Contenu du sommaire

Raymonde Moulin: The Bourgeois as Art-Lovers : Exhibitions of the Fine Arts in the Provinces, 1885-1887. This article studies the exhibitions organized in the provinces by Societies of Friends of the Arts during the three years following the first Independent Salon (Paris, 1884). Made up of shareholders who belonged to different fractions of the bourgeoisie, these Societies supported an "average" art, produced by the Paris Fine Arts School, as it had been reformed in 1863. Like the Paris Salon, these exhibitions had the three functions of evaluation, circulation and commerce. Uniformity won out over diversification while the work of art tented to be reduced to the social conditions for its production and consumption. These Societies of Friends ? social, philanthropic and sales clubs-did not take up after the Provincial Academies of the Old Regime before 1789 as places for teaching and artistic research. However, the works which were exhibited and bought did strongly express a moment in bourgeois taste.

Jean De Kervasdoué, Laurent Fabius, Myriem Mazodier, Francis Doublet : Law and Social Change, a Diagnosis : The July 16, 1971 Law about the Merger and Consolidation of Communes. This study analyzes the origin, content and effect of the July 16, 1971 law about the merger and consolidation of communes. Whereas the announced objective was to restructure the French territory by making important reductions in the number of communes, the law's quantitative and qualitative effects have been negligible. Proposed by the government for reasons having to do with the constraints of the political agenda at that time, the law has no defined criteria. Its terms give power to prefects and locally elected officials who are not going to put in question one of the essential bases of their power ? small communes. So there is, in fact, a contradiction between the objective and the means for achieving it. The latter have had the determining effect, thus explaining the failure which this study describes. In effect, power is given to some groups who have no interest in seeing change take place. We thus indirectly touch upon the problem of decentralization and of utilization of laws as a tool for social change.

Jean G. Padioleau: The Formation of Political Thinking: Longitudinal Development and Socio-Cultural Determinants. This article describes a theoretical outline for studying citizens' political thinking. This analysis, on the basis of J. S. Bruner's, L. Kohlberg's and J. Piaget's works, first sketches a longitudinal diagram of the development of political thinking. The author next shows that a citizen's cognitive development also depends upon the sociocultural environment which he has experienced or, to be more precise, upon a given environment's capacity to furnish not only stimuli but also answers to citizen which favor this development.