Birth of administrative sociology.

Summary This dossier concludes a cycle of publications that, since 2014, have engaged in a critical discussion of the contributions and blind spots of research conducted within a research laboratory: the Centre de sociologie des organisations (CSO). It thus follows on from an issue of the Revue française de science politique ("Saisir l'État par son administration", 70-1, 2020) that addresses the question of the relationship between the founding work of the CSO and the development of administrative sociology. The perspective is more sociological than historical, with contributions focused on a contemporary and critical re-reading of some of the concepts developed in the program "l'administration face au problème du changement" (administration facing the problem of change) launched by Michel Crozier and his teams in 1964 (bureaucratic phenomenon, peripheral power, and the corporatist system, in particular). The articles gathered here under the heading "birth of administrative sociology" aim to offer a historical perspective to critical reflections, not only on the work of the CSO but, more generally, on the founding period of a certain form of administrative sociology practiced in the 1950s to 1970s.