Tenir le politique à distance : une capacité citoyenne ? Retour sur l’échec d’une tentative d’instrumentalisation partisane d’une association de loisirs

Associative involvement is often perceived as an activity facilitating the development of citizen capacities while at once favouring participation in legitimate political life. Yet taking the issues surrounding this associative participation into account reveals the fact that it is sometimes accompanied by a desire to safeguard those spaces against overly explicit forms of politization. Based on analysis of a conflict surrounding an instrumentalisation of a leisure association, this article has the specific goal of taking these practices of keeping politics at a distance seriously. In so doing, it shows that the relationship to politics within associations may be structured around a rejection of politics, which requires a certain degree of know-how and competencies. Consequently, against the idea of a politization induced by the possession of political competencies, the citizen capacities mobilized here are primarily used to protect them from the intrusions of political life and the issues proper to it