Books & ideas

What is a Public Health Problem?

Frédéric Orobon — 2020-01-30T08:00:00Z

Initially designed to protect the population, public health systems can lead to demands being made for personal rights. This process is illustrated by an unexpected comparison between the legalisation of abortion and the provision of drug consumption rooms.

Nancy Fraser and the Theory of Participatory Parity

Estelle Ferrarese — 2015-09-14T06:00:00Z

According to Nancy Fraser, the renewal of socialism requires a conflation of activism and political theory; indeed, emancipation can only exist on the basis of equal participation in all spheres of life, and can only be understood in terms of social struggles, which today appear in multiple forms.

Ronald Dworkin: Law as Novel Writing

Julie Allard — 2015-02-05T06:30:00Z

Ronald Dworkin's innovative and politically ambitious work has become essential reading in political and legal theory. Taking issue with classical political liberalism, he argues that liberty and equality are not mutually exclusive, and are indeed inseparable. And against traditional interpretations of law, he argues that law must be understood by comparing it to a collective novel, a mixture of creativity and interpretation.

Joan W. Scott's Critical History of Inequality

Clyde Plumauzille — 2014-12-22T08:00:00Z

For more than thirty years, Joan Scott has been informing and transforming both our history and the way we write history, while encouraging us to question categories and change our modes of thinking. From class struggle to sex differentiation, sexual emancipation and race, she proposes a critical analysis of Republican rhetoric to undermine naturalized forms of inequality.

Max Weber and Capitalism's Strange Rationality

Isabelle Kalinowski — 2014-11-17T09:12:32Z

Was Max Weber a champion of modern capitalism and the triumph of Western rationality? Two recent books reply with a resounding “no,” as they seek to correct, on very different grounds, exaggerated interpretations of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

From Public Charity to Putting the Poor to Work

Jacques Rodriguez — 2014-10-02T08:00:00Z

The Speenhamland system, the early 19^th-century precursor of guaranteed minimum income wage, still fuels the debate over social protection. This article takes a look back at a controversial episode in British social history.

To Be A World Citizen: Political Horizon or Abyss?

Michaël Foessel — 2014-09-11T08:00:00Z

The world is no longer a vague, indeterminate idea: our lives are so globalized that it is now a reality. Does cosmopolitanism have a future under such conditions? Michaël Fœssel explains the origin and meaning of this utopia, highlighting its transformations and reaffirming its political relevance.

Are Novels Part of Our DNA?

Alvaro Santana Acuña — 2014-05-29T07:30:00Z

What turns a literary work into a classic? Something critical is “lived experience,” that is, people read the literary work to make sense of current events. The fact that Orwell's 1984 is selling hundreds of copies after Trump's inauguration is telling as Alvaro Santana-Acuña explained in his analysis of One Hundred Years of Solitude and current affairs such as the BP oil spill in 2010. [updated introduction following Donald Trump's election to the White House]

Drug Legalization? A French Perspective

Renaud Colson — 2013-10-07T08:00:00Z

It could be time, in France, to re-open the debate on drug legalization. Criminalization of drug use and distribution has shown its limits, and unlike other countries nothing has really been done to provide a legal framework to drug use.

Human Rights and Politics

Justine Lacroix — 2012-10-24T12:18:36Z

Are human rights a cornerstone of democracy, or a threat to social ties? Are they a precondition for the existence of a public space, or a triumph of individualism? Political thinkers have debated these questions during the last three decades. In this essay, Justine Lacroix explains the issues and the current situation.