The Oxford Handbook of French Politics 9780199669691, 0199669694

Table of contents :
Cover
The Oxford Handbook of French Politics
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
1. A Framework for a Comparative Politics of France
Part I Conceptual Foundations
2. Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding
3. The State Imperative
4. The French Welfare System
Part II Large-​Scale Processes
5. Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France
6. The French Way to Multi-​Level Governance: Governance with Government
7. The Europeanization of Public Policy in France: Actor-​Centered Approaches
8. Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case
Part III Institutions
9. Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?
10. Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native
11. Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-​Building
12. Challenges to French Public Administration: Mapping the Vitality of Its Knowledge Sources
13. Regional and Local Government: Interpreting Territorial Politics
Part IV Parties, Elections, and Voters
14. Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In
15. How to Study Political Culture Without Naming It
16. Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle
17. Parties and Party Systems: Making the French Sociocultural Approach Matter
18. Political Communication: From International Institutionalization to National Conquest of Scientific Legitimacy
Part V Civil Society
19. Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models
20. The Study of Social Movements in France: The “French Touch” and a Comparative Contribution
21. Women’s Movements and Feminism: French Political Sociology Meets a Comparative Feminist Approach
22. National Identity in France: A Blind Spot
Part VI Public Policy and Policymaking
A. The Domestic Arena
23. French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s
24. Environmental and Energy Policy in France: A Critical Case for Comparative Political Research?
25. Gender Policy Studies: Distinct, but Making the Comparative Connection
B. The International Arena
26. France and the Evolution of European Integration: The Exemplary and Pivotal Case for Broader Theories
27. Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?
28. Defense and Security Policy: Beyond French Exceptionalism
29. French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass: A Representative, Deviant, or Agenda-​Setting Case?
Conclusion
30. Toward a Comparative Politics of France
Index

Citation preview

 

T h e Ox f o r d h a n d b o o k o f

F R E N C H P OL I T IC S

 

 

The Oxford Handbook of

FRENCH POLITICS Edited by

ROBERT ELGIE, EMILIANO GROSSMAN, and

AMY G. MAZUR

1

 

3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2016 The moral rights of the authors has been asserted First Edition published in 2016 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2016944777 ISBN 978–​0–​19–​966969–​1 Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

 

Acknowledgments

This Handbook is the product of a highly collaborative and international research endeavor that began in the summer of 2011 when Robert Elgie was first contacted by Oxford University Press to consider editing an Oxford Handbook of French Politics. From the beginning, the aim was both to include a line-​up of editors and contributors that represented the full range of work and scholarship being undertaken on French politics and to deliver a unique and hopefully stimulating study of French political life in all its complexity. Almost five years later, the Handbook is complete. With contributors based in France, Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we, the editorial team, are confident that we have delivered a Handbook that captures the diversity of the study of French politics as it is practiced both inside and outside France. We are also confident that we have delivered a unique product. The approach we have adopted in this Handbook is one that sets it apart from other general studies of French politics. As for whether or not the Handbook is stimulating, only time will tell. However, we can only hope that readers will find the contents of the chapters as thought-​ provoking as we have when editing them. The Handbook’s uniqueness lies in the extent to which we established a uniform framework on the basis of which contributors were asked to analyze the study of French politics in their area. We asked contributors to follow a three-​part structure. In the first part of the chapter they were asked to summarize the development of scholarship in their area outside France. This is what we call the “outside-​in” section. In the second part of the chapter they were asked to summarize the development of scholarship in their area inside France. This is what we call the “inside-​out” section. In this section we also asked contributors to provide a brief résumé of real-​world developments in France that related to their area of investigation. In the third part of the chapter we asked contributors both to reflect upon the current state of the scholarship both inside and outside France and to propose an agenda for future research in their area accordingly. Our “outside-​in” and “inside-​out” approach allows the project to examine systematically the interplay between home​grown French political science and international political science. Indeed, the international dimension has been an integral part of the ethos of the project from its conception, as has the conviction that we would eschew the typical focus on French exceptionalism. In this way, we hope to provide a volume that will appeal to scholars who are not necessarily specialists on France already, but who are interested in a theory-​driven approach. In addition, by asking contributors to be sensitive to real-​ world political considerations in the section on France, we want also to address problem-​centered concerns.

 

vi   Acknowledgments If the Handbook is stimulating, then it will come from the successful application of these quite ambitious goals. All of our contributors worked tirelessly to follow the framework, going through up to three full iterations of their chapters in response to our feedback. The three of us together provided integrated comments on each chapter at each round of revisions; our different takes and perspectives allowed for richer outcomes. The end result for every chapter, we believe, is a coherent and high-​quality product that, we hope, will make an important contribution to the study of French politics both inside and outside France as well as to larger comparative politics theory-​building well beyond the deep expert understanding of the French case contained in each chapter. We must thank first and foremost all of our contributors. In all of the areas we were able to convince and cajole the top scholars, both established and emerging, first to join the project, then to adhere to our framework, next to respond to our often detailed critiques, and finally to follow our timetable. All three of us were honored and delighted to work with such a dedicated group of scholars. We would also like to give special recognition to Andrew Appleton, who was an integral part of the project’s conceptualization and launching in the first year. He made key contributions to developing the approach and framework of the Handbook as well as recruiting our contributing authors. From the beginning, Dominic Byatt at Oxford University Press has provided us with crucial support and understanding as our time horizon for completion shifted. He is the ideal editor, giving us the autonomy to pursue an innovative project and the time to successfully carry it through. Our home institutions provided each of us with an important platform for our collaboration: Dublin City University, Washington State University, and Sciences Po, Paris. Sciences Po contributed the most to this project through the Centre d’Études Européennes under the leadership of first Nonna Mayer and then Renaud Dehousse. We were able to meet several times at Sciences Po thanks to Emiliano’s faculty position there and Robert and Amy’s visiting professorships. Finally, we would like to thank our families and friends, who provided crucial sustenance and good humor in the tougher moments of this five-​year project when the light at the end of the tunnel was not clearly in sight. Robert Elgie, Dublin, Ireland Emiliano Grossman, Paris, France Amy G. Mazur, Moscow, Idaho, USA December 15, 2015

 

Contents

List of Figures  List of Tables  List of Abbreviations  Notes on Contributors 

xi

xii xiii xix

I N T ROD U C T ION 1. A Framework for a Comparative Politics of France  Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur

3

PA RT I   C ON C E P T UA L F OU N DAT ION S 2. Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding  Yves Mény

13

3. The State Imperative  Jack Hayward

44

4. The French Welfare System  Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier

60

PA RT I I   L A RG E - ​S C A L E P RO C E S SE S 5. Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France  Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-​Dublet

81

6. The French Way to Multi-​Level Governance: Governance with Government  Gilles Pinson

102

7. The Europeanization of Public Policy in France: Actor-​Centered Approaches  Sabine Saurugger

128

 

viii   Contents

8. Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case  Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer

151

PA RT I I I   I N ST I T U T ION S 9. Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?  Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman

177

10. Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native  Olivier Costa

198

11. Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-​Building  Sylvain Brouard

220

12. Challenges to French Public Administration: Mapping the Vitality of Its Knowledge Sources  Philippe Bezes 13. Regional and Local Government: Interpreting Territorial Politics  Romain Pasquier

243 282

PA RT I V   PA RT I E S , E L E C T ION S , A N D  VOT E R S 14. Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In  Nicolas Sauger

307

15. How to Study Political Culture Without Naming It  Nonna Mayer and Vincent Tiberj

329

16. Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle  Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-​Beck

349

17. Parties and Party Systems: Making the French Sociocultural Approach Matter  Florence Haegel

373

18. Political Communication: From International Institutionalization to National Conquest of Scientific Legitimacy  Jacques Gerstlé

394

 

Contents   ix

PA RT V   C I V I L S O C I E T Y 19. Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models  Darren McCauley

417

20. The Study of Social Movements in France: The “French Touch” and a Comparative Contribution  Olivier Fillieule

439

21. Women’s Movements and Feminism: French Political Sociology Meets a Comparative Feminist Approach  Laure Bereni

461

22. National Identity in France: A Blind Spot  Sophie Duchesne

483

PA RT V I   P U B L IC P OL IC Y A N D P OL IC YM A K I N G A.  The Domestic Arena 23. French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s  Ben Clift

509

24. Environmental and Energy Policy in France: A Critical Case for Comparative Political Research?  Charlotte Halpern

535

25. Gender Policy Studies: Distinct, but Making the Comparative Connection  Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard

556

B.  The International Arena 26. France and the Evolution of European Integration: The Exemplary and Pivotal Case for Broader Theories  Craig Parsons

585

27. Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?  Vivien A. Schmidt

606

28. Defense and Security Policy: Beyond French Exceptionalism  Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand

636

 

x   Contents

29. French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass: A Representative, Deviant, or Agenda-​Setting Case?  Gordon D. Cumming

654

C ON C LU SION 30. Toward a Comparative Politics of France  Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur

677

Index 

693

 

List of Figures

11.1 Number of abstract constitutional decisions per year 

228

11.2 The fate of French laws (apart from constitutional law and ratifying laws)

230

13.1 Exogenous political change: the territory as an object of research 

296

13.2 Endogenous political change: the territory as subject of research 

297

17.1 How the study of parties and party systems has developed in the English-​ language literature 

375

17.2 How the study of parties and party systems has developed in the French literature  386 19.1 An enlarged model of the state 

429

19.2 Resource/​opportunity usage for interest groups 

433

 

List of Tables

10.1 The state of legislative studies in France 

208

13.1 Subnational authorities in France (2011) 

290

13.2 The Moreno identity scale in 14 European regions (2009)

294

13.3 The dimensions of territorial power 

299

19.1 State-​centric models of inclusion and exclusion 

427

25.1 List of feminist comparative policy research projects 

558

30.1 Toward convergence

683

30.2 Asymmetric convergence 

684

30.3 Divergence 

684

 

List of Abbreviations

AAI

Independent Administrative Authorities

ACGF

Action catholique générale féminine

ADEME

L’Agence de l’environnement et de la maîtrise de l’énergie (Environment and Energy Management Agency)

AFD

Agence française de développement

AFSP

Association française de science politique

AISP

Association internationale de science politique (International Political Science Association, IPSA)

ANI

Accord National Interprofessionnel

ANR

Agence nationale de recherche

APE

Allocation parentale d’éducation (paid parental leave)

ATTAC

Association pour la taxation des transactions financières et pour l’action citoyenne (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizens’ Action)

AUD

Allocation Unique Dégressive

CAP

Common Agricultural Policy

CAP

Comparative Agendas Project

CAPI

Contrats d’amélioration des pratiques individuelles

CCC

Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation

CCS

Comparative Candidate Survey

CSDP

Common Security and Defense Policy

CERI

Center for International Studies and Research

CFDT

Confederation française démocratique du travail (trades union)

CGT

Confédération générale du travail (trades union)

CICE

Crédit impôt compétivité emploi

CITREP

Citizens and Representatives in France and Germany

CME

coordinated market economy

CMH

capital mobility hypothesis

CMU

Couverture Maladie Universelle

 

xiv   List of Abbreviations CNAF

Caisse Nationale des Allocations Familiales

CNCL

Commission nationale de la communication et des libertés (National Committee for Communications and Freedoms)

CNPF

Conseil National du Patronat Français (National Council of French Employers)

CODER

Commissions de développement économique régional (Commissions for Regional Economic Development)

CoR

Committee of the Regions (EU body)

COR

Comité d’orientation des retraites (Pension Orientation Council)

CP

comparative politics

CSG

Contribution Sociale Généralisée

DAC

Development Assistance Committee

DARES

Direction de l’Animation de la Recherche, des Etudes et des Statistiques (Direction of Animation, Research, Studies, and Statistics)

DFID

Department for International Development

DGA

Direction générale de l’armement

DMEs

dependent market economies

DOM-​TOM

Départements et Territoires d’Outre-​Mer

DREES

Direction de la recherche, des études, de l'évaluation et des statistiques (Direction of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics)

DS developmental state ECB

European Central Bank

ECPR

European Consortium for Political Research

ECSC

European Coal and Steel Community

EDC

European Defense Community

EDP

Excessive Deficit Procedure

EEC

European Economic Community

EELV

Europe Ecologie Les Verts

EEP

Environmental and energy policy

EMBES

Ethnic Minority British Election Survey

EMU

European Monetary Union

EMS

European Monetary System

ENA

École Nationale d’Administration (National School of Administration)

EP

European Parliament

 

List of Abbreviations    xv EPCI

Établissements publics de coopération intercommunal (intercommunal public corporations)

EPP

Economic Partnership Program

ERM

exchange rate mechanism

F3E

Fonds pour la promotion des Études préalables, des Études transversals, et des Evaluations

FDI

foreign direct investment

FNE

France Nature Environnement

FIIN

Feminism and Institutionalism International Network

FO

Force Ouvrière (trades union)

GEMDEV

Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique pour l’Étude de la Mondialisation et du Développement

GEPP

Gender Equality Policy in Practice

GERMM

Groupe d’etude et de recherche sur les mutations du militantisme (the Study and Research Group on Transformations in Activism)

HCCI

Haut Conseil de la Coopération Internationale

HCFP

Haut Conseil des Finances Publiques

IAP

Interuniversity Attraction Pole

IFEN

Institut français de l’environnement (French Institute for the Environment)

IFRI

Institut français des relations internationales

INED

National Institute for Demographic Studies

INSEE

National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies

INSURA

individual surveys in rallies

IPE

international political economy

IPSA

International Political Science Association

IR

international relations

IRA

regional administrative institutes

IRIS

Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques

IRSEM

Institut de recherche stratégique de l’ecole militaire

ISC

Institut de stratégie comparée

LI

liberal intergovernmentalism

LME

liberal market economy

LOLF

Loi organique relative aux lois des finances (Institutional Act on Budget Legislation)

 

xvi   List of Abbreviations LPFP

Loi de programmation des finances publiques

MDGs

Millennium Development Goals

MENA

Middle East and North Africa

MFA

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MFPF

Mouvement français pour le planning familial (French Movement for Family Planning)

MLG

multi-​level governance

MLF

Mouvement de libération des femmes (French women’s liberation movement)

MME

mixed market economy

MP

member of parliament

NAFTA

North American Free Trade Area

NGOs

non-​governmental organizations

NPM

new public management

ODA

overseas development assistance

OECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

OEEC

Organization for European Economic Cooperation

OEP

open economy politics

OFCE

Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques

ONDAM

amount of the annual evolution of the health budget

PARE

Plan d’aide et de retour à l’emploi

PC

political communication

PCF

Parti communiste français

PERCO

Plan d’épargne retraite collectif

PERP

Plan d’épargne retraite populaire

PPP

public–​private partnership

PR

proportional representation

QCA

qualitative comparative analysis

RéATE

réforme de l’administration territoriale de l’Etat

RGPP

Révision générale des politiques publiques (Sarkozy government’s “General Review of Public Policies”)

RMI

Revenu minimum d’insertion

RNGS

Research Network on Gender Politics and the State

RSA

Revenu de solidarité active

SDGs

Sustainable Development Goals

 

List of Abbreviations    xvii SEA

Single European Act (1986)

SEITA

Société d’exploitation industrielle des tabacs et des allumettes (French national manufacturer of cigarettes and matches)

SGAE

Secrétariat général des affaires européennes (current French administrative body coordinating EU policies)

SGCI

Secrétariat général du comité interministériel pour la cooperation internationale (previous French administrative body coordinating EU policies)

SGP

Stability and Growth Pact

SME

state-​influenced market economy

TeO

trajectoires et origines

UNCAM

Union nationale des caisses d’assurance maladie (national sickness fund organization)

VOC

varieties of capitalism

WPAs

women’s policy agencies

 

 

Notes on Contributors

Laure Bereni is a political sociologist, a Permanent Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and a member of the Centre Maurice Halbwachs in Paris (CNRS/​ENS/​EHESS). She has taught in various academic institutions, including the Institute of French Studies at New York University, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and Sciences Po, Paris. Her research work focuses on gender, social movements, and anti-discrimination policies. Her recent publications include La bataille de la parité. Mobilisations pour la féminisation du pouvoir (Paris: Economica, 2015), “A Paradigmatic Social Movement? Women’s Movements and the Definition of Contentious Politics” (co-​authored with A. Revillard) in Sociétés contemporaines (85), and “From Grassroots to Institutions: Women’s Movements Studies in Europe” (co-​ authored with A. Revillard) in G. Accornero and O. Fillieule (eds), Social Movement Studies in Europe: The State of the Art (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016). Philippe Bezes is CNRS Research Professor (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) in the Centre d’Études Européennes at Sciences Po (CEE, Paris, France). His academic interests are administrative reforms and bureaucracies in France and in comparative perspective, state transformations, institutional change, and public policy. He is the author of Réinventer l’Etat: Les réformes de l’administration française (1962–​ 2008) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2009) and he has recently published a co-​edited volume Public Administration Reforms in Europe: The View from the Top, with Steven van de Walle, Gerhard Hammerschmid, and Rhys Andrews (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2016). Sylvain Brouard is Associate Research Professor FNSP at CEVIPOF, Sciences Po. His research focuses on comparative politics, institutions, electoral competition, and agenda studies. His publications include As French As Everyone (Temple University Press, 2011 with V. Tiberj), The French Fifth Republic at Fifty (Palgrave, 2008, with A. Appleton and A. G. Mazur), Les Français contre l’Europe? (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2007, with N. Sauger and E. Grossman), and numerous articles in peer review journals. Ben Clift  is Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. His research interests lie in comparative and international political economy. He is author of Comparative Political Economy: States, Markets and Global Capitalism (London: Palgrave, 2014) and French Socialism in a Global Era (London:  Continuum, 2003), and co-​editor of Where Are National Capitalisms Now? (Palgrave, 2004). He is currently completing a monograph

 

xx   Notes on Contributors on the IMF, advanced economies, and the politics of austerity since the 2008 crash. He has published widely on the politics of economic ideas; France, Britain, and the IMF; French and comparative capitalisms; capital mobility and economic policy autonomy; the political economy of social democracy; and French and British politics in journals including the British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Common Market Studies, The Journal of European Public Policy, The Review of International Political Economy, New Political Economy, Party Politics, Political Studies, and French Politics. Olivier Costa  is Director of the Department of Political and Administrative Studies of the College of Europe (Bruges) and Research Professor at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (University of Bordeaux). He is co-​director of the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence of Aquitaine. He has taught EU studies in many universities in Europe, the USA, and Japan. He has published numerous books, articles, and editorial contributions dealing with European institutions—​mainly the European Parliament—​ and policymaking, and with parliaments and deputies. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of European Integration, the Journal of Legislative Studies and the RISP: Italian Political Science Review. Gordon D. Cumming is now Professor of European Affairs and International Development at Cardiff University, having begun his career in the Africa Research Department of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, he has served as a Professeur Invité at the Centre d’Études d’Afrique Noire, Bordeaux, and at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Lyon. He has published extensively on French, British, and European foreign and development policies as well as on civil society capacity-​building. With support from research funding bodies, he has written books including Aid to Africa: French and British Policies from the Cold War to the New Millennium (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), French NGOs in the Global Era (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009), and From Rivalry to Partnership?: New Approaches to the Challenges of Africa (edited with Tony Chafer; Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011). He is currently on the Steering Group of Cardiff University’s Phoenix Project and engaged in an ESRC-​funded capacity-​building project with Welsh development NGOs. Sophie Duchesne is CNRS senior researcher and member of the Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politique (ISP) at Nanterre University. She coordinated the CITAE project (Citizens Talking about Europe), a joint qualitative and comparative project research between Sciences Po, the University of Oxford, and the Catholic University of Louvain-​ la-​Neuve, on attitudes toward European integration. She is the (co-​)author with E. Frazer, F. Haegel and V. Van Ingelgom of Citizens’ Reactions to European Integration: Overlooking Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and the editor of issue 30 of Politique Européenne, “L’identité européenne entre science politique et science fiction” (2010). Robert Elgie  is Paddy Moriarty Professor of Government and International Studies at Dublin City University. He has published numerous books, including The Study of

 

Notes on Contributors    xxi Political Leadership: Foundations and Contending Accounts (London: Palgrave, 2015), Semi-​Presidentialism: Sub-​types and Democratic Performance (Oxford: University Press, 2011), and Political Institutions in Contemporary France (Oxford: University Press, 2003), as well as a number of co-​edited publications with Sophia Moestrup, such as Semi-​ Presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe (Manchester:  Manchester University Press, 2008). He has published in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, British Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, and Journal of Democracy. He is the editor of the journal French Politics. He is the Review Editor for Government and Opposition. Angéline Escafré-​Dublet is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Lyon 2. She holds a PhD in modern history from Sciences Po, Paris. Her research interests pertain to immigration issues and the way they relate to matters of politics and culture. She is the author of Culture et Immigration. De la question sociale à l’enjeu politique (1958–​2007) (Rennes: Press universitaires de Rennes, 2014) and Immigration et politiques culturelles (Paris: Documentation française/​French Museum of Immigration History, 2014). She has published articles in Diversities, the Journal of Modern European History, Espaces et sociétés, Genèses, Histoire@Politique, and Raison politique. Olivier Fillieule is a professor of political sociology at Lausanne University (Research Center on Political Action—​ CRAPUL) and senior researcher at CNRS-​ CESSP, l’Université Paris I Panthéon-​Sorbonne. Among his recent books are Demonstrations, co-​authored with Danielle Tartakowsky (Nova Scotia:  Fernwood, 2013), and Social Movement Studies in Europe, The State of the Art (Oxford: Berghahn, 2016), co-​edited with Guya Accornero. Jacques Gerstlé is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Political Science at l’Université Paris I Panthéon-​Sorbonne, where for more than ten years he headed the Masters in Political and Social Communication. He is the author or co-​author of numerous publications on political communication, such as 2012, La campagne présidentielle, La communication politique, Les effets d’information en politique, Mediated Politics in Two Cultures, and Le langage des socialistes, Giscard d’Estaing/​Mitterrand: 54774 mots pour convaincre. He reported on French electoral campaigns from 1972 to 2007 in the Chroniques Electorales of the Presses de Sciences Po. He has published numerous articles in journals such as Revue française de science politique, Politix, Revue française de sociologie, and pouvoirs. Miguel Glatzer is an associate professor in Political Science at La Salle University. His research focuses on the politics of globalization, the Euro crisis, and welfare state reforms in Southern Europe. He co-​edited Globalization and the Future of the Welfare State (with Dietrich Rueschemeyer) (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005). He has also published on civil society and the welfare state in Portugal. He holds a PhD in government from Harvard University. Michel Goyer is a senior lecturer at the Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of Contingent Capital: Short-​term Investors and The

 

xxii   Notes on Contributors Evolution of Corporate Governance in France and Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). His research interests include comparative political economy with a focus on France and Germany, institutional theory and diversity in advanced capitalist economies, and the eurozone crisis. He received his PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Emiliano Grossman is an associate professor at Sciences Po in Paris, working at the Centre d’Études Européennes. He teaches comparative politics and public policy and is the co-​convenor of the Masters in European Affairs at Sciences Po. He specializes in political institutions and agenda-​setting processes. He is currently heading the French Agendas Project and is involved in several related research projects, ranging from the influence of the media on policymaking to questions relating to partisan effects in policymaking. Florence Haegel is full professor at Sciences Po (Centre d’Études Européennes). She has been the head of the Department of Political Science since spring 2013 and head of the master of “Comparative politics” at Sciences Po (École doctorale) since 2012. Her main research topics are political parties, political socialization, and political discussion and qualitative methods (individual case studies, focus groups, etc.). With S. Duchesne, E. Frazer, and V. Van Ingelgom she has recently published Citizens’ Reactions to European Integration Compared: Overlooking Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013) and Les droites en fusion. Les transformations de l’UMP (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2012). Charlotte Halpern is Assistant Research Professor in Political Science at the Centre d’Études Européennes, Sciences Po in Paris. Her work on comparative policies and governance in the EU and on environmental and energy policy has been published in leading political science journals such as West European Politics, Comparative European Politics, Environment and Planning, and the Revue française de science politique. She is co-​editing a volume on policy analysis in France (Policy Press). Patrick Hassenteufel is Professor of Political Science at the University of Versailles and Sciences Po Saint-​Germain. His main research field is comparative health policy. He also works more generally on the transformation of European welfare states and on actor-​ centered policy analysis. He has published in several international (Journal of European Public Policy, Comparative Politics, Social Policy and Administration, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Comparative European Politics, Policy and Administration), French (Revue française de science politique, Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, Politix, Revue française des affaires sociales), and German (Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Zeitschrift für Sozialreform) journals. He is the author of a handbook on policy analysis, Sociologie politique: l’action publique (Paris: A. Colin, 2011), and the co-​ editor in chief of the only French-​speaking political science journal specializing in public policy and public administration analysis (Gouvernement et action publique). Jack Hayward was Professor of Politics at the University of Hull (1973–​92) and Professor of Politics and then Professorial Fellow at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. On

 

Notes on Contributors    xxiii retirement he returned to Hull as a part-​time research professor in politics. He has also been a visiting professor at various French universities, including the Sorbonne and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He was formerly the Chair of the UK Political Studies Association and editor of its journal, Political Studies, from 1987 to 1993. His books include Private Interests and Public Policy (London: Longmans Green & Co, 1966), The One and Indivisible French Republic (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973), The State and the Market Economy (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1986), After the French Revolution (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), Governing from the Centre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), Fragmented France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), Leaderless Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), The Withering of the Welfare State (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and European Disunion (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Bastien Irondelle was Senior Research Fellow at CERI, the Center for International Studies and Research at Sciences Po, Paris. In 2009–​10 he was Deakin Fellow at the European Studies Center, St Antony’s College, and Visiting Research Fellow in the Changing Character of War Programme, University of Oxford. His book, entitled La réforme des armées en France. Sociologie de la décision, was published by the Presses de Sciences Po in 2011. Jean Joana is a professor of political science at the University of Montpellier. He has written on comparative defense policy and civil–​military relations. He is currently working on military procurement policies during wartime and on defense policy reform in Europe and the US. He is the author of Les armées contemporaines (Paris, Presses de Science Po, 2012). He recently published “The Varieties of Liberal Militarism: A Typology,” French Politics, 2014, 12 (2): 177–​191 (with F. Mérand). Riva Kastoryano is a research director at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and Professor at Sciences Po, Paris. Her work focuses on identity and minority issues and more specifically on their relations to states in France, Germany, and the US. She was a lecturer at Harvard University from 1984 to 19​87 and has been teaching at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris (Sciences Po) since 1988 and at the New School for Social Research since 2005. Her most recent book is Negotiating Identities: States and Immigrants in France and Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). She also edited Quelle identité pour l’Europe? Le multiculturalisme à l’épreuve (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1998 and 2005 for the second edition); Nationalismes en mutation en Méditerranée Orientale with A. Dieckhoff (Paris: Ed. du CNRS, 2002); and Les codes de la différence. Religion, Origine, Race en France, Allemagne et États-​Unis (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2005). Her most recent book is Que faire des corps de Djihadistes. Territoire et Identité (Paris: Fayard, 2015). Michael S. Lewis-​Beck is F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa. His interests are comparative elections, election forecasting, political economy, and quantitative methodology. He has authored or co-​authored over 250 articles and books, including Economics and Elections, The American Voter Revisited, French Presidential Elections, Forecasting Elections, The Austrian Voter, and Applied

 

xxiv   Notes on Contributors Regression. He has served as Editor of the American Journal of Political Science and of the Sage QASS series (the green monographs) in quantitative methods. He is currently Associate Editor of International Journal of Forecasting and of French Politics. In spring 2012, he held the position of Paul Lazersfeld University Professor at the University of Vienna. During the fall of 2012, he was Visiting Professor at the Center for Citizenship and Democracy, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium. In spring 2013, he was Visiting Scholar, Centennial Center, American Political Science Association, Washington DC. For fall 2014, he was Visiting Professor at LUISS University, Rome. Nonna Mayer is Emerita CNRS Research Director at the Centre d’Études Européennes of Sciences Po, and chair of the French Political Science Association. Her main research topics are political attitudes and behavior, with a focus on right-​wing extremism, racism and anti-​Semitism, and the electoral impact of gender and precariousness. Her last book was Les faux-​semblants du Front National. Sociologie d’un parti politique (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2015) (co-​edited with S. Crépon and A. Dézé). Amy G. Mazur is the C. O. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Washington State University. She is also an associate researcher at the Centre d’Études Européennes at Sciences Po, Paris. In 2015, she was a Fellow at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. Her recent books include Theorizing Feminist Policy (Oxford, 2002); Politics, Gender, and Concepts (editor with G. Goertz, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); The French Fifth Republic at Fifty: Beyond Stereoytpes (editor with S. Brouard and A. Appleton, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009); The Politics of State Feminism: Innovation in Comparative Research (with D. McBride, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010). Most recently she has published in Comparative European Politics, Revue française de science politique, Politics and Gender and Political Research Quarterly. She is currently co-​convening, with J. Lovenduski and I. Engeli, the Gender Equality Policy in Practice (GEPP) project and is Associate Editor of French Politics. Darren McCauley holds the position of Lecturer in Sustainable Development and Research Associate at the Centre for French History and Culture at the University of St. Andrews. He has previously held full-​time lectureships at Queens University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, and Stirling University. A wide range of external bodies have sponsored his research on interest groups, including the British Academy, ESRC, EPSRC, and Carnegie. He has notably published single- and lead-authored articles on the role of interest groups in outlets such as Journal of Common Market Studies, French Politics, Environmental Politics, and Energy Policy, among others. Yves Mény, Emeritus President of the European University Institute (2002–​9), is currently the chair of the board of the Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies in Pisa. His academic career includes positions in Rennes, Paris II, Sciences Po, and the European University Institute. He has taught in many American and European universities and is an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has published extensively in the fields of French and comparative politics, public policies, and administration. His recent

 

Notes on Contributors    xxv publications have focused on corruption and populism, dealing with European integration, in particular the democratic deficit question and the tensions between EU policies and national politics. Frédéric Mérand is Professor of Political Science and Director of CÉRIUM, the University of Montreal Centre for International Studies. His book European Defence Policy: Beyond the Nation State was published by Oxford University Press in 2008. He has published several articles on European and French defense policy with B. Irondelle, S. Hofmann, J. Joana, M. Foucault, and C. Hoeffler. Richard Nadeau is Professor of Political Science at the University of Montreal. His interests are voting behavior, public opinion, political communication, and quantitative methodology. A Fulbright scholar and a former chief advisor to the Premier of Quebec, Professor Nadeau has authored or co-​authored over 170 articles (published in the most prestigious political science journals), chapters, and books, including Le vote des Français de Mitterrand à Sarkozy, Unsteady State, Anatomy of a Liberal Victory, Citizens, French Presidential Elections, The Austrian Voter, Health Care Policy and Opinion in Canada and the United States, and Le comportement électoral des Québécois (Donald Smiley Award 2010). Bruno Palier is CNRS Research Director at Sciences Po, Centre d’Études Européennes. Trained in social science, he has a PhD in political science and is a former student of the Ecole Normale Superieure. His area of study is welfare reforms in Europe. He is co-​ director of LIEPP (Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies). He has published numerous articles on welfare reforms in France and in Europe in Politics and Society, Journal of European Social Policy, West European Politics, Governance, Socio-​ Economic Review, Global Social Policy, Social Politics, and various books. In 2012, he co-​edited The Age of Dualization: The Changing Face of Inequality in Deindustrializing Societies with P. Emmenegger, S. Häusermann, and M. Seeleib-​Kaiser (Oxford: Oxford University Press) and Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, Policies and Challenges, with N. Morel and J. Palme (Bristol: Policy Press). In 2010, he edited A Long Goodbye to Bismarck? The Politics of Welfare Reforms in Continental Europe (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press); in 2007 he co-​edited a special issue of Social Policy and Administration, on “Comparing welfare reforms in Continental Europe;” in 2006, Changing France, co-​edited with P. Culpepper and P. Hall (Basingstoke: Palgrave); in 2010, La réforme des systèmes de santé (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, Collection Que sais-​je?, 5th edn); 2010, La réforme des retraites (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, Collection Que sais-​je?, 3rd edn); 2002, Gouverner la sécurité sociale (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2nd updated edition in 2005); and 2001, Globalization and European Welfare States : Challenges and Changes, co-​edited with R. S. Sykes and P. Prior (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Craig Parsons is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon. He is the author of A Certain Idea of Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), How to Map Arguments in Political Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), How to Think

 

xxvi   Notes on Contributors for Yourself about Politics (New York: Pearson, 2016), and many articles on the history and workings of the EU, French politics, and European political economy. He is also co-​ editor of books on the social construction of the international economy, immigration in Europe, and the EU in comparative perspective. Romain Pasquier is a CNRS Research Professor (Directeur de Recherche) at the Institute of Political Studies, Sciences Po, Rennes, France. His field of research covers territorial governance, regionalism, and state reform in Europe. He has recently published Regional Governance and Power in France: The Dynamics of Political Space (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Gilles Pinson is a professor of political science in Sciences Po, Bordeaux, and a researcher in the Centre Emile Durkheim (Université de Bordeaux, Sciences Po, Bordeaux, CNRS). His research deals with urban policies and politics, urban and metropolitan governance, and the transformations of the relationships between territorial states and cities. He is currently working on the politicization of inter-​municipal bureaucrats in the French metropolis and the construction of the local markets of the “smart city.” Among his main publications are Gouverner la ville par projet. Urbanisme et gouvernance des villes européennes (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2009), and more recently “Gouvernance et sociologie de l’action organisée. Action publique, coordination et théorie de l’État” (L’Année sociologique, 65(2), 2015, 483–​517); “From the Governance of Sustainability to the Management of Climate Change: Reshaping Urban Policies and Central–​Local Relations in France” (with V. Béal, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 7(3), 2015, 402–​19); and “When Mayors Go Global: International Strategies, Urban Governance and Leadership” (with V. Béal, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(1), 2014, 302–​17). He is currently preparing a book about the debate on the neo-​liberalization of urban policies and governance (Debating the Neoliberal City, Ashgate, forthcoming). He is a member of the editorial boards of the Revue française de science politique and Métropoles. Anne Revillard is an associate professor of sociology at Sciences Po (Paris), affiliated with the Observatoire sociologique du changement (OSC) and the Laboratory for the Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d’évaluation des politiques publiques, LIEPP). Her research focuses on policy and politics in the fields of gender and disability. Recent publications include L’État des droits. Politique des droits et pratiques des institutions, co-​edited with P.-​Y. Baudot (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po/​Gouvernance) and “A Paradigmatic Social Movement? Women’s Movements and the Definition of Contentious Politics” with L. Bereni, Sociétés contemporaines, 85, 2012, 17–​41. Nicolas Sauger is Associate Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po, Paris, and research associate at its Center for European Studies and at LIEPP where he is co-​ directing a research group about the quality of democracy. He has published research about elections, parties, and electoral systems in France and in a comparative perspective in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly,

 

Notes on Contributors    xxvii and West European Politics. He is currently member of the planning committee of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Social Survey. Sabine Saurugger, PhD (Sciences Po, Paris) is Professor of Political Science and Research Dean of Sciences Po, Grenoble. Honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), she has held visiting research and professorship positions at the Universities of Cologne, Montreal, Brussels, and Oxford. Her research focuses on theories of European integration, resistances to European integration, and the politics of law, and has been published in journals such as the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics, Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Comparative European Politics, Journal of European Public Policy, Revue française de science politique, and Swiss Revue of Political Science. Vivien A. Schmidt is Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration, Professor of International Relations in the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Professor of Political Science at Boston University (BU), as well as Founding Director of BU’s Center for the Study of Europe. Her books include Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy (co-​edited, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Democracy in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)—​named in 2015 by the European Parliament as one of the “100 Books on Europe to Remember”—The Futures of European Capitalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Welfare and Work in the Open Economy (co-​edited, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); From State to Market? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Democratizing France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Professor Schmidt’s honors, awards, and grants include an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Brussels, holding the Belgian Franqui Interuniversity Chair for foreign scholars, Fulbright fellowships to the EU and France, and a research fellowship from the European Commission (DG ECFIN), and being co-​investigator on a multi-​year EU Commission HORIZON 2020 grant. She is past head of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA). Vincent Tiberj is currently Associate Professor at Sciences Po, Bordeaux, for the 2015–​ 18 period. Previously, he was Associate Research Professor FNSP at Sciences Po between 2002 and 2015, first at CEVIPOF and then the CEE. He specializes in comparative electoral behavior (France, United States, and Europe), the political psychology of ordinary citizens, the sociology of inequalities, the politics of immigration and integration, and survey research and methodology.

 

 

I N T RODU C T ION

 

 

Chapter 1

A Framework for a C omparative P ol i t i c s of Fra nc e Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur

Political Life in France French political history is highly turbulent. Since the Revolution, no fewer than 16 constitutions have been adopted. The current constitution was adopted only a little more than 50 years ago. But France has changed since this time: it no longer stands out from other Western European countries as being more unstable. It encounters the same or similar difficulties as its neighbors, and is facing the same or similar challenges for the future. Much of the initial stability of the Fifth Republic owes to the personality of General de Gaulle, who managed to bridge the apparently insurmountable cleavages that had led France to the brink of civil war. What had initially been a rather heroic and plebiscite-​ based understanding of the presidential function ended with de Gaulle’s resignation in 1969. As soon as Georges Pompidou took over as president, the Fifth Republic was taken over by everyday politics and political competition, and from 1981 it began on a path of regular alternation, much like many of its neighbors. Alternation has since become almost systematic. One of the central questions addressed by the chapters in this book concerns the direction that political competition and its institutional translation have taken over time. This implies understanding the foundations of contemporary French politics. Therefore, various chapters in this Handbook review the basic pillars of the French political system. They include historical elements, of course, but also fundamental institutional structures. The role of the state has always been considered distinctive, and deserves attention on its own. Accounts of French politics and policymaking often tie some of its peculiarities back to “Colbertism” (see e.g. Cohen, 1992) or to specific

 

4    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur choices made during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, regarding the polity, its administration, or, more recently, specific traits of the French state, such as the welfare state. It is important to understand to what extent these foundations still shape and/​ or constrain contemporary French politics and policymaking. France is facing the same challenges as many other advanced industrial democracies. Increasing economic interdependence has clearly restricted the policy autonomy of national executives. The end of capital controls and the liberalization of takeover regulation have anchored French industry firmly in the world economy. State intervention, in this context, is becoming more and more difficult, subject to EU and WTO rules that France has helped shape (cf. Abdelal, 2007). Rule-​making has become more “multilevel,” forcing France to negotiate with other EU members, of course, but also with the EU and other international institutions, and, sometimes, subnational authorities. The crisis that has affected Europe and most advanced industrial democracies elsewhere since 2008 has certainly revealed, more than ever before, the extent of the incapacity of individual EU member states to respond on their own to economic downturns and international competition. At the same time, the sovereign debt crisis has strengthened existing trends, rather than changing the policy agenda. Like elsewhere, spending on social policies in France has had to be restructured, as economic growth has slowed down and budgets have had to be tamed. At the same time, demands for more democracy and greater transparency in policymaking have also contributed to reshape policy from within, including successive waves of decentralization. More generally speaking, policymaking has become more “multi-level.” Very few major policy decisions are taken within a national vacuum any longer. Rather, policymakers and entrepreneurs in any area have to connect several levels of decision-​making and will only succeed if they mediate successfully between them. Several chapters explore policymaking in crucial areas to account for these changes. The consequences of these challenges for the French political system have been diverse. Political institutions appear to have been weakened by the ongoing contestation of their authority. Some elected representatives complain about this, but many of them have had a say, especially with regard to European integration. Public opinion and voters, despite changes in values, remain attached to national sovereignty. But those changes may reshape the very structure of public opinion and political attitudes. This in turn may explain some of the major changes that have been observed in political behavior, be it elections or other forms of participation and mobilization. These changes in political behavior may in turn shed light on the restructuring of political competition in France. The party system seems in constant flux, despite the hegemonic strategies pursued by the main center-​left and center-​right parties (Grunberg and Haegel, 2007). Voters appear to be switching more easily, and the vote for government parties is declining in France and elsewhere (Gougou and Tiberj, 2015). The contributions to this book try to evaluate the depth and consequences of these trends. They aim to put the French case into both historical and comparative perspective in order to better understand France’s present and future. Doing this, however, also implies reflecting on the way we think about and study France.

 

A Framework for a Comparative Politics of France    5

The Study of Political Life in France The study of political life in France has a long history. We can trace its origins back to eighteenth-​century political philosophers such as Rousseau and Montesquieu. We can also see the roots of the institutionalization of French political science with the creation of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1832 (Heilbron, 2004). As elsewhere, though, the academic study of political life in France came to take the form with which we are familiar today through the course of the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. In 1872, the École libres des sciences politiques (ELSP) was formed in the rue Saint-​Guillaume in Paris, quickly becoming an important training ground for high-​level civil servants. In the early twentieth century, scholars such as Émile Durkheim, André Siegfried, and Maurice Hauriou, among many others, helped to define the academic contours of the study of political life, respectively infusing it with strong sociological, geographical, and legalistic flavors. Following the reorganization of the ELSP in 1945 into the Institut d’études politiques de Paris, now commonly known as Sciences Po, the political science community was institutionalized in 1949 with the creation of the Association française de science politique (AFSP). Even so, political science was in effect only recognized as a separate discipline within the university system with the creation of the concours d’agrégation de science politique in 1971. Today, the AFSP is more active than ever within France, holding well-​attended biennial conferences. Moreover, students of French political life have an increasingly high profile as members of European and international professional organizations and research networks (Thiébault, 2015). Even this briefest of histories hints at some of the fundamental issues that lie at the heart of this Handbook. The history of political science in France is unique, and unsurprisingly so. As in any country, the trajectory of political science scholarship has been marked by profound historical events in France itself—​the eighteenth-​century reaction to absolute monarchy, the nineteenth-​century belief in the efficiency of the scientific study of society, and the intellectual reconstruction of the country after the Second World War, among others. By the same token, though, the history of political science in France has also been marked by broader intellectual currents—​the development of distinct academic disciplines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the professionalization of political science in West European democracies in the post-​Second World War period, and the Europeanization and globalization of academic communities generally from the 1990s on. These twin impulses have helped to create a Janus-​faced discipline. Within the study of French political life there is an inward-​looking dimension, reflecting on what is unique about France and protecting what is considered to be special about the study of France. There is, though, an outward-​looking dimension too, acknowledging that the issues under consideration in France are similar to equivalent issues elsewhere, and providing at least the potential for them to be studied in the same way.

 

6    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur In one sense, the tension within the study of political life in France is no different from the study of politics in comparable countries. For example, there are numerous points of comparison with the development of political studies in the UK, even if there are differences between the political science communities in the two countries (Hayward, 1999). In another sense, though, this tension is sharper in France than in many other places. This is because the academic study of political life in France has mapped onto a more general political discourse about the supposedly exceptional nature of the country’s politics, particularly in the post-​Second World War period when, as we have seen, the discipline of political science was gradually professionalizing. The development of a highly influential political discourse about the emergence of and the need to safeguard the supposed French economic, social, and political model was matched by the academic study of what were taken to be the main features of this model. Thus, for example, there has long been an academic focus on the role of the state in all its forms, including the higher administration, local administration, and the state-​centered economy, as well as a debate about the nature of the republic, including its core values and the role of group activity within it. Unsurprisingly, there have also been challenges to this model. These challenges have manifested themselves in the political and ideological domain. They have also done so in the academic sphere, sometimes leading to the claim that foreign ideas were being imported to a place where they were not appropriate and did not rightly belong.

The Approach of the Handbook In this Handbook we aim to capture the tensions that have been present within the study of French politics over the years, both inside and outside France. The standard way of doing so is to focus on the concept of French exceptionalism. For the purposes of The Oxford Handbook of French Politics, though, such a focus is problematic. Exceptionalism is an inherently comparative concept. If France is exceptional, then it is exceptional only to the extent that it is different from other countries. Thus, to organize the Handbook around the idea of French exceptionalism we would need to study France in comparison with other countries. We do not have the page numbers to engage in a full-​blown comparative study and, in any case, for the purposes of this volume we wish primarily to focus on the academic study of France itself. At the same time, though, we wish to address the tensions that we have just outlined in French political science. As we saw in the first section of this chapter, French political life has been transformed over the years. How has the study of these transformations taken shape? How has the shape of French political studies been transformed? To address these questions, we adopt what we call an “outside-​ in/​ inside-​ out” approach. By “outside-​in” we mean the extent to which the academic study of French political life has been shaped by developments within the discipline of political science outside France. In practice, this often means developments within the study of political

 

A Framework for a Comparative Politics of France    7 science in the US and Europe. We can imagine a range of responses in this regard. At one extreme, the study of any particular element of French political life could have remained totally untouched by such intellectual developments, leaving purely franco-​français debates to be considered. At the other extreme, these developments could have completely overwhelmed the study of any particular topic in France, such that the terms of the debate at the international level would be exactly the same as the terms that are adopted by scholars within France. Between these two extremes, the impact of external academic, intellectual, and ideational developments may have varied both from one aspect of the study of political life to another and over time within any given area. By “inside-​out” we mean the extent to which the academic study of French political life in France has shaped developments within the discipline of political science elsewhere. Has French inquiry set the agenda, established the methods, furnished the responses to the study of political life in the academy outside France? We can imagine a similar range of responses. French thinking may have come to completely dominate a particular area. The impact of French post-​structuralist thinkers, such as Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze, on critical inquiry may be a case in point. By contrast, work in France may have had absolutely no impact on the international scholarly community whatsoever. Again, in between, French scholarship may have had more or less of an impact externally, depending on the area of inquiry and the period under consideration. In adopting this “outside-​in/​inside-​out” approach we wish to engage in two basic exercises. First, we wish to undertake an exercise in intellectual stock-taking. With relation to the study of any given subject of French political life, where are we now and how did we get here? How has the study of the different elements of French political life evolved over time? How has the focus changed? What is more, to what extent has the study of any given area been shaped by the study of that area outside France (“outside-​ in”)? Turning the focus around, to what extent has work in that area in France impacted on the international scholarship (“inside-​out”)? Second, we also wish to undertake an exercise in agenda-​setting. Given where we are now, how is the study of French political life likely to change in the future? How should it change? What should the research agenda be? What can the state-​of-​the-​art international scholarship bring to the study of French politics in particular areas? What can the cutting-​edge study of French politics in France bring to the scholarly table outside France? These are the questions that drive this Handbook.

The Plan of the Book Flowing from the “outside-​in/​inside-​out” approach that we have described above, the Handbook is organized into three sections, each with its own logic that contributes to the larger comparative theory-​building goals of the volume: foundational concepts for the French case; thematic large-​scale processes; and the substantive dimensions of comparative politics.

 

8    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur Following this introductory chapter, in the first section (comprising Part I  of the Handbook) chapters by important figures in the study of French politics discuss and map out three foundational conceptual elements of political life that have been identified as crucial underpinning aspects of the “French case.” These chapters provide the essential groundwork for the rest of the book, allowing us to understand how and to what degree the study of French politics has contributed to and been shaped by political science scholarship outside of France. Yves Mény’s chapter on republicanism highlights the scholarly and political development of this core concept in France in comparison to its treatment in other national scholarly traditions, mostly in the USA. Jack Hayward takes up the central notion of “the State” and traces the French state’s development in relation to comparative work that has sought to “bring the state back in” (Skocpol, 1985) since the late 1980s. Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier’s chapter assesses the shifting and evolving nature of the French welfare state and much-​lauded French social model in the context of increasing economic challenges. Building on these foundational chapters, the second section (comprising Part II of the book) examines the study of four large-​scale political processes being played out and determining the shape of all political systems on a more macro level. In these chapters, and indeed in the rest of the volume, the authors follow our inside-​out/​outside-​ in approach in their analysis of the study of French politics across the four dimensions that are studied in comparative politics (see below). In this section, the authors use a comparative theory-​building framework to look at how the study of French politics has been influenced by the international comparative scholarly agenda outside France, how and to what degree French scholarship has interfaced with that international work, and the contours of emerging research agendas on each of those processes. This section begins with an analysis of the processes of identity and culture by Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-​Dublet, and then shifts to multi-​level governance by Gilles Pinson. Moving to forces more at work outside of the nation state, Sabine Saurugger focuses on Europeanization and Michael Goyer and Miguel Glatzer cover globalization. Given the pervasive nature of these political forces, many of these are recurring themes covered in many other chapters in the remainder of book. In the third section (comprising Parts III, IV, V, and VI) we take comparative politics theory-​building even more straightforwardly, by covering the major substantive areas studied by research in the subfield of comparative politics broadly writ. Following Munck and Snyder’s (2007: Table 1) taxonomy of the substantive dimensions of comparative politics (CP) research that was developed for their systematic review of CP scholarship, we focus on four areas or “dimensions” and 21 specific aspects of the “political system” (Easton, 1965). We begin, in Part III, with state institutions inside the “black box” of government as the first dimension of CP, with first a mostly national-​level focus on the study of executive politics by Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman, then of legislative politics by Olivier Costa, of constitutional politics by Sylvain Brouard, and of public administration by Philippe Bezes. Romain Pasquier then takes a look below the national level to assess scholarship on regional and local government.

 

A Framework for a Comparative Politics of France    9 In Part IV we move to “inputs,” or linkages between society and the state, as the second substantive dimension of CP, with a focus on parties, elections, and voters. Nicolas Sauger launches this part with an analysis of work on political representation, followed by Nonna Mayer and Vincent Tiberj’s treatment of the study of political culture. Next, Michael S. Lewis-​Beck and Richard Nadeau examine research on French elections. The focus shifts to political parties and party systems in the chapter by Florence Haegel, and the part ends with Jacques Gerstlé’s chapter on the study of political communication. In Part V, we turn to civil society as the third dimension of CP, starting with scholarship on French interest groups by Darren McCauley. Olivier Fillieule covers social movement research in general, and Laure Bereni drills down into and assesses the work on women’s movements and feminism. The last chapter of this part, on national identity, by Sophie Duchesne, focuses on research on civil society issues related to “political order” (Munck and Snyder 2007: 9). In Part VI, we present “ouputs” and “policymaking in general” (Munck and Snyder, 2007: 9) as the final substantive dimension of CP. We do so first at the domestic and then at the international level. Scholarship on domestic-​arena policymaking and policies is covered by Ben Clift on economic policy, environmental and energy policy by Charlotte Halpern, and gender equality policy by Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard. Craig Parsons kicks off international policies with a focus on France and European integration. Vivien A. Schmidt turns to international political economy work on the varieties of capitalism. Next, Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand move to research on defense and security policy, followed by Gordon D. Cumming on international aid and development scholarship. In the Conclusion of the Handbook, we employ our three-​pronged approach to understanding the study of French politics to form an aggregate analysis of the chapters in Parts II–​VI, in order to identify trends in the degree to which French scholarship has been influenced by political science outside France and how international political science has been affected by French work in terms of a range of theoretical and methodological issues. We will also present and discuss the major aspects of current and emerging research agendas identified by our contributors.

Conclusion Moving well beyond France as an exceptional case, and reflecting the highly complex nature of our increasingly globalized, culturally diverse, and economically challenged world, this Handbook provides a systematic framework for understanding the current state of the study of French politics in the twenty-​first century inside and outside France. In addition, and arguably more importantly, our guiding framework determines if and how French political science and the study of French politics has contributed to and dialogued with more general research agendas of CP and international political science. The chapters to follow, thus, provide a rare systematic review of the development

 

10    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur of the international study of politics alongside the state of French political science on France. The analysis of the emerging research agendas in 25 areas on France provides a special opportunity for a wider range of students and scholars to learn key lessons from French scholarly experiences. Focusing on foundations, processes, and comparative dimensions makes the analytical purview of the project even wider and, hence, highly appealing to a broad audience inside and outside France. The aggregate analysis in the Conclusion enhances the opportunity to develop deep knowledge of the study of French politics and its more general contributions to the larger CP agenda of understanding and explaining political change, democratization, and government performance. We invite you to use this volume in the spirit of broadening this scholarly dialogue, having hopefully furnished an engaging and useful road map to navigate through the study of French politics from an unprecedented, international, and theoretically meaningful perspective.

References Abdelal, R. (2007). Capital rules:  The construction of global finance. Boston:  Harvard University Press. Cohen, E. (1992). Le colbertisme high-​tech. Paris: Hachette. Easton, David (1965). A Framework for Political Analysis. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice ​Hall. Gougou, F. and Tiberj, V. (2015). “Tous les mêmes? Les votes pour les partis de gouvernement en temps de crise.” Revue européenne des sciences sociales. European Journal of Social Sciences, 53(1): 95–​120. Grunberg, G. and Haegel, F. (2007). La France vers le bipartisme? La présidentialisation du PS et de l’UMP. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Hayward, J. E.  S. (1999). “British Approaches to Politics:  The Dawn of a Self-​Depreciating Discipline,” in J. E. S. Hayward, B. Barry, and A. Brown (eds) The British Study of Politics in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–​36. Heilbron, J. (2004). “The rise of social science disciplines in France,” Revue européenne des sciences sociales, 42(129): 145–​157. Munck, G. L. and Snyder, R. (2007). “Debating the Direction of Comparative Politics: An Analysis of Leading Journals.” Comparative Political Studies. 40(5): 5–​31. Skocpol, T. (1985). “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research,” in P. B. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, and T. Skocpol (eds) Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3–​37. Thiébault, J.-​L. (2015). “French political science: strengths and weaknesses,” French Politics, 13(2): 185–​220.

 

Pa rt  I

C ON C E P T UA L F OU N DAT ION S

 

 

Chapter 2

Repu blica ni sm a transatlantic misunderstanding Yves Mény

On both sides of the Atlantic, the same words and concepts—​Republic/​République—​ have for two centuries been at the center of political and legal debates and controversies, particularly in France (Nora, 2013; Lacorne, 2008). However, while the French Republic proclaimed in 1792 was under constant challenge and was replaced by monarchical or imperial regimes for most of a century (from 1804 to 1871), the republican regime in the United States was never contested as such. In spite of these fundamental differences, the discussion on both sides has been fed by historical developments and their interpretation or reinterpretation by historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Other disciplines have stepped in. Lawyers, political philosophers, and political scientists have added their own contributions to a conversation initiated by historiography. Interestingly enough, debates on both continents were not restricted to a narrow circle of intellectuals. The learned discussions had a huge impact on more mundane controversies as their theoretical foundations were often used by policymakers or the media as frames of reference or ways of structuring political conflicts and policy preferences. On both sides of the Atlantic, republicanism has been founded on a historical reconstruction and re-​reading of the past. This was mainly the work of the late-​nineteenth-​ century French historians (Lavisse, Michelet), who contributed to the creation of a national, republican imaginary. The debates on republicanism occurred in Britain and in the United States much later, under the influence of historians in the 1990s. They contributed to the republican revival in American historiography “offering a historically and culturally rooted alternative to the dominance of right-​based legalism in the American ‘procedural republic’ ” (Castiglione, 2013). Obviously, the history of the republican tradition as such is not a novelty, but the historiography of the American revolutionary period was “picked up and cited by an increasing number of scholars who had all sorts of interpretative needs and political agendas to promote” (Wood, 1998). As an interpretative and constructed concept based on historical interpretation, republicanism constitutes a divisive tool as much as a synthesis. In America, where the Republic has never been seriously

 

14   Yves Mény disputed, republicanism has remained identified with the idea of liberty, while the constant threats that the République had to face in France have contributed to identifying républicanisme with the republican regime. While republican references recur in French political debates ad nauseam, the discussion has remained mainly an academic one in the United States, triggering praise as much as harsh criticism. Rodgers (1992: 38) for instance, in his analysis of “republicanism as a concept,” states ironically that “The gift of republicanism, as an explanatory concept, lay in its ability to do so much disparate interpretive work […]. Like all successful paradigms, it answered a breathtakingly wide array of questions. In this regard, its success and its weakness were one and the same.” Given that context, it is not surprising if “Republican themes resonate differently in the domestic politics of various places for various reasons” (Goodin, 2003). With a few exceptions, most of the discussions have taken place in parallel. Until recently, the debates have been shaped more in the form of national controversies than as a trans­ national conversation, in spite of efforts in that direction by academics such as Skinner, Viroli, and van Gelderen. This is partly explainable by the temporal discrepancy on the two sides of the Atlantic. The nature of the debates is indeed in sharp contrast. For instance, in France, the debate has never been so animated, not to say violent, as when the very existence of the République has been challenged or jeopardized. The end of the nineteenth century and the period of separation of the state and church in France, the 1930s with the rise of fascism, the post-​Second World War period after the parenthesis of the Vichy regime, and the establishment of the Fifth Republic were periods of high intensity which had no real counterpart in other democratic systems. Elsewhere, as pointed out by Goodin, “references to the ‘republican ideal’ often prove to be both allusive and elusive” (2003: 56). The discussions that took place in the 1980s and afterwards were largely dominated by the renewed interest for republicanism in the Anglo-​ American world. Two great historians contributed to this revival, Skinner (1978) and Pocock (1975), triggering a very substantial amount of subsequent research and discussion. To use Daniel Rodgers’ words, “The concept of republicanism was one of the success stories of the 1980s […]. By 1990 it was everywhere and organizing everything, though perceptibly thinning out, like a nova entering its red giant phase” (Rodgers, 1992: 11). According to Castiglione this success story is primarily a consequence of a historical revival coinciding with “the rejection of the teleology of ideology-​based narratives of political thought, and of their implicit economic and social determinism” (Castiglione, 2005: XX). History is fundamental since the heritage of the past is supposed to inform and somewhat condition present political choices and preferences. By contrast, Républicanisme as a concept is rarely used by French thinkers, lawyers, politicians, or media. One must underline that the word is a recent and successful importation from the other side of the Atlantic (through the translation of Philip Pettit into French under the same title as in English—​Républicanisme). Instead, the French debate is saturated with functional equivalents, often used as “magic words,” supposedly filled with spontaneous and shared meanings: République, principes républicains, tradition républicaine, lois de la République, etc. (Agulhon, 1980). While American republicanism has been fiercely debated in academic and legal circles, French use of the

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   15 “sacred words” has usually been restricted to political slogans; to ready-​made justifications for policy measures (Whatmore, 2000). As underlined by Lacroix and Magnette, “Pettit’s ideal of non-​domination might be ‘central to contemporary republicanism.’ However, his concept of non-​domination has not made many inroads into the French theoretical debate on the future of the republican ideal (2009). Only a handful of historians and political philosophers have contributed to a better understanding of a concept so much used and abused in political life (Audier, 2004; Nicolet, 1982; Kriegel, 1988). Most of the intellectuals—​until very recently—​have rather contributed to the creation (Lavisse and his monumental Histoire de France in 27 volumes) or to the undisputed domination of the republican ideal/​ideology. Those objecting to the republican regime were so radical and hostile that there was no space left for an intellectual conversation. In many ways, it was a war reviving in new forms that the deep cleavages created during the 1789 Revolution. Since that period “républicain” has become a convenient label, stuck on more or less every debate or policy affecting the order of things inherited from the Revolution. Too often, it is exploited as a red line beyond which the fundamental principles at the heart of the French polity would be violated. A good example is given by the Constitution of the Third Republic, which stated that “La forme républicaine du gouvernement ne saurait être révisée” (“the republican form of government cannot be challenged”). The same sacred motto has been reproduced in the constitutions of the Fourth and Fifth Republics. Obviously, this constitutional statement is only binding if and when a majority is disposed to respect it, but it is telling that the men in power have tried to impede any attempt to return to the old monarchical or imperial regimes. Hence, it has become a form of taboo, a kind of excommunication which prohibits us from considering or even discussing alternative ways of thinking. To do so would be to introduce worms into the fruit, dealing a kind of fatal blow and causing the destruction of French Revolution heritage, a precious patrimony consolidated over time in spite of historical accidents considered as unfortunate intervals (the restoration of the monarchy, the Second Empire, Vichy). The consequence has been two-​fold. On one hand, the discussion has been more a political battlefield than a reasoned debate—opposing ideological enemies, for instance monarchists or fascists and republicans (Hayward, 2007). On the other hand, the crucial role of these political confrontations has impeded a deeper reflection on the virtues and flaws of the model of reference and the possibility of improving or renovating it. An acute analyst of French history and contemporary politics such as Sudhir Hazareesingh has identified the causes of this situation in “the excessive polarization of historical and theoretical research on the distinct entities of ‘republicanism’ and ‘liberalism,’ and the reluctance of intellectual and political historians on both sides of this divide—​left and right—​to recognize the profound interpenetration of these two realms since the mid-​ nineteenth century” (Hazareesingh, 1994: 14). It is only very recently, from the 1980s onwards, that the crisis of the so-​called republican model has triggered a less dogmatic approach and a critique which cannot be dismissed in a too simplistic way as being “anti-​republican.”

 

16   Yves Mény

Republicanism: Transatlantic Parallels Republicanism in France has been, and still is, a matter of faith: a political myth as much as a body of legal and political doctrine shared by the political class as well as by most public opinion leaders and intellectuals. It is made as much of imaginary (Hazareesingh, 2011) as of reasoned opinion. The One and Indivisible Republic (Hayward, 1973), its principles, and its fundamental laws are no more disputable than the principle of the Pope’s infallibility in the Catholic Church. The reference/​reverence to these principles is used as a way to safeguard the inherited past. It guides and frames the way forward. In many ways it is a kind of official ideology which transcends parties and groups, space and time, and which can be challenged only at a very high cost: the exclusion of the system (intellectually, politically, and in the worst cases legally or physically). Goodin goes as far as stating that the closure of republicanism within national borders “constitutes a particularly vicious form of closed communitarianism” (2003: 64). Divisions, segmentations, and variety of opinions can occur, but within that framework of reference. In many ways, invocation of republican discourse has been used as an excuse for not changing or reforming, as if the Revolution of 1789 had frozen the way of thinking and governing for more than two centuries. Or, rather, it would be more correct to define this body of beliefs as the nineteenth-​century re-​reading and reinterpretation of the French Revolution. Historians of that time have constructed a narrative capable of holding together the components of the nation and consolidating the feeble republican institutions finally put in place in 1875. Both in 1793 (the condemnation to death of the king) and in 1875 (the establishment of the Third Republic), the change of regime was secured by a single-​vote majority. These divisions run deep and remain as fractures that events can revive at any time. Interpreting facts of the day through the lenses of the republican creed is a favorite pastime of politicians and journalists. It explains why some rather minor events (such as wearing a veil in a classroom) might trigger passionate controversies. Everything is evaluated and judged according to the canons of an indisputable set of values. The same applies to those political parties that do not fit the classical pattern of parties of government and are considered as extreme and too radical or dangerous for the centralized and unitary republican state. On the basis of legislation adopted before the First World War and reinforced in the 1930s, the government may prohibit and dissolve parties considered hostile to the République, its structures, and its fundamental beliefs. Even when the government in place does not adopt such extreme measures, the best way to fight a political outsider is to accuse him of being anti-​republican or of jeopardizing the republican status quo. This attempt to eliminate newcomers by discrediting their republican credentials has been used (unsuccessfully) by the republican moderates against the PCF (Parti communiste français), by the Left against the Gaullists, and since the 1990s by the Left and the Right against the Front National.

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   17 The long process of ensuring the absolute supremacy of French republicanism includes the use of a wide variety of instruments: ideas, policies, institutions, persuasion, and repression. In many ways, nothing has escaped the pervading effect of this powerful ideology, constructed and reinforced over two centuries. The famous apostrophe by the Marquis de Sade, “Français, encore un effort pour devenir républicains!,” has been heard. The program has been fulfilled to the point that it has become one of the major problems for the French society and polity in facing new challenges such as Europeanization or globalization. However, before republicanism became the dominant if not the exclusive shared value of French politics, it was subject to very serious challenges in the course of history. First, one should reiterate that the republican ideology supposedly rooted in the French Revolution did not impose itself prior to the fall of the Second Empire in 1870. But this long-time lapse had a considerable effect in that it allowed the construction of a quasi-​mythical narrative rather distant from reality: “Que la République était belle sous l’Empire!” declared a disappointed republican historian, Alphonse Aulard, in 1885. Historians’ records were crucial, in particular during the Third Republic, in framing the republican story, from learned encyclopedias and volumes to the simplistic textbooks prepared for the newly founded école républicaine, primaire, laïque et obligatoire. The first period of the Third Republic, from 1870 to 1918, constituted the genesis and consolidation of French republicanism. It was not only a matter of political narrative: legal activism and decisive policy measures (education, military conscription, church–​ state relations, colonization) contributed to the setting up of a lasting architecture and to the transformation of “peasants into citizens” (Weber, 1976). Nora underlines the quasi-​totalitarian enterprise of encompassing everything under the republican umbrella: Il y a eu […] une philosophie républicaine […]. Il y a eu une morale et une religion républicaine […]. Il y a eu une économie républicaine, un droit républicain, une histoire républicaine dont Lavisse a fini par dresser le monument. Il y a même eu une science républicaine. (There was a republican philosophy. There was a republican morality and religion, There was a republican economy, a republican law, a republican history which Lavisse finally memorialized. There was even a republican science.) (Nora, 2013)

However, from the 1930s on the republican creed was challenged on all fronts. This was partly because of economic and political decay following the First World War, partly because of the emergence of a revolutionary party on the left side of the political spectrum which was contesting the traditional republican consensus (right up to the emergence of the Communist party the opponents to the parliamentary republic had been confined to the traditionalist or monarchist), and partly because of the rise of powerful anti-​republican and anti-​democratic ideologies in Italy and Germany. Republicanism received its fatal blow on the occasion of the French defeat in 1940 and the vote by an almost unanimous parliament in favor of Maréchal Pétain. The very brief law adopted

 

18   Yves Mény on May 10, 1940 expressed in a nutshell the fall of the Republic and the birth of a new regime: L’Assemblée Nationale donne tout pouvoir au gouvernement de la République, sous l’autorité et la signature du Maréchal Pétain, à l’effet de promulguer par un ou plusieurs actes une nouvelle constitution de l’État français. (By giving all power to the government of the Republic, under the authority of Marshall Pétain’s signature, the National Assembly has the effect of adopting with one or two acts a new constitution for the French state.)

