DOES THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS NECESSARILY ENTAIL CERtain rights, and if so, what are they? Do democratic assumptions exclude the possibility of rights that are superior to the democratic theory and practice?

These are the two sets of questions that I propose to explore in this essay.

ON 2 MAY 1979, THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNIties adopted a Memorandum on the accession of the European Communities to the ‘Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms’ signed in Rome on 4 November 1950 by the Member States of the Council of Europe and which entered into force on 3 September 1953. This memorandum which constitutes a document aimed at stimulating thought on the problems posed by the accession of the EEC and which concludes in favour of such a step, has been sent to the other institutions and organs of the European Communities. It is intended to start a debate within these institutions and organs and in all interested circles within the Member States.

HAVING NOW BEEN IN POWER FOR FIFTEEN YEARS, THE PRESENT Brazilian political regime sees the coming year as the end of a successfully completed experiment. Its goal is the normalization of the ‘development state’ established in 1964 – a goal that encompassed a clear economic model and a willingness to accept the risks that the impact of the development state would have on other sub-systems of society.

Over a period of a decade and a half, the regime has sought to provide an increasingly coherent response to the impasses in social change that were characteristic of the period of so-called spontaneous development of the fifties. This response was based on the assumption of a natural convergence of increased productivity, social mobility and democracy.

BEFORE THE FIRST WORLD WAR HENRI BERGSON HAD PUBlished three major works, but nothing exclusively or even primarily concerned with social and political issues. Nevertheless, Bergson's philosophy was thought to have a political meaning that could be deduced from its principles. Despite their different, even contradictory, conclusions about it, Bergson's philosophy influenced several leading figures in France – Georges Sorel, Charles Péguy, Charles Maurras and Charles de Gaulle – and through them the course of French history. Significantly, Bergson's philosophical arguments interested them more than his relatively minor, but concrete, statements about contemporary politics. Bergson's mature thought on moral and political life was shaped principally by the First world War: Les Deux sources de la moral et de la religion appeared after Sorel and Péguy were dead and when Maurras and the Action Franqaise no longer figured so prominently in French politics. Even de Gaulle, who came to prominence much later than the others and who really belongs more to the second half of the century than they do, appears to have taken no interest in Les Deux sources. Rather, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience and L'Évolution créatrice in which Bergson states his critique of ‘conceptual thinking’ and his theories of consciousness and biological evolution, comprise ‘Bergsonism’ in politics – not Bergson's own politics. These ironically find no consistent representation in the movements or political theories discussed below. The difference between what Bergson stood for and favoured in politics and what others thought his philosophy implied for politics is most striking and points to the difficulties inherent in taking practical advice from metaphysical arguments. There are, then, two problems surrounding Bergson's influence in France, one of which has already been alluded to and will be discussed at some length. The other is much more diffuse, but defines Bergson's political reputation today.