Décrire, c'est aussi représenter et interpréter. Chacun des trois termes peut se confondre avec les deux autres. Il convient donc de distinguer aussi minutieusement que possible ces trois moments de la recherche, sans donner à cette séquence une autre vertu que didactique. En effet, sous les mots (description, représentation, interprétation) se cachent des pratiques de recherche différents, bien que complémentaires, qui soulèvent chacunes des questions et des difficultés spécifiques.

This paper reviews the literature concerned with the interaction between the European Union and national welfare state reforms. Its interest lies in the studies that have been proposed of the interplay between the European Union and national policy-making in the field of social protection. Two main ways of approaching the analysis of this interaction can be identified. These two strands of literature are linked to different understanding of the question of the impact of the EU. A first one relates to the eventual outcomes of the influence of European integration on national welfare state reforms: does Europe matter at all? What is the content of this influence, its meaning and orientation? The second strand is linked to the assessment of the mechanisms of the influence of European integration in a changing policy-making environment: how does the EU matter? Many variables have to be taken into account, including informal and interactive forms of influence. Having reviewed these debates, this paper turns to the main axes for future research, pointing to the role of actors as mediators of European impact – and not only as transmission and intermediary variables. In order to capture the processes of transformation related to domestic adaptation to European integration, a crucial point is the political construction of impacts, i.e. the “usages” of Europe.

The recent obstacles to European integration have relaunched a debate that makes ethics and transparency core parts of the European agenda. This hints at the possibility of a more demanding regulation of lobbyists and, in broader terms, of all parties involved in the European Governance. The dynamics currently at work testify to growing receptiveness of EU officials to the claims of the Alter-EU movement; to the power struggles between representation models; and to the existence of more or less open, virtuous and/or citizen-controlled conceptions of public action that reflect differentiated national traditions and practices (...).

Cet ouvrage fait le point sur la situation et les problématiques des personnes SDF ainsi que sur l’orientation des politiques publiques de prise en charge. L’ensemble s’inscrit dans les questions plus globales ayant trait à la pauvreté et à l’exclusion. Le propos, divisé en huit chapitres didactiques, vise à proposer un panorama des connaissances sur une population qui se trouve, d’une part, au coeur des interrogations individuelles sur les évolutions sociales contemporaines, et, d’autre part, au coeur des interrogations collectives sur les priorités et l’efficacité des politiques publiques. (Résumé éditeur)

"Regarder le monde comme un espace mobile et fluide. S'émanciper de l'idée d'une scène internationale orchestrée par les seuls États. Sortir des figures classiques de l'ennemi, de la frontière, des identités exclusives. Montrer tous les acteurs des échanges internationaux, qu'ils soient publics ou privés, individuels ou collectifs, politiques, économiques ou sociaux, locaux, nationaux, régionaux ou mondiaux. Représenter les innombrables interdépendances et enchevêtrements de nos histoires, autant que les désordres et les dysfonctionnements d'un monde pluriel."

Dans cet article, nous mettons en évidence que l'étalon or se présente comme une gigantesque accumulation de dettes publiques et nous dégageons plusieurs hypothèses relatives aux facteurs réels et monétaires ayant permis cette accumulation. En second lieu, en nous concentrant sur les « pathologies » de l'étalon or, nous insistons sur les motifs systémiques et nationaux ayant facilité le développement ou au contraire la résolution de ces difficultés.

Ce dossier compare, sur plusieurs pays européens, les représentations de l’islam dans l’espace public et la manière dont les débats politiques ou médiatiques abordent la question de la présence des musulmans sur leur territoire. Cette comparaison est complétée par quelques études sur la manière dont la société civile et les institutions mènent des actions pédagogiques ou culturelles pour modifier le regard porté sur cette religion et favoriser le « vivre ensemble ».

Migration in the Mediterranean region is a widely debated and much studied topic. This is due to the present refugee crisis, consequences of Arab revolutions, the proximity with emigration and transit countries, but also to the involvement of southern European countries and the mass arrival of migrants. The management of Border controls, migration, development, human trafficking, human rights and the clash or convergence of civilizations has generated a great deal of controversy and media attention.Migration in the Mediterranean offers a unique multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological framework, bringing together scholars from different subject areas. This book aims to address the following research questions: What are the main characteristics of migration movements in this region?¿ What are the most important theoretical challenges? What are the perspectives for the future? This book begins with an overview of the economic perspective of the Mediterranean migration model, with a particular focus on labour market outcomes of migrants. It then presents the original results of field studies on the unintended effects of the EU's external border controls on migration and integration in the Euro-Mediterranean region, before addressing the themes of mobility, migration and transnationalism.This volume focuses on migration with a multidisciplinary approach, with scholars from various areas including sociology, economics, geography, political science and history. This book is well suited for those who study international economics, migration and political sociology. (Résumé éditeur)

