Contenu du sommaire

Conformément à la critique antifondamentaliste de l'histoire et tie Ici vie politique, il est pos­sible de construire des récits ouverts qui contestent les récits courants et qui respectent les cri­tères acceptés en matière de preuve et de raison. Le récit westminsterien du régime politique britannique met l'accent sur l'État unitaire, sur le fonctionnement du gouvernement, sur ht sou­veraineté du Parlement, sur l'emprise du parti majoritaire sur la législature, sur l'institution­nalisation de l'opposition, sur la responsabilité gouvernementale et sur la neutralité politique de la fonction publique. Il célèbre la sagesse pratique de la Constitution britannique et raconte une histoire caractérisée par le gradualisme et la continuité. Des variantes de ce récit sont pro­posées par des sceptiques acceptant l'essentiel de la tradition et par des auteurs qui se récla­ment des sciences sociales ou d'approches radicales. Un récit différent, celui de la société poli­tique différenciée, met l'accent sur les réseaux de politiques publiques, sur l'évidage de l'État, sur le noyau exécutif et sur la gouvernance ; il met en lumière les changements survenus et l'effet des conséquences imprévues. Les rapports entre ce récit et la méthodologie antifonda­mentaliste sont examinés. Les concepts de déceniration. de dilemme et de discontinuité servent à ouvrir et à améliorer l'analyse du système politique britannique et à retrouver la politique du sublime. Narratives of british government This paper seeks to complement the Westminster model of British government with the «diffe-rentiaied polity» narrative. We argue Britain as a centralised, executive-dominated unitary state am be fruitfully compared with the idea of Britain as a cent re less society characterised by interdependence, differentiation and disaggregation. The second section responds to the anti-foundationalist critique of history and politics by arguing that we can construct analytically open narratives which interrogate existing ones and meet established standards of evi­dence and reason. The third section describes the Westminster model of British government, with its focus on : the unitary state, cabinet government, parliamentary sovereignty, majority party control of the legislature, institutionalised opposition, ministerial responsibility and a neutral bureaucracy. It celebrates the practical wisdom of the British constitution and tells a story of gradualism and continuity. The paper also surveys variants of this perspective : the tra­ditional sceptics, social science, and the radical alternatives. The fourth section constructs an alternative narrative, the differentiated polity. It focuses on policy networks, hollowing-out, the core executive, and governance. It highlights the changes in British government and the sour laws of unintended consequences. The final section focuses on the relationship of the differen­tiated polity to antifoundationalism and on the notions of dec entering, dilemma and disconti­nuity as means for opening and improving our analysis of British government and restoring the politics of the sublime. 377

Self-regulation, government intervention, networking: transformations of the social state in europe (the cases of hiv/aids, alcohol and drug abuse) A reflection about the development of the social state and its recent changes proceeds from the analysis of the policies carried out in the areas of alcohol and illegal drug abuse and HIV/AIDS. A historical reconstruction provides a view of the transformations of government activity in this century, which has seen the birth and the decline of the social state, as well as the development of new forms of government action aimed at moderating actors. Comparing the responses to these social problems in terms of public policies, the authors observe phases of divergence and convergence corresponding to a changing demarcation between the sphere of politics and that of knowledge.

Path dependence phenomena and reforms of social protection systems In this critical discussion of the concept of path dependence, and particularly of its applica­tion to the study of welfare reforms, it appears that path dependence-based accounts of cur­rent social policy change overemphasise policy stability and the persistence of post-war wel­fare arrangements, by failing to appreciate the possibility of path shifting, innovative reforms. These occur when policy change affects those institutional features which generate path dependence, especially the stakes and power positions concerning particular social pro- grammes. Several French examples of such instances are analysed (development of the CSG, implementation of the RMI, institutional dimensions of the Juppé plan). The article concludes by identifying the various strategies that can be used to achieve such innovative welfare reforms.

The kurds and self-determination. a legitimate problematic faces social dynamics An analysis of the Kurds 'contestation in the Middle East states - Iran, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, particularly the last two - leads to a series of reflections about the concept of self-determination at the turn of the present century and provides an opportunity to test it in the face of concrete experiences. In countries under-mined by the inad­equacy of territorial frontiers vis-à-vis identity frontiers, the Kurds' claim raises the issue of the link between the strategy of violence and political struggle. In the present state of international law and of the balance of forces ruling self-determination, the Iraqi and Turkish experiences make it necessary to distinguish cultural and political autonomy so as to make self-determination a meaningful notion and to resolve the Kurdish crisis.

On the uses of «diversity»: a contribution to a genealogy of american multiculturalism Over the last two decades there has been an underlying superposition in the American public debate oft\vo, originally unconnected, discursive themes : racial equality and cultural pluralism. The notion of « diversity » and its reinterpretation given in a 1978 Supreme Court decision dealing with the constitutionality of affirmative action policies, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, stands as the main conceptual link between these two issues. A conflict-solving mode contingent on litigation, the celebration of diversity spread gradually to various sectors outside its initial framework. While it does present some advantages when compared to the competing paradigm of corrective justice as a justification for affirmative action, it also faces insurmountable contradictions. At the very time that most recent empirical research tends to suggest that the policy should be conceived as an instrument toward the progressive deracial-ization of American society, along the lines of Ronald Dworkin 's « contextualist » and « consequentialist » approach, the side effects of the 1978 legal shift will not soon fade away : American multiculturalism should be understood partly as a by-product ofthejuridicialization of social conflicts.