Titre :

Lost in Translation : What ethnographic works tell us about political parties: a critical review of the French literature.

Titre traduit :

Lost in translation? Lo que los trabajos etnográficos nos dicen de los partidos políticos: una revision crítica de la literatura francesa

Auteur(s) :

Bachelot, Carole [Auteur]
Centre d'Études et de Recherches Administratives, Politiques et Sociales (CERAPS) - UMR 8026
Centre d'Études et de Recherches Administratives, Politiques et Sociales (CERAPS) - UMR 8026

Titre de la revue :

Revista Internacional de Sociología

Nom court de la revue :

revintsociol

Numéro :

79

Pagination :

e196

Éditeur :

Editorial CSIC

Date de publication :

2021-12-30

ISSN :

0034-9712

Discipline(s) HAL :

Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Sociologie

Résumé en anglais : [en]

In the extensive literature on political parties, the ethnographic method appears to be scarcely used. Since the pioneering work by Michels, which to some extent relied (albeit implicitly) on “participant observation”, ...
Lire la suite >In the extensive literature on political parties, the ethnographic method appears to be scarcely used. Since the pioneering work by Michels, which to some extent relied (albeit implicitly) on “participant observation”, this approach suffered a long eclipse in the English-language literature. Nowadays, international research favors the confrontation of big datasets, whether relating to membership, leadership, organizational reforms, or programmatic contents. The recent blossoming of a “political ethnography” (Auyero, Joseph and Mahler 2007) in sociology and anthropology departments in the United States has mainly benefited analysis of social movements. Applied to parties, it is ultimately in French works that the ethnographic approach has been most used; indeed, it constitutes a strong marker of the gap between the French and English-language political science. Originally prompted by the prominent role of the French Communist Party often described as a genuine “counter-society” (Kriegel, 1970), this approach has been spreading for a few decades on the study of membership and leadership within mainstream parties. This paper, relying on a broad literature review and on results drawed from the research led by the author on the French “Parti socialiste”, aims to provide an insight on this “French tradition” (whether applied to French organizations, or to parties from other countries). It addresses both of its methodological difficulties and analytical benefits.The first part reviews the empirical characteristics of parties that may complicate and, simultaneously, give easier access to fieldwork, and the second part explores the specificities of a research relationship that is necessarily “political”. The third part deals with the theoretical contributions of ethnographic work to major issues such as the analysis of parties as socializing institutions and the study of factionalism.Lire moins >

Langue :

Anglais
Espagnol

Comité de lecture :

Oui

Audience :

Non spécifiée

Vulgarisation :

Non

Établissement(s) :

Université de Lille
CNRS

Collections :

• Centre d'Études et de Recherches Administratives, Politiques et Sociales (CERAPS) - UMR 8026

Date de dépôt :

2023-11-23T10:13:38Z
2023-11-24T15:17:55Z