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Le Maroc est engagé dans une course contre la montre pour promouvoir son économie agricole. Si les coopératives agricoles (CA) ont été au cours des deux dernières décennies l'un des outils privilégiés, leur contribution économique demeure néanmoins modeste. L'article utilise une approche qualitative pour analyser la relation entre les liens familiaux et les dynamiques de création et de fonctionnement de vingt CA au sud du Maroc. Il a pour objectif de comprendre l'impact du rapport des CA avec leur milieu social sur leurs dynamiques locales. L'enquête de terrain montre que les CA ont tendance à se constituer autour des liens familiaux, et sont exposées aux polarités politiques locales. Les prestations de l'aide publique les segmentent en clientes et victimes des élus locaux. La gestion inéquitable de l'aide publique produit des fausses CA et impacte leur pérennité. En vue d'une émancipation effective des CA, le présent papier recommande: l'analyse systématique critique des actions publiques dans les secteurs coopératif et agricole, l'assainissement des fausses CA ou leur transformation en véritables CA, et l'incitation des CA familiales à se conformer aux idéaux de la coopération. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the efforts of the European Union in the 2000s to promote the democracy in Africa by ensuring that elections in the countries of the continent were transparent, free and fair. Therefore, the EU sends its election observation missions to monitor African elections and supports a range of various supplementary initiatives. The article looks at the aims and methods used by the EU observer missions, on the examples of various country cases (Kenya, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Nigeria), and discusses the consequences which such missions might have both for the EU, the government and society of a given African country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For various reasons the process of individualization has always been supposed to be linked to a decline in welfare state support. Because of individualization, it is commonly argued people appreciate collectively organized welfare less and less. This article studies whether individualists really support the welfare state less than collectivists. In order to examine this, the authors use data collected in 2006 in the Netherlands. Distinguishing between two types of individualism, the study finds that people who are structurally disembedded from their institutional environment – the structural individualists – do not indeed support the welfare state. Moreover, for these structural individualists, the socioeconomic risks they run and their actual class position do not translate into support for the welfare state. Contrary to this, the study finds that people who can be classified as cultural individualists – those who emphasize individuality – are more supportive of the welfare state. For these cultural individualists it is also found that their socioeconomic position and interests influence the way they think about the welfare state. Cultural individualists hence are more supportive of the welfare state, and especially so for those in weak socioeconomic positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]