Science and political decisions

A module developed in collaboration with the IEP de Bordeaux to raise awareness among students at the school of the issues involved in political decision-making.

Objectives

    - Open up ENSMAC engineering students to the problems of political decision-making and public action;
- Share the scientific culture of ENSMAC engineering students and IEP students by proposing a project to be carried out in teams;

Contents 

Designed jointly with Sciences Po Bordeaux, this module includes :

4 introductory modules 

1) What is politics?

 Introduction to politics and the processes involved in politicizing society, particularly those associated with environmental and/or ecological issues.

2) What is a company? 

From a sociological point of view, what do we mean by "society"? How does it evolve?

3) What is public action? 

The aim is to present the players involved in public policy and their relationships: national and local players, but also the role of the various judges (CJEU, CC, administrative judge), taking environmental protection as an example.

4) What is a decision? 

The aim is to answer this question from a variety of perspectives, including :
- public policy analysis
- management of administrations and comparative administrations (African countries)
- sociology of organizations and change
- general political sociology

1 group project 

The groups, made up of students from ENSMAC and IEP, will have a project to carry out during the course of the module. The project will involve students from both schools in a practical case of local or national public policy, so that they can experience the challenges of the scientific knowledge production process in public and political decision-making. 

This module aims to introduce^3rd-year ENSMAC students to various notions, in particular those of politics, public action, society and decision-making.

Proposed projects 

Theme 1. Territorial food projects in New Aquitaine: issues and actions.

"Territorial food projects (TAPs) aim to unite the various players in a given region around the issue of food, thereby helping to address the region's social, environmental, economic and health dimensions. Most often supported by local authorities, they are based on a shared diagnosis of agriculture and food in the area, and the definition of operational actions to implement the project, as part of a bottom-up approach. They can play a vital role in accelerating the transition to agriculture and food in local areas, by bringing producers, processors, distributors, local authorities and consumers closer together, and in particular in developing relationships between urban and rural areas." (Ministry of Agriculture website)

Deliverable:

A 10-page document, the form of which will be chosen by the students, but which will be an information and support tool for the elected representatives of a community of agglomerations in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region considering the implementation of a TAP, from the emergence phase to the operational phase. The document will review the expected benefits, technical and regulatory constraints, and potential risks. In the spirit of What Works Center, it will draw on significant experiences in France and abroad.

Theme 2. Public procurement and bio-based materials

Article 39 of Act no. 2021-1104 of August 22, 2021 on combating climate disruption and strengthening resilience to its effects sets out an obligation to use bio-sourced or low-carbon materials in at least 25% of major renovations and constructions covered by public orders. In France, 25% of greenhouse gas emissions are generated by the building sector. The use of bio-sourced or low-carbon materials makes it possible to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings. In this context, public buildings must set an example. This obligation is set to come into force on January 1, 2030, to enable not only public purchasers but also the biosourced and low-carbon sectors to be ready by this deadline.

Deliverable:

A 10-page document whose form will be chosen by the students, but which will present the stakes of this obligation of biobased materials for Nouvelle-Aquitaine: opportunities, challenges and impacts, by highlighting the study of the main biobased materials available in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, their life cycle, their durability, and their effectiveness for construction or insulation but also local acceptability and the state of the agricultural and industrial sectors linked to the subject.

To complete this module, courses will be given at Sciences Po. They will not be assessed and require no preparatory work. Student participation, in small numbers, is of course strongly encouraged.

Below are summaries of the courses that will be offered.

Two additional hours of "Project management methodology" will be taught by Anne Gaudin.

