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

1991 ◽  
Vol 29 (04) ◽  
pp. 29-2265-29-2265
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Fifth Republic ◽  
Modern France

Social Change in Modern France: Towards a Cultural Anthropology of the Fifth Republic.

Man ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
Ralph Grillo ◽  
Henri Mendras ◽  
Alistair Cole
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Fifth Republic ◽  
Modern France

Human intentionality in the functionalist theory of social change: the role of French provincial intendants in state-society differentiation

2005 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Clark
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Early Modern France ◽  
Human Intentionality ◽  
Modern France ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Functionalist Theory

This paper seeks to assess the validity, in a particular historical case, of two ways of thinking in functionalist literature about the role of human intentionality in social change. It does so by means of an analysis of the contribution of French provincial intendants of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the differentiation of state and society. It is argued that if functionalists are to build a theory of social change it is necessary that they deal more directly with the question of human intentionality. Four historical views, each positing a different relationship between intentionality and the evolution of the state in Early Modern France, are outlined as different approaches to understanding the establishment of the institution of intendants and the part they played in state-society differentiation. The historical evolution of French intendants is traced and 1066 actions by intendants and the French crown during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are analysed to determine the extent to which intendants contributed to state-society differentiation and whether they and the crown did so intentionally.

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