Pareto isn't interested in the nature of politics but in the political society and in its equilibrium. The method he finally adopted, after some hesitations, is the one he tested in his economical and sociological research work. Analysing the changing of the elites, he stresses the importance of the minority that is in power. However the decline of an oligarchy is always concomitant with the coming up of another one. As far as Pareto's personal political stand is concerned he was neither a fascist nor a democrat but a liberal. This is revealed by a careful analysis of his works, from the first to the last of his writings.

The aim of this paper is to study the structure of interest groups and their role in the EEC decision making process. The paper consists of two parts ; the first deals with the historical pattern of emergence of these groups, white the second part concentrates on the their contemporary participation in the EEC decision making process.In the first part six empirical topics are developed: 1. the creation of interest groups at the Community on regional level; 2. the chronological study of these groups and their activities; 3. their geographical distribution across the Community's member states; 4. the functional areas covered and interests represented by these groups at the EEC level; 5. the role of national interest groups and their representation in the interest groups operating at the Community level; 6. the distribution of leadership posts in regional interest groups by nationality. As for the second part, it is in turn divided into two sections. The first discusses the participation of interest groups in the EEC decision making process; whereas, the second section deals with the recent trends in the EEC decision making process.

In this paper about Chile, Weber's taxonomy of rational behavior is used together with a genetic-structural approach to explain chilean political life, which can be understood by the following variables: a mean demography, an authoritarian and religious culture, a capitalistic, dependent and under-developed economy, an hybrid social stratification, a centralised state characterized by an higly developed burocracy. In such a context the «Popular Unity» results from a specific acculturationof antagonistic ideologies related to different social strata, to competitive political groups as well as to rival pressure groups. In the short term; the confiicting interests might coexist thanks to a growing social support motivated by a superficial economie nationalism, emotional anti-capitalistic feelings and the rise in the income of the popular and middle classes strata.On the other hand, the left government, divided by social, political and ideological oppositions was unable to run the civil service, to structure a congruent economic policy and to face international or national subversion.

The 1970 amended Belgian Constitution is at the cross-roads of two currents of history, on one hand, once more the traditional values of the Occidental society; on the other hand a double communal pressure contests an unitary state: from underneath affirmation of three Belgiannational communities, from above, apparition of a «supra-national party».The authors make a critical examination of the cropping up of bonding institutions in a «pré-fédéral» state, then they clearly state the principles of a really federal Constitution based upon the acknowledgement of the 2 large communities and the 3 regions and the principles of a democratic organization of an economic politic.

Though the central concept in International Relations, not so much importance was yet attached to the operationalisation of national power.In his overview, the author distinguishes three conceptual approaches: 1° exercised power (empiricaly observed, post facto); 2° status (what people think the power of a nation is); 3° potential power (indirect measure, operationalising the «elements of national power»).An operationalisation of exercised power is not yet available because of grave theoretical and practical difficulties. Indices of status are elaboratedbut the relevance of this concept seems to be low. Potential power, the most intresting approach is aften elaborated; the present-day operationalisations however don't correspond to what the «great theoretici» wrote about «the elements of national power». In most cases only one or a few indicators are included; most operationalisations don't deliver a rank ordening but only a stratification... The author concludes research attention should be attached to the operationalisation of power, especially potential power.