About Me

I am a political scientist currently serving at the University of Nice. I mainly teach public policy and public administration courses, but my research interests are broader than that.

I have published in French two books and articles on different aspects of environmental policies and sustainable development.

In line with my exploration of the political potentialities of network thinking, my current research project focuses on the ways to rebuild alternative solutions outside market and state regulation. This research project is based on a question that can be likened to a thought experiment, but it also aims to give it prospects that are not merely speculative and normative. It is wondering if, at the stage of development of contemporary societies, possibilities of organizing and functioning can (still) exist for the collective outside the state and the market. Or, more precisely, how could these possibilities (still) be conceived, conceptualized and articulated in terms of achievement?

This research project therefore proposes a rational exploration and logical analysis of theoretical and practical proposals which claim to deal with collective affairs outside of state and market regulations. A strong idea that guides this work is to start doing some form of sorting or classification among a multitude of initiatives that claim to move towards an alternative horizon (Local Exchange Trading Systems, eco-villages, hackerspaces, fab labs, community sharing, etc.). With this ambition of formalization, this reconsideration aims at going beyond collections of stories, on a more or less long term, and at beginning to systematize the already visible directions of action. This study will be close to an ideal-typical approach, such as Max Weber had begun to outline its principles.

The research journey will be marked by a series of steps of thinking, aiming at going back to activities of government to understand how to think beyond, at specifying how to open a space for alternative thinking, at thinking the initial conditions to discern their potential of evolution, at establishing how to identify an ideal-type of intellectual explorations and available practices, and finally at exploring collective ways of coordinating and organizing without market or hierarchical relationships while being attentive to issues of complexity of contemporary social arrangements. Several disciplinary angles will be combined for that, mainly from applied political philosophy, political economy and sociology.

Research Interests

– Processes, institutions and activities of government

– Post-governmental political theory

– Dynamics of institutional change for “sustainable development”

– Environmental policies and environmental socio-economics

– Science-fiction and politics

Recent publications

– « Knowledge and praxis of networks as a political project », 21st Century Society (Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences), Volume 4, Issue 3, November 2009.
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– « “Sustainable consumption” as a new phase in a governmentalization of consumption », Theory and Society, Volume 40, Issue 6, November 2011.
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– « Artificial intelligences and political organization: an exploration based on the science fiction work of Iain M. Banks », Technology in Society, Volume 34, Issue 1, 2012.
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– « The search for “sustainable development” pathways as a new degree of institutional reflexivity », Sociological Focus, Volume 46, Issue 4, 2013.
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– « A New Printing Revolution? 3D Printing as an Agent of Socio-Political Change », International Journal of Technoethics, vol. 7, n° 2, 2016, pp. 105-123.
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– « From “Sustainable Development” to a Governmentalization of Change? Translations and Implications of an Institutional Concern in France and the European Union », Humanity & Society, vol. 41, n° 2, May 2017, pp. 240–268.
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– « Alternative Forms of Energy Production and Political Reconfigurations: Exploring Alternative Energies as Potentialities of Collective Reorganization », Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, vol. 37, n° 2, 2017.
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– « The dynamics and conditions of material forms of ‘commons-based peer production’. Towards a reappropriation of living conditions? », Review of Social Economy, 2020.
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– « ‘Smart’ in another way: the potential of the Fab City approach to reconfigure urban dynamics », Urban Research & Practice, 2022.
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The best way to reach me is Email: rumpala [at] unice.fr