La thèse traite des modalités contemporaines de l’engagement public, à partir d’une recherche menée dans un collectif d’habitants du quartier de la Duchère à Lyon. Elle propose une sociologie des épreuves de vigilance des habitants pour renouveler les cadres d’analyse de l’activité politique en banlieue. Elle entend mettre au jour les conditions concrètes d’émergence et d’exercice de la critique sociale en s’intéressant de façon pragmatique aux compétences déployées par les habitants engagés dans ces épreuves de vigilance. La recherche centre son attention sur le rapport au monde spécifique qui peut se déployer à travers ce type d'engagement dans la localité. Nous proposerons ici une sociologie liant sociologie politique et sociologie urbaine qui permette de rendre compte des divers cheminements qu’emprunte la vigilance. L’analyse doit notamment passer par la reconsidération de l’expérience de la quotidienneté comme expérience politique. Elle prendra en compte également le rapport à l’histoire du quartier qu’entretiennent les habitants de la Duchère, celle-ci faisant figure de ville nouvelle depuis les années soixante. Elle s’attachera enfin à la réflexivité qui s’exerce localement autour du travail social. / This thesis is about the contemporary modalities of public engagement. By focusing on an inhabitants' collective in a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Lyon's suburb called « La Duchère », it offers a sociological analysis of the inhabitants' experiencing vigilance and so it aims to renew the analysis patterns of political activity in such neighbourhoods called « banlieue » in France. By employing a pragmatist perspective to investigate the inhabitants' abilities involved in different vigilance processes, it offers an analysis of the practical conditions of emergence and exercise of social critic. By researching the specific relationship to the world that can spread through this type of locality engagement, we'll propose a sociology crossing political and urban analysis to expose the multiple ways vigilance can take. To do so we need to rethink the day-to-day experience as a political experience. We will also consider the specific inhabitants' relation to the neighbourhood's history, “La Duchère”, as it's being defined as a “new town” since the 60's. Finally, we'll be focusing on the reflexivity locally exercised around social work.

In recent times, public engagement has become an increasingly prominent feature of modern public service provision. Contemporary Public Engagement (CPE) has been characterized by the proliferation of new and innovative mechanisms with which to engage and involve the public in any process in which their input is either desired or legally required. This thesis takes a qualitative approach to exploring CPE within the context of local public services in Scotland, with the explicit aim of contribution to the development of conceptual understanding and theory. The design of this project was based on a case study of the Clackmannanshire Community Health Partnership (CHP). The key empirical instruments were semi-structured interviews, a focus group, analysis of key CHP documents and participant observation by the researcher at CHP Committee meetings. This study makes three main contributions to existing knowledge. They are: a Conceptual Framework for explaining CPE within Scottish local public service provision, a Conceptual Model which is based on the Conceptual Framework and presents it at a higher level of abstraction, and the generation of substantive theory rooted in the case study data. The thesis makes two main recommendations. The first is that further comparative research should be undertaken in order to further develop and confirm the validity of Conceptual Model and substantive theory. The second is that meta-analysis should be undertaken to assist in the development of the proposed formal theory of Public Sector Reform.