Le religieux comme objet en science politique : des recompositions de la division du travail scientifique à l'ouverture de chantiers de recherche distincts

This article presents a socio-historical perspective on research on religious facts in French political science, since the constitution of the discipline separately from public law in the 1970s. Despite a marginal interest, which dwells first in electoral sociology and political philosophy, a first generation of works appears in two fields of studies: the sociology of Islamist movements and religious political parties in the 1980s, and the sociology of citizenship, which renews the questions of national belonging and electoral clericalism. However, the path of complementarity with sociology of religions and heated debates at the start of the 2000s create constraints to develop this research in a more autonomous political sociology of religions. For instance, three new fields of research appear, yet related to general problematics of political sociology: religion in the State, in mobilizations and in public policies. This reconfiguration leads to question the real advantages of a non-specific sociological perspective on religion, but the limits in choices of objects and issues as well.