in Paris.
She is on the editorial board of journals Esprit (Paris) and Pro et Contra (Moscow) and is a member of the EU-Russia Centre in Brussels.
PARIS – For better or worse, Europe is now engaged in an insurrection against the fiscal pact condemning European Union member countries to austerity without growth. Will it take a military coup to acknowledge that the situation is untenable? Or will the election of François Hollande as French President shift Germany’s uncompromising stance?
The prospect of reducing public deficits to less than 3% of GDP is unrealistic in both the Netherlands and Spain. Unless it is ready to take punitive measures now, the EU will have to give these countries additional leeway – mindful that the European public tends to respond negatively every time it is consulted. In Greece, the recent election has not yielded a majority coalition capable of taking ownership of the austerity plan, making yet another popular vote likely.
American Economic Sociologist is expert on social, economic and technological change.
Sciences Po's Master of Public Affairs (MPA) programme has a new director as of June 1st: Sean Safford, an award-winning economic sociologist who moved to Paris from the University of Chicago. He replaces Erhard Friedberg who is retiring after a highly distinguished academic career.
The MPA is a prestigious two-year post-graduate programme aimed at professionals with several years of working experience. The programme was created in 2005 in partnership with Columbia University and the London School of Economics. Students focus on developing the skills needed to develop and implement effective policies, providing them, in the process, with crucial tools for careers in a rapidly-changing international environment. The programme currently enrolls 92 students including 26 who will receive a dual degree with one of the partner universities. Students come from 36 countries, of which 14 percent hail from Africa, 33 percent from Asia, 15 percent from Latin America and 20 percent from North America.
Safford's vision for the programme has two dimensions. Substantively, the MPA curriculum will change to reflect the rapidly changing contexts in which policies are made. "The strength of the MPA is that it was built on a strong multi-disciplinary intellectual foundation," Safford said. "But we need to be sensitive to the mix of tools students are getting out of their time here. We are looking at the curriculum to make sure it reflects the kinds of skills and areas of knowledge that students need to launch successful careers."
Safford also sees a need to reassert the MPA's role as an educational innovator within Sciences Po. "When it was created, the MPA was a radical departure. It was the first programme at Sciences Po taught entirely in English and it recruited experienced students from a wide range of counties. It set the example for several master's degree programmes that have been established since then," Safford said. "We will build on this history of innovation toward ensuring Sciences Po's place among first rank of social sciences universities in the world."
Safford, 39, joined Sciences Po and the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations last year. He was previously an Assistant Professor of Organizations and Strategy at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, and a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also served as a visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
His research on social, economic and technological change, particularly in mature industrial economies, has been influential in policy circles in the United States and in Europe. He was a lead researcher with the MIT Local Innovation Systems Project which examined the role of universities in economic development in the US and several countries around the world. His research has influenced a variety of policy-makers in the United States as well as scholars at the Brookings Institution and the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.
Safford earned a Bachelor's degree in labor economics from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1994. In 2004, he received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. His dissertation, "Why the Garden Club Couldn't Save Youngstown: Social Capital and the Transformation of the Rust Belt," won the Sage-Louis Pondy Prize for best paper from a dissertation by the Academy of Management's Organization and Management Theory Section as well as Best Paper from a Dissertation from the Economic Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. It was published by Harvard University Press in 2009.
France’s newly elected president was both a student and an economics professor at Sciences Po.
With his victory in the presidential elections on May 6, François Hollande became the third Sciences Po graduate in three decades to hold France’s highest office. He graduated from Sciences Po in 1974 and, after completing his education at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), Hollande subsequently launched his political career in the administration of François Mitterrand, who was elected president in 1981.
Mitterrand himself was a Sciences Po graduate, back in 1937 when the school was known as the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques. His successor as president, Jacques Chirac, likewise is a Sciences Po alumnus who graduated in 1954.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the outgoing president, attended Sciences Po from 1979 to 1981, but unlike his predecessors and his successor, he didn’t graduate. A semi-official biography by Catherine Nay, Un pouvoir nommé désir (Grasset 2007), explains that he dropped out after flunking his English classes. Still, his presence at the institution means that the last four French presidents in a row, and five of the seven presidents of the Vth Republic, have received at least a part of their education at 27 rue St Guillaume. The fifth was Georges Pompidou, who also graduated from the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1934.
That track record is a highly visible reminder of the role Sciences Po has long played in French public life. The “royal road” to a top position in government in France, either as a politician or as a civil servant, has for decades led through Sciences Po and ENA, with some of the brightest students of the former going on to the latter. The two institutions were for a long time physically separated only by a garden and a wall. The garden is still there, but the wall has gone, and Sciences Po now occupies the building that was once home to ENA, 56 rue des St-Pères.
