Généalogie et évolution de la catégorie de « cadre » en Italie

Conceptions of the social world in industrialized countries use categories worked out in the course of a nation's history. In this respect, the notion of cadre for referring to both a concrete social group and a statistical, cognitive category turns out to be a French invention. From a societal perspective, why are there no cadres in Italy? Why is this sort of catchall category for referring to persons in the middle range of employees missing there? Although the notion crystallized through the French experience does not fit the Italian situation, we can inquire into it by examining the history of two close but distinct socioeconomic categories: quadri and dirigenti. A constructivist approach is taken to examining several aspects of the emergence of these categories in Italian society: the place of the institutions that defend and objectify them as a socioeconomic category; the expectations and aspirations that motivate them; the impact of historical and symbolical events in making these categories; and the role of sociologists who persist in analyzing Italian cadres by using quite different theoretical and ideological presuppositions.     

Comment confronter mobilité « subjective » et mobilité « objective » ?

The methods for analyzing objective social mobility and subjective mobility as perceived by individuals are reviewed in the case of two surveys: Trois générations by the French Old-Age Fund (CNAV, Caisse Nationale d'Assurance Vieillesse) and Formation qualification professionnelle by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE). These two surveys have formulated subjective mobility in quite different ways, but this observation also holds for objective mobility, which, for the purpose of comparison with respondents' subjective evaluations, is defined using specific procedures. A method is proposed for contrasting these two sorts of mobility based on classical mobility tables. When the latter are designed so as to cross three variables (social origins, destinations and average scores of subjective mobility), the spontaneous sociology that can be collectively detected in the assessments made by respondents turns out to be not very different from the scholarly sociology of social categories produced by sociologists. After showing that subjective and objective mobility vary coherently in relation to each other, an additional hypothesis is advanced to account for some discrepancies.     

Contenir le marché : la transition de la criée à la cotation électronique à la Bourse de Paris

Open outcry was fully replaced at the Paris Bourse by an automated trade execution system (CAC) in the late 1980s. In this article, we focus on the circumstances that made this transition possible. We analyze the diverse compromises (both social and technical) that the officials and engineers in charge of the innovation process constructed in order to stabilize the new market device. They had to carefully inscribe into the new system the interests of the actors at stake: bankers and stockbrokers. This case study contributes to economic sociology by drawing a relation between a technical device and the interests set around the “modernization” of a market.     

Le modèle de « l'État-stratège » : genèse d'une forme organisationnelle dans l'administration française

Since the 1990s, a new organisational form of the administrative system in France has been steadily redefining relations between central administrations and local state units. Labelled “the steering state” or the “managerial state”, this new paradigm hinges on separating the strategic functions of steering and controlling the state from the operational functions of execution and policy implementation. The making of this new form of state organization involves two parallel processes: political and cognitive. For one thing, the adoption of concrete measures for “government at distance” results from power struggles between three major ministries (Home Office, Budget and Civil Service). For another, a new legitimate “categorization of the state” is being formed in the major committees involved in the reform process of the 1990s; it is borne by top civil servants and inspired by the ideas of New Public Management. — Special issue: New patterns of institutions.     

La précarité de l'emploi au service de la prospérité du fast-food

The fast food industry offers an exception to the traditional rule that steady employment and employee qualifications are necessary for business to thrive. Since this industry sprang up in the United States during the 1950s, its major firms have offered unskilled jobs to a young, devoted labor force in transit between fast-food establishments. As a consequence, the itineraries of incoming new hires and outgoing employees crisscross. Though causing a few operational problems, this high turnover rate among wage-earners is good for business. The major (just-in-time) principle of sales and production requires an exceptionally high commitment. Only new, young team-members correspond to the profile defined in these eateries.     

Les « intermittents » de l'Église. Modalités d'emploi des personnels laïcs dans le catholicisme français

Given the shortage of priests, bishops have assigned permanent religious duties to several thousand laypersons, a majority of them women. Many of these persons have employment contracts. The employment conditions of this new type of permanent personnel tend to be unfavorable: assignments for a few years despite contracts of unlimited duration, part-time work and a nearly minimum wage. Various factors account for this fragility: the dire financial straits of French dioceses; ecclesiastical authorities, determination to present the clergy as the only fully legitimate, permanent personnel in the Church; and the attitude of laypersons who seem to be satisfied with their lot. The efforts to institutionalize this work have encountered difficulties with respect to both the labor code and the unexpected effects produced internally by the advocacy of a “culture of limited duration commitment”.     