Courses

What is politics (Yves Déloye, Sciences Po Bordeaux)

Module duration and timetable: two 3-hour sessions

January 13 and 20, 2026 (9am-12pm)

The definition of politics is, of course, central to contemporary political science. This opening module aims to clarify the boundaries of political activity in our Western democracies. Much has been written about the answer to the question posed, to the point where some may have thought the question futile. At the very least, however, we can ask ourselves a complementary question: how did the idea that politics was a dimension and a space endowed with a certain autonomy come about? A question that begs another: how can we define, in an operational way, the meaning we can give it today? These two complementary questions will be at the heart of the proposed course. The first session (on January 14) will focus on the conditions of possibility (both historical and institutional) for the autonomy of modern political space. How does politics automate itself in relation to other social spaces (religion, morality, the economy, for example)? In the second session (on January 21), we'll reflect together on the importance of the political dimension in contemporary society. Should it be seen as an end rather than a means? How can we account for the fluidity of contemporary political phenomena? This is the set of questions we will attempt to answer, drawing on both classical and more recent authors who have contributed to establishing the autonomy of the political and its boundaries.

What is public action? (Anne Gaudin, Sciences Po Bordeaux)

Module duration and timetable: two 3-hour sessions

January 16, 2026 (9am-12pm and 2-5pm)

France is a "unitary and decentralized" state. It has characteristics that can be found elsewhere, but which are unique to France: a commitment to the unity of the Republic, four levels of local government with no hierarchy between them, a rule of statutory uniformity that has long been confirmed rather than invalidated by a few exceptions but is now being called into question, considerable municipal fragmentation, and a persistent inability, until now at least, to reform this overloaded structure. A quick comparison with the European countries around us will illustrate this "French exception".

In the first session, we will seek to clarify the concepts of deconcentration and decentralization, the complex relationships between the central state and the various local authorities, and the structures on which they are based. We'll take the opportunity to highlight the dynamics behind the many structural reforms that territorial administration has undergone in France in recent decades.

In the second session, the identification of the various players and their roles will be complemented by a presentation of the different judges involved in the supervision of public action, (in particular the Constitutional Council and administrative judges) and the principles that guide their controls.

What is a company? (Ludovic Renard, Sciences Po Bordeaux)

Module duration and timetable: two 3-hour sessions

January 14 (9am-12pm) & January 21 (9am-12pm) 2026)

We live in society, in a society. Few of us doubt it. And yet, with a little hindsight, it's not something we take for granted. From time immemorial, human collectives have not been organized in societies. It was in the modern era, with its political and industrial revolutions and the upheavals they brought, that the idea of society took shape. In the second half of the ^19th century, and again in the ^20th, sociologists sought to define what a society was. While they objectified their methods in order to give their discipline a scientific character, they also sought to show why it was necessary to build a representation of the social world around this idea. Achieving "society" is indeed the ideal of life, and lives "in common", to which socio-political institutions aspire. But is this really still the case? Symptoms of a "late" modernity now prevail, so much so that it has been commonplace for several decades now to question the usefulness of using this notion to understand the evolution of our socio-technical worlds, and to identify the paths and conditions for (still) "making society". It has to be said that other horizons are now raising questions: what if modernity, which sociology has analyzed for over a century as having given birth to the "contemporary" idea of society, were just one of many possible modernities? This would certainly be an opportunity to question ourselves anew. 

What is a political decision? (Dominique Darbon, Sciences Po Bordeaux)

Module duration and timetable: January 20, 2026 (2pm-5pm) and January 21, 2026 (2pm-5pm)

The notion of "decision" is all the easier to define and master, given that we use it on so many occasions in our daily lives. By extrapolation, political decision appears to be the simple extension of the notion into a specific domain, that of politics, with which it is largely synonymous, as expressed in the famous phrase "to govern is to choose".

In reality, equating political decision-making with conventional decision-making merely generalizes a common-sense approach that prevents us from analyzing the former, and prevents us from understanding choices (or non-choices) made by decision-makers that appear to citizens as aberrant, counter-productive and irrational.

The notion of political decision raises two questions:

- It's a question of constructing the problem, of conceptualizing it according to the classic principle that "nothing is given, everything is constructed". Here, it's the problems that need to be identified and placed on the political agenda;

- And who decides for the collective? Or, if you prefer, who has the power to decide and who has the legitimacy or authority to do so, with the risk of a clash between technical and scientific competence on the one hand, and political authority on the other. Who has the power to arbitrate, to decide whether or not to act?