In the very same sentence, reference was made both to the old régime—​la République—​ and to the new one—​l’État français. Paradoxically, this shameful collapse would become a tremendous adjuvant for the resurrection of the republican myth at the end of the Second World War. Failures and unacceptable practices (such as colonization or the denial of voting rights to women) were forgotten to the benefit of newly magnified principles to which the Communist party itself was giving its blessing. The PCF rallied to “republican values” after the Second World War. The destruction of the Republic by the Vichy regime served as a convenient excuse for not developing a serious revisitation and adaptation of the republican ideology. It explains the nostalgia in favor of institutions similar to those of the Third Republic in spite of their failure, the preference for centralization, and the blindness of most politicians vis-​à-​vis colonization, which was still presented as the educative, enlightened mission of the Republic! The challenge to these sacrosanct principles came about quite late, under the pressure of various factors. No one of these was decisive by itself, but all converged to weaken the well-​entrenched ideas from the past: the painful decolonization process with its accompanying war, torture, and tensions between civil and military power; the rising claims in favor of decentralization and regionalization; the emergence of Europeanization processes; the end to the education wars from 1959 on; the irresistible tide of the post-​ war baby ​boomers, whose leaning was more toward libertarian values than those of the republican ethos—​all these factors contributed to challenge the received ideas and traditions. In some ways, the coup de grâce was applied by those who had so much contributed to the edification of the myth—​the historians. Some were foreigners, mostly Anglo-​Americans. Their research and publications contributed to the giant’s crumbling on its feet: the careful distinction between the awful Vichy regime and the good servants of the republic collapsed under the cold and impressive evidence brought about by, for instance, Paxton (1982). On less dramatic issues, the works of Stanley Hoffmann, Jack Hayward, Vincent Wright, Ezra Suleiman, and Suzanne Berger, to cite only a few, contributed to a better understanding of the economic, social, and political forces at work, to get a more realistic view of what the république was about. While French historians (Nora, 2013; Nicolet, 1982; Furet, 1978) were still investigating the construction and meaning of republicanism (see for instance the collective enterprise led by Pierre Nora under the title of “Les lieux de mémoire” (1986), a quasi-​Freudian collective investigation of French “memory”), the “tradition républicaine” was confronted by a kind

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   19 of intellectual impasse related to its failure, or rather exhaustion, in many policy areas (education, gender, immigration, integration, etc.). The interpretations of the principles and values underlying republicanism in the Anglo-​American world and in France are at odds. While the American Founding Fathers constructed the basis of a new polity in reaction to the British rulers by relying upon the British philosophical heritage (and in part on Montesquieu’s contribution), the French Revolution reused substantial parts of the political and administrative traditions of the Ancien Régime, dressing them in new clothes. While liberty and equality were celebrated by both revolutions, liberty of the individual was the focal point of the American Revolution; equality was the central axis of the French one. While the former feared the tyranny of the majority, the latter was advocating the elimination of the minority, considering political parties an unacceptable attempt to divide the sovereign people. While one was promoting the interaction of individuals and groups, the other was tempted to absorb everything within a centralized state. While one was trying to fragment and divide power, the other was legitimizing the absolute will of the people. There are, however, some common traits between American republicanism and the French “régime républicain,” at least at face value. Both reject despotism; both put the people, the citizens, at center stage as a source and legitimating tool of power (Weil and Hansen, 2002); both insist that the citizen’s virtue is crucial; both, with varying degrees of success, claim to fight corruption; both claim that a system where citizens are not free has no Constitution. These commonalities, quite strong in the beginning, became less so with the divergence of historical trajectories: in America, a stable constitution, a decentralized structure, a tradition of fundamental rights protected by the judiciary, a supreme court, the primacy of freedom and individualism, the role of religion, the persistence of slavery and a civil war; in France, an incapacity to establish a stable and accepted set of institutions, the centrality of the nation and of the state, the subjugation of society, a proclamation of rights not fully guaranteed or implemented, the subordination of the judiciary and of local institutions, the supremacy of legal and formal equality, the quasi-​permanent struggle with the church, and the lasting and determined radical opposition of some groups to the République (which they nicknamed “la Gueuse,” the prostitute). Over time, these distinct paths have exacerbated differences rather than contributing to rapprochement. It is telling that the attempt by Skinner and other British and American thinkers to rediscover the role of republicanism was based on a historical reconstruction linking the Roman ideals to their re​birth in Renaissance cities in Italy and their re​interpretation by the English thinkers and the American founders at the end of the eighteenth century (Castiglione, 2005). French republicanism was not a central component of their reinterpretation, and their hotly debated contribution had only a marginal impact on the French stage. It remained confined within the walls of small academic islands. The external challenge, if any, came from more segmented approaches such as the comparative studies of identity and nationality, immigration, integration, and multiculturalism (Weil, 2008b, 2008c; Joppke, 2010b; Joppke and Lukes, 1999; Burbaker, 1992; Phillips, 2000; Favell, 1998; Laborde, 2008).

 

20   Yves Mény The feature that brings together with much force and evidence American republicanism and French “idéologie républicaine” is related to the normative dimension of the two approaches. In the French case, there is not much need to elaborate on that point as the entire construction has been and still is a war machine against potential alternatives. As already stated, the theoretical foundations of that powerful tool are rather weak, while its mechanical and systematic use in the political discourse and in policymaking is what best characterizes the French approach. The recent Anglo-​American intellectual debate has been more sophisticated, but it is far from being exempt from normative values and objectives. Recent controversies related to Anglo-​American republicanism have been associated with the critique of the exacerbated forms of liberalism “positioning itself between liberalism and communitarianism with respect to important themes such as sovereignty, citizenship and liberty” (Castiglione, 2005: 454). American and French republicanism appear today as contrasting models, as the ideal-​ types of the two poles of a continuum. However, the French tradition has been diluted in some aspects. Many new features have been borrowed directly (sometimes with an incomplete or weak understanding of the reality) through processes of imitation and contamination, and also indirectly through the penetration of some Anglo-​American institutions, principles, values, and rules, through multilateral cooperation and international trade, or simply because of the attractiveness of the most successful/​powerful model. As the reverse is not true to the same extent, differences in some cases have blurred or almost disappeared, contaminating the French ideal-​type with its counterpart and putting it in crisis. Concepts as diverse as judicial review by constitutional courts, collective action, affirmative action, multiculturalism, equal opportunities, and gender have penetrated the political debate and the legal doctrine. A few years ago, these were not only ignored but were considered foreign to the republican traditions and antagonistic to deeply rooted French ideals. In many ways, external challenges such as the Europeanization process or the globalization of trade and currency exchange jeopardize the French model much more than its American counterpart. While America is sufficiently powerful economically and militarily to stand by itself as a nation and a republic, France is faced with inextricable contradictions related to the vital necessity to be part of a multi-​level system of governance (first of all, the European Union). France has to accommodate migrants from all over the world without being able to fully incorporate them according to the old recipes of “integration” (Schnapper, 2007), or is subjected to the supervision of supra​national courts or agencies which have imposed principles and rights foreign to the “republican tradition.” The République also has to face the harsh reality that the equality principle, so dear to the people, encounters serious economic and political limits once the protective borders which were securing the welfare state system do not exist anymore (Manent, 2006; Gauchet, 2006; Lacroix and Magnette, 2009; Mazur, 1995). Contrasting French republicanism with the American version and not with other European experiences, for instance, might be seen as too narrow a perspective. However, in spite of their divergent histories, the two forms are unique in attempting to construct a new set of values and principles on the ruins of foreign or national monarchy overthrown by revolution. They are unique in linking the establishment of the Republic with the recognition of fundamental universal rights. They are similar in their experiences when

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   21 turning a blind eye to major drawbacks (slavery, colonialism) which should have been perceived as unbearable betrayals to their fundamental proclaimed values. The attempt by a group of historians under the direction of van Gelderen and Skinner (2002) to rediscover and interpret the republican tradition in early modern European history undoubtedly underlines the connections and similarities between the forms of republicanism at that time, but it also shows their extreme diversity and the differences between these various local experiences. More important for the present debates, there is no evidence that these traditions (what van Gelderen and Skinner call the “shared European heritage”) inform and structure republicanism in today’s Europe. In the other European systems, either the monarchy has survived thanks to a slow process of adaptation/​erosion, or it has disappeared in the wake of a military defeat followed by radical revolutions that failed in most cases. Many countries experienced authoritarian regimes, leaving no space for reflection and debate on the republican regime, and imported only very recently “models” influenced by the American, French, and British thoughts and experiences. The conversation has been more on institutions or democracy than on the foundations of the regime itself. Popular sovereignty is no longer a matter for discussion—​making democracies work is a more appealing and urgent issue. This is probably why the recent challenges in France to the legal and political universalism that the republican tradition embodies have caused such public debate and shaken up more than elsewhere the very foundations of the dominant creed, the political elites, and the institutions. Unknown or rejected values such as identity politics, minority rights, judicial control, and differentiated territorial rules and institutions have come to the fore and fed a new type of debate: not only on the interpretation of the modèle républicain, but also on the possibility of substituting, partially or totally, alternative options to the dominant model inherited from the 1789 Revolution. This encompassing model had the ambition not only of presenting itself as universal, that is, applicable and desirable to all people, but also covering the entire gamut of public life in an extended sense: not only should it preside over the conception and organization of the state itself but it should also absorb the overall relationship between society and the public apparatus. There was a potential totalitarian vision as the rule of Robespierre demonstrated and as successive Marxist doxa interpreted it (Nora, 2013: 259–​323). This overarching ambition has been facilitated by the abstract character of the intellectual construction. It is a pure product of rationality and enlightenment rather than the outcome of evolution or empirical observation. Reality is less important than principles—​or rather, reality must comply with principles.

French Republicanism: An Encompassing Ideology Republicanism as understood by the French political elites is a tool for everything and for all seasons. The easiest way to discredit a novel idea or a proposal departing from the dominant consensus is to declare it contrary to the idéal républicain or to the tradition

 

22   Yves Mény républicaine. No need to explain, argue, or justify: the statement is often sufficient to de-​ legitimize both the proponent and the proposal altogether. Republicanism delineates the red lines within which political debate is legitimate and acceptable. One can particularly observe this in three crucial areas, related to institutions, policies, and the relationship between citizens, groups, and society.

Searching for Republican Institutions The emergence of the République in France is rather paradoxical. While the whole republican ideology refers to the French Revolution and to the Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme of 1789 as the founding moment of a new era, this historical fracture and its first “constitutional moment” have ignored the République. Actually, no mention of the République is made before September 1792 when the abolition of the monarchy is adopted. Most of the principles and values which were then understood as the core of French republicanism were already part of the revolutionary vulgate in 1789, three years before the institution of the Republic. The pillars of republican faith in France are not particularly original if compared with those of the American Revolution. Liberty and equality are the main terms in both cases but the interpretation, meaning, and emphasis are different. Later on, the French references will be enriched by the concept of solidarity (fraternité), and during the twentieth century by the principle of secularism (laïcité), dramatically enforced in 1905 (the law instituting the separation of the Catholic Church from the state). While the first two principles are conceived as entitlements of the citizen vis-​à-​vis the state, the other two create obligations for public authorities as well individuals and groups. Liberty was defined very widely by the 1789 Déclaration: “It consists at being able to do everything which does not hurt others”(Art 4). However, this open-​ended freedom is immediately made specific by Art 5, which states that legislation can forbid only actions harmful to society and that liberty consists of being entitled to do what the law does not prohibit. The potential contradiction between these two opposite points was very quickly identified, as there was no judicial adjudication making it possible to arbitrate conflicts. Actually, the tension was tangible only a few years later when Saint-​Just declared, “Pas de liberté pour les ennemis de la Liberté!” The ideological foundations of dictatorship and authoritarian regimes were already in place. For one century, liberty remained more an aspiration—​a program—​than an effective set of guaranteed rights. Conquest of concrete freedom was a battle for every moment in every field. Freedom of the press, of association, and of meeting and rights to unionize and strike were conquered piecemeal and partially during the imperial, monarchical, and republican periods between the first Revolution and the establishment of the Third Republic. It was only with the final victory of the republican parties in 1884 that a first systematic and significant implementation of the 1789 principles was concretely put in place: freedom of the press, freedom of thought, freedom to meet, freedom of association (1901), etc. This body of laws would become the reference point of liberal and leftist parties and would

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   23 become known as the “Lois républicaines” or “Lois fondamentales de la République.” However, all these laws and their fundamental principles were not protected from possible violations, exceptions, or political intrusions, particularly in wartime (which was the case in both the mainland and the colonies between 1939 and 1962!). To sum up, for one century (1789–​1880) the fundamental liberties remained a programmatic catalogue rather than a protective set of legislation, and for another century were not ring-​fenced by a system of judicial review (a minimal protection was provided by the highest administrative court, the Conseil d’État). It was only in 1971 that the Conseil Constitutionnel achieved a coup by deciding that the 1789 Declaration was part of the Constitution and, as such, a reference point for the control of constitutionality exerted by this Supreme Court in the making. Only from that date can it be argued that fundamental liberties have been fully protected—​that is, two centuries after their political proclamation. A further step was made in 2008 when President Sarkozy promoted a constitutional reform allowing plaintiffs to challenge the constitutionality of the rule applicable to their case and to request a preliminary ruling from the Conseil Constitutionnel. This major innovation complements the a priori and abstract check which was introduced by the 1958 Constitution. It puts in place a mechanism similar to those existing in the USA or in other European systems and makes possible the control of past legislation as well as of its interpretation and implementation, something inconceivable before this major reform. However, contrary to the American tradition, which tends to consider that some fundamental liberties such as freedom of speech or property rights are quasi-absolute, the French tradition has always been more lenient, with the possibility to limit one freedom vis-​à-​vis another or (even more problematic) to prioritize public order over liberty. This approach has been constant not only on the side of the legislator but also of the judicial and administrative courts. This position has been endorsed by the Conseil Constitutionnel, which stated for instance in 1982 in relation to freedom of communication and of entrepreneurship, that “liberties are neither general nor absolute.” It is part of the dominant legal and political culture that individual and collective freedoms can suffer limitations. However, this is often resisted by the public, and many of these restricting laws are constantly breached, while the public authorities are unable to sanction these violations in practice. Paradoxically, France has at the same time a deep aspiration for liberty and a high propensity to resist and boycott laws that run against liberty, “lois liberticides,” but little appetite for political, legal, cultural, and social liberalism. Equality is the second pillar supporting the republican edifice. Following Tocqueville’s observation, one can say that the French passion for equality supersedes every other right. But again, the intensity of the passion has not impeded blatant violations of the principle and the coexistence of legal-​formal equality and deep social and economic inequalities (Schnapper, 2002). This tension is not only present in philosophical and political debates but also permeates the making and implementation of any public policy. The importance of equality in the French tradition and collective creed can be explained by the legacy of history. Before the Revolution, French society was characterized by a tiny minority (less than 5 percent of the total population) controlling most of the country’s wealth, a strong stratification and hierarchy, and deep social and economic

 

24   Yves Mény inequalities. A narrow but rising group of petit b ​ ourgeois allied with open minds from the aristocracy, the church, and educated people belonging to the enlightenment (the universities, under the control of the church, played no role) advocated and put in place radical changes: from the Revolution on, all citizens were equal—​all were entitled to have access to public offices and jobs without distinctions other than those based on virtue and merit; all citizens were to be equal before the law and judges; all were to contribute equally to the payment of taxes according to their wealth, etc. In a radical and dramatic move, all privileges were suppressed during the night of August 4, 1789. In parallel, however, and beyond the formal legal elimination of differences, inequality survived. A striking example is the infamous treatment inflicted upon women. They were excluded from the electoral body, and this remained so up to 1945, the “republicans” fearing the supposedly conservative and religious leanings of female voters. Another inequality was the division of male citizens into two categories: the so-​called “citoyens actifs,” sufficiently educated and/​or rich to be entitled to vote, and “citoyens passifs,” who were deprived of voting rights. After the 1848 Revolution, suffrage was granted again to the whole male population, but this time it would not be enough as the key issue was less electoral politics than social inequalities. The contradiction between the quest for absolute and universal egalitarianism and the persistence or even increase in the level of inequality in society challenges the traditional way republicanism has been thought about from its inception. The key element at the basis of the system is the citizen, but it is clear from the very beginning that there is an abyss between principles and reality. Founding fathers in France as well as in America were afraid of the crowd. Today, the dilemma is still present as the poor often belong to ethnic minorities. Citizenship is the key to everything: no pragmatic solution, such as the possibility of granting voting rights to foreign residents for local elections, is rejected by most politicians or by the population at large. In spite of the dramatic social inequalities between immigrants or children of immigrants and society at large, France persists in sticking to the traditional, universalistic model of integration. The refusal of multiculturalism, the fear of “communautarisme,” and the rejection of ethnicity are as forcefully expressed now as they there were at the time of the Revolution when the statute of Jews was under discussion. The statement of a deputy in 1791 (Stanislas de Clermont-​Tonnerre)—“Il faut tout accorder aux juifs comme individus, rien comme nation” (We must recognize Jews as individuals, not as a community)—could have been delivered today (Birnbaum, 1994). On the basis of these principles, it is impossible to conceive or implement (at least officially) policies based on the recognition of differences such as specific protection of minorities or affirmative action programs. This iron rule is applicable to every possible issue, from minority languages to sexual orientation. It is telling that the debate on gay marriage was not centered on the need to provide some additional rights to a minority group but on the granting to all the same rights (mariage pour tous). In the same vein, it is forbidden to collect data which would identify that an individual belongs to an ethnic group. Demographers and statisticians have to find technical and methodological bypasses in order to make estimates of the various ethnic groups living in the country!

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   25 This obsession, which not only pervades the elites but also runs deep among the population at large, is paradoxical, as the claim for equality goes hand in hand with the acceptance of extremely inequitable situations. University fees are very low and, actually, benefit mainly the rich or the upper middle class; family benefits have been equally distributed to all until the recent—​and controversial—​2014 decision to cap the benefits for the wealthiest families; social security benefits are available to all, even to the very wealthy, etc. These circumstances make the search for true solidarity, the third pillar of the republican edifice, more difficult. Fraternité is mentioned in the 1789 Declaration, but was not considered a crucial component of the République before 1848. Both the 1848 Revolution and the ensuing Constitution are deeply marked by the social issues that the previous regimes, including the revolutionary ones, had left aside. One of the first elected representatives from the black community suggested adding Fraternité to the republican motto. From that moment, the République was identified by “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,” and this trilogy structured the collective imagination of the country. After 1870 and the fall of the Second Empire, under the influence of socialist thinkers such as Leroux or politicians such as Léon Bourgeois, solidarité became, to use Jack Hayward’s words, the “official social philosophy” of the French Third Republic (1959; 1961). This additional element was more easily accepted by the Right, as it could (in spite of opposing theoretical foundations) be reconciled with the Catholic preference for charity. In some ways it has helped to bridge the gaps between the various ideological families, making possible the emergence of the welfare state after the Second World War. Over time, this third pillar has become as important as the other two, as it has not only legal and political implications (such as the emergence of social citizenship, to use Marshall’s typology) but also huge financial, budgetary, and fiscal consequences. Social protection has become the first source for expenditure, the pride of the elites, the benefit that French citizens value most—​and one of the main unresolved challenges of Europeanization and globalization. The contradictions between national values and principles on one hand and global pressures on the other are becoming more and more acute and jeopardize the social and political compromise built up over two centuries (Mény, 2013). A fourth pillar was added at the beginning of the twentieth century: laïcité. Except in a few new states established after the First and Second World Wars, no country has established this principle of secularism in the way the French understand it. Even in countries which have proclaimed the separation between church and state, such as the US, the reference to religion and divinity has taken a very different route. The explanation lies for a large part in the historical circumstances which prevailed at the time of the Revolution and of the establishment of the Republic after the Second Empire. Religion meant, first and foremost, the Catholic Church. The other religious groups (Jews and Protestants) were on the side of the persecuted while the Catholic Church was identified with power, wealth, and domination, a force opposed to change, progress, and modernity (this explains in part the opposition of the republican elites to women’s right to vote as women were supposed to be under the control of the priests). Indeed, with a few exceptions (mainly within the low clergy), the church took a strong and hostile stand,

 

26   Yves Mény considering the Revolution to be atheistic and a violation of the divine natural order. The laïcité principle (Weil, 2007) became operational with the adoption of the law instituting the separation of church and state on December 9, 1905. It became one of the sacred cows of the republicans (Prost, 1968). This law triggered very high social and political tensions as the Catholic Church—​contrary to Protestant churches—​refused to accept the conditions set up by the new policy: many members of congregations went into exile, or moved to the French colonies (becoming part of the colonial process!) while the properties of the Church were taken over—​many buildings, including all existing churches, were nationalized (but the churches retained their use for religious services). The tensions were so dramatic that one spoke of the “war between the two Frances.” Only the “real” war of 1914–​18 reunified the divided country against a common enemy and permitted, from the 1920s on, a series of compromises and accommodations, such as the recognition in Alsace-​Lorraine of the Napoleonic Concordat that the Germans had maintained in these regions after their integration into the Prussian Empire in 1870. A recent decision by the Conseil Constitutionnel (2013) has consolidated this pragmatic agreement by ruling that such an exception to the principle of laïcité could be justified, and that there was no need to apply it to the whole of France given the particular circumstances of the case. So, the French state continued to finance the Church (for instance by paying the clergy’s salaries) in these two regions. Other accommodations took place in 1959 in order to address and solve the issue of Catholic schools (which enroll 20 percent of students in primary and secondary schools in France), thanks to the Loi Debré, which grants funding to these private schools provided that they adopt the curricula, standards, and rules of public schools. This pragmatism has completely buried the issue over time and the attempt to nationalize the schools in 1984 created such an upsurge of opposition that the Mitterrand government had to retreat quickly and swallow the pill. On this occasion it had become clear that the issue was not religious anymore, but rather a matter of liberalism and pluralism in French society. Today, the so-​called Catholic schools have become a kind of “chartered” schools, welcoming students independently of religious leanings or of Catholic affiliation (many Muslim families, for instance, prefer to register their daughters in Catholic schools!). Other pragmatic compromises include the recognition of religious practice in the army, public schools, hospitals, and prisons as well as the financing of the maintenance costs and renovation of nationalized buildings where religion is practiced. What was considered outrageous in 1905 has become a blessing for the finances of the Catholic Church, the only church in that situation. By contrast, the situation of Muslims is much more critical as the construction of mosques has to be financed by private funds (usually from Middle Eastern governments), and most local communities resist the presence of mosques in their neighborhoods. Other difficult issues are related to the supply of halal menus in public school canteens. While this issue has been more or less resolved, other questions are still pending, such as the provision of a place of prayer for students and workers during Ramadan. Instead, the prohibition of the Islamic veil in schools or within the administration has been enforced in the name of the laïcité principle. The law of March 15, 2004 prohibiting wearing of religious signs at school was

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   27 adopted after intense debates and upon the recommendations of various political and legal reports (Joppke, 2009a; Laborne, 2008). It was followed up in September 2013 by a so-​called “Charte de la laïcité,” to be displayed and implemented in every school.

Republicanism and the Jacobin Paradigm There is a French paradox: the République has been historically both the ideological embodiment of 1789 principles—​and this is not surprising—​and, at the same time, the vehicle of the monarchical state (sovereignty, centralization, concentration of power, distrust of the judiciary, etc.). Republicanism has nicely hidden the convergence of these two opposing influences. French republicanism is better understood if one considers not only the positive mix of Ancien Régime heritage and radical Revolution but also the negative dimension born from the peculiarities of French history: la République is built up against the monarchy, against the assaults of the European monarchies, and in defense of the “patrie en danger,” against the First and Second Empires and against the church and the extra-​territorial power of the Pope. This history explains why French republicanism is built around a set of principles which, in theory, are neither flexible nor subject to exception: French citizens (le peuple) are conceived as a unique abstract entity whose composition is not sociological but ontological, and who are, as a whole, the holder of the sovereignty; the citizenry constitutes the foundation of the Republic but remains a rather abstract concept. The theoretical universality of citizenship within the borders of the nation was contradicted by de facto exclusions (women as well as the poor—​the citoyens passifs—​ were not entitled to vote); at the top, the state apparatus which, de facto, becomes the unique holder of the popular or national sovereignty; and, between the citizen and the state, between the individual and the institutions, nothing (groups, associations, guilds, etc.) should impede or limit the direct relationship between the top and the base, and therefore the capture of the national will by vested interests will be avoided. Republican ideology is very much inspired by Rousseau and very little by Montesquieu: the victory of the Jacobins over the Girondins is not only a factual episode of the French Revolution. It is a philosophical and ideological victory which, paradoxically, under the guise of revolutionary claims, allows the reintroduction of past conceptions of the state. Sovereignty has been transferred from the king to le peuple but the concept of what sovereignty is is internally and externally unchanged. It cannot be divided, meaning actually that the power has to be concentrated. This underlying assumption permeates the overall institutional setting which embodies the republican creed. First of all, in institutional terms, the République is not primarily concerned with democracy, in spite of putting, in principle, the citizenry center stage. The crucial issue is the abolition of the absolutism embodied in the monarchy. This is probably the strongest common point between the American and French revolutions, even if very different institutional conclusions were drawn from this point of departure. The

 

28   Yves Mény American Revolution did its utmost to avoid the dictatorship of the majority and exacerbate the checks and balances, while the French Revolution, apparently much more radical, contented itself with a substitution of the power holders without changing the deep structures of the way power is exerted (as has been forcefully argued by Tocqueville in L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution). Le peuple are “One” and the general will is indivisible: the lasting implications of that principle are still felt. In the May 9th ruling in 1991, the Conseil Constitutionnel struck down a law recognizing the “peuple corse.” Unlike the Spanish Constitution, which recognizes that Spain is made of different peoples and nationalities, no compromise is possible in France. The Republic is and remains “one and indivisible.” A certain number of constitutional and institutional consequences derive from these initial premises. This unicité was endorsed, for example, by politicians from across the political spectrum after the murders of journalists by Islamic terrorists in January 2015: communitarism or multiculturalism were not part of the discussion as they are perceived as anti-​republican. First of all, the definition of le peuple is not sociological but political: with a variety of explanations foreigners (Weil, 2008a), women, and the poor can be excluded from this ideal community without apparent consequences for the legitimacy of the principle, at least initially (Phillips, 2000). The history of the Republic is also the history of the battles fought by the excluded to get access to meaningful and complete citizenship. It was only in 1848 that all males were franchised, and only in 1944 that women were (finally!) recognized as equal to men in exerting that right. In addition, some “republican principles” were implemented: “responsibility,” which excludes minors (21-year-olds, then 18-yearolds from 1974 onwards) and the mentally handicapped; “nationality,” which implies the refusal of the right to vote to foreigners (however, since 1993 members of the EU residing in another EU country can participate in local and European elections in that country); and “morality” (the citizen is supposed to be virtuous), which justifies that citizens condemned to financial or criminal penalties are excluded temporarily or for life. This historical evolution shows that fundamental principles can be accommodated for the sake of political opportunity. It is also the case for another principle: the representation of the people. For dedicated republicans, the unity of the people should imply the setting up of one assembly that is given the role and duty of representing the people as a whole. The establishment of a second assembly was considered a blatant violation of this vision. However, in spite of all their efforts, the republicans never managed to prevent the creation of a second chamber from the Third Republic onwards. They only succeeded in limiting the prerogatives of the second chamber, which has never been elected by direct universal suffrage. Again, the fact that the Senate under the Fifth Republic became the main locus of opposition against de Gaulle “sanctified” the second chamber. It would be inconceivable today to suggest the Senate’s elimination as it has been transformed in the political imagination into the embodiment of democracy and republicanism! Obviously, the argument that members of parliament represent the whole population and not only their constituency is difficult to implement in daily life: the MPs consider themselves, first of all, as the representatives and protectors of “their” territory.

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   29 The entrenched practice of the cumul des mandats (accumulation of local and national mandates) strengthens this vision. It is fundamentally contrary to the purity of republican principles but up to now it has been impossible to fully eradicate a tradition which goes back to the beginning of representative government early in the nineteenth century. Following cases of corruption and illegal financing of political parties since the 1990s, several laws have reduced the number of local and national mandates. The last law was adopted in 2013 (but will be applicable only starting in 2017) and forbids members of parliament to be executives of local and regional governments. Both in abstract and concrete terms, it is difficult to embody the “oneness” of the citizenry in a legislature which is territoriality rooted, socially diverse, and politically divided along party lines. It is probably the reason why the election by universal suffrage of the president of the Republic since 1962 has been so successful among the French in spite of the opposition and reluctance of the partis républicains vis-​à-​vis a mode of selection which, in 1848, allowed the emergence of an authoritarian regime and the fall of the Republic. Instead, those favoring this radical reform could use and exploit the republican rhetoric of the one and indivisible Republic. Who could better embody the people than a single person elected in one single constituency by the entire electoral body? Once again, the purity of republican aspirations had to be reconciled with past references and historical memory. To use the powerful expression used by Michel Debré (the first prime minister of the Fifth Republic) in 1947, what France needed was a “monarque républicain,” in other words, the synthesis between monarchy and republic (Mény, 2008). Regarding the institutions, the so-​called tradition républicaine is actually a mix of three different components: innovations resulting from the shift from monarchy to republic, historical accidents, and statist continuity. This explains why some elements considered part of the republican creed have been shaken up over the past 150 years, from the inception of the Third Republic and in particular after the establishment of the Fifth Republic. In classical republicanism the central element of the institutional architecture was the parliament: it was conceived not only as a representative body in charge of legislation, but also as the place where popular sovereignty was located. As no external check could be exerted, the people’s sovereignty became the parliament’s sovereignty. This had huge implications—​the law of the parliament was supreme and had no limits. As the parliament was divided between majority and minority, the dominant party or coalition became the de facto holder of unlimited powers. The concept of checks and balances is foreign to this conception of power since it would mean an infringement of popular sovereignty. In particular, judges, in the wake of the law adopted by the first revolutionary Assembly on August 16–​24, 1790, were not allowed to intervene in legislative and executive functions. Their role was limited to the strict control of the implementation of laws. In addition, ad hoc courts inherited from the Ancien Régime continued to deal with litigation between public authorities and citizens, groups, or companies. This strict prohibition has always been considered one of the most entrenched values of the republican tradition, in spite of the fact that it was more the by-product of bad experiences at the end

 

30   Yves Mény of the Ancien Régime (the parliament’s objecting to the reform attempts by Louis XVI’s ministers) than the logical consequence of a rational overall scheme. In any event, this peculiar conception of séparation des pouvoirs, French-​style, has been one of the most lasting and enduring components of the “republican” tradition. This heritage has had mixed fortunes. The setting of administrative courts is today beyond any discussion—​both because they have played a positive role, and also because the highest court, the Conseil d’État, has incrementally become an independent court playing somewhat the role of a supreme court in the public field. Other components have, however, suffered severe setbacks over the course of time; the judiciary has never succeeded in becoming a truly independent power as chief executives have repeatedly tried to steer and control the judges and the courts. In the same vein, up to 1958, the supremacy of the law remained an indisputable dogma but at the same time the Third and Fourth Republics were plagued by parliament’s incapacity to legislate. In order to survive, these regimes were forced to delegate legislative powers to the executive: the dogma was safe but the practice was a complete negation of the sacred principles! The Fifth Republic made clear that the king had no clothes and introduced a severe curtailing of legislative powers to the benefit of the executive. In addition, a Conseil Constitutionnel was set up in order to avoid the legislative branch being tempted to come back to the “good” old ways. It was labeled, by derision, as the “watchdog” of the executive. By the end of the seventies, however, several major moves had started to transform the landscape: in a landmark decision (July 11, 1971), the Conseil ruled that its control was exerted vis-​à-​vis the 1958 Constitution but also vis-​à-​ vis the much wider and more ambitious political programs set up by the 1789 and 1946 Declarations of Human Rights to which the Constitution referred. With this ruling, the Conseil moved from a rather technical and narrow set of references to a loose and wide catalogue of values. The scope of control was practically without limits. This “coup,” to use Alec Stone ​Sweet’s expression (Stone Sweet, 1992), gained in efficiency thanks to reform under Giscard d’Estaing adopted on October 29, 1974. The revision allowed 60 parliamentarians to challenge a bill adopted by the parliament and to bring the case to the Conseil, offering the opposition a last chance to be heard on constitutional grounds. A further step occurred in 2008 with the Sarkozy revision, which allowed any plaintiff before a court the possibility to challenge the constitutionality of the law applicable to their case. Henceforth, any law, not only the newly adopted ones, could be submitted to the Conseil. It has been a sea change in the practices of the Council, which has become a true supreme court comparable to its European and American counterparts. One of the fundamental pillars of the republican dogma has collapsed to make room for more mainstream constitutionalism. A sentence of the Conseil’s decision (August 23, 1985) encapsulates this clamorous change: “La loi votée […] n’exprime la volonté générale que dans le respect de la Constitution” (“Legislation […] expresses the general will only when respecting the Constitution”). The counterpart of parliament’s strength was the weakness of the republican executive. This was not a fatal option. The starting point of republican mythology is and remains 1789, in spite of the fact that the regime was still a monarchy. The First Constitution was

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   31 still a monarchical one. The power of the king was limited, but the executive remained quite strong, at least on paper. But, later on, powerful executives were identified with the Terreur regime, so the immediate reaction in the Directoire and Consulat Constitutions was to weaken the executive through various institutional mechanisms. The attempt failed, as the First Consul, Bonaparte, quickly took over from his fellow associates and became a self-​proclaimed emperor. The restoration of the monarchy in 1814 brought again a weakening of parliament and a strengthening of the government, triggering the 1830 and 1848 revolutions. The 1848 Constitution emulated the American system, introducing a new way of conceiving the separation of powers: a strong parliament facing a strong president elected by universal (male) suffrage. It could have worked, but, given the social and political context, the two institutions headed for a collision. The president (non-​eligible for a second term) opted to stay in power thanks to a coup launched successfully on December 2, 1852. President Louis-​Napoléon Bonaparte was ready to rule with a firm hand under the name of Napoléon III. Needless to say, after so many bad experiences republicans could not but hate strong executives and prefer weak governments. They succeeded beautifully to such an extent that the Third Republic was unable to face the Second World War or prevent the anti-​republican and non-​democratic take-​ over in 1940. The Fourth Republic again was unable to avoid the pitfalls of its predecessor and fell into the same trap. By 1958, the situation was ripe for the return of a man who could finally put in place the institutions about which he had been dreaming since 1945. Obviously it was perceived by the political class as a terrible blow to the letter and spirit of the republican tradition and institutions. The most drastic critic of the Gaullist regime was Mitterrand, who published a sarcastic analysis of de Gaulle’s institutions and practices, denouncing what he called “Le coup d’État permanent.” However, the same man, after his election in 1981, declared: “This constitution has not been made tailored for me but it fits me well.” This was the final and fatal blow to the republican institutional myth. The Left, as heir to the republican tradition, had given in (Elgie, 1995; Hayward, 1973; Mény, 2008; Duhamel, 1992). Another dimension of the republican institutional heritage has also gone through a deep transformation: the relationship between central government and local authorities has slowly but inexorably been transformed (Mény, 1974; Mény, 2002; Schmidt, 1990). The republican paradigm was simple: the nation was embodied by the state and as such the latter was the vessel of the national/​general interest. Regional and local authorities could not only claim to represent legitimate interests of their own, but they were even perceived as potential dangers to the unity and indivisibility of the Republic. Again, one finds the inextricable mix between the legacy of the past (what de Gaulle called “the multi-​secular effort of centralization”) and the innovations brought by the Revolution. The revolutionary regime and its Napoleonic followers continued the fight against the elites and structures of the old provinces while accepting to maintain in place nearly 40,000 parishes re​baptized as communes. The only potentially dangerous one, Paris, was not granted a governing body of its own and was under direct government control (up to 1976!). The real innovation was the creation of the departments designed

 

32   Yves Mény according to rational/​geographical criteria, in contrast to the former provinces which had as their basis traditions and history Yes. The new unit was placed under the authority of a subordinate of the central government, the prefect. This kind of Janus-​faced institution, which was representative both of the government and the executive of the department, was autocratic and powerful and remained such, at least on paper, up to the Defferre reforms in 1981. For the first time, the executives of the department councils were elected by the councilors, while the prefect’s role was reduced to that of state representative. Actually, over the years, in many departments, the prefects had to concede to the powerful local notables (Grémion, 1976) who had developed their own antidote to address the double function of the prefects: many of them were accumulating public offices, being at the same time mayors and deputies or senators. Like the prefect (but with more leeway and autonomy) they had one foot in Paris and another in their local stronghold, without depending upon the political vagaries of the government in charge. In addition, the Defferre laws recognized a new level of government, the regions, initially fiercely opposed by the “republican parties” as a restoration of the monarchical/​ Ancien Régime order. They were introduced cautiously from 1962 to 1964 under the combined influence of old-​fashioned groups and modernist technocrats who considered the departments artificial, obsolete, and opposed to the process of modernization, starting with urbanization. Between 1969 and 1981, various incremental and limited reforms increased the regions’ power, but there was a deep suspicion among the republican elites (including among the parties of the Right), which prevented the adoption of a full-​fledged program of regionalization. This was finally implemented under the Mitterrand presidency but it resulted in a multi-​layered system which has contributed greatly to the complexity and costs of the decentralized structures. It fits well de Tocqueville’s diagnosis in the first chapter of his master work, L’Ancien Régime et la Revolution: successive reforms over time had accumulated a multiplicity of structures that nobody was able to eliminate or simplify. Here we go again. This “republican tradition” has been a convenient fig leaf for conservatism and tradition. French sociologists (Grémion, 1976) and many British and American scholars made a decisive contribution to the understanding of center–​periphery relations in the French Republic (Hayward, 1973; Schmidt, 1990; Wright, 1984; Gourevitch, 1980) and to the integration of backward rural societies into the republic (Berger, 1972). War and education were the crucial ingredients of this transition from “peasants into Frenchmen” (Weber, 1976). Today, the republican pillars are still in place but they are more and more challenged or contaminated by other apparently contradictory values: the departments are still in place, but in its 2013 report on France, the OECD suggests getting rid of them, while the number of regions was put into question by President Hollande; both cases triggered much negative reaction. The prefects still represent the state, but they have been weakened and have to compromise with local elites if they wish to survive and get governmental policies applied. At the other end, the Senate, which was initially perceived as a non-​republican or an anti-​republican institution, has been adapted and is now considered a part of the republican tradition’s heritage (confirming the flexibility and adaptability of the republican label when used by politicians).

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   33

Republicanism and Society The République, as core concept and value, leaves little room for society. The principle of national unity, of the state and its embodiment in the République, is incompatible with divisions interpreted as violations of the unity of the sovereign people. These views—​ which were instrumental in transposing almost untouched the monarchical absolutism to the new concepts of the Nation, le peuple—​are difficult to reconcile with the concept of pluralism. This has dramatic consequences for the way the Republic and then democracy might work. While the American tradition perceives the public interest as the result of the interaction of interests in competition, the French vision considers that only one interest is worth consideration: l’intérêt général defined by public authorities. This circular reasoning offers much leeway to the political and bureaucratic elites and provides a form of legitimacy similar to the Ancien Régime dictum “Car le roi le veut” (“As the king wishes”). This underlying philosophy permeates the overall relationship between state and society and can be illustrated in two domains: the interaction between social groups and the state, and the attitude vis-​à-​vis ethnic minorities. The strongest expression of state opposition to social groups was made even before the proclamation of the Republic but at a time when its intellectual foundations were already being shaped. The famous Loi Le Chapelier of June 14–​17, 1791 prohibited the formation of associations or unions “pour la défense de prétendus intérêts communs” (“for the defense of alleged common interests”). The prohibition was complete and universal and lasted well over a century. As underlined by Pettit, there is a deep contradiction between the republican conception of democracy and a pluralism of interests (Pettit, 1999). Two centuries after the Revolution, its effects are still being felt: parties, unions, and associations are deeply marked by this genetic suspicion and the consequent lack of historical legitimacy and experience. It is telling that when the first expressions of political association and differentiated groups appeared in the newly established Assemblée Nationale, they were considered a violation of popular sovereignty and, as such, seditious. The name given to what would become the parties was telling: factions! Two centuries later, de Gaulle used more or less the same rhetoric against the régime des partis when he established the Fifth Republic. The persistence of hostile feelings toward interest groups is both striking and ambiguous, as the republican tradition is trapped by the unrealistic and impractical consequences of its ideological position. Denying the groups any legitimacy in the name of an abstract and ill-​defined public interest and forbidding them to organize and promote their views is either dictatorial or utopian or both. Such a stance is not tenable in the long run (Hayward, 1973; Suleiman, 1974; Mény, 1999). The state had to accept first to tolerate the emergence of these groups, and then to legalize them. The right to unionize was the first formal concession in 1884, followed by the right of association in 1901. But the state kept its privilege to control and possibly dissolve hostile groups when they were considered to be anti-​republican. However, the rejection or marginalization of groups cannot work. On one hand, the state needs them in order to get its policies implemented. On the other, their demands

 

34   Yves Mény have no channels other than protest and revolt. Some compromises have to be found. The victory of realism, however, might not be complete. Faced with the necessity to compromise and forget part of its republican impedimenta, the state has put in place a contorted strategy of group selection. Some groups are considered honorable partners, while others are dismissed. Many legal instruments are used to reach that objective: some groups are given privileged status, transforming them into quasi branches of the state; they are defined as being expressions of the public interest (d’utilité publique) and as such can impose legally binding rules on their members and receive subsidies or, even better, ad hoc taxes levied for their own advantage. These groups not only benefit from a quasi integration into the state apparatus with the related ideological and material benefits. They are also protected from external competition, as the groups outside of the state orbit are considered to be disruptive and hence are excluded (non reconnus) or even declared illegal. Another instrument which has served to protect established trade unions since the Second World War is the way the state has officially recognized certain trade unions as representative regardless of membership (actually, less than 8 percent of workers and employees are unionized). One could multiply examples of this cherry-​picking strategy in order to separate the “good” from the “bad” groups. It has limits: on many occasions, the rejection of groups in spite of their growing influence has triggered violent reactions and obliged authorities to begin negotiations with the “outgroups.” Stereotyped declarations such as “On ne discute pas avec la rue” (“One does not negotiate with the mob”) are just political rhetoric. Today, the state’s relationship with groups is still plagued by the ideological foundations of the Republic. Interests groups are weak (membership is very low by Western standards) and are ill regarded by the political class and the bureaucracy, but at the same time, groups thrown out the back door have come in through the window and penetrated the public apparatus (Grossman and Saurugger, 2006). Conflicts of interests are multiple but denied, lobbying is active but underground, networks powerful but invisible. The rejection of pluralism as a core value has a price. To recognize special entitlements for specific groups or territories would infringe the fundamental principle of equality. Again, the defining quality of this utopian dream (or nightmare) is the granting of the same rights to all without distinction. One can understand the rejection by the Revolution of the characteristics Ancien Régime society: privileges, special rights for some, and the country’s divisions into états (estates). However, the radicalism of this rejection’s implications has created an abyss between aspirations and reality, in particular in the constant rejection of the concept of minority. On one hand, the refusal to recognize ethnic/​racial minorities can be and has been a source of improvement and progress, as with the abolition of slavery or the elimination of any discrimination against Protestants and Jews (Birnbaum, 2012). On the other hand, in the name of republican equality minority groups have been deprived of their rights. They have no entitlements as groups but only the option to be fully integrated on the basis of citizenship. There are many illustrations of this overall policy. Historically, the first case was the rejection of local languages and the imposition of French as the single national language. The principle was promoted by the monarchy as early as 1539, but

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   35 was taken over by the Revolution, which feared that the toleration of local languages by the church and the aristocracy would challenge French, the language of the Revolution. All other languages were banned and considered as backward patois, despite two-​thirds of the French using these local dialects. The decisive move toward “francisation” was accomplished through the combination of free education for all, thanks to the Ferry laws (1881 and 1882), army conscription, and war. After the First World War, French was dominant in urban areas. Regional languages disappeared after 1945, and the decline of agriculture and rural areas, in spite of the laws adopted by Pétain in 1941–​42 in order to promote regional languages, confirmed in republicans’ minds that these languages were the vehicle of reaction and anti-​republicanism. Nowadays, the situation is more complex. On one hand, the traditional republican policy as inherited from the monarchy is still in place, evidenced in trying to protect the country from an English-​language invasion or inserting in the Constitution (in 1992!) that the “language of the Republic is French.” Successive governments of the Right as well as of the Left have still refused to ratify the UNESCO Convention Against Discrimination at School (1980) or the Council of Europe Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (1992). On the eventual ratification of the latter Charter, the Conseil Constitutionnel expressed the official ideology in the most striking way and struck down the law’s ratification on the grounds that French law and the unity of its people “deny any recognition of collective rights to any group, whether defined by community of origin, culture, language or belief ” (Ruling 99-​412, January 15, 1999). However, the official attitude has become more complacent as the issue of minority languages is no longer salient: local languages have almost completely disappeared, except in tiny enclaves such as Corsica. The République can offer itself the luxury of a few radio programs in regional languages or tolerate regional languages as optional in the Baccalauréat exam (as it does for Armenian or Greek). It can even pay tribute to them by stating in the Constitution (2008 revision) that “regional languages belong to the French cultural heritage.” Heritage is the right word, as these languages have been swept from the map. However, the République remains watchful, as today’s risks take other forms. The issue is Arabic more than Corsican! It also relates to citizenship. Immigrants who wish to become French (and there is a strong push in favor of integration since minorities have no proper rights) must not only be long-​term residents but must have a good command of French (this applies in particular to those acquiring French nationality through marriage). Indeed, the only alternative to a minority policy is full integration, a central value of the republican code. In the republican context, multiculturalism is out of the question (Kymlicka and Patten, 2003; Joppke and Lukes, 1999). For a long time, this French republican tradition was applauded and perceived as a successful alternative to the minority model. For sure, minorities were not granted special protection and rights, but the fact that they were offered full access to the universal rights enjoyed by the citizenry was considered by many as an even better option. However, the obvious problems and failures of the French republican model—​and notably the non-​integration of the so-​called second-​or third-​generation immigrants—​have called into question its validity in a more globalized and pluralistic world (Kymlicka,

 

36   Yves Mény 1995 and 2001; Joppke, 2010). It has been and remains one of the hottest issues in most contemporary societies. An inconclusive debate has opposed those persisting to defend the traditional integrationist model while more and more voices are advocating either a model based on the acceptance of differences and minority views or a pragmatic compromise in the name of the reality beyond the proclaimed principles. Beyond the French elites—​who, for the most part, remain deeply attached to the republican principles of full integration—​there is indeed a deeply entrenched belief among the population at large that “being French” implies full equality and exclusion of differences (a kind of republican remnant of “one prince, one religion”). It explains why an issue such as the wearing of the headscarf triggers debates and passions and reveals the deep values underpinning what could be seen at first sight as a rather mundane question. An increasing number of Islamic female students decided to attend schools wearing a headscarf in order to fulfill religious rules. The French authorities were taken off-​ guard, confronted by an unpredictable challenge by Islamic groups to the tradition of laïcité. Religious symbols were never considered a problem as they were not perceived as attacking republican principles (the Jewish kippa, for instance) or had lost their religious meaning (the Christian cross worn as jewelry). After a messy debate which underlined the internal divisions of the parties, the authorities tried to depoliticize the issue by requesting the opinion of the Conseil d’État, based exclusively (in principle) on legal arguments. The debate was fierce and again exposed deep divisions. Strange coalitions resulting from the blurring of old boundaries took stand in favor or against the wearing of the headscarf. Old-​style republicans, some migrants’ organizations, feminist movements, and political elites fiercely opposed the use of religious symbols at school, while a few journalists, liberal groups, intellectuals, minority feminist movements, and obviously some Islamic organizations defended the rights of individuals to express their religious choices in public, including at school (Joppke, 2009a and 2010b). The debate involved not only policymakers and the media but also teachers, women’s groups, historians, philosophers, etc. Interestingly enough, it also involved individuals and groups from abroad. Action against wearing the headscarf was strongly supported by an overwhelming majority of the people, forcing reluctant or embarrassed politicians to act. In 2004, a law prohibiting wearing the scarf at school was passed, followed in 2011 by a second one forbidding the wearing in public of clothes hiding the face. In 2013, a new outburst of tension occurred when the highest civil court (Cour de Cassation) ruled that the firing of a kindergarten employee for wearing the scarf was illegal since the school was a private institution and that the secular principle of laïcité was not applicable within private companies. The outcry was such (84 percent of the population being against the ruling) that President Hollande announced further legislation on the issue. The solution to these questions are further complicated by the extremist positions adopted by the Far Right (Front National) whose populist stances have become very successful, forcing the other parties to take more radical positions than they would probably like. In this case, as in many others, one can observe how the republican myth is used and manipulated for short-​term political reasons, and sometimes as a powerful

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   37 instrument to impede change and adaptation. Republicanism can be exploited by a party which was for a long time considered a betrayal of republican ideals, and still is by many.

A Future for French Republicanism? Republicanism is still the predominant ideology in France today. Its strength and lasting influence are based on several factors. The first has been its capacity to embrace nearly all dimensions of the relationship between public authorities and individuals. Practically nothing escapes its grasp, from cradle to grave. To be sure, some bizarre dimensions of this tentacle-​like control have failed—​such as the “republican baptism” put in place as a substitute for the Christian ritual—​but for the rest, republicanism is still what informally unites citizens often deeply divided over many other issues. It has provided citizens with a political grammar, allowing them to interpret and reinterpret events at every point in time. Certainly, this reading of dramatic or mundane events has taken a long time to establish and has been highly contested. It took more than one century to implement the program set up by the 1789 Revolution, and this long lapse could have been a fatal blow, had the republican mythology not been created and kept alive during the nineteenth century. But the Third Republic was able to fulfill successfully the political commitments of the republican ideal and to transform these policy achievements into sacred principles. First, the ideological alliance between policymakers and the administrative supreme court (Conseil d’État) guaranteed that the foundational laws passed by Third Republic governments be considered as more or less inviolable legislation, in particular when they were jeopardized (for instance during the Second World War under the Vichy regime). Then, after the dark episode of the war’s Nazi occupation, the laws were made even more sacred by elevating them to the rank of “fundamental principles of the Republic” in the 1945 Constitution. A further step was made when the Conseil Constitutionnel applied its 1972 coup by deciding that these vague philosophical/​ideological principles had full constitutional value and could be used by judges as higher norms of reference for the review of laws passed by parliament. The irony has been that the Gaullist regime, considered by many as a potential threat to republican traditions, has put in place a framework with contradictory consequences: on one hand, the Conseil Constitutionnel and judicial review were considered as anathema by the strict republicans (the law is supreme); on the other hand, it is this Court which has, through its case law, transformed the legal heritage into a body of law with constitutional meaning. Republicanism is not only an ideology, a doctrine, a conception of the state and society. It has been transformed incrementally over one century into hard constitutional law. This judge-​made law, set up at the highest judicial level, brings further rigidity in policymaking but at the same time provides a comfortable way out for politicians when they are embarrassed by touchy issues such as wearing religious symbols in school or at work. Getting a “correct” interpretation of what is or is not in line with the republican

 

38   Yves Mény tradition by a body outside the world of politics is a rather convenient option as there is no obvious answer to be drawn from republican history. Future policies will be highly path dependent from these legal constructions as a constitutional revision would be needed in order to overcome these legal/​ideological frameworks. Republicanism in France today can be characterized first as the ideological glue which holds together a fragmented and divided society; second as a figleaf covering up the reluctance to change and reform; and third as a structural component of the way the French elites and citizens at large conceive democracy. These three elements are still well rooted in French public life, but are challenged by external and internal factors. On the first point, republicanism still serves as the red line separating those admitted into the game of official politics from those outside it. From its very origin, republicanism has deeply split French society and it actually took almost a century to apply the principles born in 1789. Those rejecting the so-​called republican contract have never been fully eliminated, but there has been a constant attempt to integrate into the pacte républicain all parties of government. Paradoxically, the goal was achieved by a man who was suspected by many republicans to be a threat to the République, namely de Gaulle. The constitution he set up was not fully in line with the republican tradition; it gave more powers to the executive than to parliament and took away the sacred aura of the law. But the République, under de Gaulle, was re​invented in a way more acceptable to the majority of people whose values and priorities were not fully in line with those of the governing elites. The so-​called modernization of France which took place in the 1960s was primarily a process of demystification of some republican sacred cows. This challenge to received ideas gave republican values new content and meaning and established new policies through a more pragmatic approach: a good test is given by the so-​called school war between école républicaine and private (Catholic) schools. The Debré laws of 1959 settled an “armistice” and Mitterrand failed in attempting to restore the commitment to “public schools for all.” This shows why the so-​called republican pact is ambiguous and fragile. It can serve as a common vision, as long as it remains rather vague and incantatory and its policy implications are not too invasive or provocative. At the same time, it is a mandatory passageway for politicians and parties that wish to enter into electoral politics and have ambitions to govern. The evolution of the National Front created by Le Pen and now run by his daughter is telling: at first, this small extreme-​right party had no illusions on gaining access to power, not even on obtaining parliamentary representation. The party could afford to be radical and critical of the republican tradition or of its political and policy implications. Now that the party has gained votes and influence, that its electorate is made of poor, unemployed, and blue-​collar workers, and that its aim is to dismantle the dominant party of the Right (the UMP (now the Republicans), set up by Chirac), its leader, Marine Le Pen, is starting to refer more and more to the values of the République. This does not mean much, except that it is the entry ticket to the halls of power. From this point of view, the republican rhetoric has a bright future. As much as we can see and foresee, there is no ideology capable of overcoming the supremacy of this entrenched but vague, over​arching political umbrella. Even the Communist party after the the Second World War, when it was at

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   39 the height of its powers, had to pay tribute to the République. It was the price to pay to be admitted into the club. Given this environment, one understands that republican rhetoric can have deep conservative effects on policymaking: it places policies in a straightjacket, as the traditional republican principles are not always the best instruments to tackle radically novel situations such as the weakening of the nation state, the globalization of finance, or the information technology revolution. These challenges in France are further exacerbated in two ways. First the interpretation of republican ideology is largely based upon a reading and interpretation of historical events or policies. Second, and contrary to many countries where the central value of republicanism is liberty, the French experience has put the emphasis on equality, an ideological leaning already underlined in the mid-nineteenth century by an acute observer such as Tocqueville. These two features explain in part the characteristics of policymaking in France. Given the supremacy of this undisputed ideology, it is extremely difficult to reverse the trend and to propose innovative options if there is not a natural “fit” between the suggested reform and the republican frame of reference. Nothing is possible if the process is not incremental, slow, and, in a certain way, imperceptible. The transformation of the Conseil Constitutionnel into a full-​ fledged court and the establishment of regions took nearly half a century each. No government, had it wished to create these institutions as we know them today, would have succeeded in overcoming the “republican” veto inherited from the French Revolution. In a few cases, such as in the establishment of the Fifth Republic, what Jack Hayward has labeled a “heroic style” has prevailed, but a combination of extraordinary events and exceptional persons is needed for this. The prevalence of equality as a core element of republicanism in France is also crucial. Dario Castiglione has asserted that modern republicanism “has been more insistent on equality, both in its formal and its more substantive aspects than classical republicanism was,” and also that attention should be paid to the way “the republican language and preoccupations came to intermingle with democratic, liberal and eventually socialist and patriotic perspectives” (2013: 462). Indeed, the passion for equality found a huge potential for expansion with the post-​Second World War development of the welfare state everywhere and in particular in France. The value of equality has been almost unchallenged until recent years and has been an engine for the promotion of many redistributive policies. However, new debates and controversies have emerged, in particular among populist movements, in relation to the provision of welfare benefits to legal or illegal immigrants. Other debates have focused on the illusory character of some egalitarian policies, or the inability of some deeply entrenched policies to tackle new forms of égalité des chances (equal opportunities). The school system in particular has been under fire as it was seen as failing to fulfill its mission of compensating for inequalities resulting from social and economic differences. Faced with these issues, policy instruments such as “affirmative action” have been rejected from the start as being incompatible with the republican ethos and values. Given the power and influence of the republican myths and the crucial importance that equality has taken as a core component of republicanism in France, one can say that future debates and policy decisions will still be highly

 

40   Yves Mény dependent on this ideological point of reference. It is striking that the political debate stemming from the terrorist attacks against Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 have focused heavily upon the issue of equality, Prime Minister Manuel Valls going as far as denouncing a “territorial, social and economic apartheid” capable of explaining the failure of migrant integration. How was it possible that the terrorists, born and educated in France and holding French passports, could be offspring of the republican system? Following the attacks of 11 January 2015, a wide and artificial consensus was built up around the traditional trilogy of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, but no serious attempt was made to rejuvenate these abstract concepts and give them a new meaning. In addition, the lack of financial resources prevented giving substantive effect to any meaningful policies. For many, so-​called republican values are just political rhetoric. The same can be said about the way democracy is conceived by elites and citizens at large. There is no doubt that democracy à la française is deeply marked by the republican imprint with its local characteristics, that is the insistence upon history and intangible principles, in particular equality rather than liberty. One should never forget that the word most associated with républicain is État, while démocratie is not. This means that, too often, if a choice has to be made between the salvation of the state and the protection of democratic values such as pluralism, liberty, or freedom of speech or of thought, the balance is always tipped the same way. The state’s interests come first, in particular during difficult or troubled times. From 1939 up to the mid-1960s, France was subjected to legal regimes of exception, 25 years during which most civil and political liberties were limited and subdued. Similarly, the État d’urgence, which allows the suspension of civil liberties and fundamental rights for the safety of the state (an exceptional law adopted at the beginning of the war in Algeria), was applied again by Chirac and de Villepin in 2005 during the uprising in the banlieues, and then again by President Hollande on 14 November 2015 following the terrorists attacks in Paris. Pierre Nora, an acute analyst of the République and the tradition républicaine, was to the point when he declared in the wake of the huge demonstrations in support of the Charlie Hebdo victims: “It is easier to take communion than to construct.” The fusion between state/​nation/​democracy is not unique; it has been and remains a predominant feature of most democratic systems. In France this historical development has reached its peak, as the République has absorbed many values of the monarchy. Those values, which have been formulated over the centuries and have been rebaptized “républicaines” in the way the Catholic Church absorbed part of pagan heritage, are particularly resilient. Sovereignty of the nation and of the people, centralization of the state, unity of the nation, supremacy of the state, and subordination of private interests are monarchical values, to which the revolution has added constitutional rights, liberty, and equality. Republicanism in France is the result of this peculiar blend and is likely to last for a long time to come given its deep foundations in the millenary construction of the country. Indeed, “political discourse and especially political mythologies are much harder entities to break down than constitutions, political institutions or even regimes” (Hazareesingh, 2002: 19). But, as underlined by the historian Mona Ozouf (1998), the republican idea/​ideal will flourish again only if it does not remain a dogma linked to a mythical revolutionary past (“Loin que la République se ressource dans la Révolution—​ce

 

Republicanism: A Transatlantic Misunderstanding   41 qu’au moment du bicentenaire suggéraient des esprits exaltés et chimériques—​c’est la disparition de la référence révolutionnaire qui offre la chance d’un ressourcement dans l’Idée républicaine.” (“Far from the République gaining strength from the Revolution—​which at the time of the bicentennial suggested lofty and chimeric thinking—​it is the disappearance of any reference to the Revolution that provides the opportunity to enrich the idea of the Republic.”)) The Revolution is part of the genetic code of the notion of the République, its strength, and at the same time its Achilles’ heel, given its inability to address properly many issues of our time.

References Agulhon, M. (1980). La République au village. Paris: Plon. Audier, S. (2004). Les théories de la République. Paris: La Découverte. Berger, S. (1972). Peasants against Politics:  Rural Organization in Brittany, 1911–​ 1967. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Birnbaum, P. (2012). Les deux maisons. Les Juifs, l’État et les deux Républiques. Paris: Gallimard. Castiglione, D. (2005). “Republicanism and its Legacy,” European Journal of Political Theory 4: 453–​65. Duhamel, O. (1992). La Gauche et la Vème République. Paris: PUF. Elgie, R. (1995). Political Leadership in Liberal Democracies. London: Macmillan. Favell, A. (1998). Philosophies of Integration. London: Macmillan. Furet, F. (1978). Penser la Révolution française. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque des Histoires. Goodin, R. (2003). “Folie Républicaine,” Annual Review of Political Science 6: 55–​76. Gourevitch, P. (1980). Paris and the Provinces. Berkeley: University of California Press. Grémion, P. (1976). Le pouvoir périphérique, Bureaucrates et Notables dans le système politique francais. Paris: éd. du Seuil. Grossman, E. and Saurugger, S. (2006). Les groupes d’intérêt, 2nd edn. Paris: Armand Colin. Hayward, J. (1959). “Solidarity: The Social History of an Idea in Nineteenth Century France,” International Review of Social History 4(2): 261–​84. Hayward, J. (1961). “The Official Social Philosophy of the French Republic: Léon Bourgeois and Solidarism,” International Review of Social History 6(4): 19–​48. Hayward, J. (1973). The One and Indivisible Republic. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Hayward, J. (2007). Fragmented France: Two Centuries of Disputed Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hazareesingh, S. (1994). Political Traditions in Modern France. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hazareesingh, S. (2002). The Jacobin Legacy in Modern France—​Essays in Honour of Vincent Wright. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hazareesingh, S. (2011). “L’imaginaire républicain, de la Révolution française à Charles de Gaulle,” Revue Historique 3, 659. Joppke, C. (2009). Veil, Mirror of Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Joppke, C. (2010). Citizenship and Immigration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Joppke, C. and Lukes, S. (eds) (1999). Multicultural Questions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kriegel, B. (1988). Philosophie de la République. Paris: Plon.

 

42   Yves Mény Kymlicka, W. (1995). Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kymlicka, W. (2001). Politics in the Vernacular:  Nationalism, Multiculturalism, Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laborde, C. (2008). Critical Republicanism:  The Hijab Controversy and Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laborde, C. and Maynor, J. (2008). “The Republican Contribution to Political Theory,” in Laborde, C. and Maynor, J. (eds) Republicanism and Political Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 1–​28. Lacorne, D. (2008). L’invention de la République américaine. Paris: Hachette. Lacroix, J. and Magnette, P. (2009). “French Republicanism and the European Union,” in Besson, S. and Marti, J.-​L., Legal Republicanism, National and International Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 298–​316. Manent, P. (2006). La raison des nations. Réflexion sur la démocratie en Europe. Paris: Gallimard. Mazur, A. G. (1995). Gender Bias and the State: Symbolic Reform at Work in Fifth Republic France. Pittsburg: Pittsburg University Press. Mény, Y. (1974). Centralisation et décentralisation dans le débat politique français. Paris: LGDJ. Mény, Y. (1999). “Interessengruppenin Frankreich: von Pluralismus Keine Spur,” in Christadler, M. and Uterwedde, H. (eds) Länderbericht Frankreich: Geschichte, Politik, Wirtschaft. Gesellschaft, Bonn, Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, Band, 286–​302. Mény, Y. (2002). “The Republic and its Territory:  The Persistence and Adaptation of the Founding Myths,” in Hazareesingh, S. (ed.) Political Traditions in Modern France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 183–​95. Mény Y., (2008). “France: the Institutionalisation of Leadership,” in Colomer, J. (ed.) Comparative European Politics. Abingdon: Routledge, 94–​134. Mény, Y. (2013). “From Single Market to Social Market Economy: Is There Room for Solidarity?” In Keating, M. and McCrone, D. (eds) The Crisis of Social Democracy in Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 184–​198. Nicolet, C. (1982). L’idée républicaine en France. Essai d’histoire critique. Paris:  Gallimard, Bibliothèque des Histoires. Nora, P. (ed.) (1984). Les lieux de mémoire, Vol.1, La République. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque des Histoires. Nora, P. (2013). Recherches de la France. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque des Histoires. Nora, P. (2015). Interview, Libération, January 20, 2015. Ozouf, M. (1998). “L’idée républicaine et l’interprétation du passé national,” Annales, Histoires, Sciences Sociales 53(6): 1075–​87. Paxton, R. O. (1982). Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940–​1944. New York: Columbia University Press. Pettit, P. (1999). Republicanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Phillips, A. (2000). “Feminism and Republicanism: Is this a Plausible Alliance?” Journal of Political Philosophy 8: 279–​93. Pocock, J. G. A. (1975). The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Prost, A. (1968). L’enseignement en France, 1800–​1967. Paris: Armand Colin. Rodgers, D. (1992). “Republicanism: the Career of a Concept,” Journal of American History June: 11–​38.

 

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Chapter 3

The State Im pe rat i v e Jack Hayward

The profound and pervasive sense of relative and absolute national decline afflicting French public opinion in the twenty-​first century can only begin to be appreciated if it is judged by comparison with the elevated height of state self-​esteem over the previous centuries, from which it is deemed to have fallen. A shared sens de l’Etat, acquired through the selective indoctrination of French history conveyed a view of France as an exceptional country, thanks notably to wise guidance by the institutionalized authority of monarchy. Dynastic power was supported by ecclesiastical and legal legitimation and subsequently mediated and enforced by depersonalized public administration. Attempts to dispense with this authoritarian system in the last decade of the eighteenth century proved ephemeral. It was quickly resurrected in a succession of regimes that failed to provide a convincing and stable incarnation of the idea of the state. Since the stabilization of the political regime in the second half of the twentieth century, there has been a regress of the state as the overarching and unifying political framework, reversing its traditional standing. How and why has the grandiose version partially lost its hold, struggling to survive in an inhospitable environment? To what extent can a state-​suffused political culture survive successive functional withdrawals? Has the French state a splendid future behind it?

Conceptual Preliminaries The pervasive, top-​down state political culture of France—​the European epitome of statism—​is exemplified by the capitalization of the word “State,” in contrast to Anglo-​ American usage. Normatively, cutting the state down to size in relation to society and the market reflects a historic divergence from a Continental European tradition, France in particular being identified with a distinct hierarchical, integrating, and legitimizing entity: the State (Nettl, 1968: 567). The concept needs to be clarified precisely because of its adaptability, across time and space, to diverse contexts. This dangerously maximizes the appeal of the abstract, ambiguous yet authoritative concept of the state.

 

The State Imperative    45 Kenneth Dyson formulated an ideal type definition that mentions the state as an actor internationally, warfare as we shall see having played a pivotal role in the emergence and consolidation of states. However, he concentrated upon the state’s internal enforcement of unity by a supreme coercive power that became depersonalized in France after the disappearance both of monarchy and empire. The purported sovereignty of the state survived the elimination of the dynastic sovereign, as nationality and democracy asserted themselves. The open-​ended concept of the state endured as a “unifying formula” despite the fact that it implausibly embraced a formidable institutional complexity (Dyson, 1980: 208; cf. 206–​7, 253, and 256; see also Laborde, 2000: 541–​7). The state is conceptually distinct but not separate from government in general and the specific public institutions that constitute government: political and administrative executives, legislatures, and judiciaries, as well as the proliferating “dismembered” bodies (such as public agencies with delegated powers and independent authorities) that encrust the ship of state like barnacles but to which the state as their normative presupposition should not be reduced. David Runciman argues that states have a fictional “life of their own” because “The state functions by having attributed to it its own inherent powers, even though it has no inherent power, but depends always on the power that is attributed to it, and exercised on its behalf by its representatives […]. The state is authoritative for having authoritative representatives” (Runciman, 2003: 35). The state presents itself as an authoritative and normative abstract whole that cannot simply be disaggregated into its parts. This is so in particular because in international relations and law it is identified with the transactions between territorial governments asserting their sovereignty. The extent to which the interdependent parts of any state are more or less united into a cohesive whole in practice varies comparatively between states in normative and empirical terms, both temporally and functionally. Attempts to dismiss the state as a metaphysical and anachronistic myth ignore its indispensability for understanding both the authoritative politics and government of particular polities and their substantive relations with each other. There is more to the state than mystique in the working of everyday politique. The dual use of the state as both a subjective, normative, and conceptual abstraction and as an objective, institutional, and behavioral reality or set of realities risks succumbing to the danger of reification: treating the juridical–​political abstraction as a real phenomenon or even personifying it (Dyson, 1980: 13–​14). This duality reflects two features that presuppose each other: both the idealist attempt to subsume the actual institutional state within the abstract concept and the reductionist, empiricist determination to dismiss anything other than the factual, observable, institutional phenomena as fiction. Avoiding both reification and positivism, both confusion and oversimplification of the state as a way of understanding politics, necessitates care in the way the term is used in particular contexts, bearing in mind the two partial aspects of the state. Although the institutional and normative frameworks of analysis are often opposed (especially by those who aspire to a value-​free political science), they are complementary. Political practice brings political presuppositions down to earth and potential verification, while the normative presuppositions relate incremental practices to comprehensive,

 

46   Jack Hayward fundamental values, imparting to them a dynamic, prescriptive, or even imperative character, not merely a descriptive or analytical systematization. When considering the historical process of French state-​building, we shall see how the warm-​blooded emphasis on the nation became predominant over the cold-​blooded abstraction of the state. However, as I argued many years ago, France is a state-​nation rather than a nation-​state […]. France is a unitary state superimposed upon a multinational society […]. Despite the incomparable assimilative power that France has shown over the centuries, the obsession with national unity betrays an uneasy sense that the peoples which make up France may have been swallowed but not wholly digested […] the monolithic character of the political and administrative state apparatus being necessary to coerce into a semblance of consensus and order the disparate and divided fragments of the national mosaic. (Hayward, 1973: 17)

Whereas Germany and Italy were nations long before they became states in the nineteenth century, it was only with the French Revolution that national sovereignty displaced monarchy as the source of public power and legal legitimacy, while federalism was condemned as anti-​France. The general or public interest could only be reliably pursued by infusing the state’s powers and procedures with the values that the democratic nation would guarantee by dedicating them to public service. This would require substituting the warfare state by the welfare state and denying the international private market interest’s priority, just as the claims of the Roman Catholic Church had been previously curbed as the autonomy of the state was asserted. While secular sovereignty was mainly a consequence of the interstate sovereignty of warring states, “it is one of the paradoxes of history that it was not in support of the state but of the church that the concept of sovereignty was first coherently worked out and its logical consequences drawn” (d’Entrèves, 1967: 96–​7). This took the form of the assertion of the theocratic supremacy of the Pope over the Holy Roman Emperor as inheritors of the Roman Empire’s legal and political traditions claiming universal authority. However, although by the beginning of the fourteenth century the Popes had defeated the Emperors by excommunication, the French kings asserted their autonomy by the 1309–​78 Schism, with a rival French or French-​chosen Popes in Avignon. Nevertheless, it was only with Louis XIII’s Secretary of State Cardinal Richelieu that the Roman Catholic Church was partially reduced in France to a Gallican department of state under Royal control (Crevald, 1999: 61–​73). However, the church fulfilled a wide range of functions of a charitable and educational nature that the French state was for long unable and unwilling to take on. The lawyer-​politician Jean Bodin may not have coined the term sovereignty as the distinctive attribute of the state, at a time of religious civil war in sixteenth-​century France when the territory was anything rather than unified, but his description of sovereignty as “one” and “indivisible” prepared the way for Hobbes’ Leviathan popularization of the term a century later, shorn of Bodin’s 1576 restriction of royal sovereignty by the

 

The State Imperative    47 laws of God, nature, and nations and identified with government at a time of civil war in England (Bodin, 1576; cf. d’Entrèves, 1967: 99–​103, 108–​12; and Lewis, 1968). Bodin importantly distinguished between the legalistic, indivisible authority of the sovereign state and institutionally divided government, more accurately reflecting their troubled relationship in France.

