He will be taking part in this year’s annual Influence Day on 22 April. The event, which is dedicated to media intelligence, corporate communications and influence communication, is organised by the French Ecole de guerre and will take place at 196 rue de Grenelle in Paris’s seventh arrondissement.

The focus will be on rethinking global communication and influence strategies: why should they be rethought, how should we do so, and who should be involved?

The event brings together a number of researchers and key economic actors. This year’s topic: ‘Brands, Citizens and Consumers: Who Influences Whom?’

L’article Francois-Bernard-Huyghe Influence day… Who influences whom? est apparu en premier sur FEDE - Fédération Européenne Des Ecoles.

A graduate of the ENA (“Léon Gambetta” class of 1991-1993) and Sciences Po Paris, Patrick Vieu also has a PhD in philosophy. Among his various posts, from 2012-2014 he was the French President’s Advisor on the Environment and the Regions, focusing on transport and sustainable development. A member of the FEDE’s Academic Council, in this interview he shares his views on globalisation.

‘We should build rather than undergo globalisation’… Nice phrasing, but what does it mean? 

We can manage the demographic, environmental and migration-related challenges of globalisation if we are able to produce, collectively, a representation of the world that the majority of people can approve. Rather than a globalisation based on forced interdependencies, we need a globalisation based on active solidarity.

Considering globalisation to be a given prevents us from thinking it through as a political project. But a political project it must be. It should be the template for our thoughts on the environment, Europe, the digital revolution, migration, capitalism and so on.

So there are, so to speak, two globalisations…?

Yes, we are faced with not one but two globalisations. The first is based on science and technology, the Internet and social media. It has allowed us to cancel physical distances. The second is based on commodification. It has eliminated borders and led to the emergence of a global market and society.

If we take globalisation to be a given, we do away with the intellectual space necessary to think of other approaches and, moreover, we make political action impossible. We need to ward off any discourse of powerlessness that reduces politics to the mere administration of people and things.

In concrete terms, what would the globalisation you envisage look like?

Reform the organisation and workings of the UN.

Three priorities:

– create greater transparency in nomination procedures;

– change the composition of the Security Council by allowing other states (including Germany) to become permanent members;

– restrict the veto powers of the permanent members of the Security Council in the case of mass atrocities, as suggested by France in 2015.

Extend human rights across the world

France must support efforts to combat violations of humanitarian law and to protect civilians during conflicts and NGOs during their missions on the ground. We want to see progress in extending the right to abortion and contraception and in the abolition of the death penalty.

Create a UN for the Environment

Just as health is overseen by the World Health Organisation, we need an independent, specialised body to protect our planet. UN Members would provide it with human and financial resources through obligatory contributions.

Rethink humanitarian and development aid

If we are to take on the challenge of migration, we need to address its causes in the countries of origin: armed conflicts, famines, climate issues and economic inequalities all contribute to instability. France must be on the front line in terms of providing international aid to the least developed countries so as to eradicate hunger and poverty. We must increase our public development aid and be vigilant as to how it is used.

Lay down clear principles for free exchange agreements to which France is party

I’m in favour of free exchange so long as free means fair. For this reason, we advance a new doctrine for international trade that is based on five principles:

– the exclusion of public services;

– respect for our geographic and agricultural indications and for our social, environmental and health preferences;

– respect for the right of democracies to determine their level of social, health and environmental protection;

– settlement of conflicts in line with the law and regulations of states’ democratic institutions;

– inclusion of climate and taxation concerns in trade agreements.

Regulate digital capitalism on an international scale 

Given the role that algorithms are acquiring in our lives, we need to think about the consequences of the digital revolution. The power of multinational digital corporations is raising legitimate questions. Our national legislation and European law need to be applied to the use of data on our territory, and the personal data of our citizens need to be protected in the case of conflict. Finally, we suggest setting up an international digital regulatory body.

Reflect on the commons and the right of property

We need new conceptual, political and legal tools to address the new realities of globalisation and questions of political philosophy, such as the status and management of the commons (ecosystems, physical resources, information, networks and cognitive infrastructures). We also need to think about the right of property as product-service systems develop. Indeed, the survival of humanity is increasingly dependent on indivisible goods.

L’article Patrick Vieu est apparu en premier sur FEDE - Fédération Européenne Des Ecoles.

Michel Maffesoli : ‘Today’s modern democratic ideal has expired’

Michel Maffesoli, honorary professor at the Sorbonne and a founding member of the FEDE’s Academic Council, is a leading figure in European intellectual circles. While his analyses tend to stir up and unsettle his audience, hey are always full of sense. Read on to find out his views on the recent French municipal elections.

What’s your reaction to the results of the recent elections?

What’s striking is not so much the rise of the greens (a few groups of would-be green, power-starved yuppies have capitalised on the trend for green) but rather the tremendous lack of interest for the local elections amongst ordinary people. Nobody – be it the traditional parties, the pseudo-new forms of representation (the ‘neither left-wingers nor right-wingers’ of La République En Marche) or even political ecology – can claim that they represent the people, let alone that they bring together the diverse elements of a Single and Indivisible Republic.

How would you explain this lack of interest?

By a divorce between power and puissance. To put it succinctly, power is instituted; it’s the organisation of society (elections and the elected). Puissance, on the other hand, institutes. Puissance embodies and gives sense to life and society; it’s at the basis of collective living (the desire of voters).

In modernity (from the Enlightenment to our days), people have delegated power to various elected bodies that are given a mandate to implement a programme and embody a given conception of society. With the emergence of postmodernity – that is, in a tribe-based society made up of multiple communities – this type of delegation no longer works. The masses are fragmented – scattered amongst numerous different tribes – and no longer feel represented. People no longer identify with a single model that transcends every aspect of their economic, social and spiritual lives.

What do you think will be the consequences?

When power and puissance are completely dissociated, when institutions are no longer fuelled by a shared energy, that is, by popular puissance, when the elites are very remote from ordinary people, one needs to find new ways of managing society.

Incidentally, note what happened in a small number of municipalities of fewer than 1000 inhabitants, where the previous representatives were not re-elected in the first round of the elections. In fact, teams of people had come to the fore who wished to revitalise their village by means of collaborative projects and innovative forms of participation.

Can you say a bit more? 

Experienced politicians were pulling various strings in our decaying democratic life in order to prevent these experimentations from happening. But in both towns with a high abstention rate and villages where the powers that be have clung onto their privileges, new forms of social administration will appear progressively through collective experimentation: popular uprisings, as per the early gilets jaunes, or demonstrations of various kinds that aim simply to bring people together. We are also going to see acts of solidarity, mutual assistance, festive gatherings and meetings that will emerge as part of daily life at a local level.

What form will postmodern institutions take?

Policies imposed from above – policies fixed by elites leading people towards a goal chosen by these decaying elites themselves – no longer work. They are a thing of the past. However, no one can say what form the institutions that emerge from the new social dynamics will take. Doubtless there will be numerous upheavals and clashes between puissance and the declining power. What is clear, on the other hand, is that the new, transfigured politics can be seen emerging day by day at a local level, in everyday proxemics. In postmodernity (as opposed to modernity) society is not constructed through planning for the future but simply through being together in a given place. Shared experience will take the place of any catalogue of promises.

L’article Michel Maffesoli’s views on the recent French municipal elections est apparu en premier sur FEDE - Fédération Européenne Des Ecoles.