Cours électifs

Over the last four decades, immigration has transformed Western societies, producing significant social changes in the ways they conceive themselves as diverse, multicultural, welcoming, or democratic. It has at the same time constantly raised political and cultural forms of anxieties, especially about how to control migration and how to choose the “good” migrants. The overall objective of the course is to understand transnational issues, theoretical debates and analytical issues that shape the study of immigration and integration. The course will introduce migration studies through a sociological lens, with a specific attention to examine social, political, and historical contexts of immigration, as well as to various actors that make migrations. The course will be mostly anchored in the cases of European countries and societies, but will also examine other nations, as for instance Canada.

The course is divided into two main parts.

The first section outlines the dynamics of international migrations and the global, social, and racial inequalities that divide them. Why do people move? Can State control migration, including keeping the “unwanted” migrants out? This section will also focus on the public and private actors of transnational border control, and will discuss the various and ambiguous categories of international mobility: migrant, refugee, asylum seeker, expatriate etc.

The second section will explore debates around the processes through which foreigners incorporate to their adoptive countries and consider how gender, race, class, religion, and age affect the reception and integration of migrants. What do assimilation, integration and multiculturalism mean from one country of immigration to another? Finally, the section will examine the politicization of immigration and how it (re) shapes collective action and political competition in host societies.

Students will also be required to produce their own primary sources of information regarding lived experiences of migration. Part of the evaluation will consist in completing an interview with a migrant (see assessment part below). To complete this assignment, students will receive teaching and support on sociological methods. During the course, the instructor will address the methodological and ethical issues related to data collection, specifically adapted to participants in situation of migration and potential vulnerability.

This course is open to anyone with an interest in immigration and a willingness to examine issues that raise challenging moral, political, and academic questions. Moreover, the course is particularly suitable for students seeking a first experience in qualitative research and interested in learning the sociological interview method.

This class focuses on environmental issues in a global perspective exploring key concerns and the relationship between science, politics, and the environment in practice. 

It will provide a historical overview highlighting global environmental governance milestones from Stockholm to Paris, then delves into actors and institutional architecture of global environmental governance. It then turns towards how key areas of international relations — trade, security and human rights — are affected by environmental issues, now and in the years to come.

At the intersection of IR theory and sociology, the aim of this course is to address the following questions:

• Can we really speak of a “decline” or “crisis” of secrecy, in the sense of a loss of legitimacy, at the global level?
• What are the reactions typically provoked by the disclosure of sensitive/classified information?
• How can we account for differences in reactions and responses within and across countries?
• What does it tell us about the evolution of the international order?

Underpinning this line of questioning are issues concerning the meaning and scope of the current normative dynamic(s) at work in international relations.

The course is organized in three sections. The first will introduce students to the main sociological, political and historical debates about secrecy and transparency. The second section focusses on the notion of revelation from a theoretical standpoint, delving into a typology of existing practices of disclosure and exposure in international politics – and assessing their possible effects and consequences. Finally, the third section will be dedicated to the study of France and the United States, with the aim of comparing the two countries’ secrecy apparatus and exploring their reactions to diverse cases of leaking and whistleblowing.