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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2026

Mathieu Hikaru Desan
Affiliation:
University of Colorado Boulder
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Summary

This chapter introduces the case of Marcel Déat, a leader of the French Socialist Party who founded one of the main collaborationist parties during the German occupation of France. I define political conversion and argue that accounts of it tend to be marked by a continuity bias. This is true of extant accounts of Déat’s conversion, which emphasize the significance of neo-socialism in determining his trajectory. I argue that this explanatory emphasis on ideological continuity is theoretically and empirically unsound. As an alternative approach, I introduce what I call the practical logic of political conversion, drawing on anti-essentialist and relational theories of political ideologies that treat these as articulated products of classification struggles within political fields. I argue further that the fundamentally discontinuous and relational character of political conversion means that it should be analyzed in terms of what Bourdieu calls “trajectory.” I end with an overview of the book.

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  • Introduction
  • Mathieu Hikaru Desan, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Book: Order, Authority, Nation
  • Online publication: 20 February 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009691437.001
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  • Introduction
  • Mathieu Hikaru Desan, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Book: Order, Authority, Nation
  • Online publication: 20 February 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009691437.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Mathieu Hikaru Desan, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Book: Order, Authority, Nation
  • Online publication: 20 February 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009691437.001
Available formats
×