Historical State-​Building The French state’s prolonged gestation consisted of a dual process of enforcing internal unity and exerting external power. To appreciate the doctrinal emphasis upon indivisibility, one must bear in mind that “originally the monarchs themselves were merely great nobles who collected estates piecemeal until, one day and almost without noticing, they found themselves at the head of a state” (Crevald, 1999: 118). It took centuries, with fits, starts, and reversals, for the king’s realm, commencing from the Île-​de-​France, to complete the incremental accretion of disparate constituents; hence the counterfactual reiteration of its historic unity. The monarchs were the successful survivors of a merciless struggle, their victory masked by the seventeenth-​century “shift from itinerant to sedentary government” (Crevald, 1999: 122). Whereas Louis XIII left governing to Richelieu in Paris, Louis XIV’s conspicuous manifestation of his absolute power by the building of the ostentatious Palace of Versailles marked the identification of the state with his personal presence. Versailles was only the culmination of Louis XIV’s attempt to project an idolatrous image of glorious and pervasive power. He did so by enforcing Court politics, classical cultural conformity, not only in religion but in a range of acts with the sun emblem, “associated with French kings from the fourteenth century,” becoming “a central motif in the artistic productions of the academies in the ceremonies, pageants and musical productions of the court” (Parker, 1983: 133; cf. 132–​6). This was accompanied by a centralization of authority with the replacement of sixteenth-​century Crown representatives in the provinces and itinerant royal inspectors and elected provincial magistrates by Intendants with comprehensive powers of police, justice, and finance as Louis XIV’s personal representatives from the mid-seventeenth century, which masked an endeavor to achieve a monopoly of violence (Parker, 1983). However, “the evolution of the absolutist state was not the result of the consistent application of a new view of government or society, but a pragmatic, frequently ad hoc and contradictory attempt to restore royal authority in the context of a rapidly changing world” (Parker, 1983: 90). Absolutism was in reality incomplete, masking the disparity between the state imperative and the limited reach of government. Nevertheless, centralizing and authoritarian values were indelibly etched into French political culture. Not content to exploit the statist implications of Roman law that prevailed over custom-​based common law, arbitrary power was explicitly justified.

 

48   Jack Hayward Richelieu argued that the morality of state affairs was of a higher order than law and he sought to “justify Reason of State by anchoring it to Divine Right” (Parker, 1983: 92; cf. 91). It was Bishop Bossuet who provided “the ideological justification for that absolute monarch for which the doctrine of sovereignty had provided the legal foundation” (d’Entrèves, 1867: 186). The semi-​deification of the king was necessary to stabilize a state authority whose arbitrary power could not otherwise be reconciled with legality. Although the 1789 Revolution disposed of its theocratic underpinning, “Reason of State” survived implicitly, allowing the law to be bent to suit the expedient improvisations of those exercising public authority. While Charles Tilly’s dictum that “war made the state and the state made war” (Tilly, 1975: 42) holds true generally, in France it was reflected in the growth of armed forces, relying initially on aristocratically officered and mercenary troops that were recruited and stood down as warfare required. France pioneered their professionalization with the establishment of a state standing army in 1445 (Finer, 1975: 99). The expense necessitated recourse to increased taxation and debt, because of an inflexible tax base, after representative authorization of taxation by the Estates General ceased in 1614, although some provincial Estates survived until the Revolution (Bodin suggested a tax census in the 1580s but Louis XIV tried and failed to introduce it). Significantly, the term statistics meant what concerns the state (Crevald, 1999: 145–​6, 183), but official statistics can and are sometimes manipulated to misrepresent the facts. French public finance also pioneered the sale of public offices to the highest bidder, so becoming private property which could be inherited. This detracted from the state’s freedom of action, only ending with the Revolution and the subsequent development of a bureaucratic public administration. However, Richelieu instituted the shift of state apparatus from royal household to a few secretaries of state, with himself as first secretary. Although the Intendants were not offices for sale, the transition away from privatized administration was only in its infancy. The separation between the administration of internal and external affairs did not begin until the sixteenth century. Until then, ambassadors were “ad hoc envoys,” but “From the 1620s on France had an unbroken line of secretaries of state whose task was to look after foreign affairs” (Crevald, 1999: 133–​4). Richelieu, but especially Jean-​Baptiste Colbert (who controlled ministerial affairs from 1665–​83 apart from foreign affairs and war), personified the state management of trade, industry, and finance that has been called mercantilism. The term had been coined by the political economist Antoine de Montchrétien in 1615 in a book dedicated to Louis XIII. His views, accepted in France for over a century as the guide to state economic action, “were based on the axiomatic premise that the state could, should, and would so act […] to increase its wealth” (Cole, 1964: 20; cf. 84–​100). Relying upon state-​ supported industries and colonies as sources of materials and markets in a context of trade warfare, France was capable of self-​sufficiency. “Mercantilism represented the economic counterpart of political étatisme. Was anything wrong[?]‌[T]he king should, and could, remedy it” (Cole, 1964: 25). Economic protectionism became an enduring French state tradition, adapting reluctantly to the European Economic Community’s pursuit of a Common Market after 1957.

 

The State Imperative    49 There was a counterattack in the eighteenth century, notably by the economist Vincent de Gournay, who it is claimed coined both the anti-​statist terms “bureaucracy” and “laissez faire” (Crevald, 1999: 137), although the Marquis d’Argenson used the latter term in 1751 and argued that “To govern better, govern less.” However, reliance upon the market and free trade remained a minority view. Although Gournay’s argument that the state should regulate less was briefly influential when Turgot, a reforming technocrat, controlled the public finances, this was only a momentary departure from the mercantilist and agriculturalist slant of French economic policy (Larrère, 1992: 11, 222, 233, 243–​5). However, the French political economists combined economic liberalism with political authoritarianism within the state’s limited sphere of action. This was not the view of one of their critics, Sieyès, who turned to a different aspect of political economy—​the division of labor—​as the basis of political representation. He substituted national for royal sovereignty as the expression of the general will, with less liberal implications for the role of the state (Larrère, 1992: 271, 287). Still, sovereignty was not a limitless and comprehensive power but signified the continuity of the nation as constituent power (Forsyth, 1987: 182; cf. 181–​3). The French Revolution brought into collision the state and the nation that it had formed. Guizot and Tocqueville exaggerated the continuity between the Old Regime and post-​Revolutionary France because they overemphasized the extent to which there was a persistence of bureaucratic nationalization and centralization. Even in this there was a marked contrast between the Napoleonic state and its predecessors, but we must first consider the transformation resulting from the impact of nationalism and democracy, with the state as both a problem and solution because of its increasing interaction with civil society. As long as the demands placed on and made by the state were limited, its legitimacy was not seriously contested. Compelled by financial necessity in 1789 to recall the Estates General, the monarchy was confronted by the incendiary pamphlet by the abbé Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? Hitherto, it had been “nothing,” but embodying “a complete Nation” it was entitled to be “something” (Sieyès, 1963: 51–​2; cf. Chapters 1–​3). Instead of subjects, Frenchmen would henceforth be citizens; but not equal citizens, some being passive and others active, recalling Turgot’s distinction between propertied “full citizens” and unpropertied “fractional citizens” (Hayward, 1991: 17). Nevertheless, they all shared in the sweeping legitimacy conferred by the nation. “The nation is prior to everything. It is the source of everything. Its will is always legal; indeed it is the law itself ” (Sieyès, 1963: 124). Whereas the government’s power was circumscribed by the constitution (and France was going to have many of them), “The national will […] is the source of all legality” (Sieyès, 1963: 126). Although Sieyès based the political system upon a substantial national unanimity, he accepted that in practice indivisibility could not prevail. So, the bizarre formulation “the law is the expression of the general will, i.e. the majority” (Sieyès, 1963: 80) encapsulates the need to rely upon representation when moving from the abstraction of a united nation state to the function of government in a divided polity. Sieyès played a key role in the 1799 coup d’état that brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power but led to a travesty of his constitutional project for bringing an end to the

 

50   Jack Hayward Revolution (Hayward, 1991: 36–​7). However, before considering the momentous institutional implications of Napoleon’s ascendancy, an allusion to the aggressive statism of the Jacobin revolutionary dictatorship of 1793–​4 legacy as a myth is necessary. It has been pertinently observed that, thanks both to its influence upon and critique of republicanism, “in some respects it perpetuates the ‘statism’ of monarchical absolutism,” while “ ‘state’ Jacobinism is heavily indebted to Bonapartism, in both its First and Second Empire manifestations” (Hazareesingh, 2002: 11; cf. 6–​10). Its resilient culture permeated the elite, as did its popular deference to the state and commitment to unmediated, united, and uniform public action, which is more properly the subject of Mény’s chapter on the Republic. At the start of his discussion of the French administrative state, Ezra Suleiman affirms that “The structure of the modern French State owes more to Napoleon than to any of his predecessors or successors.” He goes on to emphasize “the importance that has been ascribed to the State ever since Napoleon gave it its modern form” (Suleiman, 1974: 13). While acknowledging the prior role of the Old Regime monarchy, he argues that “The concept of the State forming a separate entity, at once within and outside the Nation, was born with the Revolution” (Suleiman, 1974: 20) as expounded notably by Sieyès and the Jacobins. He quotes in support the remark by Ernest Barker: “If Louis XIV had simply said ‘I am the State,’ Napoleon could say, more subtly but with greater force, ‘I am the nation, and therefore the State’ ” (Suleiman, 1974: 20). While this involved an implausible impersonation comparable to that of the Bourbons, the nation state was a more convincing basis for claiming that the public authorities were acting in the general interest, conferring mass legitimacy in place of solitary hereditary monarchy. Nevertheless, Suleiman quotes Harold Laski to pertinent effect; “when for the crown was substituted the nation, the worship of a unified indivisibility underwent no change” (Suleiman 1974: 20). The continuity of state superiority was sustained and reinforced as the source of top-​down power. Suleiman also emphasized Napoleon’s impact on the French model of state-​created elites, although there had been Old Regime predecessors since 1747 and Napoleon only militarized the Revolution’s creation of the Ecole Polytechnique in 1794. A prominent figure in French higher education stressed the need for a state monopoly in the training of the nation’s elites. “The men of the Revolution had envisaged national education above all as a duty of the state toward its citizens. Napoleon saw in it above all the interest of the state and of the sovereign […]. Its real function and its real raison d’être was to serve as a moral support for the power incarnated and personified by the State” (quoted in Suleiman 1978: 19; cf. 17–​21, 30). The 1945 establishment of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration applied the state engineering school model to the training of those who would occupy the key positions in the public services. The state becomes less of an abstraction when personified by the officials it has itself trained, such as the prefects. Abolished by the Revolution, the Intendants were resurrected and renamed by Napoleon in 1800 to centralize control of local government. The prefects were to govern in his name, on the model of the absolute monarchy, subject to instant recall and with sweeping powers. Brian Chapman summarized the prefect’s role. “Sometimes he acts

 

The State Imperative    51 as the general representative of the State, exercising what almost amounts to a prerogative power. Sometimes he acts under specific statutory authority; sometimes his powers are delegated to him by a Minister. Sometimes he acts as the general administrator of the Department, sometimes as chief executive of the Department, sometimes as tuteur of the Communes, sometimes as chief of police” (Chapman, 1955: 164; cf. 12–​19). The revival was in fact inspired by the Roman law broad policy role of the prefect in a police state of which the specifically police functions were only a subordinate part. Understood in its comprehensive, public policy sense, “The police power as an emanation of sovereignty was the basis of the practical authority of the state” (Chapman, 1970: 13). The police were the internal agents of the enforcement of the state’s supreme coercive power. However, France’s Ministry of the Interior and its prefects and police have to act within the rule of law in a country whose citizens—​unlike those in a real police state—​are inclined to regard everything as permitted, including what is forbidden. Prefects have also often had to negotiate with local political leaders, rather than impose state decisions on behalf of the central government (Grémion, 1976). In France the rule of law is significantly designated as l’Etat de droit, there being no higher or wider law than that of the state. The Council of State, created by Napoleon in 1802 to replace the King’s Council which had been abolished in 1791, has continued and extended its predecessor’s state-​building function, identified with the state’s continuity through the vicissitudes of French political life but adroitly adapting in the nineteenth century from an authoritarian jurisprudence to an anti-​authoritarian administration law. The Council of State embodies the autonomy of the French state from society’s civil law because it regards itself as the guardian of the general interest and the public service to secure the common good. It exercises a normative power through its consultative role from the pre-​legislative and regulatory processes through to their implementation and evaluation (Chevallier, 2007: 6–​12). In over two centuries of its existence, the Council of State has elaborated the practice and defended the Etat de droit’s principles with self-​ confidence, acquiring a prestige elevating it into “the ‘conscience’ of the state” (Dyson, 1980: 85; cf. 122, 217–​15).

The Changing Scope of the Provision of Public Services The Second Empire of Louis Napoleon marked a return to the authoritarian conception of the state, after monarchical and brief republican interludes. A usually neglected but important transitional theoretician of the state from the 1850s is Charles Dupont-​ White. Despite an Anglophile family and cultural background that led him to translate J. S. Mill’s On Liberty and Representative Government, he was intellectually closer to another Anglophile, Guizot, with his intransigent advocacy of the state’s defense of the public interest, necessitating the restraint of individualism. An early advocate of

 

52   Jack Hayward state intervention and against the laissez-​faire pursuit of self-​interest in his 1846 Essai sur les relations du travail avec le capital, in L’Individu et l’Etat (1857) and the follow-up La Centralisation (1861) he argued that only state regulation could ensure the pursuit of the general interest. Furthermore, it was through the centralized state that French national identity had been achieved and could be sustained. Unlike the Bonapartist justification of centralized state power, Dupont-​White stressed the achievement of the rule of law and respect for pre-​existing rights by the state. Thereby the state imperative was sustained without suffering guilt by association with Bonapartist imperialism (Hazareesingh, 2001, Ch. 2). However, it was in the late nineteenth-​and early twentieth-​century debate among French jurists about public law that the old issue of state sovereignty and its relationship to government and the provision of public services came to a head. It was heavily influenced by administrative law and the Council of State’s concern to reconcile state and individual interests in a country whose jurists had a strong presupposition in favour of impartial state intervention (Jones, 1993: 50–​1). There was a 1907 confrontation between two of the leading protagonists in the Paris Law Faculty. Henry Berthélemy argued that he preferred to avoid the concept of the state, concentrating instead upon the institutions of government (Jones, 1993: 44–​5). This aligned him with the Bordeaux positivist jurist Léon Duguit, while Raymond Saleilles sided with Maurice Hauriou of Toulouse, a normative (and Catholic) jurist. “For Saleilles, the state was both a reality and an ideal conception” (Jones, 1993: 189; cf. 188–​91). Saleilles made the revealing assertion that the state “seen from the outside, forms a whole, which apparently acts with a united will, with a purpose that is also unitary […] a single, directive will to impart the necessary impetus” (Jones, 1993: 189). It was on the basis of such holistic and prescriptive arguments that jurisprudential support for public power acting in the general interest was provided. Duguit emerged as the leading advocate of reducing the state to government institutions, dismissing its claim to sovereignty as a metaphysical abstraction. Influenced by the sociology of his former Bordeaux colleague Durkheim, the state was for practical purposes interdependent society as politically organized and united by social and economic solidarity. Durkheim reduced the state to an authoritative normative function not separate to and superordinate over society. “If the State is everywhere, it is nowhere” (quoted in Giddens, 1986: 57). Duguit went further, cutting the state down to size, proclaiming that “for the regalian, Jacobin and Napoleonic conception of the State as power is substituted a fundamentally economic conception of the State, which becomes the cooperation between public services functioning under the control of the government” (Duguit, 1927, II: 956–​7). The long French tradition of state enterprises (which would expand dramatically in the twentieth century) were performing functions which did not require any justification other than that of the services they provided. Duguit was supported by Councillor of State Henri Chardon, who dispensed with the word “state” because of its sense of guilt by association with a sovereignty that was incompatible with democracy, and replaced it with “public services acting in the general interest” (Jones, 1993: 100, 106–​7). The positivist conception of the state reduced it to what government

 

The State Imperative    53 and the public administration did, dispensing with the fiction of the sovereign state (Dyson, 1980: 146–​9). While the demystification of the state concept as the basis of law had a major impact prior to the Second World War and the Vichy regime’s substitution of the Etat Français for the Third Republic in 1940–​4 did not add to its lustre, the scope of state intervention notably through the increased provision of public services expanded substantially during and after the Second World War. This meant going beyond the public utility monopolies in energy and transport into competitive entrepreneurial activities headed by state-​trained elites. Both the state’s fearsome aspect as coercive force and its friendly aspect as paternal protector combined to give French public “servants” the feeling that they were over and above social classes and market forces […]. The normative weight of national tradition was tilted in favour of state force rather than market forces and it was taken for granted that governments could decide what they wanted to happen and were able to make it happen provided that they had the will. (Hayward, 1986: xiii)

The nationalization of major banking and industrial enterprises and the institutionalization of the welfare state, together with a system of national economic planning that subordinated private business to public priorities, were salient features of the “thirty glorious years” that preceded the oil shock of 1973–​4. Thereafter, the presumption in favour of state dirigisme went into reverse under the impact of forces beyond the control of the French state (cf. Chapter 27). There was, however, a significant interlude with the political reassertion of state power by General de Gaulle in the 1960s, but before resigning in January 1946 he set in motion the nationalization of industries to increase state economic power (continued by left-​wing governments for ideological reasons) and national economic planning to be discussed later. Having led France to a share in the Allied victory of 1945, de Gaulle initially failed to achieve the kind of state power (which only came with his return in 1958) required to save the state and the establishment of the Fifth Republic. He made it clear that national unity and continuity required giving decisive authority to the head of state and his prerogative powers. While in a democracy sovereignty belonged to the people, it required a head to direct state action. Although he did not initially favour popular election of the president, he asserted in 1962 that only such a vote would provide the legitimacy for the supreme power exercised by the head of state. In a January 31, 1964 press conference he proclaimed that “the indivisible authority of the state is completely delegated to the President by the people who elected him,” leaving the prime minister and government to deal with day-​to-​day contingencies (Hayward, 1973: 81). In his Memoirs of Hope, de Gaulle recalled that in 1940 it was without benefit of “hereditary right, without plebiscite, without election, answering the imperative but mute appeal of France alone, that I was previously led to take command of its defence, its unity and its destiny” (de Gaulle, 1980: 289). Determined to recapitate the decapitated

 

54   Jack Hayward state, he reluctantly in 1958 abandoned his preference for the official title of “Head of State” because of its association with the Vichy regime. However, “henceforth, the head of state is really the head of affairs, really responsible for France and the republic. He really chooses the government and presides at its meetings, he really makes civil, military and judicial appointments, he is really the head of the armed forces. In brief, every important decision and all authority derives from him” (de Gaulle, 1980: 37). The tone was regally more absolutist than the reality because he was not in practice the “hyperpresident” that subsequently eventuated. Nevertheless, in defense, foreign, and European Community policy, de Gaulle was determined to reassert France’s independence and rejection of supranationalism. He sought the confederal “institution of a concert of European states” under French leadership, based upon a Franco-​German axis (Gaulle, 1980: 186; cf. 195–​7). However, it was not until 1974 with President Giscard d’Estaing that a European Council was established to secure intergovernmental control of the European Union’s affairs, with France represented by its head of state, “applying the logic of the hyper personalisation of decision making on the model of the Fifth French Republic” (Hayward, 2012: 71, italics in original; cf. 68–​70). Giscard d’Estaing also extended de Gaulle’s policy of a French independent nuclear deterrent (without provoking popular opposition) into the field of industrial policy with an exceptionally ambitious program of nuclear power stations. Having survived the 1968 “events” that threatened to destabilize his authority, de Gaulle resigned in 1969 following defeat in a referendum. His successor Georges Pompidou (a former member of the Council of State) continued to reassert a Gaullist view of pre-​eminent presidential power, but thereafter Presidents of the Republic increasingly encroached on the role of the government, Pompidou himself preparing the way when in 1972 he dismissed a prime minister who still had the confidence of a parliamentary majority. The boundary between head of state and head of government was hard to maintain and shifting in favor of the former. The dualist conception of state power was championed by constitutional theorists Georges Burdeau and Jean-​Louis Quermonne. They argued that the Fifth Republic instituted an autonomous and higher-​order state power representing the general will as against the partisan power of parliament and the changing political executives (Hayward, 1993: 38–​42). The head of state exercises regalian power especially in foreign and defense policy, symbolized by his personal role of commander-​in-​chief of the armed forces and control over the French nuclear deterrent (this extends to the arms production industries). However, the substance of state powers in domestic policy is in the hands of the higher administration, with the Council of State overseeing the working of administrative law. The increasingly interventionist role of the Constitutional Council has led to the emergence of an autonomous judicial power, not envisaged by de Gaulle, but like the Council of State protecting France as an Etat de droit. Three episodes of cohabitension between presidents of one political persuasion and a prime minister of another, in 1986–​8, 1993–​5, and 1997–​2002, led to a significant constitutional change in 2000. The adoption in November 1873 of a seven-​year term of office for the head of state by royalists seeking a monarchical restoration prior to the shaky

 

The State Imperative    55 start of the Third Republic was deliberately intended to distinguish his role from that of the head of government (Hayward, 1991: 272), so the reduction of the president’s term to five years, preceding elections to the National Assembly, was of great symbolic as well as practical political significance. What it amounted to was the alignment of state power and partisan power. The institutionalized hypocrisy of a head of state claiming explicitness to be both the impartial, consensual leader of all the French people and the implicit polarizing leader of one party within the divided electorate was resolved by conflating the two roles. Former President Giscard d’Estaing’s proposal of a constitutional amendment in this sense provided Lionel Jospin, the Socialist prime minister (and future unsuccessful candidate in the 2012 presidential election), with cross-​party support for the modification of Article 6 of the Constitution. It was carried by both the National Assembly and the Senate, forcing President Chirac to submit it to a referendum. It was adopted on 24 September 2000, despite 69 percent abstentions. Ironically, Chirac’s reluctance to accept the change was of benefit to him as he first won the 2002 presidential election and then secured the subsequent support of a majority in the ensuing Assembly elections. Although he did not use the opportunity to extend his power, his successor Nicolas Sarkozy did so, without self-​restraint. President Hollande commenced office in 2012 by allowing his prime minister a greater role, but quickly reverted, under the pressure of circumstances, to a multi-​interventionist style as head of state. The state imperative reasserted itself. While hyperpresidentialist heads of state have implied that the scope of state intervention has expanded (Hayward, 2013), in practice the capacity of the French state to take unconstrained decisions has been contracting. The pretense of sovereignty has become ever more threadbare, although economic and financial threats have increasingly supplanted the military and diplomatic menaces of the Cold War years. Playing a leading role in the European Union has had the potential to retrieve shreds of the sovereignty lost to an increasingly globalized market economy, but even when they have not gone as far in state intransigence as de Gaulle did, French leaders have clung on to a parody of national autonomy. For decades after 1945, successive French governments pursued patriotic industrial policies relying upon national champion firms based upon grands projets. “High-​tech Colbertism” (Cohen, 1995: 30–​4) was inspired by political rather than economic priorities, modernizing the mercantilist strategy of the seventeenth century. These state monopoly firms could no longer sidestep the market. They had to base their legitimacy as well as their viability upon working with the market and developing transnational alliances (Cohen, 1996: 95; cf. 85–​94). However, before the retreat from national economic planning and public ownership gathered pace in the decades from the 1980s, what Andrew Shonfield called the “state as an entrepreneur,” with public enterprises as “pace-​setters” and public–​private collaboration through the procedures of indicative planning, had prevailed in the early post-​war period (Shonfield, 1965: 86; cf. 84). What he arrestingly termed an elitist “conspiracy in the public interest” (Shonfield, 1965: 130) relied upon mobilizing “instruments of public enterprise and pressure, which had been lying around for some time, and pointed them all in the same direction” (Shonfield, 1965: 85). It was Jean Monnet, appointed as

 

56   Jack Hayward Planning Commissioner by de Gaulle just before leaving office in January 1946, who masterminded the collaboration of government, big businesses, and trade unions, with the techno-​bureaucratic state as very much the senior partner and the trade unions as the junior partner. De Gaulle imparted renewed impetus to nationally planned economic policy in the 1960s, by which time Monnet was more concerned with promoting a European integration that was anathema to de Gaulle. Industrial policy was characterized by selectively promoting national champion firms, thanks to state financial support and the planned reduction of market uncertainty through forecasting and intensified public–​private sector collaboration. Under the stimulus of foreign competition, the agents of the state saw it as their overriding purpose to reduce intranational competition within France in the name of industrial patriotism. They were inspired by a tenacious political will to rebuild state power and international standing, ambitiously asserted by de Gaulle and implemented imaginatively by Monnet, relying upon the statist reflexes of both officials and firms to serve explicit public objectives in a public-​interest spirit. However, a less hospitable context imposed itself on the state actors. By the mid-1970s, it was becoming clear to pertinent observers that greater modesty was in order because planning “has more the character of getting into step with the world than of changing it” (Gunsteren, 1976: 2; cf. 9). The oil shock in 1973 led to a fundamental reassessment of the French state’s capacity to choose an independent policy inspired by volontarisme. The halving of the economic growth rate, the increase in unemployment, and the impact of increased social security and tax burdens meant that the state was needed more at a time when it was less and less capable of fulfilling public expectations. Whilst in the early 1980s there was a marked contrast between a Thatcherite UK shrinking the state sector through privatization and a Mitterrandian France program of nationalization expanding the public sector, both right-​wing and then left-​wing French governments subsequently privatized for pragmatic rather than ideological motives. Playing the role of stretcher-​bearer state to bankrupt lame-​duck firms and making up for the inertia of the private sector committed to short-​term profitability amounted to improvised, piecemeal interventions. This was proving increasingly impractical when protectionism from foreign predators was abandoned. Incrementalist market improvisation prevailed over defending national independence. While the state financially supported its national monopoly firms and followed a “state legitimized procurement logic,” it was preparing the way for the successful firms to become Euro champions in accordance with “the logic of the market” (Cohen, 1995: 31). What had been a state industrial policy became an industrialists’ policy: [N]‌ational champions began to see state intervention as a threat to their cash flow, to their own discretionary power and as an impediment to building international alliances. So the greater the success of the grand projet, the bolder was the determination of internalized national champions to be freed from state dependence and to be judged according to market criteria. (Cohen, 1995: 32–​3)

 

The State Imperative    57 Flag-​carrying Air France was simply one of the national champions that was to combine a privatization and foreign merger strategy, marking the demise of a modernized mercantilism. The urge to preserve a distinctive state-​centered policy style was abandoned by the very elites that had been its protagonists, a desertion prompted by a defeatism in public ambitions and their personal aspirations to enjoy the material advantages of the neo-​liberal roundabout. The concessions of state economic, financial, and currency sovereignty through a prolonged suprastate process of European Economic and Monetary Union, finally launched in 1999, were combined with a commitment to intergovernmentalism as a way of preserving residual autonomy. The European Central Bank managing the currency of the Eurozone was made up of national central bankers. France secured the appointment of Jean-​Claude Trichet as its president from 2002–​11. Prior to leading the Bank of France, he had served in and then headed the Treasury Division of the French Ministry of Finance, so he was imbued with the public service norms shared by the higher civil service. However, French governments were torn between preserving their fiscal sovereignty and restraining German monetary dominance. Sometimes (2003) France and Germany united in violating the Stability and Growth Pact’s constraints on their fiscal deficits and public debt commitments. Further bending of the rules to suit member states such as France’s interests followed. Nevertheless, since de Gaulle French heads of state have resisted moves toward political union as the underpinning of economic and monetary union because this is considered to be a direct challenge to the identity and integrity of the French state. To combine a retreat from the claim to sovereignty in its external relations with a concurrent reduction in its role within France posed an unwelcome threat to the flattering self-​perception of the public servants of the state. It also reduced the regard with which they were held by French citizens, who resented being (with Sweden) the most taxed Europeans. By the 1990s, with the dismantling of the state banking and industrial sectors through privatizations and the abandonment of state economic planning, it became commonplace to dwell on the “crisis of the state” and even “the end of the Napoleonic State” (Suleiman, 1995: Ch. 3). This would-​be omnipotent and omnicompetent state was now discredited, faced by an intrusive international market that ignored public service considerations. Serving the public interest took a back seat for the new entrepreneurs motivated by profit as the measure of competitive success. The advent of new public management as part of reforming the state was characterized by a retreat from centralization. “The growing delegation of regulatory tasks to semi-​independent agencies represents an important break with French administrative traditions of uniformity, hierarchy and clear bureaucratic chains of command” (Cole, 2008: 34; cf. 32–​3, 207). The remorseless retreat of the fortress state, the sovereign state, the welfare state, and the strategic state was successively dealt with by leading members of the state elite, who chronicled much more than the end of Colbertism (Fauroux and Spitz, 2000). Many of the traditional state culture’s assumptions are no longer valid. However, there is a fatal disjunction between excessive public expectations, with their many and varied demands for state protection and provision, and the capability to

 

58   Jack Hayward satisfy them. In a relatively peaceful world, the state is expected to guarantee economic and social security much more than military security. This means continuing to provide generous public services and employment without increasing taxes. The general public’s reluctance to make the necessary sacrifices and provide the democratic support required leads in the twenty-​first century to a yawning gap between expectations and capability that subverts the authority of the state. While those who officially speak on behalf of the state endeavor to sustain the myth of its sovereignty, their credibility has become increasingly implausible as the long process of state-​building has continued unwinding. Although its traditional guardians have increasingly deserted the public service for the attractive remuneration and freedom of action of the private sector, a resolute rearguard does its best to organize the state’s retreat with an improvised semblance of good order. So, in comparative context, the French state remains somewhat exceptional in its norms and impulses, even more than in its behavior.

References Bodin, J. (1576, 1962). The Six Books of the Commonweale. Cambridge, Mass:  Harvard University Press. Chapman, B. (1955). The Prefects and Provincial France. London: G. Allen and Unwin. Chapman, B. (1970). Police State. London: Macmillan. Chevallier, J. (2007). “Le Conseil d’ Etat, au Coeur de l’Etat,” Pouvoirs, 123: 5–​17. Cohen, E. (1995) “France: National Champions in search of a mission,” in J. Hayward (ed.) Industrial Enterprise and European Integration. From National to International Champions in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 23–​47. Cohen, E. (1996). La Tentation Hexagonale. La Souveraineté à l’épreuve de la mondialisation. Paris: Fayard. Cole, A. (2008). Governing and Governance in France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cole, C. W. (1964). Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism. London: Cass. Duguit, L. (1911, 1927). Traité de Droit Constitutionnel. Paris: Boccard. Dyson, K. (1980). The State Tradition in Western Europe. Oxford: Martin Robertson. Entrèves, A. P. d’ (1967). The Notion of the State. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fauroux, R. and B. Spitz (eds) (2000). Notre Etat. Paris: Hachette. Finer, S. E. (1975). “State and Nation-​Building in Europe: the role of the military,” in C. Tilly (ed.) The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 84–​163. Forsyth, M. (1987). Reason and Revolution. The Political Thought of the Abbé Sieyès. Leicester: Leicester University Press. Gaulle, C. de (1970, 1980). Mémoires d’Espoir. Paris: Plon. Giddens, A. (1986). Durkheim on Politics and the State. Cambridge: Polity Press. Grémion, P. (1976). Le Pouvoir péripherique. Bureaucrates et notables dans le régime politique français. Paris: Seuil Gunsteren, H. R. van (1976). The Quest for Control: A critique of the Rational-​Central Approach in Public Affairs. London: J. Wiley and Sons. Hayward, J. (1973). The One and Indivisible French Republic. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

 

The State Imperative    59 Hayward, J. (1986). The State and the Market Economy. Industrial Patriotism and Economic Intervention in France. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books. Hayward, J. (1991). After the French Revolution. Six Critics of Democracy and Nationalism. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Hayward, J. (1993). De Gaulle to Mitterrand. Presidential Power in France. London: Hurst. Hayward, J. (2012). “National Governments, the European Council and Councils of Ministers: a plurality of sovereignties,” in J. Hayward and R. Wurzel (eds) European Disunion. Between Sovereignty and Solidarity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 65–​81. Hayward, J. (2013). “‘Hyperpresidentialism’ and the Fifth Republic State Imperative,” in D. G. Bell and J. Gaffney (eds) The Presidents of the French Fifth Republic. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 44–​57. Hazareesingh, S. (2001) Intellectual Founders of the Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hazareesingh, S. (ed.) (2002). The Jacobin Legacy in Modern France. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, H. S. (1993). The French State in Question: Public law and political argument in the Third Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laborde, C. (2000). “The concept of the state in British and French Political thought,” Political Studies. 48(3): 540–​57. Larrère, C. (1992). L’Invention de l’Economie au XVIII Siècle. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Lewis, J. V. (1968). “Jean Bodin’s ‘Logic of Sovereignty,’” Political Studies, 45(1/​2): 206–​222. Nettl, J. P. (1968) “The state as a conceptual variable,” World Politics, 4: 559–​92. Parker, D. (1983). The Making of French Absolutism. London: Edward Arnold. Runciman, D. (2003). “The concept of the state: the sovereignty of a fiction,” in Q. Skinner and B. Strath (eds) States and Citizens. History, Theory and Prospects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 28–​38. Shonfield, A. (1965). Modern Capitalism: The Changing Balance of Public and Private Power. London: Oxford University Press. Sieyès, E. J. (1789, 1963). What is the Third Estate? London: Pall Mall Press. Suleiman, E. (1974). Politics, Power and Bureaucracy in France:  The Administrative Elite. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Suleiman, E, (1978). Les Ressorts Cachés de la Réussite Française. Princeton:  Princeton University Press. Tilly, C. (ed.) (1975). The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press. van Crevald, M. (1999). The Rise and Decline of the State. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press.

 

Chapter 4

The Fre nc h Welfare Syst e m Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier

If one looks at its institutions (technical or policy instruments) and its general goal, the French social protection system can be classified as a case of a corporatist-​conservative welfare regime (Esping-​Andersen, 1990). Its general aim is income maintenance, much more than poverty alleviation (as in a liberal welfare regime) or universalistic redistribution (as in a social-​democratic one). The main components of the French welfare system clearly reflect the Bismarckian tradition of social insurance: entitlement is conditional upon a contribution record, most benefits are earnings ​related, financing is provided mainly by employers’ and employees’ contributions, and the social partners have long been highly involved in the management of the system. Social insurances were introduced in France at the end of the nineteenth century with the creation of the mandatory working accident insurance (financed only by employers’ contributions) in 1898. It was followed by the (difficult) shaping of a pensions system for industrial workers and peasants in 1910. An encompassing social insurance system (including health insurance) was only adopted with the 1928 and 1930 laws, after the return to France of Alsace and Lorraine, which belonged to Germany from the 1870 war to the end of the First World War and where the Bismarckian social protection system had been implemented. The late introduction of social insurances in France is less the consequence of the antagonistic relationship between Germany and France than the political priority given to the consolidation of the republican regime and the political battle against the Catholic Church after 1870. It led to the adoption of several republican assistance laws between 1889 and 1913. These were clearly different from the British “poor laws” because they were focused on specific populations (children, mothers, elderly persons) and risks (health, ageing) and were broadly family oriented. In contrast to their British counterparts, these laws contained neither working obligation nor controlling measures, and therefore they have not led to the same stigmatization of the poorest categories of the French population benefitting from public assistance.

 

The French Welfare System    61 The Second World War played a major role in the institutionalization of the French social protection system. At the end of the War, the French government had the ambition of generalizing social protection and achieving universal and uniform coverage. At the time, however, there was a strong distrust of state solutions to social protection among groups who already had access to specific social insurance schemes, within the workers’ movement and even from some senior civil servants who held corporatist views, including Pierre Laroque, the so-​called “founding father” of the French Sécurité sociale (Merrien, 1990). It was therefore decided to generalize social protection within an employment-​related social insurance framework rather than a universal state-​run system, an uneasy compromise between Beveridgean goals and Bismarckian means. This compromise led to a welfare regime that almost epitomizes the typical institutional characteristics of Bismarckian welfare states:  employment-​related entitlement and earnings-​related benefits; a very fragmented system, focused on the needs of the male breadwinner, contribution-​financing, and decentralized control. From 1945 to the late 1970s, social policies expanded as one of the important parts of the set of Keynesian compromises that underpinned the “Trente Glorieuses.” Social spending was seen as favoring economic growth and employment, social insurance transfers as consolidating social integration and (occupational) solidarity, and welfare state institutions as supporting social peace. These economic, social, and political functions of the French social protection system explain the subsequent difficulties in transforming it following the economic crisis of the 1970s. In the first section, we show that until the 1990s the main goal of welfare policies was the rescue of the French model. As we will show in our second section, it is only since the end of the twentieth century that French social programs have been progressively (and partly) reformed to adapt to the new economic and social environment. In our third section we focus on the welfare policies since the 2008 crisis and pinpoint the continuity of the French reform trajectory despite growing European intrusiveness.

Rescuing the French Welfare State (1970s–​1980s) With the economic crisis of the 1970s, the social protection system encountered a vicious combination of declining resources and spiralling costs. These resulted in huge and recurrent deficits in the social protection budget, the famous “trou de la Sécu.” Furthermore, these deficits were no longer perceived as temporary ones that could be reabsorbed through reflationary measures. By the turn of the 1980s, two French governments—​Jacques Chirac’s in 1974–​6 and Pierre Mauroy’s in 1981–​2—​had learned the hard way that the traditional Keynesian chain was broken. In both cases, the government raised social benefits in order to boost private consumption and economic activity, leading only to larger public deficits, a negative trade balance, inflation, and increases in

 

62    Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier unemployment and taxation. Henceforth, the Keynesian use of social benefits was delegitimized for governments of both the Left and Right. Subsequent governments thus all shared the idea that the social security deficits had to be balanced. However, of the two solutions available—​increasing resources or cutting expenses—​only one was seriously considered during the 1970s and ’80s. For at least 15 years, governments avoided major retrenchments and preferred to increase social contributions to balance the social security deficit. Instead of developing an accusatory rhetoric against the welfare state that would have provoked trade unions and the whole population, they acknowledged the importance of the Sécurité sociale while at the same time underlining the dangers of its current situation and presenting measures to restore its viability.

The Financial Rescue Plans From 1975 to 1995, unless an election was imminent, each announcement of a deficit in Sécurité sociale was followed by the presentation of a “plan de redressement des comptes de la Sécurité sociale” (i.e. program for balancing the social insurance system’s budget1). These plans typically consisted of increases in contributions paid by employees and some limited economizing measures, mainly in health where the level of reimbursement of health-​care expenditure was lowered.2 However, during the same period, the rates of all the contributory benefits were increased or at best stabilized. Social benefits were perceived as a good buffer against the toughest social consequences of the crisis (Levy, 2005). Consequently, social expenditure continued to increase rapidly until the mid-1980s, but has done so more slowly ever since. The proportion of social protection expenditure in GDP grew from 19.4 percent in 1974 to 27.3 percent in 1985 and 27.75 percent in 1992.3 Social contributions had increased from less than 20 percent of French GDP in 1978 to almost 23 percent by 1985, and have been stable at that level ever since. While social contributions amounted to 45 percent of gross wage in the early 1980s, in 1996 they amounted to more than 60 percent for a wage above 1.3 times the minimum wage (Palier, 2005a). In order to avoid conflict with social partners and with the population, governments applied “good old recipes” and were thus able to maintain a high level of social protection in a period of crisis. This response was also in line with the labor-​shedding strategy adopted at this time in France, as in other Continental European countries (Esping-​ Andersen, 1996). Indeed, during the 1980s governments used social expenditure to soften the hardest social consequences of industrial restructuring and mass redundancies that followed; a strategy called “le traitement social du chômage” (the social treatment of unemployment). These policies were designed to remove the oldest workers from the labor market by lowering the legal age for retirement (from 65 to 60 in 1981) and encouraging early retirement. In total, 84,000 people retired early in 1975, 159,000 in 1979, 317,000 in 1981, and 705,000 in 1983 (Bichot, 1997: 132).

 

The French Welfare System    63

The First Attempts at Retrenchment In the 1990s, this strategy became increasingly problematic in the new European environment, characterized by the creation of the single currency and the imposition of the Maastricht criteria. The Single Market increased competition between European firms, in which labor cost played an important role. French employers increasingly focused the debate on the need to stop the increase in social contributions, hence pushing for a reduction of social benefits. After 1992/​1993, retrenching social expenditure was included in the government strategy of reducing public deficits in order to meet the Maastricht criteria. This new European context led to reforms to unemployment insurance in 1992, to old-​age insurance in 1993, and to health care in 1995. These reforms were all made “in the name of European constraints,” but were also possible thanks to one trade union, the CFDT (Confederation française démocratique du travail), choosing a reformist position and new alliances with the employers’ movement in order to out­ maneuver its two main competitors, the CGT and FO (Confédération générale du travail and Force Ouvrière). The unemployment insurance system was reformed in 1992 through an agreement between the CFDT and the employers’ association. The reform replaced all existing unemployment insurance benefits with a new Allocation Unique Dégressive (AUD), payable only for a limited period of time, depending on contribution record. The amount of this benefit was to decrease with time, and entitlement would eventually expire after 30 months. Afterwards, unemployed people had to rely on tax-​financed income-​tested benefits. The level and the volume of unemployment benefits started to fall after 1992, the reduction being larger for the means-​tested benefits than for AUD (Daniel and Tuchszirer, 1999). In 1993, the Balladur government reformed the first-​tier pension scheme (régime général), covering private sector employees. The indexation of benefits was based on prices, as opposed to earnings, initially for a five-​year period though it has since been extended indefinitely. The qualifying period for a full pension was extended from 37.5 to 40 years, and the period over which the reference salary was calculated from the best 10 years to the best 25. These changes were introduced gradually over a ten-​year transition period. Surprisingly, this reform did not provoke very much opposition. This was possibly because the reform was limited to the private sector general scheme and because of the introduction of a package that “traded” benefit cuts against the tax financing of non-​contributory benefits (Bonoli, 1997). In exchange for the trade unions’ acceptance of the reform, the government created a Fonds de solidarité vieillesse for the funding of non-​contributory benefits. The state thereby agreed to pay for the “undue charges” and thus reassured the social partners of the continuity of PAYG old-​age insurance schemes. In 1995, the new Prime Minister Alain Juppé tried to impose the same conditions on public sector employees without negotiation, but had to withdraw this measure in the face of massive strikes (Bonoli, 1997).

 

64    Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier In the health sector, the numerous plans implemented during the late 1970s and the 1980s were not successful in limiting the unstoppable growth in demand for health care. They could only increase the co-​payment paid by the patients, which for many was reimbursed afterwards by the mutuelles. After 1990, governments decided to force the medical professions, the health insurance funds, and the state to elaborate a convention médicale (medical care agreement) to help control the increase of expenditure by setting a provisional target for the growth of health-​care spending, practitioners’ remuneration, and additional expenses. Between 1990 and 1995, though, doctors did not sign any of the proposed conventions and the targets set for other paramedical professions were not met. All these reforms shared some features that are related to the specific institutional settings of welfare systems based on social insurance. First, the retrenchment reforms were not presented as a means to dismantle the welfare system, but rather to preserve or consolidate it. Second, the reform proposals were put together in such a way that the social partners could accept them. As illustrated in 1995, the social partners have the power to block reforms they do not agree with. The acceptance by the social partners of reductions in benefits relied on a quid pro quo (Bonoli, 1997) based on the distinction between what should be financed through contribution and what should be financed through taxation. Finally, for old-​age and unemployment insurances, these reforms reduced the level of protection by strengthening the link between the amount of contribution and the volume of the benefits. This of course relied on the already existing logic of these social insurance schemes. These changes were based on new instruments (changes in calculation rules, creation of new state subsidies, etc.), but were perceived as preserving the very nature of social insurance, and in some ways even reinforcing it. They did not really challenge the principles of social insurance and can be considered “second order changes” (Hall, 1993). However, since these reforms diminished the coverage and generosity of social insurance, ever more space was created for the development of new benefits, whether on top of compulsory social insurance, or “beneath” it, for those who lost (or never gained) their rights to social insurance. As analyzed in the next section, these developments led to criticism of social insurance and to the emergence of a new world of welfare in France.

Transformations of the French Welfare State (1990s–​2000s) In the 1990s, new diagnoses of the difficulties began to gain popularity among experts, politicians, and even trade unionists, which implied that the system was not a victim of the crises, but part of the causes of France’s social, economic, and political difficulties. With these new diagnoses, the very characteristics of the system came to be seen as the cause of these difficulties, and all the bases of the post-​war compromise were undermined:  protecting workers no longer supports social integration, but leads to social exclusion; the system no longer contributes to economic growth, but impedes it through

 

The French Welfare System    65 its financing mechanisms; démocratie sociale no longer sustains social peace, but allows demonstrations and blocks reform. These new analyses underpinned a change in the political discourses and agendas of all governments during the 1990s: from rescuing the Sécurité sociale, the aim became to transform it. These reforms aimed to change the politics of social protection, and although often marginal in the beginning their importance has grown more visible over time (Bonoli and Palier, 1998). The reforms changed core aspects (eligibility, benefits, financing, management) of the Bismarckian institutional structure of the French welfare regime.

The Social Crisis of the French Welfare State: Social Exclusion and the Creation of New Benefits Since the late 1970s, France has seen a considerable increase in unemployment. Unemployment rose from 4.1 percent of the active population in 1974 to 10.5 percent in 1987, fell slightly in the late 1980s, but then rose again to 12.5 percent by 1997. Long-​ term unemployment also increased, supporting the idea that France had high structural unemployment. In 1974, 16.9 percent of the unemployed were jobless for more than one year, 2.5 percent for more than two years. These proportions had risen to 42.7 and 21.0 percent by 1985. The average length of unemployment was 7.6 months in 1974, 15 months in 1985, and 16 months in 1998 (L’état de la France, 2000–​2001). The social insurance system set up in 1945 was not designed for mass unemployment. This predominantly contributory system is especially unable to deal with those who have never been involved in the labor market (young people) or who have been removed from it for a long period (long-​term unemployed), because they have not contributed to social insurance or because they are not contributing any more. Moreover, because of the 1992 reform of unemployment insurance, more and more unemployed people could no longer rely on unemployment insurance. The number of “excluded” people kept increasing during the 1980s, and this became one of the most pressing social issues. During the 1980s, attention was drawn to “new poverty” by the media and groups from civil society, who denounced the incapacity of Socialist governments to face the new social problems. The 1987 Wresinski report, “Grande pauvreté et précarité économique et sociale” suggested that some 400,000 people were living in France without social protection. In this context, the social protection system could be accused of reinforcing the mechanisms of social exclusion, because of the gap between “insiders” included in the labor market who could rely on the insurance system and “outsiders” who obtained a much lower level of protection despite needing it most. The issue finally entered the political agenda, leading to the introduction of “insertion policies” to fight social exclusion. Social exclusion was framed as a problem of lack of support rather than lack of work, and required a response in terms of new social rights, rather than labor market reform (Paugam, 1993). In order to cope with new social problems that social insurance was unable to deal with, governments developed new social policy instruments. Faced with growing

 

66    Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier numbers of jobless, youth, or long-​term unemployed and lone parents, new benefits were created or formerly marginal benefits developed (Palier, 2005a: Ch. 6). The creation of the RMI (Revenu minimum d’insertion) is the most important of these new social benefits. This new non-​contributory scheme, meant for those having no or very low income, was introduced in December 1988. Its main feature is the guarantee of a minimum level of resources to anyone aged 25 or over, taking the form of a means-​tested differential benefit. In addition, the RMI has a re​insertion dimension: through a contract between themselves and a social worker, recipients must commit to taking part in reinsertion program, which can entail either job-​seeking, vocational training, or activities designed to enhance the recipient’s social autonomy. Since the late 1990s, more than one million people per year have received the RMI (1.1 million in 1992, 1.2 million in 2008). Including spouses and children of recipients, 3.5 percent of the French population is involved (DREES (Direction de la recherche, des études, de l'évaluation et des statistiques), various years). Besides the RMI, France now has eight other social minimum incomes, and more than 10 percent of the French population is currently receiving one of these (Palier, 2005a). The use of this new repertoire of social policy has also been extended to health care. In 2000, a new income-​tested benefit was created to provide the poorest with free access to health care (Couverture Maladie Universelle—CMU) and to provide free complementary health insurance for those who could not pay for complementary health care (CMU Complémentaire). The development of benefits targeted at poverty alleviation has gradually encouraged an accompanying logic that was previously entirely absent from the French social protection system. In liberal welfare states, these benefits are traditionally accused of creating a dependency culture and generating unemployment traps. By the late 1990s more and more analyses in France emphasized that people receiving social minima, especially the RMI, would lose money and social advantages if they took a part-​time job paid at the minimum wage level. In 2001, in order to augment the incentives to return to work, the Jospin government created a tax credit called “Prime pour l’emploi,” which is a negative income tax for low-​paid workers. And, in 2009, the RMI was replaced by a new scheme, Revenu de solidarité active (RSA), which provides social contribution exemptions to employers hiring RMI beneficiaries or long-​term unemployed, and guarantees a permanent negative income tax to the new low-​wage workers so that they get at least 200 euros more than what the RMI would have provided them with. Both a totally new rhetoric (unemployment trap, work disincentive) and a totally new type of social policy instrument (in-​work benefit such as RSA) have thus been imported during the development of poverty alleviation in France.

Changes in the Financing of the French Welfare System Attempts to render the system more “employment friendly” were also behind shifts in the financing of the system. Until 1996, 80 percent of social protection was financed

 

The French Welfare System    67 through employment-​related contributions. But during the 1990s, the system was increasingly assumed to be producing unemployment and to be economically unsustainable. The employers’ representatives, as well as more and more economists, criticized the excessively high level of social contributions in France, especially at the lower end of the salary scale. These groups claimed that in the European context, firms could simply not afford such a high level of social contributions (Palier, 2005a: Ch. 7). Governments started to focus on this issue, and, during the 1990s, lowering the level of social contribution became the main employment policy in France. Measures were first targeted on contracts for some particularly disadvantaged groups, such as the long-​term and youth unemployed, or on small companies which were considered to be the most affected by the relatively high cost of unskilled labor. But in 1993, with the Balladur “plan quinquennal pour l’emploi,” all wages below 1.3 times the minimum wage were partly exempted from social contributions (DARES (Direction de l’Animation de la Recherche, des Etudes et des Statistiques), 1996). In order to generalize the movement to lower labor costs, governments have also tried progressively to replace some contributions with taxation. A new tax, originally aimed at replacing the social contribution financing non-​contributory benefits, was created in 1990: the Contribution Sociale Généralisée (CSG). Unlike social insurance contributions, the CSG is levied on all types of personal incomes, including wages (even the lowest ones), but also extending to capital revenues and welfare benefits. Unlike income tax in France, CSG is strictly proportional and earmarked for non-​contributory welfare programs. In the early 1990s, the CSG appeared to play a marginal role, and when it was introduced it was levied at only 1.1 percent of all incomes. Since 1998 the rate has been 7.5 percent, replacing most of the health-​care contributions paid by employees. As of the early 2000s, the CSG provides more than 20 percent of all social protection resources and represents 35 percent of the health-​care system’s resources (Palier 2005a, Ch. 7). The introduction of this earmarked tax enabled a shift in the financing structure of the system toward more state taxation. This new instrument has two main consequences, which entail a partial change in the logic of the system. First, since financing does not come only from the working population, the CSG breaks the link between employment and entitlement. Access to CSG-​financed benefits cannot be limited to any particular section of society. The shift in financing has thus created the conditions for the establishment of citizenship-​based social rights, especially in health care. Second, the shift leaves the social partners with less legitimacy to participate in the decision-​making and management of social provision. In this respect the shift toward taxation constitutes a pressure for a transfer of control from the social partners to the state, an evolution that is in line with other important political changes that have occurred since the mid-1990s.

The Politics of Institutional Reforms During the 1990s, the management arrangement of French social insurance started to attract increasing criticim: experts and civil servants accused social partners of having

 

68    Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier hijacked social security funds, of abusing their position within the system at the expense of the common good, and of not taking responsibility for containing costs (Bonoli and Palier, 1996). Within the governmental sphere, the perception developed that the state would be better at containing the expenditure increase (Bonoli and Palier, 1996). Reforms have been gradually implemented in order to empower the state within the system at the expense of the social partners, mainly since the “Juppé Plan” of 1995. The most important institutional aspect was the vote in February 1996 of a constitutional amendment obliging parliament to vote every year on a social security budget. The use of the new parliamentary competence helps the government to control the social policy agenda. Instead of always having to legitimize their intervention into the area, under the purview of the labor force and employers, they are now able to plan adaptation measures regularly, especially relating to cost containment. This new instrument also introduces a logic of intervention. Instead of trying to find resources to finance social expenditure driven by insured persons’ demand, the vote of a loi de financement de la Sécurité sociale implies that a limited budget should be allocated for social expenditure. Since most of the social benefits are still contributory, it is impossible to define a limited budget completely a priori, but governments are entering this new logic and parliament has since voted in new instruments aimed at this purpose, such as limited global budgets for hospitals and for ambulatory doctors, and ceilings and growth limits for social expenditure. The Juppé Plan also empowered the state within the health-​care system by the creation of new state-​headed agencies (especially for hospitals) and changes in the management of health-​care funds: more powers were given to the director (a senior civil servant, nominated by the government) and less to the president (representing the social partners). This trend was furthered by the 2004 Health Insurance Reform, which instigated the merging of the various health insurance schemes into one body—​the national union of sickness funds4—​directed by a senior civil servant nominated by the government. The new director leads negotiations with the different medical professions, and has the power to nominate directors of local sickness funds. As a consequence, the power of the trade unions has been considerably diminished; the law disbanded the administrative boards on which they sat and replaced them with simple advisory councils. In 2009, new legislation was passed that reorganized the health-​care system at the regional level, here too creating a single state body5 to replace the various schemes and administrations formerly in charge of health-​care provision. Contrary to the way some important policy changes have been implemented in other countries or fields (Hall, 1986; 1993), in France these institutional reforms were implemented in a very ambiguous and incremental way. Analysis of the politics of such reforms shows similarities between the different political processes (Palier, 2005b). First, it is impossible to claim that one specific group of actors has been the single main causal agent of all these changes. Changing a welfare system as legitimate as the French one necessitates “carrying” almost all the actors involved in social policies in the reform process. Led by a coalition of high-​ranking civil servants sharing new analyses and perspectives on welfare, governments (Genieys and Hassenteufel, 2001; 2015), employers,

 

The French Welfare System    69 and some trade unions have participated in these reforms. Among the trade unions, the CFDT again played an important role, while FO and the CGT remained in a very defensive position, opposing most reform proposals. Second, all of these changes have been based on the collective acknowledgment of past policy failures. The development of each new measure started with the politicization of a “new social problem,” which was interpreted as resulting from a failure of past policies: social exclusion, which social insurance is unable to deal with and can even reinforce; low skilled unemployment, due to the weight of social contributions and a passive unemployment compensation system; and the inability of the welfare state to be changed because of the blurred assignment of responsibilities within the different systems. Acknowledgments of failures led to a re​interpretation of existing social and economic difficulties, and in the new explanations for the existing problems the position of the social insurance system shifted from that of a victim of difficulties to that of a cause of difficulties. It took quite a long time before all actors came to share similar diagnoses of the problems; a process facilitated by the multiplication of commissions and reports, where the partners involved progressively came to share the same approaches. Third, although a large majority of the actors concerned about social protection problems agreed with the new structural measures (RMI, CMU, CSG, etc.) they did so for reasons that were often very different, and sometimes contradictory. Many reforms were implemented in the name of the distinction between insurance and assistance (called “national solidarity” in French). However, trade unions wanted this rationalization in order to preserve their realm of social insurance, whereas governments and civil servants expected more social protection responsibilities through these changes, at the expense of social partners. Similarly, the RMI was seen by the Left as a means to provide money and social help through the contract, while the Right supported it as a new kind of conditional benefit. The Left supported the CSG because it was a fairer tax than a social contribution for employees, whereas the Right saw it as a means to lower social charges for employers; civil servants supported the CSG because it increased state control over social expenditure, while the employers and the CFDT argued that it would allow the social partners to preserve the “purity” of social insurance, non-​contributory benefits being financed by taxes such as the CSG. An important element in the acceptance of a new measure thus seems to be its capacity to aggregate different—​and even contradictory—​interests, based on contrasting interpretations of the consequences of implementing the new instrument. Structural changes in social policies were achieved through “ambiguous agreement” on new measures, rather than via a clear ideological orientation (Palier, 2005b). Finally, these types of changes were introduced at the margins and gradually extended, their expansion often leading to a change in their meaning within the system. They were first introduced to complement the system, but they gradually become the base for a new pillar in the social protection system. The introduction of new measures at the margins facilitated their acceptance by the major defenders of the core system, either because they did not feel concerned by them, because they were targeted at those least able to protest, or because they believed that these new measures would help them

 

70    Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier to defend the very nature of social insurance. However, the French experience shows that the growth of initially marginal new measures can lead to a paradigmatic change for the whole system.

The New Structures of the French Welfare State This accumulation of reforms created the conditions for a series of structural changes that have been implemented in three main fields of the French social protection system since the early 2000s: employment, pensions, and health care. In the early 1990s, governments started to change their policies in order to improve job creation and to develop “active labor market policies.” In 2000, some of the social partners (mainly employers and the CFDT, with fierce opposition by the CGT and FO) signed a new agreement reforming unemployment insurance, eliminating the degressivity of the unemployment insurance benefit (ex-​AUD) but creating a new individualized contract to ensure that each job-​seeker was accompanied in their search for work (the Plan d’aide et de retour à l’emploi—​PARE). The social partners who signed this new convention explicitly agreed on the idea that unemployment insurance benefits should not only compensate the loss of income, but should also encourage people to find a new job (Clegg, 2007). The 2009 merger of the national employment agency and the unemployment insurance fund, as well as the creation of RSA (see above), have taken France still further down this path toward activation. In pensions, the solutions that have been promoted to solve the future crisis of the PAYG system were not only based on changes in calculation rules, but also on creating new incentives so that people contribute and work longer, and so that people also rely on private savings in addition to the public scheme. Since the late 1990s, measures have been implemented to increase the activity rate of older workers and reverse the early exit trend of French “employment” policies. A new early retirement scheme was established in 2000, restricted to workers who had difficult working conditions. In 2003, the Raffarin government launched a second big pension reform, aimed, first, at aligning the situation of the public sector to that of the private one and, second, at expanding the length of the period of contribution required for all workers to receive the right to a full pension. A new system of incentives for people to retire as late as possible was also created: a bonus (surcote) will be given if people retire after the legal age, and a sanction (décote) applied in case of retirement before this age and in case of missing years of contributions. As the announcement of these measures created fierce opposition from trade unions, provoking many demonstrations, the government allowed workers who had worked more than 40 years before the age 60, and/​or who had begun to work at between 14 and 16 years old, to retire at 58. Further reforms also aimed to encourage the development of “saving” through tax exemptions. Two systems of voluntary saving were created in 2004; one individual (Plan d’épargne retraite populaire—PERP—which can be proposed to individuals by any bank or private insurer), and one to be organized within firms or by social partners at the sectoral level (Plan d’épargne retraite collectif—PERCO).

 

The French Welfare System    71 In both cases, the government was explicit that people should try to compensate the future decrease in compulsory PAYG pensions with their own savings. In health care the 2004 law on health insurance (“Douste Blazy reform”), which introduced some basic features typical of national health services within the French health insurance system, was made possible by the changes that had occurred progressively over the preceding years, notably the extension of health care to all (through the CMU) and the increasing role played by taxes instead of social contributions (through the CSG). The circulation of patients within the system has been streamlined: since 2004 French patients have had to choose a “treating doctor” (médecin traitant) who must be seen before any other specialist is consulted. The level of reimbursement by health insurance is much lower if one does not go through this gatekeeper. At the same time, the level of reimbursement of non-​acute/​non-​chronic care (mostly primary care) has gone down dramatically. While more than 70 percent of primary care costs were reimbursed in the early 1980s, today the figure is under 60 percent, part of the difference being covered by voluntary private health insurance. However, in the mid-2000s, only 84.9 percent of French people had complementary health insurance, while 7.4 percent were covered by the complementary universal sickness scheme (CMUC) and 7.7 percent had no complementary cover (IRDES, 2008).6 Moreover, though the reimbursement rates are based on the prices set by the compulsory health insurance system, many doctors actually overcharge their patients, with the extra cost being covered only by expensive mutuelles or private health insurances. Private health insurance is thus playing a bigger and bigger role in the primary care sector, which represents half of health-​care expenditure, as the basic health insurance retreats from its comprehensive coverage. The development of the French health system can thus been characterized by both étatisation and “rampant privatization” (Hassenteufel and Palier, 2008). As we will see in the next section, this reform trajectory has been strengthened since the 2008 crisis.

The French Welfare System since the 2008 Crisis At first France was relatively less affected than other member states by the economic and financial crisis, with a decline of only 2.5 percent in GDP in 2009; this was partly due to sizeable economic stabilizers and the resilience of household consumption. In 2010, the economy recovered and, overall, GDP growth came out at 1.5 percent. However, the economic crisis has substantially impacted France’s public finances. Due to the automatic stabilizers and discretionary fiscal stimulus, the public deficit rose from 3.4 percent of GDP in 2008 to 7.5 percent in 2009 and 7.1 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, the deficit of the French social security general regime grew strongly, from €10.2 billion in 2008 to €23.9 billion in 2010. Therefore, the French government had to

 

72    Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier negotiate a stability program with the European Commission, with the goal of a 3 percent deficit in 2013 and the return to budgetary equilibrium in 2017 (these terms would subsequently be renegotiated, as discussed in the following subsection). One of the pillars of this strategy is the reduction of the social security deficit. French authorities were afraid of being unable to refinance their debt on acceptable terms and of becoming the next Greece or Italy. Under these acute financial conditions French actors have been more willing to listen to the EU, partly because they may need its support should refinancing become difficult, and partly because the EU can help reassure international bond markets that France is on the right path, hence reassuring lenders about France’s capacity to repay. This shift in attitude became very visible with the passage in 2010 of a new pension reform, clearly linked to EU recommendations and financial market demands. In contrast to the previous pension reforms, which were negotiated with the trade unions and involved substantial give and take, the post-​2009 reforms have conceded almost nothing to the trade unions. The case of pension reform illustrates the significant shift in French government behavior since 2010, which now takes into account the EU’s recommendations more than it has done in the past.

Reforming under European Scrutiny: the Case of Pensions In compliance with the EU Commission’s spring 2009 Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP), President Sarkozy announced in June 2009 that the government would seek to reform statutory pension schemes in 2010, because of the sharp increase in the PAYG schemes’ deficits following the financial crisis. The government made it clear that the main aims of the reform were to deal with these deficits, to demonstrate to the EU France’s commitment to reduce its budget deficit, and to improve its credibility in financial markets. The government presented its draft bill in June 2010, which the parliament adopted in the fall. It included an increase in the minimum statutory retirement age from 60 to 62 years by 2018, an increase in the minimum age to receive a full pension without a penalty from 65 to 67 years by 2023, an increase in the minimum contribution period to 41.5 years by 2010, and the harmonization of contribution rates between public-​sector and private-​sector statutory schemes within ten years. The implementation of the reform was accelerated in fall 2011 because of the enduring deficit of the pension system (€8.9 billion in 2010). In November 2011, the government announced it would increase the minimum retirement age to 62 years by 2017 instead of 2018, as planned by the 2010 reform. This measure was taken after Moody’s announced at the end of October that it would reassess and possibly downgrade France’s credit rating. The government’s decision to accelerate the increase in the retirement age was thus clearly a reaction to this threat, although it did not prevent Standard and Poor’s from cutting France’s credit rating in January 2012 (Naczyk, Morel, and Palier, 2011). Broadly speaking, the 2010 pension reform and its acceleration in 2011 are in line with the goals set by the EU 2020

 

The French Welfare System    73 strategy, the 2011 Annual Growth Survey, and the country-​specific recommendations of the Commission and the Council published in July 2011. However, in July 2012, the new Socialist government made good on its promise to revert the retirement age back to 60 for those people who started working before the age of 20. It also extended the types of non-​working situations that are taken into account in the calculation of workers’ contribution record (two additional semesters of maternity leave and of unemployment). However, slow economic growth and the forecasts made by the Pension Orientation Council (Comité d’orientation des retraites—​COR) in December 2012 have again put pension reform at the top of the political agenda, despite the fact that this was not mentioned by François Hollande during his presidential election campaign. The COR announced that the deficit would grow to more than €18 billion in 2017 and more than €20 billion in 2020 if no new measures were taken. In the meantime, the Commission prepared a recommendation for putting France under an EDP again (adopted in spring 2013). Pension reform was explicitly encouraged by the EU. In its recommendations made in May 2013 (which were twice as long as those made one year before), the Commission insisted that the French government had to tackle the roots of the public finance deficit, in exchange for a two-​year delay (to 2015) of the return to the 3 percent of the GDP public deficit threshold. This would require reforming the pension system again, which considered unlikely to be financially sustainable after 2018. The content of the reform presented in spring 2013 was in phase with the recommendations. The main aspects were the increase in contributions (+0.3 percentage points for employees and employers from 2014 to 2017), the length of contribution (one trimester more every three years from 2020), and the decision to postpone by six months the revalorization of pensions. It also created a “hard working conditions account” (“compte pénibilité”) for workers with difficult working conditions, and included measures aimed at improving pension adequacy for women, young people, and workers employed in non-​standard forms of employment (Naczyk, Morel, and Palier, 2013). However, in November 2013 the European Commission criticized these reforms for not being ambitious enough, arguing that this was because the reforms maintained the legal retirement age and lacked measures to harmonize the different pension systems, especially the “special regimes” for public service employees. The reforms were, however, adopted in parliament on December 18, 2013, with the content planned by the government and with some adjustments made to obtain the votes of the more left-​leaning MPs. The case of the 2013 pension reform shows that French governments are still reluctant to explicitly accept and defer to EU constraints. This is not only a matter of political legitimization but is also because of the political necessity to negotiate welfare reforms with the social partners.

