The internationalisation of political science : a comparison between France and Britain (1945-2010) ; L'internationalisation de la science politique : une comparaison franco-britannique (1945-2010)

Abstract

This work aims at contributing to the study of scientific internationalisation processes through a study of the specific case of political science from 1945 to 2010. This is done on the basis of a comparison between France and Britain and a theoretical framework revolving mainly around the concept of field and drawn from the sociology of science and political sociology. The demonstration is divided into three main parts. The first one is a comparative historical sociology of two transnational political science organisations - the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). The second is based on a comparative study of three political science journals - the Revue Française de Science Politique, Political Studies and the European Journal of Political Research. The third lies on a comparative analysis of British and French political scientists' international careers, using material drawn from life-history interviews. The combined analysis of these three different types of data leads us to conclude that an international field of political science has progressively emerged and that this field, while partially autonomous from national developments, has its structures and rules partly linked to those of the American field. A second conclusion is the strong impact of decentralisation, autonomisation and specialisation processes on the conditions and forms of the internationalisation of national fields. ; La thèse a pour objectif de contribuer à l'étude des processus d'internationalisation scientifique à travers l'étude du cas spécifique de la science politique sur la période 1945-2010. Elle s'appuie, pour ce faire, sur une comparaison franco-britannique et sur un cadre théorique inspiré de travaux de sociologie des sciences et de sociologie politique. Articulé autour de la notion de champ, ce cadre constitue la base d'une analyse en trois temps. Le premier consiste en une sociohistoire comparée de deux organisations transnationales de science politique - ...