Editors: Sarah Al-Matary and Florent Guénard
From L'Âge de l'autogestion (1976) to La Société des égaux (2011), Pierre Rosanvallon's work is shaped by a concern to understand our democratic society, which is still in search of itself. In all its variety, it focuses on the notions that define it (the state, civil society, the market, representation, legitimacy, etc.), through a conceptual analysis that Pierre Rosanvallon invents and pursues from book to book. It is this analysis that enables us to assess the transformations taking place in the contemporary world; it also inspires the history of republics (both French and American), which is essential if we are to understand how societies give shape to the democratic ideal.
To examine Pierre Rosanvallon's work is at once to measure the effectiveness of a thought that, in France and abroad, is making its mark; to take up, on the basis of it, the questions it raises, and to ask how democracy can keep its promises of equality and solidarity. These are the questions to which this symposium is devoted. Bringing together historians, sociologists, political scientists and philosophers, in the presence of Pierre Rosanvallon, it aims both to reflect on the singularity of a work whose effects are perceptible in the intellectual world, and to discuss the theses around which it is structured.