La carrière des artistes et les transformations de la production musicale. Relations de travail et relation au travail dans le monde des musiques rap et électroniques

The interaction between the artistic and managerial poles of the world formed by the persons specialized in rap and electronic music in France is described as well as musicians' occupational culture. The aesthetic and organizational characteristics of these musical genres are shown to influence the division of labour in recording and production. Owing to the combination of artistic and managerial activities typical of these musicians, occupational networks are fluid. This blurring of roles is especially visible in the recording labels used from home studios. Technical changes in the “tools” for this work have led these artists to become professionally involved in management and advertising. Cultural motivations also explain this involvement: the critical stance adopted by the “cultures” of rap, electro, techno, etc., tends to make obsolete the image of the artist as a creator who avoids the engineering aspects of the commercial distribution of his recordings. In contrast, rap and electronic musicians' careers develop through participation in many and various projects, which nurtures their artistic production, improves the quality of their groups and enhances their reputations. Accepting more short-term professional engagements supposedly increases their control over their career profiles. However these musicians voice concerns, in particular, about bonds between the individual and the groups whom they cross (and who cross them) — concerns that can be extended to other types de workers caught up in an occupational world organized “by project”.     

La restructuration des PMI à Saint-Étienne après la crise : traces du passé et limites de l'intégration horizontale

On the basis of a survey conducted in Saint-Étienne, France, as part of a comparative European project on “modes of governance” in local economies (which, thus, takes into account the level of small and medium-sized industry and the middle level of the territory), questions are raised about the goods and services that enable these industries to be competitive with big firms or holdings. For these industries, solutions developed two decades ago for the machine tool industry, mechanics and metal-working are still significant resources. The momentum detected in a small number of fields can lead to an increasing specialization and horizontal integration that favor a more competitive growth. How to know whether this momentum results from still (temporarily) active remnants of the past or whether it is evidence of a collective impetus that can stimulate new economic growth?     

Les usages nationaux d'une science « globale » : La diffusion de nouveaux paradigmes économiques comme stratégie hégémonique et enjeu domestique dans les champs nationaux de reproduction des élites d'État

This paper analyses the production and international diffusion of different forms of State expertise, such as economics, from a threefold perspective: hegemonic strategies structured around the Cold War, professional rivalries between lawyers and economists within the field of state power and the internationalisation of the academic circuits for the reproduction of national elites. In order to understand the relatively low (or delayed) introduction of neo-liberal paradigm in Asia, it starts by highlighting the authoritarian genesis of these new fields of economic expertise, as an instrument for the developmental policies launched by the Cold War dictatures, such as Suharto in Indonesia or Marcos in the Philippinnes. Then, by focusing on the cases of India and South Corea, it analyses how the processes of institutionnalisation and consolidation of these new professional fields was structured around an international division of scientific labour, in which the elite US campuses control both the production of theoretical innovation and the academic networks for the reproduction of the elites of the periphery.     

Retour sur le « secteur informel ». L'économie du Katanga (Congo-Zaïre) face à la falsification de la loi

In the social sciences, the idea of an informal sector has been criticized more for the classification of economic activities in two separate sectors than for the labeling of them as “formal” or “informal”. In the Congo (formerly Zaire), the use of such labels is ambiguous. Labeling has to be understood in the context of corruption, i.e., in a transaction involving the personal networks and social identities of the parties to it. An analysis is made of how such transactions with civil servants shape the local market in the case of the import trade in Katanga. Compared with the formal/informal cleavage, this approach enables us both to see the labeling of economic activities as a social and political process and to draw attention to the plurality of such practices in relations with authorities.     

Effets pervers des déréglementations européennes : le cas du transport routier de marchandises

The transportation of freight by truck has been fully deregulated and opened to competition in the European Union, without any quotas or restrictions since 1July 1998. This deregulation has caused problems, mainly due to the delay in adopting common fiscal and social measures, road checks and sanctions for firms that commit offenses. Unscrupulous companies have used this legal vacuum in the EU to factitiously “outsource” activities and dodge national rules and regulations about taxes, labor relations and welfare. As a result, working conditions have worsened as barriers have been lifted. By definition, turnover is high among wage-earners. Truck drivers, semi-skilled, have become interchangeable on the EU marketplace. They can be profitably replaced with drivers from eastern Europe (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria), who are much cheaper and less protected. The spread of such practices is a cause of concern for labor organizations in Europe. Shipping by truck is a textbook case for analyzing how the EU is trying to counter the devious effects arising out of the deregulation of a branch of the economy.     

Formation et calcul des prix : le travail de tarification dans la grande distribution

Sociologists have recently been rasing questions about how prices are set in various markets. Although their seminal studies have explained the many processes and variables that come into play, they do not enable us to describe the concrete procedures whereby prices are actually calculated. This empirical case study explores the sophisticated methods of calculating the prices of products distributed in a French retail hypermarket chain. Three major conclusions are drawn. First of all, the law enters into the delimitation of the “space” for calculating the prices that distributors set for selling to consumers. Secondly, the choice of a procedure for performing the calculation affects the balance of power between marketing professionals in the struggle to control their shares in the value. Thirdly, the “consumer sale price” does not result directly either from the relation between supply and demand or from micronegotiations between suppliers and distributors. Instead, it tends to ensue from the linkage between several, heterogenous “spaces” of calculation. This study describes the actors, tools and know-how involved in defining these spaces.     

