Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches de Sciences Administratives et Politiques

Blockchain technology was created as a response to the trust crisis that swept the world in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Bitcoin and other blockchain-based systems were presented as a “trustless” alternative to existing financial institutions and even governments. Yet, while the trustless nature of blockchain technology has been heavily questioned, little research has been done as to what blockchain technologies actually bring to the table in place of trust. This article draws from the extensive academic discussion on the concepts of “trust” and “confidence” to argue that blockchain technology is not a ‘trustless technology’ but rather a ‘confidence machine’. First, the article provides a review of the multifaceted conceptualisations of trust and confidence, and the relationship between these two concepts. Second, the claim is made that blockchain technology relies on cryptographic rules, mathematics, and game-theoretical incentives in order to increase confidence in the operations of a computational system. Yet, such an increase in confidence ultimately relies on the proper operation and governance of the underlying blockchain-based network, which requires trusting a variety of actors. Third, the article turns to legal, constitutional and polycentric governance theory to explore the governance challenges of blockchain-based systems, in light of the tension between procedural confidence and trust.

De nouvelles politiques publiques ont vu le jour au sein des villes européennes, devenues en vingt ans de véritables acteurs collectifs porteurs de stratégies de développement économique et de positionnement international. Le renouveau des pratiques d'urbanisme, de planification et de prospective urbaines a été un vecteur essentiel de renaissance de cette capacité d'action politique autour d'un instrument d'action spécifique : le projet. Marseille, Nantes, Venise, Turin, Manchester, toutes ces villes se sont engagées dans de grandes opérations de restructuration urbaine. L'auteur présente ici la genèse, les acteurs, les réalisations et les conséquences tant en termes de régénération physique que de transformations sociales et politiques, en s'intéressant plus particulièrement aux relations entre groupes sociaux et au nouveau rôle des élites urbaines. Comment ces projets ont-ils modifié la gouvernance des villes ? Cette question se trouve au centre de l'ouvrage qui révèle un enjeu nouveau des politiques publiques : la mobilisation de sociétés urbaines devenues pluralistes et la construction d’une capacité d’action collective.

A trustless technology, Bitcoin tries to solve issues of social coordination and economic exchange by relying exclusively on technological means. Is technology alone able to resolve the social and political concerns affecting the Bitcoin network?

The synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Doppler centroid has been used to estimate the scatter line-of-sight radar velocity. In weak to moderate ocean surface current environment, the SAR Doppler centroid is dominated by the directionality and strength of wave-induced ocean surface displacements. In this paper, we show how this sea state signature can be used to improve surface wind retrieval from SAR. Doppler shifts of C-band radar return signals from the ocean are thoroughly investigated by colocating wind measurements from the ASCAT scatterometer with Doppler centroid anomalies retrieved from Envisat ASAR. An empirical geophysical model function (CDOP) is derived, predicting Doppler shifts at both VV and HH polarization as function of wind speed, radar incidence angle, and wind direction with respect to radar look direction. This function is used into a Bayesian inversion scheme in combination with wind from a priori forecast model and the normalized radar cross section (NRCS). The benefit of Doppler for SAR wind retrieval is shown in complex meteorological situations such as atmospheric fronts or low pressure systems. Using in situ information, validation reveals that this method helps to improve the wind direction retrieval. Uncertainty of the calibration of Doppler shift from Envisat ASAR hampers the inversion scheme in cases where NRCS and model wind are accurate and in close agreement. The method is however very promising with respect of future SAR missions, in particular Sentinel-1, where the Doppler centroid anomaly will be more robustly retrieved.

After introducing key concepts and definitions in the field of digital identity, this paper will investigate the benefits and drawbacks of existing identity systems on the road towards achieving self-sovereign identity. It will explore, in particular, the use of blockchain technology and biometrics as a means to ensure the “unicity” and “singularity” of identities, and the associated challenges pertaining to the security and confidentiality of personal information. The paper will then propose a model of blockchain-based self-sovereign identity based on attestations, claims, credentials and permissions, which is globally portable across the life of an individual. Such a system is not dependent on any particular government or organization for administration or legitimacy, although it might include government issued identification and biometrics as one of many indicia of identity. Such a solution based on a recorded and signed digital history of actions is a system that best approximates the fluidity and granularity of identity, enabling individuals to express only specific facets of their identity, depending on the parties with whom they wish to interact. This paper focuses on two case studies to explain how such a credentials system could work in specific contexts: (1) Kiva’s identity protocol for building credit history in Sierra Leone, and (2) World Food Programme’s Building Blocks program for delivering cash aid to refugees in Jordan. Finally, the paper will explore what the future might look like when blockchain-based cryptocurrencies and self-sovereign identity intersect. With digital transactions functioning as identity claims within an ecosystem based on self-sovereign identity, new business models might emerge, such as identity insurance schemes, along with the emergence of value-stable cryptocurrencies (“stablecoins”) functioning as local currencies.

