Sociétés, Acteurs, Gouvernement en Europe

The resurgence of political Islam and the endurance of broad religious belief in the most modern of societies—America—has created a crisis of faith among secularists. If modernity no longer implies a secular outlook, and secularism, by definition, cannot generate any values beyond an indifferent tolerance of all belief, what role will religion play in the 21st century? In an interesting confluence of reflection, Jürgen Habermas, one of Europe's leading secular liberal thinkers, argues that secular citizens must be open to religious influence, especially since the very identity of Western culture is rooted in Judeo‐Christian values. In his political afterlife, Tony Blair has converted to Catholicism and established a Faith Foundation to press for religious literacy because “you can't understand the modern world unless you understand the importance of religious faith.” Similarly, when Pope Benedict XVI visited secular France in September, President Nicholas Sarkozy scandalized the lay establishment by saying, like Habermas, that “rejecting a dialogue with religion would be a cultural and intellectual error.” He called for “a positive secularism that debates, respects and includes, not a secularism that rejects.” Despite the flurry of controversy over a recent spate of books extolling the virtues of atheism in the wake of Islamist terrorism, the more interesting issue by far is the emergence of post‐secular modernity.

A new computationally efficient algorithm for sequential least-squares (LS) estimation is presented in this paper. This fast a posteriori error sequential technique (FAEST) requires 5p MADPR (multiplications and divisions per recursion) for AR modeling and 7p MADPR for LS FIR filtering, where p is the number of estimated parameters. In contrast the well-known fast Kalman algorithm requires 8p MADPR for AR modeling and 10p MADPR for FIR filtering. The increased computational speed of the introduced algorithm stems from an alternative definition of the so-called Kalman gain vector, which takes better advantage of the relationships between forward and backward linear prediction.

Left medial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is associated with verbal memory impairment usually related to hippocampal damage. We used functional MRI (fMRI) to investigate the patterns of functional activity in healthy volunteers and MTLE patients engaged in verbal episodic memory tasks to look for evidence of a reallocation of verbal memory in epileptic patients. fMRI data were collected from seven MTLE patients with left-sided hippocampal sclerosis and 10 healthy right-handed control subjects on a 3T scanner. Subjects were instructed to learn a list of 17 words (encoding) and then to recall them (retrieval) on successive trials. Healthy volunteers and patients both exhibited bilateral activation (right higher than left) of the parahippocampal gyrus during the retrieval. This effect was more marked in the control subjects. In contrast to the control subjects, patients exhibited consistent and extensive left prefrontal activations in all the memory tasks. These findings show that verbal memory tasks did not involve the same functional patterns in patients and healthy volunteers. This may be interpreted as a dysfunctional response due to the epilepsy and left hippocampal sclerosis, and could reflect the early onset and progressive course of the disease.

Most of the personal attributes of elites such as personality, motivation, values, political attitudes, and professional expertise are acquired in a long process of personal and political socialization. Moreover, the opportunities for advancement into elite positions are rooted in the relatively stable social and political structures of a society. The resources of elite power and influence, rather than being personal assets, are mostly tied to the elite position. While individual attributes determine how elites use these positional resources, elite behavior is shaped by institutional constraints and the expectations of their selectorates. To be effective and maintain status, elites must balance contradictory expectations of different elite groups and their electorate—in non-democratic settings, their clientele. Analyses of policy-making networks in consolidated democracies confirm that such networks include representatives of governmental agencies and other organized groups and only a few non-elite persons. Network members are engaged in a complex process of bargaining that takes place in a variety of formal and informal committees.

