La restructuration des PMI à Saint-Étienne après la crise : traces du passé et limites de l’intégration horizontale

Ce texte s'appuie sur une enquête menée à Saint-Étienne dans le cadre d'un projet européen comparatif sur les modes de gouvernance des économies locales prenant en compte le niveau des PMI ainsi que celui meso du territoire. L'article part d'une problématique en termes de biens et de services locaux de concurrence pour les PMI, c'est-à-dire des biens et des services qui leur permettent d'être compétitives par rapport à des groupes ou des grandes entreprises. À Saint-Étienne, des sucres lents du territoire développés pour la machine-outil, la mécanique, le travail de métaux, développement il y a deux décennies sont désormais des ressources significatives pour les PMI. La dynamique observée dans un petit nombre de secteurs peut conduire à une spécialisation accrue et une intégration horizontale plus porteuses de dynamiques de croissance, plus concurrentielles. Reste à savoir si la dynamique aperçue est davantage que le résultat de vivaces traces du passé mobilisées temporairement ou si elle est la preuve d'une dynamique collective porteuse d'une développement économique renouvelé.On the basis of a survey conducted in Saint-Étienne, France, as part of a comparative European project on “modes of governance” in local economies (which, thus, takes into account the level of small and medium-sized industry and the middle level of the territory), questions are raised about the goods and services that enable these industries to be competitive with big firms or holdings. For these industries, solutions developed two decades ago for the machine tool industry, mechanics and metal-working are still significant resources. The momentum detected in a small number of fields can lead to an increasing specialization and horizontal integration that favor a more competitive growth. How to know whether this momentum results from still (temporarily) active remnants of the past or whether it is evidence of a collective impetus that can stimulate new economic growth

Can European cities survive within a globalizing world? The coming age of megacities or the growth of globalizing European cities?

"Mega cities are the new urban forms in towns, leading a to a flow of theoretical conceptualization from the network society to the LA postmodernist urban school. European cities, with the exception of London, Paris and possibly a handful of other cases are not on average at the core of the Megacities rise. The paper critically examines the rise of megacities. It attempts to identify the ways in which some common trends and variables which gave rise elsewhere to megacities also have a serious impact of European cities, both the largest one and the medium sized. It concentrates on the issue of the making of inequalities and the cities as a social and cultural fabric. The discussion on European cities and Megacities is finally instrumental to discuss the changing pattern of inequalities within European societies." (author's abstract

States in Europe: Uncaging societies and the limits to infrastructural power

For more than a century now, states have intervened strongly to alleviate the social and economic consequences of crises in capitalism.New models of regulation, such as Keynesianism, have been invented to deal with capitalist contradictions: to socialize the huge losses booked by banks and large firms, change policy instruments,correct market failures, support regions in decline, transform labor market regulations or createnew markets whilst supporting creative destruction. Crises inspire us to think in new ways about periods and varieties of capitalism, about regulation crises and dynamics and about the role, functions and characteristics of the state. At the same time, crises are a great source of tension, pushing political debates to the extreme, sparking waves of protest, and generating political pressures or antidemocratic trends that call into question the very legitimacy of the state. [Premier paragraphe

La métropole rennaise s’est développée de manière dynamique en améliorant constamment les conditions de vie des habitants

Rennes Métropole affiche avec raison un bilan remarquable. Elle est depuis quatre décennies à l'avant-garde des transformations urbaines et des dynamiques collectives des villes françaises. Ce qui est frappant, c'est sans doute cette montée en puissance progressive mais systématique et innovante : des nouveaux projets de développement urbain, des mécanismes de solidarité budgétaire, des manières d'associer les communes de la périphérie rennaise à la dynamique métropolitaine y compris en termes de responsabilité dans l'intercommunalité, la mobilisation pour le développement économique, la gouvernance active du foncier pour les entreprises, les transports et la réflexion sur le logement à l'échelle de la métropole, puis le développement durable. Des politiques fortes qui produisent des effets à long terme. La métropole rennaise est devenue le symbole de la montée en puissance des capitales régionales françaises (...)

