Books & ideas

A religion without institutions?

Kheloudja Amer — 2024-06-27T07:00:00Z

Pentecostalism, a rapidly growing movement, is a paradoxical religion: it denies its status as a church, leaving individuals in a one-to-one relationship with God, yet in a way that allows dominated groups to acquire a degree of social legitimacy.

American Democracy and the Challenge of Identity Pluralism

Jules Naudet — 2022-10-14T07:00:00Z

Hakeem Jefferson argues that the United States is experiencing a democratic backsliding. He calls for deep institutional reforms that aim at better reflecting the American public, such as expanding the number of judges in the Supreme Court or having a US Senate apportionment based on state population.

The Social Sources of Institutions

Dimitri della Faille — 2020-02-17T08:00:00Z

Critical of capitalism and nationalism, the work of Thorstein Veblen focuses mainly on the analysis of institutions: their strengths, their weaknesses, and the way they manage to stabilize and build up in spite of their failures.

Waiting for Europe

Laurent Warlouzet — 2017-10-02T07:00:00Z

The treaty proposed by Piketty et al. makes it possible to overcome the sterile opposition between sovereignists and federalists. Yet, rather than democratizing Europe, the creation of a new assembly risks increasing the prevailing institutional confusion.

Europe without Government

Shahin Vallée — 2017-09-28T07:00:00Z

The proposal by a group of academics to institute a parliament of the euro area has garnered considerable attention. However, according to S. Vallée, this institutional reform would hinder the development of a transnational European democracy. What follows is the first part of a debate between the authors and their critics.

An Obsolete Separation of Powers?

Juliette Roussin — 2017-07-13T07:00:00Z

Is the Supreme Court democratic? No, replies Jeremy Waldron, who considers that the judicial branch should not substitute itself for citizens to determine their rights. But is his view of the separation of powers still valid today?

British Islam's Creativity

James Beckford — 2016-10-06T07:00:00Z

Through a rich ethnography of three shariʽa councils, American anthropologist John Bowen shows convincingly that in the UK, the real debate about Islam is not between non-Muslims and Muslims, but among Muslims themselves.

The Sedimentation of Empire

Herman Lebovics — 2015-10-08T08:20:49Z

Responding to the wave of decolonizations, the Directorate General for Development and Cooperation (DG8) was created in 1963. Supporting the imperial continuity argument, Véronique Dimier's book offers a deeply researched study on the evolutions of this European overseas aid and development organization up to this day.

The Empirical Sociology of Critique

Nicolas Duvoux — 2012-02-14T20:33:08Z

Sociologist Luc Boltanski situates his most recent publications and their main concepts within his broader intellectual trajectory, examining critical sociology and the sociology of critique, and what they can tell us about today's social situation.

Reforming the French Police

Ivan Jablonka & Pauline Peretz — 2012-02-03T07:43:00Z

In their discussion of crime and the best ways to curb it, French politicians have relied on a crude opposition between “the culture of results” and neighborhood policing, a doctrine whose American origins they seem to ignore: for sociologist Fabien Jobard, more than creating a new force, reforming the police implies better coordinating between central and local authorities.