A sociology of the state through rights.

Summary This chapter presents the theoretical issues of a sociological and political science reflection on the growing reference to rights and their use in public action. Approaching public action through rights makes it possible to go beyond the question of the framing of state action by law, according to the classic definition of the rule of law, and to ask how the state acts to make the rights recognized to individuals effective - which we propose to examine using the concept of the rights state. By mobilizing the work of the Law and Society movement and the sociology of the State, we study the conditions of possibility of this State of rights in the light of contemporary transformations of public action.