The Negotiation of French Welfare State Reforms The conflictual dimension of French welfare state reforms is often highlighted, especially in relation to pensions, with the strong demonstrations against the Plan Juppé in

 

74    Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier 1995, the 2003 Fillon Reform, and in 2007 against the special regime reform. From this point of view, the 2010 pension reform was no different. Most unions as well as the left-​ wing opposition were opposed to an increase in the retirement age, arguing that it would not solve the problem of the low employment rate of older workers. Unions also strongly criticized the increase in the minimum age for a full pension without a penalty, arguing that it would most strongly harm women, whose pensions are usually lower because of broken career records. Unions organized demonstrations in the spring and summer of 2010, and strikes commenced, continuing through the fall while parliament debated the bill. Because of the union mobilization, the government made some concessions at the beginning of September. It agreed to decrease from 20 percent to 10 percent the “rate of incapacity to work” that would allow workers employed in “hard working conditions” to retire at the age of 60 instead of 62. Before the reform bill progressed to the Senate, the government announced another concession, agreeing to maintain the right to a full pension without penalty at the age of 65 for around 130,000 mothers born before 1956. However, no concession was made on the flagship measure of the increase in the statutory minimum retirement age. In 2013 the French government criticized the EU’s recommendations and remarks, arguing that they would hamper negotiations with its social partners. The negotiation of pension reform was put forward strongly by the new government in line with the “social-​democratic” line favoured by the newly elected President Hollande: the reform was announced at the end of August 2013 after two days of consultations with all the social partners. This highlights the importance given to the negotiation process in domestic politics, not only for pensions but more generally for any welfare reforms. This way of doing things also applies to employment and health-​care policies. The most important negotiated change in employment policies, in line with European orientations, is the combination of flexibility and a new kind of protection. This turn to “flexicurity” was first tried before the crisis, under Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency, with the agreement on the securitization of professional career paths (sécurisation des parcours professionnels), which was negotiated by the social partners (but not signed by the CGT) and then enacted by law in 2008. During parliamentary debates the government and MPs from the right-​wing majority frequently used the expression “flexicurité à la française” in order to stress the translation of the Scandinavian model by the French policy actors (Caune, 2013: 454–​6). However, it had limited effects because it mostly concerned qualified workers. A new round of negotiations, launched by the Socialist government, took place during fall 2012. The national agreement (Accord National Interprofessionnel—​ANI) signed between the social partners (but not by the CGT) in January 2013 is clearly a deal brokering more flexibility (companies can more easily sign an agreement on salary or working time reductions in order to protect jobs and force their employees to change jobs in the same company; laying off workers is also facilitated) and new securities (complementary health insurance for all employees in the private sector, reloadable rights to unemployment benefits, higher taxation of short-​term contracts, a bottom level of weekly working hours for part-​time contracts, personal accounts for training). As in 2008, the social partners and political actors supporting the

 

The French Welfare System    75 agreement used the expression “flexicurité à la française” and mentioned the “German model” to legitimize it (Caune, 2013: 475–​9). Parliament passed the law enacting this agreement a few weeks later, despite strong opposition from the Communist Party and the Left Party, supported by the two trade unions who did not sign the agreement: the CGT and FO. At the end of 2013, it was followed by a new negotiation on professional training concluded by a national agreement between business associations and trade unions, creating the “individual training account” for a person’s whole professional career (including unemployment periods) and reforming the complex training system. In health care the cost-​containment policies adopted since 2004 were not able to prevent the rise of the health insurance deficit from €4.4 billion in 2008 to €10.6 billion in 2009 (Hassenteufel, 2012). This deep deficit, contributing as we have seen to the general deterioration of French public finances and to closer European scrutiny, led to the adoption of new measures in social security finance laws from 2010: mainly price reductions for drugs, biological and technical medical procedures (especially radiology), the standing rise in the proportion of generic prescriptions, and efficiency gains in hospitals and sickness funds. The amount of the annual increase in the health budget (ONDAM) has been progressively trimmed, from 3.6 percent in 2009 to 2.4 percent in 2013, and spending levels have been met since 2010. Also in the field of health care, negotiations between the national sickness fund organization (UNCAM) and the organizations representing doctors in the ambulatory sector have taken place since the crisis. Firstly they concerned the creation of a new payment system inspired by the British “payment-​for-​performance” system (Hassenteufel, 2012). In 2009, “contracts for enhancing doctors’ individual practice” (Contrats d’amélioration des pratiques individuelles, CAPI) were introduced on a voluntary basis. Doctors are paid €7 for completing 16 health objectives for each patient (among them: vaccination against influenza for persons of more than 65 years, screening breast cancer for women over 50 years, increased generic prescriptions, and better monitoring of chronic diseases). In the national agreement (convention médicale) signed in July 2011 between the UNCAM and the main doctors’ organizations, this payment-​for-​performance system was extended and its remuneration increased. In 2012, the new Socialist government put pressure on the UNCAM to negotiate with doctors’ organizations in order to regulate overbilling. The agreement signed in October 2012 creates a new contract (contrat d’accès aux soins) limiting the amount and proportion of overbilling for doctors (in exchange for lower social contributions). It is a voluntary contract, like the “Territory Health Pact” proposed by the Health Minister to attract doctors to under-​served areas. Thus the effectiveness of these new policy tools depends of the good will of doctors: successive Health ministers, since the failure of the implementation of the Juppé Plan at the end of the 1990s, are reluctant to confront doctors’ organizations directly and therefore avoid the use of more constraining policy tools. A last illustration of the importance of national negotiations is that concerning the “responsibility pact” announced by Hollande in January 2014 based on the reduction of labor costs for companies (by reducing social contributions, especially those aimed at financing family policy) in order to boost competitiveness, in exchange for job

 

76    Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier creation, and financed by €50 billion cuts in public spending over three years. In March 2014 three trade unions and two business associations agreed to open negotiations on the job-​creation objectives in every branch and to participate in a tripartite observation program on the implementation of the Pact, which is the core element of economic policy and public finance strategy as presented to the EC by the new Prime Minister Manuel Valls in spring 2014. The crisis has also exacerbated the insufficient utilization of labor and the structural weaknesses of the French labor market. The level of unemployment, already high in 2008, rose from 7.8 percent that year to 9.7 percent in 2010, and has been above 10 percent since 2012 (Eurostat). The issue of unemployment is closely related to the debate fostered by the European Commission on the lack of competitiveness of the French economy. The clear priority given to the reduction of labor costs by French governments since the crisis follows the policy strategy which started in the 1990s, when France made lowering “social charges” a primary objective of its employment policies. In 2013, a tax credit for competitiveness and employment (crédit impôt compétivité emploi—​CICE) corresponding to a lowering of social contributions paid by all companies was introduced. It is mostly financed by an increase in the VAT level (+0.4 points for the normal rate; +3 points for the intermediary rate). In 2014 new measures lowering employers’ social contributions were also adopted.

Conclusion The crisis has not entailed a major shift in French welfare policies: social protection expenditure has continued to grow since 2008 and its structure has not significantly changed. Two main reasons can be put forward to explain why no major changes have occurred during the crisis. The first is that the major shifts had already happened before the crisis (activation in employment policies; strengthening of the state at the institutional level; cost containment in health care; adaptation of the pension system to demographic evolutions; new benefits for dependent, disabled, and poor persons; more financing by taxes, etc.) and created a separation of two “worlds of welfare” (Palier, 2010) within the French social protection system. In the world of social insurance (mainly old-​age and unemployment insurance), professional solidarity is central and benefits are still acquired through work. However, employees are being asked to pay higher levels of contributions than before to obtain benefits. The second world of welfare is that of national solidarity. It entails health care, family benefits, and policies aimed at fighting social exclusion. Here, the benefits can be either universal or means tested, but they are financed out of taxation and the state plays a more important role than before. The second reason is that there is no real discussion of a paradigm shift or of a structural reorientation of the French welfare state. Governmental actors are muddling through the crisis, under strong financial constraints7 and European scrutiny. The

 

The French Welfare System    77 Finance Ministry has become a stronger actor in the design of welfare policy (indeed it was so even before the crisis: see Hassenteufel, 2012), and is on the frontline of negotiations with the European Commission. However, reforms need to be negotiated with many other actors, especially in a context of severe decline in the legitimacy of political actors and institutions.

Notes 1. There is a presentation of the content of all these plans in Palier, 2005a, Appendix 1. 2. In 1980, 76.5 percent of the health expenditure paid by the insured person was reimbursed by the basic social insurance funds, dropping to 74 percent in 1990 and 73.9 percent in 1995. 3. Source: Statistics from the Ministry of Social Affairs: SESI (various years). Comptes de la protection sociale. 4. UNCAM—​Union nationale des caisses d’assurance maladie. 5. Agence régionale de santé. 6. The remaining ones are to be found among low-​income groups. Ten percent of workers and employees of small companies do not have complementary health insurance and 22 percent of the poorest do not have such insurance, whereas the rate is at 7.7 percent for the whole population. Observatoire des inégalités. 7. In 2011 the percentage of GDP expenditure on social protection was 33.6 percent, far above the EU average (29 percent) (Eurostat). In 2013 the social security deficit was still €12.5 billion, but has decreased since the 2010 level of €23.9 billion.

References Bichot, J. (1997). Les politiques sociales en France au 20ème siècle. Paris: Armand Colin. Bonoli, G. (1997). “Pension Politics in France: Patterns of co-​operation and Conflict in two recent reforms,” West European Politics, 20(4): 111–​24. Bonoli, G. and Palier, B. (1996). “Reclaiming Welfare: The Politics of Social Protection Reform in France,” Southern European Society and Politics, 1(3): 240–​59. Bonoli, G. and Palier, B. (1998). “Changing the politics of social programmes:  Innovative change in British and French welfare reforms,” Journal of European Social Policy, 8(4): 317–​30. Caune, H. (2013). Les États providence sont aussi des États membres. Comparaison des logiques nationales de l’européanisation des politiques de l’emploi en France et au Portugal. PhD thesis, Sciences Po, Paris. Clegg, D. (2007). “Continental Drift:  On Unemployment Policy Change in Bismarckian Welfare States,” Social Policy and Administration, 41(6): 597–​617. Daniel, C. and Tuchszirer, C. (1999). L’État face aux chômeurs, l’indemnisation du chômage de 1884 à nos jours. Paris: Flammarion. DARES (1996). 40 ans de politiques d’emploi. Paris: La documentation française. DREES (various years). “Les bénéficiaires du RMI,” Etudes et Résultats. Esping-​Andersen, G. (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Esping-​Andersen, G. (1996). “Welfare States without Work: the Impasse of Labour Shedding and Familialism in Continental European Social Policy,” in G. Esping-​Andersen (ed.) Welfare States in Transition. National Adaptations in Global Economies. London: Sage.

 

78    Patrick Hassenteufel and Bruno Palier Genieys, W. and Hassenteufel, P. (2001). “Entre les politiques publiques et la politique: l’émergence d’une « élite du Welfare »?” Revue française des affaires sociales, 2001(4): 41–​50. Genieys, W. and Hassenteufel, P. (2015). “The shaping of New State Elites:  Healthcare Policymaking in France Since 1981,” Comparative Politics, 47(3): 280–​95. Hall, P. A. (1986). Governing the Economy: the politics of state intervention in Britain and France. New York: Oxford University Press. Hall, P. A. (1993). “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain,” Comparative Politics, 25(3): 275–​96. Hassenteufel, P. and Palier, B. (2008). “Comparing Health Insurance Reforms in Bismarckian Countries: Towards Neo-​Bismarckian Health Care States?” Social Policy and Administration, 41(6): 574–​96. Hassenteufel, P. (2012). “La Sécurité sociale entre ruptures affichées et transformations silencieuses,” in J. De Maillard, and Y. Surel (eds) Les politiques publiques sous Sarkozy. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 341–​60 IRDES (2008). “L’Enquête Santé Protection Sociale 2006,” Questions d’économie de la santé, 131. L’état de la France (2000–​2001). Paris: La Découverte. Levy, J. (2005). “Redeploying the State: Liberalization and Social Policy in France,” in K. Thelen, W. Streeck (eds) Beyond Continuity, Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Merrien, F.-​ X. (1990). “État et politiques sociales:  contribution à une théorie ‘néo-​ institutionnaliste,” Sociologie du Travail, 32(3): 267–​94. Naczyk, M., Morel, N., and Palier, B. (2011). “Annual national report 2011: Pensions, Health care and Long-​term care France,” ASISP (Assessing the socio-​economic impact of social reforms) . Naczyk, M., Morel, N. and Palier, B. (2013). “Country document 2013: Pensions, Health care and Long-​term care France,” ASISP (Assessing the socio-​economic impact of social reforms) . Palier, B. (2005a). Gouverner la sécurité sociale: Les réformes du système français de protection sociale depuis 1945. Paris: Presses universitaires de France (2nd edn). Palier, B. (2005b). “Ambiguous Agreement, Cumulative Change:  French Social Policy in the 1990s,” in K. Thelen and W. Streeck (eds) Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Palier, B. (2010). “The Dualizations of the French Welfare System,” in B. Palier (ed.) A long Goodbye to Bismarck? The Politics of Welfare reforms in Continental Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 73–​100. Paugam, S. (1993). La société française et ses pauvres. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

 

Pa rt I I

L A RG E -​S C A L E P RO C E S SE S

 

 

Chapter 5

Ide ntit y, Cult u re , a nd P oliti c s the other and the self in France Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-​D ublet

“The social sciences and humanities have surrendered to the word ‘identity’ […]. [T]his has both intellectual and political costs,” wrote Roger Brubaker and Frederick Cooper (2000: 1). They argued, “identity tends to mean too much (when understood in a strong sense), too little (when understood in a weak sense) or nothing at all (because of its sheer ambiguity).” (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000). Ambiguous yet proliferous, the concept of identity has taken an important place in the analysis of individuals, groups, and nations. Individuals assert themselves within a group and/​or without, and develop a consciousness of belonging. Groups construct boundaries, build solidarities, and define interest where identity becomes a strategy for action. Nations share historical references to elaborate a narrative that is at the core of the construction of an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1983). Studies on race, ethnicity, gender, communities, nations, and nationalism all focus on identities that are “essentialized,” constructed, institutionalized, and negotiated for political purposes. The arguments are framed within the so-​called “identity politics” that has given legitimacy to the recognition and representation of all fragments of identities emerging and engaging a collective action in the public sphere (Taylor, 1992). In the 1960s and 1970s, American social sciences related the question of identity to race and ethnicity. European social sciences started to use the same terms in the 1980s with regard to the settlement of postcolonial and post-​war migrants. The use of the term “identity” has been a source of controversy, sometimes spawning conflicts and sometimes contributing to them. Its evolution has led to comparative sociology and politics, where the content of the concept changes from one society to the other according to expressed ideologies, political traditions, and social realities. French political and sociological tradition, for example, has rejected group identity that is associated with

 

82    Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet the recognition of ethnic groups as a notion that conflicts with the universalist understanding of the French nation state. The republican principle excludes racial and ethnic definition of citizens; instead the state and its institutions become the locus of analysis of social relations. Inspired by the Durkheimian tradition of “social link”—​whether inter-​ethnic, inter-​racial, or inter-​religious—​all social relations are analyzed through the prism of state institutions (Durkheim, 1915). Such an approach has privileged issues pertaining to national identity and state formation over particular identities and group mobilizations. Nevertheless, recent studies in France have been influenced by the rich development of the literature on identity politics abroad and discuss concepts such as minority, community, and ethnicity. It is now obvious that beyond the representative case of a universalist state, France offers a more complex picture of a country with different identities—​gender, ethnic, religious, linguistic—​expressed in the public sphere and mobilized for recognition before the state. They challenge the unitarian character of the nation, which according to Weber is the only political community born of modernity. This chapter will focus on how the concept of “identity” has been settled in French social sciences over time and circumstance, and how it has affected the French vocabulary. After a selective review of the general literature on the concept of identity, and the different theoretical and methodological approaches used in comparative perspective, the second section will turn to the French case. It will show how the term “identity” has been associated with the concepts of ethnicity, minority, and community, with reference to culture, religion, and nationality. It will show how the question of identity has been crystallized on Islam, the religion of the majority of postcolonial migrants, and how mobilization of Muslims for public recognition has challenged the established and unquestioned French secularism (laïcité) along lines of citizenship and nationhood. It will also highlight how the rise of the National Front—​the French extreme-​right party—​ has contributed to shape the debate on identity, with “national identity” on one hand, and the identity of the “Other” on the other hand. Finally, the third section of this chapter will focus on transnational mobilization forces in Europe and how they impact on the agenda of future studies of identities in France. It will show how this new dynamic has generated new power relations between states and identities beyond borders. Such an evolution raises the question of future studies on identities creating different paradigms in the context of globalization and challenging studies on multiculturalism and “identity politics,” where previous study had been limited to democratic nation states.

The Question of Identity Disciplinary boundaries (psychology, anthropology, political sciences, and sociology) and methodological approaches compete in the study of identity. Scholars note that in the 1950s the psychologist Erik Erikson set the ground for the study of “identity” in terms of “identity crises,” and referred to individual identification with the social and

 

Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France    83 cultural environment, setting therefore the ground for the understanding of identity in terms of collective identity. This concept was readily adopted by social scientists, for it provides a useful frame with which to analyze the assertion of individual identity in social and political realms. Interpretation varies, however, on how this process of identity formation occurs in different national contexts.

Identity Formation Almost all studies emphasize the constructivist approach to identity, which, according to Brubaker and Cooper, is “an attempt to soften the term, to acquit it of the charge of ‘essentialism’, by stipulating that identities are constructed, fluid and multiple” (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000: 1). As a matter of fact, while essentialists contend that groups have natural origins and are organized around a common language and a set of customs and beliefs, constructivists relate identity to a strategy that is developed in group formation and collective action. With regard to group identity, Harold R. Isaacs defines “basic group identity” as an identity with “primordial affinities and attachments,” and which consists “of the readymade set of endowments and identifications which every individual shares with others from the moment of birth by the chance of the family into which he is born at that given time in that given place” (Isaacs, 1975: 31). Along with Max Weber’s traditional definition of ethnicity that stresses the idea of a homogeneous group identity based on the belief in shared descent and culture (Weber, 1976), Isaacs asserts that nationality, language, religion, and value system are part of this basic group identity, which he applies to ethnic groups in general (Isaacs, 1975: 32). Groups (whether ethnic or religious) differentiate themselves from the larger society by their language, culture, religion, or history. Just as nations are historical constructions based on the idea of a common history, or religious groups gather around a common belief, ethnic groups use a primordial vocabulary bound around a common narrative. Such a narrative of identity helps resolve ambiguities and contradictions that can occur with social changes and the transformation of societies (Martin, 2010). As Eric Hobsbawm puts it, “the past is an essential element, perhaps the essential element in ideologies. If there is no suitable past, it can be invented. Indeed, in the nature of things, there is usually no suitable past, because the phenomenon these ideologies claim is not ancient or eternal, but historically novel.” This approach gives a pre-​eminent role to collective memory and the selection of historical elements that are essential to create a common narrative for a group (Halbwachs, 1992). Anthropologist Fredrik Barth has introduced the concept of boundaries to analyze differences between cultures and group identities. He argues that boundaries persist despite the mobility of individuals and “changing participation and membership”(Barth, 1969). For him the organization of co-​ethnics around a shared identity results from their will to differentiate themselves from others. He laid the emphasis on group relations, and highlighted the selective dimension of identity formation. However, Herbert Gans with the notion of “symbolic ethnicity” (Gans, 1979) or Mary C. Waters who developed

 

84    Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet the concept of “ethnic options” (Waters, 1990) showed that boundaries are themselves the result of social interactions, practices, and discourses (see e.g. Zolberg and Woon, 1999). They are, therefore, in perpetual formation and transformation. Recent studies show moreover that group boundaries are also mobile and fluid, and constitute just one element of differentiation among groups’ identities that varies in time and space. Identities that are defined within group boundaries are redefined and affirmed in action and interaction, and change with the cultural, social, and political environment. So the concept of identity is a dynamic one. These identities that confront each other and affirm themselves are negotiated as well; the more so as they are expressed in terms of interest and rights (Kastoryano, 2002). Even nations take account of the expectations of social groups within their national boundaries. They are in competition with other nations and need to anticipate the process of globalization, as well as the new challenges they may face within their borders.

Identity Politics Identities are also shaped through mobilization and the expression of interest in connection with the changing environment. In particular, the Civil Rights movement in the United States opened new avenues for political strategies. The African-​American movement, and subsequently other ethnic movements for which it served as a template, was concerned with an assertion of individual identity that was readily, if facilely, transposed to the group level. Since then, attention to ethnicity in the public space and in politics has affected a large part of populations of every cultural, religious, and racial origin (Glazer, 1983). The abundant literature on the subject emphasizes the link between religion, nationality, race, and class (Banton, 1977; Rex, 1986; Smith, 1986), and some researchers go as far as to define ethnicity as the combination of these elements. Identities in this perspective are a resource for political mobilization. Social demands such as class interest for example have become associated with culture or identity, and have generated new divisions in societies, where ethnicity can replace class interest and membership (May, 2011). Along the same lines, the raising of a common women’s consciousness was instrumental in shaping the 1970s Women’s Liberation movement in the United States and in France. As argued by Mazur, consciousness-​raising groups were crucial in creating a unified voice over women’s rights in the French workplace (Mazur, 1995). This switch from social or class-​based to cultural and ethnic demands was the focus of a special issue of Social Research in 1985. Articles questioned the basis for “New Theoretical Paradigms and Contemporary Social Movements” based on the relationship between identity and political strategy for action (Cohen, 1985). At stake were the new cleavages in society as a source of mobilization and claims-​making. Claims for equality were expressed in terms of a struggle against racial discrimination and the social deprivation of minorities. Identity can therefore be an “organizing principle” of great “strategic efficacy” (Glazer and Moynihan, 1975: 15); a “political idea” and a “mobilizing principle” to advance social group interests (Glazer and Moynihan, 1975: 20). It is

 

Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France    85 justified by the collective exclusion experienced by marginalized groups who fight for equality (Kastoryano and Schader, 2014). Research on identity-​based mobilization in Europe first concentrated on racism and exclusion (social, cultural, and economic), in the 1980s. Awareness of differences transforms identity into a political act when it is accompanied by demands for state recognition (Kastoryano, 2002). The mobilization of postcolonial minorities and labor migrants on identity issues, however, brought a new direction in social sciences. In a way comparable to the development of the respective discourses in the United States, “race” and “ethnicity” became important categories for the analysis of (post-​migration) minority mobilization in Europe.

Discovering Identities in France Research on identity formation in France emphasizes mainly the social and economic status of individuals and groups. Family, leisure, and the workplace are considered places of socialization and vectors of identity (Dubar, 2000). The quantitative “Life Story” survey (Economie et Statistique, 2006) showed that factors of identification vary over time and across gender, and social class. The younger they are, the more likely French people are to identify with their group of friends; the older they become and the higher professional status they acquire, the more likely they are to cite their job as a major factor of identification (Garner, Méda, and Sénik, 2006). As for gender and family situation, it was shown that women with children are more likely to identify with their situation in their family than either single women or even men with children (Housseaux, 2003). However, quantitative research also demonstrated that respondents who are immigrants or descendants of immigrants are more likely to declare their ethnic origin, rather than their professional or leisure activities, as constitutive of their identity (Simon and Tiberj, 2012). Marked by the immigration history of the country as well as its dominant national ideology, research focusing on identity and politicization in France flourished in the 1980s with the presence of immigrants and their expression of claims in the public arena. Immigrants and the cultural processes (acculturation, assimilation, and integration) that they are engaged in have been considered a major locus in which to study identity since the 1980s. Some scholars, such as Carmel Camilleri, have adopted an integration frame, in the tradition of the Chicago School (Park and Burgess, 1921), to study the process of acculturation from a qualitative perspective (Camilleri, 1990). Others, such as Abdelmalek Sayad, have followed Bourdieu’s distinction between the dominant and the dominated, and have argued that the process of identity formation among immigrants can only be understood as operating within the logic of domination: immigrants are refused complete access to national identity (Sayad, 2004). More recent studies have moved beyond such a linear approach, and have benefitted from the research on second-​generation immigrants developed in the United

 

86    Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet States with regards to social mobility and integration (Portes and Rumbaut, 2001). In France, a quantitative approach to identity formation has developed since the 2000s, and surveys have focused on the descendants of immigrants with regard to their identities. Tiberj and Brouard’s research has revealed that descendants of North African and Turkish immigrants identify themselves with values such as democracy and secularism, just like the French youth born of French parents (2011). Moreover, the Trajectory and Origin survey (Enquête Trajectoires et Origines, 2008) demonstrated that French citizens of immigrant descent express their multiple belongings in ways that refer to the “hyphenated identities” developed in the United States. However, the survey shows also that descendants of immigrants feel that the rest of the society does not always see them as French, or that they reject the idea of multiple identities (Simon and Tiberj, 2012). Identity formation in this context is closely linked to the evolution of French society; that is, the politicization of differences in the early 1980s and the subsequent emergence of “otherness” with regard to Islam.

The Politics of Difference French society at the turn of the 1980s had been redefined as multicultural, multiracial, and multi-​confessional. The use of these terms represented an initial acceptance that France was de facto a pluralistic society. This de facto acknowledgment even became a political argument when the Socialist party, after its 1981 election, legitimized a politics of difference. Government measures promoting social integration were joined to discourses about “recognition” of immigrant culture (Escafré-​Dublet, 2014). Identity has become the focus of collective interests. Claims were made for institutional representation based on cultural and/​or religious particularities. In 1981, the Socialist government gave associations of foreigners the right to organize on the same basis as French associations; that is, via a simple declaration to the Interior Ministry. This led to the massive institutionalization of collective identities through voluntary organizations and constituted a turning point in the study of identity politics in France. The differentialist parenthesis was controversial and short-​lived, however. Faced with the National Front, which campaigned against foreigners, assigning responsibility for “French ills” to immigration and immigrants and presenting them as a threat to society and French identity (Taguieff, 1988), the state’s strategy has been to turn to a “Republican consensus” (Weil, 1992): a universalist discourse focused on the fight against racism. Research has shown that through immigrant-​based associations the state has given instructions for handling differences in a republican state: it is necessary to integrate different identities in the ideological and institutional framework (Kastoryano, 2002). Thus, political measures have added an identity element to traditional practices, leading to a restructuring of society that transforms social demands into cultural or identity demands, bringing Islam, the religion of the large majority of postcolonial migrants, to the core of negotiations for legitimacy and recognition (Kastoryano, 2002).

 

Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France    87

Islam: The Identity of the “Other” Even though Islam is defined by immigrants themselves in terms of practice, tradition, and moral values, it is perceived as a core difference in terms of identity, both by immigrants and public authorities.1 This constitutes a step toward the construction and recognition of an ethnic group because it generates an “awareness of belonging.” This awareness found an institutional basis with the liberalization of the law allowing foreigners to create their own voluntary associations mentioned above. Spontaneous gatherings of immigrants based on interpersonal relations in areas of concentrated settlement therefore found an institutional and formal structure through these associations, and, for some of them, have become de facto identity organizations. Since the formation of these associations, cultural traits have been reinvented and reaffirmed. While in the 1960s or 1970s research on immigrants focused on their interests in terms of class (Sayad, 2004), in the 1980s their mobilization around culture, and/​ or religion, and/​or “origin” led to studies on the politics of recognition (Taylor, 1992). Associations have then become a refuge, sometimes even a sanctuary, where culture, religion, ethnicity, and national origins have been reinterpreted, have developed, and have taken root (Kastoryano, 2002). For activists, identity can be an element structuring their community in order to compete for state resources. For scholars, participation in voluntary organizations has been a topic of research for the empirical evidence that it provides (Hamidi, 2003). With the proliferation of associations in the 1980s, Islam became an agent in the discourse of action or reaction. Even the so-​called secular (laic and cultural) associations integrated into their activities the celebration of Islamic holidays and practices, like Ramadan and animal sacrifice. Although the state officially does not support religious organizations, state funding for public service and community groups that incorporated Islamic identity and culture into their activities indirectly gave greater public value to religious organizations in the eyes of the Muslim population. From comprising only one component of culture in early secular associations, Islam has now come to signify culture in its entirety and has become another way of “reappropriating” identity (Kastoryano, 2002). Islam as an identity has crystallized around the so-​ called “headscarf affair” (Rochefort, 2002). The issue first shook French society in November 1989, when the head of a French secondary school decided to exclude three veiled pupils on the ground that they infringed the principle of laïcité (French secularism). The event unleashed a flood of commentary on identity: the identity of immigrants on one hand, and that of the nation on the other. It laid the emphasis on Islam and its purported incompatibility with the secular principles of French society. Moreover, the debate instrumentalized laïcité to illustrate the distance between France and other secular Western states (Pena-​ Ruiz, 1999). Public opinion and public authorities were torn between defensive republicanism and a pluralistic liberalism. The political class and a number of intellectuals took it upon themselves to remind society of the basic principles of the republic; principles

 

88    Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet that constitute the “core of a national identity” and the “way of life” for immigrants in a laïc (secular) country. The reaction to the Muslim headscarf prompted a controversial debate and several attempts to redefine laïcité. Presented as a republican principle, it has undergone several interpretations since November 1989 without reaching any fixed version, except that it has definitely become France’s “official religion” (Kastoryano, 2005). A topic of debates in the National Assembly, it is discussed in formal or informal meetings among anti-​ racist activists, intellectuals, and shapers of public opinion. The scope of the polemic is similar to that of the church against the secular school established by Jules Ferry. In fact, it fills the role of foil played by Catholicism in the definition of laïcité in the early twentieth century, and of its function and ideology in the School (Deloye, 1996). Today, Islam is at the core of the redefinition of laïcité, and serves as its mirror. Organizations on one hand, and intellectuals on the other, have mobilized public opinion to reject the political stigmatization of Islam. They have reacted to a succession of political decisions in France targeting Islam through the enforcement of laïcité: the 2004 law banning religious signs in schools, and the 2010 law banning the covering of one’s face in public space. Even though the 2010 law was based on the principle of security in public spaces and not the principle of laïcité, the law aims at preventing the wearing of the full veil (the niqab). Finally, in October 2011, Interior Minister Claude Guéant forbade the practice of praying in the streets, under the justification that it goes against the principle of laïcité. In a dialectical relationship, while the political and media debate attempted to portray Islam as incompatible with republican values, individuals defending Muslims’ rights reasserted Muslims’ commitment to these values and articulated a claim for equality and religious freedom (Kastoryano and Escafré-​Dublet, 2012). In doing so, they reaffirm and assert a Muslim identity that is compatible with the French understanding of laïcité. As some authors have highlighted, the widespread usage of the newly “discovered” categories of “Muslim” and “Islam” may bear the danger of artificially contributing to the creation or transformation of the social field which is to be analyzed—​in the worst case ascribing a religious identity to groups and individuals who might not even have considered themselves as Muslims before (Tezcan, 2007). In France those identified as Muslims (although they may not identify themselves as such) are questioned on their understanding of the value of laïcité. The 2006 survey on French people of North African and Turkish descent was conducted in this context and demonstrated that they are more secular than most people who identified as Muslims in Europe (Brouard and Tiberj, 2011). Although the emergence of Islam as a communal identity in the public arena is the result of state politics, public debates, and controversies, official rhetoric still stresses the “indivisibility” of the republic, and that culture, religion, and identity belong to the private sphere (Amselle, 1996). Davidson shows that the relationship between France and Muslims as developed throughout the complicated colonial history continues today. She brings important analysis to the understanding of Islam in France, and of France in dealing with Islam; the paradoxes, ambiguities, and confused boundaries between “race” (culture) and “religion” (Davidson, 2012).

 

Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France    89 These contradictions between discourse and action, rhetoric, and practice render the study of identity formation particularly complex: the recognition of difference and an ethnicization of politics are explicit in French contemporary public space, contradicting the official collection of data (Chebel d’Appolonia, 2002).

The Census Categories and Identity Identity serves to differentiate, and an important tool for that is the production of official statistics through censuses. Demographers remind us that, since 1881, the French census has recorded nationality and has classified the whole population according to three categories: French by birth; French by acquisition (naturalized French); and foreigners. Thus, once a foreigner has naturalized, he or she moves into the column of “French by acquisition” (that is, naturalization) and his or her children born on French soil are declared “French by birth.” The interest in census categories—​a support for quantitative research—​has been imported to French studies on immigration from the United States. In France, unlike in the American census which has tried to highlight ethnic ancestry since 1880, the national and ethnic origin of citizens has not appeared in official documents. Only the category of “French” appears, which reflects the desire not to make a distinction among citizens. Retaining the memory of origins would be equal to a denial of citizenship (Silberman, 1992: 116). Consequently there is no statistical visibility of any ethnic ancestry in the French census, which therefore limits quantitative research on the issue. In the official census of 1990, however, a new category of “previous nationality” for naturalized French citizens was introduced into the presentation of statistics (INSEE, 1992). Moreover, the census of 1999 distinguished between “immigrant population” and “foreign population.” The “immigrant population” is composed of those foreign born who may or may not have acquired French nationality. Their nationality at birth was indicated, which suggests the persistence of an ethnic identity separate from that of the majority (INSEE, 1999). This creates an “immigrant identity,” whereby the country of birth is a permanent marker. It is an ambiguous category: it takes nationality as the main factor of identification2 while at the same time clearly bypassing the naturalization process, since the immigrant group identified by the census may include individuals who have acquired French nationality. The “former nationality” operates as an ethnic marker. The term “ethnicity” was not adopted by social scientists at the time; instead they talked about the “origin” of the individual to highlight that it relates to the past (Simon, 1998). The possibility to record information on the origin of the individual stirred up an important debate on the condition to recognize an identity other than the national one; the “immigrant identity.” Demographer Michèle Tribalat conducted a survey that intended to respond to the inadequacy of official censuses in analyzing immigration and integration. According to her, it was necessary to free social sciences from the “taboo of origins” (Tribalat, 1995). In her survey, she referred to children of immigrants as individuals “of foreign origin,” and she added: “if we want to follow the future of immigrants

 

90    Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet and their children, we should stop referring to nationality” (Tribalat, 1995). She went on to challenge official census categories by including the categories of “ethnic belonging” and “ethnic origin,” based on the mother tongue of immigrants and their children. Another demographer, Hervé Le Bras, reacted with virulence to Michèle Tribalat in his book entitled “The Evil of Origins” (Le Bras, 1998). According to him, the use of the word “origin” in demographic classification is a source of racial discrimination. He sees in this vocabulary an assessment of the population which consists of a “convergence between the new direction that French demography has taken and the ideology of the extreme Right with regard to immigrant population.” Such a categorization of generations of immigrants creates another category called “Français de souche” (French of French stock), which according to Hervé Le Bras becomes a way to “ethnicize French nationalism by transforming the French population into an ethnic group”(Le Bras, 1998: 194). To acknowledge or to stigmatize: that is the question. To acknowledge, argues Patrick Simon, another demographer, has become a scientific requirement. According to him, the statistical invisibility of “visible minorities” ends up concealing discriminations, whereas a reference to “origins” helps define a social phenomenon such as the experience of discrimination and the reality of a multicultural society. Moreover, the “ignorance” of the level of discrimination raises the problem of political action (Simon, 2008). In other words, to acknowledge makes action possible. The debate was revived in 2008 when a survey on first-​and second-​generation immigrant integration in French society was launched and the possibility to record self-​identified skin color was discussed (Sabbagh and Peers, 2008). After pleading their case in front of the Constitutional Court, the investigators were only able to record nationality-​based origin, which consolidated the understanding of identity in France in terms of nationality or dual nationality (Beauchemin et al., 2010).

National Identity The political and media debate on identity in France is mostly dictated by considerations over national identity, and brought the question of nationhood with regard to citizenship laws—​more precisely the automatic access to French nationality of children born to foreign parents—​into public debate. It became the locus of juridical, historical, and political research on national identity and nationhood, with a specific focus on the second generation (Commission de la nationalité, 1988). Research on second-​generation immigrants in relation to national identity demonstrated that it is greatly hindered by the debate on national identity (Ribert, 2006). Escafré-​Dublet and Simon analyzed the consequences of the official debate on national identity launched by the Interior Ministry in 2011 and argued that an increased interpretation of citizenship in terms of national identity contributes to a definition of “Frenchness” that is ethnic—​or even racial—​rather than strictly civic (Husson and Jourdain, 2014: 63–​80). Based on interviews with second-​generation immigrants, their

 

Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France    91 research showed that descendants of immigrants feel French, but their immigrant background—​should it be visible through their name or their phenotype—​singles them out from the rest of society. It showed that they feel French, but in their daily interaction they may experience a denial of their Frenchness when people recall their foreign ancestry, which amounts to refusing them recognition of the various ways of being French. Along this line, works conducted by American scholars on France have contributed to this perspective, as reflected in Beaman’s work on French society and the difficulty it has considering children of immigrants as full-​fledged French (Beaman, 2015). Moreover, children of immigrants are often suspected of a lack of loyalty to French identity. The whistling over the French national anthem during the Algeria vs. France soccer game in 2001 is referred to as an example of this. It even prompted a political debate around the possibility of banning dual citizenship in 2011. However, quantitative surveys show that children of immigrants feel predominantly French, and if they also hold the nationality of their parents’ country of origin they do not see these as conflicting with one another (Simon and Tiberj, 2012). It is rather the constant debates on national identity that foster a sense of “otherness.” Finally, a large literature has sought to trace the roots of this ethnic definition of Frenchness in the colonial period. Colonialism provided the basis for a juridical categorization of “race,” mainly in terms of skin colors: “black and white.” This translated into social science terminology as categories of belonging. “Race” or “ethnicity” was also superimposed on linguistic communities as political, sociological, and demographic classifications in colonial Algeria. Ethnicity-​designated “local” populations and their “ethnic” communities were also classified by regional characteristics, language, and customs. French social scientists in dialogue with foreign historians of France have argued for an understanding of identities in the French context that is related to the empire (Shepard, 2006). Saada has demonstrated how the definition of French citizenship involved a process of boundary-​drawing according to ethnic and racial lines (Saada, 2003). Blévis showed that the low number of cases of colonial subjects who were able to naturalize to French citizenship highlights this ethnic preconception anchored in the law (Blévis, 2004). From 1889 to 1962, only 10,000 Algerian Muslims were able to acquire French citizenship, which shows that the inclusion of colonial populations in the French empire as “nationals” did not mean they were fully equal to French citizens (Weil, 2004: 367). Moreover, this process of boundary-​drawing that developed in the empire was transferred from the colonies to the metropole when defining the conditions for naturalization in the post-​war period (Hajjat, 2012). Assimilation, as a condition of acquiring French nationality, was defined in terms of French language and manners, which departs from a strict civic understanding of citizenship. The French colonial past and the necessity to regulate the French citizenship therefore deeply influenced French law and contributed to the definition of “identity boundaries.” In practice, this is still very much the experience conveyed through the naturalization process; to receive French nationality is something that applicants consider a reward for their efforts to learn the language and integrate in French society (Mazouz, 2012).

 

92    Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet

Globalization and Transnational Identities While identities are politicized in interaction with states, and institutions shape political participation in national contexts, such new developments emphasize transnational identification, which leads to identity claims that are not limited to one state. By definition, transnationalism portrays the bonds of solidarity based on an identity—​national, religious, linguistic, or regional—​across national borders. The concept is in large part the result of the development of means of communication, the appearance of large regional groups, and the increased importance of supranational institutions that facilitate their administration. Empirical studies focus on ethnic groups settled in different national societies, but sharing common cultural references and/​or experiences, expanding their solidarities beyond state boundaries. The groups build networks; some formal, some informal, some based on identity, some on interest, and some often on both, like networks of professional corporations that cross state boundaries. Their scope is broad and expansive with regard to nationality, ethnicity, religious identity, and even denominations. They tend to affect the agenda for future studies on identities in France, as they did for social sciences in general. It would be almost impossible to cite all the literature on the phenomenon of transnationalism since the 1990s. It is important to note that it is consistent on the fact that the transnational community is constructed out of solidarity networks across national borders from populations displaying a communal identity, whether it be religious, national, regional, or ethnic.3 The economic networks which govern the transfer of funds and goods and the associative networks, across which cultural activities, ideologies, and ideas circulate between country of origin and country of immigration claiming the universality of rights, constitute—​either together or separately—​the underpinnings of solidarity and transnational communities. In France, research on transnationalism has referred to the organization of actors and institutions beyond borders, with an emphasis on their economic activities (such as the importance of remittances and their impact on the economic development of the home country (Lacroix, 2005; Geisser, 2000). Literature on mobilization has also found a new ground in transnationalism, with a focus on the analysis of participation beyond borders raising the questions of solidarity, belonging, and citizenship. In 1994 a special issue of Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales focused on the mobilization of migrants from a national to a transnational level in order to detect solidarities within the European Union. Bringing together migrants’ integration and mobilization on a national level, the issue challenges the comparative approach when national contexts become extraterritorial (Kastoryano, 1994). Some other studies focus on the mobilization paradigm on a transnational level (Siméant, 2010) and they show that the trend is not only seen with regard to immigration but to all social and political mobilization that transcends states’ boundaries.

 

Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France    93 The evolution of French and global social sciences from a national level to a transnational one with regard to all identities—​ ethnic, religious, gender, class, and professional—​is the next logical step from political and economic liberalism. Economic liberalism has encouraged ethnic business. Its extension beyond their local setting is the result of the dispersion of immigrants with similar regional and/​or national backgrounds throughout a continent or even the world. Indian and Chinese immigrant groups, despite the cultural, linguistic heterogeneity of the population, are the best examples of transnational communities based on economic activities. The flux of capital and goods is linked to economic norms and a culture of consumption carried from one country to another by transnational actors. Political liberalism privileging ethnic pluralism encourages cultural activities through migrants’ associations where identities are organized and redefined, giving a legitimacy to ethnic groups in one state and leading them to redefine their solidarities elsewhere. Such an evolution challenges the single allegiance required by membership to a political community represented by one nation and consolidated by one state. Transnationalism is then inevitably bound up with dual or multiple citizenships, insofar as it relies on more than one national reference as well as on at least two arenas of social and political participation. More recent research in France analyzes the vote abroad of migrants holding dual nationality (Jaulin, 2014). This leads to an institutional expression of multiple belonging, where the country of origin becomes a source of identity and the country of residence a source of right, and the transnational space emerges as a space of political action, combining the two or more countries and creating confusion between rights and identity, culture and politics, states and nations. The claim for recognition creates tensions between on one hand states and the existing institutional setting, and on the other the reality of mobilizations coming from the outside fostering a transnational solidarity (Waldinger, 2004). Transnationalism is not a new phenomenon. Migrants or minorities have always maintained ties with some other territorial references, be a home country real or mythical. Such is the case of the study of diasporas that has developed in the French social sciences since 2000, with an abundant literature—​comparative and monographic—​on different diasporas; their organization, their relation to states—​home and host—​and their allegiances (Dufoix, 2003; Dufoix, Guerassimoff, and de Tinguy, 2010; Berthomière and Chivallon, 2013). Transnationalism is a “global phenomenon” and is studied as a “turning point in global social sciences” in France by Alain Caillé and Stéphane Dufoix (2013). It takes into account the context of globalization and economic uncertainty that facilitates the construction of worldwide networks. Its institutionalization requires a coordination of activities, resources, information, technology, and sites of social power across national borders for political, cultural, and economic purposes. Increasing mobility and the development of communication have intensified such transborder relations, leading to social and political mobilizations beyond boundaries. While the political mobilization of ethnicity for a long time was seen either as a disruptive factor within states or as a resource or barrier for migrant political involvement within national contexts, it is now

 

94    Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet often studied under the auspices of increasing transnational relations of individuals and entities.

Transnational Identity In recent years, the formation of “transnational identity” and solidarity has been the focus of much empirical research and reflection on its influence in the creation of a transnational public space (Levitt, 2007; Casanova, 2001; Bowen, 2004; Faist, 1998; Berger et al., 1999; Habermas, 2000; Jones, Correa, and Leal, 2001; Kastoryano, 2002). In contrast to studies of identity formation through mobilization and political action as a factor which may both challenge and contribute to the integration of national polities, interdisciplinary studies on transnationalism and globalization proclaim the end of national integration (Linklater, 1999; Habermas, 2000; Soysal, 1992; Keck and Sikking, 1998; Fraser, 2007; Preuss, 1998; Ferry, 1991). It has come to be seen as one of the most important markers of identity and difference in European societies (Carof, Hartemann, and Unterreiner, 2015). Regarding the French case, scholars have reflected on the possibility of creating a Muslim identity in reaction against the proliferation of anti-​Muslim discourse (Geisser, 2003, Bowen, 2009; Bleich, 2011). The emergence of religion as a relevant cleavage for identity politics has therefore impacted on the French agenda for studying identities, despite the initial reluctance to consider religion as a legitimate basis for religious mobilization. On a European level, Kastoryano shows that Muslims in Europe stress the fact that despite its internal diversity (nationality, language, denomination), it is primarily the case that Islam as a minority religion in Europe is building a unifying discourse according to the experience of “being Muslim in Europe,” aiming to promote a European Islam which seeks to “homogenize” national differences. Transnational participation thus introduces a new relationship with the state, characterized by “mutual dependence,” to use an expression coined by J. Armstrong; a mutual dependence between a liberal, plural state, and the “mobilized diaspora.” Since diasporas occupy an important place in international commerce in pre-​modern states, “mobilized diasporas” are, according to Armstrong, in a position of “international negotiation” of political decisions (Armstrong, 1976). The interdependence gained between dispersed populations and the countries of origin, of residence, and even beyond, is registered in a system of global and complex interactions and is submitted to a process of internal and external negotiations. Transnational participation becomes a means of pressure from outside. It “affects the way immigrants incorporate themselves and alters conventional expectations about their assimilation” (Guarzino, Portes, and Haller, 2003). It also affects the understanding of integration for both ethnic groups (or migrants) and states. Kastoryano showed how in Turkey a transnational participation affects the definition of the nation and the redefinition of nationalism (Kastoryano, 2002). From the state’s point of view, transnational participation opens the field for research on state strategies as transnational actors in order to reinterpret the sense of ethnicity and nationhood

 

Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France    95 beyond its borders, and to act as a “de-​territorialized” power to maintain the bonds and loyalty of individual state citizens. This involves states behaving as transnational actors in permanent interaction within a global de-​territorialized space or encountering cultural and political specificities of national particularities with multinational activities. It entails a mode of integration of states in the process of globalization. European identity is also facing new developments and dynamics that affect the relationship between states and Muslims inside and outside their boundaries. In this new configuration, negotiations between states and immigrants extend beyond borders in order for states to maintain the “power” of incorporation and citizenship while expanding their influence beyond their territories and to compete with transnational communities in their engagement with the process of globalization through economy and culture. While the European project has attempted to surmount the nationalist model, it has nevertheless spawned a backlash from populist parties, which continue to be successful at the polls. Indeed, populism has thrived in a Europe without internal borders. Nevertheless, this space of free movement is also a transnational space of mobilization for advocacy on behalf of national interests and identities. Recently, resurgent nationalisms have brought to the forefront issues of national identity and sovereignty, as expressed through the protection of territorial borders on one side and immigration issues, particularly that of Islam in the public space, on the other. This trend has been accompanied by an automatic reminder of the principles of citizenship and has raised the issue of the competence of states to regulate immigration, which is now viewed as a security issue (Chebel d’Appollonia, 2015). These trends also highlight how populism clings to a particular representation of national, linguistic, and territorial identities. Nationalism is a great challenge for the European Union, and it calls into question the ability of a united Europe to lead its member states beyond their national interests to share a harmonious common future and to form an enduring European identity. Moreover, present-​day nationalism in European member states does focus on national identity through targeting immigration, Islam, and multiculturalism. Consequently, national identities and a common European identity are reduced to ethnic and religious identities. The danger of such reactions of mistrust is not the only challenge to European integration. They may also breed conflict among nationalisms, the populism of nationalist parties, and minority nationalism. Confronted with this rising nationalism, minority populations are increasingly relying on the support networks they have established beyond the countries in which they live as they seek to develop a sense of belonging to an “uprooted” culture, and to participate in politics with such cultural agendas. The adaptation and the resistance of this culture, and even its radicalization, give it new breadth and content that melds nationalities, ethnicities, and religions. In addition, it creates a culture that appears to be “different” from the immediate environment in order to claim a kind of transnational solidarity. The more politically active members of these minority populations highlight states’ “failures” regarding human rights and citizenship and seek to channel the loyalty of their fellow minorities to distant imagined communities.

 

96    Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet

Conclusion As we have argued in this chapter, France is moving beyond the representative case of a universalist country. While it is true that it displays characteristic features of a country that understands identity mainly in relation to the national community, in practice identity is also understood in cultural terms. To be French is not only a civic idea; it is a cultural one, as one can see with the November 2015 political debate that clearly points to immigrants and Muslims as the “other.” However, the internationalization of migration flows and the creation of an intra-​EU migration regime has brought beyond borders the articulation of religion-​based identities, such as the Muslim identity. As such, the increase of an anti-​Muslim discourse articulated around the definition of exclusive identity boundaries is met with growing opposition and group mobilization. Despite a tradition of rejecting identity as a legitimate basis for political mobilization, French politics is no longer immune to this dynamic. The development of the literature on identity politics at an international level and the multiplication of comparative research on France and other countries have contributed to the opening up of new perspectives for research. Mobilizations on the basis of identity, in particular, appear as a crucial topic to focus the analysis of identity formation in the twenty-​first century. As minorities in Europe rely increasingly on networks that establish links between individuals beyond borders, research has therefore moved to the supranational level. We can observe a multiplication of comparative dissertations (Belkacem, 2013; Schader, 2013; Vickstrom, 2013), book series (Loch et al., 2012) and quantitative surveys (MAFE project4). The scholarship on identity in France is therefore increasingly integrated into a larger scholarly community on transnational politics and practices.

Notes 1. In 2008, a survey established that 2.1 million people from 18 to 50 years old identified themselves as Muslim (that is 8 percent of the surveyed population), against 11.5 million who identified as Catholics, 500,000 as Protestants, 150,000 as Buddhists, and 125,000 as Jewish. 45 percent of the surveyed population identified themselves as having no religious affiliation (Simon and Tiberj, 2010: 124). 2. The census does not ask for self-​identification to an ethnic or a racial group, as in the case of the American census, for instance. 3. It is important to mention that the magnitude of the phenomenon of the transnational subject has given rise to the creation of a special five-​year program at Oxford University directed by Steven Vertovec, called Transnational Studies. The program has supported dozens of research projects on the formation of transnational communities in multiple and varied populations in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. 4. The MAFE project is coordinated by INED (C. Beauchemin) in partnership with the Université catholique de Louvain (B. Schoumaker), Maastricht University (V. Mazzucato), the Université Cheikh Anta Diop (P. Sakho), the Université de Kinshasa (J. Mangalu), the

 

Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France    97 University of Ghana (P. Quartey), the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (P. Baizan), the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (A. González-​Ferrer), the Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerche sull’Immigrazione (E. Castagnone), and the University of Sussex (R. Black). The MAFE project has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement 217206.

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100    Riva Kastoryano and Angéline Escafré-Dublet Mourão Permoser, J., Rosenberger, S., and Stoeckl, K. (2010). “Religious Organisations as Political Actors in the Context of Migration: Islam and Orthodoxy in Austria,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36(9): 1463–​81. Park, R. E. and Burgess, W. [1921] (1966). Introduction to the Science of Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pena-​Ruiz, H. (1999). Dieu et Marianne: philosophie de la laïcité. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Portes, A. and Rumbaut, R. G. (2001). Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Preuss, U. (1998). European Citizenship, Multiculturalism, and the State. Baden-​Baden: Nomos. Rex, J. (1986). Race and Ethnicity. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Ribert, E. (2006). Liberté, égalité, carte d’identité:  les jeunes issus de l’immigration et l’appartenance nationale. Paris: La Découverte. Rochefort, F. (2002). “Foulard, genre et laïcité en 1989,” Vingtième Siècle 75(3): 145–​56. Rokkan, S. (1973). “The Formation of the Nation-​State in Western Europe,” in S. N. Eisenstadt and S. Rokkan (eds) Building States and Nations. London: Sage Publications. Saada, E. (2003). “Citoyens et sujets de l’Empire français. Les usages du droit en situation colonial,” Genèses 53: 4–​24. Sabbagh, D. and Peer, S. (2008). “French Color-​Blindness in Perspective: The Controversy over Statistiques Ethniques,” French Politics, Culture & Society, 26(1): 1–​6. Sayad, A. (2004). The Suffering of the Immigrant. Cambridge: Polity Press. Schader, M. (2013). Religion as a political resource? The religious and political involvement of migrants from sub-​Saharan Africa in two European cities. PhD dissertation, IEP, Paris. Shepard, T. (2006). The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Silberman, R. (1992). “French Immigration Statistics,” in D. L. Horowitz and G. Noiriel (eds) Immigrants in Two Democracies: French and American Experience. New York: NYU Press, 112–​23. Siméant J. (2010). “La transnationalisation de l’action collective,” in Éric Agrikoliansky et al., Penser les mouvements sociaux. Paris: La Découverte, 121–​44. Simon, P. (2008). “The choice of ignorance: The debate on ethnic and racial statistics in France,” French Politics, Culture & Society 26(1): 7–​31. Simon, P. (1998). “Nationalité et origine dans la statistiques française. Les catégories ambiguës,” Population 3: 541–​68. Simon, P. and Tiberj, V. (2012). Les registres de l’identité. Les immigrés et leurs descendants face à l’identité nationale. Paris: INED Document de travail, no. 176. Smith, J. (1986). The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell. Soysal, Y. (1992). Limits of Citizenship:  Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Taguieff, P.-​A. (1988). La Force du préjugé:  essai sur le racisme et ses doubles. Paris:  La Découverte. Taylor, C. (1992). Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tezcan, L. (2007). “Kultur, Gouvernementalita t der Religion und der Integrationsdiskurs,” in Wohlrab-​Sahr, M. and Tezcan, L. (eds) Soziale Welt Sonderband 17: Konfliktfeld Islam in Europa. Baden-​Baden: Nomos: 51–​74.

 

Identity, Culture, and Politics: The Other and the Self in France    101 Tribalat, M. (1995). Faire France. Une enquête sur les immigrés et leurs enfants. Paris:  La Découverte. Vickstrom, E. (2013). The production and consequences of migrant irregularity:  Sebegales in France, Italy and Spain. PhD Dissertation, Sociology, Princeton, NJ. Waldinger, R. and Fitzgerald, D. (2004). “Transnationalism in Question,” American Journal of Sociology 109(5): 1177–​95. Waters, M. (1990). Ethnic options. Choosing identities in America. Berkeley:  University of California Press. Weber, E. (1976). Peasants into Frenchmen. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Weil, P. (1992). La France et ses étrangers: l’aventure d’une politique de l’immigration de 1938 à nos jours. Paris: Calmann Levy. Weil, P. (2004). Qu’est-​ce qu’un Français? Paris: Gallimard (1st edn 2002).

 

Chapter 6

The Frenc h Way to Multi-​L evel G ov e rna nc e governance with government Gilles Pinson

The first definition of multi-​level governance (MLG) was made by scholars studying European integration who contested the view that European integration was just another “trick” by national governments and that European policy outcomes were merely a reflection of the interests and relative power of member state executives. For these researchers, European integration was instead “a polity-​creating process in which authority and policy-​making influence [were] shared across multiple levels of government—​subnational, national, and supra-​national” (Marks, Hooghe, and Blank, 1996: 342). Armed with this new notion, these scholars stepped into the argument opposing intergovernmentalists and functionalists that had dominated the academic debate on European integration until then. The former saw only the supremacy of national governments in European politics and policymaking; the latter the emergence of a new political and juridical scale due to spontaneous adjustments to economic actors lobbying. Somehow, the proponents of the MLG theory freed the debate, which had been heading toward an analytical dead end, and proposed envisaging Europe as a brand new political space where different institutions located at different scales were constantly bargaining during the daily process of policymaking, and thus sharing power, sovereignty, and the ability to shape political identities. MLG was met with approval well beyond the small orbit of EU studies. Consequently, in this chapter, besides the publications on European integration and its impacts on other levels of governance, I will deal with two other related fields of research. The first is the study of “center–​periphery” relations. In proposing that EU policymaking was also affected by forms of “subnational mobilization” (Hooghe, 1996), MLG theory was also an invitation to reconsider the whole range of relationships between different political scales, and in particular those linking national governments with subnational entities such as regional and municipal governments. The second field of research whose

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    103 development occurred in close connection with the rise of the MLG framework is “governance.” The term appeared discreetly during the 1980s and more strongly in the 1990s within various academic fields. It was used to describe the transformations that were occurring in the ways public policies were conceived and implemented and in the relationships between the state, the market, and social interests within processes of policymaking. Even if the “governance field” is much less integrated than that of MLG, the scholars involved in both share several hypotheses: the increasingly multi-​jurisdictional character of public problems and policy programs; an ongoing process of power redistribution between various institutional levels; a blurring of frontiers between state and society within policymaking; and the recourse to modes of regulation other than bureaucratic steering (markets, networks, etc.). Consequently, in this chapter I will deal with all three of these research fields by considering that they are closely related and that many scholars operate across the borders separating them. In the first section, I present a general overview of the MLG debate in the international and comparative literature. The second section is then devoted to a review of the existing literature on France on this subject area. I present what I consider to be the three main features of the French academic debate about governance and MLG. First, the very notion of governance has not met with great success, since the existing notion of government has long been used in a sociological and relational way to describe processes and outcomes rather than the executive institutions. Second, the French scholars that nevertheless adopted the notion quickly departed from the excessive early definition of governance as opposed to government, institutions, coercion, etc. Rather than following the “governance without government” line, they developed a much more cautious approach to governance consisting in exploring how new actors, new forms of regulation, and new policy instruments were added to existing ones. Third, in so doing they participated in the consolidation of a French way of approaching political science made of a reluctance toward theoretical hastiness, a sensitivity to varieties of situations and processes in time and space, and a shared constructivist stance. In the chapter’s third section, I will try to identify the research questions that are still awaiting an answer, and will propose further lines of inquiry on the topic of MLG. A Conclustion then follows.

Multi-​L evel Governance in International Political Science The notions of “governance” or “multi-​level governance” have been forged to encapsulate a series of shifts that have occurred in policymaking processes, in the relations between levels of government, and between different spheres (state, society, market). These are notions that link various fields of research in political science, even if these fields might have developed in autonomous ways from time to time. That is why I have

 

104   Gilles Pinson organized the presentation of the “world of MLG” into three parts, corresponding to three quite autonomous academic fields: studies of the EU polity, politics, and policymaking; the study of local governance and center–​periphery relationships; and studies of new forms of policymaking and coordination.

Multi-​Level Governance and the EU Polity MLG is commonly identified with studies of the European Union. This analytical framework was indeed developed in the early 1990s by scholars working on European policies and politics, and more precisely on EU regional policies. The work of Gary Marks (1993) on the decision-​making process in EU regional policies is considered to be the origin of this analytical tradition. The development of this new framework was closely linked to a specific historical conjuncture marked by the rapid integration of the Continent (with the ratification in 1987 of the Single European Act), robust reinforcement of European institutions (with the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty in 1991), the entrepreneurialism of the Commission chaired by Jacques Delors (1985–​95), and the development of several key policy sectors. It was also a time when the European Commission was explicitly seeking to establish a direct relationship with regional and local governments in order to erode the supremacy of national states. The 1988 new Structural Funds regulations introduced the “partnership principle” into the Community’s regional policy regime. This principle required the involvement of the regions and the Commission in addition to central governments, then still the dominant actors, in the preparation, selection, and monitoring of funded programs of regional development (Bourne, 2003). Furthermore, the Maastricht Treaty created the Committee of the Regions (CoR), composed of representatives of regional and local governments mostly nominated by subnational bodies. The CoR was supposed to be consulted not only for regional policy matters, but also on other policy areas having a potential impact on regional disparities in Europe. These changes attracted a lot of academic attention and a renewal of the debate about the EU. As mentioned above, in the early 1990s, the issue of the characterization of the EC/​EU and its future evolution—​an intergovernmental arena or a federal state?—​was paralyzing the scholarly debate. No real attention was paid to the concrete functioning of European institutions and policymaking. The merit of MLG proponents was to initiate a “post-​ontological” (Piattoni, 2009) turn in European studies. Nevertheless, there is a “family resemblance” between MLG and the neofunctionalist perspective. Indeed, the initial proponents of MLG considered that a European polity was in the making thanks to the capacity of European institutions to emerge as essential partners and arenas for actors and groups that until then were locked into a tête-​à-​tête with state institutions at the national scale (Scharpf, 1994; Marks, Scharpf, Schmitter, and Streeck, 1996). There are four main arguments at the heart of the MLG theory (Hooghe, 1996; Marks, Hooghe, and Blank, 1996). First, in opposition to inter-​governmentalists who consider that the national level is the monopolistic space of expression of organized interests, MLG proponents consider that the European level has been able to emerge as a genuine

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    105 space of interaction between economic, social, and political actors and the EU institutions (Kohler-​Koch, 1996). Therefore, and in line with the neo-​functionalist insights, EU supranational institutions—​the Commission, the Parliament, or the European Court of Justice—​have their say in the making of European policies, even if central governments remain central actors in EU politics. Second, regional and local actors have become key actors in the decision-​making process at the European level, and this without needing to go through mediations conducted by central governments. Of course, the new regional policy rules established in the late 1980s gave a strong impetus to the reinforcement of regional actors at the EU level, but according to the MLG proponents, the pattern of decision that emerged in regional policies had also spread to other policy sectors. Third, the reinforcement of the supranational institutions of the EU and of the regional institutions had led to a gradual erosion of national state sovereignty from beyond and from above. At the EU level, national state representatives had become just one group of actors amongst many. Fourth, for MLG theorists, there was no such thing as a European superstate replacing the national state. This is a clear difference with the argument of neo-​functionalists who had prophesized the weakening of national states. For the proponents of MLG, no definitive domination of a particular scale over other scales could occur. Rather, a new complex situation is emerging where European policies are the outcomes of interactions within multi-​level policy networks, in which actors transcend the frontier between the domestic and the international to build causes, make alliances, and share resources, and in which “the structure of political control is variable, not constant, across policy space” (Marks, Nielsen, Ray, and Salk, 1996: 41). An important aspect here is that the different “political arenas are interconnected rather than nested. While national arenas remain important for the formation of state executive preferences, the multi-​level model rejects the view that subnational actors are nested exclusively within them. Instead, subnational actors operate in both national and supranational arenas, creating transnational associations in the process” (Marks, Hooghe, and Blank, 1996: 346). Four types of criticisms were addressed to the MLG framework. The first was epistemological. MLG has been criticized for being nothing more than a “conceptual umbrella” (Bache and Flinders, 2004; Gualini, 2004); descriptive rather than analytical, and lacking explanatory power. Second, many commentators have been skeptical about the very idea that national states have become actors like any others in the EU polity. Empirical research (Anderson, 1990; Regional and Federal Studies, 1996; Smith, 1997; Smyrl, 1997; Bache, 1999) has shown that the central administrations had not completely lost their “gatekeeping” capacity to interfere in the making of regional policies and the embryonic dialogue between the Commission and regions. Unsurprisingly, intergovernmentalists underlined the fact that supranational institutions remained agents of the member states and that, consequently, even when dealing directly with the Commission, regions were actually trapped in an “intergovernmental play” (Pollack, 1995: 362). Moreover, even amongst scholars more sensitive to the neofunctionalist perspective, there were voices criticizing the “zero sum game,” “winner/​loser” vision emanating from MLG (Börzel, 1997). They thought it more likely that the EU would become a “Europe with the Regions” (and thus also with the states) (Le Galès and Lequesne,

 

106   Gilles Pinson 1998) rather than a “Europe of Regions,” a popular idea within EU supranational institutions under the Delors mandate and with which MLG seemed to be in sympathy. A third line of criticism has concerned the underlying vision in terms of convergence that is contained in MLG theory. MLG proponents seem to consider that the different systems of intergovernmental relations will converge toward the same model of blurred frontiers between levels that will release subnational governments from asymmetrical relations with their national government. In actual fact, case studies show a much broader diversity of situations and the role of path dependence (Bache and Jones, 2000; Benz, 2000). Finally, MLG has been criticized for overestimating territorial, or inter-​scalar, conflicts of interests, at the expense of inter-​sectoral conflicts for instance (Carter and Smith, 2008; Smith, 2011). In so doing, MLG has tended to reify territorial interests, thereby contradicting its own intellectual agenda.

Local/​Regional Governance and the Transformation of Central–​Local Relations Smith reminds us that even if MLG is nowadays more spontaneously associated with EU studies, “many of the seeds for the term multi-​level governance were […] sown by scholars working within a tradition of local government studies” (2007: 379). Indeed, local and urban scholars used the notion of governance well before it became a common buzzword in EU studies. Here, two fields of research can usefully be distinguished. The first deals with local/​urban policies and politics; the second with central–​local relations. Mainly developed in a North American context, the study of urban politics has been sensitive from the outset to the issue of the relations between urban government officials and economic and social interests. This engendered the famous debate between elitist and pluralist approaches to “community power.” In the 1980s, the notion of governance emerged in this debate, mostly under the pen of the proponents of an urban political economy and a neo-​Marxist approach to urban policies (Harvey, 1989; Jessop, 2002). The demise of federal support to cities and a new phase of land speculation targeting urban centers gave a new momentum to relations between fiscally needy urban governments and aggressive developers. Governance became a new catchword to designate the importance of public–​private coalitions in the making and the government of cities (Logan and Molotch, 1987; Stone, 1989). It was also used to designate a new style of political practices where the stabilization of long-​term and efficient relationships with the actors and groups holding crucial resources for the implementation of urban policies was at least as crucial as the control of votes and coalitions. Stone put it simply: “governance [was] broader than office holding” (Stone, 1995: 96). The tradition of community power studies had already convinced much research in this field that local/​ urban government could not be studied in isolation, but the retrenchment of the federal state, the fiscal crisis, the increased exposure of local economies to globalization, and the

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    107 subsequent rise of economic and property development issues in urban agendas made this evidence even clearer. Simultaneously, in Europe, the relationships between central governments and local and regional authorities also evolved during the period, giving way to consistent theoretical revisions. According to Goldsmith and Page (1987), many changes affected these relations. Decentralization reforms were the first obvious origin of these changes, but the growing influence of the EU, of its regulation devices and its policies, was another. The rise of the meso ​level was another factor that contributed to the perturbation and the pluralization of the central–​local relations. Central–​local relations became less asymmetrical, more contingent, and above all no longer limited to the relations between the state and local government. “What twenty years ago seemed largely a question limited to activities within nation-​states now has a multilevel dimension, often involving an increased number of tiers within and between countries as well as an EU influence” (Goldsmith and Page, 1987: 1). These changes required new descriptive and analytical tools. The notion of governance seemed appropriate to many observers in order to describe a situation where top-​ down, asymmetrical central–​local relations had given way to a more pluralistic type of relations and more contingent and horizontal processes of policymaking. As Denters has argued: there is a consensus that it is indeed appropriate to characterize contemporary systems of Western local policymaking and public service delivery in terms of “governance”, where public decision-​making concerning local issues increasingly takes place in the context of multi-​agency networks that cross traditional jurisdictional boundaries (both vertical, across levels of government, and horizontal, between different local governments) and cut across the public–​private divide. (Denters, 2011: 315)

Applied to central–​local relations and the government of cities, the notion of governance and the vision of dramatic changes that it conveyed have since triggered much criticism. First, for some it is excessively linked to a specific historical conjuncture of the 1980s and ’90s, which was characterized by large decentralization reforms in most of Continental European countries and by the rise of privatization, in the Anglo world in particular. That particular moment created the illusion of a durable “hollowing out of the state” (Rhodes, 1994) and its replacement by public–​private partnerships and horizontal policy networks (Rhodes, 1997). For Davies (2011), these frameworks are intimately linked with the postmodernist and post-​traditional mood that invaded academia in these decades, and systematically downplay other phenomena like the concentration of power and wealth. As far as central–​local relationships are concerned, it is clear that if the 1980s and ’90s were decades during which the inherited models evolved often to the advantage of local government, the 2000s saw a reorganization of central states in line with New Public Management principles (competitive bids, earmarked transfers replacing block grants, evaluation, etc.). This trend was toward the

 

108   Gilles Pinson replacement of a central state directly involved in policies and service production with one devolving an increasing number of functions to local and regional government and controlling at a distance their performances. The second line of criticism concerns the normative and too-​optimistic vision of local democracy under the regime of governance that drove much of this research. Stoker, for example, wrote that with the promotion of local scales that goes with governance, “the accessibility of local government is greater and the opportunities for an active political role are more varied than they are at the central government level” (Stoker, 1996: 16). Denters objects that “functional fragmentation [that also goes with local governance] considerably reduces the scope for traditional forms of political participation and mechanisms for securing responsiveness” (Denters, 2011: 316). The third set of controversies is related to the use of the notion of governance in the North American literature about urban regimes and growth machines. The applicability of these frameworks, often subsumed under the notion of governance, to other contexts was often questioned. In the US, the evasion of urban policymaking processes outside the political institutions and their relocation in public–​private networks was deeply linked to US the peculiarities of the dependence of urban government on local tax revenues, the progressive dismantlement of federal urban programs, the crisis of inner cities, and urban finances—​all phenomena from which European cities were partly preserved (Harding, 1997).

