Contenu du sommaire

Jean-Paul Grémy : Wording of survey questions : first results of an inventory of French experiences. The anglo-saxon experiences dealing with the influence of questionnaire items wording upon answers are very numerous and relatively well-known by the French specialists of extensive surveys. On the contrary, the existence of experiences in French language is generally ignored, though some have been published. This paper presents and briefly comments the results of twenty six experiences carried out in France since 1945, which use the split ballot method.

Richard Balme : Participation in associations and local power. Possibilities and limits of cultural associations mobilization in suburban municipalities. The increasing number of associations and of their members leads to question their influence on local politics and particularly on the type of mobilisation characteristic of associations close to municipal power. The study of cultural associations in suburban municipalities reveals that their capacity for collective action is relatively small, owing to the types of solidarity they display; the emergence of a culture market managed by professionnals, the exchange relationships involved in leadership positions, the heterogeneity of leaders groups, are all responsible for the hindrances that limit the actions of the minority of people who work out associative projects. The analysis of their relations with municipalities shows their finally important part in defining the négociations of conflicts at stake. The participative dynamics in which the renewal of the associative movement originates, and which is often attributed to intermediate social categories, seems to shade away and let the municipalities handle freely the process of mobilisation in associations close to the local power.