Contenu du sommaire : Qui gouverne les villes?

The town was set for some years at the intersection of different approaches about political science. But the connection of the results about these researches give a lot of problems from then the concrete transformations of modes of conquest and practise of power in municipal rank will be tried to be identified. In this way, on approach concentrated on elective staff and modes of public and political action, which it mobilizes, would be a way of estimating its reach, at once in a comparatist and diachronic prospect.

Even before the decentralization laws, French cities have shown a capacity to manage themselves. It is even possible that these laws actually undermined this capacity. To give claim to these assertions, it is necessary to build a concept of municipal government that credits the existence of a political capacity in cities going back to the endoftheXlX1" century. Municipal government is intimately linked to both French republican and welfare states. Its present difficulties arise with the latters' transformations.

Starting from the present debate on urban governance vs. government this article considers it would be a progress if we had a description of the institutional frameworks governing the metropolitan areas; they are not the same and they have some consequences on action. A typology based on two main factors is discussed: the level of administrative unity/fragmentation of the metropolitan areas, the level of delegation of urban services to the private sector. Five major types are presented. Then the article discusses three new issues which characterise the new situation of local government (new paradigm). One question is the structural asymmetry between municipal institutions and the large firms of urban services. A second issue is the capacity to govern, to pilot public action in a new context of uncertainty. A third one is the consequence, in the construction of the general Law, of the withdrawal of the central State and of the rise of individuality. Local governments have to face the problem of linking individual cases with universal law, and of merging locally some interests which can be absolutely opposed .

Public action analyses tend to ignore its political dimension. More interested by the action 's outputs, they consider its legitimacy as a result of its efficiency. The exemple of an urban planning on the languedocien coast shows that the legitimacy of the mayor's action is linked to his capacity to control the municipal public sphere. This control needs (i) the political selection of "compatible" public and private partners, and (ii) the constitution of support within populations representative of the municipality's sociological profile. The mayor is then able to build an acceptable representation of his action.

During the Spanish democratic transition, queries about efficiency and legitimacy of local government were closely linked. For this prospect, the local implantation of political parties and the assignment to the mayors a strong capability of action were privileged. In the course of these years, the will of electors, the role played by political parties and chiefly the strategies of local elites modified the characteristics of local political systems and produced a new model as a mayor. This one is distinguished by a large elective longevity, a search of autonomy and a primacy in comparison with other municipal elected members. The sociographie data about socialization and elective political heritage show peculiarities of mayors at the beginning of democracy and a specific local political class in Catalogne.

The expertise of urban management is far from being a new practice. Since the end of the XIX century, international networks have been structured in order to spread innovative know-how experimented in local administrations. By stimulating economic competition and actively promoting the internationalization of cities, the institutionalization of Europe has actually redefined the stakes and the organization of such activities. A new type of expert in city management appeared in the last decade. The provision of expertise in the internationalization of cities became a new professional practice. Nevertheless one should not over-estimate the influence of such a practice. Since the major concern is to build proper strategies adapted to the peculiar features of each city, local mobilizations have become the central element of the "internationalization path " building process. That is what our studies of three southern European cities shows. We have observed that this expertise on the internationalization of cities can be a localized collective and interactive process, and not only the product of the activity of a strictly delimited professional field Furthermore, heal collaborative building processes of internationalization expertise can promote new forms of political organization in cities, which enhance the autonomy of urban governance.

The Italian regional elections, which occured in april 16th 2000, took for the first time into account an electoral reform which consists in vote for the individual candidates to the présidence of Regions. This one was part of a more general trend toward the reinforcment of regional powers, which are often considered as rather weak in Italy. After an assessment of the detailed dynanmics which have marked these elections, the authors analyse, region by region, Berlusconi 's relatively modest victory. They consider that the weigh of changes affecting the system of coalitions is largely dominant in order to explain the contemporary landscape and to understand next political goals.

1999 and 2000 have been two yean of intense political life throughout the elections at regional and national level. This double electoral perspective happens in a very stable political context, in which the centre-right coalition Convergència i Unie (CiU) and the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) dominate the electoral landscape. Since the beginning of the eigties, Catalan citizens are used to vote for the first one at the "autonomie" level, and for the latter at the national level. In such a bipolarized political structure, the other parties, i.e. the former communist left and the conservative Popular Party, benefit from the proportional electoral system in order to build or brake any parliamentary majority, and thus influence local politics.

The bipartism that the 2000 elections yielded is fundamentally different from the traditional Greek bipartism. The two parties (PASOK, ND), generally preserving their traditional resources, mutually expanded their appeal to their main opponents influence territories. The new bipartism here after reflects not the inter-party divergence but, on the contrary, a convergence.