Julien Freund

Bio: Julien Freund is an academic researcher from Laval University. The author has an hindex of 10, co-authored 38 publications receiving 1265 citations.

Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe : historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland

Abstract: Freund Julien. Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland edite par Otto Brunner, W. Conze et R. Koselleck.. In: Revue francaise de sociologie, 1974, 15-2. pp. 287-289.

Le savant et le politique

Abstract: La r?f?rence implicite ? Max Weber ne constitue pas une sim ple coquetterie de style, tant les r?flexions du c?l?bre sociologue continuent ? imposer leur pertinence ? la sociologie politique contemporaine comme ? lui inspirer nombre de ses questions. L'analyse des politiques publiques, par les rapports qu'elle pr?sup pose entre la pens?e et l'action, ne pouvait gu?re ?chapper ? une telle confrontation. Bien des d?bats suscit?s par, et autour d'elle, ne sont souvent que le prolongement, voire parfois la simple reprise des questions que l'auteur d'Economie et Soci?t? avait pos?es par sa c?l?bre distinction de l'?thique de conviction et de l'?thique de responsabilit?, comme par ses discussions sur les dif ficult?s de l'action politique. Il est de fait surprenant qu'une si fai ble attention ait ?t? accord?e ? Weber par les sp?cialistes de l'approche, sinon pour le limiter le plus souvent au r?le ?troit de simple th?oricien (d'ailleurs souvent mal compris !) de la bureaucratie1. On peut, en effet, ? bon droit consid?rer l'analyse des politiques publiques comme partie int?grante de ce mouvement de rationa lisation ? que Weber consid?rait comme l'apanage du monde occi dental ? par lequel l'homme tente de parvenir ? une ma?trise croissante du monde ext?rieur. Un tel effort d'intellectualisation

Qualitative research methods in health technology assessment: a review of the literature.

Abstract: ed summaries and general concepts can be formulated, which may, upon further investigation, be found to be germane to a wider variety of settings. Case studies, therefore are not necessarily restricted

The Ontology of “Political Violence”: Action and Identity in Civil Wars

Abstract: I discuss several conceptual problems raised by current understandings of political violence, especially as they pertain to actions, motivations, and identities in civil wars. Actions “on the ground” often turn out to be related to local and private conflicts rather than the war's driving (or “master”) cleavage. The disjunction between dynamics at the top and at the bottom undermines prevailing assumptions about civil wars, which are informed by two competing interpretive frames, most recently described as “greed and grievance.” Rather than posit a dichotomy between greed and grievance, I point to the interaction between political and private identities and actions. Civil wars are not binary conflicts, but complex and ambiguous processes that foster the “joint” action of local and supralocal actors, civilians, and armies, whose alliance results in violence that aggregates yet still reflects their diverse goals. It is the convergence of local motives and supralocal imperatives that endows civil wars with their particular and often puzzling character, straddling the divide between the political and the private, the collective and the individual.

Cultural political economy and critical policy studies

Abstract: This article introduces cultural political economy as a distinctive approach in the social sciences, including policy studies. The version presented here combines critical semiotic analysis and critical political economy. It grounds its approach to both in the practical necessities of complexity reduction and the role of meaning-making and structuration in turning unstructured into structured complexity as a basis for ‘going on’ in the world. It explores both semiosis and structuration in terms of the evolutionary mechanisms of variation, selection, and retention and, in this context, also highlights the role of specific forms of agency and specific technologies. These general propositions are illustrated from ‘economic imaginaries’ (other types of imaginary could have been examined) and their relevance to economic policy. Brief comments on crisis-interpretation and crisis-management give this example some substance. The conclusion notes some implications for research in critical policy studies.

“The Real is Relational”: An Epistemological Analysis of Pierre Bourdieu's Generative Structuralism

Abstract: An internal reconstruction and an immanent critique of Bourdieu's generative structuralism is presented. Rather than starting with the concept of “habitus,” as is usually done, the article tries to systematically reconstruct Bourdieu's theory by an analysis of the relational logic that permeates his whole work. Tracing the debt Bourdieu's approach owes to Bachelard's rationalism and Cassirer's relationalism, the article examines Bourdieu's epistemological writings of the 1960s and 70s. It tries to make the case that Bourdieu's sociological metascience represents a rationalist version of Bhaskar's critical realism, and enjoins Bourdieu to give heed to the realist turn in the philosophy of the natural and the social sciences. The article shows how Bourdieu's epistemological assumptions are reflected in his primary theoretical constructs of “habitus” and “field.” To concretize their discussion, it analyzes Bourdieu's reinterpretation of Weber in his theory of the field of religion and of the young Mannheim in his theory of the scientific field.