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Created in order to reform and democratize a central State discredited by fascism, the Italian Region became immobilized as a result of the central government's reluctance to transfer ils powers and the political parties' determination that it should not challenge the political and social status quo that gave them their strength. Since 1977, however, the regions have had certain powers at their disposal. Have they managed to use them to formulate an independant policy and show regional awareness ? The answer to this question is délicate in that, while the 8 and 9 June 1980 elections showed once again that the regions are no more than instruments in the hands of the State and the parties, the variety of different experiments launched in certain regions does, on the other hand, give a more positive picture of this reform.

Le décalage croissant entre une structure constitutionnelle fédérale rigidement dualiste et le développement coutumier d'un processus de coordination des politiques entre les différents niveaux de gouvernement met en cause la signification et la portée des autonomies des Etats et localités face à l'Etat fédéral. Il est tentant de tenir pour déséquilibre défini­tif du schéma fédéraliste originel l'irrésistible croissance des ressources et du rôle de Washington, pourtant la coordination « au centre » n'a pas entamé l'efficacité traditionnelle des facteurs de décentralisation. Les acteurs locaux contribuent à développer, influencent, voire contrôlent les structures centrales et maintiennent ainsi, malgré les tendances unificatrices de l'économie et de la bureaucratisation, une prédominance « non centrale » assez conforme à l'esprit des institutions américaines. The growing disparity between a rigidly dualistic federal constitutional structure and the custom-based growth of a process of policy coordination between the different levels of government challenges the significance and extent of the independence of the different states and localities in relation to the federal State. It is tempting to think that the irresistible growth in the resources and role of Washington have definitively changed the balance of the original federal scheme, yet co-ordination "by the centre" has not diminished the traditional efficacy of the decentralising factors. Local actors help to develop, influence and even control the central structures so that, despite the unifying tendencies of the economy and bureaucratisation, they maintain a "non-central" predominance fairly much line with the spirit of America's institutions.

The North Yemen political System comprises a powerful tribal phenomenon which is presented either as a remnant of feudal times, or as an obstacle to the country's modernisation and unity. Field work contradicts such views and points rather to the political vitality and democratie tendencies of the Zaydi Islamic tribes. Reintegrating this fact in an overall view of politics in the Yemen Arab Republic allows a fresh interpretation of political System hitherto presented as the product of purely exogenous excrescences. Such empirical analysis also reopens the debate on the centre/periphery paradigm, especially the " centro-centrist " shift in most of the studies using this conceptual framework, and the whole point of using semi-centre and semi-periphery concepts in order to gain a dynamic view.

This analysis of three books containing accounts by three of the men most deeply involved in the Lebanese crisis (a Palestinian, a Druze and a Maronite) seeks to bring ont their significance. It reveals arguments which say less about historic reality than about the meaning of the events as experienced by Lebanon's communities. As mirrors of collective memory, thèse accounts are marked by persecution, frenzy, community narcissism, a negative picture of the other. The three books analysed are viewed as a corpus of mobilising beliefs which fuel the Lebanese civil war.

L'analogie entre les Indes néerlandaises et l'empire russe ? populations et cultures multiples sur un territoire gigantesque et disparate ?, pourrait laisser penser que l'expérience soviétique d'Etat multinational aurait eu quelque influence en Indonésie. Mais les condi­tions de la lutte nationale aux Indes néerlandaises font naître un projet d"Etat-nation centralisé, marqué davantage des pratiques de la Révolution française que de celles de la Révolution russe. Quand elle s'inspire de la Russie, la politique indonésienne des années 1920 en tire surtout l'idée de rupture révolutionnaire par l'insurrection et de gouvernement par les soviets, ainsi que celle de parti avant-garde, pour guider le mouvement. L'échec de l'insurrection, et le fait mondial de la montée du fascisme orientent progressivement le mouvement vers la revendication plus classique d'un parlement représentatif comme instrument de gouvernement et, partant, de négociation avec la puissance coloniale, et l'inclusion des « minorités » (celles ainsi désignées par le colonisateur en tant que « non indigènes ») dans le mouvement même, synonyme de la nation, qui jusqu'alors les excluait. Mais ce rejet du racisme traduit ici une volonté d'extension et d'intégration croissante, qui refuse en même temps tout ce qui pourrait, par la reconnaissance d'un projet d'Etat fédéral ou plurinational, ouvrir la porte aux manœuvres extérieures d'éclatement. The analogy between the Dutch East Indies and the Russian Empire ? diverse populations and cultures spread over a vast and disparate area ? might suggest that Soviet experience as a multi-national State could have had some influence in Indonesia. However, the circumstances of the national struggle in the Dutch East Indies gave birth to plans for a centralized nation State, influenced by the practices of the French Revolution more than by those of the Russian Revolution. When drawing inspiration from Russia, Indonesian politics of the 1920s mainly derived the notions of achieving revolutionary break via insurrection and of government by soviets and also that of an vanguard party leading the movement. The failure of the insurrection and the worldwide rise of fascism gradually shifted the movement towards more conventional demands for a representative Parliament as an instrument of government and consequently, negotiations with the colonial power ? and the inclusion of "minorities" (those designated by the colonising power as "non-natives") in the movement itself ? synonymous with the nation ? which had hitherto excluded them. However, this rejection of racism was the reflection of a desire for extension and increasing integration, which at the same time refused anything that, through recognition of an intended federal or multi-national State, could open the door to outside attempts at division.