In spite of the development of new forms of participatory democracy, turnout at local elections in France has never been lower. Far from rejuvenating “local democracy”, the experiences of
In Jerusalem, competition for land is central to the ongoing conflict. Marco Allegra shows how ideology can be less effective than planning policy in transforming a contested territory.
Israel’s
Analysing local contexts can prove particularly enlightening when it comes to understanding electoral processes, whether in terms of party-political mobilisation or in terms of the choices voters
There is a growing interest in voting patterns in periurban areas, which tend to lean to the right or even far right. However, the interpretation of these patterns is often unsatisfactory:
Presidential elections – a crucial moment in the democratic life of France – generate all sorts of analyses that seek to interpret and decipher voting behaviour. Joël Gombin and Rivière highlight
In the run-up to the recent French presidential elections, the question of la banlieue – the (generally poor) suburbs that ring every major city in France – barely warranted a mention. In 2007,
Was it better to concentrate or disperse Algerians during the Algerian War? In the course of the conflict, both strategies were defended in terms of police action and integration. For Algerians
At a time of profound housing crisis in the 1950s, cités de transit were adopted as a means of rehousing Algerian families from cleared bidonvilles. The background of this measure – at the
The term bidonville (literally a town built of oil drums) originated in North Africa in the 1930s and came into use in mainland France in the 1950s to designate neighbourhoods composed of
Fifty years after the end of the Algerian War of Independence, it should not be forgotten that this conflict was also played out in mainland France. Here, Emmanuel Blanchard shows the extent to