Introduction: From to distinction studies Part 1: The genesis and career of 1. Elements for the history of a research: Constructing social space, from anatomie du gout to Distinction by Monique de Saint-Martin 2. The international career of Distinction 3. The intellectual reception of Bourdieu in Australian social sciences and humanities Part 2: The legacy of in France 4. From petit-bourgeois to petits-moyens , an invitation to explore short-range upward social mobility 5. Cultural intermediaries: reproduction strategies, resistance to social downgrading and self-fulfilment 6. Continuity and change: Cinematographic tastes in France 7. Culture at the individual level: Questioning the transferability of the habitus dispositions 8. Cultural distinction and material consumption Part 3: Variations on 9. The Swedish social space of 1990: Investigating its structure and history 10. Constructing social spaces: Scandinavian experiences 11. Cultural Distinctions in an Egalitarian Society 12. Bourdieu's space revisited: The social structuring of lifestyles in Flanders (Belgium) 13. A carnal critique of the judgment of taste: Corpulence, class bodies and symbolic violence 14. The Australian space of lifestyles in comparative perspective 15. The space of cultural practices in Mexico 16. Emerging forms of cultural capital

Information about pandemic dynamics is crucial to understand the potential impacts on populations, design mitigation strategies and evaluate the efficacy of their implementation. Centralization, standardization and harmonization of data are critical to enable comparisons of the demographic impact of COVID-19 which take into account differences in the age and sex compositions of confirmed infections and deaths. The international data landscape must keep pace with the global march of the pandemic, and researchers must work to triangulate the available data to create comparable measures to monitor and predict its demographic impacts. COVerAGE-DB aims to provide global coverage of key demographic aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolds in an up-to-date, transparent and open-access format. COVerAGE-DB offers data with standardized count measures by sex and harmonized age groups, which is a necessary but not sufficient condition to allow comparisons between populations at national and subnational scales. The database is currently under expansion through both the increase in coverage of national and subnational populations and the inclusion of more recent periods as the pandemic continues. At the time of writing, the database contains daily counts of COVID-19 cases, deaths and tests performed, by age and sex, for 108 national and 371 subnational populations around the world, depending on the available data for each source. The date range available for each country or subpopulation varies. In several country series, the database includes the earliest confirmed cases in January 2020. For most populations, the database includes daily time series, beginning from an initial starting date when the data were first released or collected by our team. Figure 1 displays a map of countries included in the database, indicating at least one subnational population from 13 countries. A detailed overview of data availability is given in a searchable table: [https://bit.ly/3kVDrLD]. Availability of national and subnational information on COVID-19 cases, deaths, and tests in the countries included in the database as of 7 January, 2021. Official counts of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and tests are extracted from reports published by official governmental institutions, such as health ministries and statistical offices. Depending on the source, data are collected in a variety of formats, including machine-readable files, pdf tables, html tables, interactive dashboards, press releases, official announcements via Twitter, and in a few instances, from digitized graphics. A full list of data sources is available in a dashboard view [https://bit.ly/2Qg1MxL]. Generally, COVID-19 cases, deaths and tests in age groups are reported as counts, but some sources report data in other metrics (fractions, percentages, ratios) or as summary indicators such as case fatality ratios (CFRs) by age. Reported age intervals vary by source, ranging from single ages to 30-year or greater age bands, and sometimes reported age intervals change over time within sources. Usually data are reported as cross-sectional snapshots of cumulative counts, but some sources give full time series of new cases or deaths, in which case we cumulate counts over time. We also collect standard metadata on each of the sources to capture various characteristics of the collected data, such as the primary collection channels, definitions used and notes on major disruptions or events. An overview of key fields from these metadata is shared as a spreadsheet [https://bit.ly/2FAmKFn]. All source data are entered into standard spreadsheet templates hosted in a central folder on Google Drive. Data entry into the templates is either manual or automatic, depending on the source. R programs collect data from the source templates and compile the merged input database. The merged input file is then subject to a series of automatic validity checks. Initial checks are carried out by the individual responsible for data collection and entry, using an interactive application [https://mpidr.shinyapps.io/cleaning_tracker/]. Data are then harmonized to standard metrics (counts), measures (cases, deaths, tests) and age bands (5- and 10-year age intervals). Harmonization procedures include rescaling to ensure coherence between age distributions and reported total counts. Age group harmonization is done using the penalized composite link model for ungrouping1 which was designed for splitting histograms of count data. Output data also include a file containing selected diagnostics of data quality, such as completeness of age reporting, for each source and date. The complete details on all steps of production are available in the COVerAGE-DB Method Protocol, which is publicly available on the web.2 A table listing which adjustments are applied to each population is available on the project website [https://bit.ly/2E61BSV]. The merged input database, the harmonized output and the data quality files are uploaded daily as zipped csv files to an Open Science Framework repository (OSF) [https://osf.io/mpwjq/]. A GitHub repository [https://bit.ly/2YbtPCJ], which is linked to OSF, contains all R scripts used in the complete production pipeline, including compilation, diagnostics and harmonization. Since collection efforts began for COVerAGE-DB in late March 2020, we are aware of 15 studies using the data, many of which provide R code online and are fully reproducible. Broadly, these studies aim to measure the influence of demographic factors on mortality from COVID-19,3,4 assess the pandemic impact on health and mortality within5,6 and across populations,7–12 analyse COVID-19 data availability and quality,13 propose