Books & ideas

Harrison White, the Pioneer of Network Analysis

Alain Degenne & Frédéric Godart & Michel Grossetti — 2025-03-18T08:30:00Z

The American sociologist Harrison White made a vital contribution to the development of social network analysis. Besides his work in this field, his theoretical synthesis and his understanding of social formations have influenced a variety of fields such as the sociology of art and economic sociology.

Michel Crozier: Constraint and Freedom

Christine Musselin — 2024-11-12T09:30:00Z

Michel Crozier's work was shaped by the conviction that organizational phenomena create society. He helped pioneer the tools for analyzing groups established to carry out a common project according to a specific system of action and rules of the game.

Jane Mansbridge, Political Science between Facts and Norms

Samuel Hayat & Julien Talpin & Audric Vitiello — 2023-11-28T10:00:00Z

Jane Mansbridge has made a major contribution to political theory. She has spent her life combining empirical research with a theoretical approach, and has played a vital role in developing the critique of rational choice and the study of democracy as a permanent process continually in flux.

Richard Rorty the Multi-Pragmatist

Stéphane Madelrieux — 2023-01-04T08:22:12Z

Rorty made conversation a philosophical genre in its own right, which led him to reject any distinctions he considered futile: between analytic and continental philosophy, between the Enlightenment and postmodernity, between philosophy and literature.

Françoise d'Eaubonne's Ecofeminism

Iris Derzelle — 2021-03-22T08:00:00Z

Rediscovering an activist thinker who was at the origins of eco-feminism, but remains unknown. Her work inspired an extremely heterogeneous movement, but has her ambition to concretely transform the social, economic and political organisation of society been pursued?

Mary Douglas, A Taste for Hierarchy

François Buton & Eric Soriano — 2018-07-09T07:00:00Z

Though poorly known in France, the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas is nonetheless essential for understanding the elementary forms of social organization and daily life. By shedding light on her academic career and personal life, this portrait rehabilitates the thought of a major intellectual.

Ronald Coase: A Century of Economics

Élodie Bertrand — 2018-03-08T08:00:00Z

Ronald Coase (1910-2013), the 1991 Nobel Laureate in Economics, is famous for his oft-quoted and just as often misunderstood “theorem.” His seminal works on transaction costs, property rights, and regulation continue to stimulate a rich reflection in economics and beyond.

Miguel Abensour: Emancipation through Utopia

Nicolas Poirier — 2018-02-08T08:00:00Z

Miguel Abensour profoundly renewed thinking about democracy. His political philosophy paid close attention to the desire for emancipation and was based on an original conception of utopia breaking with the mythology of the ‘ideal city' or of a ‘good society'.

Michel Chevalier: Visionary of Modern Europe?

Michael Drolet — 2018-01-29T08:00:00Z

Leading 19^th century statesman, political economist, architect of the 1860 commercial treaty between France and the United Kingdom, and campaigner for peace between European nations, Michel Chevalier had also been a dominant voice in the Romantic socialism of Saint-Simonianism: the eclectic nature of his thought would lend itself to a particular vision of Europe, forerunner of today's European Union.

Françoise Héritier's Activist Structuralism

Salvatore D'Onofrio — 2017-11-20T08:00:00Z

By asserting that structuralism is a fruitful approach to kinship relations or the difference between the sexes, Françoise Héritier radically renewed anthropological methodology. Her life's work has also shown us that scientific commitment goes hand-in-hand with societal involvement.