Powers: knowledge, actors, arbitration" theme
Axis presentation
The "Powers: knowledge, actors, arbitration" axis aims to organize interdisciplinary thinking by welcoming the work of researchers in history, geography, economics, law, political science, sociology, history of ideas.
Common research focuses on "Powers". The word "Powers" is conceived here as a factor common to the other terms declined in this axis: knowledge as powers; actors of power; decision-making in power instances (arbitrations).
Research topics
The research and projects carried out within this axis take three main directions :
1. Knowledge as power / epistemology
The work focuses on the birth of academic disciplines in their social, scientific and political context; on the relations between scientific research and powers; on the transfer and circulation of knowledge and know-how around the world. A reflection on knowledge as "strategic knowledge" is carried out within this framework.
2. Power players / behavior analysis
The work consists first and foremost in comparing different methods of apprehending and analyzing human behavior in the most diverse fields (economic, social, etc.) and at different scales. Actors can also be considered as "actors of power", giving rise, for example, to work on elites and their interrelationships (politicians, senior civil servants, economic elites, civil society, intellectuals, artists, etc.); on the role of religious minorities in the consolidation of power; on local and regional powers; on governmental power; on diplomatic actors and the place of their bodies (real, imagined, represented)... Work focuses on the concept of gender, considering the place, role, methods and relationships of men and women as actors and actresses of power, as well as the masculine and feminine aspects of the exercise of power in representations.
.The question of representations as an instrument of social and cultural power in Western societies since antiquity may also be considered.
3. Decision-making in decision-making bodies / governance
Decision-making in places of power is examined from different angles: who decides? how has governance evolved in Western history? How is decision-making carried out in a democratic system, a monarchical system, etc., within the company (what about the power of shareholders, for example?) in a decentralized system.
.How do interest groups influence decision-making by institutional powers? This area could include studies of economic theories (e.g., the prescriptive power of the mainstream); sociological theories (is sociology in crisis?); the relationship between political power and economists, and so on. The following themes can be tackled: the circulation of science in an intra- and intercultural context; power, science and ethics; the crisis of expertise in contemporary democratic societies; administrative stacking... The question of the circulation of students and researchers, and its impact on educational and research systems in the 19th-20th centuries is a cross-cutting theme.
Based on its general theme, this axis collects the laboratory's publications oriented wholly or in part on the history of ideas and theories, philosophical and ethical reflections (relating in particular to governmental ethics and medical ethics). It integrates epistemological reflections. The common questioning concerns the "truth equation" specific to each discipline. For each discipline, it's a matter of questioning the adequacy of the internal logic specific to its discipline with the segment of reality it has to deal with.