International audience

RATIONALE: COL-1492 is a nonoxynol-9 (N-9)-containing vaginal gel and may be a potential microbicide. As part of an effectiveness trial, an initial toxicity study was conducted. OBJECTIVES: The main objective of the reported study was the assessment of the toxicity of a 52.5 mg N-9 gel, COL-1492, when used a number of times each day by female sex workers. METHODS: This was a randomized, placebo-controlled triple-blinded trial among female sex workers. The participants were asked to use the product for each vaginal sexual act. At each monthly visit a gynaecological examination with sexually transmitted disease sampling and colposcopy was performed. Venous blood was drawn for syphilis and HIV serology. All women received intensive counselling on condom use. Male condoms and sexually transmitted disease treatment were given free of charge. RESULTS: Only blinded results on the colposcopic examinations are reported. The incidence of lesions with or without an epithelial disruption was low: 0.06 and 0.29, respectively, per 100 woman-days in group A; 0.09 and 0.26 respectively per 100 woman-days in group B. There was no significant difference between the two arms. CONCLUSION: The multiple daily use of COL-1492 by female sex workers did not show an increase of local toxicity over that of a placebo. Colposcopy was discontinued in the autumn of 1997 in accordance with a Data Safety Monitoring Board decision. In the currently ongoing effectiveness trial the assessment of the product's toxicity continues to be monitored by simple visual examination.

Abstract This article introduces the symposium “Toward a Philosophy of Blockchain,” which provides a philosophical contemplation of blockchain technology, the digital ledger software underlying cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, for the secure transfer of money, assets, and information via the Internet without needing a third‐party intermediary. The symposium offers philosophical scholarship on a new topic, blockchain technology , from a variety of perspectives. The philosophical themes discussed include mathematical models of reality, signification, and the sociopolitical institutions that structure human life and interaction. The symposium also investigates the metaphilosophical theme of how to create a philosophy of anything , specifically a new topic such as blockchain technology. Repeated themes are identified, in all areas of philosophical inquiry (ontology, epistemology, and axiology), and conceptual resources are elaborated to contribute to a philosophical understanding of blockchain technology. Thus, philosophy as a metaphilosophical approach is shown to be able to provide an understanding of the conceptual, theoretical, and foundational dimensions of novelty and emergence in the world, with a particular focus on blockchain technology.

International audience

<titre>Constructing Weberian Bureaucracies in the Age of New Public Management? </titre> Starting with a broad review of the literature devoted to administrative reforms in a process of democratization, the article identifies the various political uses these reforms involve: appropriation of the apparatus for exercising power, organizational streamlining to produce collective goods, control of administrative resources according to a clientelistic rational, concern for legitimation with respect to international funding and development organizations. As it analyzes the conditions in which the three competing repertoires of reform (&#8220;Weberian&#8221; bureaucratic model, decentralized state, new public management), the article examines the ambiguities of these recipes and examines the issues, the limits and the effects of manipulating them. It especially points up the institutional entrenchment of the reforms and their dependence on administrations inherited from authoritarian regimes that shape and constrain attempts to transform administrative systems in a democratic context.

Abstract Similar to the early days of the Internet, today, the effectiveness and applicability of legal regulations are being challenged by the advent of blockchain technology. Yet, unlike the Internet, which has evolved into an increasingly centralized system that was largely brought within the reach of the law, blockchain technology still resists regulation and is thus described by some as being “alegal”, i.e., situated beyond the boundaries of existing legal orders and, therefore, challenging them. This article investigates whether blockchain technology can indeed be qualified as alegal and the extent to which such technology can be brought back within the boundaries of a legal order by means of targeted policies. First, the article explores the features of blockchain-based systems, which make them hard to regulate, mainly due to their approach to disintermediation. Second, drawing from the notion of alegality in legal philosophy, the article analyzes how blockchain technology enables acts that transgress the temporal, spatial, material, and subjective boundaries of the law, thereby introducing the notion of “alegality by design”—as the design of a technological artifact can provide affordances for alegality. Third, the article discusses how the law could respond to the alegality of blockchain technology through innovative policies encouraging the use of regulatory sandboxes to test for the “functional equivalence” and “regulatory equivalence” of the practices and processes implemented by blockchain initiatives.

International audience

La France a connu, au cours de la dernière législature, d’importants transferts de compétences de l’État vers les collectivités. Ces transferts ont été fréquemment présentés comme le produit d’une stratégie unilatérale de délestage de l’État sur les collectivités territoriales. Cet article remet en question cette interprétation simpliste en montrant que du processus de mise à l’agenda, en passant par la phase d’élaboration, jusqu’à la mise en œuvre de la réforme, la décentralisation est bien, en France, affaire de compromis entre l’État et les collectivités.

