Objectives

Analysis of the dynamics within the social construction of European citizenship : conflictual or a pacific and negotiated management between practices of right to security and practices of security as an universalistic right, in particular through the interactions at the local level between administrative authorities, police, citizens and "non-citizens".

Analysis of the changes in social cohesion and integration : the relationship between local administration, citizens and police on one hand, and social protest, social exclusion, Roma and migrants on the other hand.

Analysis of the relationship and exchanges (either formal, informal or illegal) between EU actors and actors belonging to the Euro-Mediterranean world (delocalizations ; policing or humanitarian cooperation and aid, in particular concerning the countries included in the enlargement area).

Description of work/methodology

The topic of this research is the change of the paradigm of security as a mutation within the practices of social cohesion and integration, i.e. of citizenship :

1) the changes in the social construction of urban security and in the relationship between the police and citizens ;

2) the changes in the management of migration and in the relationship between the police and migrants ;

3) changes in the bilateral agreements between EU countries and the countries of the Euro-Mediterranean world concerning policing and humanitarian cooperation ;

4) practices of EU actors (officials, entrepreneurs and NGOs) towards countries of the Euro-Mediterranean world. Theses changes are the result of a process which started in the seventies with a) the "second great transformation" (i.e. the post-fordist development or the "post-modernity" and globalization), b) the process of EU construction and c) the consequences of the end of "bipolarizm". We consider such changes of paradigm as a crucial aspect of the social construction of an European citizenship.

The research also analyses the breakdown of pacific and negotiated management of disorder. We adopt a multidisciplinary and comparative perspective, i.e. diachronic and synchronic, micro and macro. We will use the current techniques and methodological approaches such as ethnographical case studies, observation and participatory research, collection of statistics as well as 250 interviews with privileged witnesses and actors involved in that phenomenon.