UN RENOUVEAU DE LA PARTICIPATION ASSOCIATIVE ? L'engagement et le militantisme au sein du comité Attac Isère

A comparative study

The accession act in Attac marks the inscription in a national community (and even international). As Jacques Ion notices it, the membership of an association always passes by fastening to one « basic sociability ». The model of associative federations which developed under IIIéme République articulated one « pole member » national and one « Community pole » local^20(*). Within Attac, the act militant seems to be registered in a privileged way on a local scale. Indeed, the local committees are charged with « to carry » claims on the territory. The comprehension of the militants is thus indissociable medium in which they fit. This is why the ground of investigation more appropriate to our research must sufficiently be restricted and circumscribed to take into account the specificity of the militants. Moreover, this ground must sufficient present common points with national association so that a filiation can be made between the two. The study of the committee Attac Isere answers these criteria.

The committee Attac Isere east, first of all, appeared in November 1998, a few months after the creation of national association. It is also on the initiative of a whole of organizations, which are for the majority founder members of Attac, that the committee isérois was set up. It knew a progression, in terms of manpower, similar to that which took place on the national level. Attac Isere counted 200 members in January 1999, then 590 members in 2000 and 820 in February 2001.

A research cannot relate only to the committee isérois. The interdependence of the room and the national implies to articulate in the same reflection two dimensions of association. The study of the committee must make it possible to release certain elements which will be relevant in comparison with the national organization. It is a question of seeking the resemblances as much that the divergences between Attac Isere and Attac national. It thus appears necessary to take into account the characteristics of the room. The committee Attac Isere has for example a specific mode of organization. The statutes which were adopted are not those of local association or other committees. Moreover, some of its standpoint go against those of the national direction. These dissimilarities testify, of course, of specificities of the local committee, but they also make it possible to take the measurement of the effectivity of the innovation that Attac claims to represent. They thus do not constitute a limit with the comprehension of engagement within Attac but its condition of possibility. It is by a comparative approach between the room and the national that it is possible to question the alleged innovation of the movement.

A new age of the associative participation ?

The attribute which would qualify Attac most adequately would be that of the innovation. It would as well give an account of the originality of the associative form of the movement as of the singularity of the engagement of the militants. Besides this engagement seems to be at against current of the traditional and contemporary modes of participation.

Up to what point can one speak about a new age of the participation associative^21(*)? In what this revival is it expresses within the committee isérois?

To wonder about Attac thus amounts examining the innovation which is allotted to him, in order to distinguish the share from it from the nine and old. For that, it is necessary to adopt a double comparative step in which the committee isérois will be used as referent. We will carry out a first comparison between the speech held by association and its effectivity at the local level. In addition, it appears paramount to confront the characteristics of the national organization with the committee isérois.

* ²⁰ Ion (Jacques), end of the militants  ? , Paris, ED workers, 1997, p. 28.

* ²¹ Martine Barthélémy allots a broad direction to the associative participation which it defines as being «  a voluntary process of mobilization of the individuals in a group made up more or less durable and intervening in the public sphere  ». Barthelemy (Martine), Associations  : a new age of the participation? , Paris, Press FNSP, 2000, p. 13.