Studies of New Forms of Policymaking and Coordination The governance framework is also a broader analytical mode that questions the way policies are elaborated and implemented, starting from a basic assumption according to which the classical organizations of government are not the only actors involved in policymaking processes. Governance approaches “undermine reified concepts of the state as a monolithic entity, interest, or actor;” “they draw attention to the processes and interactions through which all kinds of social interests and actors combine to produce the policies, practices, and effects that define current patterns of governing” (Bevir, 2011: 1–​2). Recourse to the notion of governance is intimately associated with the diagnosis of the ingovernability of Western societies and government failures established from the 1970s onwards (Mayntz, 1993). If, during the Trente Glorieuses and the construction of the welfare state, it became common sense that government was the central actor of any society, able to anticipate and respond to various social demands and to regulate the social conflicts, this capacity became much less obvious from the 1970s on. The dynamics of social internal differentiation, the crisis of Fordism, Europeanization, globalization, decentralization, and the assertion of strong private interests were all signs of this destabilization of the state. The promotion of new policy instruments (contracts, partnerships, bids, benchmarking, league tables) was the sign that the state was involving external interests in the policymaking processes in a more a collaborative way than before. Since some essential resources for policymaking (such as finance, legitimacy, expertise, etc.)

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    109 are no longer the monopoly of the state, it has had to find alternative ways to coordinate the actions of an increasing number of stake-​and resource-​holders. The study of these new modes of association, enrolment, mobilization, and coordination are at the heart of governance studies (Stoker, 2003; Rhodes, 1997; John 2001; Denters and Rose, 2005). For Pierre and Peters, “a key reason for the recent popularity of this concepts is its capacity—​ unlike the narrower term ‘government’—​to cover the whole range of institutions and relationships involved in the process of governing” (Pierre and Peters, 2000: 1). There are four major assumptions in governance approaches (Bevir, 2011; Denters, 2011). The first is about polycentrism and pluralization. The policymaking process is depicted as featuring a growing diversity of stakeholders due to increasing levels of social mobilization and dispersion of resources. The second assumption is about the multijurisdictional character of public problems and consequently of the devices of collective action set up to address them. The third is about the diversification and hybridization of governing practices and, in particular, of forms of coordination. “Governance arrangements are often hybrid practices, combining administrative systems with market mechanisms and non-​profit organizations” (Bevir, 2011: 2, emphasis added). “In addition to traditional bureaucratic and political mechanisms like hierarchy and (majority) voting, decisions can also be based on competition or negotiations” (Denters, 2011: 314). A fourth assumption of governance is the increased recourse to networks to set and solve public problems, and to coordinate the action of multiple agents (Kickert et al., 1997). Among the many controversies that the development of research on governance has triggered, two are particularly interesting. The first occurred among the proponents of the usage of the notion but was also the main line formulated by their critics. This concerns the role of political institutions in governance devices. The early formulations of a governance research program or theory were clearly rooted in a post-​statist vision. In international relations (Rosenau and Czempiel, 1992) but also in policy or administrative studies (Rhodes, 1997; 1999), users of governance were announcing a world of “governance without government;” a clear shift from “government to governance.” The state was described as “hollowing out.” The making of public policies, the regulation of sectors, and more generally the integration of societies was a matter of “self-​organizing intergovernmental networks” (Rhodes, 1999: xvii) including indistinctive public and private actors. Rhodes described these networks as enjoying a significant degree of autonomy from the state and not feeling accountable to it. They “resist,” he wrote, “government steering, develop their own policies and mould their environments” Rhodes (2000: 61). For other authors (Pierre and Peters, 2000; Borraz and Le Galès, 2001), studying the rise of new policy instruments and new forms of relations between state and society did not necessarily imply edifying a clear wall between a past period characterized by a strong state and a new one characterized by a hollow one. Neither does it imply minimizing the role of political institutions in the making of policies and the promotion of coordination. For Pierre and Peters, if the state is “increasingly dependent on other societal actors,” it still “evolves as an actor which remains in control of some unique power bases in society” (2000: 5), and “institutions still matter a great deal” (2000: 4). In particular, hierarchy, formal rules, and coercion remain important policymaking tools

 

110   Gilles Pinson in the hands of government. As Stoker writes, the emphasis on networks, communication, and bargaining in some governance works “overlooked the importance of hard power in terms of coercion and strong material incentives” (2011: 28). Consequently, governance should not been seen so much as a theory about the new nature of the state and policymaking. Instead it is a “notion” (Le Galès, 2004: 244), a “proto-​theory,” a set of “new perspectives on government—​its changing role in society and its changing capacity to pursue collective interests under severe external and internal constraints” (Pierre and Peters, 2000: 7). The second area of controversy involves governance proponents themselves, with scholars contesting the assumption “about the dispersion and disorganization of power and institutions” (Davies, 2011:  2). This criticism is not directed so much against the very usage of the notion of governance but against the normative bias in favor of networks and the vision of a world that would have become definitively pluralist, genuinely polycentric, and hence more democratic. According to Davies, most of the governance literature nurtures an orthodox vision according to which networking and collaboration are necessarily beneficial for all. For Davies, “ ‘networked’ governance institutions look very like the ‘modernist’ hierarchies they were supposed to replace” (2011: 3). Moreover, the emergence of governance devices can also be synonymous with more bureaucracy, hierarchies, and power asymmetries, but covered with a postmodern discourse about trust, collaboration, and equality. That said, this criticism has already been taken on board by some of the historical advocates of a positive theory of governance prophetizing the rise of networks. Indeed, in a recent publication (2010), Bevir and Rhodes abandon the perspective of building a single governance theory centered on the idea of networks and argue instead that “there is no single account or theory of contemporary governance, only the differing constructions of several traditions” (2010: 20). That means there is room for a research agenda on changing modes of governance, freed from the assumptions about the rise of a networked society.

Multi-​L evel Governance in French Political Science: Specificities and Controversies MLG and EU Studies in France: Contextualizing the EU Effect European studies have long been dominated by the political scientists of the “Anglosphere.” French scholars arrived quite late to the field, at a time when French political science had gone through important transformations. Indeed, having been for many years very close to public law, political science emancipated itself progressively from the 1980s onwards as a discipline claiming a close linkage with sociology,

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    111 which itself is characterized in France by the domination of ethnographic approaches. Consequently, French political scientists entered the EU studies field with an empiricist, inductive, and constructivist way of doing research, and a certain reluctance toward big generalizing theories. As Saurugger has pointed out, in French academia, “theories as such are absent and conceptual frameworks, with few exceptions, are often criticized for their restrictive nature, since they prevent the researcher to integrate empirical evidence that contradicts the theory” (Saurugger, 2009: 22). As a result, French scholars gain recognition through detailed case studies and the efforts made to criticize and/​ or refine broad analytical frames. The development of a constructivist political sociology approach to the EU, interested in actors, conflicts, and the production of norms, identities, and institutions through concrete interactions (Georgakakis, 2002; Joana and Smith, 2002; Smith, 2004; Eymeri, 2002; Guiraudon, 2006) is probably the most notable contribution of French scholars to the development of EU studies. MLG theories were probably those with which French scholars engaged the most and the earliest. They generally rejected the neofunctionalist assumption that went with MLG, according to which the supranational powers of the EU were on the rise and regions would be the new basic units of the federation in the making (Le Galès and Lequesne, 1998). Moroever, French scholars proved very skeptical about the too-​broad, top-​down and (old-​) institutionalist perspective adopted by the initial proponents of the MLG framework, in which change was mechanical and essentially coming from above and from large institutional reforms (Pasquier, 2008). Nevertheless, they were still interested in some of the hypotheses formulated by the MLG framework: the rise of the EU as a new political space and a new political partner for regions and cities; the growing importance of new tiers in the EU polity beyond the member states and the EU institutions; and the changing relations between states, regions, and local governments induced by EU integration. But they were also keen on giving more sociological flesh to this model and overcoming its institutionalist DNA on one hand, and on relocating the changes induced by the EU integration within a broader set of transformations on the other. “European integration and EU policies are just one of the many factors that trigger the renewal of territorial dynamics in Europe,” wrote Pasquier. “Globalization, the crisis of top-​down models of territorial management and the resurgence of identity mobilizations are part of this great transformation of the territorial issue” (2008: 339). Most of French research dialoguing with the MLG program was conducted over the implementation of structural funds. Some research (Balme and Jouve, 1995; Marchand-​ Tonel and Simoulin, 2004) focused on the role of gatekeeper that the central state was still able to play despite the promotion of partnership. In most cases, state field services at the regional level remain the management authority of structural funds in France. Others demonstrated that, against all odds, the regional level was not necessarily the one that benefitted most from the partnership game. In some cases, the regional institution was too weak to win in negotiations and was supplanted by interests strongly organized at the department level (Négrier, 1998). Further studies showed that big French cities, thanks to more favorable institutional reforms at the national level, more financial and technical resources, and a more effective investment in the European networks, were

 

112   Gilles Pinson more able than regions to take benefit from EU integration and state reforms (Balme and Le Galès 1997; Pinson and Galimberti, 2013). Pasquier (2013) considers that, if some French regions have clearly had the capacity to seize the opportunities offered by the development of EU regional policies, that capacity clearly depends on the pre-​existence of a strong regional identity and practices of collective action at the regional level. Overall, French scholars refuse to consider the interactions between the various scales within the European polity as a zero sum game, as the early proponents of the MLG theory were prone to do. There is no clear logic of demise of the state and of the rise of the EU and regions; there is no evidence of a convergence of policymaking models from one region to another; and it is hard to say if the last twenty years have been dominated by decentralization or recentralization. For instance, Pasquier shows that if Brittany has been one of the most active and successful regions on the European front, Bretons have achieved this status by mobilizing interests at the regional level, but also by enrolling the central state in lobbying strategies in Brussels (Pasquier, 2013). More generally, the French state has always remained a key actor in the programming, negotiation, and implementation of EU regional policies and it still is the main interlocutor of the Commission. Nevertheless, most French scholars agree with the MLG framework on the fact that the last three decades have been characterized by a densification of inter-​governmental interactions involving most political scales and large transformation of inter-​scalar relationships toward more negotiated patterns of power (Smith, 1995; 1997). There are common features of the French research engaging with MLG. First, scholars tend to consider that the current change in inter-​scalar relations triggered by European integration is more subtle, patchy, and differentiated than the picture proposed by inter-​ governmentalists or neofunctionalists (MLG included). Second, they demonstrate that the effect of EU integration cannot be analyzed separately from other streams of change, like those occurring between the state and subnational governments. Third, they tend to be more sensitive to processes of cognitive change and to the strategies of field agents than other traditions in EU studies; hence to logics of bottom-​up—​rather than top-​ down—​Europeanization (Smith, 1995; Pasquier and Pinson, 2004).

Central–​Local Relations and Local/​Regional Governance in France: Still Room for Government and Locality Effect In the classical typologies of central–​local relations, the French case has always been located in the type in which the profile of local government is quite low (Goldsmith and Page, 1987; Hesse and Sharpe, 1991). French local government was considered as having few functions, enjoying a low level of discretion, and suffering from the control of a rather intrusive central state, but also as benefitting from constitutional protection and from easy access to the center, thanks to the practice of multiple office-​holding. That general view was already present in French classical publications on local government and central–​local relationships. Work by Worms (1966), Crozier and Thoenig

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    113 (1975), and Grémion (1976) documented the rise of the technocratic central state. These researchers also captured the ambiguity of central–​local relationships in which powerful multiple-​office-​holding local elected officials, the “notables,” retained a brokerage capacity with the state administrations, which they used mainly to defend local societies against social and economic transformations imposed by the state. Things started to change during the 1970s, hence before the decentralization reforms, and mainly in big cities. Lorrain (1989; 1991) was one of the rare scholars to identify and document this “silent change.” Some cities that were severely hit by the crisis and/​or unsatisfied with central state policies started to develop their own agenda and policymaking capacity. With the decentralization reforms, but also globalization, the transformation of productive systems, and the rise of the EU, Lorrain was followed by other young scholars willing to document and analyze the changing role of local government and the transformation of central–​local relations. Le Galès was one of the first to analyze the growing importance of cities as places and actors of policymaking and the reconstruction of horizontal alliances between officials, social elites, and business representatives mobilized in the making of economic development policies (1993). Borraz (1998) documented how the deep social and economic changes that occurred during the Trente Glorieuses had turned French cities into complex social systems that generated demands and problems that central state policies were increasingly unable to tackle. However, in parallel, local government organized itself to cope with this increasing social complexity through the development of new functions and expertise. Pinson (2006; 2009) demonstrated how large urban development projects and strategic planning were the vectors for the elaboration of development strategies and the weaving of horizontal links between urban elites. The silent rise of strong intermunicipal cooperation authorities (Communautés urbaines and Communautés d’agglomération) was also considered a strong sign of the growing capacities of French cities to gather resources, implement policies, and dialogue with other levels, in particular the state, on an almost egalitarian basis (Baraize and Négrier, 2001; Borraz and Le Galès, 2005). Following this same thesis of change, some other scholars have focused on the central state and the increasing difficulty it finds in framing and implementing territorial policies (Béhar and Estèbe, 1999). During the two decades that followed the decentralization reforms, it was clear that the state found it hard to reinvent policy frames that would relegitimate its presence on the territory. It rather tended to offer local actors frames to cooperate and build up their own projects; a strategy that was called the “institutionalization of collective action” by Duran and Thoenig (1996). Obviously, those strong assertions triggered many controversies. I will focus on two specific ones: the first is about the demise of the central state; the second about inter-​ municipal cooperation. During the glorious phase of the dirigiste state, both the central offices of the ministries (services centraux) and their field services (services déconcentrés) were the dominant actors of the policymaking processes. The decentralization reforms did not create the same kind of problems for both layers. As far as the central level was concerned, it had to reinvent the ways in which a national agenda could be implemented. The situation was trickier for the field services, which had to reinvent their role

 

114   Gilles Pinson in a situation in which most of their key functions (producing services, building and maintaining infrastructures, etc.) had been transferred to local authorities (Reigner, 2002). The contenders of the thesis of drastic change in central–​local relations argue that it focused excessively on the dereliction of field services and neglected the progressive repositioning of the state’s central services (Aust and Cret, 2012). In the case of urban renewal policies, for instance, Epstein (2005) demonstrated that the strategy employed by the state to control territories was no longer to maintain field services in order to implement its programs directly; it now aimed to control local authorities’ behavior at a distance through neo-​managerial instruments such as competitive bids and calls for projects. The prophecy of a demise of the central state was thus seen as a bit too hypothetical, and the “return of the cities” was maybe nothing more than a short—​and already closed—​interlude (Epstein, 2008). The second controversy revolves around inter-​municipal cooperation. Municipal fragmentation is one of the most documented features of French local government. France has more than 36,000 municipalities, of which 98 percent have a population of less than 10,000. Reform at the municipal level has always been a very delicate issue. In the absence of radical merger reform, communes invented forms of cooperation. Single-​ or multi-​purpose(s) intermunicipal cooperative bodies (syndicats intercommunaux) were created to manage utilities and services. The decentralization reform of the early 1980s did not address the issue, and instead encouraged competition amongst communes. In some pioneers cities, however, innovative forms of more integrated cooperation were experimented with. Some, like the communautés urbaines, were imposed by the state in the late 1960s, but others, the districts urbains in particular, were created in a more spontaneous manner in cities where a propensity for cooperation emerged following the involvement of communes in such practices as city-​visioning or strategic planning, or due to political alignment amongst communes. It was only in the 1990s that the central state started to legislate in order to foster inter-​municipal cooperation. In 1999, the Chevènement Act, named after the Jospin government Home Affairs Minister, had a decisive impact on the redesign of the local government map. This act aimed to foster cooperation and to reduce the number of cooperation formulae. The choice was reduced to three formulae (Communautés urbaines and communautés d’agglomération for urban agglomerations, and communautés de communes for small communes in rural areas). This act was a great success, mainly because it combined strong legal constraints with attractive financial incentives. On one hand, the act compelled every commune to join a “communauté” and forced existing multipurpose co-​ operative bodies to shift to one of the three formulas by 2002. Moreover, the prefect had the power to force any commune to join new bodies. On the other hand, central government guaranteed a very attractive financial transfer bonus for complying communes. While only 14 percent of communes were amalgamated into intercommunal cooperation structures levying their own tax in 1993, nowadays the number is more than 98 percent. This new reality largely supported the thesis of a deep change in local government and central–​local relations. Borraz and Le Galès (2004) evoked a genuine “inter-​municipal

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    115 revolution” occurring in France, particularly in cities like Lyon, Nantes, Grenoble, Strasbourg, and Rennes where the building of strong metropolitan powers was encouraged. In these cases, the metropolitan level gained a consistent legitimacy at the expense of the municipal level and was able to enrol mayors in collective projects and agendas through subtle processes of both bargains and cognitive changes. These strong metropolitan authorities have often been engaged in pro-​growth agendas (Négrier, 2005) but that does not exclude more redistributive concerns (Reigner et al., 2010). For the authors mentioned so far, the rise of the metropolitan level in France confirms the hypothesis of change formulated by political economy theorists on the link between globalization, post-​Fordism, and the valorization of the urban scale (Veltz, 1997; Storper, 1997), by MLG theorists about the impact of EU integration on central–​local relationships, and by governance theorists about the transformation of the state and intergovernmental relations. But these authors also consider that the patchy nature of this trend of reforms, with great variety in intensity (illustrated by the very lengthy processes of construction of a metropolitan power in Marseille, Bordeaux, and even more so in Paris) and in the structure of policy agendas, demonstrates that local contexts and institutions, local capacity to mobilize, still matters, thus confirming the intuitions of neo-​institutionalists and of the governance theorists for whom there is still room for government. Adversaries remain, however: scholars that are much more skeptical about the so-​ called inter-​municipal revolution. Most of them are heirs to the tradition of political sociology of local spaces inspired by Bourdieu (Lagroye, 1973; Garraud, 1989). Applying Bourdieu’s notion of field to local spaces, they tend to put the emphasis on the self-​ referential logics of the political field; its closure and the propensity of its members to defend their corporatist interests against other spheres and groups. They also mainly focus on local politicians, observing how they build up their legitimacy and feuds but tend, conversely, to neglect issues and processes of policymaking. They broadly consider that decentralization missed one huge issue: the democratization of local polities and the abolition of presidentialism (i.e. the strong power of local and regional executives). On this last aspect, it is difficult to disagree. Their approach led them to consider inter-​municipal cooperation authorities as subordinate political spaces neutralized by municipal interests (Le Saout, 2000; Desage and Guéranger, 2011). Since inter-​ municipal assemblies are constituted by delegated municipal councillors; since political legitimacy remains the monopoly of mayors; and since inter-​municipal structures function according to intergovernmental logics, these institutions cannot become anything other than bargaining places controlled by the mayors at the expense of the elaboration of a common project. However, there are two main flaws in these approaches. First, being focused on politicians, they neglect the specific dynamics of policies like the role played by reformist technocrats in the reinforcement of expertise and functions of inter-​ municipal authorities, or the process of learning and socialization in which municipal councillors and mayors can be involved within the framework of commissions, for instance. Second, their reluctance to give credit to governance approaches makes them ignore collective action issues such as the increasing trans-​jurisdictional dimension of public problems and the intergovernmental nature of policymaking devices.

 

116   Gilles Pinson

Governance: Governance with Government Governance is the other issue and notion upon which the two camps mentioned above have engaged. Globally speaking, the notion of governance has not enjoyed large success among French political scientists. Few researchers claim that notion, even if its use is now widespread. Le Galès was the first to import it on the basis of his work on urban policies (1995). He immediately tried to depart from Rhodes’ approach in terms of shift from government to governance, and even more from rational-​choice or problem-​ solving approaches to governance. The specificity of Le Galès’s work was its ability to articulate a large spectrum of influences. Inspired by US urban political economy, MLG, research on ingovernability, economic sociology, political sociology, policy analysis, and historical sociologies of the state (Le Galès, 1998), he developed an original research program on European cities articulating two hypotheses:  the possible redistribution of political authority between scales due to globalization, Europeanization, and state restructuring; and the transformation of the forms of collective action, coordination, policy instruments, and type of political steering through this rescaling. More importantly, if Le Galès has always remained somewhat ambiguous about whether he sees governance as a research program into new forms of coordination and regulation or as a specific kind of coordination and regulation device alternative to the coercive manners of the bureaucratic state, he has always firmly asserted that the governance approach was not incompatible with government and should definitely observe closely transformations of the way public institutions apply their authority through the mobilization of specific skills and assets (Borraz and Le Galès, 2001). In addition to Le Galès, other scholars have tried to follow the governance track. Pasquier for regions, and Pinson for cities, have attempted to objectify the logics of affirmation of new territorial spaces through new forms of networking and planning (Pinson, 2009; Pasquier, 2013). Borraz (Borraz, 2003; Borraz and John, 2004) analyzed how changes in the policymaking area were transforming the way political authority is exerted in large cities and how the legitimacy of elected officials was built up in this new context. He used the notion of political leadership to encapsulate changes in the expressions of political authority. Other scholars, using more or less explicitly the notion and analytical framework of governance, attempted to demonstrate how the logics of territorial mobilization at a rural community, metropolitan, or regional level have tended to activate a strong logic of differentiation in the contents of policies and in political relations (Négrier 2005; Douillet et al., 2012). Others have illustrated the logics of diversification of coordination and regulation modes in various policy sectors. In the case of urban policies against poverty, Bonny and Oberti (1999) observed the blurring of the frontiers between bureaucratic forms of production of welfare and the recourse to civil society organizations. Working on French national housing policies, Pollard (2010) has shown there has been no long-​term retreat of the state from this sector, but rather an increasing tendency to support private investment and stimulate free market mechanisms to achieve political goals more than tame them. It has to be noted that another research agenda was opened by the very same scholars that got involved in governance

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    117 research: one on policy instruments (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2004). This was based on the hypothesis according to which the transformation of policy instruments could reveal something about new forms of political regulations, and more broadly about the changing relations between the state and society, the state and the market. The governance approach has generated a great deal of critics and skepticism in France. We can identify three critical streams. The first consists in questioning the very utility of the notion of governance from an analytical point of view and in considering that governance only subsumes old questions in a brand new name. Duran (2000), for instance, acknowledges the merit of several studies conducted under the banner of governance and, in particular, their concern for the identification of the actual role of political institutions in the making of collective action. But he also considers that the notion itself lacks analytical precision. It is never clear whether it designates specific forms of coordination or a specific period of state development. “The use of the concept, which is neither a generic concept, nor a really historical concept, remains vague and imprecise, and does not enable research to determine precisely the nature of the observed reality” (Duran, 2001). It is not clear in particular whether the notion of governance provides analytical added value compared to other notions such as “power,” “action systems,” or “inter-​organizational networks.” In the same vein, Smith suggests that the limited fortune enjoyed by governance in France might be explained by the fact that there is a long tradition in France of a sociological approach to local government sensitive to multi-​level and inter-​organizational interdependencies. “The notion of government,” he writes, “is defined as an analytical concept which, to all intents and purposes, closely resembles what social scientists elsewhere label as governance” (2007: 379). The second critical stream consists in considering governance to be a narrative, a notion saturated with ideology, rather than an analytical tool (Gaudin, 2002). This posture has also generated interesting publications on the social usages of governance (Pasquier et al., 2013). The third stream is by far the most critical. Despite the fact that most French proponents of the governance approach have departed from the initial approaches that considered governance a substitute for government, and despite their repeated attempts to show that new forms of steering and coordination were not incompatible with conflict, domination, and coercion, there are still scholars that consider that “analyses conducted under the guise of ‘territorial governance’, ‘partnership’, ‘government by project’, ‘return of the cities’ deliver at the end of the day an ethereal vision of policymaking” (Desage and Guéranger, 2011: 148).

The Future of the Study of MLG and Governance in France In this third section, I propose some perspectives which could be used to develop and reinforce the (multi-​level) governance research framework. By so doing I will also try to give examples of empirical realities that deserve to be better explored.

 

118   Gilles Pinson

Clarifying the Epistemological Status of “Governance” “Can multi-​level governance become more than a term for describing the number of levels of government involved in European politics and synthesizing these findings in broadbrush and often impressionistic fashion?” (Smith, 2007: 382). Is governance anything else than “an attempt to globally characterize a specific conjuncture of policymaking?” (Duran, 2001). Indeed, it seems that work of conceptual clarification still needs to be done in order to stabilize the very content of the notion of “governance.” From one author to another, but also from one text to another by the same author, governance can be used to characterize a new political conjuncture; a set of new public problems; new policymaking styles characterized by more networks and partnerships, and less coercion; or even a research program. For some, it is intimately linked with normative discourses praising neoliberalism and new public management recipes, and political practices promoting privatization and competition. For others, governance goes with opportunities for less technocratic approaches to policymaking, less domination by central states and markets of local societies, and the rebirth of local capacity for self-​organization. Governance is currently at a crossroads. If it was only a notion linked with a very specific historical conjuncture characterized by globalization, Europeanization, the rise of a meso (regional) level, and decentralization, and by the subsequent problems met by the central state in adapting to this new conjuncture, it would probably already be outdated. Indeed, with the help of new policy instruments inspired by the recipes of New Public Management, central administrations have progressively managed to take back the grip they had on the EU–​local relationships, and more generally to become dominant actors in central–​local relationships once more. In particular, old instruments like financial controls, increasingly used in a time of enduring debt crisis, have helped the French state, for example, to regain prominence in its relationships with local government. After much research conducted upon the typical instruments of the “governance era” (partnerships, contracts, projects, etc.), it is probably time to develop a research program on the instruments that embody the remaining importance of government in governance, and thus to answer the question whether the development of these instruments marks the end of the “governance era.” But beyond this, it is also probably time to reconsider the definition of governance as a mere research agenda and to reframe it as a theory; a theory about state–​society relations, about the interactions between political scales, and about policymaking (Pinson, 2015). Governance could thus—​this is a proposition—​be defined as theory that considers that the integration of social ensembles and the production of change, which has traditionally been considered as proceeding exclusively from government activities (and most often central governments’ activities), result instead from a combination of practices and regulations associated with politics, market, and society and occurring necessarily at various scales. Governance is the theory that considers that the nation, as a political scale, and the state, as an ensemble of modes of action and coordination, are

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    119 not necessarily central in the making of policies and the structuring of societies; and this despite public actors and organizations remaining skilled actors in these processes. This theory about state and policymaking is articulated with a historical theory: if the construction of national societies with states as central actors has often validated theories considering the central state to be the main center of control and power, globalization, Europeanization, and the de-​and re-​territorialization of economic development have nuanced the centrality of the state and its own regulations.

A Better Articulation Between European, Regional and Urban Studies The second issue that can be identified relates to the articulation between European, regional, and urban studies. After being at the center of theoretical innovation in political science, political research on cities and urban governance has gradually lost this centrality and has ended up constituting a relatively separated and marginalized subdomain (Sapotichne et al., 2007). In France, the city has traditionally been a subject left to planners. Political scientists have always considered urban policies and politics marginal themes. Therefore, the connection between the research on cities and the scientific controversies about European integration has not really established itself, with very few exceptions (Pasquier and Pinson, 2004). For their part, regional studies have more easily and quickly articulated with the debates on European integration, probably thanks to the political discourse on the Europe of the Regions and the reverberations from the multi-​level governance approach. It might therefore be useful if research on cities and urban policies could contribute more significantly to the development of European studies. A research area under development could provide a space for dialogue between urban and European studies, namely the research on policy transfers, or as the scholars involved call it, policy mobilities. In the field of European studies, research on policy transfers has helped uncover discrete mechanisms that contribute to the construction of a European political space probably as much as do treaties or intergovernmental negotiations. Research conducted under the flag of the Europeanization framework in particular has largely focused on these transfers and has formulated a hypothesis according which the EU is above all a vast “transfer platform” (Radaelli, 2003). More recently, pieces of work in urban studies, written by geographers in particular, have criticized, sometimes to excess, the lack of interest in political science and policy transfer studies for the contribution of urban actors to such transfers (McCann and Ward, 2011; for a critique of the geographical approach, see Béal, Epstein, and Pinson, 2015). In fact, it would be interesting to systematize these studies about “policy mobilities” involving urban actors in order to check whether they contribute, and how, to the making of a Europe of cities, and also to the standardization of urban policies throughout the Continent. It would also be interesting to see to what extent these transfers turn cities and the

 

120   Gilles Pinson networks that bring them together into actors capable of influencing the European agenda, and how this specific influence of a hypothetic “urban Europe” combines with other types of actors (private companies) and other scales (regions, countries). A recent project by Béal (2011) on urban sustainable development policies showed that, although the logic of “government at a distance,” including competition between cities organized by states and the EU for the allocation of funding and labels, weighs increasingly upon the policy choices made by cities, some of them are still able to influence the construction of the selection criteria that the upper scales implement through these devices. Conversely, there are a number of characteristics specific to urban studies that could usefully inspire European and regional studies. First, the political economy perspective, strongly present in urban studies mainly through its Marxist and regulationist variant, is weaker in regional studies and clearer in European studies. Regarding the latter case, it is apparent that the disembodied, mechanistic, and prophetic character of the initial neo-​functionalist research on European integration helped to discredit approaches postulating a link between the transformations of capitalism and the transformation of the political in favor of approaches seeking to identify “agency” and to limit the range of independent variables to be considered to those embodied in empirically identifiable strategies of actors and groups. It seems to me that the dialogue between urbanists, regionalists, and Europeanists could organize around a debate on how to reinstate elements of structure and structural change in analytical models that tend to overvalue players’ strategies and the agency of empirically circumscribable agents and organizations. Second, urban studies have always had a “localist” inclination driving scholars to look at the impact of the constitutive components of urban societies on policy choices made locally. This sensitivity to “locality effects” has often been criticized by those who believed that the fate of the city was for a large part decided elsewhere and determined by the flows that were going through it (Peterson, 1981). The MLG and the Europeanization research frameworks might be another stimulus urging urbanists to look at cities and urban policies in a more relational manner. But conversely, these frameworks, as Pasquier has justly remarked (2008), often tend to neglect the specifically local and regional logics that contribute to the structuring of issues, conflicts, alliances, local dynamics of mobilization, specific action repertoires, and specifically local capacity to seize opportunities and resources offered by other scales to complete their projects. There is a whole tradition of urban analysis particularly sensitive to these “locality effects” (Goetz and Clarke, 1993; Sellers, 2002). In particular, the research on urban regimes that are now the dominant paradigm in US urban studies is focused very much upon these local logics (Pinson, 2012).

Objectifying and Giving Sense to Differentiation Logics Finally, research on urban and regional policies, whether undertaken by local, regional, national, or EU organizations, should in future pay more attention to the issue of differentiation than it has done for some time (Pinson and Reigner, 2012). Here,

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    121 differentiation must be understood in a dual sense: differentiation in forms of collective organization at local and regional level to build collective problems, develop strategies, attract resources, and implement policies, but also in the types of relationships with other scales on one hand; differentiation of the actual content of policies and their economic, social, and spatial effects on the other. What are the independent variables that allow some cities and regions to build a capacity for action, to invent collective action repertoires that can be frequently reactivated, to develop strategies to capture and articulate resources, to implement programs, to consume credits, and to enroll other scales in their policies, while others do not or are less able to do so? The concepts of “social capital,” “institutional thickness,” or “institutional capacity” have been proposed as variables to answer this riddle, but these notions have ended up being “black boxes,” maintaining the mystery surrounding what the origin of difference is. Work thus still needs to be done to identify the factors or, to overcome the positivist vision of social processes that goes with this term, the mechanisms that generate differentiation between cities and regions. Finally, reflecting a general flaw in political science as a whole, studies on multi-​level governance have always lacked interest in the question of the content and effects of public policies. The question of content is often left to sectorial issue experts, and the effects are not taken into consideration mainly because of the difficulty of assessing them. As far as the contents are concerned, French and European research on urban, regional, and European policies would undoubtedly be wise to take inspiration from the attempts made by specialists in urban regimes (Stoker and Mossberger, 1994) and urban political machines (Lloyd and Clark, 2001), but also specialists in urban governance (Pierre, 2011), to establish typologies of forms of local political arrangements based on agendas they carry and policies they implement. Is it possible to identify “pro-​growth” or “welfarist” cities or regions whose strategies and policies are essentially based on the “ed and med” (education and medicine) sectors, or whose principal purpose is to preserve a demographic and social status (“conservation regimes”)? Regarding the effects, it is probably time—​after more than thirty years of decentralization, twenty years of reforms in favor of inter-​municipal cooperation, and twenty-​five years of EU regional policy based on partnership—​to check the effects these deep policy changes have had. Are big metropolitan regions the only winners from these changes? Or are the winners instead regions with a strong identity and hosting strong pro-​autonomy movements? Can specific social and political assets such as identity, stabilized repertoires of collective action, the density of local/​regional networks, and a skilled technocracy compensate, with the support of European and national policies, situations where objective geographical and/​ or economic marginality count the most?

Conclusion Some areas of areas of consensus have emerged in the French academic community working on the European Union, the central state, local and regional governments, and

 

122   Gilles Pinson the relations linking these different levels. It is now admitted that the policies elaborated and implemented at each level cannot be analyzed without considering the impact of the other levels. It is now accepted as common sense that European institutions and policies have an impact on national, regional, and local contexts. However, conversely, it is also accepted that the making of European policies cannot be understood without taking into account the influence exerted by national and subnational actors, networks, and organizations. As far as central–​local relations are concerned, it is also admitted that the asymmetrical patterns of relations that characterized the post-​war period are now outdated. Local and regional governments have gained legitimacy and capacity to deliver policies since the 1970s. However, some areas of debate and controversy remain. They concern the description of the current state of multi-​level relations and policymaking processes. They also concern the adequate analytical tools that scholars should mobilize to give sense to these realities. Debate is still rife about the actual balance of power between the central state, regions, and metropolitan powers. It is also raging about the utility and adequacy of the very notion of governance to describe and explain the nature of policymaking and the relations between the actors involved. Roughly speaking, those who consider that the nature of relations between actors and levels have changed due to increasing complexity and interdependency, and due to more global transformations of the forms of coordination, adopted the vocable of governance; those who are more sensitive to the permanence of inherited patterns of relations and domination tend to reject the notion. Beyond these differences, is there a French way to address multi-​level governance? It is rather amusing to observe how the above-​mentioned domestic differences tend to vanish when French scholars operate on the international academic scene. Indeed, when confronted with foreign colleagues defending either rational choice approaches, quantitative pieces of work based on strong but simplifying assumptions, or papers presenting univocal theoretical frameworks that skate over aspects of the object and the context, French scholars usually end up claiming more “sociological” and “constructivist” approaches that would be more sensitive to the specificity of social and political contexts, to the social properties, interests, and visions of the world of the actors and groups involved in the process and to the issue of power and domination. Most French political scientists nowadays are sociologists who agree with Passeron that the “experimental science of social facts” that Durkheim was dreaming about is out of reach, and that there are other ways than Popper’s falsification to ascertain the validity of sociological inferences. Passeron wrote that “none of the logical properties that enable the falsifiability of a theoretical proposition belong strictly speaking to the proposals that make up a sociological theory, because of the mere fact that the meaning of the information on which they infer remains related to a series of singular historical configurations” (2006: 75). Somehow, French scholars have shown themselves to be very Passeronian when they call for the development approaches of multi-​level governance that would be more sensitive to the variability of contexts, and to the agency and presence of features of the past in current situations.

 

The French Way to Multi-Level Governance    123

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Chapter 7

The European i z at i on of Public P olicy i n Fra nc e actor-​centered approaches Sabine Saurugger

France is generally considered to be a specific case when measuring the influence of European integration on domestic public policies. It is described as a statist state by many observers,with public policies have been considered to be resistant to: policymaking was described during the Trente Glorieuses (1950 to 1980) as mainly state led, with little possibility for other actors to participate in decision-​making processes. This perception changed incrementally over the 1990s when the influence of both globalization and European integration increased. French public policies adapted to outside pressure, both through coercion and through learning processes. The European integration process was reinforced at the beginning of the 1990s, leading to a greater pressure on all member states to adapt to European norms more generally. Europeanization research undertaken in France follows these empirical developments: The first studies on the Europeanization of France emerged at the beginning of the 1990s, influenced by the immense interest that the sub-​discipline of public policy experienced in France at this time. By the end of the 1990s and in particular in the first half of the 2000s, a new generation of scholars produced a second group of studies, influenced this time by Europeanization approaches developed at the international level. By adding to or opposing these perspectives, scholars have started empirically rich debates on the Europeanization of French politics and policies, but also contributed to a larger comparative politics debate. One of the major contributions of this French Europeanization research is its use of qualitative methods, in particular process-​tracing and its concentration on actors’ strategies, be they individual or collective. Furthermore, the specific approach of cognitive frames developed in public policy research in France, in which scholars insist on the influence of sectoral (meso) and global (macro) referentiels, worldviews, and cognitive frames on policy change inspired a large section of the Europeanization research conducted by Francophone scholars.

 

The Europeanization of Public Policy in France    129 Empirically France is both a “normal” and “deviant” case, depending on the conceptual lens and the research design adopted. Like other states, it is a great laboratory for testing conceptual frameworks, and in particular Europeanization puzzles, which should, ideally, be enlarged and amended by other conceptual tools. From the 1990s onward in particular, French public policies changed due to European integration, as we have seen in other countries. Europeanization does not lead to uniformity or more coherence: domestic institutions act as mediators and frame adaptation processes. As in other European Union member states, an incremental approach provides a comprehensive tool with which to assess the policy record of the French state. Governments have rarely implemented radical programs. Even in a formally centralized state, policy change induced through European integration is a complex and multilateral process involving constant negotiation between the government, the administration, and interest groups. Thus, while France is not considered to be different from other states with regard to policy change, it is considered a deviant case in the field of research into non-​compliance with European law. This specific subfield of Europeanization research deals with inertia and retrenchment attitudes that can be found at the domestic level with regard to EU directives. Here France is perceived as lagging behind. Administrative and institutional structures are said to be particularly prone to attitudes of rejection and inertia. This chapter will be structured as follows: in a first section, it will present a review of the general literature on Europeanization. In a second section, the chapter will present the three periods of Europeanization studies that characterize French and francophone research from the 1990s to the beginning of the 2000s. A third part will then concentrate on the possible pitfalls and solutions for Europeanization research in France. Finally, a brief conclusion completes the chapter.

Europeanization: A Conceptual Framework The concept of Europeanization seeks to understand the influence of the Union and European integration more generally on political, economic, and social change within each member state. The Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty spawned new research interest at the beginning of the 1990s. The deepening of European integration and the legalization of new policy areas increased the pressure at the member state level to adapt to European norms. “Europe” seemed to be everywhere: not a single ministry or agent at the domestic level could ignore the outcome of European integration. In its most restricted interpretation, Europeanization refers to transformation processes at the national level, which are dependent on European integration (Goetz and Hix, 2000). Since the first scholarship in this area, this basic definition has become more complex and full-​bodied. The concept enjoyed considerable success, and was taken up in increasingly diverse research projects (Exadaktylos and Radaelli, 2009; 2012). Such

 

130   Sabine Saurugger success makes the analysis of the concept’s central assumptions and applications particularly demanding. This section of the chapter captures the complexity of the conceptual framework by identifying two central debates: the definitions, and the results, of Europeanization.

Definitions of Europeanization In simple terms, three conventional definitions of Europeanization can be isolated: bottom-​up (uploading), top-​down (downloading), and circular Europeanization. A fourth understanding of Europeanization has been developed in a specific approach to policy-​transfer studies.

Uploading Until the end of the 1990s, national policies rather than European policies or institutions played the crucial role of independent variables in the majority of European studies on the European integration process. This means that scholars used to analyze national positions and interdependence between domestic and European actors to explain how European policies and institutional patterns evolved at the European Union level. This was sometimes labeled Europeanization, and was later understood as the “uploading” perspective of this process. Questions were, for instance: Is the delegation of competencies determined by governmental preferences which are dependent upon the interests of transnational actors? Or is the European institutional architecture the result of preferences of supranational agents? Little research has concentrated on the impact of European integration on national systems, or, in other words, “how delegation of competences to the Community level influences political results in the national arena” (Goetz and Hix, 2000: 3–​4).

Downloading Research on the influence of European integration on the domestic realm started, slowly but surely, in the mid-1990s. One of the earliest definitions of “Europeanization” was by Robert Ladrech, who sees it as “an incremental process reorienting the direction and shape of politics to the degree that EC political and economic dynamics become part of the organizational logic of national politics and policy-​making” (Ladrech, 1994; 2010). Here, European integration is considered a causal factor, incrementally transforming national public policies. European integration becomes the explanatory factor for the changes observed in the functioning of national public policies. In other words, European integration is considered the independent variable which influences the transformation of policies, defined as the result of European integration or the dependent variable (Goetz and Hix, 2000; Risse, Green Cowles, and Caporaso, 2001).

Circular Europeanization Another group of scholars, however, argued that it is impossible to think about Europeanization without taking into account the processes that led to the establishment of

 

The Europeanization of Public Policy in France    131 those rules at the European level in the first place. In this understanding, Europeanization is defined as a “processes of (a) construction (b) diffusion and (c) institutionalization of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, ‘ways of doing things’ and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the making of EU public policy and politics and then incorporated into the logic of domestic discourse, identities, political structures and public policies’ (Radaelli, 2000: 4; see also Palier and Surel, 2007). This multi-​factor definition helps pinpoint the different levels, actors, and instruments of change. It clearly indicates that Europeanization is not a linear process but a circular one, which also includes European integration and the process’s influence at a national level, which, in turn, influences European integration anew.

Policy Transfer Finally, the idea that European integration might not be the only factor inducing change is as old as Europeanization research itself. The question is how to make sure that changes at the domestic level of European member states are not systematically perceived as induced by European-level developments. Several authors (Rose, 1993; Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000; Radaelli, 2000; Bulmer and Padgett, 2005; Dolowitz, 2006; Börzel and Risse, 2012) have addressed this puzzle and sought to reconcile the concepts of Europeanization and policy transfer studies (Dobbin et al., 2007; Gilardi, 2010). Despite the luring danger of concept-​stretching, cross-​referencing Europeanization and public policy transfer brings a comparative perspective to the analysis of transformations at national level, not as a linear dissemination of European norms, but as a complex series of processes of exchange and transaction determined by institutional and political constraints stemming from the domestic and transnational level.

Europeanization Results: Change and Non-​Change The starting point for most Europeanization studies is, more often than not, attached to the common assumption of “EU constraints” (for an exception see Irondelle, 2003). The creation of rules and legal standards at a European level has direct and indirect effects at the domestic level due to the primacy of EU law over national legislation. On one hand, the constraint may remain fairly formal and explicit, and lead to the establishment of a typology of different states’ adaptation levels. On the other hand, resistance to those EU constraints exists as well, and leads to research on non-​compliance with EU law.

Forms of Adaptation The pressures exercised at the European level lead to effects at the domestic level. Four possible outcomes are commonly identified (Goetz and Hix, 2000; Héritier et  al., 2001; Featherstone and Radaelli, 2003; Börzel and Risse, 2000): absorption, adaptation, transformation, and inertia. In the case of absorption, member states incorporate European policies and ideas and readjust their institutions accordingly. In adaptation

 

132   Sabine Saurugger processes, member states adapt their policies, processes, discourses, and institutions without modifying their essential characteristics. Europeanization can also transform national policies when national actors replace policies, processes, institutions, and discourses with new and substantially different ones. Finally, inertia refers to a situation where no change takes place. Paradoxically, this phenomenon is the least analyzed in Europeanization studies, despite its apparent urgency, particularly in the light of citizens’ resistance to and lack of interest in their national representatives advocating greater integration or asking for increasing financial solidarity, a process that goes far beyond the phenomenon generally studied under the heading of Euroskepticism. While Euroskepticism is mostly based on large-​scale surveys of citizens or parties, it appears from the results that resistance to European integration comes in the form of both individual and collective opposition to specific European policies, and less so to European integration in general. Identifying these different degrees of pressure stemming from the European level does not necessarily help us predict the result of norm implementation. Most case studies produce divergent rather than convergent responses. Thus, instead of identifying homogenization between member states’ systems and policies, empirical studies have shown the importance of the past acting as a filter for domestic change. For instance, the structure of the energy sector in France is different to that in Great Britain—​a difference based on the historical development of the policy area in these two countries. This emphasis on national and institutional historical landscape reflects an institutionalist-​ type analysis and, more precisely, the notion of path dependency (Pierson, 1996). More specifically, research on Europeanization identifies five factors that condition the adaptation of national structures to European pressures: veto points, the existence of mediating institutions, political and organizational cultures, the reorganization of power relationships at the national level, and learning processes. Thus, convergence can, at best, be partial. In other words, national political systems and the power relationships characterizing them are not fundamentally changed by Europeanization.

Compliance and Non-​Compliance with EU Law While EU policies can lead to change, non-​change must be analyzed as another result of pressure exercised by the European level. Research into non-​compliance—​effectively an expression of Euroskepticism by the back door (Leconte, 2010)—​started with the analysis of convergence between EU laws and their implementation at the national level. European directives and regulations were initially considered to be relatively apolitical and the efficiency of implementation was measured in the same way that one would measure the efficiency of national administrative services: the quicker the legislative procedures, the more efficient the implementation of EU law. After a first group of studies emphasized, be it more or less implicitly, the convergence of different European national systems through European law, Europeanization and policy-​transfer studies began to show how differentiated the implementation of EU law is at the national level (for an overview of this research see Falkner et al., 2005: 14–​17; Treib, 2008). This differentiation becomes a dependent variable from the moment scholars consider the various

 

The Europeanization of Public Policy in France    133 national mediation structures or the differential match between EU-​and national-​level regulations (Risse, Green Cowles, and Caporaso, 2001). In this context, studies start from the assumption that the degree of convergence between a European law and the corresponding national policy depends on the degree to which the national political structures “fit” the European demands. The more these structures (understood as historical, institutional, economic, social, ideological, or cultural mechanisms providing order) are similar to those existing at the national level, the easier adaptation will be. On the contrary, the more the domestic and the EU levels differ, the more difficult adaptation and change become. By the end of the 1990s, the concept of “misfit” (or the “mismatch hypothesis”) had paved the way for considerable research into resistance and non-​compliance.

Non-​Compliance Studies A first group of studies concentrated on the evolution of the European Commission’s implementation policies (Börzel, 2001). Here, the studies on infringement procedures initiated by the Commission are central. In cases of member state non-​compliance, the Commission can initiate an infringement procedure with a letter of formal notice, which can be followed up by a reasoned opinion, then a transferral to the European Court of Justice, and finally a ruling by the ECJ (art 226 ECT/​art 258 TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union)). If the member state does not act according to the ruling, a second infringement procedure can be initiated and financial sanctions imposed (art 228 ECT/​art 260 TFEU). Recently, studies in this area have become extremely systematic, testing a large number of data with routine research questions (number of veto players, degree of administrative capacity, etc.). The most systematic research into the issue of compliance with EU law has arguably been conducted by three core research teams: one led by Gerda Falkner (Falkner et al., 2005), a second led by Tanja Börzel (Börzel et al., 2010), and a third by Thomas König (König and Luetgert, 2009; Brouard et  al., 2012). These teams have concentrated on three different EU directive databases, because directives enable us to observe the ease or difficulty of implementing EU law, given that directives must be incorporated into national law whereas regulations are directly applicable at the national level and therefore do not offer a basis of observation about compliance processes. The studies examine the reasons for non-​compliance and link Commission data to institutional aspects of legislative and administrative structures in the member states. While different in nature, these projects agree that three elements are at least partially necessary for a state to be able to implement EU law successfully: administrative capacity, capacity to exert pressure, and the availability of information. Two phenomena, however, may lead to non-​implementation: inertia (a paralyzed implementation structure linked to an absence of societal activism), and stalemate (a situation of active opposition and the existence of strong veto points). Conceptualizing in these terms has, however, remained largely focused on processes resulting from European legal decisions. French scholars have partially attempted to enlarge the concept of Europeanization since the beginning of the 2000s.

 

134   Sabine Saurugger

Europeanization in France: Substance and Research As in other national contexts, research on the Europeanization of public policies started in France at the beginning of the 1990s. The Single European Act with its aim of harmonizing domestic policies and the establishing of a single market throughout Europe triggered an increased interest amongst scholars in European regional integration. From this starting point, it is possible to distinguish three periods in French Europeanization research. In a first phase, European integration became a subject of interest for public policy scholars. Without conceptualizing the term as Europeanization, these empirical studies clearly stated that European integration needed to be considered as an independent variable influencing domestic policy change. In a second phase, a group of young scholars produced comparative research methods. In their empirical studies they adapted these approaches and more specifically concentrated on power games amongst actors. A third phase produced new conceptual ways of thinking about Europeanization, characterized on one hand by the introduction of the notion of “usages” of European integration, and on the other by the attempt to clearly combine two conceptual frameworks—​policy transfer and Europeanization—​to better understand policy change at the domestic level.

The Discovery of European Integration as a Factor of Domestic Change Pierre Muller is one of the leading public policy scholars, and his work on the Europeanization of France, published at the beginning of the 1990s is among the most influential (Muller, 1992). This research was clearly influenced by two real-world phenomena: on one hand the process of decentralization pursued by the French socialist government in 1982, which became a research priority for French public policy specialists. On the other hand the new dynamics of European integration in the form of the realization of the single market through the 1987 Single European Act (SEA) and the Maastricht Treaty (1992). In adopting the cognitive perspective he had contributed to developing (Jobert and Muller, 1987), Muller argued that the French model of public policy—​characterized first by the centrality of the state in decision-​making procedures; second, by a specific form of interest representation—​statism—​in which the central government, again, dominated; and finally by the privileged role of the state in the implementation of public policies at the local level—​was undergoing change. This change was mainly due to two factors: the emergence of new laws at the European level, pushing for increased market integration, and the decision to decentralize taken by the French government at the beginning of the 1980s with the arrival in power of a new socialist government. These two developments challenged the centrality of the state, the

 

The Europeanization of Public Policy in France    135 main hypothesis being, at that time, that the state in France would lose its influence and increasingly share it with other actors (see also Schmidt, 1996). In Muller’s (1992) seminal article, however, the notion of Europeanization does not appear, nor do any references to international public policy studies interested in European integration as such. Muller deals with the transformation of French public policy, and, more generally the French state, by questioning two aspects, which were, according to him, influenced by the European Union: the relations between interest groups and the state, and the introduction of the market (known in Germany within the notion of Soziale Marktwirtschaft) in France. Based on a number of empirical studies from secondary literature, Muller demonstrates that European integration has limited the State’s room for maneuver, and more particularly that of political and administrative elites. European integration has decreased their capacity to deal with interest groups, which are increasingly competing with “civil society organizations.” Through examples from the aviation and agriculture sectors, Muller shows that French interest groups, due to their corporatist link with political and administrative actors—​a link he calls “sectorial corporatism”—​are increasingly disadvantaged compared to those in other European member states. French interest groups rely on their administrative partners to represent their interests in Brussels and have not yet understood the importance of acting independently on the Brussels scene. On the other hand, market norms, introduced by the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty, which, Muller seems to implicitly argue, reflect the interest of the German government, have tremendously changed French politics. This idea was taken up by Fouilleux (2000) in her analysis of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). She shows that the reform was led by European experts, influenced by the cognitive frame of the market, and that the French farmers’ union had very little say in the matter, due to their incapacity to change the level of intervention, that is, intervening in Brussels instead of Paris. The main reason for these transformations is the change in policy-​making: policy-​ making increasingly means simply implementing EU decisions, and the interaction with Brussels has thus become strategic. In this first study of the transformation of the French political system due to European integration, one of the variables explaining this change is the socialization of civil servants. Referring to Jean-​Louis Quermonne’s studies of the French administration and the state (Quermonne, 1991), Muller underlines the tight-​knit relations that the French administration coordinating EU policies—​the SGCI (Secrétariat general du comité interministériel pour la cooperation internationale)—​has with its EU counterparts. It is interesting to underline, however, that this first study, contrary to the subsequent publications on this topic, is in no way influenced by the international public policy literature. It is only in 1994 that we see emerging references to comparative public policy studies published in other national contexts, and more particularly in English, when, edited by Yves Mény, Pierre Muller, and Jean-​Louis Quermonne (1994), another influential volume on public policies and Europe saw the day. Based on one of the first definitions of Europeanization (Andersen and Eliassen, 1993) which emerged due to the

 

136   Sabine Saurugger extended influence of European integration on the domestic level through both the SEA and the Maastricht Treaty, the authors of the collective volume attempt to answer two specific questions: Is it possible to observe the emergence of a European public space? More precisely, is there convergence of member states’ domestic policy styles, ways of doing things, and contents of public policies? The authors clearly announce the hypothesis that the convergence of domestic policies is underway and can be observed in three areas: the emergence of a truly European political agenda, the convergence of forms of domestic interest intermediation, and finally a convergence in policy-​making techniques at the domestic level. Taking up the idea of the emergence of a European political agenda, a number of French political economists, such as Dumez et Jeunemaître (1995) or Cohen (1993; 1994) have analyzed the development of the European industrial and competition policies and argue that EU member states have been significantly influenced by European directives and the decisions of the European Court of Justice. The European agenda, based on the new idea—​or référentiel as Muller calls it in his cognitive approach to public policy (see Parsons in this volume)—​of the establishment of a single market, profoundly transforms French public policies. Based on the centrality of the state, the policies of privatization and increased competition have profoundly influenced public policies in France (Radaelli, 2015). While the second research question on the transformation of interest intermediation was, until the beginning of the 2000s, led mostly by British scholars interested in France (Mazey and Richardson, 1996), French scholarship did at this time produce well-​documented studies with regard to the transformation of administrative structures in France. Influenced by law scholars such as Jacques Ziller (1995) and Jean-​ Louis Quermonne (1994), as well as the German political scientist Wolfgang Wessels’ fusion hypothesis, Christian Lequesne produced one of the most detailed studies on the Europeanization of the national administration to date (Lequesne, 1993; 1994). He shows that French civil servants, like civil servants in other member states, increasingly learn from each other through their constant interaction at the European level. This, however, does not lead to a homogenization of their attitudes or ways of working, as their backgrounds are completely heterogeneous and pressures do not trigger the same changes. Nevertheless, his empirical analysis shows that, while changes in attitudes do not lead to convergent attitudes and ways of doing things, the Single European Act of 1987 has led to a new discourse focusing on the constraint of the market, and the necessity to rationalize public policies and offer better conditions for France in a context of economic internationalization. Lequesne’s research has allowed us, in particular, to understand the functioning of the interministerial coordination of European policies in France, incorporated by the former Secrétariat général du comité interministériel (SGCI—​today Secrétariat général des affaires européennes, SGAE). Though the specificity of the French administrative structure is its centralization, Lequesne has shown that this centralization was increasingly questioned in the context of European affairs, which became more and more the result of micro-​negotiations that took place inside and among different ministries. This practice has increased the sources of conflict that can

 

The Europeanization of Public Policy in France    137 exist between ministries and administrative actors more generally. Lequesne’s approach inspired a large number of comparative studies on national administrations and their transformation through European integration.

Importing Comparative Europeanization Research Questions Research on the Europeanization of public policies stagnated somewhat during the mid1990s; a stagnation that reflects the slowdown of path-​breaking European integration dynamics. A number of specific policy areas, such as Justice and Home Affairs or Social Policy were transformed through increased integration efforts, but most policies continued to advance incrementally after the radical change at the end of the 1980s. Studies on the Europeanization of public policies were inspired by debates taking place at the international level. Scholars argued that while the transformation of domestic public policies through European integration was a reality, the convergence of these public policies was not one of the results (Guiraudon, 2000a; 2000b; Smith, 1996a; 1996b; 1997). On the contrary, the differences were as great as ever among member states and policies, as Guiraudon (2000a) showed in her research on French, Dutch, and German immigration policies. One of the results of Guiraudon’s study is that the Europeanization of policies can allow member states to develop strategies to favour their own national agendas against veto players at the domestic level. More precisely, in building upon pre-​ existing policy settings and developing new policy frames, governments have circumvented national constraints on migration control by creating transnational co​operation mechanisms, with EU institutions playing a minor role. European trans-​governmental working groups have avoided judicial scrutiny, eliminated other national adversaries, and enlisted the help of transnational actors such as transit countries and carriers. This research paved the way for the conceptualization of Europeanization as usages developed by the mid-2000s. At the beginning of the 2000s, a new generation of scholars working on European integration applied the conceptual framework of Europeanization to specific actor categories and public policies. Interest groups scholars produced studies showing how both domestic interest intermediation systems and interest groups’ internal organizational structures adapted to European integration. By insisting on the fact that interest groups were initially established at the domestic level, in order to influence domestic policy-​making, and only later acted at the European level, their central hypothesis was that adaptation only occurred at the margins. The learning process of these groups and the transformation of the interest intermediation systems were significantly filtered through mediating institutions (Michel, 2002; Saurugger, 2002; Grossman, 2002; Woll, 2006; 2008; Sanchez Salgado and Woll, 2004) and not solely due to European policies (Grossman and Saurugger, 2004). A later branch of work has concentrated more specifically on the transformation of interest groups’ internal structures that has been resumed under the heading of professionalization (Klüver and Saurugger, 2013).

 

138   Sabine Saurugger Scholars working on specific policy areas, such as regional policies (Pasquier, 2002), health and social policies (Hassenteufel and Palier, 2001; Guigner, 2008), defense policies (Irondelle, 2003), gender policies (Jacquot, 2006; Engeli et al., 2008; Boussaguet and Jacquot, 2009), or the transformation of society more generally (Baisnée and Pasquier, 2007), have shown that European integration has an impact on all policy fields, though with differing intensity and depending on the institutional framework in place at the French domestic level. Among those studies, Bastien Irondelle’s work on French military policy is particularly innovative. In his research, Irondelle develops the idea that policies can adapt to European standards without the existence of legal pressure, that is, without the necessity to implement or transpose European norms. While institutional mediations might be important, indirect pressures, elite socialization, and the learning processes might, in some cases, be more decisive factors. This idea of “Europeanization without Europe” paved the way for studies that criticized research designs taking legal norms as the starting point for analyzing change at the domestic level (Risse et al., 2001; Hoeffler and Faure, 2015). With regard to gender policies, and in a combination of Mazey’s (1998), Hafner-​ Burton and Pollack’s (2000), Liebert’s (2003) positivist perspective, and Mazur’s (1995) sociological constructivist approach, French scholars have particularly analyzed the partial Europeanization of gender policies (Forest and Lombardo, 2012). Using an actor-​ centered approach, they have contributed to developing in EU studies, with a special issue of the Revue française de science politique (Boussaguet and Jacquot, 2009) more specifically focused on how women’s movements contribute to setting the agenda and defining problems on feminist policies in France, Belgium, and Switzerland, and at the EU level. In this context, France was, yet again, characterized as lagging behind in the transposition of EU law.

Emancipation of French Research The first decade of the 2000s, when European integration seemed more or less stabilized (before the shock waves of the 2005 referenda rejecting the Constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands), French scholars produced a larger number of comparative studies on Europeanization in France. This research slowly started to influence the international research on the issue, in particular through Claudio Radaelli’s active role in the dissemination of the results of French research (Radaelli and Pasquier, 2007; Saurugger and Radaelli, 2008). An illustration of this work can be found in Palier and Surel’s edited volume on Europeanization (Palier and Surel, 2007). Bringing together a group of young scholars, these authors introduced a comparative framework to the classic Europeanization puzzles and questioned a number of research results in Europeanization studies. Through a wide array of empirical studies, ranging from Justice and Home Affairs and Education policies, to gender mainstreaming and defense policy, to non-​state actors and the politics of neutrality of European member states, these studies questioned the clear distinction between the top-​down and bottom-​up

 

The Europeanization of Public Policy in France    139 Europeanization which constitute the basis of Europeanization research at the international level. Instead of developing clear-​cut research designs that would allow them to measure the impact of European integration at the domestic level, these authors called for a research design that allows for the measurement of permanent feedback effects between the domestic and EU levels. Longitudinal process-​tracing thus becomes the exclusive research method, and alternative hypotheses such as the influence of global dynamics or domestic factors (socio-​economic factors, institutional structures, or political ideology) are added. Without developing an entirely new approach to Europeanization studies, French research has enabled a careful and precise analysis of the impact of European integration, without jumping to quick and sometimes simplistic conclusions. More specifically, though, this third generation of Europeanization studies has led to the development of two distinct puzzles. The first concentrates on the use actors make of European integration in political power games. The second comprises research that links Europeanization to policy-​transfer studies.

Using European Integration Strategically This sociological approach involves looking more closely at the role of actors as they interact, and recognizing the importance of their mediation. The approach qualifies as sociological because it concentrates on how the actor and his interactive behavior are constructed. Through their actions, individuals constitute the dynamics of adaptation, from a national context to a European context, and vice versa; that is, they “drive” Europeanization. More specifically, the idea is to study how actors manage to translate their social positioning (their institutional situation, interests, world view) and the structures that frame their practices into power and influence. Of course, usage supposes voluntary action. Whatever the nature of opportunity (political, institutional, symbolic, financial), actors must seize it and transform it into political practice. What makes this approach particularly interesting for the study of Europeanization is the observation that there can be conscious and deliberate action without the initial and final objective being identical, and without the final effects automatically being checked and controlled. Thus, during the process, actors can be seen to-​ ing and fro-​ing among the European and local, sectorial, and institutional levels upon which they act or seek to act. Using the European Union or European integration, however strategic it might seem initially, results in cognitive and normative adaptation in the medium term, which then affects the actor’s behavior and his/​her social positioning in the longer term. Three types of usage can be distinguished. First is strategic usage, comprising the most commonly studied examples:  interest groups and social movements use both political and financial opportunities to side-​step the national level. This allows actors to advance their claims through alternative channels and to draw their governments into a two-​level game. The strategic usage is mainly found in contexts of bargaining and negotiation. Second is cognitive usage, part of an interpretation and persuasion framework

 

140   Sabine Saurugger where each social fact needs to be interpreted in order to become an element of political debate. In this context we find political entrepreneurs, advocacy coalitions, and networks to be the most common types of actor. Third is legitimization usage, where actors, in particular political representatives, use EU politics as elements to justify or de-​ legitimize political decisions at the domestic level. Scholars working with this approach have underlined that in order to make this research protocol operational, a longitudinal method must be applied.

Policy Transfer A number of French scholars have developed research on policy transfer as support for conceptualizing domestic change that was not entirely, but only partially, due to EU constraints. While broadly influenced by the studies presented in the second section of this chapter, French scholars introduced, yet again, a specific actor-​centered approach. Through a study of European party federations, EU enlargement, and the interrelationship between the “logic of appropriateness” and the “logic of consequentialism,” Dorota Dakowska (2002; 2007) questions the notion of conditionality as the major explanatory factor of EU-​induced change. She argues that only a longitudinal analysis which combines the factors of EU conditionality with policy transfers from other states and non-​ state actors such as political foundations as well as a specific type of post-​communist transformation of Central and Eastern European states explains the changes in these political systems. Explicitly combing the two concepts of Europeanization and policy transfer, Saurugger and Surel (2006) argued in a similar way that the transformation of the state in Central and Eastern Europe cannot be understood as only the result of EU pressures. The transformation of administrative and political structures is due to diverse instruments, of a nature ranging from voluntary to coercive, in which the position and power games amongst actors must be taken into account. This understanding of change is best captured, though, through a broader policy-​transfer approach, in which the dynamics of reappropriation and reinterpretation of certain institutional and normative frames by administrative and political actors is included (Delpeuch, 2008; Dumoulin and Saurugger, 2010; de Maillard and Hassenteufel, 2013). This particular policy-​transfer approach goes beyond large-​scale diffusion studies concentrating on broad macro-​­sociological variables (Gilardi, 2010). On the contrary, it takes as a starting point micro-​sociological processes, which analyze whether and how individual and collective actors have learned about new policy solutions and imported those into their political arenas. Empirical illustrations of the idea of combining Europeanization and policy-​ transfer studies can be found in a number of comparative analyses on security, defense, and family policies in Austria, Finland, Sweden, the UK, and France (Enos-​Attali, Jönsson, and Sheppard, 2007), the management of economic development in Central and Eastern Europe (Delpeuch and Vassileva, 2010), and the transfer of solutions in the context of policing in Europe (de Maillard and Le Goff, 2009). These studies are

 

The Europeanization of Public Policy in France    141 empirically rich and all use the most recent international literature on policy transfer and Europeanization. Beyond this empirical wealth, there is, however, an absence of independent conceptual development in these studies, which concentrate on specific policy areas more then on theoretical sophistication. It seems that there is a structural specificity in French studies which pushes scholars to be original, which means not applying already developed conceptual frameworks to “test” or study a specific policy area, but instead developing an entirely new approach for the specific area under scrutiny.

Beyond Europeanization: Resistance to European Public Policy French studies on Europeanization have added two specific elements: an actor-​centered approach and a very detailed and subtle understanding of policy-​change processes through European integration. This is not to say that these elements did not already exist in international Europeanization approaches. Research in politics is based on the study of actors’ interaction; their power games, interests, and ideas; and the institutions framing their preferences. However, more than scholarship from most other countries, French and French-​language research has put the study of power games between actors up front in questioning how these foster or hinder the transfer of European norms at the domestic level. In this last area of analysis—​studying factors that hinder the Europeanization of public policies; the so-​called non-​compliance research—​we find a number of new research agendas that should be explored in more depth and with greater precision.

Going Beyond Non-​Compliance While international non-​compliance research is very active and has produced cumulative data both through qualitative and quantitative research designs (for an overview see Treib, 2008; Toshkov, 2010), as we have seen earlier, it was mainly interested in non-​compliance with EU norms, both legally binding norms and, more rarely, soft governance mechanisms. These studies concentrated on factors hindering the smooth transposition of or compliance with EU norms. Elements such as poor administrative resources, a high number of veto players, high level of corruption, and federal state structures have been identified as crucial elements influencing this process. Although this research is not aimed at describing purely passive public policy adjustments, the studies can be criticized for neglecting the important roles played by individual and collective actors in applying EU norms. In other words, the instruments of societal resistance to the implementation of European norms, as well as the actual implementation of these policies by street-​level bureaucrats and “consumers” (for an exception see Versluis, 2007) were more or less ignored. It is in these two areas—​the actors’ usage of EU constraints or opportunities, and the instruments used to resist—​that recent studies offer

 

142   Sabine Saurugger promising research avenues. The actor-​centered research design developed by a number of researchers in France might be particularly useful to frame these questions.

