Books & ideas

The people who count

Marion Pollaert — 2026-05-19T13:22:12Z

What is the nature of the distinctive rationality that underpins Cleisthenes' reform, which many see as the birth of Greek democracy? What social mechanisms, civic experiences, and forms of vernacular knowledge made this new system of political organization possible?

Life and Survival in Wuhan

Simeng Wang — 2020-12-28T08:00:00Z

This article presents a portrait of the city of Wuhan, which has been at the center of the news since the appearance of Covid-19, and discusses the experience of lockdown as recounted by its ordinary inhabitants, mixing suffering, despair, indignation and spirit of solidarity.

The Kurdish Internationale

Massoud Sharifi Dryaz — 2018-06-14T07:00:00Z

What are the PKK's historical lines of rupture and continuity from its inception to date? The sociologist Olivier Grojean provides a detailed study of the history, ideology and power plays within the Kurdish movement's main organization in Turkey and Syria.

Politicizing Europe, Europeanizing Politics

Stéphanie Hennette & Thomas Piketty & Guillaume Sacriste & Antoine Vauchez — 2017-10-05T07:00:00Z

Though they share the diagnosis of an unprecedented democratic crisis of the European project, our critics remain firmly rooted in a “communitarian” tradition that is no longer able to meet the challenges faced by the government of the euro area.

The Forgotten of the National Story

Déborah Cohen — 2017-06-15T07:00:00Z

The popular history of France told by Michelle Zancarini-Fournel is the history of often hidden individual figures and political struggles. By filling our “memory gaps,” Zancarini-Fournel also suggests another narrativity.

Inventing, Reinventing, Questioning Democracy

Mélanie Cournil — 2016-07-25T06:00:00Z

How can we define democracy today? What role does or should the people play in the democratic process ? Through its summer selection, Books&Ideas offers to rediscover a group of four interviews and reviews, published in 2015 and 2016, which have tackled these questions through the prism of history, philosophy and political sciences.

Election in the Ancien Régime

Yves Sintomer — 2016-02-29T08:00:00Z

The history of the vote reveals that election was not born with modern representative government, but that elections were held in the Middle Ages. It also reveals that designation by election is not the end of history in our democracies but that other methods may be considered.

Civic Hacking and our Political Future

Émilie Frenkiel — 2016-02-25T08:00:00Z

Can fresh air come from young democracies like Taiwan and civic-minded hacktivists like Audrey Tang? This interview shows that both help renew democratic practices in providing sophisticated collaborative, participatory and deliberative tools.

Democracy and “the People”

Norbert Lenoir — 2015-07-08T22:00:00Z

Democracy is not the government of the people, by the people. Rather, it is a permanent process of conquering new rights. This is the argument of Catherine Colliot-Thélène's book, which examines the tension, found throughout democracy's history, between individual emancipation and political affiliation.

Images of the People

Déborah Cohen — 2015-07-05T22:00:00Z

Representations of “the people” tend to be highly policed: they smother its inherent diversity and particularity, and typically distort it. Such is the conclusion reached, each in his own way, by Georges Didi-Huberman and Jacques Rancière. This is also the reason why, they argue, one must pay attention to images which demonstrate the people's singularity and power.