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An analysis of contestation of liberal democracy as expressed during the 1930s in the magazine Esprit and in the writings of Emmanuel Mounier shows that thé refusal of the liberal order by Mounier and his analysis of the evils front which French society was suffering have affinities with the ideas of other protest groups, including proto-fascist or genuinely fascist ones. Finally, Mounier's communient to the revolution nationale in 1940-1941 and his decision to resume publication of Esprit are logical results of his stands throughout the prewar decade.

L'ouvrage posthume de R. Aron fournit une excellente occasion de récapituler et de réévaluer les thèses essentielles de la pensée de l'auteur dans le domaine des relations internationales. Vingt ans après la publication de Paix et guerre entre les nations, R. Aron est conduit à se demander si le système interétatique, sur lequel il a concentré ses observations, constitue l'élément le plus représentatif et le plus significatif des relations internationales. Sans aller jusqu'à remettre en cause ce postulat initial, il apparaît beaucoup plus favorable que par le passé à la prise en considération de nouveaux facteurs et de nouveaux acteurs. La voie semble ainsi ouverte à une approche qui tenterait, cette fois, d'appréhender la société internationale dans son ensemble. Mais le changement de pers­pective rejoint, en fin de compte, l'intuition fondamentale de l'auteur : c'est dans l'espace ouvert entre les deux termes de la célèbre formule « guerre improbable, paix impossible » qu'interviennent les changements de toute nature dont le système international est à la fois le théâtre et l'enjeu. Raymond posthumous work provides an excellent occasion to recapitulate and reevaluate his essential theses in the field of international relations. Twenty years after the publication of Peace and war among nations, R. Aron is led to wonder if the interstate system on which he had concentrated was the most representative and significant element of international relations. Although he does not go as far as to give up his initial postulate, he seems much more favorable than in the past to considering new factors and new actors. The road thus seems open to an approach which would try to comprehend all aspects of international society. But this change of perspective goes back, in the end to Aron's basic intuition : it is in the space left between the two terms of the famous phrase "war improbable peace impossible" that changes of all types occur, of which the international system is both the arena and the stakes.

From a methodological point of view, Raymond Aron's attitude is an original combination of the classic political tradition and the modem scientific one. Aron affirms the primacy of politics (the classic thesis) but justifies it analytically andempirically. From a philosophical point of view, Aron's political thinking is based on the affirmation of the historicity of human action. A triple analysis ? of the knowledge-action problem, of the ethics-action problem and of the freedom-action problem ? leads to an approach to Aron's political attitude. This analytical approach shows the theoretical substance of Aron's reasonable politics.

The concepts of " republic " and " democracy ", whose connotations and uses vary according to historical periods and political contexte, do not seem to cover equivalent contents. The study of the ordinary representations of thèse two notions, at a given moment, based on interviews withfifty individuels, brings out differences and fluctuations of meaning : diverse positions of thé two terms within national Systems which overlap only partially, variations in the uses of terms depending on reference groups. Whereas " democracy ", a less specifie notion, does not seem to fit in a precise historical and geopolitical framework, " republic " appears as a concrete historical and political category, defining a form of state, characterized by the appropriation by everyone of the " public thing ", and opposed to any form of monarchy, the power of one or of a few.