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The alexandrine is indissolubly linked to the success of classical French theatre. However, there is nothing natural in what would appear to be an obvious relationship, in which politics historically played a preponderant role. There are still many unknowns when one attempts to explain why 16th century playwrights promoted this otherwise ill-favoured verse that was only used in very specific situations, except for a period, around the 13th century, when it was frequently used for the epic genre. Indeed, strongly linked to the translation and reappropriation of ancient Greek and Latin theatre, the choice of the alexandrine was undeniably political in scope. Because of its prestige, it quickly became the verse par excellence of the powerful, whose social status could only be represented in emphatic or “altiloque” speech, as Ronsard termed it, which made the alexandrine an obvious medium for kingly discourse. As the century progressed, authors consistently underscored the similarities between openly political texts and tragedies (as we can see, for example, in the poetical and political links between Garnier's Hymn for the Monarchy and several of his plays). Furthermore, they reappropriated the imperatives of ancient rhetoric, fully aware that such imperatives, designed for public speeches, carried with them significant political weight. As a result, the increasing use of the alexandrine as the verse of dialogue in tragedy become a fitting metaphor for the complexity of politics, depicted as a body of antithetical speeches, thereby making politics an object of representations (in all senses of the word) and debates.

Keywords: alexandrin, politique, rhétorique, traduction, tragédie, alexandrine, politics, rhetoric, translation, tragedy

Since the early twentieth century, the majority of feminists and other progressive social groups have been critical of natalist discourses supporting conservative nationalist visions. Consequently, the relationships between natalism, nationalism and the equality of the sexes have often been conflictual. The present article attempts to explore the reasons that explain these relationships and to analyze them, both in France and in Ouébec. Factors both of convergence and of divergence emerge from this comparative study. The two natalist discourses have not influenced the same state institutions in the two cases and, in both cases, their influence has varied significantly over time. We further note that these distinctions result from the different role played by French and Québécois feminists within the state.

Globalization, through the circulation of ideas and increased meeting spaces between individuals, prompts a homogenization of formulas for public action, despite the great diversity of institutional systems. According to numerous accounts, public policies introduced in Montréal in 1999 that were aimed at fighting socio-spatial segregation borrowed largely from the policy of the French city. This article aims to analyze the process that guided this transfer and the convergence of these public policies with the French model of city policy. Far from subscribing to the uniformization of public action, the goal is to grasp the articulation between Montréal's political and institutional context and the exogenous element in the making of these public policies. Drawing attention to the implementation of these policies in Parc-Extension will help us understand the potential role of local actors in the transfer of foreign public policy models.

This paper proposes to grasp the main issues of Canadian foreign policy in the eighties by using an analysis framework based on the concepts of fragmentation, continentalism and diversification, considered as the intervening variables in the process of explaining Canada's international behaviour. Emphasizing the explanatory variables of the three phenomena (fragmentation, continentalism, diversification), the study demonstrates their complexity, namely the multiplicity of their causes, and underlines some of their basic characteristics, such as the structural sources of Canadian fragmentation in foreign policy - closely relate d to the nature of the country's economy and its links with the United States -, the ambiguity and shortcomings of the continentalist option, and the contradictions of the diversification policies. Beyond that, the paper attempts to indicate the interrelation of the three phenomena, their constant and circular interaction, and their future directions. Finally, the text deals with the question of a general theoretical framework for the study of these main issues in Canadian foreign policy.

Studies on political legitimacy in China have recently fallen under the influence of political philosophy and legal positivism. However, analyzing Chinese politics requires to build on Max Weber's sociological heritage in order to understand the complex dynamics of political legitimacy in contemporary China. Liturgical domination and panoptical domination are two new ideal types put forward by this analysis. Both these new analytical tools are extremely useful in shedding light on how individual consent could enable powerful forms of political domination to make sense of social life and to secure society.

This article comments on Castoriadis's theory of political subject and relates it to its first political context of enunciation, that is, the rise of “new social movements” from the 1960s. The author's thesis is that Castoriadis's conception of the political subject as “instituting people” sheds new light on these movements. On the first hand, his conception shows, beyond their heterogeneity, the common reason they share : institutional creativity. On the other hand, it allows to evaluate the ambiguity of their historical evolution, which was characterized by refocusing their logic around individual rights. The first two parts of the article are dedicated to the “instituting people” as opposed to the modern political figure of the “constituting people.” From a perspective that is not only descriptive but both critical and normative, the author concludes by showing how this original figure of the political subject is related to new social movements.

Keywords: Castoriadis, création, droits subjectifs, Dardot, Laval, nouveaux mouvements sociaux (NMS), peuple, praxis, Sieyès, sujet politique, Castoriadis, creation, Dardot, individual rights, Laval, new social movements (NSM), people, praxis, Sieyès, political subject

SummaryThis paper looks at citizenship from the framework of current mutations in processes of economic, political and cultural institutionalizationand in the transformation of the subject of politics. We are interested in the emergence of the phenomenon ofincorporation of citizenship insofar as it participates in the redefinition of the relationship of the actor to the political community.The analysis of current transformations in citizenship has thus been brought back to the analysis of mutations in therelationships between law and democracy, legislative and judiciary, and citizen and nation. After considering modernity fromthe point of view of the favoured relationship that it has brought about between citizenship and nation, and studying the variousdimensions of the process of political institutionalization in modern society, we systematically analyse the transformationsof the forms of state and citizenship. A systematic analysis of the mutations in economic and cultural institutionalization areundertaken, with particular attention to the dual phenomenon of the autonomization of transnational corporations and the incorporationof cultural citizenship.