methodological innovations that allow comparisons of CFRs14 and the development of indirect methods to estimate infections in the population.15,16 The database is also used to monitor COVID-19 impacts in particular age ranges. For instance, UNICEF has used the database for monitoring the burden of the pandemic on children around the world17 and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs has used it similarly to focus on older age groups.18 As an example of the analyses that COVerAGE-DB enables, Figure 2 displays changes in the relation between age-specific deaths and cases rates in Colombia, inspired by Figure 1 of Dudel et al.14 We divide both cases and deaths in each age band by the respective population sizes. Diagonal lines indicate age-specific CFRs. The graph illustrates a sharp increase in CFR over age for each sex, and displays considerable sex differences. For instance, men aged 60–69 in Colombia have almost the same CFR (approximately 12% risk of death after COVID-19 disease diagnosis) as women aged 70–79. Relationship between deaths and cases per 100 000 population by age group and sex in Colombia, until 7 November 2020. Diagonal lines indicate the case fatality ratio. We repeat this exercise to compare Colombia with Mexico (see Figure 3), where standardizing by population size is more justified. CFRs and death rates are much higher in Mexico than in Colombia in each age band—around 2-fold—except for ages 80+, which show a substantial reduction in the CFR difference, and much higher death rates for Colombia. Relationship between deaths and cases per 100 000 population by age group in Mexico and Colombia, until 7 November 2020. Diagonal lines indicate the case fatality ratio. This comparison between Colombia and Mexico allows us to illustrate several issues in data quality to be considered when comparing COVID-19 outcomes between populations in general. Besides the economic and sanitary conditions that make Latin American countries more vulnerable to the pandemic, the lack of unambiguous definitions of COVID-19 cases and deaths and the limited testing capacity represent major challenges for data quality assessment.19–21 We focus here on definitions and testing strategies. With respect to COVID-19 case and death definitions, criteria have varied since records started. At the time of data retrieval, both countries use laboratory, clinical and epidemiological criteria to confirm SARS-CoV-2 infections.22,23 However, the vast majority of COVID-19 cases and deaths are confirmed with RT-PCR tests results in both populations (99.6% and 91.6% in Colombia and Mexico, respectively).24,25 Regarding the definition of tests, whereas in Colombia it refers to laboratory samples tested (4.5 M as of 7 November 2020), in Mexico it alludes to persons (2.3 M). Because individuals may be tested more than once, comparison between these two units is not straightforward. Testing performance measures, such as positive rates (e.g. 30% in Colombia and 45% in Mexico26), are essential for interpreting differences in cases and deaths across populations, because they help to assess the extent of infection under-reporting.27 However, differences in test definitions pose serious challenges for direct comparisons. Dates in both sources are comparable, corresponding to the occurrence of events. Since information from both sources relies on individual-level databases, delays in diagnosis and death registration are retrospectively adjusted. Differences in testing capacity and strategy between countries are also key determinants for infection diagnosis. Given both the magnitude of contagion and limited resources in the region, Latin American countries have struggled to increase testing capacity proportionally to the spread of the infection.28,29 Although with very limited capacity, the testing approach of Colombia has been to test as many suspected cases as possible. In contrast, an important part of the test strategy in Mexico has focused on inferring the extent of contagion in the population by using nationally representative samples (known as Centinela, which represent 36.5% of all confirmed infections at the date under observation), and it has gradually included a small proportion of suspected infections outside the Centinela system.23 On 7 November 2020, Colombia performed five times more tests per capita than Mexico. These differences in testing regimes between both countries may account for a substantial part of the CFR discrepancies observed in Figure 3. The differences in definitions and testing strategies between populations highlight challenges in making comparisons and also the need to produce data with sufficient detail to adjust for biases. For this reason, alongside data on cases, deaths and tests, COVerAGE-DB offers additional information on metadata and quality metrics that are needed for a cautious interpretation of the data and their limitations. It is our view that researchers should triangulate creatively from all available data rather than avoid difficult comparisons. Since the beginning of the pandemic, it has been evident that population characteristics are key to understanding the prevalence, spread and fatality of COVID-19 across countries. However, data on cases, deaths and tests disaggregated by age and sex are not easily comparable across countries, and sometimes not even accessible. The main strength of COVerAGE-DB is to provide a centralized, open-access and fully reproducible repository of age-and sex-specific case, death and test counts from COVID-19, collected from official sources and harmonized to standard output formats. The data harmonization process is transparent, following a strict protocol.2 The initial input data are provided alongside the harmonized counts, as well as the code used to harmonize the different input measures, metrics and age groups into comparable granular output metrics. All scripts are written in the open-source R programming language.30 The data sources and limitations are documented for each country in a standard metadata framework. A limitation of the COVerAGE-DB is the heterogeneous and difficult-to-evaluate quality of the underlying data. No single data source can currently claim accurate estimates of COVID-19 incidence or fatalities. Age-specific case counts are highly dependent upon the testing capacity,31 testing strategy32 and differences in the definition of cases across sources and over time. Recorded cases underestimate infections everywhere, with underestimation expected to vary by age, given the relationship between age and case severity.33 The accuracy of diagnostic RT-PCR tests used to confirm infections is also known to vary.34 Furthermore, at any given date, cumulative counts are underestimated because of the lag between infection and a positive test result.35 Death counts from COVID-19 are also likely underestimated for similar reasons and also due to various kinds of delays in death registration. Media reports have circulated about intentional data manipulation in some of the official data covered in the