This article discusses the thesis according to which a necessary link exists between a culture of trust and the emergence of a democratic regime. After analyzing the ordinary uses of the word trust, it differentiates three conceptions of “civic trust”: culturalist, rational-instrumental and moral. Then, by comparing the features of both a democratic and a totalitarian regime, it refutes the idea of a constitutive relation between trust and democracy. It then concludes that one cannot claim that a population lacks the ability to establish a democracy because it possesses certain cultural traits.

The distinctive features of the modern form of citizenship include, among other things, that it is both internally inclusive and externally exclusive; that it establishes legal equality so that membership of the state supersedes all other memberships and allegiances; and that it defines membership as independent of residence. These characteristics largely evolved during the “long nineteenth century”, the period between the French Revolution and the First World War. Similar to that of today, the historical situation in which citizenship evolved was one of intensified mobility. With the example of Sweden, this article finds that citizenship, in both its internal and external dimensions, was elaborated partly as a way to manage the mobility of the migrant poor. The contours of citizenship emerged as authorities aimed to control and direct the movement of the poor, which preceded control efforts. This has implications for our understanding of citizenship as well as of the state, and highlights the agency of migrants.

La mise en relation de deux ou plusieurs faits, ou séries de faits, ne constitue pas en soi une explication. Celle-ci ne prend naissance que quand la relation est elle-même définie de sorte que les termes soient réduits à l'unité d'un processus. Cette unité n'est jamais que celle d'un mode d'action. Mais elle peut être de deux types. L'histoire constitue des ensembles concrets, situés dans le temps et dans l'espace, des totalités singulières d'autant plus « solides » qu'elles lient plus directement des conduites ouvertes, collectives et organisées. L'unité provient ici du fait, admirablement analysé par Weber, qu'aucune conduite n'est — sauf cas exceptionnels — liée exclusivement à son objet. C'est parce qu'il n'existe pas de conduites purement économiques, politiques ou religieuses qu'une description organised est possible, conduisant l'histoire bien au-delà de son niveau événementiel et de son illusion de départ de reconstituer le passé, wie es geschehen ist, selon le mot de Ranke.

This essay deals with the findings of an ethnographic study carried out in two urban neighborhoods in Germany. Although the German residents felt bound by the norms of ethnic equality, they used negative classifications to stigmatize upwardly mobile members of the Turkish community. In doing so, they undermined these equality norms without explicitly calling them into question. This paradox can be explained by a latently active, primordial belief in kinship, which is ultimately rooted in a symbolic order of ethnic inequality.

L'importance du formalisme en sociologie est souvent contestée. Le réquisitoire le plus brutal est celui de Sorokin (i); il est assez connu pour qu'il ne soit pas necessaire d'en rappeler les attendus; pour le résumer brièvement, la formalisation serait soit purement sténographique, soit inutile, soit absurde. Le premier chef d'accusation, s'il est parfois Justifié, ignore l'importance que peut revetir pour le développement d'une théorie ou d'une hypothèse la parcimonie de l'explication et le caractère identifiable des variables utilises; en ce sens, certaines études, bien que ne conduisant à aucune déduction qui ne soit du ressort du raisonnement syllogistique, présentent des systèmes suffisamment clairs et cohérents pour qu'on puisse éventuellement y appliquer un langage plus puissant.

The ‘Dutch model’ has become a catchphrase for progressive European politicians pondering the possibilities of a ‘third way’ between Anglo-American deregulation of labour markets and the bloated stagnation of European dirigiste economies. Foreign politicians, central bankers and union leaders alike praise the combination of fiscal conservatism, wage moderation, consensual welfare reform, job creation and the maintainance of overall social security. They highlight the extraordinary proportion of Dutch people, male and female, in part-time jobs; the sustained policy of wage moderation by the trade unions; the success in holding the course for EMU and the absence of social unrest. Best of all, they observe, the Netherlands is the only EU member state to have more than halved its unemployment rate during the past decade, from 13-plus per cent in 1983 to just over 5 per cent in 1998. Its annual growth rate in jobs of 1.6 per cent is four times the European average, and as good as the American ‘job machine’, but without the US' sharp increase in earning inequality and life-chances.