This article aims at supplying an interpretative frame of the long-term Malagasy trajectory by redrawing the structuring knots of its political economy. The concomitance of periods of economic expansion and political crises leash indeed to suppose that one of the essential sources of the...

The second wave of the 1-2-3 survey was carried out in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012. It allows for important insights on basic socio-economic indicators for the first time since the first wave was carried out in 2004-2005. The present survey differs from the previous one in that a...

The Health, Inequalities and Social Breakdown (SIRS) survey carried out in Antananarivo in April 2003 on a representative sample of 2,807 people, is part of an international research programme designed to compare the relationships between health, inequalities and social breakdowns in different...

The classical and more recent theories on development all fail to explain Madagascar’s long-running economic underperformance. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of Malagasy history based on the analytical framework of political economy. Our analyses point to the fact that, despite...

The poor neighbourhoods of Antananarivo present an amalgamation of all urban ills: threat of flooding during the rainy season, overcrowded living conditions, almost complete lack of access to running water, frequent problems of drugs and violence, bad reputation, etc. These negative aspects are...

Informal social support contributes in different ways to individuals’ social integration and to poverty reduction. This article makes a comparison between Antananarivo and Paris. The data is taken from a survey carried out as part of a multidisciplinary international research programme,...

Through a close examination of Yann Algan and Pierre Cahuc’s "La société de défiance : comment le modèle social français s’autodétruit" [The society of mistrust : how the French social model is destroying itself], this article inquires into the role that can be attributed to...

The people of Madagascar, and particularly those of its capital, Antananarivo, strongly support democracy, and reject authoritarian regimes. Support among the poor is no different from other social groups. However, living conditions in poor city wards have resulted in values and attitudes of...