La foule et l’ordre : gouvernement spatial des conduites dans les meetings électoraux

Abstract

This article deals with the political meetings organized during the 2012 French presidential election. We intend here to look away from the stage and rather to focus on the rooms and devices. This article tackles the spatial dimension as a central explanatory element in order to understand the modalities of public control deployed by the organizers of the meetings. The spatial organization of the meetings also materializes a political vision of society specific to each political party. The article shows how the distribution of the public and the different ways of controlling the conduct of the participants embody various conceptions of the “ideal public space”. This study is part of the national SPEL survey and is based on the observation of eight meetings that took place in Toulouse during the 2012 presidential campaign.

Keywords

• meeting
• order
• spatial governmentality
• discipline
• control