https://booksandideas.net// Books & Ideas is the English-language mirror website of La Vie des Idées, a free online journal which has gained a large readership and established itself in France as a major place for intellectual debate since 2007. en SPIP - www.spip.net https://booksandideas.net/local/cache-vignettes/L144xH68/siteon0-04014.png?1675949311 https://booksandideas.net// 68 144 https://booksandideas.net/The-value-of-school https://booksandideas.net/The-value-of-school 2026-02-26T08:30:00Z text/html en Nassim El Kabli Society liberalism schooling autonomy Cairn.info <p>School is mandatory and fully justified in being so. Educational authority in no way impairs freedom, provided it focuses on developing students' multiple capacities.</p> https://booksandideas.net/A-hard-right-turn https://booksandideas.net/A-hard-right-turn 2026-01-15T09:00:00Z text/html en Gwendal Châton Politics media liberalism left far-right politics Cairn.info right <p>Is France heading to the right, as everyone seems to think? According to Vincent Tiberj, it all depends on how this rightward turn is defined. For now, the French prefer the left's values.</p> https://booksandideas.net/The-Power-of-the-Masses https://booksandideas.net/The-Power-of-the-Masses 2025-06-24T14:44:31Z text/html en Arthur Ghins Politics liberalism race nation social classes Cairn.info <p>French liberalism, which first emerged during the Restoration, focused not only on individual rights: it also shaped the history of the mass as a subjugated political entity.</p> https://booksandideas.net/Hayek-Theorist-and-Activist https://booksandideas.net/Hayek-Theorist-and-Activist 2025-02-27T07:30:00Z text/html en Mounir Zakriti Philosophy liberalism utopia neoliberalism Cairn.info <p>Hayek always presented his reconstruction of liberalism as a utopia, based on the idea of a spontaneous, self-regulating social order, against the chimera of social justice.</p> https://booksandideas.net/The-four-paradigms-of-the-European-regulatory-state https://booksandideas.net/The-four-paradigms-of-the-European-regulatory-state 2025-02-06T08:14:00Z text/html en Samuel B.H. Faure Economy liberalism market Europe trade neoliberalism Cairn.info <p>The “Europe of the market” has dominated European social and economic policy since 1945. Yet three other models have opposed the liberal paradigm: solidarity, neomercantilism, and ultra-liberalism.</p> https://booksandideas.net/The-Liberals-Cold-War https://booksandideas.net/The-Liberals-Cold-War 2025-01-07T08:00:00Z text/html en Thomas Charrayre Philosophy liberalism conservatism neoliberalism <p>Cold War liberalism is hardly discussed in France, even though its theoretical importance should not be overlooked: its attacks on the welfare state have notably fostered neoconservatism.</p> https://booksandideas.net/John-Stuart-Mill-Between-elitism-and-democracy https://booksandideas.net/John-Stuart-Mill-Between-elitism-and-democracy 2024-10-01T13:49:58Z text/html en Ludmilla Lorrain Philosophy liberalism utopia Cairn.info <p>In a book that is part history of ideas, part political essay, Camille Dejardin argues that John Stuart Mill's oeuvre is useful for understanding contemporary issues, notably the ecological crisis and related economic change. Yet she does so while advancing some half-truths.</p> https://booksandideas.net/Spitz-La-Republique https://booksandideas.net/Spitz-La-Republique 2024-03-07T09:30:00Z text/html en Alain Policar Philosophy liberalism freedom republic equality Cairn.info <p>According to Jean-Fabien Spitz, republicanism's foundational ideals have been betrayed by the very people who purport to defend them against liberalism. An overemphasis on questions of identity makes it possible to forget that the republic was, from the outset, a principle of social justice.</p> https://booksandideas.net/The-Enduring-Mammoth https://booksandideas.net/The-Enduring-Mammoth 2023-12-12T06:30:00Z text/html en Jean Le Bihan Society liberalism public services civil servants <p>Cutting the number of civil servants is a topic that is raised at each election in France. Why this anti-civil service attitude, despite public services themselves being constantly praised? Why this hostility, even though as soon as electoral campaigns are over, it is usually left without any practical consequences?</p> https://booksandideas.net/Liberal-Democratic-Killing https://booksandideas.net/Liberal-Democratic-Killing 2022-01-05T08:26:00Z text/html en Emil Archambault Politics democracy liberalism state state-crime war <p>Targeted assassination campaigns seem increasingly well established as a newly prevalent way of war. Through a comparison between the United States and Israel's practices of assassination, Amélie Férey analyses the discourses which legitimise this practice despite its apparent incompatibility with political liberalism.</p>