Fields of Research

Field: 3 - The State and the transformation of the State

Lead by: Elise Massicard and Hélène Thiollet

Primary members: Fariba Adelkhah, François Bafoil, Stéphanie Balme, Romain Bertand, Béatrice Hibou, Christophe Jaffrelot, Eberhard Kienle, Laurence Louër, Roland Marchal, Luis Martinez, Elise Massicard, Marie Mendras, Françoise Mengin, Nadège Ragaru, Jean-Louis Rocca, Jérôme Sgard, Hélène Thiollet, Eric Verdeil, Catherine Wihtol de Wenden

Secondary members: Adam Baczko, Bayram Balci, Antonela Capelle-Pogacean, Guillaume Devin, Gilles Favarel-Garrigues, Laurent Fourchard, Christian Lequesne, Catherine Perron

This research topic focuses on the state, its historicity, its modes of action and its insertion into the global, through projects mixing a historical sociology of the political, the trajectories of capitalism, the formation of the state, public policies and the way public and private actors mingle in the regulations of the social world. This Field is an extension of the historical sociology perspective on the State and public action that has traditionally been developed at CERI. Current research in this Field deals with the recompositions of the state and more generally the forms of political regulation in a globalized world, as well as their circulation. Research who fall under this Field are also interested in the transformation of how public policies are produced and in their actors, in particular in how micro-local and global scales “articulate”, and in the analysis of authoritarian situations. Even if political science, political sociology, comparative politics are the main disciplinary perspectives adopted in this Field, there is an open dialogue with other disciplines of the social sciences, such as history and sociology. The various case studies contribute to a critical, empirically based and historical sociology of the contemporary global governance.

The three main themes of interest in Field 3, The state and the transformation of the state are:

• Theoretical debates on the state and globalization through so-called peripheral cases
• Studying global politics: Circulations and levels of regulation
• Tools and methods: The state and the global top-down and bottom-up. Empirical questions, scales and levels, and historicity