database.36 Excess all-cause mortality has been observed across many regions.37–40 Although some of these deaths likely are from postponing or foregoing treatment from non-COVID-19-related causes, the magnitude of this excess is suggestive that numerous COVID-19-related deaths are classified under different causes. Populations also differ in whether deaths of suspected COVID-19 cases are included in official statistics and in post-mortem practices when an infection is suspected.41 Some populations only report deaths occurring in hospitals, neglecting a potentially sizeable proportion of deaths occurring in institutional settings and at home.42 Most populations currently report all deaths to confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections as COVID-19 deaths for this database, but the underlying cause of death eventually reported on the death certificate may differ in patients with severe comorbidities. To mitigate biases and misinterpretations due to different practices and definitions, such information is constantly updated and documented in the metadata of the database which are freely accessible to users. Further, a supplementary data quality metrics file contains a suite of data quality indicators that is easily merged with the main output data. Quality metrics include age-reporting completeness, some indicators on how aggressive age harmonization is, and two positivity measures from Our World in Data database on COVID-19 testing.26 All of these issues compromise the comparability of the data contained within the COVerAGE-DB, both across populations at any given time and within populations over time. That is, the database enables direct calculation of age-specific CFRs, but one must be careful when making comparisons. Care must also be taken not to interpret calculated CFRs as infection fatality ratios, the latter of which include both detected and undetected SARS-CoV-2 infections in the denominator. Proper estimation of incidence and fatality, and of total demographic impacts, will likely require triangulating data across numerous sources as these become available. To this end, the COVerAGE-DB was designed to be easily merged with other databases such as the Our World In Data testing or excess mortality data,26 the COVID-19 dashboard of Johns Hopkins,43 the World Population Prospects database44 and the Short Term Mortality Fluctuations database.40 Moreover, given that we have near-complete time series capturing the whole pandemic curve in some places, careful modelling of lag structures might allow some of these data-driven biases to be estimated. Both merged input and harmonized output files can be downloaded directly from the OSF site [https://osf.io/mpwjq doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/MPWJQ, which contains a folder called ‘Data’ with four files of primary data. Figure 4 shows where to find the files in the OSF repository. View of the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository, File section [https://osf.io/mpwjq/files/]. To download data files, click on Data, and select one of the files. Each of the main data files has a stable link (see Table 1) which always points to the most recent version. Each file is a zipped csv file by the same name. For stable links to download particular versions, click on the version number in the Version column seen in Figure 4. Users can note versions either by referring to timestamps provided in the headers of data files or by referring to OSF file version numbers, which increment with each daily update. The main data files, a description of their content, and their stable URLs 1. inputDB.zip 2. Output_5.zip 3. Output_10.zip 4. qualityMetrics.zip A data dictionary is given in both the OSF wiki [https://osf.io/mpwjq/wiki/home/] and the Method Protocol.2 Files are shared in csv format to be as universally accessible as possible. A guide to getting started using the data in R is also provided [https://bit.ly/3g8nIVU], to merge COVerAGE-DB with other databases, and tips for other statistical packages may also be added. Users are encouraged to reach out for further information or advice on using the database, or to express interest in the project at: [[email protected]]. COVerAGE-DB is an open-access database including cumulative counts of confirmed COVID-19 cases, deaths and tests by age and sex. Original data and sources are provided alongside data and measures in age-harmonized formats. The database is in continuous development. It includes data since January 2020, and as of 7 January 2021, it includes 108 countries and 371 subnational areas. The database also documents variations in definitions of all input data and indicators of reporting completeness across sources and over time. An international team, composed of more than 60 researchers, contributed to the collection of data and metadata in COVerAGE-DB from governmental institutions, as well as to the design and implementation of the data processing and validation pipeline. We encourage researchers interested in supporting this project to send a message to the email: [[email protected]]. We gratefully acknowledge the hard work of health ministries and statistical offices around the world in preparing and disseminating the data included in COVerAGE-DB. AvR, JS, and MRN received funding from European Research Council Starting Grant #716323. EA received funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) - Postdoctoral grant #756-2019-0768. STL received funding from European Research Council - Starting Grant #864616. FU received funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health #P2CHD047879. RS received funding from Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture #2019-B2Z-257115. CL received funding from European Research Council - Starting Grant #834103. Tim Riffe,1 Enrique Acosta,1 José Manuel Aburto,2 Diego Alburez-Gutierrez,1 Anna Altová,3 Ainhoa Alustiza,1 Ugofilippo Basellini,1 Simona Bignami,4 Didier Breton,5 Eungang Choi,6 Jorge Cimentada,1 Gonzalo De Armas,7 Emanuele Del Fava,1 Alicia Delgado,8 Viorela Diaconu,1 Jessica Donzowa,1 Christian Dudel,1 Antonia Fröhlich,1 Alain Gagnon,4 Mariana Garcia-Crisóstomo,9 Victor M. Garcia-Guerrero,9 Armando González-Díaz,9 Irwin Hecker,5 Dagnon Eric Koba,4 Marina Kolobova,1 Mine Kühn,1 Mélanie Lépori,5 Chia Liu,10 Andrea Lozer,1 Mădălina Manea,11 Lilian Marey,12 Muntasir Masum,13 Ryohei Mogi,14 Céline Monicolle,15 Saskia Morwinsky,1 Ronald Musizvingoza,16 Mikko Myrskylä,1 Marília R. Nepomuceno,1 Michelle Nickel,1 Natalie Nitsche,1 Anna Oksuzyan,1 Samuel Oladele,17 Emmanuel Olamijuwon,18 Oluwafunke Omodara,17 Soumaila Ouedraogo,19 Mariana Paredes,7 Marius D. Pascariu,20 Manuel Piriz,7 Raquel Pollero,7 Larbi Qanni,1 Federico Rehermann,7 Filipe Ribeiro,21 Silvia Rizzi,22 Francisco Rowe,23 Adil R. Sarhan,24 Isaac Sasson,25 Erez Shomron,25 Jiaxin Shi,1 Rafael Silva-Ramirez,4 Cosmo Strozza,22 Catalina Torres,26 Institute for of of de de de de Institute for the Quality of de et de of for national de recherche of the national de of of national de de

