Michel Wieviorka


Michel Wieviorka is a French sociologist, noted for his work on violence, terrorism, racism, social movements and the theory of social change.
He was the 16th president of International Sociological Association.

Biography

Michel Wieviorka is the son of a Polish Jewish family of Holocaust survivors. His siblings are psychiatrist Sylvie Wieviorka, historian Annette Wieviorka and historian Olivier Wieviorka.
A former student of Alain Touraine, he is now one of the most renowned sociologists and public intellectuals in France and abroad. A number of his books have been translated into different languages. Wieviorka received some international media attention as an expert following the 2005 civil unrest in France, and was elected in Durban as the 2006-2010 President of the International Sociological Association.
Together with Touraine and, Wieviorka developed the method of intervention sociologique and employed it to the study of militant social movements, in particular French anti-nuclear activism and student leagues, but also the famous trade union Solidarnosc in Poland. Following Max Weber's classic concept of interpretative sociology , intervention sociologique aims at understanding the subjective rationale of actors in the context of larger social conflicts. This concept was opposed to Raymond Boudon's failed attempt to establish a strict rational choice approach in French sociology.
Wieviorka is the director of the Centre d'Analyses et d'Interventions Sociologique at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, which was established by Alain Touraine in 1981.
Wieviorka is the founder and editor of the sociological journal Le Monde des Debats and was, with Georges Balandier, co-edited the Cahiers internationaux de sociologie until its publication was stopped at the end of 2010.
In 1989, he was the first scholar to receive the Bulzoni Editore Special Award of the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences, for his book Société et terrorisme.

Works