The Imaginary Potential of Social Cohesion

Abstract

Responding to distinct anxieties and working with different conceptual traditions, cohésion sociale, Bürgergesellschaft and community cohesion arrived at the conclusion that the inactivity of populations causes social problems and puts cohesion at risk. The three agendas reinforced this case in different contexts and provided new vantage points from which to reconceptualize troubling conditions and propose governmental solutions. The present investigation has identified a trend towards activating troublesome populations and has argued that this trend constitutes a point of convergence for policy-making in the name of cohesion. This chapter proposes an overview of cohesion politics across the three cases. Before, however, it is necessary to concede two caveats and clarify the argument about the type of political change that this convergence represents.