315.1
José Bové : An Online Campaign ?

Tuesday, July 15, 2014: 10:30 AM
Room: Booth 45
Oral Presentation
Aïcha BOURAD , Political Science, Toulouse Political Science Intitute, Toulouse, France
During the 2007 French presidential elections, José Bové runs as candidate. He does not belong to any party and he is not supported by any political organization. Through this particular case study, our goal is to question the idea of Internet as a tool of democratic renewal[1]

His campaign is partly based on an online petition, as a consequence of a failed negotiation between potential candidates at the far-left of the political spectrum This campaign highlights the increasing demand for political participation by social-movements’ activists as much as it highlights the questioning of the representative pretentions from existing parties through the contestation[2] of the established political action rules.

In this context the Internet use can be considered as a way to challenge the legitimate political institutions[3] This communication analyzes the role of the Internet use during the campaign and the way this tool embodies all the dissenting political claims and its pretention to constitute a democratic legitimacy This part is focuses on the actions/interactions of gathering activists called “free-electrons”. These people, bound by their common use of the Internet, are known to be at the fore of the online petition asking for José Bové's “come-back”. On a second time, this paper examines the day-to-day practices of these militants to show how a more traditional repertoire of actions remain and shape, complete or interfere with their online practices.



[1] NORRIS Pippa A Virtuous circle. Political communications in postindustrial societies, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

[2]Tilly Charles, Tarrow Sidney, Contentious politics, Paradigm, 2006

[3] The analysis based on a 3 year long field work carried out among some José Bové’s campaign activists included semi-structured interviews and participants' observations.