Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques

The Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (French pronunciation: [akademi de sjɑ̃s mɔʁal e pɔlitik], Academy of Moral and Political Sciences) is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.

Organisation

The members of the Académie are elected by peers. It is made of 50 members in 6 different sections depending on their specialisations:

Philosophy
Morals and Sociology
Law
Political economics, statistics and finances
History and geography
General section, formerly called membres libres (free members)

History

The Académie was founded in 1795, suppressed in 1803, and reestablished in 1832 through the appeal of Guizot to King Louis Philippe.^[1] It is divided into five sections and has for its chief purpose the discussion of mental philosophy, law and jurisprudence, political economy and statistics, general and philosophical history, and politics, administration, and finance. It distributes the Baujour, Faucher, Bonnefous, Halphen, Bordin, and other prizes, publishes Mémoires, and holds its annual meeting each December.

Role and missions

Being under the protection of the president of the Republic, the Academy, a distinctive legal entity with particular status, promotes regular meetings and debates devoted towards fundamental or unanswered topics. In the last years, some of the themes were: