Olivier Ihl

Olivier Ihl (born 29 December 1965, in Sarreguemines) is a French professor of political science, director of the Grenoble Institute of Political Studies in Grenoble, France and member of the laboratory PACTE (acronym of Politiques publiques, ACtion politique, TErritoires). He is the head of an international program of scientific cooperation between France and Chile. Olivier Ihl is with Yves Déloye one of the main representatives of the school of the historical sociology of politics, which consists in crossing the contributions of three disciplines (sociology, history, political science) to seize complex phenomena such vote, sciences of government, the Republic, etc. The guiding thread of his research is the representation of politics; he notably studied the republican commemorations, the rites of commensalité (e.g. banquets), political protocol, street names, presidential travels, act of voting, democracy, populism, electoral frauds, relation between violence and politics, socio-history of rewards, distinctions and merit. The apprehension of historic facts by people and by things which make them concretely rather than by the big ideas or the institutional narratives. For instance, Revolution is studied through the people who come down in the street to make the Revolution, or the events in polling stations during the first elections (fights, quarrels, noise, debates, and so on). L'acte de vote (with Yves Déloye), Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2008. Le mérite et la République. Essai sur la société des émules, Paris, Gallimard, 2007. A wide range of pictures related to this book is published in the author's website. Les "sciences" de l’action publique (ed.), Grenoble, PUG, 2006. Les sciences de gouvernement (co-ed. Martine Kaluszynski et Gilles Pollet), Paris, Economica, coll. Études Politiques, 2003. La tentation populiste au cœur de l'Europe, (co-ed. Janine Chêne, Eric Vial, Ghislain Waterlot), Paris, La Découverte, 2003. Un cérémonial politique : les voyages officiels des chefs d'état, Paris, L'Harmattan, (co-ed.