L'organisation sociale des sociétés peul, sociétés distribuées dans toute l'Afrique occidentale, offre au sociologue á la fois un difficile problème théorique et les moyens de le résoudre.

Un difficile probléme de théorie, d'abord, dans la mesure oú ces sociétés manifestent paradoxalement trois traits peu compatibles entre eux: l'endogamie accusée du patrilignage y contredit d'une part une nomenclature de parenté de type iroquois (confusion des freres, sceurs et cousin(e)s paralleles) et d'autre part les types de comportement observes entre parents. La fréquence des manages avec la fille de Poncle paternel et les parentes agnatiques va de pair avec une préférence matrimoniale secondaire pour la cousine croisée matrilatérale. Cette endogamie agnatique des Peul n'a pas la meme coherence institutionnelle que celle des Arabes, ou du moins de certaines sociétés arabes. Chez ces derniéres, le mariage préférentiel avec la fille de l'oncle paternel se refléte dans la nomenclature de parenté, le cousin a un droit sur sa cousine et Ton rencontre parfois un modéle conscient traduisant la réalité des faits: dans une famille composée de deux fréres, le premier se marie é l'intérieur — mariage endogame — et le second á l'extérieur — mariage exogame — (I), l'endogamie systématique étant théoriquement impossible. Rien de tel chez les Peul oú il n'existe ni trace de cette endogamie dans la nomenclature, ni droit, ni modele conscient.

Comment les sociétés traditionnelles deviennent-elles des sociétés modernes ? La situation coloniale constitue un terrain exceptionnel pour l'étude des conditions de ce passage. L'imposition de la violence — effective et (ou) symbolique — y présente un caractère radical qu'il est difficile de trouver ailleurs. Quand l'évolution d'une société est déterminée de l'interieur, elle se fait en général par glissements lents, complexes, par ajustements successifs qui noient le facteur décisif dans la masse des facteurs secondaires dont l'analyse le dis-tingue malaisément. Le phénomène colonial, au contraire, intrusion brutale d'une agression étrangère dans un système intégré, souvent intégriste, de groupes sociaux traditionnels, qu'il accule à la mutation, se présente à cet égard comme une sorte d'expérimentation.

Even a cursory survey of the relevant literature reveals a marked uncertainty on the part of scholars concerning the application of the term ‘peasant’ to therural population of Africa, either historically or in terms of contemporary analysis. Most writers either evade the issue, display analytical uncertainty, or forthrightly reject the term (i). These variations seem to indicate that at present we lack a theoretical basis adequate for the analysis of rural Africa. The formulation of such a theory is therefore a prime duty of africanists. We have to ask ourselves whether the phenomenon of apeasantry appeared in parts of Western Africa before the colonial conquest, and if so under what conditions. Further, we have to decide whether this phenomenon has been extended since those conquests and, again, in what circumstances. In short, this essay is concerned with a process of societal evolution (i.e., combining economic, social and political changes) which has included as one of its main features what is called here—purely for want of a better term—‘peasantization’, the process of becoming a peasant. The present discussion has a second focus, the relation between peasantization and various political forms which have emerged in rural Africa in the colonial and post-colonial periods. Like other social scientists, students of politics seem rarely tohave considered the implications of the use. of the word ‘peasant’ in discussing African phenomena (2). Just as the first part of this paper will deal with various theoretical questions related to peasantization, so the second part will concern itself with some of those implications.

In an essay on the Nambikuara of the Mato Grosso, Lévi-Strauss revives in an interesting fashion the problem of the Social Contract. Among the Nambikuara are found the most primitive forms of social and political structure. In the words of Lévi-Strauss: “No social structure is weaker and more fragile than the Nambikuara band” (I). The Nambikuara abandon their semi-permanent dwellings at the end of the rainy season in April or early May and divide into bands which are formed on the basis of free choice. The nucleus of the band is a leader who directs the movements and the hunting, fishing, and food-gathering activities of the group for the duration of its nomadic life during the dry season. The leader, however, disposes of no coercive power: he must derive his authority from the continual active consent of those subject to it. The price of leadership is the welfare of the group. If the band is badly managed and food is scarce the individual members of the group may leave to join other, more prosperous bands. Thus bands are always in the process of organizing and growing, or fragmenting and disappearing, with the vicissitudes of leadership. In return for his services the chief enjoys the privilege of having two or more wives, a prerogative shared only with the shamans. As Lévi-Strauss describes the situation of the leader, he appears to be a man forever hustling to provide his subjects with food and entertainment. He is in effect always running for office.

Recently an evolutionary and international perspective has been applied to the study of nonindustrial areas which rejects the popular idea that all such places are, or once were, ‘traditional’ and will ‘modernize’ in much the same way that the West was once traditional and has modernized. This change in perspective requires that the nation-state give way to the more local region as a primary unit of analysis, so that we can examine the varied relationships between regional and international centers of marketing and control, as well as between the region and nation-state of which it is a part. It further suggests that no single model of economic and political development can be applied to different cases at different points in history. The process ofdevelopment in XVIIth century Britain differed in important ways from contemporary attempts which occur in the context of a world-wide economy dominated by established industrialpowers (1).