Usages The concept of usages emphasizes the fact that Europeanization is an evolving and complex process. In order to understand this process, we need to dwell on the means and resources available to national and European actors to implement, or more generally “translate,” European norms into domestic practice. While the current debate pinpoints structural elements or institutional pressures, it does so without specifying how they operate and what mechanisms they adopt in order to bring about change (Jacquot and Woll, 2004; 2008; 2010). As has been argued, in their usage-​based approach, Sophie Jacquot and Cornelia Woll emphasize two dimensions of Europeanization: first, the role of actors in the practical translation of the effects of integration and, second, the qualification of reasons to account for actors’ actions—​or more specifically, the interaction between the micro level of the actor and the macro level of institutions. The authors argue that actors can “choose” and “learn” free from institutional pressures, but that any social action within the European integration process also requires an understanding of the environment and the context. To be able to act, actors must interpret European institutions themselves and comprehend/​cope with the pressures that those institutions bring to bear on them. This idea can also be found in more discursive and ethnographic work undertaken by a number of scholars (Rosamond and Hay, 2002; Lynggaard, 2010; 2013; Adler-​Nissen, 2008) who analyze how domestic actors use European constraints discursively in order to either comply with European norms or circumvent them for domestic political purposes. They concentrate on decision-makers’ strategic use of European integration and globalization discourses to justify and coordinate national sector reforms. The usage approach is particularly helpful to understand which variables, other than institutional ones, lead to change. While this usage literature implicitly concentrates on change, resistance to EU-​induced policy change can best be analyzed by an instruments approach.

Instruments of Resistance One of the central arguments in favor of research on resistance to European integration is the social relevance of the question. Discourse and action opposing European integration seem to be on the increase, not only among citizens (known as Euroskepticism) but also among the administration resisting the implementation of European policies (see Crespy and Verschueren, 2009). The period of crisis in which the European Union finds itself makes these phenomena more visible. French research on resistance to EU norms addresses the central question of to what extent and when precisely two specific factors—​political games and symbolic politics—​ influence administrative resistance to EU policies at the domestic level. In this sense it goes beyond the variables used by non-​compliance research presented above, based on institutional explanations, and again puts actors up front. The main argument found in this research is that while non-​political variables, such as resources or bureaucratic

 

The Europeanization of Public Policy in France    143 capacities, without doubt influence the degrees of compliance with EU law, the usage of these variables is intrinsically political. This understanding of the political roles of variables is very similar to the idea developed in a section of French public policy approaches concentrating on instrumentation (Halpern et al., 2014). Instruments are not “axiologically neutral and indifferently available tools. They are, on the contrary, sponsors of values, fed by an interpretation of social issues and specific conceptions of the form of regulation envisaged” (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2004: 13). Thus, instruments in this understanding are not only tools to solve problems, although they are also that. The understanding of policy instruments here is based on the underlying power structures and struggles that allow their emergence as well as their impact. With regard to resistance research, the use of one variable rather than another to resist EU public policy implementation thus reflects the idea of favouring certain strategies more than others. The detailed analysis of the instruments used to resist policy implementation enables researchers to explain power and legitimacy maneuvers at the domestic level. Empirically, the Euro crisis has revealed that in a policy area that was considered the greatest achievement of EU integration, namely European monetary union, Europeanization failed to trigger the proper adaptation of economic structures in member states such as Greece. Resistance to complying with European rules could also be found in attitudes adopted by the Council of Ministers, which failed to apply sanctions against France and Germany in 2003, while punitive proceedings were started (but fines never applied) when dealing with Portugal (2002) and Greece (2005). Similarly, in Central and Eastern Europe, a number of political actors are resisting the establishment of democratic institutions and policies conveyed by the EU, as epitomized by the controversy surrounding constitutional reform in Hungary. When looking at resistance in the implementation phase, a number of scholars have developed a typology of the instruments used to resist the implementation of European norms (Saurugger and Terpan, 2015; Crespy and Saurugger, 2014). In this understanding, instruments of resistance must not be considered a purely functional rejection of European norms that are seen as problematic by national actors. The instruments depend, on the contrary, on the political, institutional, and social context in which they are generated. How national actors resist EU norms and how they decide upon instruments of resistance is a consequence of existing power games and conflicts at the domestic level. These are then largely influenced by the institutional context or domestic politics. Legal instruments, such as constitutional or legislative changes, are mainly used by state actors. Increasingly, however, private actors such as companies or NGOs refer cases to the courts and reinforce judicial policymaking. Economic and financial instruments, such as imposing or not paying taxes, or denying funding, are on the contrary used by state actors and companies, but not by NGOs. Finally, instruments of information and communication, such as expertise, statistics, or making an issue publicly known and hence allowing a larger portion of the society to oppose it are available to state actors, companies, and NGOs alike (Saurugger and Terpan, 2015: 12). Taking this typology as a framework, research on resistance focuses on the way these instruments are used by domestic actors. Thus, while the distinction between active and

 

144   Sabine Saurugger passive forms of resistance, as introduced by the literature on non-​compliance with EU law, might be useful as it draws a line between voluntary and non-​voluntary resistance, these two forms of resistance are empirically difficult to distinguish. For example, when an administration justifies inertia by a lack of resource, we might find, behind seemingly non-​voluntary resistance, an active attempt at circumventing a norm. The strategies actors use to play on different levels of resistance are as crucial to take into account as the instruments they choose to resist. At the same time, this approach to resistance also allows the pitfalls of Euroskepticism research to be circumvented. This research concentrates on the relationship between citizens and parties and neglects the influence of collective actors such as interest groups, companies, or social movements on the preferences of parties and the administration. Analyzing the instruments of resistance helps us to grasp the link between collective actors’ and EU governments’ preferences, as this approach focuses on the usage of tools in specific power games between actors. The number of examples in this research area has grown over the past fifteen years. Empirical studies analyze resistance in policy areas such as the Stability and Growth Pact or more recent economic governance measures, employment and social policy, state aid, tax competition, enlargement policy, research and educational policy, or public and administrative reform (Woolfson, 2006; Trampusch, 2009; Geyer and Lightfoot, 2010; Featherstone, 2005; Sedelmeier, 2012; Tulmets, 2005; Graziano, 2011; Hodson and Maher, 2004; Lopez-​Santana, 2006; Morano-​Foadi, 2008; Gwiazda, 2011; Halpern, 2013; Arrignon, 2012; Caune, 2013). In these studies, scholars use actor-​centered hypotheses, arguing that the lack of political support for the government or veto players (be those interest groups, trade unions, employers’ organizations, parties, or the media) best explains the difficulty soft law has in being taken into account at the national level. We can thus suppose that certain actors are likely to use some instruments more than others (Crespy and Saurugger, 2014). The array of instruments is wider at the national level, where actors can resort to legal and economic mechanisms which do not need to be coordinated among different national arenas. The early warning mechanism provided by the Treaty of Lisbon for national parliaments—​which allows one third of national parliaments to request that the European Commission revise a legislative proposal if they consider it to be an infringement of the subsidiarity principle, giving them the opportunity to resist policy change in the EU—​is just such an example. The use of legal instruments to resist a European norm is therefore more likely to appear in formal arenas than in contexts where actors are only loosely coordinated transnationally. In contrast to legal or economic and fiscal instruments, informative and communication instruments can potentially be important in all arenas. NGOs and political parties, as well as companies or the administration, can all use communication instruments to circumvent or oppose European legal and soft-​law norms.

 

The Europeanization of Public Policy in France    145

Conclusion Europeanization research in the field of public policy is thus vibrant in France as well as abroad. While it emerged concurrently in the French and international realms, a large part of the French approach, embedded in a cognitive framework best subsumed under the heading of “réferentiel,” has gradually influenced debates at the international level. Without ever becoming a central paradigm in the international debate, it is taken increasingly seriously by international scholars. This new French or French-​language research insists on employing the variable of power games between actors to explain the forms and features that the Europeanization of public policy has taken, both in case studies on France as well as from a comparative perspective. It has also attempted to combine policy-​transfer studies and Europeanization. More recently, French Europeanization research has started to introduce the analysis of resistance into European integration studies, combining insight from Euroskepticism and non-​compliance studies. In other words, it combines political sociology and public-​ policy frameworks. Influenced by the perception that opposition to European policies increases when more and more policies are developed at the EU level—​the so-​called neofunctionalist curvilinear hypothesis—​ studies have developed typologies and hypotheses that might help us to explain why and when these resistance attitudes occur, and which form they take. Thus, as in other national contexts, French Europeanization studies are a vibrant field in which approaches influenced by the proximity between sociology and political science specific to France give rise to innovative new perspectives.

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Chapter 8

Gl obaliz at i on French ambivalence as a critical case Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer

There is little disagreement globalization is changing countries in a profound manner (Berger, 2000; Friedman, 1999). The mobility of capital across borders, the multinationalization of production chains, the increasing importance of trade, and the spread of common norms in many areas of cultural and economic affairs have significantly constrained the ability of governments to implement policies (Garrett, 1998; 2000; Rodrick, 1997). Nonetheless, and beyond the cliché that globalization matters, there is an intense debate about the extent and the mechanisms by which globalization shapes economies and societies. Will globalization produce convergence across countries or will its impact be mediated by national contexts? The first section of this chapter presents an overview of this debate. In the second section we analyze the evolution of the French political economy in the context of the growing importance of globalization forces. The French case is particularly well suited to the study of globalization. France’s ambivalence about globalization runs particularly deep, especially relative to other advanced countries (Berger, 1995; Gordon and Meunier, 2001). On one hand, the main political parties remain attached to economic integration and participation in European governance despite the emergence of anti-​globalization forces, most notably the National Front (Featherstone and Dyson, 1999; Kriesi et al., 2006). The French electorate is also conscious of the wealth-​creating power of the process of globalization. Nonetheless, on the other hand globalization is also perceived as a threat to economic wellbeing and to French culture (Kuisel, 2011). Sovereignty is reduced, since globalization is seen as curtailing the ability of policymakers to implement policies for which they have been democratically elected (Berger, 1995; see also Scharpf, 2014). This ambivalence toward globalization illustrates the importance of politics. The anxieties of the electorate reflect the discursive frame employed by French policymakers to manage globalization. Maintaining an interventionist discourse, a clear majority of the political elite across most of France’s partisan divisions have presented global economic pressures as unavoidable and distasteful consequences

 

152    Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer of market liberalization (Hall, 2006; Schmidt, 2007). The anxieties of the electorate toward globalization also illustrate the constraining legacies associated with the previous model of dirigisme (Hall, 1986; Zysman, 1978). The pattern of post-​war economic reconstruction, organized around direct interactions between policymakers and executives of large companies, undermined the capabilities of other actors in substituting for the state in the governance of the economy, thereby limiting the ability to lay the institutional foundations of a coordinated market economy (Culpepper, 2003; Levy, 1999). At the same time, however, the failure of French policymakers to explain the break with economic dirigisme, and their reluctance to implement liberalization of labor markets for core employees, mean that the institutional foundations of a liberal market economy are incomplete (Goyer, 2011: 1–​50). The result is the maintenance of the institutionally hybrid character of the French variety of capitalism in a sharply different environment from that of the Trente Glorieuses (Hall and Gingerich, 2009; Hall and Soskice, 2001). The institutionally hybrid character of the French economy in these first three post-​war decades enabled policymakers to overcome problems associated with social tensions at the firm level and the underdevelopment of financial markets. The maintenance of this same institutionally hybrid framework, in contrast, is less suited to the current economic environment. We analyze these issues in the second section of the chapter. The third section of the chapter highlights the contribution of the French case to the study of globalization, with a focus on the process of preference formation. An extensive stream of political science research has sought to derive preferences of actors in a globalized environment based on their position in the international economy (Frieden and Rogowski, 1996; Lake, 2009). The French case, in contrast, highlights that the translation of the pressures of globalization into preference formation constitutes a political process mediated by the choices of policymakers (Berger, 1995; Levy, 2013). In section three, we investigate how policy choices of the mid-1980s—​adherence to European monetary stability and abandonment of unilateral Keynesian expansionism—​did not constitute a full embracing of market forces and of potential austerity policies. Instead, French policymakers sought to regain at the European level what could no longer be accomplished at the domestic level while compensating the domestic “losers” of globalization (Abdelal, 2007; Fioretos, 2011; Levy, 2005). Trying to deduct the preferences of French policymakers based on the international asset positions of domestic firms in the globalized economy is bound to disappoint. A brief conclusion completes the discussion in this chapter.

Globalization: An Overview Globalization refers to the increasing importance of cross-​border flows of goods, money, people, and ideas for societies and states. It is facilitated by astonishing drops in the price of telecommunications, transport, and logistics—​it is easy for an American to buy clothes and appliances made in China, for a British pension fund to invest in Brazil, and for an Egyptian to watch footage of protests and people power in Tunisia.

 

Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case    153 Transnational corporations—​sometimes with a net worth larger than the GDP of many of the countries in which they operate—​have become crucial players on the global economic stage. Knowledge and ideas—​about economic policy, political movements, technological inventions, and many other areas—​flow almost as quickly as the news (Held and McGrew, 2007). Not all the flows that cross borders are legal or desired, however (Andreas, 2014). Drug cartels, arms dealers, and human traffickers all constitute examples of transnational organized criminal networks. Because of air travel, new diseases can cross borders quickly (Nikiforuk, 2008). The debate on globalization has raised two prominent issues; namely, about whether globalization leads to convergence across national contexts, and about the political reactions globalization elicits given its distributional consequences. We investigate these two issues in the remainder of this section. Globalization figures prominently in academic debates in social sciences. The key issue concerns the extent to which the numerous sources of pressures associated with the process of globalization—​the liberalization of trade, the mobility of capital across borders, and the integration of production in tightly hierarchical value chains—​are forcing capitalist economies to converge on each other via similar competition models of economic organization (Friedman, 1999; Garrett, 1998). The effects of these greater cross-​border flows are vigorously contested. For one camp, the hyperglobalists, the economic logic of the global market diminishes the nation state and limits its autonomy (Barnet and Cavanagh, 1994; Forrester 1999). International market forces increasingly drive government policies. The mobility of capital, the greater choice of country for production, and the ability of wealthy individuals to relocate place downward pressure on taxation and cause governments to adopt market-​friendly policies (Gray, 1998; Hardt and Negri, 2000). In this view, globalization produces convergence to a low-​tax, low-​ regulation, market-​conforming regime as governments that are inefficient, that tax too much, or regulate excessively are likely to be penalized by international market forces. While all hyperglobalists see globalization as a serious constraint on national governments, their normative evaluation of the process varies. Some bemoan the constraints on social spending and the weakening of labor’s position relative to capital globalization produces (Wallach and Woodall, 2004; Wilkinson, 2014); others celebrate it (Ohmae, 1990). For another camp, the skeptical perspective argues that globalization’s effects are greatly exaggerated (Burtless et  al., 1998; Boyer and Drache, 1996; Legrain, 2002). Nation states remain vital actors capable of both regulation and taxation, and multiple equilibria allow governments that tax heavily but combine a well-​educated labor force with excellent infrastructure to attract investment and compete successfully relative to governments that adopt a strategy of low taxes and low public provision. As a result, far from producing ineluctable downward pressures, globalization is compatible with a variety of political–​economic strategies, as evidenced by the continued ability of expensive (and high-​taxing) countries to attract investment (Hill, 2010; Pontusson, 2005). In addition, skeptics argue that national economies remain important and that much international economic activity is regulated by regional and bilateral agreements (Wolf, 2005). Finally, the transformationalist perspective presents a middle ground,

 

154    Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer arguing that national governments are changing in their capabilities and functions (Osterhammel and Petersson, 2005; Soros, 2000; Stiglitz, 2007). A restructuring of both national and global institutions is underway, but its direction and effects remain unclear. Beyond these camps, however, others scholars of globalization have analyzed its impact across issue areas and national contexts. Among the different components of globalization, the integration of financial markets has been singled out as being both more constraining on the policy repertoires of national governments and as entailing far deeper consequences for organized labor and organized actors of civil society (Garrett, 1998). Two factors account for the special character of the globalization of finance. First, increased capital mobility reduces the range of policies of national governments through its impact on the parameters of the Mundell–​Fleming theorem in open macroeconomics (Frieden, 1991). Only two of the following policy options can be obtained at once in the case of open economies: a fixed exchange rate, autonomous monetary policy, and free mobility of capital across borders. Technological developments have rapidly increased the ability of actors to move funds across borders, and the removal of capital controls by national governments in the face of domestic pressures and decreased ability to control capital exits have forced policymakers to choose between autonomous monetary policies and fixed exchange rates (Goodman and Pauly, 1993). Moreover, the decision of EU member states to opt for fixed exchange rates, first via the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) and currently with the euro, has meant that the mobility of capital across borders has eliminated the ability of national governments to pursue autonomous monetary policies. Second, financial crises over the last 30 years illustrate how the volume and speed of global financial flows have rendered national governments vulnerable to switches in assessments by financial investors that are occasionally neither predictable nor related to underlying economic conditions (Roubini and Mihm, 2010). The transmission of economic crises across borders is more intense under conditions of high capital mobility than under trade integration. Unfettered capital mobility is characterized by significant problems of asymmetric and incomplete information that nurture rapid shifts in belief and sentiment (Shiller, 2000). The globalization of financial markets constrains the actions of policymakers in large part based on how participants in financial markets assess the impact of policy outputs on the value of financial instruments. The relationship between public policy and the two other mechanisms of globalization (trade integration and the multinationalization of production), in contrast, reflects to a greater extent indicators linked to the “real economy,” such as productivity. Nonetheless, the constraining impact of globalization is distributed unequally across policy spheres. Another issue area is social policy and the welfare state. Evidence that globalization undermines welfare states and the high rates of taxation needed to fund them is not systematically present (Glatzer and Rueschemeyer, 2005). Despite predictions of a “race to the bottom,” of capital leaving high-​wage, high-​taxation countries in search of lower-​cost locations, aggregate levels of social spending and taxation have remained largely stable in the most developed social democracies (Garrett and Mitchell, 2001; Kersbergen and Vis, 2014). Rather than eroding welfare states, international

 

Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case    155 economic integration and globalization are compatible with high rates of social spending (Katzenstein, 1985). Labor may be expensive in the rich countries but it is also highly productive if embedded in a supporting institutional context (Pontusson, 2005; Thelen, 2004). Welfare states are costly (and require high rates of taxation) but health and education spending, training programs, and unemployment benefits help produce a highly skilled workforce. In fact, there is good evidence that countries where imports and exports represent a large percentage of the economy, which are therefore deeply integrated into the global economy, tend to have larger welfare states (Cameron, 1978). One standard explanation for this apparently startling correlation, known as the compensation hypothesis, suggests that high rates of social spending make economic openness politically feasible. The argument is that in the absence of social spending, workers’ fears of the greater job insecurity that they associate with globalization might lead them to punish politicians who vote for economic openness (Rodrik, 1997). Governments that see international economic integration as a route to growth therefore use social spending as a way to reduce opposition to their strategy. A second major debate of the literature on globalization addresses the political reactions it engenders, thus reflecting the presence of winners and losers associated with greater economic integration. Economists have generally celebrated the benefits of trade (Bhagwati, 2007; Irwin, 1996). In the classic view, trade increases consumer choice and promotes competition and innovation. Large markets make the production of complex products feasible. American cars improved as a result of competition from Japanese imports, and Boeing and Hollywood would find it much harder to justify their investment costs if they could only sell their products in the US. But it is also clear that cross-​ border trade produces winners and losers, such as when a company goes bankrupt because of competition from overseas, for example. Because it is much easier for investments to be made across borders than it is for workers to cross them, many worry that globalization has increased the power of capital (money) over both labor (workers) and government (Stiglitz, 2003). Others celebrate this possibility, arguing that globalization brings much-​needed competitive pressure to countries (Moore, 2003). Companies can credibly threaten to outsource or offshore production to a low-​wage country with fewer environmental and labor regulations unless workers agree to cuts in pay and benefits or, in some cases, unless the government loosens regulations, cuts benefits, and lowers taxes. In the worst case, as countries compete to attract or retain capital, the result would be the race to the bottom, where standards and protections fall in country after country. Such fears have given rise to anti-​globalization politics in many democracies, developed and underdeveloped. In some countries, the cultural and economic change produced by globalization and by immigration has produced nationalist, right-​wing parties opposed to multiculturalism and to institutions seen as strengthening economic integration at the expense of national sovereignty (Mudde, 2007). Critical of both immigrants as well as the European Union, France’s National Front, established by Jean-​Marie Le Pen, is an example of such a party (Davies, 2014). Seeing it as benefitting capital at the expense of workers, left-​wing critics of globalization have taken to the streets, opposing global economic negotiations in Seattle, Genoa, and Washington, DC in the late

 

156    Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer 1990s and early 2000s. In the US, labor unions mounted a fierce, if ultimately unsuccessful, fight against the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), which liberalized trade between the US, Canada, and Mexico (Caulfield, 2010; MacArthur, 2001). In the rich world, left-​wing critics have often called for free trade to be replaced with fair trade (which would ensure safe working conditions, enforcement of minimum wages, and the right of workers to form a union), or sustainable trade (that would reduce the environmental impacts of globalization) (Singer, 2004; Stiglitz, 2007; George, 2010). More recently, conservatives have also complained about unfair trade, arguing that countries like China fail to play by the rules when they allow violations of patent and copyright laws, fail to uphold intellectual property rights, and manipulate their currency to keep it artificially low (Cheung, 2009). Reflecting these concerns, recent American free trade strategy has tended to include provisions on labor rights and references to trade-​ related intellectual property rights, but both of these are often weak and poorly enforced (Drezner, 2006; Krist, 2013). Although globalization does not force countries to reduce their social spending, as illustrated above, scholars have highlighted its distributional consequences in the form of wage stagnation. In the United States, for instance, most explanations for the lack of growth in American wages, despite big increases in productivity, focused until recently on factors such as technological change and the demise of unions. “Globaphobia” was a term coined to describe the misplaced fear of globalization (Burtless, Lawrence, Litan, and Shapiro, 1998), and a number of economists have started to revise their position (Stiglitz, 2007). Regardless of the changes in the scientific consensus, however, politics in the advanced democracies has been marked by elite commitment to international economic integration on one hand, and popular fears of the effects of globalization, among at least significant segments of the population, on the other. A similar paradox can be found in the poorer democracies, though here the positions are sometimes reversed. Many argue that poorer countries that embrace globalization grow more quickly than countries that maintain high barriers to economic integration; yet for much of the post-​war period many developing countries pursued strategies of economic independence such as currency non-​convertibility or import substitution industrialization (Wolf, 2005). Globalization creates winners and losers in developing countries as well. For example, farmers in Mexico find it hard to compete with cheap imports of corn from the US, but urban consumers in Mexico benefit from lower food prices (Rothstein, 2007). Factory workers in Mexico gain from job opportunities in plants exporting to the US. The conditions in some of these plants are often harsh, giving rise to complaints about sweatshop labor, but nonetheless workers see these jobs as preferable to available alternatives (Kopniak, 1996). Ironically, the last few years have seen a number of wealthy countries complaining about policy being imposed upon them by foreign states and international institutions. In a strong commitment to economic integration, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland gave up their national currencies to embrace the euro, but now find themselves unable to devalue their currency in the middle of deep recessions. Unable to borrow at affordable rates in international markets, these countries are experiencing policy dictates from

 

Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case    157 wealthier countries and finding that economic integration can lead to severe losses of national autonomy (Blyth, 2013; Hall, 2012; Pisani-​Ferry, 2014; Matthijs and Blyth, 2015). Although concern about the effects of globalization has led to protests on both the Right and the Left, these have been largely ineffectual in many countries. Most center-​ right and center-​left parties have continued to support international economic integration. In responding to the Great Recession (the economic crisis that started in 2008), no country has tried to save jobs by resorting to protectionism, closing its economy to foreign competition (Drezner, 2014). Countries have not raised tariffs, established quotas, or implemented other barriers to trade. This is in marked contrast to the first era of modern globalization, dating from the end of the nineteenth century and made possible by technological advances such as the steamship and the telegraph, that ended with protectionist reactions to the Great Depression (Topkik and Wells, 2014). The volume of trade, and of international capital flows, remained low from the 1930s through the late 1940s, first as a result of reactions to the Depression and later as a result of the Second World War (James, 2002). The post-​war construction of an open international economic order, anchored by the United States and international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that it helped to found, is sometimes seen as the start of the second, and contemporary, great age of globalization. As a term, however, globalization only became popular in the 1980s, when the volume of trade and capital flows seemed to usher in a qualitative change that threatened to reduce the ability of states to regulate national economies. While globalization has promoted economic growth, it produces winners and losers and alters the balance of power between labor and capital. Fears of globalization’s effects have led to anti-​globalization protests and parties in a number of democracies, but most of the worst fears have not been confirmed. Globalization has not led to the erosion of welfare states or to the end of high levels of taxation, for example. However, globalization, and especially financial integration, can lead to economic crises. The response to such crises is often seen as placing unfair burdens on the countries receiving aid while protecting international lenders, and has led to calls for reform at the international level. Globalization alters the content of politics within democracies. It has also led to debates about the need for greater democracy in the international institutions governing the global economy.

Globalization and France Globalization has become both a political and a public issue in advanced capitalist economies, most notably, although not exclusively, through its impact on policymaking (Berger, 2000). The expansion of trade in goods and services, the multinationalization of production, and the prominence of financial capital mobility are often presented as constraints on the ability of elected governments to implement policies, thereby constituting important features of the disruptive character of globalization (Garrett, 1998;

 

158    Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer 2000; Rodrick, 1997)—​and France is hardly an exception on this question. Nowhere, however, has globalization generated such anxieties as in France; at least until the advent of the Eurozone debt crisis. In a range of polls, French citizens have consistently expressed their ambivalent feelings toward globalization. On one hand, the French electorate does not expect the state to solve all economic and policy problems deemed the outcome of globalization; nor do French citizens conceptualize globalization in entirely negative terms (Berger, 1995). In fact, a majority of French people recognize the power of globalization to create wealth and the ability of France to gain from it (Gordon and Meunier, 2001: 41–​64). The two main political parties, Les Républicains and the Socialist Party, remain committed to the process of economic integration at the European and international levels—​although with explicit preferences to manage governance rules (Hanley, 2001; Laidi, 2012). Moreover, France is no longer a country unable to introduce reforms; that is, a society with “plenty of brakes and not much of a motor,” to quote Hoffmann (1963). French policymakers have implemented an impressive array of liberalizing measures, often in coordination with large companies, in the context of global economic pressures in the last thirty years (Hall, 2006; Hancké, 2002; Tiberghien, 2007). On the other hand, however, globalization is also perceived with great suspicion by the French electorate, and is often presented as a dubious process in (many) academic circles and in the popular press (Bové and Dufour, 2000; Chesnais, 1994). Among the main themes invariably raised, “la mondialisation” is associated with greater social inequalities; offshoring of production facilities to low-​wage countries and the resulting higher unemployment in France; the permeability of national borders to either movements of speculative capital or migrants from less developed countries; and a threat to French culture and identity in the form of (primarily) greater Americanization (Arthuis, 1993; Fougier, 2001; Kuisel, 2011). In an early warning, Servan-​Schreiber (1967) equated the consequences of failing to protect French borders and culture to domination by a more advanced civilization. These different sources of anxieties are unified by a common overarching assessment, notwithstanding political differences, namely that globalization is seen as a powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratically elected state officials (Berger, 1995; see also Sassen, 1996). The process of globalization constitutes a challenge to domestic sovereignty regardless of the benefits it might bring. The state, even with its imperfections, is seen as essential in managing the impact of the globalizing pressures—​that is, some state is better than no state. Tellingly, moreover, the successes of ATTAC (Association pour la taxation des transactions financières et pour l’action citoyenne, Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizens’ Action), the largest French anti-​globalization organization, reflect its hybrid discourse of mixing state interventionism and deliberative democracy (Ancelovici, 2002). A direct consequence of the anxieties associated with globalization in France is the reconfiguration of electoral competition in the last three decades (Grunberg and Schweisguth, 1997; Perrineau, 1997). Electoral competition before the mid-1980s was relatively stable and organized around a left-​wing and a right-​wing bloc. Moreover, new social movements of post May 1968 were successfully integrated in the existing Left–​Right political space (Kriesi et al., 2006). By contrast, the rise of the National

 

Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case    159 Front—​with its anti-​immigrant message framed in terms of belonging, identity, and the fears generated by open borders—​led to the formation of new structural conflicts and competition in the electoral system on two dimensions. The first of these is that the growing importance of the National Front led to a reconfiguration of political conflict. Electoral competition has become triangular (Grunberg, 2006; Grunberg and Schweisguth, 2003). Instead of becoming embedded in the extant conflict dimensions, the issues raised by the National Front have forced other political parties, most notably Les Républicains, to shift their positions on issues of immigration and on questions of law and order in an attempt to undercut the growing appeal of the archetypical far-​right, anti-​globalization political party. Moreover, and despite this strategy, the combined electoral scores of Les Républicains and of the Socialist Party have not reached the levels of the late 1970s/​early 1980s—​that is, before the emergence of the National Front. The second dimension is that the success of the National Front has been achieved in the context of a changing positioning of economic issues related to globalization (Perrineau, 1997). The initial policy mix of the National Front in the 1980s exhibited the characteristics of what Kitschelt and McGann (1995) identified as the winning formula for far-​right political parties: an anti-​immigration platform, a strong law-​ and-​order program, and significant elements of neo-​liberal economic stance. In recent years, in contrast, the National Front has moved toward the far Left on economic issues while retaining its anti-​immigration stance (Perrineau, 2014). This electoral strategy, especially under the current leadership of Marine Le Pen, is designed to reconcile different categories of “losers” of globalization. What accounts for the heightened ambiguities of the French electorate toward globalization? An essential element of the explanation lies in France’s specific model of post-​war settlements and economic organization (Hall, 1984; 1986; Levy, 1999; Zysman, 1978). Globalization constitutes an especially difficult challenge for France given the prominent role of the state in the Trente Glorieuses in comparison to other advanced capitalist economies. France has been presented as the archetypical state-​led political economy (Shonfield, 1965; Zysman, 1978). For the first three post-​war decades, French policymakers manipulated an array of policy instruments, ranging from trade protectionism to exemptions from price controls, aimed at shaping the process of economic modernization. Of particular importance for this chapter was the conduct of monetary policy and the regulation of the financial system (Loriaux, 1991; Zysman, 1983). At the macro level, control over inward/​outward capital flows and the periodic uses of currency devaluation, at least until the early 1990s, served to encourage the formation of capital investment in the economy (Goodman, 1992; Goodman and Pauly, 1993; Hall, 1984). At the micro level, French policymakers exercised significant influence over the allocation of funds in the economy via the regulation of the financial system with the use of three policy instruments (Saint-​Étienne, 1996: Zysman, 1983). First, state influence over the French banking system was particularly prominent as a result of several features: public control over a large percentage of deposits as a result of the nationalization of the three largest commercial banks in December 1945; the presence of several

 

160    Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer quasi-​public financial institutions with specific mandates aligned with the state-​led growth strategy; and the imposition of selective credit ceilings on bank loans in order to influence the allocation of (cheap) credit among competing groups (Loriaux, 1991; Zysman, 1983). Second, French policymakers implemented a queue system in the bond market, with non-​financial companies being served last—​thereby increasing their dependence on bank loans for the financing of investment projects (Loriaux, 1991). Third, the overall lack of independence of the Banque de France meant that the Ministry of Finance was able to wield substantial influence over the price of credit (Goodman, 1992; Saint-​Étienne, 1996). More specifically, interest rates were relatively low, often below the rate of inflation, and largely decided independently of prevailing external conditions; and domestic banks had access to cheap credit via the extremely generous rediscounting policies of the central bank (Loriaux, 1991). The last thirty years, in contrast, has been characterized by the withdrawal of the state from many areas of economic activities (Djelic and Zarlowski, 2005; Hall, 2006). An important feature of economic policymaking since the mid-1980s is the commitment to the European project—​most specifically to the internal market with the signing of the Single European Act of 1985 that led to the removal of an extensive array of non-​tariff barriers in the European Union (Moravcsik, 1991). The implementation of structural reforms in the form of product market liberalization has been particularly extensive in France (Conway, Janod, and Nicoletti, 2005). Thus, French firms face significant competition from other European-​based companies and non-​European firms with production sites within the borders of the EU. Another and arguably even more important dimension of the French commitment to the European project is strong support for the process of economic integration in monetary affairs; that is, the European Monetary System and the Single Currency (Featherstone and Dyson, 1999; Frieden, 2001). This commitment to monetary integration is particularly constraining given the previous reliance of French governments on exchange rate depreciations as an adjustment mechanism to balance-​of-​payments deficits—​a policy option no longer possible in the current institutional configuration of the eurozone (de Grauwe, 2013; Hall, 2012). Moreover, French policymakers cannot monetize their budget deficits either to rescue troubled banks or stimulate economic growth given the lack of control over the money supply (Blyth, 2013: 62–​8; Clift, 2013). Another area of liberalization of the French economy is the comprehensive dismantling of the statist apparatus of the banking system that previously enabled policymakers to wield significant influence over the allocation of funds in the economy (Levy, 1999; Loriaux, 1991). The first deregulatory policy was the removal of controls of the movements of capital in the late 1980s to early 1990s; a task that had become economically counter-​productive, given the internationalization of the activities of French companies, and increasingly difficult to achieve in the light of technological developments (Abdelal, 2007; Goodman and Pauly, 1993). The removal of capital controls also meant that monetary policy and the setting of interest rates would be significantly shaped by international economic conditions—​an outcome well captured by the Mundell–​Fleming theorem on the constraints of achieving multiple goals in an open macroeconomic environment

 

Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case    161 (Frieden, 1991). Finally, budgetary constraints induced French policymakers to privatize domestic banks and to liberalize the bond market (Levy, 1999; Zahariadis, 1995). The financing needs of corporations fitted awkwardly into the budgetary priorities of the French state. The anxieties toward globalization uncovered in a range of polls in France are, thus, hardly surprising. Given the previously prominent role of the state in the allocation of capital in the economy, the constraints associated with unfettered capital mobility are especially acute in the French context. While the increased importance of globalization as a source of constraints on policymaking is widely acknowledged, it is a harder case to make that globalization constraints are so pervasive that interventionist government policies are virtually impossible (Berger, 2000; Garrett, 2000). Instead, the presence of extensive variations across advanced capitalist economies regarding the range of state intervention in the economy, and the mode of firm governance, highlights the contingent character by which the pressures associated with globalization translate into outcomes (Hall and Soskice, 2001; Levy, 2006). Two aspects of economic governance in France illustrate why globalization has led to such intense anxieties. First, France illustrates the context-​specific features of the process by which reforms and liberalizing measures have been implemented by policymakers in the last thirty years (Hall, 2002; Schmidt, 2007). The anxieties of French citizens toward globalization reflect a gap between the dramatic changes that have taken place in French economic policy and the expectations of the electorate. Less favorable economic conditions—​ most notably lower rates of economic growth and higher rates of unemployment—​ might partially explain the reluctance to fully embrace globalization, but shed little light on why expectations have not adjusted over time (Hall, 2006). The state, despite all its shortcomings, is still seen by the French electorate as the guardian of Republican values in the face of the extensive liberalization of the economy (Berger, 1995; see also Roe, 2000). The gap between expectations and policy changes is accounted for in great part by the ambivalence with which French policymakers introduced liberalizing measures, which were inevitably presented as the unavoidable and distasteful consequences of globalization—​or Europeanization (Hall, 2002; Schmidt, 2007). French policymakers, different political affiliations notwithstanding, maintained an interventionist discourse aimed at an anxious electorate while quietly introducing economic reforms; a process known as liberalization by stealth (Gordon and Meunier, 2001). Instead of seeking to champion their actions, French policymakers pursued financially expensive welfare and labor market reforms designed to soften the consequences of liberalizing measures (Levy, 2005). Thus, political discourse still assigns an important role to the French state despite the dismantling of the dirigiste apparatus (Berger, 1995; Schmidt, 2007; see also Berger, 2003). Second, the French case also illustrates the importance of the constraining legacy associated with the previous model of state dirigisme. The pattern of post-​war economic reconstruction and the process of coordination at the firm level were characterized by direct interactions between policymakers and executives of large companies (Hall, 1986; Zysman, 1978; see also Gourevitch, 1980). United by a common educational background

 

162    Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer and career trajectories, these two groups were inculcated with a sense of strategic responsibility for the development of the French economy (Schmidt, 1996; Suleiman, 1979). The shortcoming of this strategy is that it undermined the capabilities of other actors in substituting for the state in the governance of the economy (Hall, 1986; Levy, 1999). The constraining legacy of the model of post-​war governance specific to France is best illustrated by an analysis of the institutional characteristics of its variety of capitalism. For the varieties of capitalism perspective, interactions among institutional arrangements of the economy can lead to the formation of tight complementarities that enable companies to coordinate their activities in different ways (Hall and Soskice, 2011; Soskice, 1999; Whitley, 2007). In liberal market economies, for instance, flexible labor markets and general/​transferable skills provide strong incentives for firms to coordinate their activities via market mechanisms. In coordinated market economies, on the other hand, rigid labor markets for core employees coupled with firm-​specific skills result in firm coordination via strategic means of cooperation. The French variety of capitalism, in contrast, is characterized by the institutionally hybrid character of the environment in which firms coordinate their activities (Hall and Gingerich, 2009; see also Amable, 2003). The most important feature of this institutional hybridization is the long-​standing dichotomy between rigid labor markets in the sphere of industrial relations and the prominence of transferable skills in the sphere of skill formation, with profound consequences for the process by which French firms coordinate their activities (Goyer, 2006; 2011; Goyer and Jung, 2011; Maurice, Sellier, and Silvestre, 1986; Sorge, 1991). The presence of rigid labor laws coupled with the lower prominence of in-​firm training results in the lack of institutional support for strategic patterns of coordination found in coordinated market economies (Culpepper, 2003; Howell, 1992). The presence of general/​ transferable skills, most often acquired outside companies, combined with the lack of labor market flexibility constitutes an obstacle for the development of market patterns of coordination found in liberal market economies (Soskice, 1999). The presence of institutional hybridization, that is, the inability to achieve either market-​based or coordinated forms of coordination and governance, did not constitute an issue for economic performance during the Trente Glorieuses (Hall, 1986). The prominence of state intervention via coordination among economic elites during the first post-​war decades lessened many of the potentially negative consequences associated with low levels of institutional complementarities in France (Hancké and Soskice, 1996; Zysman, 1977). French policymakers implemented policies in the financial sphere designed to generate economic growth (Loriaux, 1991; Zysman, 1983); they also implemented policies in the sphere of industrial relations designed to compensate for the weakness of labor organizations at the firm level and to mediate the antagonism between unions and the patronat at the national level (Ross, 1982). In the financial sphere, French policymakers possessed significant leverage over resources that had a direct effect on firm profitability (Levy, 1999:  234–​92). At the macro level, the use of capital controls and the periodic implementation of currency devaluations served to avoid the implementation of austerity policies in the context of balance-​of-​payments deficits that could have negatively influenced domestic demand

 

Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case    163 (Goodman, 1992; Hall, 1984). At the micro level, French policymakers were able to exercise significant influence over the allocation of funds in the economy through state ownership, the use of selective credit policies, and the low-​interest-​rate policy of the “dependent” Banque de France (Zysman, 1983). In the sphere of industrial relations, French policymakers sought to exercise significant influence over the strategic direction of companies in the first three post-​war decades; this, in turn, resulted in the underdevelopment of the legal rights of organized labor at the firm level that would have acted as constraints on autonomy (Hall, 1986: 155–​9; Zysman, 1977). The pattern of economic reconstruction and the process of coordination at the firm level were characterized by direct interactions between policymakers and executives of large companies (Schmidt, 1996; Suleiman 1979). The events of May 1968, however, meant that French policymakers became preoccupied with the potential consequences of unfettered market forces on social stability (Berger, 1981a; Howell, 1992). As a result, a series of policies were implemented in the sphere of industrial relations designed to compensate for the exclusion of organized labor from decision-​making at the firm level without providing trade unions with the institutional capacities to act as a stakeholder (Ross, 1982). For instance, the “most representative” clause in collective bargaining, whereby contracts signed by one “representative” union could be extended to the rest of the firm and/​or the sector, was designed to overcome the antagonism at the firm level by side-​stepping the most radical labor unions. However, the dirigiste model, based on coordination among a narrow group of elites in the civil service and in large companies, stifled the development of institutional capacities of non-​elite actors (most notably firm-​level works councils), which are crucial in coordinated market economies (Levy, 1999; Culpepper, 2003; see also Hall, 1986: 164–​91). Policies seeking to compensate for their firm-​level exclusion provided trade unions with incentives to focus on a political maximization strategy rather assuming responsibility for company performance (Ross, 1982). The transition to a liberal market economy, on the other hand, has also been hampered by the policy legacy of dirigisme (Hall, 2006). The state is still seen by the French electorate as the guardian of Republican values, despite the extensive liberalization of the economy (Gordon and Meunier, 2001; see also Roe, 2000). The ambivalence with which French policymakers have introduced liberalizing measures, presented as the inevitable and unpleasant consequences of globalization, meant that the political discourse still assigns an important role to the French state despite the dismantling of the dirigiste apparatus (Berger, 1995; Schmidt, 2007; see also Berger, 2003). The result is the maintenance of the institutionally hybrid character of the French economy despite the presence of a new external environment whose emergence has been shaped by globalization. While the dirigiste model of economic policymaking served to deal effectively with social tensions at the firm level and the underdevelopment of financial markets in the first three post-​war decades, the current institutionally hybrid framework of the French economy is less suited to an external economic environment characterized by significant pressures associated with the advent of globalization (Goyer, 2011: 1–​50; Hall and Gingerich, 2009; Levy, 2013).

 

164    Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer

Globalization: A French Lesson The French case contributes to our understanding of the study of globalization in an important manner, namely the process of preference formation. Political science has a long pedigree in the study of the origins of preferences of policymakers and important societal actors (Berger, 1981b). Groups and individuals are characterized by the possession of multiple potential identities that shape in different ways the process of political mobilization. Would a small Catalan entrepreneur, for instance, emphasize the economic risks associated with full independence for his region or find affinities in what is perceived as the unfavorable Spanish redistribution tax system? The French case illustrates how the translation of the pressures of globalization into preferences, and eventually into policy outcomes, constitutes a political process that is mediated by the choices of policymakers (Berger, 1995; Gordon and Meunier, 2001; Levy, 2013). The discussion in the previous section already highlighted the economic drawbacks associated with the maintenance of the institutionally hybrid character of the French variety of capitalism (Hall and Gingerich, 2009). In particular, the reluctance of French policymakers to introduce greater flexibility in the regulation of employee dismissal is largely accounted for by fears of social upheaval (Emmenegger, 2014; see also Howell, 1992). Instead, French policymakers have maintained this institutionally hybrid apparatus by liberalizing labor markets for atypical employment (fixed-​term contracts and part-​time jobs) rather than implementing flexible dismissal regulation for core employees (Palier and Thelen, 2010). In this section, we use the case of the current eurozone debt crisis to illustrate the importance of political legacies that result from the choice of French policymakers on the process of preference formation for an important dimension of globalization, namely monetary union. An extensive stream of research in political science, particularly in the field of international political economy, has highlighted how the position of countries in the world economy (independent variable) shapes their preferences on important international economic issues (dependent variable) (Frieden and Rogowski, 1996; Lake, 2009). In the current globalized economic environment, the open economy politics (OEP) approach stresses how the preferences of states on issues of trade and international monetary relations can be derived from the specific character of their involvement in the world economy (Frieden, 1988; see also Gourevitch, 1986). More specifically, the ranking of preferences regarding policy adjustments is said to reflect a country’s international investment position: creditor vs. debtor; exporter vs. recipient of international capital flows; export-​oriented with a balance-​of-​payments surplus vs. import-​competing and with a balance-​of-​payments deficit. Debtors/​balance-​of-​payments deficit countries prefer creditors/​balance-​of-​payments surplus economies to revalue their currencies, reflate their economies, and provide financial assistance with limited conditionality; the latter favor the implementation of austerity measures in debtor countries and seek to encourage monetary stability in inter-​state relations (Goodman and Pauly, 1993; Webb, 1995).

 

Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case    165 The OEP approach provides some important insights for understanding the management of the current eurozone crisis. In particular, policymakers from creditor countries have succeeded in protecting their domestic banks from exposure to Ireland and Southern Europe (Blyth, 2013; Hall, 2012). The provision of financial assistance has been linked to strong elements of conditionality—​most notably the reimbursement of existing debts—​thereby resulting in the imposition of the burdens of adjustment on debtor countries (Armingeon and Baccaro, 2012; Bastasin, 2015; Marginson, 2015; Meardi, 2014). Nonetheless, the French case also illustrates that the preferences of policymakers do not simply constitute a reflection of the international asset position of domestic firms in the European economy. The protection of banks of creditor countries (France, Germany, and the Netherlands) from exposure to Ireland and Southern Europe has also been coupled by unsuccessful attempts by both Sarkozy and Hollande to soften the adjustment process in debtor countries, most notably via the issue of Eurobonds and the implementation of an activist quantitative easing policy by the European Central Bank (ECB) (Degryse, 2012; Hall, 2012). In the negotiations leading to the creation of the European Stability Mechanism, for instance, French policymakers sought to use the ECB as a guarantor of bonds issued by eurozone member states in an effort to enable debtor countries to lower their borrowing costs. The shared preference between France and Germany to protect domestic banks, and to prevent the implosion of the euro, has also been accompanied by sharply diverging stances regarding the distribution of the costs of adjustment. The origins of the preferences of French policymakers during the management of the eurozone debt crisis lie in the policy legacy associated with the choices of policymakers in the mid-1980s (Hall, 1986; 2006; Levy, 2013). Faced with a significant balance-​ of-​payment crisis and strong speculative attacks on the franc as the result of increased capital outflows, Mitterrand committed to the European monetary system and gave up on the attempt at unilateral redistributive Keynesian policies. In a globalized economic environment with capital mobility across borders, policymakers are invariably constrained to choose between a fixed exchange rate and autonomous monetary policy (Frieden, 1991). This choice, however, did not constitute a full acceptance of market forces, and austerity policies, in the governance of the French economy, but rather an attempt to achieve on the European stage what could not be secured domestically (Levy, 2013; Moravcsik, 1991). French policymakers sought to influence the rules of governance at the European and international levels (Abdelal, 2007; Fioretos, 2011) while compensating social groups in France negatively affected by globalization (Levy, 2005). The concept of “gouvernance économique,” with its associated framework of non-​­binding macroeconomic policy coordination, was floated, with the explicit aims of counterbalancing the power of the independent European Central Bank and of diluting the then perceived automatic/​rule-​based dimension of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) (Pisani-​Ferry, 2006; Howarth, 2007). Moreover, the notion of gouvernance économique was framed without specific proposals to transfer economic policy competences to the European level; that is to say, European governance should not be a binding constraint on domestic policy-​making. The operation of the SGP should not stand in the way of

 

166    Michel Goyer and Miguel Glatzer the extensive social compensation of the losers of globalization via early retirement and guaranteed income policies, as this would relieve French policymakers of the task of explaining (let alone championing) to the electorate the introduction of specific liberalizing measures (Gordon and Meunier, 2001; Levy, 2005).

Conclusion Globalization is an important force in many aspects of economic, political, and social life (Friedman, 1999; Garrett, 2000). It has seriously constrained, but not eliminated, the ability of policymakers to implement policies in an autonomous manner (Berger, 2000). Important differences still remain across issue areas (Garrett, 1998; Roubini and Mihm, 2010; Shiller, 2000) and across different varieties of capitalist economies (Hall and Soskice, 2001; Soskice, 1999; Whitley, 2007) regarding the extent to which globalization results in convergence. Globalization also entails important distributional consequences among countries and among groups within countries (Frieden, 1991; Rodrick, 1997; Stiglitz, 2003). Analyses in political science of the distributional consequences of globalization have emphasized the position of countries in the world economy and the extent to which the assets of groups are either tied to specific uses or are mobile (Frieden, 1988; Frieden and Rogowski, 1996; Lake, 2009). In contrast, an analysis of the French case illustrates quite well that the economic pressures associated with globalization do not translate automatically into preferences and policy outcomes. These pressures are mediated by the choices of policymakers rather than being the straightforward reflection of the international asset position of French firms (Berger, 1995). First, the advent in the 1990s of the current wave of globalization has been associated with a significant gap between anxieties and outcomes in France. In a range of polls, deeply ambivalent feelings toward globalization have been expressed by French citizens (Gordon and Meunier, 2001). Globalization is invariably associated with a loss of sovereignty via constraints on policymaking and the permeability of borders to movements of capital and people—​even though France is seen as well placed to gain in aggregate terms from globalization (Berger, 1995). Moreover, even though the French electorate does not expect the state to solve all economic and policy problems, it is still seen as the guardian of Republican values (Hall, 2002; see also Roe, 2000). Some state is better than no state. Second, the gap between expectations and substantial policy changes in France is accounted for in great part by the liberalization-​by-​stealth character of market reforms in France (Gordon and Meunier, 2001; Hall, 2006). Instead of seeking to explain their actions, French policymakers have presented market-​enhancing reforms as the unavoidable consequences of globalization and have also sought to pacify social relations via financially expensive welfare and labor market programs (Hall, 2002; Levy, 2005). This ambivalence on the part of French policymakers does not constitute the inevitable consequence of globalization as state officials in other countries, most notably Germany and the United Kingdom, have been active in structuring public discourse in order to secure political support for their reforms (Schmidt, 2007).

 

Globalization: French Ambivalence as a Critical Case    167 The immediate origin of this ambivalence lies in the policy choices of the mid-1980s, the consequences of which have started to seriously constrain French policymakers (Hall, 1986; 2006). The decision to commit to the European Monetary System, and eventually to the euro, did not amount to an embracing of austerity. Instead, French policymakers sought to commit themselves to exchange-​rate stability without having to relinquish policy autonomy as suggested by the Mundell–​Fleming model (Levy, 2013). French policymakers attempted to shape the institutional construction of European governance while keeping full political sovereignty over important areas of policymaking (Abdelal, 2007; Fioretos, 2011; Howarth, 2007). The shortcomings of this strategy are magnified by the legacy of dirigisme, whereby state intervention substituted for the development of the institutional foundation of either liberal or coordinated market economies during the Trente Glorieuses (Hall, 1986; Zysman, 1979; 1983). While globalization has led to the retreat of the state from many of its traditional economic activities across advanced capitalist economies, the consequences of such actions exhibit striking differences among nations (Levy, 2006). In Japan, for instance, the withdrawal of the state from several economic activities has not led to market-​based coordination (such as in the United States) or institutional hybridization (as in France). Instead, the Japanese case is characterized by a change in the character of strategic coordination: from state-​dominated to large-​firm-​orchestrated (Hall and Soskice, 2001). This outcome is (currently) out of reach in France, in large part due to its post-​war model of governance which undermined the emergence of organized labor as a strategic partner as in the case in coordinated market economies (Goyer, 2011: 1–​50). This is why the impact of globalization has been particularly important. Globalization does not account for the strategic choices made by French policymakers in the post-​war decades of economic reconstruction. It has instead exposed the shortcomings of the strategy of coordination organized around a small number of participants during the Trentes Glorieuses. Through the constraining legacies of the post-​war model of governance and the ambivalence with which policymakers have introduced liberalizing measures, the French case under globalization reminds us of the importance of politics. The impact of globalization is ineluctably mediated by institutional structure and political choice.

Acknowledgment We thank Robert Elgie and Bob Hancké for insightful comments.

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Pa rt I I I

I N ST I T U T ION S

 

 

Chapter 9

E xecu tive P ol i t i c s in Franc e from leader to laggard? Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman

This chapter examines the study of executive politics in France. Specifically, it focuses on the form of the political regime; the role of political leaders, notably the president, prime minister, and the government collectively; and patterns of executive–​legislative relations, including government formation and survival and coalition politics. France’s executive stands out from many of its European neighbors. France has a strong president who regularly exercises substantial political and policy influence. Yet France has also experienced a number of periods of cohabitation, where the prime minister and the parliamentary majority have challenged the president’s authority. Like all countries, there are unique elements to the French executive. The trajectory of executive politics in France has taken a particular course since the foundation of the Fifth Republic in 1958. All the same, the French executive faces challenges similar to other countries, not least in terms of coalition building, decision-​making autonomy, and maintaining executive popularity. Consistent with the theme of the Handbook as a whole, the chapter is framed in the context of the general literature on these topics, investigating the ways in which the work on France differs from the work elsewhere in this regard. We show that while French political science has made several original contributions to the study of executive politics, these were mainly disconnected from comparative scholarship and failed to lay the foundation of a specifically French approach to these issues. Recent empirical work has mainly been inspired by the will to bring France into comparative research. And yet, the French case remains an original case that has long inspired scholarship and that will continue to fuel research. It should be stressed that this chapter does not discuss the role of the executive within the wider state structure. This issue is discussed in Chapter 3. The chapter also leaves aside any discussion of the executive in terms of public administration and elite sociology. These issues are addressed in Chapter 12.

 

178    Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman The first section will provide a review of the main scholarship on executive politics outside France. The second section will present and discuss the study of executive politics both in and regarding France. The third section will sketch out promising directions for future research. A brief Conclusion completes the chapter.

The Study of Executive Politics Outside France In one sense, the study of executive politics is ancient. In The Republic, Plato argued that the ship of state should be ruled by philosopher kings. In the medieval period, Machiavelli’s classic study, The Prince, alongside a whole tradition of “mirror-​of-​princes” books, provided a how-​to manual for would-​be rulers, especially ones who were willing to transgress certain ethical boundaries. In the Enlightenment period, there was a profound debate about the organization of the executive. In Leviathan, Hobbes argued that a ruler was needed to provide stability in a potentially anarchical society. By contrast, John Locke pleaded for a more limited system of government in which the ruler worked within what we would now understand to be a system of checks and balances. These issues are all ongoing. They are fundamental to the organization of political life and representative politics. They continue to be debated within the realm of political philosophy, the history of political thought, and normative political theory. They also have echoes in contemporary political science debates, providing a foundation on which much of contemporary thinking about executive politics is built. In another sense, though, the modern-​day study of executive politics has its origins in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1867 Walter Bagehot published The English Constitution (our reissue:  1964), which differentiated between the “efficient” parts of the constitution, meaning the politically important parts of the political system, and the “dignified” parts, meaning those that were now mainly ceremonial. The House of Commons and the Cabinet were the main efficient parts, whereas the House of Lords and, particularly, the monarchy were merely dignified parts. This book was constitutionally important in the context of a country with no consolidated constitutional document and where tradition, precedent, and the interpretation of norms were important. However, it was also important because it reframed the empirical discussion about the impact of institutions on political outcomes, primary among them being executive institutions. Another founding text in this regard was Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government (1885), which was published when Wilson was an academic and which argued that Congress dominated the US political process to the detriment of the presidency. These books exemplify what is now called the “old” institutionalist tradition. This work focused on the formal and elite-​level aspects of political life, including a focus on the structure and prerogatives of the political executive. It was particularly strong in the period following the First World War when many new states were debating

 

Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?    179 how constitutional power should be distributed. It continued right through to the 1940s, being exemplified at that time in the debate between Harold Laski (1944), an ardent supporter of Westminster-​style parliamentary government, and Don Price (1943), who was in favor of a US-​style presidential system. The “old” institutionalism focused on the formal aspects of political systems, with the result that it overlapped with work from a public law perspective. However, the aim was to identify how the executive and executive/​ legislative relations could best be organized so as to improve the quality of government. In this way, the “old” instututionalism had a practical, empirical application that went beyond purely normative aspect of public law. The old institutionalism fell into disfavor after the Second World War. By that time, commentators had become skeptical of the importance of formal institutions. After all, despite the debates about how the German constitutional system was to be organized following the collapse of the monarchy, Hitler was still able to take power with mass political support and brutal repression. What mattered, according to thinking at this time, were personality politics, political behavior, and popular attitudes. This line of reasoning chimed with the so-​called behavioral revolution in the social sciences, including the political sciences. This agenda focused on issues such as voting behavior, political participation, and political culture. There was very little place for the study of executive institutions in this context. The political process was thought of as a system with inputs and outputs that could be the subject of rigorous investigation, but the executive was a black box that was either unworthy of or unsuited to scholarly attention. In this context, in the 1950s and 1960s the study of the executive was confined to more general accounts of presidents and prime ministers. This work was more nuanced than the “old” institutionalism, but it lacked the scientific rigor with which behaviorists were trying to approach the study of political life. This led to some famous debates, including whether or not there was a system of prime ministerial or Cabinet government in the UK, as well as some very influential works that have continued to have an intellectual impact, notably Richard Neustadt’s Presidential Power (our reissue: 1991), first published in 1960. All the same, during this period the executive was not studied systematically in the same way as, say, voting behavior. This situation changed somewhat in the 1980s with the rise of the “new” institutionalism (March and Olsen, 1984). This work stressed the explanatory power of political institutions in shaping behavior. It took many forms, including historical institutionalism and sociological institutionalism. The key premise of this work was that institutions shape behavior. Indeed, they do so systematically. It followed that if the ways in which particular institutions shape behavior could be properly identified, then it would be possible to explain and predict how institutional variation would lead to differences in political outcomes. In essence, this line of reasoning was very similar to the logic of the “old” institutionalism. The difference was that the “new” institutionalism had a much broader understanding of the concept of an institution, even including ideas as institution-​like entities. More importantly, though, the “new” institutionalism coincided with the rise of rational choice approaches to the study of political life. Particularly in the US, what came to be known as rational choice institutionalism emerged as the dominant political

 

180    Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman science paradigm. Institutions were central to rational choice because, on the basis of certain parsimonious assumptions about individual behavior, scholars could model how institutions with their fixed set of rules could shape outcomes. This opened up the perspective of the scientific study of political life. Institutions provided the opportunity for deductive theorizing that generated specific hypotheses that could be empirically tested. The rational choice institutionalist research agenda was applied particularly to the study of legislatures, notably the US Congress, but it had a knock-​on effect for the study of executives too. Against this general background, there are now three or four main ways of studying executive politics. The behavioral revolution has not entirely gone away. In terms of executive politics, it created an interest in the systematic study of the impact of the personality of political leaders on outcomes. This has generated an interest in political psychology. The main feature of this work is that it tries to apply concepts, theories, and methods developed in the discipline of psychology to political subjects. Given their position at the apex of political systems, presidents and prime ministers are the frequent subjects of such inquiry. Scholars are interested in various issues, including whether particular types of people become leaders, whether there are certain leadership styles that are common to different sets of leaders, and whether the personality of the individual leader affects the way s/​he governs. This work includes psychobiographical accounts that root the motivations for leaders’ action in early childhood events, effectively updating Freud for the study of contemporary politics (George and George, 1964). It also includes the systematic analysis of leaders’ speeches to try to identify their personality profile in an attempt to explain why certain leaders favor particular outcomes rather than others or why they behave a certain way in office (Hermann, 2003). For example, researchers have tried to identify how US presidents correspond to the dominant five-​ factor model of individual personality (Gallagher and Allen, 2014). Having identified an individual’s personality profile in this regard, this profile is then used to explain why presidents with different profiles behave in different ways. This work has its origins in the US and the study of US leaders is still dominant. That said, there are now plenty of studies of leaders outside the US (e.g. Dyson, 2007). Arguably, this research agenda is thriving. The legacy of the 1950s and 1960s work on presidents and prime ministers is also still present. This work differs from political psychology accounts in that it does not privilege personality-​based expectations. Moreover, it does not focus solely on formal or legal prerogatives, so it is wider than the literature on “old” institutionalism. At the same time, though, it does not adopt the pretensions of general scientific rigor that underpin rational choice institutionalism. Instead, this literature tends to be narrative-​based, identifying in depth the reasons why the power of political leaders varies, often providing highly contextualized examples to back up the argument. This work includes studies of the US presidency by scholars such as George C. Edwards III (2012). It also includes work in Britain on the core executive, which has replaced the now defunct prime ministerial/​Cabinet government debate, widening the focus to include all the organizations within the executive that seek to coordinate and determine policy outcomes (Dunleavy

 

Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?    181 and Rhodes, 1990). This work also includes wider cross-​national studies of presidents and prime ministers that emphasize the importance of the interaction of personal qualities, political context, and formal institutions in explaining why some political leaders are stronger than others (Bennister, 2012; Elgie, 1995; Helms, 2005). It includes work on the presidentialization of prime ministers in parliamentary systems (Poguntke and Webb, 2005). It also includes the recent work on US presidents in political time. This latter work has the stamp of historical institutionalism. It asks why, across the centuries, some US presidents have been able to act as agents of change more successfully than others. Three general types of factors are identified: institutions, personality, and contexts, with the latter being emphasized. The basic argument is that there are similarities between political contexts, generating recurring cycles of political time (Skowronek, 2011). There are many studies that adopt this general, highly contextualized way of studying executive politics. In part, this is because the study of contemporary political events encourages a form of descriptive inference. What is the effect of a new presidential or prime ministerial incumbent? This question does not always lend itself to deductive hypothesizing. In part, it is because of a more explicit rejection of the rational choice institutionalist research agenda for ontological and/​or epistemological reasons. There is, though, still a strong tradition of more positivist-​style inquiry with a focus on executive politics. For example, there is a long-​standing debate about the advantages and disadvantages of different regime types. This debate has its origins in the “old” institutionalism and the debate about the relative merits of presidentialism and parliamentarism. In the 1990s, this debate was rebooted with the wave of state-​building and democratization that occurred around that time. In contrast to the received wisdom, Shugart and Carey (1992) argued that certain forms of presidentialism could be consistent with successful democratization. Mainwaring (1993) argued that presidentialism was not itself problematic, but it was the combination of presidentialism and a multi-​ party system that was dangerous for democracy. Cheibub (2007) found that presidentialism was associated with poor democratic performance, but that presidentialism tended to be adopted in places that were more susceptible to democratic collapse in the first place. He also found that when the performance of presidentialism was compared with that of parliamentarism outside these places, then there was little to choose between the two. Recently, this debate has been extended beyond the presidentialism/​ parliamentarism dichotomy with the consideration of semi-​presidentialism, which is where there is both a directly elected president and a prime minister and cabinet that are collectively responsible to the legislature. Shugart and Carey (1992) distinguished between two forms of semi-​presidentialism:  president-​parliamentarism, where the government is responsible to both the president and the legislature; and premier-​ presdentialism, where the government is responsible solely to the legislature. There is evidence that premier-​presidentialism is more conducive to better democratic performance than president-​parliamentarism (Elgie, 2011). Another area of executive politics with a long-​standing tradition of scholarship is the work on government formation and, particularly, coalition formation. In the absence of a single-​party majority, why is a certain coalition formed rather than another? Why

 

182    Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman is a minority government sometimes formed rather than any sort of coalition government? Why do some governments include more non-​partisan ministers than others? These questions have deep roots, but they began to be systematically studied in the 1960s. Indeed, this work helped to pave the way for the rational choice revolution in the 1980s. William Riker (1962) showed why it was rational to form a minimal winning rather than surplus coalition government. Kaare Strøm (1990) showed why it was sometimes rational for minority governments to be formed. Amorim Neto and Strøm (2006) showed that in certain circumstances presidential power was a strong predictor of the level of non-​partisan ministers in a government. For many years, this research agenda was largely confined to parliamentary and semi-​presidential countries. More recently, though, there has been a tremendous increase in the scholarship on coalitional presidentialism. It was assumed that presidential regimes created few incentives for presidents to form viable coalitions. Cheibub (2007) showed this assumption to be incorrect and evidence from Latin America has demonstrated the different ways in which presidents generate support for their policies. Indeed, presidents have a toolkit of measures at their disposal to ensure that they can govern even in the absence of a formal party majority in the legislature (Chaisty et al., 2014). Another area of considerable research interest is government collapse and survival. Why do some governments stay in office longer than others? Is the differential survival rate merely the result of exogenous shocks (Browne et al., 1984), or does it depend on the complexity of the bargaining environment (Laver and Schofield, 1990; Laver and Shepsle, 1996)? If the latter, then what are the factors that generate a complex bargaining environment? Is it the number of parties in government, their ideological diversity, the fractionalization of the legislature, the polarization within the legislature, or all of these—​or something else entirely? Given so many countries operate with a coalition government, there has been considerable interest in unpacking the politics of coalition governments (Strøm, Müller, and Bergman, 2008). What sorts of agreements are they based on? Are they very detailed or laconic? What is the relationship between government members and their parties? In office, are party leaders bound by their parties or are the free to act independently? What is the impact of factional politics within political parties on the behavior of party representatives in governmental office? Overall, there is a very long and well-​established scholarly interest in executive politics. Over the years, the research agenda has changed remarkably little. Why are some institutions and their incumbents more influential than others, whether this is understood as the ability to shape the policy process or the length of time spent in office, and so on? Are some forms of executive institutions more likely to be associated with better performance, whether this means the success of democratization or some form of good governance generally? By contrast, what have changed dramatically are the methods used to address these questions. There has been a shift from largely descriptive formal/​ legal analyses to a much wider range of methods. These include systematic historical analyses, in-​depth single-​country and medium-​n comparative studies, large-​n statistical analyses, and at-​a-​distance psychological profiling. To what extent is the general research agenda reflected in the study of executive politics in France?

