Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Abstract: French Political science is mainly grounded on political sociology. For scholars trained to relate attitudes to positions within the social structure, psychology seems far too atomistic to explain aggregate behavior. Historical controversies such as the Durkheim/Tarde one are still influential. Bourdieu is therefore more important in our discipline than Moscovici and Piaget. In this paper, we discuss the roots and consistency of such sociological reluctance towards psychology: at the methodological level individual data are collected through interviews, focus groups, and experimental samples; simultaneously, at the epistemological level “psychologism” is assumed to be a fallacy. We shall turn this latent contradiction into a manifest conflict of scientific statements, and suggest solutions to accommodate the micro and the macro levels.
Political psychology is also plagued by its proximity with neuroscience. Rational choice raises fewer concerns in France than cognitive approaches, since the latter are not only actor-oriented, as RC is, they are nature-friendly as well. In France, Political Psychology as practiced in recent years by English speaking scholars looks more and more naturalistic. This may add a new challenge to the enduring lack of confidence in “non sociological” research.
Taking political reasoning as an example, it is obvious that neurones, the cortex, and reflex behavior are “objects” to be explained as well as “citizens”, “voters, and “demonstrators”. Consequently, political sociology and political psychology must be combined to provide more complete explanations of political judgments: public choice is the global outcome of multiple decisions built by individuals in private discussions and public debates.