Monitoring Elite Capture in Community‐Driven Development

Recently, a lot of attention has been paid to improving ways of assessing the effectiveness of development interventions. This is to be welcomed, especially with regard to community‐based or participatory aid projects, since considerable resources are currently being earmarked for these by almost all types of donor agencies, including large international organizations. Such projects are vulnerable to elite capture at local level, and this problem must be mitigated if most of the aid funds thus disbursed are to reach the intended beneficiaries. This article discusses several methods available to achieve that objective. In particular, it argues that the sequential and conditional release of aid funds may not be sufficient to keep elite capture well under control, making it necessary to resort to co‐ordination mechanisms among aid agencies, such as multilateral reputation mechanisms. Even these are not going to be effective enough, however. In the end, an active role will have to be played by the ultimate purveyors of aid money, whether the taxpayers or the contributors in fund‐raising campaigns.     

Drama societies in the French Revolution: from Jacobin enthusiasts to royalist amateurs

During the French Revolution the network of Jacobin clubs wasto an extent mirrored by the existence of drama societies. Encouragedby the militants who took part in them and by the governmentof the Year II, they knew how to stage patriotic theatre. Theycompeted with the professional companies and reproduced theirregulations concerning morality and charity, the individualsanctions on unmotivated artists and control over repertoryby the municipalities. These formal measures were not necessarilya proof of quality, but members of their audiences were indulgentsince they were used to amateur theatre and because they approvedof the ideas being represented. Nevertheless, drama societieswere the victims of political purges and, in the Year IV, thesetheatres of propaganda were taken over by moderates and royalists,a development which led to their closure by the Directory.     

Moyens Techniques et Reproduction Sonore

Sans résumé Philippe Despoix enseigne la littérature comparée à l’université de Montréal où il dirige le Centre canadien d’études allemandes et européennes. Ses recherches portent sur la fonction des médias techniques dans les processus mémoriels et de transferts interculturels. Il a notamment publié éthiques du désenchantement (Paris, L’Harmattan, 1995) et Le Monde mesuré (Genève, Droz, 2005). Nicolas Donin est chercheur en musicologie à l’Ircam, où il dirige l’équipe ?Analyse des pratiques musicales?. Ses travaux portent sur les œuvres, les pratiques et esthétiques musicales savantes. Il a notamment codirigé, avec Bernard Stiegler, Révolutions industrielles de la musique, numéro spécial des Cahiers de médiologie (n^o 18, 2004). L’Analyse musicale, une pratique et son histoire, ouvrage réalisé en collaboration avec Rémy Campos, est à para?tre (Genève, Conservatoire de Genève/Droz).     

Le Médium Technique: Objet et <Emphasis Type="Italic">A Priori</Emphasis>

In his fragment on music, Max Weber reduces the empirically describable musical object to the «technical medium» utilized by each culture on condition that its analysis remains heterogeneous in the face of aesthetic valorisations. Weber emphasises that the phonographic reproduction of sound constitutes the condition of possibility of an empirical analysis of the musical material, the point of departure of a modern comparative musicology. The empirical approach and cultural comparison thus appear linked in an «empirico-transcendental» crossover which makes both an object and an a priori out of the technical medium. The article explains this methodological choice and its consequences for a comparative sociology of art.     

Early Neolithic obsidians in Sardinia (Western Mediterranean): the Su Carroppu case

All the obsidians from the undisturbed Early Neolithic (Cardial ware phase I) layer of the Su Carroppu rock-shelter (Sardinia island) were studied. Their elemental composition and that of obsidians from the Monte Arci (Sardinia) volcanic complex was determined by ion beam analysis (PIXE). A comparison between the composition of Su Carroppu artefacts, analysed non-destructively, and that of Western Mediterranean analysed in the same conditions shows that the archaeological material belongs to the SA, SB2 and SC Monte Arci-types, to the exclusion of the SB1 type. The typological/technological study of this industry allowed us to reconstruct two chaînes opératoires, for the production of blades (using predominantly SC obsidians) and of flakes (based exclusively on SA and SB2 obsidians), respectively, but on the whole, assemblage blade/bladelet production was performed somewhat preferably with SA and SB2 types. Thus, in the earliest EN culture known on the island, ancient man had, for the making of its obsidian toolkit, a highly adaptive behaviour applied to the reduction of different useful obsidian sources.     

Textual Authority and Its Naturalization in Liang Shuming's Dong–Xi wenhua ji qi zhexue

This article discusses how Liang Shuming's Dong–Xi wenhua ji qi zhexue (Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies) adopted a genealogical mode of textual authorization which took shape in its depiction of Chinese history as a failure to live up to an ideal way of life imagined by Confucius. Implied in this discourse was the idea that Liang himself had been the first Confucian to understand what Confucius had truly meant. This genealogical discourse authorizing Liang and his text by linking them directly to Confucius was further strengthened by a rhetoric which naturalized the discourse passed down from Confucius to Liang, distinguishing it from other forms of discourse seen as artificial. Finally, the text's genealogical discourse also managed to incorporate the May Fourth critique of Confucianism by rejecting the historical manifestations of Confucianism before salvaging an ideal imagined by Confucius which was presented as uncontaminated by history and Confucianism's enmeshment in state power.     

A multidisciplinary approach to reconstructing Late Glacial and Early Holocene landscapes

Understanding palaeotopographical variability forms the basis for understanding prehistoric societies. Alluvial and lacustrine environments, in particular, are key areas with both a high archaeological and palaeoecological potential. However, the often deep stratification of these sites, the high water table and the complex sedimentological variations can hamper a detailed reconstruction of the spatial relationship between prehistoric settlement and their environment. Combining different remote and proximal sensing techniques and coring data, can offer detailed insight into such landscapes. More specifically, the integration of mobile geophysical methods allows the collection of unprecedented continuous information on large-scale palaeolandscape variability. In this study we present a combined approach in order to map and model prehistoric landscapes and river systems in and around a Late Glacial palaeolake in north-western Belgium. Based on filtered and unfiltered digital elevation models, a survey area of 60 ha was selected, in which detailed mobile multi-receiver electromagnetic induction survey was conducted. The results allowed for the delineation of palaeochannels in the area and enabled modelling the depth of these features in the survey area, providing insight into their flow characteristics. ¹⁴C sampling enabled the dating of the evolving river system to the transition between the Late Glacial and the Early Holocene. Through additional coring, this river system could be traced further through the palaeolake area. Based on these results a detailed reconstruction was made of the palaeotopography that harboured the Final Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic occupation of the study site.     

New insights into the ancient silver production of the Wallis area, Switzerland

This paper discusses the results of a study of the exploitation history of the metallogenic region of the Wallis, Switzerland. Periods of exploitation in this mining district are determined by comparisons of the lead isotope fingerprint of the mines with those of dated artefacts presumed to have a local origin based on the style of craftsmanship. The approach is based on the study of silver mines in the Wallis area and illustrated by three examples of local craftsmanship: (1) silver jewellery from the Late Iron Age, (2) a reliquary shrine from the Early Middle Ages and (3) silver coins from the Late Middle Age.     

Le marché dans son histoire

Sans résumé a récemment publiéFran?ois de Neufchateau. Biographie intellectuelle, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2005. a codirigé avec Steven Kaplan,La France, malade du corporatisme? xviii ^e –xx ^e siècles, Paris, Belin, 2004.