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Memory and amnesia. The founders of the American republic, Montesquieu and the roman political model Searching for a new identity, the founders of the American Republic started ont by identifying with Rome and its heroes such as Cincinnatus, Brutus and Publicola. But the Roman model, rediscovered by reading Montesquieu, was problematic : the Republic was possible only on a small territory. Some critics of the 1787 federal constitution, e.g. Brutus, seized upon Montesquieu's arguments to discredit the work of the Philadelphia constituents, who reacted by literally turning Montesquieu upside down. The Republic, they claimed, was concevable only on a large territory, within a federal framework. The return to Antiquity advocated by the anti-federalists was absurd and dangerous, especially as the ancient city knew nothing of the great founding principle of the American Republic : the representative regime. That is probably why the ideologue Destutt de Tracy, Montesquieu's toughest critic and the impassioned defender of the "refusal of Rome ", was elevated to the rank of America's "philosopher " by Jefferson, his translater and admirer.

L'affaire des « Dix » de Renault-Billancourt met en œuvre un processus de mobilisation originale : la mobilisation d'appareil. En convertissant le licenciement de délégués syndicaux, survenu à la suite d'incidents dans les bureaux de la direction, en ressources symboliques (« les Dix sont des martyrs ») et cognitives (« la répression démontre qui est le véritable agresseur »), la CGT et le PCF ont tenté durant plus de trois ans de restaurer au sein des rangs militants une culture de lutte dépérissante. A cette occasion, on a assisté à la reconquête des règles de gestion intérieure par la Régie Renault, soucieuse de briser le mythe de la forteresse ouvrière, avant de procéder à la fermeture définitive de Billancourt prévue pour 1992. L'Elysée, en recevant les Dix à plusieurs reprises, a entériné le symbole et contribué à faire d'un conflit local entre la CGT-Billancourt et la direction une bataille nationale. L'incapacité des pouvoirs publics à opter pour une stratégie univoque à l'égard du secteur public ? autonomie ou dépendance ? ? tendrait ainsi à prouver que les règles du jeu restent floues et oscillent selon les impératifs contextuels. The "Renault-Billancourt Ten" affair set in motion an original process of organizational mobilization. By converting the dismissal of union delegates following incidents in executives' offices into symbolic resources ("the Ten are martyrs") and cognitive resources ("the repression shows who the real aggressor is"), the CGT and the PCF tried for more than three years to restore in the rank and file a withering culture of struggle. The occasion allowed the Régie Renault to regain mastery over management rules. Renault wanted to break the myth of the working class bulwark before the closure of the Billancourt plant, which was planned for 1992. The Elysée, by receiving the "Ten" several times, acknowledged the symbol and contributed to changing a local conflict between the CGT-Billancourt and the Renault management into a national battle The inability of the authorities to choose a single strategy vis-a-vis the public sector ? autonomy or dependence? ? would thus tend to prove that the rules of the game remain imprecise and waver according to contextual demands.

Weak state, strong power : the British example How can one understand the Thatcherian "revolution"? Is it not paradoxical, given the political discourse (the State must be " reduced " ; " its limits must be pushed back ") and British cultural traditions that have always been wary of tha " strength " of the State ? An analysis of the reform of professional relations and the 1984-85 coal miner s' strike leads to a problematique which, by analytically dissociating the State and the political authorities, sheds light on the way the two combine to reinforce or to weaken the intervention of the authorities in concrete socio-political situations.

En Angleterre, les problèmes de sécurité et de maintien de l'ordre ont été des enjeux politiques importants dans les années 1980. Le principe traditionnel de policing by consent, véritable mythe de légitimité de la police britannique, est resté le point de référence majeur des élites politiques. Quatre éléments clés ont dominé les débats et orienté le processus d'élaboration des réformes : l'apparition du problème policier sur l'agenda politique, la dramatisation dans le débat politique, la médiatisation des controverses sur la police et le processus de décision manifeste. Ce ne sont pas les « tout-puissants » gouvernements de Margaret Thatcher, qui, en ce domaine, ont contrôlé l'agenda politique, les experts des commissions d'enquêtes, les mouvements sociaux, les analyses indépendantes et les effets pervers d'autres politiques publiques. Au lieu de prendre des initiatives, les ministres ont été le plus souvent obligés de faire face à des urgences. L'agenda a été contrôlé de l'extérieur. In England, problems of security and order were important political stakes in the 1980s. The traditional principal of policing by consent, a genuine legitimizing myth for the British police, remained the major reference point of the political elites. Four key elements dominated the debates and oriented the reform process : the appearance of the police problem on the political agenda, its dramatization in political debate, media attention to the controversies about the police and the manifest decision-making process. Mrs "all-powerful" governments did not control the political agenda in this field. Instead of taking initiatives, most often ministers had to face emergencies. The agenda was controlled from the outside by experts on investigating committees, by social movements, by independent analyses and by unwanted outcomes of other public policies.

Recent research on social mobility Social mobility research is a field that has been going through significant changes due essentially to sociological work in English-speaking countries. Books and articles recently published in French make it possible to survey the situation and to make a comparison with French work in four areas : stratification, class and social mobility ; the construction of the research object ; comparative analysis ; women and social mobility. The comparisons show the specificities and complementarities of each of the approaches concerning research hypotheses and results, as well as methodological tools and observation instruments.