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RésuméL’article part du constat répété d’« essoufflement » ou de « crise » de l’analyse des politiques publiques. Il l’explique par la force de la dynamique intellectuelle et disciplinaire de spécialisation et, indissociablement, de dé-liaison qui conduit à autonomiser l’étude des politiques publiques des perspectives de sociologies de l’État et de l’administration. Prenant l’exemple du champ académique nord-américain, il montre, d’un point de vue analytique et généalogique, comment l’approfondissement de la division sociale du travail scientifique outre-atlantique a apporté de réels gains de connaissance mais aussi débouché sur le morcellement des objets. L’article revient alors sur les principaux apports du néo-institutionnalisme historique aux États-Unis, décrit comme une tentative de réintégration, et sur ses conditions de production. Ce détour nord-américain permet d’éclairer la trajectoire académique française mais aussi les conditions d’importation des approches développées outre-atlantique.

It is frequently heard in both France and the United States that policy analysis is “running out of steam” or perhaps even in crisis. This article suggests that an important reason for this is the excessive intellectual and academic dynamic of specialization and division of scientific labour in political science, which has led to a parting of ways among the studies of public policies, public administration, and the state as each of these has become a largely autonomous sub-field. Taking stock of the changes that have occurred in the North American academic field since the early 20th century, the article identifies through both analytic and genealogical approaches how these processes have led to a fragmentation of the objects under examination in the social and political sciences. It then suggests that, among various contributions, historical institutionalism has offered, since the eighties, a flow of innovative solutions aimed at rearticulating the study of states, public policies, and bureaucracies. This American trip helps define and compare the specificities of the French academic trajectory in the field of study of the state, public administration and public policies. It also raises the issue of the conditions under which American theories have been imported into the French context.