Les concepts de Maison et Grande Maison sont utilisés par les gens d’Arama (Nouvelle-Calédonie) pour conceptualiser leur organisation sociale. Ils sont aussi très présents dans l’ensemble de la région Hoot ma Whaap, à l’extrême nord de la Grande Terre. Dans des cérémonies locales et régionales, l’actualisation de la Maison et de la Grande Maison met en œuvre des expériences pluri-sensorielles et intellectuelles intenses, en particulier autour de l’articulation soigneusement organisée de formes d’expression verbales et non verbales. En me fondant sur l’analyse des significations, des formes et des dynamiques d’action associées à ces expressions cérémonielles, je montre aussi en quoi Maison et Grande Maison ne sont pas des symboles et pourquoi je les nomme figures. Les symboles, en effet, sont un concept majeur de la tradition occidentale et de l’anthropologie, deux dimensions qui tendent à occulter l’existence d’autres modes sociaux de signification et rendent leur mise en évidence plus difficile. Les analyses présentées ici soutiennent la proposition anthropologique selon laquelle symboles et figures sont deux modes sociaux de signification, parmi d’autres. Elles permettent aussi de mieux comprendre l’imbrication du personnel, du collectif et du social dans cette société et ses relations régionales et de poser cette question de façon plus large en dialogue avec les recherches de Bernard Juillerat.

