Abstract EN:

Often satisfied with a rough image of trade unionism, political science finds itself confronted with the following alternative : amalgamating the terms union and pressure group or defining the former by opposition to political parties. Instead of these normative categories, in reality it is the function of feeding into the political system which determines trade unionism as an object for political science. A factor determining political participation and the mobilisation of support, unionism is also a means of political socialisation and recruitment of elites. From this angle, the crisis which has hit unionism since the end of the 1970s, whether its factors be endogenous or exogenous, can be analyzed as the sum of a series of disfunctionings which effect each of its contributions to the political system. More precisely, this thesis develops the general hypothesis that the fading of unionism can be explained by the gradual disappearance of the principal clements of political socialisation situated at the sources of militantism.