Contenu du sommaire : Causes entendues - Les conditions de mobilisation (2)

When tbe political machine leads a boss to scandal. The fall of the House of Médecin. Alain Garrigou. [7-35]. The Médecin affair cannot be explained by its sole peculiarity. On the contrary, it enables an analysis of the links between corruption and political scandal. Based on the conflictual definitions of the reality of infringements, this investigation draws a line from the actual scandal to the mechanism disclosing the infringements ; and from then to the functioning of the local political machine. This machine has been built on the ancient system of clients, system which has been later on expanded, rationalized and strenghthened by the new ressources of decentralization. It then became the scene of a great competition for the appropriation of profit and generated frustrations and visibility. The first one to benefit by the machine, ils apparently almighty boss, was loosing control.

Networks versus spider webs. A construction of tbe cause of drug addicts faced with Aids. Jean-Yves Trépos. [36-50]. In the first term of 1987, an unexpected effect of the propagation of the Aids virus drew the attention of a few health and social work professionals on the situation of HIV positive drug addicts : the difficulty to have access to care, due to the lack of medical staff in post-cure centres and to the lack of flexibility of the timetables, and the non-availability of medical staff in hospitals. This situation, even though it concems a limited population, raises problems of general interests (public health) which justifies a mobilization of ressources. According to these specialists supported by a "Direction" of the ministry of Health, the appropriate strategy for the cause lies in meetings between the staff dealing with drug addiction and the hospital staff, so as to work out projects together. According to them, tbe originality of the scbeme is to enable a shift from the "Spider web» which treats patients as prey, to the «network» which deals witb them as individuals. The networks do not erase conflicts and makes negociations necessary to find a consensus.

Tbe minister, public affairs, and bis portfolio. Guillaume Courty. [51-78]. Who bears the differential causes pleaded by the spokesmen of economic interests, and how ? To answer this question, it is necessary to understand how the minister holding the civil engineering portfolio prevents his management from becoming an "affair" in the polilical field. He must then keep a distance between himself and the interest he stands for, firstly by proving that only bis vocation as a politician can account for bis interest in those interests, and secondly by using his team of advisers as an instrument of perception which embody this disinterested judgement.

A cause : tbe antifascism of intellectuals in tbe 1930's. Nicole Racine. [79-85]. Could the notion of «cause» help us to understand the intellectual left's contribution to the myth of the USSR ? Could it also allow us to go beyond the simplifying argument of the left's blindness ? From its very beginning, the intellectual antifascism which developped after tbe advent of nazism merged with tbe defense of the USSR. From 1934-1935 onwards, the requirements of the union of the left made it necessary to ignore the issues raised by the nature of the Soviet regime. The conception of anti-fascism that prevailed excluded any critical dimension (antistalinism), thus proving that it bad become a «Cause».

Resistance as legitimation of violence. Tbe case of the italian extreme-left. (1969-1974). Isabelle Sommier. [86-103]. 1969-1974 is the genesis period of the italian armed struggle. It is mainly characterized by the efforts made by the first fighting groups to construct a filiation with the Resistance movement. Their regard to mimesis makes clear the wbole construction of the "cause" of violence and the mobilization of ressources (names, patterns of action). The symbolic struggle between the extreme-left and the PCI can be understood in the same way. The cultural legacy of the PCI isthus claimed, reexamined (and therefore competeted witb) in order to support the armed

Tbe moral competence. Dominique Memmi. [104-124]. Taking an active part in the elaboration of a collective moral doctrine without any express mandate from any institution or constituent body, demands a great aptitude for distancing oneself from one's own as well as others' desires. This aptitude is linked to certain social, biographical or disciplinary positions. Nevertheless, the representations inspired by these positions as well as the psychic, symbolical, and material interests which are associated with them are duly worked on again. It means that they are publicly made neutral, universal as well as emptied of their affects so as to leave room for an expressive energy whose sole apparent objective is the normative production of itself. Now, this distancing and its free character enables the separation and distinction of a group in the making, which is thus endowed with the minimum social authority which is moral competence.

«Ah, qu'elle était jolie...». Alain Viala. [125-141]. The famous sentence introducing La Chèvre de M. Seguin by Alphonse Daudet is usually cut. If the whole sentence is taken into account, the first character changes. The goal gives way to the poet Gringoire. The nursery tale becomes a political and a social metaphor. The text reads both ways : the criticism of the Parnassiens and the Realistes betrays Daudet's position in the changing litterary fxeld ; its satirical feature shows the writers' ambiguous position in the french society of the mid-nineteenth century.