In un mondo che sta sperimentando trasformazioni demografiche e sociali senza precedenti, 244 milioni di persone sono migranti. Si tratta di un fenomeno non nuovo, ma che vede emergere nuove categorie migratorie, quelle dei migranti ambientali, dei minori stranieri non accompagnati, dei migranti in transito, dei nuovi rifugiati. Volontarie o forzate, le nuove migrazioni sono composte da uomini e donne che vedono nell'Europa una terra di pace, di sicurezza, dove esiste un futuro per loro e per i loro figli. Ma quale ruolo rivestiranno le migrazioni nell'evoluzione demografica mondiale ed europea? E quali saranno le politiche che i Paesi europei dovranno adottare per far fronte alle nuove sfide demografiche e sociali? Il volume si propone di rispondere a queste domande, disegnando un quadro del fenomeno migratorio attuale e accompagnando il lettore in una riflessione sui temi della popolazione e dello sviluppo. L'analisi lascia emergere le contraddizioni presenti nelle risposte sviluppate di volta in volta dai paesi europei, il cui dilemma politico è oggi quello di conciliare l'apertura verso chi ha diritto a una protezione internazionale con la crescente pressione di una diffusa opinione pubblica contraria. La riflessione finale richiama la necessità di gestire la migrazione in chiave moderna, attraverso un governo internazionale e cooperativo, analogamente a quanto avviene per l'ambiente o per altri temi transnazionali che non possono essere gestiti in modo efficiente dallo Stato. La concezione della migrazione come bene pubblico mondiale dovrebbe essere, secondo le autrici, l'elemento cardine per ripensare e armonizzare gli interessi degli Stati e i diritti dei migranti.

A natural experiment with an exchange-rate band in Austria-Hungary in the early 20th century provides a rare opportunity to discuss critical aspects of the theory of target zones. Providing a new derivation of the target zone model as a set of nested hypotheses, the inference is drawn that policy credibility and market efficiency were paramount in the success of the Austro-Hungarian experience.

The essays, written by leading experts, examine the history of the international financial system in terms of the debate about globalization and its limits. In the nineteenth century, international markets existed without international institutions. A response to the problems of capital flows came in the form of attempts to regulate national capital markets (for instance through the establishment of central banks). In the inter-war years, there were (largely unsuccessful) attempts at designing a genuine international trade and monetary system; and at the same time (coincidentally) the system collapsed. In the post-1945 era, the intended design effort was infinitely more successful. The development of large international capital markets since the 1960s, however, increasingly frustrated attempts at international control. The emphasis has shifted in consequence to debates about increasing the transparency and effectiveness of markets; but these are exactly the issues that already dominated the nineteenth-century discussions. (Publisher's abstract)

Scholars have traditionally argued that the stock of specie in circulation in France in the 19th century was considerable and that this "financial backwardness" accounted for France's slower economic growth in that century. Scholars have also claimed that the French bimetallic system was inherently unstable. It is true that until the 1880's, gold and silver coinage formed the main portion of French monetary stock, perhaps as much as 52% in 1885, but the supposition that this somehow hindered French industrialization requires correction. This is especially true given the fact that no precise figures for the annual monetary stock had existed until recently. As a result of new estimates, two periods of specie can be detected: 1830-52 (predominant silver coinage) and 1853-66 (predominant gold coinage as a result of the depreciation of gold). In general, by the 1850's the stock of specie in circulation was much smaller than conventionally believed and did not exceed by much that in Great Britain. There is no reason to believe that the French bimetallic system adversely affected the French economy.

This book traces the roots of global financial integration in the first "modern" era of globalisation from 1880 to 1913. It analyses the direction, destinations and origins of international financial flows in order to determine the domestic policy choices that either attracted or deterred such flows to developing countries. The book deposes the idea that the gold standard and other institutional arrangements were the key to attracting foreign investment, pointing to the stability and probity of political systems as much more important. One of the major conclusions is that the successful management of international financial integration depends primarily on broad institutional and political factors, as well as on financial policies, rather than simply opening or closing individual economies to the international winds. The Making of Global Finance: 1880-1913 can serve as a valuable tool to current-day policy dilemmas by using historical data to see which policies in the past led to enhanced international financing for development. It also includes historical data that will interest all scholars of economics and economic history, as well as the casual reader.

