Contenu du sommaire

New telephone-related services (and what might be termed "peri-telephone" services) are today making possible the interpénétration of private and professional spheres - or, it might be more accurate to say, the destabilization of their traditional modes. This article attempts to demonstrate the various forms of this destabilization, and to describe the practices and strategies used by consumers (by means of the communications tools themselves) in order to control how their time and space is given priority. These practices have sometimes even led to putting the means of communication to the service of de-communication.

Current debate on public service monopolies is often clouded by the polysemy of the word "monopoly". Based on the example of water service in Latin America, this article analyzes the rupture of the monopoly of the central state (decentralization), that of the public sector (introduction of private sector or of non-profit organizations), that of public initiative (freedom of entry), and finally that of the territorial monopoly (competition, limitation of exclusive zones). How can the plurality and diversity of actors, the scale of management and the different forms of payment with their mechanisms of solidarity and territorial and social equity be combined with diversely-sized scales? What are the new risks of urban fragmentation? And the paradox: the emergence of a new monopoly, namely, regulatory controls, which is centralized, rigid, complex, in the hands of experts and specialists - precisely where one would expect diversity of forms of control and direction. An "accountability" of accountants, which has now eliminated all political discourse.