Contenu du sommaire

Alfredo MELA, The sociology of territory: alternatives to postmodernism. The development of microelectronics and the globalization of the world economy during the 1980's have encouraged a process of reorganization of economic and social space. It is to their credit that sociology, geography and the other territorial sciences have been searching for new interpretations for these phenomena; nonetheless, because these interpretations frequently come under the sometimes uncontrolled influence of the theoretical propositions of postmodernism, they have unilaterally stressed two hypotheses: a growing indifference about where economic activities are located, and the déstructuration of spatial forms as a result. This article would like to critique these assertions, by affirming that the transformations which occur always presuppose changes in the principles of spatial organization of economic activities, although this does not necessarily lead to a sidestepping of territorial hierarchy. Indeed, the tendancy toward either distribution or concentration are combined and regroup into complex structures, whose aspects are frequently contradictory. At the same time, the phenomenon which we are observing at present is not necessarily the "deconstruction" of traditional spatial forms of the "areolar" type, but rather the introduction of new forms, "discontinuous" and fuzzy, along with these forms, the interpretation of which poses a very interesting challenge for the territorial sciences.

Armelle BEUNARDEAU, Denis PHAN, Ten years of liberalization in telecommunications services in the UK: a survey of institutional changes. British institutional transformations are characterized by two aspects, whose economical logic contains several contradictory elements: the desire to encourage competition, and the need to successfully privatize British Telecom. The British government has had to deal with these contradictions. During the seven years of the "duopoly," competition within the fixed network developped only slightly. Technical changes and increase in demand compensated for the negative effects of the duplication of infrastructures; but the present problems of Telepoint illustrate the limits of competition between infrastructures, as soon as there is neither standardization nor a miminům of cooperation among all those involved in order to guarantee the compatibility and inter-operationality among networks. Certain telecommunications services have undergone remarkable growth, but this is certainly due more to the introduction of competition into the sector, both from without and from within, than to the fact of privatization

Alain BELTRAN, The French gas network and new technologies since 1946. The French gas system demonstrates the complete transformation of an old industry - town gas - into a modern technology -natural gas, beginning in 1946 when the gas utility was nationalized. In other words, a chemical activity was changed into an energy industry. The discovery and exploitation of gas resources in France (Aquitaine) and abroad (the USSR, Algeria, Norway and the Netherlands have made Gaz de France more influential. The state-owned company has proved itself capable of building a national infrastructure for the transportation of gas, first in the east of France (Lorraine), then, throughout most of the country. Gas de France has also been able to deal successfully with the problems of gas liquefying and storage. But this evolution has taken place in an environment of stiff competition. Heating fuel and electricity have restricted natural gas to a modest share of the French market (approximately 13-14% of total primary energy supply, less than the Western European average). And the unification of Europe in 1992 raises yet more questions for this still fledgling industry.