 

Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?    183

The Study of Executive Politics in France The study of political institutions is not at the center of French political science, even if this is precisely the area where the most notable contribution of a French political scientist to comparative politics has been made. The work of Maurice Duverger remains very influential within contemporary comparative politics. The study of executive politics in France, however, is much more than Duverger and finds its origins in a particular kind of “old” institutionalism that culminated in the work of Duverger. Somewhat surprisingly, though, Duverger’s work fueled very little new work on France, especially after the 1980s. France’s executive has evolved over time. In 1958, the Constitution of the Fifth Republic created a relatively weak president, which at that time was elected by a special electoral college comparable to the one electing the French Senate. It was only the personal prestige of Charles de Gaulle that gave him the legitimacy to intervene in the political process. Even so, the first few years of the Fifth Republic were marked by regular conflict between the president and parliament (Chevallier et al., 2004: 44ff). Much of the debate in the early years dealt with Article 16 of the Constitution, a special emergency powers regime with few strings attached and which was invoked by de Gaulle in 1961 during the war in Algeria. François Mitterrand, then the most vociferous opponent of the Fifth Republic, called it a “permanent coup d’Etat” (Mitterrand, 1964). It was seen as the power to disregard unfavorable electoral results (Duhamel, 1977: 50). A fundamental change took place with the referendum in 1962, when de Gaulle introduced the direct election of the president. This was opposed on legal and political grounds, eventually leading to the dissolution of the Assemblée nationale and early legislative elections that largely backed de Gaulle. The first direct presidential election took place in 1965. France’s executive was now “two-​headed.” Henceforth, the prime minister faced “dual responsibility,” both toward the Assemblée, as is usual under parliamentary government, and in practice (though not constitutionally) to the president. This unusual combination means that the French regime differs from both parliamentary and presidential government. This rather strange feature can probably be traced back to the “Monarchie de juillet.” From 1830 onwards, the prime minister was accountable to both the king and parliament (cf. Prélot, 1961: 424–​5). Yet while the “charte,” that is the constitution of the time, clearly stipulated this responsibility, the Constitution of 1958 does not provide for any legal responsibility of the French president with regard to the end of the prime m ​ inisterial term. In practice, however, French presidents have usually decided when the prime minister should leave office, at least under unified government. The other major change occurred in 1986, when for the first time the Fifth Republic experienced “cohabitation,” that is divided government à la française. Under “cohabitation,” France’s political system resembles much more closely the experience of classical parliamentary government in Germany (Cohendet, 1993; Duhamel, 1993). The

 

184    Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman president becomes a figurehead leader, in opposition to the prime minister and government, but with the power to intervene only marginally and occasionally in public affairs, essentially in the areas of foreign and defense policy. The last major reform took place in 2005. At this time, the constitution was reformed to reduce the length of the presidential term from seven to five years, the same length as the Assemblée nationale, with the presidential election timed to take place just before the legislative election. The immediate consequence of the 2005 reform was to render “cohabitation” less likely, as French voters are less likely to split votes across two elections that take place within about six weeks. This made the political system de facto more “presidential,” in as far as the president is the effective head of the executive under unified government. In 2008, a further series of minor constitutional reforms seemed to reinforce the National Assembly with regard to legislative agenda-​setting, but given the control that the executive exercises over parliament, these changes are hardly likely to affect executive–​legislative relations significantly in the short to medium term (cf. Grossman and Sauger, 2009). However, if French voters at some point started to split their vote, as US or German citizens sometimes do, things might be different. Moreover, if the chamber became more fragmented with the two main parties weakening and other parties progressing, executive–​legislative relations could change radically, given the 2008 reform. Against this background, the analysis of the French executive, as well as the French political system, has long been dominated by public law and “administrative science,” a specifically French subdiscipline of public law. At the same time, it has to be said that France has a distinct institutionalist tradition. Like “old” institutionalism elsewhere, it was essentially based on classical legal categories and distinctions. However, unlike elsewhere, the work of scholars like Maurice Hauriou and Léon Duguit had a more sociological element to it. This is essentially due to the fact that many of these scholars were influenced by the sociologist Emile Durkheim. The meeting of Law and Sociology generated a particular variety of sociology of law that remains important to the present day. This tradition was probably best embodied by the work of Georges Gurvitch (1973). The work of later generations is clearly linked to this tradition. The “strategic analysis of institutions” represents an influential body of research, best summarized by Olivier Duhamel (1977) and Jean-​Luc Parodi (1983; 1984). It is distantly related to the economic analysis of institutions and rational-​choice institutionalism, but does not contain any mathematical modeling. This approach was developed in the late 1970s in the context of the first alternation in power under the Fifth Republic that eventually occurred in 1981. Parodi, in particular, developed elaborate typologies of the interaction between different institutional features, such as the electoral system and parliamentary dissolution (1984: 638). While this work opens up interesting comparative perspectives, it was applied solely to France. French institutions are said to be exceptional, combining the presence of a majoritarian electoral system, parliamentary dissolution, and the direct election of the president. The general thrust of this literature is that “custom” and party competition, rather than institutions, have shaped the Fifth Republic. Institutions have certainly facilitated that evolution, especially according to Parodi. Stalemate may result

 

Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?    185 from institutional powers, despite presidential preeminence (Duhamel, 1977). While these ideas are at times close to the intuitions and even empirical predictions of rational choice institutionalism (see e.g. Tsebelis, 2002), they were not widely enough shared to actually fuel a comparative research agenda. This institutionalist tradition has now faded, with “political sociology” coming to dominate the mainstream of French political science. For a long time in France, “political science” was considered a subdiscipline of public law. Indeed, it was only in 1971 that political science obtained a separate professorial exam (or agrégation). The consequence of this late development of political science was to completely reverse what had previously been the permeability of law, politics, and sociology. In the mid-1970s, at the height of the behavioral revolution, French political scientists turned primarily to sociology and history, distancing themselves from law. This entailed, however, that they abandoned the study of political institutions entirely to law and administrative sciences. The intellectual context of the 1970s favored the development of a much more “behavioral” political science that was more interested in parties, elections, and social movements than political institutions. The comparative “neo-​institutionalist” turn in the mid-1980s was much commented upon in France, but its impact was much stronger in the area of public policy and urban studies than for the study of executive institutions (see e.g. Merrien, 1990; Palier and Surel, 2005). That being said, France’s very original political system has sparked the interest of comparativists. Here, Maurice Duverger’s work on semi-​presidentialism (1978; 1980)  has been very influential (cf. Elgie, 1999). According to Duverger (1980: 166): A political regime is considered as semi-​presidential if the constitution which established it combines three elements: (1) the president of the republic is elected by universal suffrage; (2) he possesses quite considerable powers; (3) he has opposite him, however, a prime minister and ministers who possess executive and governmental power and can stay in office only if the parliament does not show its opposition to them.

The relative merits of this particular political system have interested many comparativists, especially as semi-​presidential government has become much more common (but also more diverse) during the “third phase” of democratization (Bahro et al., 1998). Comparative work on semi-​presidentialism (Elgie, 1999; Elgie and Moestrup, 2008) has tended to show that the French “variety” of semi-​presidentialism is not necessarily the archetypal one. Indeed, Duverger (1978) himself quickly encountered an “n = 1” problem when studying the French form of semi-​presidentialism. Among all the cases of semi-​presidentialism in Europe, the French model remains rather unusual (Elgie, 2009; see also Roper, 2002; Siaroff, 2003). Given the intellectual developments that we have sketched, it is paradoxical but perhaps not surprising that Duverger’s legacy is much stronger outside France than within (cf. Shugart and Carey, 1992 and supra). In France itself, his work is mostly remembered for its insights on party politics (see Chapter 17) and political sociology. Most of the

 

186    Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman French students of political institutions returned to the earlier tradition of public law and administrative science. Thus, contemporary studies of executive politics tend to focus on the topic from a public law perspective, providing highly normative legal accounts of the function of different institutions with little empirical content, though some of this work adds a dimension of political history to the analysis. Maybe the most widely used textbook was written by Jean-​Louis Quermonne (1983), a lawyer by training, but who made significant contributions to the study of politics and policymaking. Quermonne provides a detailed account of the evolution of the institutions of the Fifth Republic. This account is mainly descriptive and does not provide any systematic empirical analysis of the evolution of executive politics. Yet, it does focus on the relations between the president and the government and underlines the importance of senior civil servants (“haute function publique”) in French government and politics. Quermonne’s work is characteristic of the accounts that can be found in the main “constitutional law” textbooks that are usually used for introductory “political institutions” classes. Another related issue concerns elite training and trajectories. In line with the more sociological turn of political science since the 1970s, there is an important body of work in this area in France. This is essentially interested in the formation and trajectories of political personnel in France. This interest is grounded in a long tradition of work on elites and their perception in France (by e.g. Pierre Bourdieu and Pierre Birnbaum) that has also interested foreign researchers (Suleiman, 1974; 1978). One focus of this work has been the growing importance in politics and government of “énarques,” that is former students of the National School of Administration (ENA), and other top civil servants (Chevallier, 1997). They appear to have had a determining influence on the very origins of the Fifth Republic (Dulong, 1998; François, 1996). Their importance increases the closer you get to the center of the executive, being particularly prevalent in ministerial “cabinets.” The vast majority of prime ministers—​16 of 21—​have studied at the ENA, as well as roughly 50 percent of French ministers (François and Grossman, 2014). An important fraction of those belong to the “grands corps,” that is the most brilliant elements of the best “grandes écoles,” and, especially again, ENA. Critics have hinted at the strong endogamy of this “state aristocracy” (Bourdieu, 1989). In France, public debate has regularly targeted this system. The dominance of this group and the over-​reliance on executive politics are said to have cut the government off from the concerns of the wider population. Moreover, the results of the work of this “enlightened” bureaucracy are increasingly perceived as being less than optimal and are regularly attacked by the Front National and left-​wing radical parties. In addition, the relative ease with which senior civil servants can switch from their administrative function to politics and back has come to be perceived as an undue advantage—​the prospect of losing an election need not bother them, as they can simply return to their previous functions within the administration. In turn, this has led to a strong politicization of the upper strata of the higher administration, quite at odds with the idea of a professional and independent civil service. Work in this area has suffered somewhat from the relative lack of empirical research, despite early attempts by Mattei Dogan (1967). There has been a certain revival of interest

 

Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?    187 in ministerial careers recently that has partially made up for this lack of data (François and Grossman, 2014; Behr and Michon, 2014; Kam and Indridason, 2005). This work has, however, not significantly contributed to the debate about the lack of representativeness or resulting policy outcomes. Rather, it has been interested in the issue of government formation and survival, as well as the determinants of ministerial careers. France has been an interesting study in this regard because of the apparent contrast between the highly unstable Fourth Republic—​24 governments in 12 years—​and the more stable Fifth Republic—​38 governments in 45 years. The empirical and theoretical work by Huber and Martinez-​Gallardo (2004; 2008) has been influential in this area. In particular, they have shown that after an initial increase, government stability had tended to fade. This may in part be due to presidents’ tendency to use government reshuffles as a way of improving their popularity (Grossman, 2009), even though the effectiveness of this strategy appears to have diminished over time (Grossman and Sauger, 2014). The increasing instability may have been partly countered by the 2005 constitutional reform, reducing the presidential term to five years. While the long-​term consequences of this change are not easy to predict, it is noticeable that the Sarkozy presidency is the first of the Fifth Republic to have had only one prime minister, who was in office for five years. The study of government survival echoes another major research topic: executive–​ legislative relations. The Fifth Republic’s constitution was deliberately designed to strengthen the executive at the expense of the legislature. There were a host of measures that resulted in a form of “rationalized parliamentarianism” and that have permanently weakened parliamentary institutions, despite some contradictory evidence (Kerrouche, 2006) and recent measures to strengthen them (cf. Chapter 10). In this regard, Anthony King’s classic study of executive–​legislative relations situated the French case very closely to the British one. Contacts between the executive and the legislature essentially take place through the parliamentary majority. The only real threat for governments concerns the loyalty of backbenchers, what King termed the “intra-​party mode” (King, 1976: 22–​3). King even considered that French deputies lack some of the powers that British backbenchers can use to criticize their government, as parliamentary sessions are shorter, question time is rarer, and the government enjoys almost complete control over the parliamentary agenda. Moreover, in his much-​quoted study, John Huber (1996) has shown that the executive enjoys other very powerful means to make parliament and its parliamentary majority comply. The “vote bloqué” (Art. 44.3 of the Constitution) allows government to force the plenary of the Assemblée nationale to vote on the entire text, rather than an article-​ by-​article reading. This, Huber explains, is a way of upholding “pre-​electoral bargains.” It is a way of ensuring that those agreements are maintained despite short-​term incentives to act differently for individual deputies. Over, the past 10 to 15 years, other instruments have become more important at the expense of the “vote bloqué.” In particular, especially under the two Chirac presidencies, it became increasingly common to rely on decree laws to speed up the legislative process. In principle, the Constitution of the Fifth Republic made that option more difficult, as Article 38 puts a lot of constraints on this procedure. Nonetheless, decree laws or “ordinances” increased, reaching an all-​time

 

188    Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman high in the summer of 2005 under Dominique de Villepin, before diminishing again (Grossman, 2008). The other instrument studied by Huber is the “guillotine” procedure, specified in Article 49.3 of the constitution. It is called the “guillotine” because its use provokes an immediate end to parliamentary debate and procedure. As soon as a government invokes this Article, a given bill is deemed adopted unless the government is forced to resign following a no-​confidence vote as laid out in Article 49.2. Given the control the executive usually exercises over the parliamentary majority, no no-​confidence vote has ever succeeded since 1962. However, resorting to the guillotine is considered to be an extremely provocative strategy by both opposition and majority deputies. The government’s main reason for using the guillotine is to force a weak majority to be loyal to a particularly important bill. Yet, it is true that at times Article 49.3 has been used to cut short parliamentary debates, such as by PM Villepin in 2005 on the “contrat première embauche” in the context of massive demonstrations against this reform. However, the greatest number of “guillotines” took place under Michel Rocard. There was no clear majority in parliament from 1988 to 1993. Prime Minister Rocard, who held the office for almost three years, used the guillotine regularly and accounts for almost a third of the total uses of this device (25). The Sarkozy period witnessed a clear decline of the guillotine. What is more, the 2008 constitutional reform strongly limited the use of the guillotine, restricting it to the finance bill and one other bill per parliamentary session. The final issue that has sparked the interest of comparativists is the issue of divided government or “cohabitation.” As mentioned above, the French definition of divided government is rather more restrictive than, say, US definitions. It refers to the (in) congruence of the presidential and the National Assembly majorities. While this situation has existed only for nine of the years since 1958, they all occurred in the period 1986–​2002. Since the reduction in the length of the presidential mandate (cf. supra), cohabitation has become less likely in the short run. Yet, there has been some comparative work demonstrating the effect of divided government on legislative outputs (Pierce, 1991; Conley, 2007; 2011)  and European policymaking (Leuffen, 2009). However, Baumgartner and colleagues (2014) argued in a recent US–​France comparison that divided government should be defined more precisely and should take better into account the specific realities of each political system. In particular, they show that divided government does not have a sizable effect on legislative outputs, even though their research shows that it is more difficult to adopt “important” legislation. Moreover, it shows that a divided legislature—​that is, different majorities in the National Assembly and the Senate—​has a more significant effect on legislative output. A divided legislature has occurred much more frequently in the Fifth Republic. Between 1981 and 2014, there were 18 years of a divided legislature. In a nutshell, the study of executive politics in France features a group of scholars in public law in France and a more international group of comparativists that are mainly outside France. Both continue to focus on rather different questions. This disconnect is slowly being overcome as French political science is catching up with the international research agenda, but this is still an ongoing process.

 

Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?    189

Where to from Here? This summary of the state of the art of the study of executive politics both comparatively and in France suggests various directions for future research on the French executive. The most obvious area for future development concerns the application of institutional analysis to executive institutions. There is a much broader story to be told about the study of institutions in France, but we have seen that the study of the French executive has been characterized by a particularly rigid distinction between the public law approach, which looks at the executive institutions but only normatively and descriptively, and the political sociology approach, which studies the executive in terms of the sociology of elites rather than institutional politics. As we have seen, though, the study of institutions is well developed in comparative politics. Here, there is a distinctive political science approach to the study of executive institutions. This approach is sometimes framed deductively and it is often studied on the basis of quantitative methods. It generates general theories about both executive politics and executive–​legislative relations that are susceptible to empirical testing. As such, this work provides a ready-​made theoretical and methodological toolkit that could be applied to the French case. It also provides specific institutional propositions that could be tested on France either as a single case, or in the context of a comparative study where France is one of the comparators. Indeed, it is worth signaling that France has been included in some of these comparative studies (e.g. Amorim Neto and Strøm, 2006). However, as should be clear by this point, these studies tend to have been conducted by scholars outside France. Certainly, there is room for scholars within France to apply existing models, methods, and theories to the French case with a view to providing a better understanding of France, but also with the prospect of the results from the French case feeding back into the original models and theories, allowing them to be refined and reapplied outside France more successfully. The near absence of studies of the French executive in this vein means there is an open door for institutionalist researchers on executive politics. However, several issues are raised. There are professional issues. Within France, what are the prospects for professional development if scholars, particularly entry-​level scholars, try to apply this research agenda? There is at least the potential for their career path to be thwarted, precisely because this research does not fit with established public law and political sociology perspectives. There are also methodological problems with the application of some of this comparative work to the French case. There is the potential for ecological fallacy to be committed, as population-​level theories are not necessarily expected to apply to individual-​level units. There is also a small-​n problem. For example, France has still had only seven directly elected presidents. This is not enough to test theories if the unit of analysis is the president. These methodological problems might be alleviated with comparative studies, whereby France becomes just one of many countries under investigation or where French presidents comprise a proportion of a larger data set of presidents. Even so, these methods might still raise important data issues in the French case. Partly

 

190    Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman because the study of the French executive has been largely ignored for so long, there is a lack of reliable data about many aspects of executive politics and, indeed, French political life generally. There are some initiatives that have helped in this regard. Even so, to test general theories on the French case large data sets are needed and, as things stand, there are still many areas where data simply do not exist. Thus, there is huge potential for the application of rigorous institutional analysis to the French executive, but there are obstacles to this research agenda, even if these are not insurmountable. If these problems can be solved, however, there are certainly several promising venues for future research. In particular, in a context of strong personalization and mediatization, it would be interesting to understand better the performance of executives and the perception of them on behalf of voters. There is now a burgeoning literature on the “quality of democracy” (Diamond and Morlino, 2005; Holmberg et al., 2009). Increasingly, there is a will to hold representatives and, especially, political leaders accountable for their promises. The performance of governments can be measured in different ways. The most straightforward and probably also the most effective way concerns “economic voting,” that is the extent to which the economic performance of executives determines the re-​election chances of incumbent governments (van den Brug et al., 2007; Powell and Whitten, 1993). Others insist on the importance of keeping electoral pledges or promises (Royed, 1996; Sulkin, 2011), or examine the ebb and flow of government and opinion interactions (Soroka and Wlezien, 2010). For a long time, the dominance of political sociology and the reticence to use quantitative methods limited research in this direction and was a further cause of the lack of quantitative data. As this is changing, future research could and should take government performance more seriously. While there has been some work on economic voting (Lewis-​Beck, 1997), very little has been done with regard to pledges and promises. This would, moreover, help contribute to another nascent research agenda: incumbency disadvantage (Colomer, 2012). Governments are experiencing a hard time getting re-​elected almost everywhere. Globalization and interdependence have limited government autonomy, spreading authority across multiple levels of governance. At the same time, political competition essentially remains confined within national boundaries. And European elections have so far failed to credibly compensate for the lost autonomy of national governments, as illustrated by exceedingly low turnout figures. One of the consequences is an ever-​increasing “de-​election” rate. France is a good case in point: between 1981 and 2012, every incumbent government bar one has lost its re-​election bid. The exception is that of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. And even this represented a break to a certain extent, as he was in open opposition to outgoing president Chirac. The determinants of re-​or de-​election rates are not well known beyond the classical vote determinants. The French case suggests that while government autonomy has diminished, the advertised ambitions of contenders and voters’ expectations have not (cf. Grossman and Sauger, 2014). This generates regular frustrations and low popularity figures for incumbent executives and virtually systematic electoral defeats at European or subnational elections. While this phenomenon does not appear to be limited to France, there is evidence that some countries are doing better. A research agenda on the

 

Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?    191 institutional determinants of re-​election rates could certainly benefit from insights on the French case. The comparative work suggests a further general area of research that could be applied to France. To date, there have been virtually no studies that adopt a political psychology approach, though Dyson and Billordo (2004) is an exception in this regard. As a subdiscipline of political science, or, perhaps better, of psychology, this area is thriving outside France, particularly in the US but not only there. For example, there are studies of British and Australian prime ministers (Dyson, 2007; Little, 1988), as well as Turkish presidents (Görener and Ucal, 2011) among many others. It is an area with ready-​made methods and theories that have been developed over decades. It includes the application of psychoanalytic theories to political subjects and here there is one interesting French example in Pierre Servent’s (1989) study of the prime ministerial Oedipus complex. There is also a long tradition of psychobiography in this area that analyzes the subconscious motives of political leaders and identifies how they shape their behavior (George and George, 1964; McAdams, 2011). It also includes highly positivist studies of how individual traits affect behavior in office. Interestingly, all of this work can be applied to individual leaders, or small sets of leaders. Therefore, in theory at least, it alleviates the small-​n problem in terms of the number of presidents under the Fifth Republic. For their part, trait-​based studies usually base their analysis on the speeches or written texts of political leaders. Here, language is not an issue. So, this work can be applied to the study of speeches given in French in order to try to identify the behavioral traits of executive leaders. In short, there is the potential for researchers in France to circumvent, or perhaps overturn, the standard public law/​political sociology divide by applying psychological analysis to the study of the executive. The standard method in positivist political psychology also points to another more general and potentially fruitful area of research on executive politics. As noted above, trait-​based analysis work is usually based on the textual analysis of political leaders. This method of analysis is now increasingly being applied outside the realm of political psychology. Software programs such as Wordscore and Wordfish allow the language of leaders, including presidents and prime ministers, to be systematically compared. For example, this makes it possible to arrive at judgments as to the relative ideological positions of presidents and prime ministers. It makes it possible to identify why certain parties are likely to join coalitions with each other and the likelihood of those coalitions surviving. It is easy to see how this work could be applied to the study of the “presidential majority” in France. It would also allow comparisons to be made across the presidents of the Fifth Republic, because, again, the unit of analysis is not the individual president, but their language on the campaign trail or in office. What is more, this work can also be applied to the study of official texts, decrees, or laws. In other words, it can open up the study of government decisions to systematic analysis, identifying changes over time that might then be the subject of explanatory analysis. These suggestions have a distinct positivist tinge to them. For that reason alone, they may be resisted by some scholars within the academic community in France (and, indeed, elsewhere!). However, there is another body of work that is rooted in a

 

192    Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman constructivist, post-​structural, interpretivist philosophy. There is now an increasing set of performative accounts of political leaders (Edelman, 1964/​1985). This work is less interested in trying to provide a systematic explanation of outcomes and is more concerned with understanding the way in which political leaders construct the idea of leadership. For example, there is a body of work on the US presidency that thinks of presidential politics as a performative act (Kohrs Campbell and Hall Jamieson, 2008; Zarefsky, 2004). This work examines presidential rhetoric. In this sense, it too has a linguistic focus. However, it also stresses the symbolic nature of presidential politics, such as the placement of the flag during the State of the Union address. Recently, this work has been applied to the French president (e.g. Gaffney, 2014), but there is plenty of room for more studies. What is more, within France there is a tradition of studying language and communication in politics, notably in the journal Mots, Les langages du politique. However, in France this work remains outside the mainstream of executive studies, not fitting in to either the public law or political sociology paradigms. Moreover, outside France it has yet to be integrated into the study of performative political leadership. So, there is at least the potential for work in France to inform a wider scholarship in this regard. That said, this area is notoriously susceptible to academic fragmentation based on arcane philosophical distinctions that are a mystery to most outside observers. Thus, while there is the potential for a flourishing research agenda in this area, there are risks too that such a potential might not be reached.

Conclusion There is a certain mismatch between the study of executive politics generally and the study of executive politics in France. While the intellectual origins of both can be found in a certain legal institutionalist form of analysis, over the years research the trajectories have diverged. The result is that there are scholars outside France who apply comparative work to the French case, but whose impact on the French political science community has been relatively small; andtThere are long-​standing scholarly traditions within France that have had only a marginal impact on the study of executive politics outside their main frame of reference. It is tempting to draw a link between France’s highly presidentialized system of executive politics and the academic study of French executive politics. For many, both in France and outside, the French presidency is unique, certainly in a West European context. For comparativists who look at the system in this way, uniqueness is potentially a problem for research design—​why bother to focus on outlier cases in any depth? For French scholars uniqueness is a handy concept to hide behind, justifying a plethora of essentially Franco-​French debates. Yet France is only as unique as scholars wish it to be. For sure, there are peculiarities to the French system that require a local knowledge—​the same is true of any system. At the same time, as we have seen, the French executive faces challenges that are common to many countries, both in Europe and elsewhere. To understand these challenges, it can be helpful to draw upon

 

Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?    193 broader concepts, methods, and modes of analysis. The example of scholars such as the late Maurice Duverger can be instructive in this regard. He was always a highly contested figure within France, yet he was also extremely influential professionally, shaping the research agenda in the areas of both public law and political sociology. What is more, he remains an extremely important figure for comparativists, both for those working on electoral systems and for those concerned with executive politics. Duverger’s example shows that it is possible to be an expert on both French and comparative politics. The difficulty is to operate successfully at the intersection of the two. Duverger was less successful in this regard. This is a challenge for scholars both inside and outside France to take up in the future.

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196    Robert Elgie and Emiliano Grossman Merrien, F. X. (1990). “État et politiques sociales:  contribution à une théorie néo-​ institutionnaliste,” Sociologie du travail 3(90): 267–​94. Mitterrand, F. (1964). Le coup d’état permanent. Paris: Plon. Neustadt, R. E. (1991). Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan. New York: The Free Press. Palier, B. and Surel, Y. (2005). “Les ‘trois I’ et l’analyse de l’État en action,” Revue française de science politique 55(1): 7–​32. Parodi J.-​L. (1983) “La Cinquième République à l’épreuve de la proportionnelle. Essai de prospective institutionnelle,” Revue française de science politique 33(6): 987–​1008. Parodi J.-​L. (1984). “Éléments constitutifs et combinatoires institutionnelles,” Revue française de science politique 34(4–​5): 628–​47. Peters, G. B. (2005). Institutional Theory in Political Science, 2nd edn. London: Bloomsbury Press. Pierce, R. (1991). “The Executive Divided Against Itself: Cohabitation in France, 1986–​1988,” Governance 4(3): 270–​94. Poguntke, T. and Webb, P. (eds) (2005). The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Powell Jr, G. B. and Whitten, G. D. (1993). “A Cross-​National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context,” American Journal of Political Science 37(2): 391–​414. Prélot, M. (1978). Institutions politiques et droit constitutionnel. Paris: Dalloz. Price, D. K. (1943). “The Parliamentary and Presidential Systems,” Public Administration Review 3(4): 317–​34. Quermonne, J.-​L. (1983). Le gouvernement de la France sous la Ve République. Paris: Dalloz. Riker, W. H. (1962). The Theory of Political Coalitions. New Haven: Yale University Press. Roper, S. D. (2002). “Are All Semi-​Presidential Regimes the Same? A Comparison of Premier-​ Presidential Regimes,” Comparative Politics 34: 253–​72. Royed, T. J. (1996). “Testing the Mandate Model in Britain and the United States: Evidence from the Reagan and Thatcher Eras,” British Journal of Political Science 26(1): 45–​80. Servent, P. (1988). Oedipe à Matignon: ou le complexe du Premier ministre. Paris: Balland. Shugart, M. S. and Carey, J. M. (1992). Presidents and Assemblies. Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Siaroff, A. (2003). “Comparative Presidencies:  The Inadequacy of the Presidential, Semi‐presidential and Parliamentary Distinction,” European Journal of Political Research 42(3): 287–​312. Skowronek, S. (2011). Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal, 2nd edn. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. Soroka, S. N. and Wlezien, C. (2010). Degrees of Democracy: Politics, Public Opinion, and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strøm, K. (1990). Minority Government and Majority Rule. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Strøm, K., Müller, W. C., and Bergman, T. (eds) (2008). Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining. The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Suleiman, E. N. (1974). Politics, Power, and Bureaucracy in France: The Administrative Elite. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Suleiman, E. N. (1978). Elites in French Society: The Politics of Survival. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

 

Executive Politics in France: From Leader to Laggard?    197 Sulkin, T. (2011). The Legislative Legacy of Congressional Campaigns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. van der Brug, W., Van der Eijk, C., and Franklin, M. (2007). The Economy and the Vote: Economic Conditions and Elections in Fifteen Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, W. (1885). Congressional Government. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Zarefsky, D. (2004). “Presidential Rhetoric and the Power of Definition,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 34(3): 607–​19.

 

Chapter 10

Legisl ative P ol i t i c s going international, while staying native Olivier Costa

The study of legislative politics in France is, by way of comparison with other Western democracies, not very developed. Whether it concerns members of parliament (MPs), their identity and behavior, the organization and activities of the chambers, or citizens’ views on parliamentary representation, publications are not numerous. This situation is partially linked to the supposed weakness of the French parliament, but is also due to the specificities of French political science. However, things have strongly evolved since the beginning of the 2000s: several French researchers are nowadays fully dedicated to legislative studies at both the national and the international level. The discipline has recently experienced the phenomenon of mainstreaming in France, regarding its methods, paradigms, and questions; even if it has retained some interesting specificities concerning approaches and objects. Moreover, even if the French case is never central in comparative studies that are devoted to legislatures and MPs, it is an stimulating one, thanks to several of its peculiarities: the phenomenon of the “cumul des mandats” (the simultaneous holding of more than one elected office, such as being both a deputy and a mayor), the relative weakness of the parliament, crucial changes of the electoral system (PR in 1986, law on parity in 2000) and constitutional rules (2008), as well as the numerous alternations and situations of a divided government between the two chambers. The French political regime has thus recently been used as a laboratory in which to test a wide range of hypotheses or to contrast other national situations. In the first part of this chapter, we will propose a review of how the study of legislative politics has developed comparatively over time, and will identify the major current debates in the comparative literature. We will then turn to the French case and assess the present state of legislative studies in France. Following this, we will underline some dimensions of the agenda for the future study of legislative politics in France. Finally, the chapter ends with a short Conclusion.

 

Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native    199

The Study of Legislative Politics Today, “legislative studies” are perceived as a relatively autonomous subdiscipline of political science that has its own standing groups in the main American, European, and international associations; its own peer-​reviewed journals, newsletters, and book collections; and its own research networks and research centers. In many countries, legislatures have developed structural links with scholars and experts and have provided them with funding, data, research facilities, and communication tools. Today, in the US, many political scientists define themselves as “legislative studies” or “congressional studies” specialists. However, it would be reductive to think of them as having a monopoly on the topic because numerous scholars involved in the study of legislative politics have other backgrounds, be they electoral studies, gender studies, sociology of communication, area studies, or public policy analysis. The field of legislative politics can be presented in various ways. One can, first, look at its disciplines and subdisciplines. Lawyers, historians, and specialists of comparative politics have studied legislatures for a very long time. More recently, parliaments have attracted the interest of sociologists, ethnologists, and economists who are studying the behavior of MPs or the budgetary aspects of policymaking. One could also describe legislative studies through the methods that are employed. Over time, all kind of approaches have been used to study legislatures, their members, and their activities: analyses of the constitution and of internal rules and acts (laws, amendments, questions, debates …), observations, closed-​ended and open-​ended interviews with the actors, surveys, roll-​call vote analyses, quantitative analyses of the activities of the chambers, studies of the biographies of MPs, media studies, discourse analysis, etc. We could also refer to the typology of the attitudes of scholars regarding their object of study. There is indeed a tradition of normative/​prescriptive approaches in legislative studies that aims at evaluating legislatures and at making prescriptions in order to improve democracy or the quality of policymaking. Some scholars are also involved in providing a social critique and tend to highlight the failures of modern democracies and the shortcomings of parliamentary representation. Finally, some researchers attempt to be objective so as to study phenomena without normative or critical views in order to establish or test theories. One should definitely mention that the development of legislative studies has been very diverse and has followed various paths. The US and UK cases are prevalent in the scientific literature, but legislatures have been studied for a long time in many countries and in very different manners. The legislatures of non-​democratic countries are also considered, and this requires specific tools and approaches. To sum up, presenting legislative studies is not an easy task. Hence, there are very few papers or books that describe the discipline or try to theorize it in an inclusive way; the paper by Heinz Eulau in the Handbook of Legislative Research, edited by Loewenberg et al. is one notable exception (Eulau, 1985).

 

200   Olivier Costa To overcome this difficulty, one can adopt a historical approach, which appears to be the most inclusive. We can consider that legislative studies were born with the appearance of sovereign parliaments, and were therefore in existence as early as 1500. Very early on, legislatures gained the interest of political thinkers and philosophers, like Blackstone in England and Montesquieu in France. The study of parliaments experienced a strong development with the rise of modern democracies in the nineteenth century, especially in the US and in Great Britain, and, later, in all of the democracies of Continental Europe. Political theorists and historians began to devote much attention to the institutions that were central to the functioning of democracies. Today, historians still pay continuous attention to legislatures. Conversely, many legislative studies specialists also take history into account when they analyze the evolution of the rules, behavior, activities, or profiles of MPs through time. In the nineteenth century, most of the work in this field was done by constitutionalists who proposed detailed analyses of political regimes and dealt with topics such as representation, accountability, and the separation of powers. Their main objective was to analyze the role of legislatures in democratic regimes and to promote institutional solutions to improve the quality of democracy. Those formal approaches began to be challenged at the beginning of the 1900s and more systematically after the Second World War. This turn of events, which was described as a “pragmatic revolt” (Eulau, 1985: 3), had two aspects. First of all, some scholars contested the legal/​formal approach by stressing the existence and importance of forces that are external to the parliament, such as pressure groups or civil society organizations. This led to the “pluralist” approach to the regimes, which was developed in an idealistic way and also in a realist/​analytical one (Bentley, 1908; Truman, 1951; Elliot, 1928; Schattschneider, 1935; Bailey, 1950;). Second, a new “behaviorist” trend emerged as early as 1902 with the work of Lawrence Lowell, who was the first to use roll calls to compare the behavior of British and US MPs. This approach quickly mobilized many scholars and was improved from a methodological point of view over time (Rice, 1924; Merriam, 1925). Today, behaviorists try to explain the choices made by MPs by referring to numerous factors: history, institutional context, ideology, social features, psychology, culture, and—​obviously—​interests. In contrast to what happened in many other fields of research, institutionalists and behaviorists did not enter into open conflict within legislative studies and were even able to have a dialogue. Most behaviorists admit that the behavior of MPs is, to some extent, shaped by institutional constraints; conversely, most institutionalists agree that MPs are able, in some way, to modify the internal rules of the chambers in which they work. Legislative studies thus escaped what could have been a somewhat sterile opposition between behaviorists and institutionalists. International comparison soon entered the field of legislative studies. At the end of the nineteenth century, scientists began to compare legislatures from the perspectives of constitutional history and political theory, and later also in an institutionalist way. In the beginning, the comparisons were not based on solid data but on general comments about constitutional designs, on the analysis of some political events, and on casual

 

Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native    201 observations (Lowell, 1896; Bryce, 1921; Friedrich, 1937). Early comparative researchers emphasized the complexity of modern political systems, especially in terms of the relationship between the executive and legislative powers and the mechanisms of parliamentary representation. Their main achievement was to go beyond the classic approach of democratic regimes that tends to overestimate the separation of powers and ignore the concrete interactions between institutions and actors. In that sense, comparativists followed the path that had been indicated earlier by Walter Bagehot (1872) for the British regime and Woodrow Wilson (1885) for the US regime. All the key topics of contemporary legislative studies were addressed by those early comparative works, especially by Friedrich (1946). After the Second World War, legislative studies became a matter for specialists. Much work was devoted to specific aspects of legislatures (members, committees, speaker of the House, internal rules, party government, legislative procedure, etc.) in order to understand the processes that led to the creation of the institutions as they had become. Scholars mainly used a historical approach and emphasized the impact of changing circumstances on institutional designs. In the late 1960s, the Consortium for Comparative Legislative Studies was created by the Agency for International Development. It stimulated comparative research in developing countries, while legislative studies gained importance in Western democracies. The Inter-​parliamentary Union, an international organization of parliaments that had been established in 1889, also supported research on legislatures, one of its aims being to contribute to a better knowledge of the inner workings of representative institutions. Since the 1960s, legislative studies have followed the main trends in the social sciences. In the 1970s, the functionalist approach entered legislative studies. The various aspects of parliamentary organization and the mechanism of representation were no longer analyzed as the result of a historical process, but as institutions that were designed to perform “functions” in order to serve the interests of other institutions or people (Fenno, 1973). Functionalists wanted to prove that institutional organs and procedures were above all tools for actors, groups, or the community of all MPs. They did not really demonstrate this functional dimension, but primarily took it as a starting point—​as a sort of axiom. This approach has led to the devotion of a great deal of research into various aspects of legislatures. Similarly, legislatures have been studied from a “systems” point of view (Hirsch and Hancock, 1971). Since the 1990s, the debate in legislative studies has been, as in most branches of political science, structured around disputes between three contrasting approaches: rational choice, constructivism, and neo-​ institutionalism. Leaving aside the question of approaches, new objects of study have also appeared in the field, such as the representation of gender and minorities, regional and supranational assemblies (mainly the European Parliament), MPs’ communications, parliamentary roles, electoral linkage, and coalition building. Legislative studies soon proved to be not only comparative but also cumulative. As researchers became focused on a limited number of objects and topics, and because legislatures remain quite stable through time, it is easy for scholars to compare their results

 

202   Olivier Costa to previous work. They can also accumulate data on various aspects of legislative politics through time in order to measure the effects of institutional, political, social, and technological change. The methodology of data collection and processing has also continuously evolved—​the ways in which the MPs are interviewed or roll call votes are analyzed has changed and the data that were collected in the 1950s may therefore not be comparable to those of today. However, limited diachronic comparisons are still possible on most topics and are a prerequisite for many studies. Since the 1970s, and thanks to the support of vast programs that have national, European, or international funding, ambitious studies have been conducted in the USA, in Europe, and, to a lesser extent, at the global level. Projects have begun to be more ambitious and inclusive, which has contributed to an even more cumulative and comparative approach to legislative studies. US scholars have played a central role in the rise of legislative studies since the Second World War, due to the subject’s affirmation as a discipline in its own right (not just a crossroads of other disciplines such as history, public law, sociology, economy, etc.), and they have also been instrumental in the development of comparative approaches. This was the result of the importance of political science as a field of research and teaching in the US. It also derives from the centrality of Congress and the state chambers in the US political regime. US legislatures are indeed old and very powerful bodies that play a major role in democratic life, policymaking, and government control. In order to study them, US scholars have developed very sophisticated concepts, paradigms, methods, and theories that have inspired legislative studies specialists all over the world (Shepsle, 2002: 390). Moreover, US scholars have also exported their legislative studies approach by conducting research on foreign countries themselves (Beer, 1966; Huber, 1996; Loewenberg, 1967) and by developing international cooperation. Finally, the most prominent legislative studies scholars worldwide have been welcomed in US research centers in order to work with their US counterparts and to learn from them. Thanks to the role played by US scholars and to the international diffusion of their work, the area of legislative studies has progressively become an autonomous discipline with its own approaches, objects, theories, and methods. Because of its constant growth, this new discipline has gradually lost its coherence and has begun to be structured around several deep divisions. As a consequence, scholars no longer try to sum up the knowledge of the subject area—​there are many books entitled Legislative Studies, but in fact most of them only deal with the US Congress, promoting a specific approach to the subject; it therefore seems impossible to propose a comprehensive and global approach to the discipline, which has become more and more fragmented today.1 We can, however assess, the current state of legislative studies by looking at the articles that are published in the main international journals of the discipline (Legislative Studies Quarterly, Journal of Legislative Studies, Parliamentary Affairs, etc.) and the papers that are presented during key scientific events (meetings of standing groups on legislative studies, specialized conferences). Such an analysis clearly shows how diverse legislative studies have become today.

 

Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native    203 We can summarize—​with no claim to be exhaustive—​the current main topics of legislative studies into five categories: 1. The first set of research is focused on the legislatures themselves. The objective is to analyze the internal organization of chambers, the functions they perform (legislative work, control, forum, agenda-​setting, budget), their influence in the political system, and the roles of committees, parliamentary groups, or other organs. They follow a neo-​institutionalist approach or pertain to administrative science globally. 2. The second focuses on behavior of MPs in the assembly and at the local level. Researchers notably use the tools of sociological roles or emphasize phenomena such as personal vote-​seeking or the principal/​agent dilemma in order to understand how MPs rank their allegiances to their voters, constituents, party, group, etc.; and how they deal with their own values and beliefs. 3. The question of representation is also central to a great deal of research. This work focuses on questions such as the crisis of representation, electoral linkage, the impact of electoral rules, the relationship between MPs and the media, the use of the Internet and social media by MPs, and how MPs are perceived by the citizens. 4. Groups and parties are also important topics. More specifically, scholars are dealing with the decline and transformation of political parties, the dynamics of parliamentary groups, questions of party cohesion and group discipline, divisions, and coalition building. 5. Finally, the sociology of MPs is attracting the attention of a growing number of researchers, who focus on career patterns, elitism, gender, the representation of minorities, and the entourages of MPs. The elitism and professionalization of MPs is central to many studies, including some vast comparative projects. As has been mentioned, legislative politics is also being studied by many scholars whose specialities are not related as such to this field. This is the case with constitutional lawyers, historians, economists, and also many political scientists who deal with electoral studies, public administration, public policies analysis, sociology of elites, communication, and political theory.

Legislative Studies in France As was mentioned earlier, French legislative studies can be described as historically weak. There are two main explanations to account for this. The first can be found in the specificities of French political science. In France, this discipline emerged within the field of public law and only gained its independence in the 1970s. This means that the Parliaments of the Third and Fourth Republics were only studied by lawyers and historians until the 1990s. Another approach to political

 

204   Olivier Costa science was derived from sociology; in the 1980s, the structuralist/​constructivist school, which called for the deconstruction of institutions and constitutional models of analysis, became mainstream. Thus, French political scientists (who prefer to call themselves “political sociologists”) more or less abandoned the study of institutions, leaving it to lawyers and historians. Instead, they focused on the non-​institutional actors that are involved in politics, or worked on monographs of certain elite members or on socio-​ economic analyses of some MPs as elite groups. Legislative studies as such gradually disappeared in France (Nay, 2003); before the rebirth of the discipline in the 2000s, the last systematic study of French MPs was published in the 1970s (Cayrol et al., 1973). Studying the parliament appeared to be problematic or useless and researchers showed little interest in the methods of mainstream legislatives studies—​with the exception of Chérot (1980). Today, if we look at French research through the lens of legislative studies, the country still lags behind by international standards. The historical weakness of legislative studies in France also results from the characteristics of the French political system itself, especially the role of the parliament. In France, Parliament was strong during a period (1870–​1958) when political science did not exist as such. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic was designed to weaken the parliament.2 One of its main objectives was to fight the governmental instability of the Third and Fourth Republics and the partitocratie, that is, the roles of political parties and parliamentary groups. Therefore, the strong domination of the executive was established and was even increased afterwards, thanks to the direct election of the president (1962) and to the continuous bipolarization of French political life, which was induced by majority voting at legislative elections and by the focus of parties, citizens, and the media on the presidential election. The introduction of the quinquennat in 2002 (a five-​year term for the president, instead of seven years) has not reduced the power and influence of the office—​it has even reinforced it by virtually excluding the situation of cohabitation. More recently, even though President Nicolas Sarkozy undertakook the initiative of a vast constitutional reform that would allow an improvement of parliamentary power (2008), the French regime seems more presidentialized than ever—​the parliamentary majority (as well as the government and the prime minister) is subordinate to the president, and the opposition is effectively powerless.

An Appraisal of Legislative Studies in France Before 1790, there was no Parliament as such in France. Beginning in the fourteenth century, the Parliament was a court of justice of last resort (cour souveraine) that acted on behalf of the king. Created to protect the rights of the monarchy, the Parliament progressively became an organ that limited its powers, but it never gained legislative clout. Political theorists and constitutional lawyers have obviously discussed the role of the Parliament in the French regime extensively; however, until the 1960s, there were no legislative studies as such. Researchers and scholars were indeed dealing with broader questions, such as parliamentary democracy, separation of powers, and representation.

 

Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native    205 All of the major French constitutionalists (Adhémar Esmein, Léon Duguit, Maurice Hauriou, Raymond Carré de Malberg, René Capitant, Georges Burdeau) paid a great deal of attention to the Parliament, but they did not consider it to be an institution that merited study as such. Only a few limited questions were examined, such as electoral reform (Duvergier de Hauranne, 1847)  or the organization of parliamentary work (Barthélemy, 1934). Monographs were rare (Glasson, 1899)  and the most prominent books were translations from English (Dickinson, 1906). Compared to what was happening in the US and the UK during the same period, the French Parliament attracted very little interest. Already under the Third and Fourth Republics, the Parliament was above all only a matter of interest for historians (Buchez and Roux, 1834–​8), and even the more specific aspects of parliaments—​such as their internal organization and rules—​ were studied only from a historical point of view (Bonnard, 1926). Since then, the activities of the legislatures before 1958 have been the subject of much attention. Thanks to the availability of extensive archives, many historians have been able to study the early French chambers (Ameller and Passeron, 1989; Bergasse, 1967; Laquièze, 2002). For the same reason, the study of the MPs of the Third and Fourth Republics was undertaken in the 1960s (Girard et al., 1976; Higonnet, 1968) and the field underwent a spectacular period of development through a more sociological approach in the 1990s and 2000s (Offerlé, 1999; Chevalier; 1998; Fuligni, 2006; Joana 1999; Mayeur et al., 2003; Best and Gaxie, 2000). After 1958, the new regime attracted many comments, mainly from lawyers. However, because of the initial domination of public law and then the strong sociological orientation, legislative studies—​as defined in the first section of this chapter—​really only emerged in the 1990s. However, despite the delay in their development, they are quite varied today. There are, first, institutional analyses that have mainly been produced by constitutionalists, lawyers, and practitioners who study the relationships between the legislative and executive powers, the internal rules of the chambers, and the impact of voting rules (Jan, 2010; Ameller, 2000; Avril and Gicquel, 2010; Blacher, 2012; Camby and Servent, 2011; Fuchs-​Cessot, 2004; Kimmel, 1991; Türk, 2011; Frears, 1990; Rozenberg and Thiers, 2013; Coll, 2013). As was mentioned earlier, many studies also focus on MPs, especially their professionalization, from a historical or sociological point of view (Woshinsky, 1973; Masclet, 1979 and 1981; Matthews, 1984; Cayrol et al., 1973 and 1976). In recent years, this trend has experienced a new impetus (Kerrouche and Rozenberg, 2009; Costa and Kerrouche, 2007; Costa, 2013; Rouban, 2011; François and Grossman, 2011). There is also an increasing number of studies that are focused on the peripheral actors in the parliament as well, most notably MPs’ assistants (Courty, 2005; Le Lidec, 2008). In addition, there are also macro-​analyses of the French regime that combine constitutional law with history and structuralist sociology, but that rely on empirical data (François, 2010; Brouard et al., 2013; Kerrouche, 2006; 2009). Many works pertain to history (Anceau et al., 2007; Garrigues, 2007) and “socio-​history,” a trend in French political science that favors the use of archives and historical methods of study. There are

 

206   Olivier Costa some anthropological studies as well. It is striking that one of the last important books on the French National Assembly, which described it as a “strange world,” was written by the anthropologist Marc Abélès (2000). The question of the Europeanization of legislatures has also attracted some interest among scholars who are working on the French case, and has led to publications that analyze the adaptations of the chambers (Rozenberg and Surel, 2003; Latek, 2003; Nuttens, 2001; Grossman, 2009; Navarro and Brouard, 2012) as well as the impact of European integration on law-​making (Brouard, Costa, and Kerrouche 2012). Finally, for a few years now, typical legislative studies that use the concepts, methodologies, and data that are currently used in other advanced democracies for this discipline and were mainly developed in the USA have emerged in France. For years, this assessment of the French regime was mainly carried out by foreign scholars (Converse and Pierce, 1979; Huber, 1996; Frears, 1990; Elgie, 1999). More recently, several French political scientists are clearly involved in legislative studies and produce numerous publications that deal with policy sectors today (Foucault and Irondelle, 2009), the specific issue of the cumul des mandats (Foucault, 2006; Dewoghelaere et al., 2006), the personal vote effect (Brouard and Kerrouche, 2013), the voting behavior of MPs (Foucault and Godbout, 2013), vote forecasting for legislative elections (Foucault, 2012a; 2012b), money and politics (Foucault and François, 2005), party discipline in the parliament (Sauger, 2009), candidates (François, 2009), citizens and MPs (Costa et al., 2012), gender (Achin, 2001; Sineau, 2008; Mazur, 2001), the efficiency of MPs (Navarro, 2012), and policymaking (Brouard, 2011). The European Parliament is also attracting much interest among French scholars today (see Costa and Rozenberg, 2008, for an overview).

The French Case in Comparative Research To summarize, there is a new generation of French researchers with a renewed interest in the parliament who are aware of what is happening in legislative studies at the international level. More and more papers, books, and theses are dealing with parliamentary matters in France. Some structural changes have also occurred, such as the relaunch of a group on parliamentary issues within the Association française de science politique in 2007. In 2009, a special issue of the Revue française de science politique was dedicated to the parliament (Kerrouche and Rozenberg, eds). French political scientists’ increased interest in legislative studies can further be measured by the growing number of (young) colleagues and PhD students that are attending workshops on parliaments that are organized in conjunction with each congress of the Association française de science politique and the various activities of the ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research). Because of these developments, France is now more involved in international research on legislative studies. Today, French teams are involved in large projects such as PARTIREP, Comparative Agendas, EURelite, or the Comparative Candidate Survey,3 or Erasmus Networks like PADEMIA. French scholars have also taken the initiative of

 

Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native    207 international comparative research on the profiles, perceptions, and activities of MPs (projects such as PARENEL, CITREP, and IMPLOC), on the Europeanization of law (“Delors’ Myth” project), and on the Europeanization of legislatures (OPAL project).4 Despite these research developments and growing internationalization and mainstreaming, three main features of legislative studies in France can still be identified. First, most studies are not legislative studies as such. Many French political scientists are working on the parliament or MPs from other points of view: public policy analysis, electoral studies, local system analysis, European studies, history, anthropology, political theory, and gender studies. All of these scholars are indeed working on the parliament, but it is often not their main object—​just one amongst others—​and they use their own approaches and methods of study. The second specificity is the great importance that political scientists place on empirical work, especially fieldwork with an emphasis on a sociological approach and a focus on actors and their limited concern for procedures and activities. In France, the study of rules is mainly left to lawyers and, in contrast with what happens in the US and many advanced democracies, only a few French scholars use databases and an elaborate quantitative methodology. Quantitative data are often employed in a quite descriptive way (for instance, for prosopographical analyses) and there is a strong emphasis on qualitative methods (interviews, ethnological observations, document analyses, etc.). Thirdly, French specialists are not, for the most part, applying the methods, concepts, and frames of mainstream legislative studies to the French case. They prefer to do things on their own and are often critical of the international Anglo-​Saxon literature. Those three specificities have a positive side, since they help French legislative studies to avoid being a subdiscipline and thus becoming auto-​referential (i.e. quoting only legislative studies publications), and allow the discipline to build stronger connections with the other branches of political science. However, there are two steps that French scholars must take to draw real benefits from those singularities. The first is to work on the international literature, which is often quickly denounced as an “American mainstream” in France or as rational-​choice quibbling by people who do not know much about it. The second is to collect data in a systematic way; this is the price that must be paid in order to prove that French political scientists are able to propose original, but also seriously grounded, work on the parliament. Hopefully, as was alluded to earlier, a new generation of French researchers is actually interested in the findings and debates of international legislative studies. These researchers are involved in several national and international projects, which will contribute to bringing the level of knowledge about the French parliament up to international standards. The state of legislative studies in France is summarized in Table 10.1. To identify the main topics of research, we refer to the table of contents of The Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies, which was recently edited by Shane Martin, Thomas Saalfeld, and Kaare W. Strøm (2014), and which offers a very inclusive view of the many dimensions of contemporary legislative studies. This table not only shows that some areas of legislative studies are not very developed in France; it also reveals that several important dimensions of the study of legislatures

 

Table 10.1 The state of legislative studies in France Topics

Degree of Achievement

Theories Formal models of legislatures

0

Sociology of legislatures and legislators

2

Typologies and classifications

2

Methods Roll call analysis

1

Content analysis

2

Debate and deliberation

2

Interviews and surveys

3

Experimental study of legislative behavior

0

Representation and legislative careers Candidate selection

1

Electoral institutions and legislative behavior

1

Gender and legislatures

1

Roles in legislatures

3

Legislative careers

3

Organization and rules Procedure and rules in legislatures

2

The politics of bicameralism

1

Committees

0

Parties in the legislature Political parties and legislators

1

Party discipline

1

Legislative party switching

0

Legislative institutions and coalition government

1

Policymaking and oversight Institutional foundations of legislative agenda-​setting

1

Law-​making

2

Legislatures and public finance

2

Legislatures, lobbying, and interest groups

1

Legislatures and foreign policy

1

Legislatures and bureaucracies

1

Others Political behavior in the European Parliament

2

Sub-​national legislatures

2

Source: The degree of achievement of research in France for each item is indicated by a score on a scale from 0 (no research at all) to 3 (extensive research).

 

Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native    209 in France are quite specific, since they are not included in the list of topics, be it history, ethnography, sociology of MPs’ entourages, constituency work, or monographs that are devoted to a given MP.

The Agenda for the Future Study of Legislative Politics in France Before giving an overview of the potential developments in legislative studies in France, it is useful to underline some key findings of the research.

Some Findings of Legislative Studies in France In recent years, legislative studies have been useful in challenging four central assumptions regarding the French parliament and its MPs, as we will now discuss.

A Weak Parliament, Really? One of the main objectives of the 1958 Constitution was to limit the parliament’s influence and powers in the search for political stability. Parliament’s powers have been reduced by several means and the Executive has been granted a set of powerful tools to limit the chambers’ influence on policymaking and control. Even the working methods of the chambers and their autonomy have been limited, with the same objective. Later, the French parliament suffered from de Gaulle’s claim to embody the country’s will and his practice of organizing referenda and providing—​starting in 1965—​the direct election of the president. The presidential election soon became the most influential event in French political life and it has led to a clear bipolarization of the party system and to the emergence of the fait majoritaire, which has contributed to an increase in the submission of the National Assembly to the government and (except during periods of cohabitation) to the president. Further, the Fathers of the Fifth Republic also decided to increase the governing capacity of the executive (at least, of the right-​wing parties) by making the Upper chamber a structurally conservative assembly. At the same time, the Constitution provides the possibility for the National Assembly to have the last word, thus weakening the Senate when necessary. However, the classification of the French parliament among the very weak parliaments needs to be discussed (Brouard, Appleton, and Mazur, 2009; Kerrouche, 2006). The French regime has experienced many changes in recent years that have affected the parliament and its role in the regime in many ways. For instance, the 2008 constitutional reform modified more than 50 percent of its articles, in order—​among other objectives—​to reinforce the policymaking and control capabilities of the French parliament. Its institutional situation thus needs to be reassessed. Also, one should take into account the degree of cohesion of the majority, which can have a strong influence on the

 

210   Olivier Costa balance of power between the government and the National Assembly. Apart from that, the senatorial elections of September 2011 led, for the first time since 1958, to a left-​wing majority (though this was lost in 2014). There is thus a need for a new evaluation of the role that is played by this institution and for an update of parties’ attitudes toward it.

How Elitist are MPs? French political sociology has insisted that the political class is elitist since the 1980s. A whole range of factors (institutional design, political culture, structures of society, organization of political parties, electoral rules, etc.) have led to the emergence of a professionalized political class that is composed of a cultural and intellectual elite, which is somewhat closed to society and hardly mirrors it. The French parliament is a perfect example. It is mostly composed of highly educated white men in their 50s, who combine their parliamentary mandate with local ones, who are actually professional politicians coming from a few socio-​professional sectors (high-​level civil servants, academics, lawyers, etc.). Despite the 2000 law on gender parity, women are still underrepresented, as are visible minorities and unqualified professions. However, one should take a closer look at the data. First of all, we must take into account the impact of the law on parity, which has led to a clear increase in the level of female representation in the chambers. Also, things are beginning to change in the case of visible minorities. Moreover, we can see that the level of turnover at each election is higher than it was in the past and that the average length of an MP’s career in parliament is decreasing at a rapid pace. Finally, the idea of a disconnect between MPs and citizens is not supported by the high level of involvement of deputies and senators in the districts.

MPs are Focused on the Constituency, but not only the Constituency The strong involvement of MPs in constituency work is due to many factors: electoral rules, the global weakness of the parliament, the political culture, the accumulation of mandates, and so on. Specifically, MPs spend a great deal of time in their districts, where they develop all kinds of activities in order to please their constituents and to play, as they are expected to, the roles of “political entrepreneur” and “social worker.” When asked about this, a vast majority of MPs clearly prefer to give priority to district work; therefore, they tend to neglect parliamentary work. This local focus contributes to the idea that the French parliament has little influence on policymaking or executive control. There is a kind of vicious circle—​MPs prefer district work because they have the impression that parliament is weak and that they do not have any influence, but the parliament is weak because most MPs give priority to district work. Some MPs are, nevertheless, experts who are deeply involved in parliamentary work. They use their professional skills (MDs, engineers, academics, lawyers, etc.), political experience (former ministers, chairs of committee), or networks (former members of ministerial cabinets, high-​level civil servants, businessmen, and so on) to take charge of most of the legislative and control activities. Many MPs today can be described as professional politicians who have always worked in the political microcosm, first in collaboration with politicians at

 

Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native    211 the local or national level, then as elected officials (Costa and Behm, 2013). They thus have real expertise related to the functioning of the state—​if not of private companies.

The Relative Weakness of Parliamentary Work The conjunction of the structural weakness of the parliament and the limited involvement of deputies and senators in parliamentary work leads to the idea that the French parliament has little influence on policymaking or executive control. However, the situation has changed in many respects in recent years. As was said earlier, the constitution has been extensively reformed since 1958 and a major reform occurred in 2008. The National Assembly and the Senate have also undergone a process of internal change. Finally, the political situation has evolved—​the new Socialist majority in the National Assembly, which was elected in 2012, is less submissive to the government and to the president than it was before, especially since the local elections of March 2014. Moreover, the political situation of the Senate radically changed in 2011 with the first alternation to the left (that ended in September 2014). The problem is that most commentaries on the French regime are based on analyses of constitutional arrangements, on the opinions of experts, and on views of the actors—​ and not on solid data about the effectiveness of their activities. Therefore, the influence of the chambers must be measured in other ways. First of all, it is necessary to take into account the testimony of MPs in order to determine whether they understand the constitutional limitations on the chambers’ influence as well as whether they can resist the government’s will, amend laws, and take initiatives under certain circumstances. Second, the analysis of questions, bills, amendments, or of the work in parliamentary committees shows that one should not underestimate the formal and informal influence of MPs on policymaking and their capacity to control the government. The research agenda of legislative studies for the coming years is very wide and diverse, and it is shaped by the lack of knowledge that still exists and the development of the regime and society, as well as methodological opportunities.

The Methodological Challenges The challenge that is related to methodologies is threefold. First, we should retain what comprises the originality of French legislative studies. The importance given to methods that are inspired by sociology and ethnology, to qualitative approaches that are based on semi-​structured interviews, to the prosopography of the actors, and to field observations must be preserved because these allow several aporias of the quantitative analysis of the behavior of MPs and of the concept of representation to be overcome and a more concrete knowledge of the way in which they deal with their various principals or mandates to be gained. Nevertheless, efforts also have to be made to apply the methods of mainstream legislative studies in France. This second challenge means continuing the work that has been undertaken to build systematic databases concerning the profiles and activities of

 

212   Olivier Costa MPs and to continue to develop projects to interview MPs on a large scale. The financial and budgetary aspects of legislative politics should also be explored more systematically. This is crucial in order to test the main theories and hypotheses regarding representation, parliamentary work, and the interactions among institutions for the French case and also to encourage the participation of French scholars in international comparative projects. The specificities of the French semi-​presidential regime and of French political life, such as the cumul des mandats, obviously need to be further explored in a comparative way. A systematic replication of surveys is also necessary in order to allow diachronic studies and analyses of the impact of variables such as the size and nature of the majority or the degree of the seniority of MPs within the house. The final challenges are connected with the current technological and societal evolutions. The first one is the movement of “open data”—​the volume of data that is available to study political institutions is increasing at a rapid pace. Even if French chambers are still reluctant to release data, legislative studies scholars should mobilize on this issue and cooperate with the organizations of civil society that are involved in the use of open data.5 The latter are, indeed, in a better position to convince institutions to share their databases. In the coming years, “big data” will allow legislative scholars to ask new questions and to re-​evaluate old ones about the behavior of MPs and about institutions, representation, and policymaking. Things are changing rapidly and the inspiration will come, once again, from the USA. Another technological challenge is derived from the progress of software solutions. The automatic coding of huge amounts of information (developed, for instance, within the Policy Agenda Project) and the improvement of lexicographic solutions are opening up new perspectives for research. Generally speaking, the challenge is to determine whether the new data and technologies that are available will renew the theories about legislative politics or will just confirm previous suppositions. One should also think about the impact of this new form of transparency on the behavior and strategy of MPs, who have already started to adapt to the greater mediatization of the main figures related to their parliamentary activities (questions, attendance in plenary and committee, reports, amendments, etc.).

Old and New Topics Regarding topics, legislative studies specialists should on one hand, deepen their research in several understudied areas and, on the other, take into account several kinds of changes. Despite the recent developments in legislative studies in France, we still lack the basic data and information on many dimensions of legislative politics. To go beyond simple comments, we need to set up research projects to study law-​making, the activities of MPs in the constituency and in the house, the views of citizens on MPs and legislatures, the functioning of political groups, the activities of committees, and, finally, the evolution of the internal rules of the chambers. By gathering new data and updating that which exists, we should be able to challenge commonly accepted assumptions such as whether we can still consider the French parliament a weak one. What are the current

 

Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native    213 dynamics of law-​making and government control? Are the members of the majority as docile as they are thought to be? Is the opposition really unable to make its voice heard? What happens in parliamentary committee meetings? What is the concrete influence of both National Assembly and Senate on the legislative process today? Further, there is a need to study subnational assemblies through the lens of legislative studies. Town councils, as well as the councils of the regions and departments, can be assimilated into parliaments in the way in which they are appointed (direct election), organized (politically and administratively), and function. It is not part of the French constitutional and scientific tradition to do so, but there is a need to better study those institutions from the point of view of their composition and activities. Moreover, a comparison between national and “regional” MPs is very promising (Deschouwer and Depauw, 2014). Research also has to analyze the impact of political or constitutional change. What has been the effect of the changes in the Senate in 2011 and again in 2014 on the role of its members? What will be the impact of the law of January 2014 that limits the possibility of MPs (following the 2017 election) combining elected positions at the national and local levels? Did the constitutional reform of 2008 change the balance of power in France? How did chambers adapt to it? Are French chambers taking advantage of the new provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon regarding the role of national parliament regarding law-​making in the EU, especially in the monitoring of subsidiarity? Legislative studies must also focus on the influence of societal change on legislatures. What is the impact of new technologies on the activities of MPs in the chamber (law-​ making, information) and in the constituency (communication with citizens, use of social media)? How do legislatures and MPs cope with the interest of citizens and the media in new mechanism of participation and deliberation? Finally, the French parliament will have to address the issue of minority representation. Although the question of gender is acknowledged as a legitimate one, this has not been the case for minorities or socio-​professional activities until now. Finally, the data issue will not only create opportunities for new research, but will also impact the activities of MPs. In today’s information age, new data is available not only to citizens and scholars but also to political actors—​there will be a need to assess the impact of this “digital revolution” on legislative politics. Will lobbies use new information to pressure legislators or to build societal support for legislation? What will be the impact of new technologies on the ways in which MPs communicate with their constituents, and vice versa? Whose voices are most likely to be heard using the new channels of communication?

Conclusion For a long time, legislative studies have been very rare in the landscape of French political science. Things have evolved a great deal since the end of the 1990s, which heralded a renewed interest in the central institutions and actors of the French political regime for scholars and the emergence of a new generation of researchers who were better connected

 

214   Olivier Costa with the methods, theories, and topics of mainstream legislative studies. The constant evolution of the Constitution of 1958, which has undergone 24 reforms in 50 years, has also encouraged specialists to study the impact of institutional change on legislative politics. Today, the research agenda of legislative studies is wide and the opportunities offered by the progress of open data and software are considerable. It is thus quite likely that the presence of legislative studies in French political science will grow in the coming years. Studying parliaments and their members is indeed a useful way to gain an understanding of the many aspects of a political regime, be it policymaking, political representation, elites, democracy and participation, political parties, gender, minorities, or elections. It is also very likely that the mainstreaming of French legislative studies will continue. More than any other subdiscipline of French political science, the subject is being shaped by a tension between internal and external approaches. On one hand, French scholars are now strongly encouraged to use the concepts, methods, and theories of legislative studies as they exist at the international level in order to participate in large comparative projects, collect and analyze quantitative data, publish in the major peer-​reviewed journals, participate in international conferences and professional congresses, and compete for grants—​especially within the framework of the European Research Council and the European Framework program for research and development. The patterns of careers have changed and “going international” is no longer a privilege of an elite. Most young French political scientists have spent some time abroad during their thesis or as post-​ doctoral fellowship and thus are familiar with current strategies. Moreover, the internationalization of profiles is more valued (or less suspect) than it was in the past. On the other hand, French legislative studies specialists are still encouraged to cultivate the peculiarities of their work in order to favor dialogue with the other branches of political science, to be published by the French journals, and to adapt to specificities of the French political regime and legislature. Also, French political science remains a small world that is focused on a limited number of paradigms and approaches, in which the “Anglo-​Saxon” mainstream is not always valued and is even unprized by some scholars. More generally, there is a reluctance of many toward quantitative methods that are often considered to be linked to rational choice and positivism. One should, however, not exaggerate the tensions between the domestic and the international approaches, especially in legislative studies. The new generation of researchers who are involved in that field has proven its ability to reconcile those two trends and even to contribute to the export of approaches, questions, and methods that have been developed within the French context.

Notes 1. A recent book, edited by Shane Martin, Thomas Saalfeld, and Kaare Strom (The Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies. Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2014), is a long-​ awaited exception. There are several books describing legislatures (for instance:  Fish, M. S. and Kroenig, M. (2009) The Handbook of National Legislatures:  A  Global Survey (New York: Cambridge University Press)), but they do not propose a view on legislative studies.

 

Legislative Politics: Going International, While Staying Native    215 2. The French parliament is still considered to be weak in comparative terms. In their book, Fish and Kroenig (2009) propose an index to measure parliamentary power. In the European Union (27 member states in 2009), the most powerful of the parliaments’ score was 0.84 (Germany, Italy), whereas France had only 0.56. France only did better than the parliament of Cyprus (no data available for Luxembourg and Malta). 3. PARTIREP is an Interuniversity Attraction Pole (IAP) that is funded by the Belgian Science Policy. It has, among other activities, coordinated interviews of MPs from over 70 parliamentary assemblies from 15 countries (Deschouwer and Depauw, 2014)  . The Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) brings together scholars who are developing systematic indicators of issues that require attention within their nations’ political systems—​including legislatures. This system classifies events (e.g. bills, parliamentary questions, or media stories) into topics, making it possible to study the frequency of such events and to enable scholars to find and investigate particular events in more detail (Brouard et al., 2009). EURélite (European Political Elites in Comparison. The Long Road to Convergence), which is coordinated by Maurizio Cotta (Sienna) and Heinrich Best (Jena), is a network whose aim is the development of historical databases on the European parliamentary elites and ministries. The comparative dataset (DATACUBE) that was established within the framework of this project covers 12 European countries from 1848 to 2000 (including France, through the participation of Daniel Gaxie from Paris 1) (Cotta and Best, 2007). The Comparative Candidate Survey (CCS) is a joint multinational project with the goal of collecting data on candidates who are running for national parliamentary elections in 29 countries using a common core questionnaire to allow for a cross-​country comparison . 4. OPAL (Observatory of Parliaments after the Treaty of Lisbon) is a joint endeavor of the FNSP (Fondation nationale des sciences politiques) (Paris), the University of Cologne, Cambridge University, and Maastricht University that deals with legislature’s Europeanization . PARENEL (Parliamentary Representation at National and European Levels) is an international research project that is led by the Centre Emile Durkheim (Sciences Po, Bordeaux), the CEVIPOL (Université Libre de Bruxelles), and the ISCTE (Lisbon) whose aim is to compare the identity, behavior, and socialization of the EU and national MPs in France, Belgium, and Portugal (Costa, Freire, and Pilet, 2012). The “Delors’ myth” is an international research project that deals with the empirical implications of the Europeanization of law-​making in nine countries that is led by the Centre Emile Durkheim (Sciences Po, Bordeaux) and the MZES (University of Mannheim) (Brouard, Costa, and König, 2012). 5. Websites for the organizations include the following:  ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; .

