17.11.2023 : Webinaire – Julia Cagé

Julia Cagé (Sciences Po Paris) will give a webinar on her co-authored book with Thomas Piketty titled ‘Une histoire du conflit politique : élections et inégalités sociales en France (1789-2022)’.

Book Summary:

Who votes for whom and why? How has the social structure of political constituencies in France evolved from 1789 to 2022? Drawing on a unique effort to digitize electoral and socio-economic data from over 36,000 municipalities in France spanning more than two centuries, this book offers a history of voting and inequalities from the French laboratory.

Beyond its historical interest, this book provides a fresh perspective on current crises and their possible resolution. The tripartite division of political life resulting from the 2022 elections, with a central bloc on one hand, consisting of a socially more privileged electorate than the average – and, according to the sources gathered here, the most bourgeois vote in French history – and on the other hand, urban and rural working classes divided between the other two blocs, can only be properly analyzed by taking the necessary historical perspective. In particular, it is only by looking back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time when similar forms of tripartition were observed before bipartisanship prevailed for most of the last century, that we can understand the tensions at play today. Tripartition has always been unstable, whereas bipartisanship has enabled economic and social progress. A meticulous comparison of different configurations allows us to better envision several possible trajectories for the decades to come.

Online event. Mandatory registration.

An event organized by the Canada Research Chair in Electoral Democracy, the Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, the Jean Monnet Center Montreal, the Center for Policy and Social Development Research, and CÉRIUM.