Trajectories of Solidarities in France Across Fields of Vulnerability

This chapter approaches the study of solidarity in France by comparing three important vulnerable groups, namely, the disabled, the unemployed, and refugees. The way we approach solidarity hinges on an important distinction between two different meanings of solidarity: solidarity understood as an input and solidarity understood as an output. In particular, we distinguish between two main \u201ctrajectories of solidarity\u201d, which helps us to understand the way certain individual variables (such as self-identification and proximity) combine with political variables (like voting, an interest in politics, or the reading of newspapers) in very different ways. Our main finding is the political trajectory of solidarity can have a remarkable potential even when it comes to helping vulnerable people outside the national boundaries of the political community in France

Unpacking "Transnational Citizenship"

What “counts” as transnational citizenship? Like the related notions of global or transnational civil society, the term’s appeal to internationalists is greater than its conceptual precision. However, a wide range of empirical trends do raise questions about the nation-state-based approach to the concept of citizenship. In an effort to avoid conceptual stretching, this essay assesses the degree to which the concept of transnational citizenship helps to address issues raised by “globalization from below.” Because many approaches to citizenship focus on the dynamics and texture of participation, this review incorporates recent findings in sociology, anthropology, and geography into the political science discussion. The essay is organized by propositions that bring together analysis of two distinct empirical literatures, on transnational civil society and on migrant civic and political participation. The review concludes by contrasting two cross-cutting sets of definitional choices. The discussion is framed by a recognition that definitions of citizenship vary along two main dimensions: in their emphasis on rights versus membership, and in high versus low intensity. Only a very bounded definition of transnational citizenship holds up under conceptual scrutiny, limited to what is also called dual or multiple citizenship for migrants

Toward a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory

Third-generation theories of revolution pointed to the structural vul-nerabilities of regimes as the basic causes of revolutions. In the last decade, critics of structural theories have argued for the need to incorporate leadership, ideology, and processes of identification with revolutionary movements as key elements in the produc-tion of revolution. Analyses of revolutions in developing countries and in communist regimes have further argued for incorporating these factors and for the inadequacy of structural theories to account for these events. Rather than try to develop a list of the "causes" of revolutions, it may be more fruitful for the fourth generation of revolutionary theory to treat revolutions as emergent phenomena, and to start by focusing on factors that cement regime stability. Weakness in those factors then opens the way for revolutionary leadership, ideology, and identification, along with structural factors such as international pressure and elite conflicts, to create revolutions