Restricted Application of Insecticides: A Promising Tsetse Control Technique, but What Do the Farmers Think of It?

Restricted application of insecticides to cattle is a cheap and safe farmer-based method to control tsetse and the diseases they transmit, i.e. human and animal African trypanosomoses. The efficiency of this new control method has been demonstrated earlier but no data is available on its perception and adoption intensity by farmers. We studied these two features in Burkina Faso, where the method has diffused thanks to two development projects. The study allowed identifying three groups of farmers with various adoption intensities, of which one was modern and two traditional. The economic benefit and the farmers' knowledge of the epidemiological system appeared to have a low impact on the early adoption process whereas some modern practices, as well as social factors appeared critical. The quality of technical support provided to the farmers had also a great influence on the adoption rate. The study highlighted individual variations in risk perceptions and benefits, as well as the prominent role of the socio-technical network of cattle farmers. The results of the study are discussed to highlight the factors that should be taken into consideration, to move discoveries from bench to field for an improved control of trypanosomoses vectors

The ‘rising power’ status and the evolution of international order : conceptualising Russia’s Syria policies

Taking Syria’s armed conflict as a case study to illustrate processes of normative contestation in international relations, this paper is interested in re-examining the typology of Russia as a ‘rising power’ to account for ‘rise’ in a non-material dimension. The article embeds the ‘rising power’ label in the literature on international norm dynamics to reflect on the rationale for Russia’s engagement in Syria despite adverse material preconditions. It will be argued that Russian norm divergence from alleged ‘Western’ norms illustrates the ambition to co-define conditions for legitimate transgressions of state sovereignty

Culture on the Rise: How and Why Cultural Membership Promotes Democratic Politics

Selectively using Tocqueville, many social scientists suggest that civic participation increases democracy. We go beyond this neo-Tocquevillian model in three ways. First, to capture broader political and economic transformations, we consider different types of participation; results change if we analyze separate participation arenas. Some are declining, but a dramatic finding is the rise of arts and culture. Second, to assess impacts of participation, we study more dimensions of democrat ic politics, including distinct norms of citizenship and their associated political repertoires. Third, by analy zing global International S ocial Survey Programme and World Values Survey data, we identify dramatic subcultural differences: the Tocquevillian model is positive, negative, or zero in differen t subcultures and contexts that we explicate

Les études rurales en France

[eng] Rural studies in France - Rural sociology as an independent subject is of recent date and tends to be a field of investigation for all the social sciences' - the rural sociologists working side by side with historians, geograpers, etchnologists and demographers. . Experience of societies very different from those in France enables us to realise that even in our own country there remain differences and particularities worth investigation. . The present trend towards a 'return to nature' and the preoccupation with the environment, the revolutionary, role of the peasant populations of the third world, unrest in farming communities in the West, the failures of socialist agriculture... give rise to a renewed interest in the historical role of the peasants, a subject often neglected before the fifties. . A brief outline of the most significant tendencies of the research carried out bey French rural sociologists shows the great diversity of their attitudes and methodology, reflecting both the fact that farming societies in France are very, diverse and that the social sciences in France are flourishing. [fre] La sociologie rurale, en tant que discipline autonome, est assez récente, elle est d'ailleurs plutôt un «champ d'investigation pour toutes les sciences sociales», les sociologues ruraux travaillant aux côtés des historiens, géagraphes, ethnologues et démographes. . Une certaine expérience de sociétés extrêmement différentes des sociétés françaises, a permis de se rendre compte qu'à l'intérieur même des frontières de notre pays, subsistent des différences et des spécificités dignes d'être érigées en objet d'études. . Le mouvement actuel de « retour à la nature » et la préoccupation pour l'environnement, le rôle révolutionnaire des paysanneries du tiers monde, l'agitation des campagnes occidentales, les déboires des agriculteurs socialistes... font redécouvrir le rôle historique de la paysannerie, souvent négligé avant les années 50. . Une brève revue des tendances les plus significatives qui animent les recherches des ruralistes français, montre la diversité des approches et des problématiques, double reflet de l'extrême diversité des situations paysannes en France et de la vivacité des sciences sociales françaises.

Social change in modern France: towards a cultural anthropology of the Fifth Republic

Social Change in Modern France is concerned with the radical transformations which have taken place within French society since the mid-twentieth century. The authors contended that these changes constitute a revolution in French affairs as important as that of 1789. From the late 1950s onwards, the traditional social structures of the Third Republic have been transformed: peasantry and bourgeoisie have disappeared or mutated; the great national institutions of church, army, trade unions and schools have declined or severely weakened, and a late and rapid industrialisation has wrought profound economic changes. Even the French Communist Party has become a virtual irrelevance. All these institutions, so characteristic of French society throughout the Third Republic, have now ceased to be the object of major conflicts and tensions. In their stead local institutions, voluntary associations and the family have acquired a renewed strength and serve as the basic network for social relations and social life