The New Leviathan Blog

Towards a diffuse spiritual consciousness? Switzerland is a true religious laboratory. Most of the world's religions are represented there. Today, the country has 491 religious groups. A tremendous diversity, which contains risks, but also opportunities. In a book which will be published soon, around twenty researchers present the issues – political, cultural, social, legal, media, etc. – of this plurality. For example, that of Islam. In the public mind, Muslims are a monolithic community. However, it...Read More >>

Hello week: basic gestures If you spontaneously say "hello" to a stranger on the street between May 5 and 9, all you risk is winning 25 or 25,000 euros. Members of “Message sans nom”, a group which campaigns for a more friendly and caring society, will indeed walk the streets in search of these spontaneous “hellos” during “Hello Week”. “Message without a Name” is based on the principle that small changes are enough to make socie...Read More >>

The cross and the crescent: the improbable dialogue  A study by the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) attests to this: more than half of those questioned believe that wearing the veil “goes against the grain of modern society”. Nearly one in four do not even tolerate it on public roads. The veil is seen as a sign of submission (by nearly seven out of ten people), as an anti-Western symbol (by 31% of respondents), or even as a provocation (23%). Barely one ...Read More >>

 The ethnic politics of Leviathan (II) The rector of Lyon, Alain Morvan, should today be dismissed from his functions and thus pay for his excessive freedom of tone (…). He will return to his chair as professor of English at the university. A snub for this man who allegedly failed to fulfill his duty of reserve as a senior civil servant. Alain Morvan had recently opposed the opening of the al-...Read More >>

The ethnic policies of Leviathan (I) 1, Flanders will carry out the first official recognition of mosques in 2007, Flemish Minister of Civic Integration Marino Keulen said on Tuesday. This recognition, conditioned by the fight against extremism and the defense of a pluralist society, will be accompanied by subsidies for buildings. This concerns the implementation of the Flemish decree on the financing of religions, the man...Read More >>

  Women in the West: liberation or manipulation? The excessive sexualization of the image of women and even little girls in the media, advertising and marketing can have harmful psychological and physical effects on adolescents and young girls, according to a study released Tuesday. The American Psychological Association (APA) has released a report that analyzes some 300 studies published over the past 18 months, examining media, particularly television, movies, magazines and even song lyrics and body shapes. dol...Read More >>

The crisis of the “French model”: importing the Danish model without the spirit of community? Everyone agrees: the French model works poorly. Should we change it? How to make it evolve? Proposals emerge. We cannot say that sociologists lack imagination. It is difficult today to find, on the left or the right, a defender of the “French social model”. Whatever we put under this name, the observation of a fai...Read More >>

Social capital is a key concept in social psychology, sociology, economics and political science. Although its definition and its measurement have caused a lot of ink to be spilled (which of course contributes to the interest in the concept...), it could be clearly defined by "the collective value of all the norms and social relations allowing the coordination of actions with a view to achieving common objectives” (James Coleman) or as a “set of attitudes and mental dispositions favori...Read More >>