Professor Bauman's article is certainly a welcome contribution to the analysis of state socialist societies. He succeeds in breaking away from the myopic Kremlinological study of individuals and he also conducts his argument on a comparative sociological plane transcending the Sovietologist's ideographic viewpoint. However, he may be criticised at many points: it is very doubtful whether the state under capitalism is as ‘autonomous’ an institution as Bauman suggests; distinctions should be made between the socialist states of Eastern Europe, for what may be true of Poland and Rumania may not be true of the Soviet Union; international relations, particularly those between the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe and between East and West, have important effects on the political culture and significantly restrict the possibilities for social change; the diachronic development of the societies under consideration needs to be given more prominence, for what may have been the case in Soviet Russia in 1920 or in Poland in 1948 may not be so for either society in 1971. Here, I shall have to leave on one side such general criticisms to concentrate on a number of specific points in Bauman's argument relating to stratification in Eastern Europe which seem to me to be debatable.

Before turning directly to fascism, we should recall certain facts that form the background to all that follows. In 1919, Italy, a country of about 35 million people, should be characterized neither as industrialized nor as underdeveloped, but as slowly and very unevenly industrializing. Still predominantly agricultural, the Italian peninsula can be divided into three distinct areas with markedly different social structures, each undergoing in very contrasting ways the twin transformations of the rise of industry and of intensive commercialized farming. The North was the most developed of the three areas, with the peninsula's most modern industrial enterprises heavily concentrated in the Milan-Genoa-Turin triangle, while commercial farming was centered in the fertile valley of the Po River. It is important to note, however, that even the North was still in a state of transition and that in the northern countryside more traditional systems of land tenure and cultivation still existed alongside some of the most mechanized farms in Europe. The other two areas of Italy—Center and South—were alike in being traditional societies less affected by modernization, though the Center of the peninsula and the South were very different social systems (1).

David lockwood has drawn attention to two related but analytically distinct types of integration in society: social integration, referring to the relationship between groups—more especially classes or strata; and system integration referring to the degree of connectedness between institutional parts of the social order (i). The former type of integration concerns the social relations between actors, so that the problem of order in society is posed in terms of moral or normative categories. The second type of integration directs attention to the somewhat more technical or non-normative aspects of order, concerning as it does the degree of ‘fit’ or compatibility between various functionally connected institutions. Both types of integration are of course central to Marx's theory of social change. For Marx, the antagonisms stemming from weaknesses in social integration (exemplified in the extreme case by class polarization) plus the weaknesses in system integration (the contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production) are understood to be the twin mechanisms responsible for social transformation. As many critics have pointed out, the exact nature of the link between these two different processes was never clearly specified by Marx. But it does seem apparent that system contradiction is regarded as causally prior to the cleavage, and ultimate conflict, between classes, since it's not until these contradictions in the system become irresolvable that the stage is set for the final showdown between contending classes.

La thèese de M. Zygmunt Bauman souffre, me semble-t-il, de quelques équivoques que les commentaires de MM. Kolakowski et Lane ont plutôt aggravées que dissipées. Puisque MM. Bauman et Lane se réfèrent à un article de moi publié il y a plus de vingt ans (I), ils me permettront de participer à mon tour au débat.

A process of Agrarian Reform offers a unique opportunity for the observation and analysis of the subjective world of a peasant population. Class conflict is often intensified, and the peasantry is brought into contact with previously remote or even unknown state institutions; some of the most fundamental assumptions of peasant culture are questioned and thus brought to the surface by new institutions, new patterns of authority and mdependence, and new economic and social relations within the peasantry itself. A variety of forms of economic organization, political relationships with landlords and with the outside world, either co-exist or emerge in rapid succession, creating a comparative framework ready-made for at least an approximation of the relationship between changes in institutions and economic structures and changes in consciousness, despite inevitable overlap and lag between different forms of consciousness.

Most of the current ills affect all the highly developed capitalist countries if not all industrial societies regardless of the type of structure. In the United States, however, these trends have assumed the most extreme forms for two circularly intertwined reasons: the first and more obvious being that American capitalism has developed fastest and furthest; while the second is that (in contrast to Britain, for instance) the American civilisation comprises hardly any pre-capitalist traditions or institutions which could contain and mollify the nefarious tendencies of unbridled capitalism, and prevent them from being pushed to their extremes. The absence of such restraints has permitted in the past an outstandingly vigorous development of capitalism, but in recent times the same factor has given an especially large scope to the self destructive tendencies of this system. Two thousand years ago Polybius put forth the view that any of the types of constitutions distinguished by Aristotle—that is, democracy, aristocracy and monarchy (i.e. autocracy)—is weak or even unviable in its pure form; and that the strongest and most long-lived form of government consists of a balanced mixture of these three pure types. As it stands this statement (as well as the concepts it contains) are debatable; but I am sure there is a good deal of truth in it, and that an analogous rough approximation could be made about the economic structures.

One of the most controversial and complex questions which has aroused a good deal of scholarly interest in recent years has to do with the conditions necessary to transform the peasantry, or a significant portion of the peasantry, into a revolutionary force (I). In this article, I want only to discuss one of the most crucial, but neglected, variables—the revolution of communications which is breaking down the cultural isolation of the village.