Ouvrages publiés à titre de seul auteur Accepté pour publication Merlin, A. (s.d.). Le Caucase russe: des mobilisations à la verticale du pouvoir. Petra. 2014 Brack, N. (2014, mai 01). L'euroscepticisme au sein du parlement européen: Stratégies d'une opposition anti-système au coeur des institutions. Luxembourg: Larcier.

Liste de publications de CEVIPOL

The paper lays the theoretical and methodological foundations of a new historically-minded approach to the comparative study of democratization, centered on the analysis of the creation, development and interaction of democratic institutions. Historically, democracy did not emerge as a singular coherent whole but rather as a set of different institutions, which resulted from conflicts across multiple lines of social and political cleavage that took place at different moments in time. The theoretical advantage of this approach is illustrated by highlighting the range of new variables that come into focus in explaining democracy's emergence. Rather than class being the single variable that explains how and why democracy came about, we can see how religious conflict, ethnic cleavages, and the diffusion of ideas played a much greater role in Europe's democratization than has typically been appreciated. Above all, we argue that political parties were decisive players in how and why democracy emerged in Europe and should be at the center of future analyses.

The Historical Turn in Democratization Studies: A New Research Agenda for Europe and Beyond. CES Working Paper Series No. 177, 2010

Historical institutionalist theories of endogenous change have enhanced our understanding of institutional development by providing a theoretical vocabulary for analyzing how institutions may be renegotiated over the long run by social and political actors. In these theories, however, the causal impact of institutions themselves on political outcomes, including their own change and reform, is less developed―a significant problem for an institutional research program. This paper addresses this problem by proposing strategies that integrate historical institutionalism’s insights into endogenous institutional change with a systematic analysis of the institutional conditions under which “bottom-up” processes of gradual change are likely to be counteracted. In particular, the institutionalization of cultural categories and the allocation of power over the timing of reform within institutional and policy configurations are important variables for understanding how pre-existing institutions may enable institutional incumbents to channel, delay, or prevent institutional change.

When Do Institutions “Bite”? Historical Institutionalism and the Politics of Institutional Change

Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice: Strategies of containment: the role of repression and accommodation

Partisan bias and redistricting in France

Le processus du decoupage electoral en France est aussi meconnu qu’enclin a attirer la suspicion. Si le Parlement est dessaisi de cette operation au profit du gouvernement dans un premier temps, on assiste a un retour des parlementaires au sein du processus dans un second. La vision politisee et partisane de l’operation de delimitation des circonscriptions legislatives repose sur une image eloignee de la realite complexe du processus. Cet article est base sur une mise en perspective par les contraintes institutionnelles qui construisent le decoupage electoral, enrichie par des entretiens realises avec les principaux acteurs du decoupage.

Le découpage électoral des circonscriptions législatives : le parlement hors jeu ?

This article contributes to the field of democratization studies and provides new perspectives for understanding electoral system choice, in the context of fundamental political reforms and unprecedented changes during the Third Republic in France (1870–1940). Using a multi-methodology approach, on an analysis of parliamentary debates of the three electoral laws that (re)established the uninominal voting system in 1875, 1889 and 1927, the factors that determine this choice against a changing political and institutional background are examined. We question how political actors used the new democratic institutions created by the constitutional law of 1875 and the electoral system to secure their position and their influence in the new political regime. Our empirical study shows that the actors’ configurations supporting the uninominal voting system changed according to the political context. Political incumbents try to safeguard their power with the electoral system choice, but electoral reforms do not always achieve the desired objectives. Electoral reforms appear as a strategic element driven by electoral interests and institutional implications. The democratization process is subjected to the ambivalence of actors in relation to the uninominal voting system. There is a confusion in what democratization is, and between what would be consistent with democratic reforms, what is republican and what is not.

The politics of electoral system choice in a context of democratization. Electoral reform and institutional change in the French Third Republic (1870–1940)

La litterature francaise de l’analyse des politiques publiques ne fait pas reference a un domaine electoral. Si les elections sont integrees en tant que variable, le domaine electoral ne constitue pas un objet autonome saisi par les politiques publiques. Pourtant, l’existence des politiques publiques electorales ne fait pas de doute, comme le montrent des exemples nombreux et varies. Face a cette absence dans la litterature, l’article vise a construire l’objet electoral au sein de l’analyse des politiques publiques. Il ambitionne de montrer que les politiques electorales constituent un domaine specifique de politiques publiques dans lequel les acteurs organisent ce qu’ils convoitent. L’article expose ensuite l’influence que le domaine electoral peut avoir sur l’etude des politiques publiques et, reciproquement, comment les politiques publiques peuvent contribuer a l’etude des systemes electoraux et des reformes electorales.

Penser les politiques électorales : L’objet électoral saisi par les politiques publiques

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/spsr.12298

Réformes électorales et changements institutionnels dans un contexte de démocratisation. Le choix du scrutin uninominal sous la Troisième République en France

In 2013, the American Political Science Association (APSA) Task Force on Political Science, Electoral Rules, and Democratic Governance released a report in which the authors say that more than 50 U.S.-based political scientists have been involved in electoral reform processes in the U.S. and abroad since 2010 (Htun and Powell 2013). In this symposium, we give new insights to this topic by offering a view from the outside of the U.S. European and Canadian political scientists who had been invited to give their opinion about the electoral system of their country, and who engaged with politicians, public officials, and national media on the topic, talk about their experience as national experts. They answer two related questions: (1) What do political scientists know about electoral reform that practitioners do not? and (2) Does it make a difference? This symposium gathers their respective contributions to the roundtable. In this introduction, we give a brief overview of the literature on the role o...

/pdf/political-scientists-and-electoral-reforms-in-europe-and-1gmq8jrinm.pdf

Thomas Ehrhard

Papers

Le découpage électoral des circonscriptions législatives : le parlement hors jeu ?

The politics of electoral system choice in a context of democratization. Electoral reform and institutional change in the French Third Republic (1870–1940)

Penser les politiques électorales : L’objet électoral saisi par les politiques publiques

Réformes électorales et changements institutionnels dans un contexte de démocratisation. Le choix du scrutin uninominal sous la Troisième République en France

Political Scientists and Electoral Reforms in Europe and Canada: What They Know, What They Do