The purpose of this work is to present a sociological analysis of the notion of political realism. Based on three complementary approaches, it offers a critical study of that multifaceted notion. The first approach starts from a history of political thought to try and delineate the emergence of the notion and its evolution. The perspective also aims at retracing the various sociological traditions and offshoots (the Italian, French and Anglo-Saxon branches) derived from it. In the context of historical sociology, the second approach seeks to illustrate the notion through the study of the French Socialist Party and its evolutions. Starting from the premise that political realism and socialism are initially contradictory, this socio-historical approach follows the way in which, by becoming institutionalized, the French Socialist Party has gradually relinquished part of its agenda for a transformation of society. Resting on a survey conducted between 2009 and 2010 with forty socialist militants from the Ile-de-France région, the third approach examines the notion of political realism in the light of the actual experiences and representations of the Party’s active members. The study thus focuses both on the sense of disarray and aimlessness pervading militancy, and on the strategies of reenchantment and reformulation of socialism. This analysis allows to expose the political function of political realism. Under cover of neutrality, that function can be used to discredit the political ideas and practices which are considered as inadmissible. In that sense, political realism is rather an ideology of the end of political ideologies and alternatives, than an actual category for the analysis of politics
