Contenu du sommaire

Michel Crozeer et Jean-Claude Th?nig : The Regulation of Complex Organized Systems: The Case of Local Politico-Administrative Decision Making in France. This article presents a sociological approach which permits analyzing more or less stable complex systems which form around existing relationships between different but interdependent organizations. This study accents the means of regulation which govern these relationships. Through the observation of decision making processes, the suggested method appeals to the analysis of power relationships and of the rules of the game between actors belonging to these systems. For instance, a concrete case is presented which is drawn from a survey on the relationships between the major organizations which intervene in the management of public affairs at the local level in France : the State's public administrations ; local collectivities ; social, economic and political organizations ; etc. Such an approach in terms of the system lets us present, in new terms, the relationships between an organization's formal and informal aspects and open up a new perspective for studying change.

Jean G. Padioleau : On Corruption in Pluralistic Oligarchies. This study deals with corruption by the exchange of favors in American political society. Do the conspicuous manifestations of today's corruption indicate the political elite's servitude to moneyed interests ? Or, to risk a paradox, are politicians often masters in the act of corruption ? In order to answer these questions, this article examines the general conditions under which corruption appears and is perceived. Next, the text shows the diversity of the forms of corruption. These analyses let us draw up some propositions whose validity and generality remain to be empirically proven. So the survey suffers from the advantages and disadvantages with a case study ; nevertheless, abstraction has been attempted in order to formulate propositions capable of throwing light on the situation in other advanced industrial societies.

Michèle Salitot-Dion : The Role of Marriage in the Accumulation of Peasant Patrimonies. By forgetting that marriage is the object of economic transactions for farmers, do we not neglect one of the mechanisms for reproduction of social and economic inequalities in the accumulation of inherited property ? The factorial analysis of the correlations between the value of inheritances, dowries and donations received by farmers and their wives shows that marriage unites partners with similar levels of wealth in 40% of the cases. Threequarters of goods inherited by farmers and their wives consist of property. From this fact there results an accumulation of these inheritances. Since the same capital does not have the same meaning in a region with large-scale holdings as in one with small-scale holdings, we have tried to eliminate the effect of the region's wealth. We observe a better correlation between fortunes inherited by marriage partners in rich regions. In this case, we wonder if, since the cultural models presiding over the choice of a spouse implicity refer back to an « order of things », marriage does not reproduce economic inequalities all the better inasmuch as economic hierarchies are rigid.

Madeleine Romer : Research Note on the Graphic Processing of Information Applied in Empirical Sociology. A note on a methodological study which applies new processes for the « graphic treatment of information » using research on the relations between leisure and institutional obligations. This note has the dual objective of seeing what such processes can provide and of comparing their results with those produced by the factorial analysis of correlations which has also been applied.