This Handbook explains the complexity of the concept of the Anthropocene, scientific and a political concept and also an ideological concept.

and multiple manifestations of the hierarchical relationship between scholarly communities, their institutions and their research output.

Avec la pandémie de covid-19 et l’entrée dans la récession, l’emploi s’est fortement rétracté en France : 30 % des actifs occupés le 1er mars 2020 sont à l’arrêt deux mois après. Mais la pandémie a également modifié les conditions de travail des Français, bouleversé l’usage du logement et renforcé les inégalités de sexe – au risque de se transformer en effets structurels sur le long terme. Ainsi, les cadres, qui ont plus souvent gardé leur emploi, ont massivement basculé en télétravail avec le confinement au contraire des autres catégories sociales. Pour les femmes, la crise sanitaire et désormais économique a nettement dégradé leur situation : elles ont plus souvent perdu leur emploi et leurs conditions de travail sont moins bonnes que celles des hommes. Si le télétravail recouvre des réalités différentes, il s’accompagne plus souvent d’une dégradation des liens avec les enfants.

France took a hardline stance against Tehran’s nuclear program. Yet for several decades, the French government adopted a softer line with regard to nonproliferation. France was the last permanent member of the UN Security Council to ratify the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In the 1960s and 1970s, Paris sold nuclear facilities to Israel, Iran, and Iraq, some of which had potential military uses. Why did France change its policy on nonproliferation? By reconstructing the evolution of France’s position with respect to Iraq’s and Iran’s nuclear programs since the 1970s, this article explains how Paris shifted from reluctant loner to one of the main promoters of the norm of nonproliferation. The changing role of a second-tier power stems from transformations in the division of diplomatic labor inside and outside the state. Drawing on archival and interview data, we show how a group of French diplomats, followed by political leaders and nuclear scientists, mobilized the nonproliferation norm and carved out a role for France in the international system. Throughout this period, successive presidents faced fragmented domestic fields in which bureaucratic and political struggles shaped French policy. These struggles refracted the impact of the international system on France’s slow and uneven convergence with the US position.

