Introduction by the Vice President for Research

Last updated: 31/03/08

Conflicting globalizations | Renewing a great tradition | Social sciences are equal to the task

Conflicting globalizations

The political unity of the planet is not imminent. And yet, for the first time in history, in the face of ecological, demographic, financial and economic crises, the world seems an interconnected whole and, at the same time, worlds away from unifying. If the terms “globalization” and “mondialisation ” have gained widespread currency, it is precisely because there is an increasingly acute sense that neither “global” nor “mondial” exists as yet. Especially with the increasingly heated controversies embroiling the natural and social sciences, which are compelled to work together in an unprecedented way, but without yet knowing how to go about it. In other words, the unity of the world is progressing and regressing concurrently.

To resolve this paradox, every culture, every system, every ideology, proposes a different version of mondialisation. So the opposition is not between those who would fall back on traditional identities and those who welcome globalization with open arms. Rather, this is a new, highly complex struggle that has partly superseded the older conflicts between nation-states and now pits several wholly incompatible versions of the universal, the global, the mondial, against one another. Whether it may be possible to share one and the same world has become the great political question. So it is also the subject par excellence of the political sciences, in the broadest sense of the term: to discover entirely new resources, procedures and practices with which to piece together the unity of this world bit by bit.

Sciences Po aims to take part in this quest to define what is universal, global, mondial.

Renewing a great tradition

What qualifies Sciences Po to participate in such a project?

Sciences Po was founded in 1871, before the world wars of the 20th century, at a time when the first globalization efforts were going full swing. Founder Emile Boutmy’s project was very close to the one we wish to relaunch: to enlarge the conception of the res publica to take the world for its subject of study, propelling practitioners well beyond the academic boundaries of the age.

Sciences Po is situated in Europe, the cradle of the first globalization movements: a continent that has embarked on the boldest legal, economic, political and administrative enterprise in recent history; a geographic and political space striving to create unity out of its own diversity and dispersion. Whatever the past crimes and recent troubles of the European Union, whatever the developments in other regions of the planet, there is no doubt that, in the vast debate over the definition of the global, Europe will figure decisively in the elaboration of a conception of a shared world.

Sciences Po is in France. So it is heir to a great intellectual, political and militant tradition foregrounding questions of freedom and universality – even if those concepts have often been tarnished, if not corrupted. This specifically French tradition need only be revitalized in order to enter the arena to propose alternative notions of globalization.

Sciences Po has for many years figured prominently in training France’s administrative, political and economic elite. In our day, it is obviously not a matter of training public servants to serve in a utopian global government, but of designing educational programs at the crossroads of social science, law, administration, and economics, which need to be scaled up to a different level to meet wholly different exigencies.

Sciences Po, which has contributed to the development of certain social sciences, has always strived to build a bridge between scientific analysis, expertise, the exercise of power, and media praxis with a view to nurturing and enriching public debate. Outside practitioners and teachers have always made up by far the majority of the faculty at Sciences Po. This particularity is a valuable asset in discovering other ways to represent the res publica by modifying at once the impact and the subject-matter of the social sciences. Any approach to composing a shared world must of necessity draw on the pooled skills of academics, journalists, politicians, administrators, entrepreneurs, and artists.

Finally, over the past ten years Sciences Po has become a university in the original sense of the word, attracting a great many foreign students and sending its own students and alumni out to the four corners of the Earth. By virtue of its size, its system to democratize access to selective higher education, its singular form of governance, Sciences Po is unique in the French university system. It can, as a result, benefit from this powerful movement toward international integration to take up the question of “the universal” and place it on new foundations.

For all these reasons Sciences Po believes it can make a significant contribution to addressing the big political question: What kind of world do we wish to live in? Which version of mondial and global is preferable? How can we represent and simulate these various alternatives? How can we prepare people to live in that world?

Social sciences are equal to the task

Whilst our contemporaries are increasingly alive to the magnitude and gravity of the planetary issues facing them, they are also acutely aware of how little they know and comprehend the transformations the world is undergoing. Never before, in consequence, has there been such keen demand for the social sciences – as disciplines capable of elucidating the issues at hand. Nonetheless, to incorporate such new problem areas as energy (security of supply and diversification of sources), global health security (epidemics and pandemics), sustainable development, population migration, and systems for detecting and preventing terrorism, social science research needs to be thoroughly overhauled. In addition to bridging the gaps between the social sciences, we need to fuse the social sciences with scientific and technological approaches.

Sciences Po possesses a number of assets that are essential to taking on such a challenge. Research is a top priority here . The number and size of our research centers, the number of PhD students at the Doctoral School relative to the size of the establishment, the number of researchers who teach, and Sciences Po’s close ties to the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) amply attest to Sciences Po’s commitment to research in the social sciences.

In addition, research output at Sciences Po has never been reserved to a narrow circle of insiders. Its object has always been to invigorate Sciences Po’s educational programs and, more broadly, to enrich the study of social sciences in our country. It also serves to build a bridge between scientific analysis and applied expertise, between the realms of reflection and decision-making. Further, our research findings are widely published – even in the mass media – with a view to nurturing and enriching public debate and providing an in-depth knowledge of the facts and issues involved.

Sciences Po has never lent any credence to the distinction between basic and applied research, and it is particularly mindful of the social utility of its academic output. Indeed, the more basic research is, the more applicable it is too. The more it grapples with praxis, the more it has to address fundamental questions.
Sciences Po is now setting a new research dynamic in motion and mobilizing all its scientific and academic potential to take on the challenges of the present-day world.

This strong commitment finds expression in the creation of new academic orientations that will form the core of our overhauled academic policy. For our establishment now intends to revolutionize the social sciences – in a word, to fit them out with the requisite tools and approaches to address the new subject-matter, means and effects of politics.

Bruno Latour, March 2008

Translation - Eric Rosencrantz