For almost three decades now, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Arab world have been undergoing transformations in the ways in which politics and policies are conducted. Paradoxically, while these transformations are taking place in distinct institutional contexts and political regimes, they are also taking place in a number of other contexts. a priori to rhetoric and universes of meaning shared by most of the players involved. The apparent worldwide success of models of public action (such as 'governance'), techniques of government (such as 'participation') or even registers of mobilisation (such as 'alterglobalism') invites the social sciences of politics to empirically question the reality and reasons for the similarities and interdependencies between the socio-political processes identified here and there.

In the multi-disciplinary and comparative tradition of Sciences Po Aix and the Mesopolhis laboratory (UMR 7064), this collection aims to contribute to this questioning by publishing works that give priority to field research and seek to grasp in concrete terms - that is to say, as close as possible to situations and conflicts, actors and their representations - the transnational dimensions of contemporary politics.