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A study of Bastille Day in the departement of the Haute-Vienne from the creation of the National Holiday to the First World War leads to a reflection on the homogeneity of political attitudes in a region considered "red". The major rural cleavage between the Republican masses favorable to the holiday and the conservative minorities hostile to it is not rnatched by much less simple urban behavior. The military parade brings out the fluctuating feelings of a working class population just as likely to acclaim thé army as to boo it. The deep sources of these attitudes can be traced back to the rural or urban communities' past, to how they think about their mutual relations, and lastly to how they are integrated in the nation.

The confticts between the middle class orthodox Jewish population and the essentiallv Puerto Rican and Chinese blue collar minorities on Manhattan's Lower East Side illustrate the orthodox Jews' control of the local political machine and key neighborhood institutions, through the ethnie nature of their vote, their resources, their cultural practices, and their class alliances with city's administration. On the other side, a mosaic of minorities is characterized by abstentionism, under-representation, divisiveness and economie vulnerability. This conflict, representative of others which are shaking the United States' metropolitan areas, is exacerbated by thé urban financial crises and the permeation of an ideology favorable to neo-classical economies. In the long run, the displacement of underprivileged strata becomes inevitable.

Les Noirs américains sont confrontés à un dilemme fondamental : leurs progrès dans une direction provoquent en général une régression dans une autre. La résistance à la déségrégation scolaire, seul moyen de faire avancer l'ensemble de la communauté noire, a, dans le Nord, mobilisé la petite et moyenne bourgeoisie blanche. Des changements législatifs et juridiques en ont résulté qui ont réduit très sensiblement l'influence politique locale et nationale des Noirs. Des pratiques discriminatoires sont réapparues dans l'emploi, menaçant les gains des vingt dernières années. Quand la déségrégation scolaire a réussi, c'est-à-dire en général grâce à une fusion d'un district scolaire à majorité noire avec d'autres à majorité blanche, elle a réduit la concentration démographique des Noirs et, partant, leur cohésion sociale. De même, le choix de la voie électorale dans les villes économiquement en déclin, où la population est à majorité noire et la déségrégation de ce fait impossible, n'a bénéficié qu'aux Noirs déjà qualifiés, en cours d'ascension sociale. Les plus déshérités, n'attendant guère de changements de la part de ces municipalités, ont cessé de voter. Ainsi affaiblis, leurs élus sont devenus moins attentifs aux besoins de leur communauté et surtout des plus nécessiteux. Afundamental dilemma confronting Afro-Americans is that progress in one area entails group repression in another. On the one hand, white resistance to school desegregation ? the only available vehicle for the advancement of the whole black community ? has mobilized the middle and lower class whites in the North who have instituted legislative and juridical changes severely curtailing black political influence both locally and nationally. Discriminatory employment practices have reappeared which can jeopardize the gains of the last twenty years. Even when school desegregation has worked, usually through a consolidation of black majority school districts and white majority districts, it has reduced the Black's demographic concentration and therefore their social unity. In the same manner, the choice of an electoral strategy in economically declining cities where the Blacks are the majority and where desegregation is thus impossible has benefited only qualified and upwardly mobile Blacks. The most under-privileged have stopped voting, having lost all hope of change from these administrations. Thus weakened, elected officials have become less attentive to the needs of their own community and especially to those most need.

Although the popular referendum is part of Italy's 1948 constitution, the political parties in power, out of fear that it become an efficient tool in the opposition's hands, delayed for more than 20 years putting it into practice. h was finally institutionalized in 1970, and since then has met on various occasions with caution or hostility from the political parties. There are different opinions on these ten years of referenda: disappointing in some respects, the referendum succeeded in mobilizing public opinion, shaking the political parties and speeding up the legislative process.

In 1979, the idea of using the market mechanism as an economie regulator raised great enthusiasm, which fell as the dreams of balanced growth and harmonious social progress met the limits to any reform : ideology, economie decision-making, and factional fights. The failure of the "reformers" and the victory of the "voluntarists" have become increasingly obvious. The slogan which enjoined the use of both "the regulating mechanism of the Plan " and " the régulation mechanism of the market " has given way to a new slogan prescribing a planned economy founded on public property and granting a minor role to market regulation. Some leaders wanted to attribute the noble role of a supplementary planning procedure to market forces, but these have been reduced to the thankless role of regulating minor and uncontrolable economie activities.

Like the other major industrialized countries, France set up in 1973 a study group for foreign policy problems: the Center for Analysis and Forecasting (CAP). Responsible only to the minister of external relations, the CAP enjoys total independence in relation to the bureaucracy. It constitutes a study body, a parallel information channel for the minister, and a source of proposals. The CAP is open to the outside world, and has even, to a certain extent, opened up the Quai d'Orsay. By much of ils work it has contributed to reinforcing France's credibility on the international scene and, in strategie affairs, helped strengthen the ministry's position in the decision-making process. The CAP is a flexible and efficient tool, which can be mobilized instantly for the most diverse missions. Its achievements should not however hide its fragility, including the fact that its ability to compete with the rest of the ministry relies largely on the strong personality of its current head.