political psychology

Out of sheer impatience, I do publish from time to time papers on current political events, not only covid, anything really. And I become increasingly convinced that there is something to be said on the specific area of reflection that I can only call political psychology. I do not want to make allusions here to any particular school of thought. My home is … well, let’s say cognitive psychology, but I am old enough to read the Freudo-marxists too.

Given this interest 2019, I organize, with psychologists Vincent Berthet & Romain Lebreuilly, and with the legal scholar Frédéric Géa, a seminar on political psychology: Psychologie politique : entre philosophie et passions (P4).

Political psychology: between passions and philosophy (P4)
Monthly seminar at Lorraine University, Nancy, France

You can check our webpage, but also some of the conferences have been recorded.

Political psychology is a discipline which, from its origins, has been conceived as multidisciplinary. This seminar is therefore set to propose a an interdisciplinary space around the questions raised around the notion of political psychology, yet the field certainly does not have yet the stability and the methodological transparency of its companions.

We would like to see this field as distinct – yet complementary – with social philosophy, which currently is the dominant outlook in political philosophy in France. Philosophie sociale focuses on systemic aspects of society that largely determine the psychology of individuals, which is certainly a background for political psychology. Yet it does not seem sufficient to explain all the processes that seem interesting or challenging and needs to be enriched by further reflexions on individual psychology.

This seminar is thus a place where we use our cross-disciplinary skills in philosophy, psychology, law and politics to explore and to create the field of political psychology.

The seminar is organized under the auspices of the French Society for Legal and Political Philosophy and Theory – SFPJ.

My talks and publications in this field (tentative list)

Publications
Talks
  • “Populism and the myth of decision-making autonomy”, The Annual Conference of the New Israeli Philosophical Association, Open Universiy, Israel, 8 juillet 2021
  • Entretiens de Figeac – “Le temps des incertitudes : entre espoir et crainte pour l’avenir“, Anna Zielinska, Bernard Kahane & Bernard Spitz, l’animation par Monique Canto-Sperber, 24 juillet 2021
  • « La politisation de la pandémie en Pologne: entre le zèle et le déni », Les Cahiers de santé publique et de protection sociale, N° 38, Septembre 2021.
  • “The Uses of ‘Obedience'”, avec Phil Hutchinson (Manchester Metropolitan University), lors de la journée Social Psychology and the Holocaust: Rereading Milgram (org. Raphael Kunstler) à l’Université de Toulouse – Jean-Jaurès, 2-3 décembre 2021
  • « Between Lviv and Tchernivtsi/Cernăuți – Cristallisation and Fragilities of the Beginnings of Multicultural Europe », Nopții Filosofiei la Timișoara – Nuit de la Philosophie à Timișoara en Roumanie, 19 mai 2022.
  • Coorganisation of a workshop: Les usages politiques de l’histoire en Russie et en Ukraine. Entre le droit et la géopolitique, le 14 juin 2022 (à Sciences Po Paris, avec Julie Saada) – also in English
  • « Les savoirs et le besoin de l’immédiat : de l’épistémologie du populisme », Journées de travail consacrées au thème: Le désir de l’immédiat et la crise des formes de la médiation dans la culture contemporaine. L’homme rivé dans un environnement nébuleux, au Centre Scientifique de l’Académie Polonaise des Sciences à Paris, organisée par Andrzej Leder (IFiS PAN, Varsovie) et Paul Zawadzki (CNRS), 20-21 septembre 2022, Paris. 

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