Sciences Po
Sciences Po or Sciences Po Paris, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies, is a public research university located in Paris, France, that holds the status of grande école and the legal status of Grands établissements. The university's undergraduate program is taught on the Paris campus as well as on the decentralized campuses in Dijon, Le Havre, Menton, Nancy, Poitiers and Reims, each with their own academic program focused on a geopolitical part of the world. While Sciences Po historically specialized in political science, it progressively expanded to other social sciences such as economics, law, and sociology.
The school was established in 1872 by Émile Boutmy as the École libre des sciences politiques in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War as a private institution to form a new French elite that would be knowledgeable in political science, law and history. It was a pioneer in the emergence and development of political science as an academic field in France. Following World War II, the school was nationalized and re-established as a public institution. As of 2021, 80% of Sciences Po graduates are employed in the private sector.
Sciences Po Paris is the only Institute of Political Sciences in France allowed to refer to itself with the epithet "Sciences Po" without indicating the name of the city where their headquarters are located, under a legal agreement with the other institutes. They are allowed to use the term "Sciences Po" to refer to themselves only when followed by the names of the cities where they are located, such as "Sciences Po Lille" or "Sciences Po Grenoble."
The institute is a member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs and The European University of Social Sciences.
History
1872 to 1945: Free School of Political Sciences
Sciences Po was established in December 1871 as the École libre des sciences politiques by a group of French intellectuals, politicians and businessmen led by Émile Boutmy, including Hippolyte Taine, Ernest Renan, Albert Sorel and Paul Leroy Beaulieu. The creation of the school was in response to widespread fears that the inadequacy of the education of the French political elite corps would diminish the country's international stature, as France grappled with a series of crises, including its defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, the demise of Napoleon III's regime, and the upheaval and massacre resulting from the Paris Commune. The founders of the school sought to reform the training of the French political and economic elite by establishing a new "breeding ground where nearly all the major, non-technical state commissioners were trained." His innovative intellectual axis was to teach contemporary history, whereas political elites had only been taught ancient humanities for centuries, which they could still learn in universities at the same time.The École acquired a major role in France's political system. From 1901 to 1935, 92.5% of entrants to the Grands corps de l'État, the most powerful and prestigious administrative bodies in the French Civil Service, had studied there.
Other countries created similar schools in the following century. In 1875, the in Italy, at the end of the century, the École libre des sciences Politiques et Sociales in Belgium, the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik in Germany, the Columbia School of Political Science, the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom, and, after WW1, for the School of Foreign Service from Georgetown University in the United States and the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland.
The connection between Sciences Po and French institutions meant that the school also played a key role in the apparatus of the French colonial empires. In 1886, the university established a colonial studies program with the goal of training students to take on professions in the colonial administration in a way that "propagates a more scientific and international colonialism". Many professors and members of the ELSP administration, such as Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, chair in colonial affairs at ELSP, Joseph Chailley-Bert, Jules Cambon, Charles Jonnart, Auguste Louis Albéric d’Arenberg and Ernest Roume, were also closely linked to or worked directly with the colonial government. The colonial branch of ELSP closed in 1893 after a state-sponsored Colonial School was created in 1889; however positions in the administrations of French colonies and protectorates continued to accept graduates from the ELSP.
