The review of magazines. To what extent are my cultural tastes, my professional choices or my political orientation determined by the environment in which I operate? At the beginning of the 1970s, Pierre Bourdieu renewed this debate – as old as sociology – by proposing the concept of “field”, which explains the action of individuals by their belonging to a specific environment, which they participate in transforming in return. The field is an autonomous social sphere, governed by its own rules and value systems, and structured by power relations. The September 2024 issue of the journal Proceedings of social science research (co-edition Seuil-Ehess), faithful to its founder, explores how the study of international relations has recently taken up this notion of “field”, and contributes to enrich it in return.
It was not until the 1990s that American academia applied this Bourdieusian concept to international objects. Talk about field “leads to apprehending agents (including individuals or States) and their practices (…) in relational terms”, explains sociologist Julien Go, and therefore brings complexity to the analysis.
Didier Georgakakis, professor of political science, recalls in an interview how the concept of “field of Eurocracy” made it possible to move away from an institutional approach of the European Union. THE “European compromise” is in reality the fruit of internal battles and effects of domination, he notes. Likewise, the French military intervention in Mali benefits from being understood under the prism of the international field, which emphasizes the power relations in French politics, the contingencies of history and the importance of relations with other States, demonstrates Florent Pouponneau.
Multiplication of power relations
After the contribution of the sociology of the field to the study of international relations, Florent Pouponneau and Karim Fertikh, coordinators of this issue, wish “study what the analysis of so-called “international” phenomena does, in a sort of “boomerang effect”, to the concepts or practices of sociologists”. In an article on European interest groups – lobbies –, Hélène Michel, professor of political science, invites French sociology to adopt a “European reflex” to take another look at well-known sociological objects. There “democratization”for example, translates within the EU into a requirement for transparency and citizen participation – through “major debates” – more than through representative institutions like the European Parliament.
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