Chapter 1. Introduction. Niilo Kauppi Part 1. European Social Movements Chapter 2. Contentious EU politics: A comparative analysis of protest campaigns. Donatella della Porta and Louisa Parks Chapter 3. The European lobbying space and the European Transparency Initiative. For a sociological approach of interest groups. Helene Michel Chapter 4. Fighting Together. Assessing Continuity and Change in Social Movement Organizations Through the Study of Constituencies' Heterogeneity. Olivier Fillieule and Philippe Blanchard Part 2. The European Nation-State Chapter 5. Borders, Mobility and Security. Didier Bigo Chapter 6. Setting the Policy Agenda for Higher Education Reform: Global University Rankings, European Union and OECD. Tero Erkkila and Niilo Kauppi Chapter 7. European Integration and Human Rights. Mikael Rask Madsen Part 3. European Elites and Citizens Chapter 8. On the National and Ideological Background of Elites' Attitudes toward European Institutions. Daniel Gaxie and Nicolas Hube Chapter 9. Europeans' Space-Sets and the Political Legitimacy of the EU. Ettore Recchi and Theresa Kuhn Chapter 10. Parallel Lives: Social Comparison Across National Boundaries. Jonathan White Chapter 11. Making European Citizens? Evaluating the Integrative Force of History Teaching. Stefan Seidendorf

International audience

Abstract An enigma lies at the heart of this article. In D ecember 2006, the mayor of S aint‐ É tienne, M ichel T hiollière, was elected as the fifth best mayor in the world by the internet site City Mayors . Yet no publicity was made locally around this award. Taking this anecdote as a starting point, this article deals with the motivations that can lead a city mayor to become involved in urban international relationships' policy (city twinning, participation in cities networks, study trips, etc.). On the one hand these activities provide resources for building up political legitimacy and for electoral control, and on the other they provide resources for policy solutions to urban problems in the public realm. Nevertheless, in a context of transformation of the process of legitimization of urban elected officials, the second kind of resources seems to be the most sought after in mayoral involvement in international activities.

Résumé Au début des années 1980, les investissements réalisés par les ménages de classes moyennes dans des logements et des quartiers anciens populaires pouvaient être interprétés comme des façons de compenser une socialisation professionnelle défaillante ou insuffisamment valorisante. L’article examine un cas contemporain de gentrification à la lumière d’une telle relation compensatoire entre vie professionnelle et vie résidentielle. Si certaines formes d’investissements dans l’espace résidentiel semblent toujours relever de cette logique compensatoire, on voit apparaître de nouvelles articulations entre vie résidentielle et vie professionnelle. Ainsi, l’expérience résidentielle de « gentrifieur » peut être mobilisée comme ressource dans certaines trajectoires professionnelles bien différentes de celles des « gentrifieurs » des années 1980. Ces nouvelles articulations reflètent les évolutions du rapport au quartier et du rapport au travail de certaines fractions des classes moyennes.

Devant la montée des périls qui tendent à rendre la vie de plus en plus difficile sur notre planète, ce Précis vise à éclairer les auteurs ou les victimes des désordres écologiques. Instrument de référence exhaustif sur le droit de l'environnement français, il répond à l'attente de tous les utilisateurs de l'environnement (industriels, associations, collectivités locales, professions judiciaires et administrations, simples citoyens).
\nL'ouvrage aborde tous les aspects de ce droit nouveau consacré par la Constitution depuis 2005 comme un droit fondamental de l'homme grâce à la Charte de l'environnement et à la jurisprudence du Conseil constitutionnel.
\nLa nouvelle edition rend compte d'une série de réformes d'apparence mineures mais qui en réalité contribuent, selon les cas, à renforcer la protection de l'environnement ou au contraire à la diminuer. C'est notamment au nom de la simplification et de l'allègement des procédures qu'on été introduites plusieurs réformes procédurales a priori anodines mais qui en réalité diminuent certains droits relatifs à la participation du public, par exemple en matière d'enquêtes publiques. La grande loi sur la biodiversité et les paysages de 2016 est celle qui a le plus répondu aux exigences nouvelles en matière d'environnement. Plusieurs réformes touchent à la fois l'environnement et d'autres secteurs comme le patrimoine, l'urbanisme ou l'agriculture, dans la mesure où , conformément au principe d'intégration, les autorités publiques s'efforcent d'introduire l'environnement dans toutes les politiques sectorielles. On peut citer à cet égard les réformes de 2016 sur l'architecture et le patrimoine, sur l'autorité environnementale, sur la création des missions régionales de l'autorité environnementale, sur l'information et la participation du public; de 2017 sur l'autorisation environnementale par fusion de procédures.

