The citizens of Madagascar, and especially the capital Antananarivo, display marked support for democracy: adoption of its principles, rejection of authoritarian regimes, etc. The poor populations are no different from the other social groups in this respect. Nevertheless, living in a poor...

This article aims at supplying an interpretative frame of the long-term Malagasy trajectory by redrawing the structuring knots of its political economy. The concomitance of periods of economic expansion and political crises leash indeed to suppose that one of the essential sources of the...

The Health, Inequalities and Social Breakdown (SIRS) survey carried out in Antananarivo in April 2003 on a representative sample of 2,807 people, is part of an international research programme designed to compare the relationships between health, inequalities and social breakdowns in different...

The classical and more recent theories on development all fail to explain Madagascar’s long-running economic underperformance. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of Malagasy history based on the analytical framework of political economy. Our analyses point to the fact that, despite...

The poor neighbourhoods of Antananarivo present an amalgamation of all urban ills: threat of flooding during the rainy season, overcrowded living conditions, almost complete lack of access to running water, frequent problems of drugs and violence, bad reputation, etc. These negative aspects are...

Informal social support contributes in different ways to individuals’ social integration and to poverty reduction. This article makes a comparison between Antananarivo and Paris. The data is taken from a survey carried out as part of a multidisciplinary international research programme,...

This note is a reflection on the meaning and scope of segregation and socio-spatial fragmentation indicators and, beyond, on the role of statistics in sociological reasoning. It shows that if these indicators can be used to test theories of segregation or fragmentation, they must nevertheless...

The second wave of the 1-2-3 survey was carried out in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012. It allows for important insights on basic socio-economic indicators for the first time since the first wave was carried out in 2004-2005. The present survey differs from the previous one in that a...

This article throws light on the contribution of sociologists to the debates relating to poverty in England at the turn of the 20th century and, additionally, the role of these debates in the emergence of sociology on the political, then academic scene. It shows that if sociology was still in...