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Untimely Vision 131 peared.75 But accommodation should not be equated with stagnation. The par- ticular challenge of integrating a postcolonial society into the national state had always entailed a process of pragmatic improvisation and adaptation. In Marti- nique the laws of the republic and its administrative forms were often reworked through a series of derogations, adjustments, and local preferences because of the specific conditions and needs of this anomalous “monodepartmental region” located in the Caribbean basin.76 In other words, departmentalization has entailed neither cultural assimilation to the French nation nor political assimilation to the unitary republic. Nor do reductive statements about neocolonial dependence grasp the peculiar character, both problematic and promising, of the complex political arrangement that has emerged over the past sixty years in the DOMs. The political scientists Justin Daniel, Fred Constant, and Fred Reno demon- strate that Martinique under departmentalization has developed a distinct and autonomous juridico-political system that does not simply mirror its metropolitan 75. Daniel, “L’espace politique martiniquais,” 247 – 52; Emmanuel Jos, “Identité culturelle et identité politique: Le cas Martiniquais” (“Cultural Identity and Political Identity: The Case of Mar- tinicans”), in Constant and Daniel, 1946 – 1996, 335 – 71; Daniel, “Les élus face à la réforme insti- tutionnelle,” 123 – 37. 76. Civil servants in the DOM are paid the famous 40 percent premium over their colleagues in metropolitan agencies. Various forms of discrimination positive have extended opportunity preferences to Antillean populations regarding employment, training, and social security. In the Constitution of October 4, 1958, Article 73 allowed that in the DOMs the laws of the republic are subject to “adapta- tions according [tenant] to the particular characteristics and constraints of these collectivities” (www .conseil-constitutionnel.fr/textes/constit.htm). A decree on April 26, 1960, gave the Conseils Généraux in the Antilles a special right to advise the central government on legislation that will affect the DOMs in particular ways. The decentralization law of March 2, 1982, led local governmental structures in Martinique to continue to evolve in ways that distinguished it from the metropolitan model. A political struggle thereby commenced over the feasibility of competing governing bodies (the Conseil Général and the Conseil Régional) whose jurisdictions were geographically coextensive, as well as over the constitutionality of a novel “Assemblée Unique” for this peculiar “monodepartmental region.” Miles, Ethnicity and Elections, 231 – 34; Constant, La retraite aux flambeaux, 141 – 221. Decentralization has continued to evolve through the laws of July 5, 1994, and December 13, 2000; the constitutional revi- sions of March 28, 2003; the debate over Martinique’s legal status around the referendum of December 7, 2003; and the law of August 13, 2004. See François-Lubin, “Les méandres de la politique sociale outre-mer,” 83 – 93; Justin Daniel, ed., L’outre-mer à l’épreuve de la décentralisation: Nouveaux cadres institutionnels et difficultés d’adaptation (Overseas France and the Test of Decentralization: New Institutional Frameworks and the Difficulty of Adaptation) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007); and the essays collected in part 2 of Michalon, Entre assimilation et émancipation, 200 – 362. On legal autonomy, see Anne-Marie Le Pourhiet, “La perception du droit à la Martinique” (“Perceptions of the Law in Mar- tinique”), in Constant and Daniel, 1946 – 1996, 451 – 72; and Jack Vimon, “Assimilation et dédouble- ment des ordres normatifs: Le cas des Amérindiens de Guyane française” (“Assimilation and Divi- sion of Normative Orders: The Case of the Amerindians of French Guiana”), in Constant and Daniel, 1946 – 1996, 433 – 50.