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"All societies are, by their very nature, dramatic. They present themselves, especially for those who want to look back in time, as a fascinating and confusing whole of theatrical events and constructions. Sometimes the theatre itself succeeds in capturing that fascination and confusion. This book describes the dramatic society in the form of case studies that link politics, history and culture. The Dramatic Society uses selected plays to examine specific moments in history. Its range of subjects are extremely diverse, including Medea as an icon of terrorism, a choreography based upon Shakespeare's As You Like It, horror movies about the German unification, a truth commission dealing with "human zoos", and the reconstruction of Ai Weiwei's troubles with the tax authorities. This collection of insightful essays deals with theatrical performances - including happenings, installations and movies - of the past fifty years, with every chapter attempting to link artistic events with politics and political theory, from Hannah Arendt to Slavoj Žižek. This is a revealing assessment of the ways in which drama and politics become intertwined, offering crucial insights for scholars and students of theatre studies, performance studies, contemporary politics and cultural studies"--

How can archivists analyse science archives? Science archives are like DNA for the human body: unique and essential. The analysis of DNA and science archives is a very difficult process. Archivists in a scientific environment need to develop new techniques complementary to the traditional methodologies. In this paper an overview of these old and new techniques will be given. It will also show how these techniques can be worked out in practice.

National audience ; The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the different stages of the institutional process which led to the structuring of cognitive sciences in France between 1985 and 2003. This research is based on reports written for the CNRS and the Research Ministry; it underlines the professional and disciplinary interests of the concerned participants. This study shows that two main orientations divide the researchers. For those who identify cognitive functions with logical operations, the computer constitute the model and thought is perceived like a system of symbols' handling ; whereas for those interested in neurophysiological mechanisms, the study of the mind belongs to neurosciences. The analysis of the institutional process shows that the cognitive sciences' frontiers are the results of negotiations between disciplines and that economic and political factors contribute to amend their contours. The comparison with United States indicates a gap of twenty years; the first American cognitive sciences centre was created in 1960. The development of artificial intelligence during the Cold War is one reason of the origin of this gap, depended also by the concentration of resources and most efficient computers available to the American pioneers of artificial intelligence. As for the neurosciences researchers, in France as well as in United States, one has to wait the middle of the 1980's to see a beginning of the process of institutionalisation in the field of the cognitive sciences, changing the original orientations. ; Cet article vise à reconstituer les différentes étapes du processus institutionnel qui ont conduit à la structuration des sciences cognitives en France entre 1985 et 2003. L'analyse des rapports produits pour le CNRS et le ministère de la recherche sert de support à cette étude qui met en évidence les intérêts disciplinaires des acteurs concernés. Les deux grandes orientations qui guident les chercheurs en sciences cognitives sont perceptibles tout au long de cette étude. Pour ceux qui assimilent les fonctions cognitives à des opérations logiques, l'ordinateur est un bon modèle et la pensée est perçue comme un système de manipulations de symboles ; tandis que pour ceux qui s'intéressent aux mécanismes neurophysiologiques, l'étude de l'esprit relève essentiellement des neurosciences. L'analyse du processus institutionnel montre que les frontières des sciences cognitives sont soumises à négociation entre disciplines et que des facteurs économiques et politiques contribuent à en modifier les contours. Une comparaison avec les Etats-Unis indique un décalage de vingt ans, le premier centre en science cognitive américain ayant été créé en 1960. Le développement de l'intelligence artificielle (IA) pendant la période de la guerre froide n'est pas étranger à ce décalage, une concentration des ressources et des ordinateurs les plus performants ayant bénéficié aux centres contrôlés par les pionniers américains de l'IA. Quant aux chercheurs en neurosciences, que ce soit en France ou aux Etats-Unis, ce n'est qu'au milieu des années 1980 qu'ils se sont s'impliqués activement dans le processus d'institutionnalisation des sciences cognitives en en modifiant les orientations premières.

National audience ; The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the different stages of the institutional process which led to the structuring of cognitive sciences in France between 1985 and 2003. This research is based on reports written for the CNRS and the Research Ministry; it underlines the professional and disciplinary interests of the concerned participants. This study shows that two main orientations divide the researchers. For those who identify cognitive functions with logical operations, the computer constitute the model and thought is perceived like a system of symbols' handling ; whereas for those interested in neurophysiological mechanisms, the study of the mind belongs to neurosciences. The analysis of the institutional process shows that the cognitive sciences' frontiers are the results of negotiations between disciplines and that economic and political factors contribute to amend their contours. The comparison with United States indicates a gap of twenty years; the first American cognitive sciences centre was created in 1960. The development of artificial intelligence during the Cold War is one reason of the origin of this gap, depended also by the concentration of resources and most efficient computers available to the American pioneers of artificial intelligence. As for the neurosciences researchers, in France as well as in United States, one has to wait the middle of the 1980's to see a beginning of the process of institutionalisation in the field of the cognitive sciences, changing the original orientations. ; Cet article vise à reconstituer les différentes étapes du processus institutionnel qui ont conduit à la structuration des sciences cognitives en France entre 1985 et 2003. L'analyse des rapports produits pour le CNRS et le ministère de la recherche sert de support à cette étude qui met en évidence les intérêts disciplinaires des acteurs concernés. Les deux grandes orientations qui guident les chercheurs en sciences cognitives sont perceptibles tout au long de cette étude. Pour ceux qui assimilent les fonctions cognitives à des opérations logiques, l'ordinateur est un bon modèle et la pensée est perçue comme un système de manipulations de symboles ; tandis que pour ceux qui s'intéressent aux mécanismes neurophysiologiques, l'étude de l'esprit relève essentiellement des neurosciences. L'analyse du processus institutionnel montre que les frontières des sciences cognitives sont soumises à négociation entre disciplines et que des facteurs économiques et politiques contribuent à en modifier les contours. Une comparaison avec les Etats-Unis indique un décalage de vingt ans, le premier centre en science cognitive américain ayant été créé en 1960. Le développement de l'intelligence artificielle (IA) pendant la période de la guerre froide n'est pas étranger à ce décalage, une concentration des ressources et des ordinateurs les plus performants ayant bénéficié aux centres contrôlés par les pionniers américains de l'IA. Quant aux chercheurs en neurosciences, que ce soit en France ou aux Etats-Unis, ce n'est qu'au milieu des années 1980 qu'ils se sont s'impliqués activement dans le processus d'institutionnalisation des sciences cognitives en en modifiant les orientations premières.

