MICH "Taking political thought seriously. How to investigate the production, circulation and use of political ideas"

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Mathieu Hauchecorne

How are political ideas produced? How do they circulate between different sectors of the social world, or between countries? Why do some ideas endure or become dominant while others disappear? What links do political theory and academic knowledge have with ordinary political discourse? Can political theory change the world, or is it just wishful thinking?

The aim of this presentation is to show how the historical sociology of political thought addresses these questions, and what types of inquiry it employs to answer them. The first part looks at the different ways of reinscribing the production of political ideas in their various social, political and intellectual contexts, and of reconstructing the intentions of their producers. The paper then looks at the mechanisms underlying the circulation of texts and ideas between social spaces and countries, and the configurations these circulations outline. The third part analyzes the political and social uses of ideas. The presentation draws on various past and current researches devoted to Rawls and his reception, the history of public economics, basic income or the history of intellectual history as a subdiscipline.