La dynamique des professions à l'épreuve de la féminisation : l'ascension atypique des femmes commissaires

There are more female constables at the top of the hierarchy, especially in very male oriented services, then at the bottom of the police force. And differences of carrier between male and female constables are not so big. These two original points can only be explained if they are put in the light of professional, political and anthropological prospectives that governs the profession in process.     

Les deux faces - objective/subjective - de la mobilité sociale

How does objective social mobility, traditionally measured with tables of mobility drawn up by sociologists, relate to feelings about mobility, i.e., how individuals perceive, explain and appraise their social trajectory? Using a question from a survey (Insee's Formation, qualification professionnelle), subjective mobility was statistically evaluated so as to bring the two approaches to mobility together and measure the (considerable) frequency of deviations. Subjective mobility was then analyzed qualitatively on the basis of interviews conducted with respondents in the same survey. This helps us account for deviations and identify the bundle of parameters that people use to assess their own mobility. Certain limits, both methodological and conceptual, are pointed out that classical statistical surveys encounter in dealing with mobility.     

Le genre des politiques sociales. L'apport théorique des « gender studies » à l'analyse des politiques sociales

In English-speaking countries and Scandinavia, where feminist and gender studies have developed over the past thirty years, the issue of sex and then of gender has led to a very fertile renewal of social policy analysis, in particular in the field of comparative welfare state studies. By insisting on the cultural, social, normative and historical construction of welfare states and social policies, this approach sheds light on the societal paradigms that define how social policies are drawn up and their impact in terms of gender. It enables us to undertake a critical, original examination of the concepts, theories and analytical tools traditionally used in comparative welfare state litterature. This article presents an inventory of the theoretical advances made in writings on this topic.     

Des « employeurs multiples » au « noyau dur » d'employeurs : relations d'emploi et concurrence sur le marché des comédiens intermittents

Managerial literature sometimes uses an ideal-type of contingent labor to describe what it imagines to be future changes in organizing work and labor. These changes would entail a shortening and, therefore, multiplication of labor contracts. Statistics on the intermittents du spectacle (an administrative category in France referring to performers as well as stagehands who work for the duration of a project in show business, television and the performing arts) are analyzed to show that the conception of work in the media industry, as reflected in the aforementioned writings, cannot account for the actual plurality of relations between these part-time employees and their employers. In the media industry labor market, two types of labor relations can be distinguished. The one is close to the ideal-type of an intermittent employee who has occasional relations with his employer, whereas the other is based on a “hard core” of employers with whom an employee has recurrent relations. This core significantly affects the number of engagements of these performing artists and contributes decisively to the stability of their careers.     

Une privatisation inédite de la norme : le cas de la politique comptable européenne

EU member states have, for a long time, been harmonizing their accounting rules in order to facilitate comparisons among countries. A new regulation in 2002 has suddenly sped up this process. Under it, companies quoted in the stock exchange are, since 2005, required to comply with the standards set by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), a private body without any public mandate. After trying to harmonize its members’ standards, the EU’s decision to resort to private subcontracting is even more puzzling given the Union’s lack of any statutory control over the IASB. In this impressive case of the privatization of a regulatory process, attention is focused on the incorporation of IASB standards in EU law and on the structure and governance of this board. This transfer of power is much broader than usual forms of delegation to the private sector. Although several reasons underlie this relinquishment of public authority, the primary one lies within the EU itself.     

Externaliser la défense : la politique américaine

This analysis of the thoroughgoing change effected in the US defense industry shows that the Pentagon’s traditional partners are taking a back seat behind private, for-profit service providers. These firms, which provide military services and the “information technology” necessary for modern warfare, now play a key role in the American national security system. Among the factors accounting for this unprecedented sharing of a classical government prerogative with private firms are the redefinition of the government’s role, the technological revolution and the strategic environment related to the global war against terrorism. This role-sharing brings new forces into play. The Defense Department is externalizing strategic activities without all the legislative and institutional means for regulating them, whence the risk of a crisis in the military establishment. The mixed systems coming out of this change are a driving force in altering the civilian and military capability to project power and intervene in the world.     

Structuration d’un champ d’action publique : l’intervention publique sur les copropriétés dégradées

This article focuses on the social construction of the problem, which emerged in France during the 1980s, of dilapidated condominium apartment buildings and on the public policy instruments that have been used. A sociology of organized action serves to analyze this twofold process, which has resulted from the formation of networks of persons unfamiliar with the legal aspects of condominium ownership. Linking the periphery to the center, these networks have crystallized around norms ensuing from housing policy. The concept of “field” in the Weberian sense explains this crystallization, and also applies to the symmetrical process of conserving civil law on joint ownership. Parties attached to this normative system denied the problem of dilapidated condominiums, when it was presented to them. By pursuing a social activity based on applying and producing rules, individuals in the networks related to housing policy and persons concerned by condominium ownership contributed to maintaining and, too, revitalizing rules and norms.