La question de la ville est restée pendant la campagne présidentielle

Patrick Le Galès est sociologue et politiste, directeur de recherche au CEVIPOF, le centre de recherches politiques de Sciences Po. Il dirige notamment les programmes de master « politique publique » et « Stratégies et Politiques urbaines » à Sciences Po Paris. Il travaille sur les villes européennes, les politiques publiques, et les questions de gouvernance. Voilà bien des raisons pour recueillir son analyse sur la présence, ou l’absence, des questions urbaines au cours de la campagne présidentielle. Cet entretien a été réalisé au début du mois d’avril, alors que la campagne du premier tour battait encore son plein

Public Policy Research, deconstructing the French touch

This paper, written for the Forum section of Critical Policy Studies, is a personal account of public policy analysis in France which was first presented at the 2010 Grenoble Interpretive Policy Analysis conference. It aims to complement the piece published in this journal by Philippe Zittoun in 2010. It is not fully referenced, and only reflects the author's limited understanding and knowledge of different traditions of research in the French context : In contrast with many analyses in the social sciences that invent, or reinvent, some kind of ‘French touch’, I argue that there were always many contrasting intellectual traditions that were drawn on to analyze public policy in France, that none of them was dominant, and that many of them were not specifically French. Also, analysis of public policy was mainly developed within political science and sociology, where postmodern literature from Lyotard to Derrida was more or less non-existent The ‘French theory’ tradition, as invented in the United States, has had little or no influence on public policy analysis, with the important exceptions of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. In other words, this short paper aims at rebutting the continuing external ‘intellectual commodification’ of French policy studies, while engaging with the unique sets of intellectual traditions that have emerged in France, with their cross-influences, in the study of public policy

Comments on ‘Democratic governance’

The article provides a discussion of Mark Bevir's important book on ‘Democratic governance’. It first discusses the conceptual part and in particular the categorisation in terms of ‘modern social science’. It disputes the analysis of neo institutionalism. Second, it stresses the UK case, which is the base of Bevir's analysis and suggests that the author relies far too much on policy networks. Hierarchies are still very strong at the same time in the United Kingdom, a factor that limits the claims of the book

Public Policy Research, deconstructing the French touch

This paper, written for the Forum section of Critical Policy Studies, is a personal account of public policy analysis in France which was first presented at the 2010 Grenoble Interpretive Policy Analysis conference. It aims to complement the piece published in this journal by Philippe Zittoun in 2010. It is not fully referenced, and only reflects the author's limited understanding and knowledge of different traditions of research in the French context. In contrast with many analyses in the social sciences that invent, or reinvent, some kind of ‘French touch’, I argue that there were always many contrasting intellectual traditions that were drawn on to analyze public policy in France, that none of them was dominant, and that many of them were not specifically French. Also, analysis of public policy was mainly developed within political science and sociology, where postmodern literature from Lyotard to Derrida was more or less non-existent The ‘French theory’ tradition, as invented in the United States, has had little or no influence on public policy analysis, with the important exceptions of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. In other words, this short paper aims at rebutting the continuing external ‘intellectual commodification’ of French policy studies, while engaging with the unique sets of intellectual traditions that have emerged in France, with their cross-influences, in the study of public policy

Gordon Brown et Tony Blair :Succès économiques et limites sociales du « New Labour »

2007 : après dix années de gouvernement, Tony Blair laisse le champ libre à son associé rival de toujours, Gordon Brown. L’expérience du New Labour se poursuit. Hybride de libéralisme économique hérité de Mrs Thatcher ou inspiré par le projet démocrate de Clinton, New Labour n’est ni un parti socialiste, ni un parti démocrate classique

Governing the large metropolis. A research agenda

Our starting point is to challenge the often-made assumption that large cities are so complex that they have become ungovernable or that globalization pressures make political and policy choices irrelevant. By going beyond rational or positivist views of governance, it argues that the process of governing a city is never fully complete, nor linear. The paper refers to a systematic review of the academic literature. Urban societies are more or less governed and that may change from one city to the next, from one period to the next. Processes of government and governance are always work in progress, but make crucial differences over time. Case studies show that modes of governance have long-term consequences for their inhabitants and governing failures may have severe negative effects (e.g. housing shortages, low levels of educational attainment, crime, low productivity, health). The systematic analysis of the literature shows the need to describe and document at the same time (1) how processes of governance operate in relation to major urban development projects, the implementation of public policies and (2) the implications of such practices for inequalities; so to say articulating an analysis of the governance processes and their outcomes. The paper suggests that the link between metropolitan governance and inequalities allow considering inequalities not only as the outcomes of policy choices, but also as part of the way in which metropolitan policies are implemented