1945: Refoundation
Sciences Po underwent significant reforms in the aftermath of World War II in 1945. At France's liberation from Nazi occupation, the public servants were accused of collaborating with the Vichy regime and Nazi Germany Communist politicians including Georges Cogniot accused the school to be the "home of collaboration" with Nazi Germany and proposed abolishing the ELSP entirely and founding a new state-run administration college on its premises. The school, however, had also trained eight out of the thirteen ministers of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, and several prominent members of the French Resistance. In order for the school not to be replaced, the director Roger Seydoux, his aid Jacques Chapsal and the school's most famous professor, André Siegfried, excluded those among the school's staff who were most compromised with the Vichy regime and Nazi Germany, and defended the school against accusation of collaboration and built up a communication campaign to save the school.The choice regarding the future of the school would be made by France's Provisional Government, under Charles de Gaulle. The alumni Michel Debré, Jules Jeanneney and Roger Grégoire decided that the school would be preserved but transformed in a new structure. Two separate legal entities were created: the Institut d'études politiques and the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques or FNSP. Both were tasked by the French government to ensure "the progress and the spread, both within and outside France, of political science, economics, and sociology". The FNSP, a private foundation, manages the IEP de Paris, owns its buildings and libraries, and determines its budget. The two entities work together in lockstep, however, as the director of the school is, by tradition, also the administrator of FNSP. This institutional arrangement gives Sciences Po a unique status, as the school draws most of its resources through substantial government subsidies to FNSP, but does not subject it to many government interventions and regulations, giving it a much higher level of autonomy compared to other French universities and schools. The epithet Sciences Po is applied to both entities, which inherited the reputation previously vested in ELSP.
The public-private nature of Sciences Po, Paris, also distinguishes it from a network of institutes of political studies throughout the country that were inspired by its curriculum, namely in Strasbourg, Lyon, Aix, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Toulouse, Rennes and Lille. They are not to be confused with the seven campuses of Sciences Po in France.
The government also established in 1945 the École Nationale d'Administration, an elite postgraduate school for training government officials. From then on, the Grands Corps de l'Etat were obliged to recruit new entrants from ENA. Sciences Po became the school of choice for those hoping to enter the ENA, and so retained its dominant place in educating high-ranking officials.
1945 to 1996: The Chapsal-Gentot-Lancelot era
From 1947 to 1979, Sciences Po is directed by Jacques Chapsal, who replaced his mentor Roger Seydoux and led the school through the Trente Glorieuses expansion as well as the May 68 crisis. Under Chapsal, Sciences Po expands geographically. After the acquisition of the Hôtel de La Meilleraye, just across Sciences Po's lawn, the school bought the hôtel de La Bretesche at number 30, rue Saint-Guillaume, just in front of the main building. In 1976, the Presses de Sciences Po is created.In 1956, Sciences Po created its first PhD program. The CEVIPOF, Center for Political Research, is created in 1960.
Between 1952 and 1969, 77.5% of the ENA's graduate student intake were Sciences Po alumni.
FNSP received a significant donations from the Rockefeller Foundation. FNSP published periodicals such as la Revue française de science politique, le Bulletin analytique de documentation, la Chronologie politique africaine, and the Cahiers de la Fondation as well as its seven research centres and main publishing house, Presses de Sciences Po.
1996 to 2012: The Descoings era
Political science professor Alain Lancelot led the school between 1987 and 1997. He prepared for the school's vice-director, Richard Descoings, to become the director of Sciences Po. Under the directorship of Descoings, the school incorporated courses in various branches of the social sciences on top of political science, such as law, economics, history, and sociology. The school also began requiring all its undergraduate students to spend a year abroad, and introduced a multilingual curriculum in French, English, and other languages. Sciences Po also began to expand outside Paris, establishing regional campuses throughout France.During this period, Sciences Po implemented reforms in its admissions process. Previously, Sciences Po recruited its students exclusively on the basis of a competitive examination. This system was seen to favor students from prestigious high schools. In 2001, Sciences Po founded the Equal Opportunity Program, widening its admissions policy. This program enables the institution to recruit high-potential students at partner high schools in more disadvantaged parts of France who, due to a social, academic, and financial constraints, would not otherwise have been able to attend Sciences Po. As a consequence, from 2001 to 2011, the proportion of scholarship students at Sciences Po went from 6 to 27 percent with around 30% of all students at Sciences Po currently receiving some form of scholarship.
The reforms Descoings spearheaded were at times controversial and his leadership style came under heavy criticism. A further report by the French Court of Audit in 2012 severely criticized the financial management of the bonuses and salaries under Descoings.