This paper examines the social, cultural and political factors that favor or disrupt deep geothermal energy projects in Alsace. The research was conducted in the Risk Governance package of the H2020 DESTRESS program, aimed at comparing public perceptions of deep geothermal energy in different contexts. The French case studies focus on two different contexts: one in Northern Alsace, where geothermal energy is fairly well accepted, and another in the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg, where some projects have raised substantial controversy. Several conceptual tools are used to understand variations in the public perceptions of geothermal projects. First, the distinction between “locally anchored” projects and “unbound” or exogenous projects account for the way these projects take shape, based on dialog or facilitated by a favorable economic and national political context, ignoring local specificities. Second, the concepts of social identity and social worlds allow us to yield insights into the acceptability of a project on a more sociological and cultural level, instead of adopting a limited risk perception focus. By considering the social and cultural contexts, we can better explain the weight that opponents place in their discourses on induced risks, local politics, or environmental issues during a technoscientific controversy. This ultimately leads us to underline the limitations of the communication models for project governance that are chiefly aimed at reassuring the local population.

International audience

IMPORTANCE: Long-term data of intravitreal injections of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitors are lacking. BACKGROUND: This study aims to assess visual and anatomic outcomes of eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) after 10 years of anti-VEGF therapy. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of data from a prospectively designed database. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred and sixteen eyes with nAMD (94 participants) that started anti-VEGF therapy at least 10 years earlier. METHODS: Eyes were tracked by the Fight Retinal Blindness! registry. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Mean change in visual acuity at 10 years vs baseline. Visual acuity was assessed by the number of letters read on a logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution chart. RESULTS: Eyes received a median of 27.5 injections over 10 years. Mean visual acuity was 57.5 letters (SD 17.5) at baseline. It increased slightly at 1 year, then dropped steadily by 18 letters (95% CI: 13.7; 22.3) at 10 years. Overall, 10% of eyes gained ≥10 letters, 64% lost ≥10 letters and 23% remained stable (±5 letters from baseline). Geographic atrophy and subretinal fibrosis were found in 93% and 71%, respectively, after 10 years, both mostly affecting the centre of the fovea. Pre-treated eyes (47.5%) had significantly worse visual acuity than treatment-naïve eyes at baseline and during follow-up and were significantly more likely to have atrophy and fibrosis. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Despite short-term stabilization, long-term visual outcomes of nAMD eyes under anti-VEGF therapy may be poor. Development of atrophy and fibrosis, resulting from the natural progression of the disease, may partly explain this evolution.

This article attempts to understand the varieties of “rightsizing” strategies in French shrinking cities. Empirically, the article examines the issue of “rightsizing” in France. It reveals that urban shrinkage is still considered as a minor issue nationally, and that “rightsizing” ideas have not gained momentum on urban agendas or within the planning community. Despite this lack of interest, local strategies aimed at adapting the built environment to a reduced population have been “silently” implemented in France’s shrinking cities, over the last 15 years. The article focuses on the strategies elaborated in two cities: Saint-Etienne and Vitry-le-François. These strategies are both emblematic of an acceptation of population decline and of a will to reduce the housing stock. However, these two strategies rely on different actors and rationalities: the first is based on a selective understanding of “rightsizing” which aims at replacing deprived social groups by a long-awaited middle-class; the second is fueled by the worsening financial situation of the main social housing landlords. By pinpointing the factors that explain varieties of “rightsizing” strategies, the article calls for a more careful use of the notion of austerity urbanism, based on case studies which are sensitive to contextual issues.