This article contributes to the growing literature on researcher reflexivity by broaching the often-ignored issue of religious positionalities within political science, as well as speaking to the methodological implications of researching religion more broadly. We present and compare two autoethnographic case studies of research on politico-religious conflict in Vietnam and Lebanon, exploring how a researcher's religiosity presents unique fieldwork challenges, opportunities and insights. We then discuss the ambivalence faced by religious researchers within the highly secularised academic environment, thus blurring the artificial dichotomy between 'the field' and the academy. Our reflections centre around three findings: (1) the importance of taking an intersectional approach which neither essentialises nor ignores religious aspects of positionality, whilst also being sensitive to spatial and temporal shifts in how they interact with a researcher's gender, ethnicity, class and other identifiers; (2) the opportunities and perils of a researcher's apparent religious common ground with participants (or lack thereof) in building rapport and negotiating a degree of insider status; and (3) the similarities and differences between suspicions of religious partialism during fieldwork and within academia.

AbstractIn their 2012 publication A Tale of Two Cultures, Gary Goertz and James Mahoney argue that empirical research in the social sciences aiming at causal inference can be differentiated into a qualitative and a quantitative methodological culture. The two cultures differ fundamentally in how researchers approach and implement empirical studies. The argument is well laid out and comprehensively illustrated, but the empirical validity of the two cultures hypothesis has not yet been evaluated systematically. This note introduces a research project that aims to test the two cultures hypothesis via an empirical analysis of how qualitative and quantitative methods are applied. To determine whether there is a qualitative and quantitative method culture, the researchers initially sampled 30 articles from three journals (Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, World Politics) in the 2008–2012 period. Based on this dataset, no evidence was found for the existence of coherent systems of methods practices in political science.

Originally published in 1955, this book traces the history of the Corps from its foundation in 1800, the successive stages in the career of a Prefect, his or her legal powers and influence on the social, political and economic life of the country. As well as being an original piece of research, it provides an absorbing picture of life in provincial France and explains the fundamental strength of France despite her political contradictions.

Greek History: The Basics is a concise and compelling introduction to the study of Ancient Greece from the end of the Bronze Age to rule by Rome. With a chapter on each crucial period of Greece's ancient history, the book covers the key topics, approaches and issues at the heart of Greek History, including: The invention of politics and the rise of democracy The central role played by the Greek city The insights from cultural, political, demographic and economic history The benefits and pitfalls of working wit.

Access to public information in Poland is most typically discussed in the legal and political contexts. However, it is not consciously discussed as a possibility for political scholars to exercise their right of access to public information. This paper, which is of postulatory nature, identifies the benefits for those political scholars who decide to use, in the process of data collection, their right of access to public information as a data collection technique. The proposed technic of data collection may be used by scholars – political scientists around the world.

This dissertation traces the history of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District from its inception in 1919 through its reorganization and expansion in the early 1970's, examining its influence on the physical landscape and government of the San Francisco Bay Area. Although the agency came under fire for mismanagement, extravagance, and a lack of accountability almost immediately after its incorporation, its representatives nevertheless steadily increased its independence and power. Defending the interests of the bridge district, they mobilized its substantial autonomy and independent resources. The bridge district was instrumental in the defeat of a comprehensive regional transportation authority that threatened its autonomy in 1958; in 1961 it stopped the extension of rapid transit from San Francisco to the North Bay which would have reduced its toll revenues. By the late 1960s, the bridge district was at the nadir of its public image and its dissolution with the retirement of the last of its construction bonds in 1971 seemed certain. In 1969 it won state authorization to expand its operations to include transportation. Two years later it had unquestioned control over all major bus and ferry routes between the North Bay and San Francisco. The survival of the agency was ensured when it took on mass transportation obligations. The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District is an example of a regional special district, an institutional form that proliferated in metropolitan areas across the United States in the twentieth century, part of the rise of modern bureaucracy initiated in the Progressive era. Its history reveals the practical mechanisms by which these public corporations influence the policy and politics of urban areas. Exploring the concept of institutional agency and its implications for the history of metropolitan area government in the United States, this study asserts the importance of the organizational characteristics and internal dynamics of government organizations. The corporate structure of special districts is central to understanding their power; once in existence, they develop their own constituencies, interests, and independent agency.