The uncoordinated closing down of internal borders, lock-downs and quarantines have limited the freedom of movement in Europe as never before. How have EU institutions framed this unprecedented immobility and what lessons can be drawn for Schengen as a highly politicized instrument of governance? Adopting a social constructivist approach, we study how between March and July 2020, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council/European Council have framed the debate around immobility in Europe. This article shows that the emergence of the public health frame has mostly been linked by EU Member States to traditional notions of internal security, demonstrating continuity with prior crises. Appeals to a functional-solidarity frame involving more coordination and non-discrimination were made by the European Commission, mainstream Members of European Parliament (MEPs) as well as some countries such as France and Germany. Justified by the public health emergency and compensated by innovative solutions such as the ‘green lanes’ – proving the adaptability of the EU -, the reintroduction of internal border controls has nonetheless been normalised, raising questions about the future of transnational solidarity.

The article addresses internal and hidden politics of changes in bureaucracies by focusing on the introduction and use of policy instruments as institutional change without radical or explicit shifts in administrative systems. Beneath public administrative reforms, it examines the use of “low‐profile instruments” characterized by their technical and goal‐oriented dimension but also by their low visibility to external actors due to the high complexity of their commensurating purpose and the automaticity of their use. The core case study of the paper offers a historical sociology of a technique for calculating the growth of the French civil service wage bill from the mid‐1960s to the 2000s. The origins, uses, and institutionalisation of this method in the French context are explored to emphasize the important way of governing the bureaucracy at times of crisis through automatic, unobtrusive, incremental, and low‐profile mechanisms. While insisting on the salience of techniques for calculating, measuring, classifying, and indexing in the contemporary art of government, it also suggests the need for observing and explaining “everyday forms of retrenchment” in bureaucracies.

Résumé Ce chapitre propose d’analyser le new public management (NPM) avec une interprétation complémentaire de celles qui l’assimilent à une déclinaison du référentiel de marché. En s’appuyant sur les apports du néo-institutionnalisme sociologique, les auteurs suggèrent que le développement du NPM peut être lu comme une entreprise de rationalisation et de bureaucratisation sous l’effet de la diffusion des techniques de gouvernement par la performance et de « l’agence » comme standard organisationnel. Les déclinaisons concrètes de cette entreprise sont discutées.

International audience

As a result of tests performed since ERS-1 launch, the scatterometer archive was reprocessed using improved algorithms at "Centre ERS d'Archivage et de Traitement" located in the "Institut Francais de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la MER". A model function based upon buoy and model wind data was developed and the Normalized Radar Cross Section (NRCS) observations are shown to fit well with this model function. Scatterometer winds are in good agreement with winds measured on NOAA buoys. Mean standard deviation is of the order of 1.2 m/s for wind speed and 15 degrees for wind direction with no biases. However, some limitations affect the data accuracy: (1) insufficient anisotropy of NRCS's at low incidence angles and low wind speeds results in an increase in the wind direction standard deviations for these conditions, (2) the same underestimation of very high wind speeds (above 20 m/s) as with the Seasat scatterometer is observed and causes are being analysed, (3) effects of the lack of correction for stratification and sea-state on the 10 m neutral wind vector estimate when inversing the scatterometer signals is shown by comparison with NOAA buoy data. Differences with the real-time data provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) are discussed in terms of wind accuracy and in terms of quality control, especially concerning dealiasing skill and sea-ice detection.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

This paper compares Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and equity crowdfunding with Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and explores the corresponding risks and limitations of these different fundraising practices, with a view to analysing the extent to which the latter should be subject to the same regulatory framework as the former. After assessing the underlying principles and current regulatory framework for IPOs and equity crowdfunding, with a focus on Europe and the US, we investigate the possibility of applying existing financial regulations to ICOs. Drawing from the notion of “functional equivalence”, we contend that many ICOs share a sufficient number of similarities with traditional IPOs and equity crowdfunding, to be regulated in a similar manner. However, given the various attempts by token issuers to escape from the scope of securities laws by assigning a different function to their ICOs tokens, we argue that principle-based regulation based on an in-depth risk-analysis could be an effective way of addressing the regulation of ICOs, thereby moving from “functional equivalence” to “risk equivalence”. Finally, we explore the use of blockchain technology as a regulatory technology, incorporating specific rules and constraints into the technological fabric of an ICO, in order to ensure compliance with the fundamental principles of financial regulation.

A very large amount of human material (7 embryos, 12 stillborns, 12 penes of males aged between 2 and 86 years, as well as bioptical material from 80 subjects affected by impotence problems) has been examined so as to study the penis arterial and venous walls, the blood flow regulation mechanisms and the intracavernal trabecular morphology. The amount of muscle tissue and of collagenous connective tissue has been numerically quantified by computer-assisted methods. This study enables the authors to underline three fundamental facts: (a) it confirms the normal penile erection mechanism, and the consequent theory, (b) it confirms that vascular sclerosis is a systemic phenomenon correlated to age, and that the penis is not exempt, and (c) in the case of impotence problems, the same sclerosis phenomenon may appear at an earlier age, and therefore induce pathological impotence.