In this paper we chart the geography of the gold standard. We highlight the late date of the move to gold and the variety of transition strategies. Whether a country with a currency convertible into specie operated a gold, silver or bimetallic standard at mid-century depended not so much on whether it was rich or poor as on the monetary standard of the foreign country or countries to which its transactions were linked. When it came to the distinction between specie convertibility and inconvertibility, however, domestic economic conditions came into play. In particular, there was a strong correlation between economic development, as proxied by the level of per capita incomes, and possession of a convertible currency.Most countries went onto the gold standard between the 1870s and the first decade of the twentieth century. We enumerate the factors propelling this transition and analyse variations in its timing. Factors shaping the course of this transition include the level of economic development, the magnitude of reserves relative to world specie markets, whether reserves were concentrated at the central bank, and the presence or absence of imperial ties.

In this paper we chart the geography of the gold standard. We highlight the late date of the move to gold and the variety of transition strategies. Whether a country with a currency convertible into specie operated a gold, silver or bimetallic standard at mid-century depended not so much on whether it was rich or poor as on the monetary standard of the foreign country or countries to which its transactions were linked. When it came to the distinction between specie convertibility and inconvertibility, however, domestic economic conditions came into play. In particular, there was a strong correlation between economic development, as proxied by the level of per capita incomes, and possession of a convertible currency.Most countries went onto the gold standard between the 1870s and the first decade of the twentieth century. We enumerate the factors propelling this transition and analyse variations in its timing. Factors shaping the course of this transition include the level of economic development, the magnitude of reserves relative to world specie markets, whether reserves were concentrated at the central bank, and the presence or absence of imperial ties.

This paper is an exploration of the theory of endogenous regime changes which takes as an illustration the making of the classical gold standard. The international gold-based fixed exchange rate regime that surfaced during the 1870s has traditionally been interpreted as resulting from a mix of structural factors (Kindleberger (1993)), free-rider problems (Kenwood and Lougheed (1972)), transaction costs considerations (Redish (1992)), or political economy forces (Gallarotti (1990)). This paper - initially written to disentangle these various theories - argues that none of the traditionally accepted views proves sufficiently robust to closer scrutiny. We build a model of the pre-1870 international monetary system which allows us to formally test and reject the `free-rider' and `structural' views. We rely on historical and microeconomic evidence to criticize the `transaction costs' and `political economy' theories. Finally, we provide an alternative explanation of the emergence of the gold standard. Our conclusion is twofold. First, we argue that the making of the gold standard was very much the result of path-dependency and coordination problems. Second, we claim that the very process through which the gold standard was adopted played a major role in shaping its operation.

It has been argued that central bank cooperation was important to the working of the gold standard before 1914. This article takes a critical view of the central bank cooperation thesis and, relying on new archival research as well as on secondary sources, offers an alternative picture of central bank relations during the nineteenth century. Central bank cooperation was exceptionally never reciprocal and always failed to institutionalize: scholars seeking to explain the stability of the gold standard will have to look in other directions

This paper examines the historical record of the Austro-Hungarian monetary union, focusing on its bargaining dimension. As a result of the 1867 Compromise, Austria and Hungary shared a common currency, although they were fiscally sovereign and independent entities. By using repeated threats to quit, Hungary succeeded in obtaining more than proportional control and forcing the common central bank into a policy that was very favourable to it. Using insights from public economics, this paper explains the reasons for this outcome. Because Hungary would have been able to secure quite good conditions for itself had it broken apart, Austria had to provide its counterpart with incentives to stay on board. I conclude that the eventual split of Hungary after WWI was therefore not written on the wall in 1914, since the Austro-Hungarian monetary union was quite profitable to Hungarians.

In this paper, we lay the foundations of bullion points theory in the context of exchange rate analysis between bimetallic and monometallic nations. The theory is then applied to the study of the Paris-London exchange rates between 1846 and 1870. In particular, we show that both the position and spread of bullion points between monometallic and bimetallic nations reacted endogenously to shocks on international gold and silver markets. The distance between the upper and lower specie points tended to shrink when large disequilibria occurred on world bullion markets, and to expand when these disequilibria receded. Second, we show that bullion points constrictions and dilations as well as exchange rate movements triggered specie flows in and out of France, as a way to stabilize initial imbalances. France acted as the arbitrageur of last resort between the gold and silver segments of the international monetary system, and this in turn placed a substantial amount of 'endogenous' pressure on its monetary system

Avec la Première Guerre mondiale commencent à la fois le XXe siècle et la fin d'une période d'internationalisation économique et de régulation des déséquilibres par le marché : la crise de 1929 et la Seconde Guerre mondiale renforcent cette marche à l'étatisation des institutions de l'échange, du crédit, du travail et de la production. Puis, en deux décennies, à partir des années 70, ce mouvement s'inverse : les marchés se libéralisent, le libre-échange se propage, et l'ordre économique mondial, de nouveau, impose sa loi aux politiques nationales. Aux yeux de l'historien, il semble bien que la globalisation financière en cours soit au cœur d'un phénomène troublant : la résurgence, en pleine modernité, de la « civilisation du XIXe siècle ».