A large majority of Sciences Po graduates today go on to careers in the private sector, but the attachment to public life continues: every year a substantial number of the students who are successful in the competition to be admitted to ENA receive their preparation at Sciences Po. Many other graduates go on to positions in international organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund.
Hollande’s attachment to Sciences Po goes deeper than his student days. Starting in 1988, the year he was elected a member of the French parliament, the Assemblée Nationale, he started co-teaching some economics classes. That’s not unusual: more than 3000 professionals today still take time off from their daily schedules to teach one or two classes at Sciences Po, providing students with the academic underpinnings of their disciplines but also highly valuable insights from their practical experience. Hollande’s fellow teacher for these economics classes was Pierre Moscovici. Although they went separate ways, the two men have worked closely together again this year: Moscovici managed Holland’s successful presidential election campaign. Perhaps it goes without saying that Moscovici, too, is a Sciences Po alumnus.
The European Research Council has awarded an ERC Advanced Grant to Paul-André Rosental for his research project « SILICOSIS - From Silicosis to Chronic Respiratory diseases: An approach via Epidemiological History (in France, Europe, Southern Africa, from the 1900s until today) ».
ERC Advanced Grants allow exceptional established research leaders of any nationality and any age to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk projects that open new directions in their respective research fields or other domains.
This project deals with silicosis, a pathology caused by the inhalation of crystalline silica dust and the deadly occupational disease in history. Contrary to what some may think, it does not belong to a remote past as it struck massively in the 20th century and is still present in industrial societies, and is growing in emerging countries.
The SILICOSIS project seeks to re-evaluate the epidemiological importance of silicosis by combining history, social science and public health. Indeed, its medical definition was literally, and minimally, bargained in the 1930s by employers and unions and States under the aegis of International Labour Organization. This truncated basis has continued to have its effects and led to a massive underreporting of the cases of silicosis, many of which were declared as tuberculosis. In this view, SILICOSIS will aim, first, at a rereading of the 20th century epidemiology of silicosis and tuberculosis from a transnational perspective by comparing European and Southern African mining fields, two regions particularly hit. It will also aim at analysing the real magnitude of silicosis today, mainly in the non mining sector, by questioning contemporary medical classifications.
By combining history and social science with scientific knowledge drawn from pneumology, SILICOSIS will show to what extent a series of other chronic inflammatory diseases (sarcoidosis, rheumatoid arthritis and some others) is likely to be caused, at least in part, by the inhalation of silica dust. Last but not least, SILICOSIS hopes to contribute to a better prevention and awareness of dangers of inhalation of silica dust outside the mining sector, as for instance in the building industry or founderies.
In order to fulfil these objectives, SILICOSIS will propose an innovative approach through the combined methods of history, medicine and quantitative social science on the basis of the most advanced techniques of lung tissues analysis, an approach that will be repeatable on other occupational and environmental diseases.
Paul-André Rosental is an historian, Professor at Sciences Po, researcher at the Centre d’études européennes and Centre d’histoire and associate researcher at INED. He runs the Esopp team which has a joint Sciences Po & EHESS research seminar.
Together with Paul-André Rosental, the SILICOSIS research team is composed of a sociologist, a pneumologist, a post-doctoral researcher and a scientific assistant.
The Sciences Po Department of History invites applications for a position of Full Professor (Professeur des Universités - public sector employment) of North American History - Candidates should notify their interest before May 25, 2012 - See the job description.
Sciences Po’s Paris French Summer Programme is an intensive programme aimed at international exchange students and degree-seeking students attending Sciences Po from September 2012 onwards, who want to improve their French and their ability to talk about Social Sciences in French prior to the begining of their studies at Sciences Po.
By a decree of the President of the Republic dated 6 March 2012, eleven Sciences Po researchers have been named as associates of the Economic, social and Environmental Council for a period of two years, where they will contribute to the work of the respective sections to which they are attached:
- Health and Social Affairs section: Olivier Borraz and Bruno Palier
- Labour and Employment Section: Gilles Kepel, Françoise Milewski and Etienne Wasmer
- Economics and Finance section: Yann Algan - European and International Affairs section: Richard Balme
- Agriculture, Fishing and Alimentation section: Christian Lequesne - Environment section: Daniel Boy
- Education, Culture and Communication section: Agnès Van Zanten
- Economic Activity section: Denis Segrestin
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