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218   Olivier Costa Foucault, M. and Irondelle, B. (2009). “Dynamique parlementaire de la politique de défense: une comparaison franco-​britannique,” Revue internationale de politique comparée 16(3): 465–​83. François, A. (2009). “Who are the Candidates and Substitute Candidates in the French Legislative Elections? A Statistical Note on the 2007 Elections,” French Politics 7(2): 206–​15. François, A. and Grossman, E. (2011). Qui sont les députés français de la Ve République? Paris:  La Vie des idées, January 21, 2011 . François, B. (2010). Le régime politique de la Ve République. Paris: La Découverte. Frears, J. (1990). “The French Parliament: Loyal Workhouse, Poor Watchdog,” West European Politics 13: 32–​51. Friedrich, C. J. (1937). Constitutional Government and Politics. New York: Harper. Fuchs-​Cessot, A. (2004). Le Parlement à l’épreuve de l’Europe et de la Vème République. Paris: Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence. Fuligni, B. (2006). Les Quinze mille députés d’hier et d’aujourd’hui. Paris: Pierre Horay. Garrigues, J. (ed.) (2007). Histoire du Parlement, de 1789 à nos jours. Paris: Armand Colin. Girard, L., Serman, W., Cadet, E., and Gossez, R. (1976). La Chambre des députés en 1837–​1839. Composition, activité, vocabulaire. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. Glasson, E.-​D. (1899). Parlement. Paris: Société anonyme de la Grande Encyclopédie. Grossman, E. (2009). “La résistance comme opportunité: les stratégies des institutions politiques françaises face à l’Europe,” Revue internationale de politique comparée 15(4): 667–​78. Higonnet, P.-​B. (1968). “La composition de la Chambre des Députés de 1827 à 1831,” Revue Historique 239: 351–​78. Hirsch, H. and Hancock, M. D. (eds) (1971). Comparative Legislative Systems:  A  Reader in Theory and Research. New York: the Free Press. Huber, J. D. (1996). Rationalizing Parliament, Legislative institutions and party politics in France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jan, P. (2010). Les assemblées parlementaires françaises. Paris: la Documentation française. Joana, J. (1999). Pratiques politiques des députés français au XIXe siècle, du dilettante au spécialiste. Paris: L’Harmattan. Kerrouche, E. (2006). “The French Assemblée Nationale: The Case of a Weak Legislature?” Journal of Legislative Studies 12(3–​4): 336–​65. Kerrouche, E. (2009). “Gone with the Wind? The National Assembly under the Fifth Republic,” in Brouard, S., Appleton, A. M., and Mazur, A. G. (eds) The French Fifth Republic at Fifty: Beyond Stereotypes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 59–​78. Kerrouche, E. and Rozenberg, O. (eds) (2009). “Retour au Parlement,” special issue of Revue française de science politique 59(3). Kimmel, A. (1991). L’Assemblée nationale sous la Cinquième République. Paris:  Presses de la FNSP. Laquièze, A. (2002). Les Origines du régime parlementaire en France (1814–​1848). Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Latek, M. (2003). “Le poids des traditions parlementaires nationales dans le développement de la coopération interparlementaire. La participation française et britannique à la COSAC,” Politique européenne 9(1): 143–​63. Le Lidec, P. (2008). “Les députés, leurs assistants et les usages du crédit collaborateurs. Une sociologie du travail politique,” Sociologie du travail 50(2): 147–​68. Lidderlale, D. W. S. (1954). Le Parlement français. Paris: Armand Colin.

 

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Chapter 11

C onstitu tiona l P ol i t i c s the French case and theory-​building Sylvain Brouard

The first French constitution was adopted in 1791 and lasted just one year. Since that time, France has introduced a further 14 constitutions, providing a textbook example of a country in which the duration of this fundamental text has been short-​lived. However, even if the number and lifespan of French constitutions is higher than the average in Western European countries (Negretto, 2012), France is not exceptional from a comparative perspective as argued by Elkins, Ginsburg, and Melton (2009). The failures of French constitutionalism have long been explained by the rigidity of French constitutions. In 1885, Dicey argued that “the inflexibility of French constitutions has provoked revolution, the flexibility of English constitutions has, once at least, saved them from violent overthrow” (1960: 43). As constitutions should be relevant to present conditions—​“the dead should not govern the living” (Jefferson)—​scholars regularly argue that an outdated constitution can either be replaced (via legal abrogation of the former constitution and enactment of a new one) or amended, provided that the actors follow procedures for the amendment of the existing constitution.1 Since 1958, the French constitution has been amended 24 times—​that is, around once every two years—​making it appear very flexible. France thus provides an example not just of constitutional replacement but also of constitutional amendment. Furthermore, it is regularly argued that constitutional flexibility undermines constitutional review. However, France is characterized by a high level of constitutional vetoes (Brouard, 2009). The pre-​eminence of parliamentary sovereignty in France, which was born with the French Revolution, forbade judicial review in the country for a long period (Stone, 1992). In many respects, therefore, the creation of the Constitutional Council in 1958 marked a significant change in French constitutional tradition. Furthermore, constitutional review has undergone significant transformation since 1958 in terms of institutional settings and outputs. Scholars even argue that certain changes and their consequences, as for example the 1974 reform which allowed constitutional review to be initiated on presentation of a petition signed by a minimum of 60 MPs, are as important as the introduction of the

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    221 direct election of the French president (Philip, 1988) in 1962. The introduction of concrete constitutional review in 2010 has also increased interest in scrutinizing constitutional politics in France. The refusal to validate former President Sarkozy’s presidential campaign finances provided a new example of the growing judicialization of French politics, despite the enduring challenge of its alleged politicization. From this point of view, French constitutional politics also remains somewhat enigmatic. Beyond French politics, constitutional features and judicial bodies play an increasingly important role in comparative politics. It has therefore become empirically and theoretically essential to carry out a thorough investigation of the patterns of constitutional politics in France. The first section of this chapter will display a brief state-​of-​the-​art presentation of constitutional politics. The chapter will then discuss the main results of the studies of French constitutional politics. In the third section, a research agenda will be presented to show how further research into the French case might improve comparative understanding of constitutional politics. A concise conclusion completes the chapter.

The State of the Art Amending the Constitution Many scholars (Lane, 1996; Elster, 2000) rely on the institutional setting of the constitutional amendment process to explain the (comparative) variation of amendment rates. Factors such as the agenda-​setter, the size of the majority required to amend a constitution, and the number of arenas where the amendment process requires a vote are usually taken in account when estimating the level of constitutional rigidity. There exist a number of different conceptualizations and indicators of constitutional rigidity (Lutz, 1994; Lorenz, 2005; Ferejohn, 1997). Supra-​majority thresholds, the involvement of numerous institutions, and the use of referenda are commonly associated with a more difficult process for constitutional amendment. However, analysis of the effect of constitutional rigidity on the number of adopted constitutional amendments has so far produced mixed results (Lorenz, 2005). Several scholars have combined institutional features with political variables. As Negretto (2012) underlines, the most rigid constitution can become flexible in a dominant party system. According to him, the frequency of amendments depends on party fragmentation and the number of veto points. Lijphart (1999) adjusts his four-​category typology based on the level of majority requirements by downgrading plurality systems in order to control for the effect of plurality systems on the size of the legislative majority. Rasch and Congleton (2006) approach constitutional rigidity on two levels:  the degree of consensus required to amend a constitution, and the number of veto players (or veto points) required to secure a constitutional amendment. The essence of the political approach to constitutional rigidity is that when an agreement between majority and opposition is required to enact a change, the change is less likely to occur than when no

 

222   Sylvain Brouard agreement is necessary. Thus, constitutional amendments should be more likely to occur when constitutional rigidity decreases at the institutional or political level. Institutional variables should explain cross-​national variations. Political variables should explain longitudinal variations in amendments within the same institutional setting. Analyses of constitutional amendments have predominantly focused on the impact of the opportunity (or means) to amend constitutions. However, scholars have also investigated the environments and incentives that might explain why constitutional amendments occur. Certain features of constitutional design have been studied from this perspective by Elkins, Ginsburg, and Melton (2009). First, inclusion is a possible factor: inclusive constitutional drafting, deliberation and approval, and inclusive constitutional provisions tend to increase the legitimacy of the constitution and therefore to decrease the motives to alter its content. Second, following the logic of Lutz’s use of constitutional length, the level of specificity, that is the scope and detail of a constitution, also shape incentives to change it. The more specific the constitution, the less there is a need for clarification or for new elements introduced by constitutional changes to be added. From another perspective, Negretto (2012) distinguishes three different contextual sources of constitutional change: political transformations at the state or regime level, shifts in balance of power, and dysfunctional constitutional performance. Finally, the existence of constitutional review has been studied in the literature, but with unclear results. By interpreting the constitution from a new perspective, constitutional review may allow it to change without constitutional amendments. Nevertheless, if nobody is allowed to say legally that something is unconstitutional, there are also fewer incentives to amend the constitution. Conversely, when constitutional review outcomes provide explicit rulings of unconstitutionality, constitutional amendments are more likely to occur provided the constitution is flexible enough to allow this to happen.

The Judicialization of Politics The judicialization of politics (Hönnige, 2011) is one of the main focuses of research on constitutional courts as described by Tate and Vallinder (1995). Constitutional courts have been established across the world in an ongoing process of judicialization, more especially since the third wave of democratization began in 1945 (Ginsburg, 2003), when, for example, all new European democracies introduced a constitutional court based on the model of the German or French courts. In Latin America, new courts have often been inspired by the US model of judicial review, even if they retain certain particularities (Navia and Rios-​Figueroa, 2005). With their right of constitutional review, they can prevent legislation passed by parliament and government from being enacted. Thus, from a judicialization perspective, court activity increasingly limits the ability of political actors to make decisions. Government and parliament are less and less in a position to make laws without taking the constitutional court into account. Judicialization affects politics in various ways. Rulings of unconstitutionality (or vetoes) provide the most spectacular direct effect of judicialization. Constitutional

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    223 courts also frequently define the features of constitutionally safe policies. They also produce “restrictive interpretations” about how to implement policies in order to guarantee their constitutionality (Stone, 1992). But as politicians anticipate constitutional rulings, indirect effects also occur in various ways: politicians can take legal arguments into account when drafting and debating proposals (Landfried, 1992); they can avoid difficult decisions and thus move competencies from parliament to the court; they can restrain from legislating to avoid constitutional veto (Vanberg, 1998). Judicialization also adopts different institutional settings. Constitutional review might be centralized or decentralized. There are now various types of constitutional review—​abstract review, concrete review, petitions—​with different sets of institutions and people empowered with the right to initiate constitutional review. Constitutional courts also play a prominent role in developing concepts of comparative politics. On the level of political systems, courts can be understood as elements of consensus democracy (Lijphart, 1999) or more commonly as veto players (Alivizatos, 1995). Most authors actually assume them to be counter-​majoritarian institutions, taking power away from the elected government. Individual studies convincingly argue that courts are veto players (Santoni and Zucchini 2004; Volcansek, 2000). Stone Sweet (2000) even argues that constitutional courts should be considered as a third chamber in law-​making. By enforcing the rule of law, judicialization has been interpreted positively as progress for individual rights. Nevertheless, this trend has also been questioned as a challenge to democratic rule and accountability. From this perspective, the courts are part of a wider phenomenon called the “rise of the unelected” (Vibert, 2007; Bellamy, 2007). Some scholars even declare parliamentary sovereignty to be dead, and to have been replaced by the sovereignty of courts (Stone ​Sweet, 2000; Gibson et al., 2003).

The Politicization of Constitutional Review The politicization of the judiciary (Stone, 1992; Ferejohn, 2002) is a natural consequence of the judicialization of politics. As judicial review is currently having an increasing impact on politics, politicians have sought to influence it. Thus, the nature and legitimacy of constitutional review has also been challenged as a result of its perceived politicization. From this perspective, government by judges is not seen as an embodiment of the rule of law but rather as another type of politics. The key issue is the independence of constitutional review from politics. As independence encompasses many dimensions and depends on many features, various definitions can be found in the literature. Basically, an independent constitutional court is insulated from politics. Such autonomy can be considered at the individual (Ferejohn, 1999) or the institutional level (McNollgast, 2006). Sometimes independence means that “judges are entirely free from the negative consequences of their decisions on the bench” (Baum, 2003: 14). Often it means impartial decision-​making, that is politically neutral (or balanced) interpretation in accordance with the intentions of the constitution writers (Ginsburg, 2003). The institutional design of the constitutional court and the features of the political system

 

224   Sylvain Brouard and judicial decision-​making are three of the most important factors shaping levels of independence or politicization. The way in which judges are appointed and the characteristics of their term in office affect the extent to which they are autonomous of politics. Three types of mechanisms for the appointment of constitutional judges have been distinguished: professional, cooperative, and representative (Ginsburg, 2003). Professional appointments are carried out by sections of the judiciary itself; in cooperative appointments the agenda-​setter and the decision-​maker are separated; in representative appointment procedures various institutions are independently responsible for a share of the judges’ appointment. Professional appointment is obviously the least politicized, if the judiciary is impartial. Provided political pluralism is assured or with a supermajority requirement, cooperative appointments are usually associated with more moderate judges than representative appointments in which parties have incentives to appoint partisan agents. In some countries, judges need to fulfill some specific requirement in terms of profession, skills, and partisan commitment in order to improve their independence. Nonetheless, some scholars emphasize lifetime terms or lengthy non-​renewable terms (Landes and Posner, 1975) as a condition for independence. The general features of the political system also contribute to shaping the court’s behavior. Constitutional rigidity is an obvious factor (Lijphart, 1999). If the constitution can be easily amended, the court itself might be redesigned or suppressed if conflict with the executive or the parliamentary majority should occur. Moreover, in cases where the content of the constitution might be used to justify a potential ruling of unconstitutionality, that content might also be changed. In such a context, the court may well suffer sanctions or be credibly threatened. Therefore, strategic judicial restraint, that is to say abstaining from vetoing an unconstitutional statute, is more likely to be used under these conditions. As institutional constitutional rigidity decreases, independence tends to decline. Conversely, when political fragmentation increases, it limits the deterring influence of political institutions on the court (Iaryczower et al., 2002). Thus, both the institutional design of constitutional review and the features of the political system have a direct effect on how politicized constitutional review becomes. However, such potential effects depend on the specific and disputed theories of judicial decision-​making. There are three streams of research that present strikingly different answers to the question of how constitutional judges rule. First, the “attitudinal model” assumes that political attitudes determine judges’ decisions in constitutional courts. According to this theory, judges rule “disputes in light of the facts of the case vis-​à-​vis (their) ideological attitudes and values” (Segal and Spaeth, 2002). Attitudes and values bias their perception of the facts in cases under their scrutiny and their understanding of the content of the constitution. In this way, the judges’ political leanings affect their rulings. This theory has been successfully tested on the analysis of individual voting behavior in the US Supreme Court (Segal and Cover, 1989; Martin et al., 2004). According to this theory, a politicized court is an intrinsic and direct feature of constitutional review. Consequently, its impact grows as the importance of constitutional review increases. From this perspective, appointment mechanisms and their outcomes are a key factor in understanding the politicization of constitutional review.

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    225 A second theory of judicial decision-​making assumes that judges behave strategically. They do not simply rule according to their preference in a given case, but in a specific institutional setting where they anticipate the behavior of the other judges, institutions, and parties in order to make their decision (Epstein and Knight, 1998). This theory of judicial decision-​making suggests that both the features of the political system and the institutional characteristics of the court (number of judges, agenda-​setting power of the president of the court, etc.) affect the judges’ decisions. One specific feature of constitutional review is that the implementation of rulings relies on other institutions. For this reason, judges might also anticipate the likelihood that their ruling will be implemented or not. Vanberg (2005) shows that in Germany, the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence depends on the level of popular support for a given court ruling and the transparency of the environment. Both of these shape the likelihood that non-​compliance will be damaging for the government: “even for the same court at one point in time, influence is likely to vary across issue areas” (Vanberg, 2005). Therefore, from a strategic decision-​making perspective, the emphasis is on the indirect politicization of constitutional review by the environment. Conversely, the legal approach to judicial decision-​making stresses normative constraints (Knight and Epstein, 1996). From this perspective, when presented with the facts in a case, judges comply with constitutional law and existing precedents and make their decision on that basis. According to Hansford and Spriggs (2006), judicial decision-​making is strongly constrained by precedents in two ways: on one hand judges want “to shape existing precedents,” and, on the other, “the court is expected to provide legally relevant justifications for its decisions” (Hansford and Spriggs, 2006). This latter approach minimizes the scope of politicization in constitutional review. These three theories of judicial decision-​making are no longer exclusive of each other. Their differences lie more in the respective weight of the various factors. For example, Spriggs and Hansford (2001) state that judges “are motivated by their policy preferences, but when deciding to overrule cases they are also constrained by both informal norms and specific precedent characteristics. […] [L]egal norms exert a stronger substantive influence on the overruling of precedent than the justices’ policy preferences.”

Constitutional Politics in France: The State of the Art Amending the Fifth Republic’s Constitution In the French Fifth Republic, the rules for constitutional amendment are the following:2 • According to art. 89-​1, the initiative may have one of two origins: the president, following a proposal made by the prime minister or members of Parliament, may launch a constitutional amendment process.

 

226   Sylvain Brouard • According to art. 89-​2, the proposed amendment must firstly be adopted by the National Assembly and the Senate under simple majority rule; afterwards, the proposed amendment must be approved by referendum in the case of parliamentary proposals and either by referendum or by a three-​fifths qualified majority in Congress which includes the National Assembly and the Senate in the case of executive proposals. • According to art. 89-​3, “no amendment procedure shall be commenced or continued where the integrity of the national territory is placed in jeopardy.” • Finally, according to art. 89-​4, “the republican form of government shall not be the object of any amendment.” According to most conceptualizations and indicators of constitutional rigidity (Lutz, 1994; Lorenz, 2005; Lijphart, 1999; Rash and Congleton, 2006), the Fifth Republic has a flexible rather than a rigid constitution.3 Thus, the large number of constitutional amendments in France seems to meet the expectations of the theory. However, the causal validity of the political rigidity argument can be robustly tested on the French case. In fact, the theory should explain not only the (large) number of amendments but also their timing. Updates to the French constitution have not followed an even or regular pattern. Between 1978 and 2009, it was amended 19 times. By comparison, between 1958 and 1977, only five constitutional amendments were adopted. On average, a constitutional amendment was around twice as likely to be passed between 1978 and 2009 as it was between 1958 and 1977. However, 1992 is the year when the constitutional amendment “frenzy” really began. From that point on, there was one per year on average, and on several occasions three per year. Constitutional rigidity theories have had little empirical success in predicting the timing of amendments. Since 1978, only 10 out of the 19 constitutional amendments occurred while a governing coalition controlled the three-​fifths majority in Congress. Nearly half of the time constitutional amendments took place during periods of “political rigidity.” It may nonetheless be useful to investigate the relationship between the number of seats required for the governing coalition to reach a qualified majority and the number of constitutional amendments made during periods of “political rigidity.” It is undoubtedly easier to obtain one more vote than 100 more. Therefore, from the perspective of constitutional rigidity, the fewer the additional seats required for a governing majority to reach a qualified majority, the more likely a constitutional amendment becomes. Nevertheless, the relationship between the number of additional seats required and the number of constitutional amendments made is not negative. On the contrary, the relationship is positive (correlation of 0.65): there have been more amendments when more seats were needed to reach a majority. Thus, evidence only partially supports constitutional rigidity theories in the case of France. Understanding how constitutional amendments take place in France requires further explanation. French constitutional review has had a clear effect on constitutional amendments. For example, the Constitutional Council has repeatedly ruled that EU treaties or gender equality policies are not compatible with the constitution. Several

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    227 constitutional amendments have resulted directly from these rulings. The constitutional design theory does not provide unambiguous insight. According to Elkins, Ginsburg, and Melton (2009), the French constitution has a score that is twice the average level of inclusiveness in a sample of more than 930 constitutions included in the Comparative Constitutions Project.4 This high level of inclusiveness should (normally) decrease the number of constitutional amendments made. Nevertheless, converse incentives stem from the level of specificity—​at the sample average—​and the level of detail that is below average. The approach based on the sources of constitutional change has more explanatory power. EU integration illustrates the first category: political transformations at the state or regime level. Institutional transformations induced by the EU often require or provide motives to enact constitutional adjustments. In the French case, the EU provided incentives to amend the constitution on six occasions. Constitutional review played a key role in this regard by ruling that some EU treaties were not compatible with the French constitution. The 1962 amendment establishing the direct election of the French president and the 1963 amendment changing the organization of parliamentary sessions exemplify the second type of incentives: balance of power shifts. Backed by popular support, President Charles de Gaulle and his allies changed the rules of the game in their favor. Finally, examples of dysfunctional constitutional performance can be found in amendments related to decolonization. Following riots and lengthy protests, an agreement was signed about the governance, status, and possible future independence of the French overseas territory of New Caledonia. As the French constitution neither allowed the implementation of this deal nor was able to ensure peaceful and efficient governance in New Caledonia, an amendment was adopted in 1998. And this was not the first time during the Fifth Republic that decolonization had been the source of constitutional change. In fact, two years after the adoption of the constitution, an amendment was enacted to adapt it to the context of decolonization.

The Judicialization of Politics in France France has provided one of the best-​known case studies of judicialization thanks to the seminal book by A. Stone: The Birth of Judicial Politics in France: The Constitutional Council in Comparative Perspective (1992). The subject has also been studied in France. In 1988, one of the leading French constitutionalists, Louis Favoreu, highlighted this development in his well-​received book entitled La Politique Saisie par le Droit. The Constitutional Council has played an increasing role in regulating French political competition by monitoring national elections, political incumbents, and institutional activities (Brouard, 2008). An analysis of the 55 years of the Constitutional Council’s history (to 2013) shows how the Fifth Republic has changed dramatically in this respect. The council’s increasingly broad jurisdiction, its institutional development, and its changing activities have driven the “judicialization of politics” in France since the beginning of the Fifth Republic. The four following indicators enable the identification of three different periods of constitutional politics: the players involved in constitutional politics,

 

228   Sylvain Brouard the level of constitutional scrutiny, the access road of referrals, and the results and interpretations of the Council’s decisions. The 1974 enlargement of the initiation process of constitutional review constituted a key change and had a significant impact on the regulation of the French political system (Stone, 1992). This institutional change caused a set of interrelated developments in French constitutional politics that marked a turning point between the first era of “minimal constitutional politics” and a second era of “opposition-​induced constitutional politics.” The introduction of concrete review then gave rise to a third era of “expanded constitutional politics.” Up until 1974, as shown in Figure 11.1, the frequency of referrals was rare (3.3 on average). The number of constitutional review decisions seldom reached five per year before 1975. Until the end of 1974, the bulk of referrals were the result of compulsory referrals of organic laws and parliamentary rules. The remaining referrals were mostly initiated by the prime minister. The president of the Senate only referred three texts during that period of time. Between 1959 and 1974, the two main types of texts reviewed by the Council were thus parliamentary rules (39.6 percent), and organic laws (37.7 percent). Therefore, the first era of “minimal constitutional politics” focused mainly on institutional issues. Only 17 percent of the constitutional review agenda was dedicated to monitoring ordinary laws. This era can be characterized by a high rate but small number of actual vetoes. During the 1959–​74 period, eight out of nine referred ordinary laws led to partial vetoes. However, the majority of these vetoes (five out of eight) were not at the expense of the government. In fact, the prime minister himself initiated referrals to obstruct policies preferred by the legislative majority. The Constitutional Council then protected the executive by vetoing the referred laws. In 1961 and 1963, its rulings acknowledged the financial inadmissibility of amendments increasing expenses or 30 25 20 15 10 5

1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013

0

Abstract review

Figure 11.1.  Number of abstract constitutional decisions per year.

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    229 reducing revenue as a motive for its veto of sections of both laws. In 1960, 1964, and 1970, a total of five laws were partially vetoed according to the principle that they did not comply with the distinction between law and regulations in the French Constitution (arts 34 and 37). In these five cases, the veto was made against the legislative majority and in favor of the government. Conversely, the only ruling on constitutional conformity in 1968 was de facto a defeat for the government. The prime minister did not succeed in erasing a parliamentary amendment designed to limit the government’s ability to intervene in resources’ allocation to local governments. At that time, by using its veto, the Constitutional Council tended to guarantee rationalized parliamentarianism. The two exceptions to this were both laws referred by the president of the Senate at the end of the first era of constitutional politics, in 1971 and 1973. Both vetoes clearly represented a defeat for the legislative majority and for the government. The first decision also dramatically changed the definition of the constitution itself. The Constitutional Council was called on to verify a law about freedom of association in which the protection of citizens’ rights was at stake. The judges used two sources to veto the law: the content of the preamble to the 1958 constitution and the “fundamental principles recognized by the laws of the Republic.” The Council therefore acknowledged that the preamble was fully part of the constitution. By extension, this decision paved the way for the inclusion of the texts quoted in the preamble: the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights of 1789 and the preamble to the 1946 Constitution. The content of the “constitution” was thus hugely enhanced by this decision, as were the resources available to protect the rights of citizens. Moreover, in the same 1971 decision, the Council established the constitutional value of the “fundamental principles recognized by the laws of the Republic.” Even if this expression is explicitly written in the 1946 preamble, the constitutional source is not de facto constitutional because it is based on laws adopted before 1946. Through this innovation, the Council created a great deal of freedom for itself. In fact, since 1971, the Constitutional Council has been able to use laws which give birth to a fundamental principle from among the range of pre-​1946 laws when making its decisions. In terms of their content and meaning, both the 1971 and the 1973 vetoes foreshadowed the pattern of the second era of constitutional politics. Responding to the 1974 institutional change, the minority parties quickly made use of constitutional review as a weapon in the majority-​opposition game. Since then, the initiation of referrals has become largely monopolized by the opposition in parliament.5 Therefore, since the end of 1974, and the first referral drafted by the parliamentary minority, a constitutional veto has meant in fact that the Constitutional Council rejects a policy adopted by the legislative majority. Thus, the meaning of a constitutional veto has dramatically changed: from protecting the government from the legislative majority to invalidating policies supported by the legislative majority and the government, in answer to the demands of a legislative minority. As shown in Figure 11.1, this new logic has led to many referrals (nearly 16 per year on average) and has thus extended the Constitutional Council’s scrutiny. Since 1975, around three quarters of the Council’s decisions have focused on ordinary laws. As the minority party uses the Constitutional Council as a “third legislative chamber” (Stone ​Sweet, 2000); François, 1997) to fight

 

230   Sylvain Brouard legislative proposals, the latter has played a central role in political competition given its rulings on a large set of issues, some of which are hotly disputed. As the Constitutional Council has become a key institution in French politics as a result of its rulings, it has seized the opportunity to use its veto (and restrictive interpretation) power in order to significantly regulate the content of the policy proposals under review. As shown by Figure 11.2, an increasing proportion of French laws have been under constitutional review during the last 25 years. At the same time, the percentage of laws at least partially vetoed by the Constitutional Council has been growing, reaching around 20 percent on average at the end of this period. So far, constitutional law analysts in France have focused on analysis of the judicialization effect. They stress that increasing the content of the “constitution” has been a major factor in the growth of the Constitutional Council’s role and of its judicial activism. In 1979, the Constitutional Council created a new set of constitutional rules, called “principles with constitutional value.” These principles have not always been written in a specific text. Thus, in this second era of constitutional politics, the judicialization of politics has intensified in France—​as exemplified by the 1988 Rocard memo addressed to the Rocard government portfolio-​holders and stating that the Constitutional Council’s jurisprudence must be taken into account in legislating (Stone, 1992). Few countries have had a higher level of judicial activism. The proportion of ordinary laws (apart from constitutional laws and ratifying laws) which have been partially or totally vetoed is nearly three times (14.7 percent) higher than the 5 percent level associated with the German Constitutional Court, which is usually described as a strong court (Gallagher et al., 2006). Beyond partial or total invalidation of a statute, the Constitutional Council has 100 90 80 70

%

60 50 40 30 20 10

93 19 95 19 97 19 99 20 01 20 03 20 05 20 07 20 09 20 11 20 13

91

19

89

19

87

19

85

19

83

19

81

19

19

19

79

0

Laws at least partially vetoed by the constitutional council Laws without constitutional veto Laws without referral

Figure 11.2.  The fate of French laws (apart from constitutional law and ratifying laws).

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    231 developed an intensive use of restrictive interpretation. It limits the way a law is implemented by defining how a law or part of a law should be applied so that it conforms with the constitution. Since 1982 in particular, there has been an increase in the number of restrictive interpretations of laws by the Constitutional Council. The proportion of referred laws with restrictive interpretations has reached 50 percent of the total number of laws scrutinized by the Constitutional Court (Viala, 1999). In order to escape the costly alternative between veto or agreement, the Constitutional Council de facto rewrites the laws and supervises their implementation without blocking them. Thus, since 1974, France can no longer be characterized as a system with weak or limited constitutional review. Nevertheless, its pattern of judicialization was very specific during this period as it stemmed from a priori abstract review only. From this point of view, the era of “opposition-​induced constitutional politics” provides a very interesting case for comparative politics to test the impact of the various types of constitutional review on the process of judicialization. The amount of academic work focusing on the French case shows that it has become increasingly interesting in its third era: in fewer than three years, 18 books and 458 academic articles and chapters have been published on the introduction of concrete review in France. It is the implementation of concrete review in 2010 that has led to this third era of constitutional politics. Constitutional politics is no longer the preserve of the elites or of politicians. The public—​or, more exactly, litigants empowered to initiate referrals—​ have become important players. Between 2010 and 2014, 3,363 applications for a “priority preliminary ruling” were presented during administrative litigations only. During the same period, there were 2,090 applications for a “priority preliminary ruling” in the Cour de Cassation.6 This new player and the new access road have clearly increased the reach of constitutional jurisprudence. Generally speaking, the Cour de Cassation and the Conseil d’Etat have played the role they were expected to play in the implementation of this change. They transmitted 19 percent and 23 percent of their cases respectively to the Constitutional Council between 2010 and 2014. The second obvious feature of the era of expanded constitutional politics is the increase in the number of constitutional decisions induced by the institutional change: in 2010, the Constitutional Council made 64 concrete review rulings, 110 in 2011, 74 in 2012, 66 in 2013, and 67 in 2014. Since 2010, and despite the filter system, the new access road has undertaken nearly 3.5 times more constitutional rulings than the older one. Most of the laws that have been under concrete constitutional review since 2010 had not been scrutinized under the abstract review rule because they were adopted before the Fifth Republic came into existence (for example, laws adopted in 1802 and 1819) or they were not referred. This new scope for constitutional scrutiny has had real consequences. According to the parliamentary report written by the chair of the National Assembly’s Law Committee (Urvoas, 2013), 27 percent of the 255 decisions taken in the first 36 months have been ruled totally or partially unconstitutional, and 14 percent have been ruled constitutional with restrictive interpretations. In half of the unconstitutional rulings, a time lapse before the ruling came into effect was agreed so that parliament would have time to draft new legislation. Both the number of cases and

 

232   Sylvain Brouard the institutional features of concrete review have again strongly reinforced the agenda-​ setting power of the Constitutional Council over law-​making. De facto, the time lapse before a ruling comes into effect enables the adoption of new legislation and in this sense the Constitutional Council has an impact on the timing and the content of the law-​making process (Benetti, 2011). Moreover, when a ruling takes effect immediately, as in the decision on sexual harassment legislation for example, the incentives to legislate on an emergency basis are very high to avoid legal problems in the future. Even if the introduction of concrete review is recent, judicialization in France is reaching new heights and is characterized by very new features. Since 2010, the new pattern of constitutional politics is much more encompassing in terms of the number of players, the role of the Constitutional Council, and the issues under scrutiny.

The Politicization of Constitutional Review Politicization is a common feature of constitutional politics in France on two levels: the appointment process and the composition of the Constitutional Council as well as judicial decision-​making. Regarding the first level, Tsebelis (2002) stresses that “the only major country without any restrictions to a purely politicized appointment process is France.” More often than other constitutional courts, the French Constitutional Council is considered to be a political chamber for institutional reasons. Every three years, the president of the Republic, the president of the Senate, and the president of the National Assembly choose one member of the Constitutional Council who serves for nine years.7 There are no statutory constraints defining the skills or experience of the nominees. Since the 2008 constitutional amendment, “the President of the Republic may not make an appointment when the sum of the negative votes in each (parliamentary) committee represents at least three fifths of the votes cast by the two committees” (Constitution art. 13) and “the appointments made by the President of each House shall be submitted for consultation only to the relevant standing committee in that House” (Constitution art. 56). Nevertheless, these changes do not entail any real constraint on the appointment process. Thus, in most cases, the person who appoints a new member chooses someone whose preferences are known and similar to his/​her own (Stone, 1992). Beyond the features of the appointment process, the composition of the court is also politicized. Nearly two-thirds of constitutional judges are politicians and have strong and public partisan allegiances. If other nominees who formerly belonged to presidential or ministerial staff—​often high-​ranking civil servants—​are also taken into account, the level of politicization reaches 80 percent (Brouard, 2008). Thus, the political slant of the members of the Constitutional Council is a basic feature of constitutional politics in France. Nevertheless, as university degrees in law and former employment in legal spheres are widespread among Constitutional Court members, only a small proportion of them (9.5 percent during the 1959–​2007 period) are not qualified in law or have no legal experience.

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    233 How exceptional is the French case? Compared to the Supreme Court in the USA, it does not seem to be unique given that politicization is also the rule in the USA. “More than 90% of all Supreme Court nominees are members of the president’s party, which provides considerable empirical support for the view that, even among the world’s most independent courts, the nomination process is highly partisan” (Helmke, 2005). Vanberg (2005) also states that in Germany, between 1983 and 2003, only 34 percent of the constitutional judges had no partisan commitment and that “an informal division of seats on the court has developed. Half of the seats are allocated to the CDU/​CSU, the other half to the SPD.” Every nominee in Germany is thus a party member or is supported by a political party. In France, unlike in Germany, there is an imbalance in the proportion of right-​and left-​wing members in the Constitutional Council as a result of the lack of a supermajority requirement: only between 1989 and 1997 were there more members appointed by left-​wing incumbents than right-​wing ones. During other periods, the opposite was true. The effect that the politicization of the appointment process and the court composition, as outlined above, has on constitutional review outcomes is an important issue. Whatever their partisan commitments, French politicians have a history of criticizing Constitutional Council rulings as political decisions (Stone, 1992). Unlike what happens in the US Supreme Court, the secrecy of Constitutional Council decision-​ making in France has precluded a study of it being made at the individual level for a long time. Nevertheless, the politicization of judicial decision-​making has been studied indirectly under the assumption that there is a right-​wing (left-​wing) majority in the Constitutional Council if a majority of its members have been appointed by right-​wing (left-​wing) incumbents. It then becomes possible to study the effects of the politicization of the appointment process by focusing on the consequences of divergence or convergence between legislative and Court majorities. Brouard (2008) has provided evidence supporting this assumption: between 1986 and 2007, the veto rate, the number of vetoed laws, and the proportion of vetoed laws were higher during periods of divergence than during periods of convergence. Under the assumption that “judges are single minded non-​strategic policy-​seekers” in a one-​dimensional left–​ right space, Hönnige (2009) has shown that in the Constitutional Council oppositional success depends on the position of the pivotal judge, the size of the majority in the Constitutional Council, and the ideological distance between the Council majority and the legislative opposition. These studies might be classified as examples of an aggregated attitudinal approach to judicial decision-​making. The results show that the Constitutional Council is undoubtedly affected by politicization. But what comparative statistics also show is that a significant amount of vetoes occurred when there was a congruent majority in government and on the Council. Even before the opposition was in a position to initiate constitutional review, the Council departed from a strictly political way of thinking with the breakthrough decision of 1971 as described above. In 1986, the privatization law enacted by the (right-​wing) Chirac government was vetoed by the (right-​wing) Constitutional Council applying the same reasoning as in 1981 for the nationalization law. The politicization of

 

234   Sylvain Brouard the highest judicial body thus falls far short of summing up the Constitutional Council’s behavior and role in France. In many cases, the behavior of its members and indeed the institution itself has been shaped by factors other than politicization. The pattern of French judicial decision-​making also provides a puzzle for another approach to this topic—​the strategic approach. First, the French case clearly departs from the sanction-​based expectation that lack of constitutional rigidity should be associated with infrequent vetoes, and provides evidence that constitutional rigidity is not a necessary condition for judicial activism. Second, the existence of a large number and proportion of vetoes is also a puzzle for game-​theory literature, the main result of which for France is to stress the auto-​limitation effect (Vanberg, 1998). Nevertheless, for the time being, the evidence does not support this theory. To overcome the limits of existing theories of judicial decision-​making, a third approach focuses on the incentives that arise from electoral competition (Brouard, 2009). The electoral theory of veto politics breaks with two critical assumptions of traditional constitutional politics models: the autonomous interaction between the legislative majority and the Constitutional Court and the relative importance of the cost of a constitutional veto. From this perspective, beyond a divergence between the legislative majority and the Council’s majority, the signaling of preferences to voters by the legislative majority in a centrifugal political competition on one hand and a selective defection by the Constitutional Council’s members in a competitive political system with a flexible constitution on the other are two engines that fuel referrals and vetoes. Policy proposals are not drafted to avoid constitutional vetoes but to send signals to voters on burning French political issues, even if the likelihood of a veto is high. If a legislative majority wants to signal policy preferences to voters by legislating, the value of signaling “risky” laws might be higher during electoral periods. In the same way, if the Constitutional Council wants to signal its independence by selective defection (Helmke, 2005), the most relevant timing for doing so is also during an electoral period. According to this logic, both the legislative majority and minority have incentives to focus on issues that are electorally salient. Thus, vetoes should be directed at the polarizing issues of the French polity. Empirically, evidence supports the expectations of the electoral theory of veto politics: vetoes are more numerous during electoral periods and focus on the main electoral issues without any learning pattern. The conclusions of the legal approach to judicial decision-​making are sharply contrasted. For most constitutional law specialists, the decisions made by the Constitutional Council are not the product of its members’ political sympathies. One of the leading French constitutional specialists, G. Carcassonne, regularly stated that “the council is independent in its working methods and its jurisdictional status.”8 Similarly, in 1982, R. Badinter, a former professor of law, Constitutional Council president, and socialist senator, advocated that members had a “duty to be ungrateful” toward the appointing authorities. Consequently, according to P. Jan (2010), decisions “are taken in accordance with the jurisprudence and antecedents, and always under the critical attention of the doctrine,” and the idea of “a right-wing or left-​wing Council has more to do with fantasy or political calculus than the reality of juridisprudential developments.” In 2006,

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    235 another Professor of Law, R. Etien, stated that the Constitutional Council has developed a jurisprudence which is supported almost unanimously by the constitutionalists. Furthermore, after analyzing 25 years of deliberation, B. Mathieu (2009) concludes that “what matter in the decision are the legal arguments.” He adds that the legitimacy of the Constitutional Council is based on its legal rigor and the predictability of its jurisprudence. The conclusions of the legal perspective have been criticized by some political sociologists (CURAPP, 1989; Braconnier, 2008; Bernard and Poirmeur, 1993; Israël et al., 2005) who have analyzed French constitutional politics from a constructivist perspective. Their focus stresses the social construction of constitutional law and how it is used. Turning Favoreu’s perspective upside-​down, they emphasize how constitutional law itself is shaped by politics.

A Research Agenda on Constitutional Politics in France Patterns of Government Control and Constitutional Amendments Regarding constitutional amendments, other incentives should also be investigated. The ways in which various patterns of government control and electoral competition shape the incentives to amend the constitution merit further study. A particularly interesting puzzle can be found in the fact that five constitutional amendments were adopted in the five years characterized by the highest level of divided government. Between 1997 and 2002, left-​wing parties controlled the cabinet and the majority in the National Assembly, and right-​wing parties controlled the presidency and the majority in the Senate. Such a context of divided government decreases the likelihood of a major policy change (Baumgartner et al., 2014). Thus, the drafting of several constitutional amendments during this period was unexpected and the content of a number of them was also surprising. Gender equality and a reduction in the presidential term of office were the main topics of the changes. The incentives for a president (who would run for the presidency again and be elected) to agree to reduce the presidential term or to a left-​wing gender equality policy are not immediately apparent. The semi-​presidential nature of the French regime may explain why the president wants to show some achievements for the next election. As the president has no power over ordinary legislation, he/​she may be motivated to focus on institutional and constitutional issues. Nevertheless, the question remains why this type of behavior would be associated with a fully divided government rather than with other possible forms of divided government. Studying constitutional amendments in France from this perspective would bring fresh insights into the effects of semi-​presidential institutions on constitutional politics.

 

236   Sylvain Brouard

Patterns of Judicialization Regarding the introduction of concrete review, France constitutes a perfect case to study the impact of change in institutional settings. The institutions themselves have not changed. Neither have the political system nor the constitutional framework been significantly transformed. It is therefore possible to observe how the introduction of concrete review affects the pattern of constitutional review and the entire political system. Evolutions of the institutional settings of constitutional review occur very often when significant changes are also made in other institutions and the broad political context. Many countries either only have one type of constitutional review or have introduced many types at the same time. Consequently, it is difficult to disentangle the various causes of institutional change. The French case thus provides valuable insights from a comparative perspective. First, the introduction of concrete review might affect the legislative process. Game-​ theory literature highlights the fact that a majority government and its opposition have an incentive to compromise in order to avoid constitutional review (Vanberg, 1998). The introduction of concrete constitutional review in France undermines the relevance of this theory. Compromise between a majority government and its opposition to avoid abstract review is no longer relevant because an alternative access road exists to trigger constitutional review. The incentives for a—​potentially unconstitutional—​legislative compromise between the legislative majority and the opposition to avoid constitutional review should therefore decrease. Anecdotal evidence of this appeared even before the implementation of concrete review began. During debate about the law prohibiting the burqa in France, the socialist opposition did not vote against such a proposal and did not want to trigger a referral. Nevertheless, lawmakers anticipated the future availability of the new access road and submitted the law preventively to the Constitutional Council in order to avoid a later concrete review case as well as any uncertainty about the constitutional status of the law. For the moment, it is impossible to know whether this strategy will be systematically implemented, once again changing the meaning of constitutional ruling. Abstract constitutional review may increase or decrease in the future. How the legislative process and the abstract review process will be affected by the introduction of concrete review remains an intriguing theoretical and empirical puzzle. Another hypothesis of the game-​theory approach is that judicial decision-​making follows specific patterns related to the features of the implementation process when the implementation of judicial decisions depends on agents others than the Court (Vanberg, 2005). Transparency and popular support are the two key components that shape the likelihood of evading a constitutional ruling. While the German case supports this line of reasoning, the nature of French constitutional review does not fit with this model for the moment. There is no need for the collaboration of other agents in France to implement a veto in an a priori abstract review. The law or part of a law, that is ruled to be unconstitutional, is simply erased before its promulgation. There is no need to overthrow any existing decision or to change any specific policy. With the introduction

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    237 of concrete review in France, testing the comparative value of this approach to judicial decision-​making has become a worthy perspective: how does the access road affect the Constitutional Council’s rulings? This question complements a broader research agenda on how the introduction of concrete review affects the strategic behaviors of the legislative majority and the Council. Second, the introduction of concrete review raises questions about the organization of the judicial system itself. By assigning a filter function to ordinary judges, the 2008 amendment in fact transformed them into constitutional judges. They must decide whether or not: the challenged statutory provision applies to the litigation or proceedings involved, or whether it forms the basis of such proceedings; the challenged statutory provision has previously been found to be constitutional by the Constitutional Council; the issue raised is of a serious nature. Therefore, even if constitutional review is allocated to a centralized court, ordinary judges and courts are also empowered to be constitutional judges in a negative process (Liéber and Botteghi, 2010). They may not positively rule on a constitutional complaint but they are allowed to rule out or deny a constitutional complaint in light of their assessment of the state of constitutional jurisprudence and the importance of the constitutional matter that is raised. De facto, they are applying and interpreting constitutional jurisprudence. Thus, the introduction of a priority preliminary ruling blurs the traditional distinction between a centralized and decentralized constitutional system. Investigating the impact of the introduction of concrete review should therefore also include the frequency with which concrete review cases have been raised, accepted, or denied at various levels of jurisdiction, and also how the ordinary judges’ roles and skills have been transformed by the reform. The further spread of a constitutionality culture among an audience where it has not been widespread so far is a hypothesis worth testing with this perspective on the horizon. Another worthy agenda is to study how concrete review will effectively be carried out. In France (unlike in most other European countries), the issue of constitutionality can only be raised if the statutory provision infringes the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. The goal of introducing concrete review in France is not explicitly to protect the constitution’s supremacy but to protect the rights and freedoms it guarantees (Bon, 2009). In the future, it will be interesting to investigate whether or not this distinction will be relevant and will effectively forbid an all-​encompassing type of constitutional review. So far, the rulings of the Constitutional Council have not excluded from consideration constitutional principles that would allow the decision-​making process itself to be challenged.

Legitimacy of the Role of Constitutional Review in a Democratic Political System The Constitutional Council was re-​empowered in 2008. One of what appeared the most obvious reasons for this was the question of its legitimacy. However, the legitimacy of

 

238   Sylvain Brouard the Constitutional Council has always been contested. At the beginning of 2008, for example, the French president himself, Nicolas Sarkozy, who later proposed the introduction of concrete review, tried unsuccessfully to circumvent the constitutional censure of part of a security law in order to implement an explicitly vetoed proposal. The legitimacy of constitutional review and of the Constitutional Council have not been sufficiently examined in France. Even if Jan and Roy (1997) have already carried out a survey of the attitudes of French elected representatives, their representations and preferences about constitutional review and the various related issues deserve to be investigated more thoroughly. Neither have the attitudes of ordinary citizens toward the Constitutional Council been systematically studied. The seminal work of Gibson et al. (1998) did not include the Constitutional Council in its sample of the national high courts. In a rare survey that included a question on ordinary citizens’ level of trust in the Constitutional Council (TNS Sofres—​CITREP, 2010), a third of respondents stated that they somewhat or completely trusted the Constitutional Council, around 30 percent neither trusted nor distrusted it, 20 percent did not trust it very much or at all, and finally around a quarter did not answer the question. Even though the level of trust is higher than trust in parliament, the popular legitimacy of the Constitutional Council is far from being overwhelming and the reasons for this lack of trust deserve further investigation. An analysis of the amount of media attention paid to the Constitutional Council and constitutional review would provide an additional perspective to explore the growing role and legitimacy of constitutional review in a democratic political system. The aim of this approach would be to understand when, how, and why media attention to these issues has changed and which type of frames have become visible. Beyond this, a more general research agenda should focus both on constitutional review, that is the appointment process, and on the internal workings of the institution, judicial decision-​making per se. There is a huge lack of data and research on the way in which the appointment process has been organized and on the logic underpinning such a process. Until now, there has been no equivalent in France to Yalof ’s work (1999) on the choice of justices by US presidents. This would undoubtedly be a fruitful research topic which would provide new perspectives on a well-​known but unexplored topic. As France provides the best example of a politicized representative type of appointment process, and with three appointments made every three years, disentangling the logic underpinning the appointment of the approximately 70 members of the Constitutional Council would be a worthy initiative. Further, the availability of the Constitutional Council’s deliberations after a period of 25 years provides sufficient material for individual judicial decision-​making in the Constitutional Council until the start of the 1990s to be studied. From a legal perspective, some scholars have begun studying judicial decision-​making as a deliberation process (Mathieu, 2009). However, many other issues of the decision-​ making process remain unexplored. Neither voting behavior nor the decision-​making process itself has yet been analyzed as, similarly to many constitutional courts around the world, these data were not available. Analyzing the French case represents a fascinating opportunity to improve understanding of how constitutional review works.

 

Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    239

Conclusion In comparative perspective France is a textbook example of constitutional amendment. Furthermore, although it is regularly argued that constitutional flexibility undermines constitutional review, the judicialization of French politics has spectacularly increased since the beginning of the 1970s, despite the enduring challenge of the alleged politicization of the Constitutional Council. From these points of view, French constitutional politics is a puzzle. The introduction of concrete constitutional review in 2010 has again increased interest in scrutinizing constitutional politics in France. On the three main dimensions of constitutional politics—​amending the constitution, judicialization of politics, politicization of constitutional review—​France has been and still is an intriguing case from a theoretical and empirical perspective. Therefore, several seminal contributions to the field stem from the study of French constitutional politics. Nonetheless, despite a growing interest, especially in concrete review, French constitutional politics will remain a promising area of inquiry for many years to come given the increasing role of the Constitutional Council, the lack of research in many areas related to the topic, and the key value of the French case from a comparative perspective. Three areas of inquiry seem particularly promising:  the relationships between the types of government control and constitutional amendments, the patterns of judicialization, and the legitimacy of the role of constitutional review.

Notes 1. Constitutional change might also happen by constitutional court rulings or the informal practices of political actors (Levinson, 1995). 2. The 1962 constitutional amendment was based on Article 11 of the Constitution. The Constitutional Council has explicitly denied its own jurisdiction over control of the process of constitutional amendments since then. 3. Nevertheless, as Ferejohn (1997) argues, the Fifth Republic should be characterized as having a rather rigid constitution because special majorities or separate majorities in different legislative sessions or bi-​camerality are required to amend the constitution. 4. Its website is . 5. There are only a few exceptions that are in general related to the ratification of international agreements. 6. Data for ordinary Courts as well as for civil and penal appeal courts are unfortunately not available for the whole 2010–​14 period. 7. The fact that former French presidents are also de jure members of the Constitutional Council increases the appearance of politicization even if very few of them have effectively attended deliberations. Former Fourth Republic Presidents Auriol and Coty quitted the Constitutional Council one and three years after the beginning of the Fifth Republic, respectively. More recently, President Giscard d’Estaing has been sitting in the Constitutional Council since 2004 (but has rarely deliberated), followed soon by President Chirac in 2007.

 

240   Sylvain Brouard Since March 2011 President Chirac has not participated to any deliberation for health reasons. President Sarkozy sat on the bench only between June and December 2012. 8. L’Express, February 24, 2010.

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Constitutional Politics: The French Case and Theory-Building    241 François, B. (1997). “Le Conseil Constitutionnel et la Cinquième République,” Revue française de science politique 47(3–​4): 377–​403. Gallagher, M., Laver, M., and Mair, P. (2006). Representative Government in Modern Europe. Boston: McGraw-​Hill. Gibson, J. L., Caldeira, G. A., and Baird V. A. (1998). “On the Legitimacy of National High Courts,” American Political Science Review 92(2): 343–​58. Gibson, J. L., Caldeira, G. A., and Spence, L. K. (2003). “Measuring Attitudes Toward the United States Supreme Court,” American Journal of Political Science 47(2): 354–​67. Ginsburg, T. (2003). Judicial Review in New Democracies. Constitutional Courts in Asian Cases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hansford, T. G. and Spriggs, J. F., II (2006). The Politics of Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Helmke, G. (2005). Courts under Constraints. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hönnige, C. (2009). “The Electoral Connection:  How the Selection of the Pivotal Judge affects Oppositional Success at European Constitutional Courts,” West European Politics. 35(2): 963–​84. Hönnige, C. (2011). “Beyond the Judicialization Hypothesis: Why we need More Comparative Research about Constitutional Courts,” European Political Science 10(3): 346–​58. Iaryczower, M., Spiller, P., and Tommasi, M. (2002). “Judicial Independence in Unstable Environments: Argentina, 1935–​1998,” American Journal of Political Science 46(4): 669–​706. Israël, L., Sacriste, G., Vauchez, A., and Willemez, L. (2005). Sur la portée sociale du droit. Usages et légitimité du registre juridique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Jan, P. (2010). Conseil constitutionnel: pour des nominations plus équilibrées. Paris: Note de la Fondation Terra Nova. Jan, P. and Roy, J. (1997). Le Conseil constitutionnel vu du Parlement. Paris: Ellipses. Knight, J. and Epstein, L. (1996). “The Norm of Stare Decisis,” American Journal of Political Science 40(4): 1018–​35. Landes, W. and Posner, R. (1975). “The Independent Judiciary in an Interest Group Perspective,” Journal of Law and Economics 18(3): 875–​901. Landfried, C. (1992). “Judicial Policy-​making in Germany: The Federal Constitutional Court,” in Volcansek M. L. (ed.) Judicial Politics and Policy-​making in Western Europe. London: F. Cass, 50–​67. Lane, J. (1996). Constitutions and Political Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Levinson, S. (1995). “How Many Times Has the United States Constitution Been Amended?” in Levinson, S. (ed.) Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 13–​36. Liéber S. and Botteghi, D. (2010). “Le juge administratif, juge constitutionnel de droit commun?” AJDA (24): 1355–​65. Lijphart, A. (1999). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-​six Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lorenz, A. (2005). “How to Measure Constitutional Rigidity:  Four Concepts and Two Alternatives,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 17(3): 339–​61. Lutz, D. S. (1994). “Toward a Theory of Constitutional Amendment,” American Political Science Review 88(2): 355–​70. McNollgast (McCubbins, M. D., Noll, R. G., and Weingast, B. R.) (2006). “Conditions for Judicial Independence,” Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 15(1): 105–​27.

 

242   Sylvain Brouard Martin, A., Quinn, K., Ruger, T., and Kim, P. (2004). “Competing Approaches to Predicting Supreme Court Decision Making,” Perspectives on Politics 2(4): 761–​7. Mathieu, B. (2009). “Introduction générale,” in Mathieu, B., Machelon, J., Mélin-​ Soucramanien, F., Rousseau, D., and Philippe, X. (eds) Les grandes délibérations du Conseil constitutionnel 1958–​1983. Paris: Dalloz. Navia, P. and Rios-​Figueroa, J. (2005). “The Constitutional Adjudication Mosaic of Latin America,” Comparative Political Studies 38(2): 189–​217. Negretto, G. (2012). “Replacing and Amending Constitutions:  The Logic of Constitutional Change in Latin America,” Law & Society Review 46(4): 749–​79. Philip, L. (1988). “Bilan et effets de la saisine du Conseil Constitutionnel,” in Duhamel, O. and Parodi, J. (eds) La constitution de la cinquième République. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 988–​1001. Rasch, B. E. and Congleton, R. D. (2006). “Amendment Procedures and Constitutional Stability,” in Congleton, R. D. and Swedenborg, B. (eds) Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy. Analysis and Evidence. Cambridge: MIT Press, 319–​42. Santoni, M. and Zucchini, F. (2004). “Does Policy Stability Increase the Constitutional Court’s Independence? The Case of Italy During the First Republic (1956–​1992),” Public Choice 120(3–​4): 401–​39. Segal, J. A. and Cover, A. D. (1989). “Ideological Values and the Votes of US Supreme Court Justices,” American Political Science Review 83(2): 557–​65. Segal, J. A. and Spaeth, H. J. (2002). The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spriggs, J. F. and Hansford, T. G. (2001). “Explaining the Overruling of US Supreme Court Precedent,” Journal of Politics 63(4): 1091–​111. Stone, A. (1992). The Birth of Judicial Politics in France:  The Constitutional Council in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stone Sweet, A. (2000). Governing with Judges. Constitutional Politics in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tate, C. N. and Vallinder, T. (eds) (1995). The Global Expansion of Judicial Power. New York: New York University Press. Tsebelis, G. (2002). Veto Players. How Institutions Work. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Urvoas, J. (2013). Rapport d’information sur la question prioritaire de constitutionnalité. Paris: Assemblée Nationale. Vanberg, G. (1998). “Abstract Judicial Review, Legislative Bargaining, and Policy Compromise,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 10(3): 299–​326. Vanberg, G. (2005). The Politics of Constitutional Review in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Viala, A. (1999). Les réserves d’interprétation dans la jurisprudence du Conseil Constitutionnel. Paris: LGDJ. Vibert, F. (2007). The Rise of the Unelected:  Democracy and the New Separation of Powers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Volcansek, M. L. (2000). Constitutional Politics in Italy. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Yalof, D. (1999). Pursuit of Justices:  Presidential Politics and the Selection of Supreme Court Nominees. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

Chapter 12

Challenges to Fre nc h Pub lic Admin i st rat i on mapping the vitality of its knowledge sources Philippe Bezes

Although French research on public bureaucracies is extremely dynamic in sociology, in political science and in history the work of French researchers is not very well known internationally. This paradox is all the more striking given that current research in France is perfectly in keeping with the themes that run through studies in public administration today and the issues related to new public management reforms. Yet this lack of visibility has not always been so prevalent; the studies of French sociologists such as Michel Crozier, Pierre Bourdieu, and Pierre Birnbaum were translated widely and fueled academic debates on France and its state model in the 1970s. Besides, it has always been difficult to integrate the French administrative system into comparative classifications (Page, 1992). This is all the more regrettable because the specificity of certain French research programs, influenced by original and stimulating sociological perspectives, would provide an interesting dialogue with the approaches that are currently dominant at the international level, and might sometimes even reinvigorate them. This chapter aims to characterize the French administrative system and the main lines of its contemporary transformations, by recounting the history and current dynamics and diversity of the research conducted in France on this subject. By putting these studies into a comparative perspective, this will enable us to show how and to what extent they echo the research that is being developed overseas. We will take a threefold approach here. First, we will provide some insights into the main structural debates and issues concerning the vast literature on public bureaucracies and their transformations on the international scene, within the fields of public administration, political science, and sociology. Second, we will construct a chronological map of the main scholars who specialize in the French administrative system, including French sociologists, political scientists, and historians, but also foreign researchers who have developed an interest in the French state and its bureaucracy (for

 

244   Philippe Bezes other exercises of this kind with different perspectives or scope, see Jeannot, 2008; Bezes and Join-​Lambert, 2010; Eymeri and Bouckaert, 2013; from a historical perspective, Rosanvallon, 1990; Baruch and Duclert, 2000; Chatriot, 2006). Third, and to finish, we will suggest a research agenda to explore aspects of the French administrative system that remain insufficiently studied. A brief conclusion then ends the chapter.

Challenges to Public Bureaucracies: Mapping the Field European and Anglo-​Saxon academic field research studies on the transformation of public administration have flourished since the 1980s, both in their number and in the diversity of their approaches. There are three main reasons for this. First, bureaucracies have progressively become research objects in their own right whose exploration contributes to opening up the black box of state and policy processes. Second, public administration, sometimes known as administrative science, has become a specific disciplinary field in many countries (Kickert and Stillman, 1999; Kickert, 2008). Although it has no equivalent in France (Bezes, 2009), it has become institutionalized in the international sphere through a large number of academic journals, such as Public Administration, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Governance, International Review of Administrative Sciences, etc. Third, the incessant flux of administrative reforms in all Western countries poses a challenge to so-​called Weberian bureaucracies. This has occurred in the name of a doctrinal puzzle known as new public management, which has generated many different analyses in this academic field.

From Research on Bureaucracies to Research on New Public Management Reforms Historically, North American sociology developed the first major empirical studies on public administration as “bureaucracy” in the 1950s, around the foundational figures of Robert K. Merton (1940) and then Herbert A. Simon (1947). Michel Crozier’s Le Phénomène bureaucratique (1964), published in both France and the United States, was an extension of this. Little by little, the work on public administrations became more specialized and provided detailed studies of the five dimensions of the “bureaucratic phenomenon:” 1. the various roles of senior civil servants, whether political or technical, according to the different forms of the division of labor that prevail in national politico-​ administrative systems (Aberbach, Rockman, and Puntam, 1981); 2. the discretionary power of street-​level bureaucrats and their role as “policymakers” (Kaufman, 1960; Lipksy, 1980);

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    245 3. the weight of bureaucracies and bureaucratic policies in public policy development (Allison, 1971; Heclo, 1974; Peters, 1981; Hall, 1986; Rothstein, 1995); 4. the struggles for jurisdiction between ministries and ministerial departments (Hammond, 1986; Wilson, 1989); 5. the weight of interest groups and clienteles which are sometimes able to capture administrative organizations and to direct public policies in favor of their own interests (Selznick, 1949; McConnell, 1966; Lowi, 1969). In response to these observations and in stark contrast with the empirical aspect of these studies in social sciences or sociology, other research was developed within the public choice school, incarnated by authors such as William A. Niskanen (1971), Anthony Downs (1967), and Gordon Tullock (1965). They proposed an economic theory of bureaucracy and government, based on the observation of asymmetrical control that put into question democracy and representation. Bureaucrats are described as strongly autonomous or discretionary actors, seeking to maximize power, resources, and budgets. Following this, these perspectives were redeveloped in the framework of what is called the economics of organization and the politics of structural choices which consider the mechanisms of the delegation of power to bureaucrats and the institutional conditions for their increased autonomy (Moe, 1984; 1989; McCubbins, Noll, and Weingast, 1987; Huber and Shipan, 2002). These (very North American) studies see the control of bureaucracies and their sensitivity to the demands of citizens as their primary research question. From the 1980s, however, research on public administration shifted significantly to examine the transformation of bureaucracies in the context of new public management (NPM) (Aucoin, 1990; Hood, 1991), progressive institutionalization of administrative reform, and public policies in their own right (Saint-​Martin, 2000; Sheingate, 2004; Bezes, 2009). Developed in successive phases, NPM, a veritable “doctrinal puzzle,” defends a new way of conceiving of administrative organizations based on a heterogeneous ensemble of axioms. These axioms are partly drawn from economic theory (theory of public choice, theory of agency, or theory of transaction costs) but also from prescriptions from the vulgates of organizational management. In addition, they come from the descriptions of practices tested in reforms (particularly in Anglo-​Saxon countries) and systematically produced by organizations like the OECD. NPM’s approach, which has varied somewhat in twenty years, puts forward five principles of organization, broken up into different measures: the separation between strategy, steering, and control functions, and the operational functions involving implementation and execution; the fragmentation of vertical bureaucracies by the creation of autonomous administrative units (agencies), by decentralization or by empowerment of user groups; the systematic recourse to market mechanisms (competition between public actors and the private sector, individualization of incentivization, externalization of supply); the transformation of the administrative hierarchy by reinforcing responsibility and autonomy at the echelons in charge of implementing state action; introducing management by results, based on meeting targets and measuring and evaluating performances in the context of contract-​based relations.

 

246   Philippe Bezes In the first phase, this body of research looked at the characterization of NPM and the interpretation of its overall effects on bureaucracies. Some authors emphasized its ideological coherence and represented it as the “domesticated, de-​politicized version of the ‘new right’ or ‘market liberal’ policy analysis made somewhat more technical, consensual and generic” (Dunleavy, 1994: 38). Others considered it a “neo-​Taylorian managerialism” above all characterized by the bureaucratization of forms of control with the implementation of performance management strategies (Pollitt, 1990). For still others we are observing an inexorable process of dismantling the bureaucratic state (e.g. Suleiman, 2003) under the influence of a radical neo-​liberal doctrine (Jessop, 1994; Hibou, 2012). With another focus, others emphasize the fact that neo-​managerialism could constitute “Weberianism in a new habitat” (Hood, 1994: 138) and suggest that NPM expresses the ritualized endless return of the recourse to efficiency and effectiveness (Hood, 1991). This would be relatively in keeping with older doctrines of public management (Hood, 1998), but with a stronger component in favor of market mechanisms and individualization. Finally, there are also those who draw attention to a strong contradiction between two distinct “paradigms” within this doctrine; one involving logics reinforcing representative governments and their control over their bureaucracies, and the other involving dynamics reinforcing managerial autonomy in the name of more efficient functioning (Aucoin, 1990; Hoggett, 1996).

The Transformation of National Administrative Models: From Case Studies to Comparative Perspectives Alongside these debates, many studies suggest characterizing the specific patterns of administrative reform policies according to national context. First, this research focuses on the British, American, and Canadian cases because of the radical nature of the critiques against bureaucracy and reforms carried out in the 1980s by New Right parties and their neo-liberal ideology (Savoie, 1994; Campbell and Wilson, 1995). However, these studies also look at the reforms carried out in New Zealand, this time by a labor party (Boston et al., 1991; Zifcak, 1994), because of their systematic and radical nature; instruments like agencification, transferring functions to public corporations, and government by performance were intensively used. For a time, New Zealand was held up as a “prototype” of neo-​managerial reform, even if the myth was later deconstructed (Schick, 1998; Lodge and Gill, 2011). Later, it was the reforms carried out by the Labour and Democratic party leaders in Great Britain and in the United States that were objects of analysis: the “Reinventing Government” program launched by Democratic President Bill Clinton and carried by Vice President Al Gore (Kettl, 1994; Moynihan, 2003), and the New Labour program of Prime Minister Tony Blair (Faucher-​King and Le Galès, 2010; Matthews, 2013), as incarnations of the “third way.” The characteristic trait of these studies is to give an important place to the weight of the political leadership of the executive in the construction of programs for reform.

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    247 Progressively however, the existence and the specificity of an “Anglo-​Saxon” reform model became the object of investigation, as national case studies observed the development and the intensification of programs of administrative reform in most Western countries. Kettl (2005), for example, emphasized the differences between British, New Zealand, and North American reforms. Articles advised against falling into the trap of “Anglo-​Saxon centrism” (Wollmann, 2001) and studied the specificity of administrative reforms in certain “typical” states with other traditions: Sweden (Premfors, 1998); Norway (Christensen and Lægreid, 1998); Germany (Derlien, 1996; Wollmann and Schröter, 2000); Spain (Alba and Navarro, 2000); and Italy (Capano, 2003; Mele, 2010). Many collective works (Pierre, 1995; Olsen and Peters, 1996; Page and Wright, 1999; Bekke and Meer, 2000; Peters and Pierre, 2001; Christensen and Lægreid, 2002; 2007; Painter and Peters, 2010) also document the variety of administrative reforms and provide a range of national case studies. In these studies, the dominant explanatory framework is often based on “administrative traditions” comparing Napoleonic, Germanic or Continental, Scandinavian or Anglo-​American traditions. This approach has been criticized for not paying sufficient attention to the complexities of legacy effects (Meyer-​ Sahlin and Yesilkagit, 2011) or the causality and mechanisms that articulate historically inherited institutions that influence reforms of designs and trajectories (Yesilkagit and de Vries, 2004; Bezes and Lodge, 2015; Bezes and Parrado, 2013). From the early 2000s, more systematic efforts were made to develop comparative research on the structuring influence of nationally based political and administrative institutions on the contents and intensity of reforms. The “global” and widely acclaimed approach developed by Pollitt and Bouckaert in three editions (2000; 2004; 2011)  is one example; they articulated “politico-​administrative regimes,” “trajectories,” and different models of “future states.” These authors differentiate core NPM states that adopt marketization and managerialization (United Kingdom or New Zealand), maintainers (Germany), and modernizers that are either oriented toward managerialization (France, Italy) or participation (Finland, Netherlands, Sweden). Other broad comparative perspectives have been developed such as the “transformative approach” of Christensen and Lægreid (2002) concerning two Antipodean (New Zealand and Australia) and two Scandinavian (Norway and Sweden) countries. Further examples are Ongaro’s (2009) discussion of the Italian administrative reforms in comparison to Napoleonic cases such as France, Spain, or Greece; or Kickert’s (2011) work on the reform patterns of Southern countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) in relation to regionalization and decentralization. In spite of the attention paid to administrative reforms in many national contexts, there have been few systematic cross-​country comparisons. Unlike the field of welfare state studies, cross-​national perspectives have been less developed in public administration. They have also been less receptive to the historical neo-​institutionalist literature (Pierson, 1994; 2004; Thelen, 2003; Streeck and Thelen, 2005) that has offered so many new avenues for in-​depth historical and comparative analyses on how welfare states have been transformed, and which offers fruitful new perspectives on mechanisms of

 

248   Philippe Bezes reproduction and logics of change. In addition, comparative studies of public administration are rather eclectic in terms of methods. A first group of scholars have explained variations in administrative reform policies by emphasizing and debating the influence of political factors such as parties and electoral imperatives (Schwartz, 1994), political systems (Gregory and Christensen, 2004), or political regimes (Yesilkagit and de Vries, 2004). They compare Antipodean countries (New Zealand, Australia) with Scandinavian (Sweden, Denmark) and other European countries such as the Netherlands. Other work prioritizes the role played by certain groups of actors considered decisive, such as consultants (Saint-​Martin, 2000), or civil service unions (Roness, 2002). Finally, a third group of studies focuses on the impact of politico-​administrative structures in defining various “administrative reform capacities” (Knill, 1999), or on the links between the historical forms of “public service bargains” (institutional arrangements between politicians and bureaucrats) and national features of public sector reforms (Hood and Lodge, 2006). These studies share a focus on the ways in which the inherited structures of administrative systems (their solidity, the interests they embody, the inertia they generate) constrain or encourage the development of managerial reforms. Yet there remains much to do in taking institutions into account in the study of administrative reforms.

Five Major Issues at Stake in Bureaucratic Mutations Observing the range of studies conducted on administration overseas suggests something else: the fragmentation of a highly specialized field, around specific issues which correspond to aspects of administrative system reform. Briefly, we can identify five major issues that are at the heart of contemporary bureaucratic change. It is around these issues that specializations develop and research is constructed. The first of these issues corresponds to transformations in the forms of control over public administrations and the widespread dissemination of performance-​based management practices and their instruments (objectives, targets, indicators, reports, benchmarking, rankings, league tables). They are the subject of a substantial literature analyzing the reasons for their adoption (Carter et al., 1995; Moynihan, 2008) or the national specificities of their development (Bouckaert and Halligan, 2008). These studies also look at their different effects: the sharp growth in internal regulations (Light, 1993; Hood et al., 1999); the issues of sanctioning at the heart of the behavior of political and administrative actors (Hood, 2011); new conflicts between managers and professional groups within the state (Exworthy and Halfors, 1999; Farrell and Morris, 2003; Dent, 2003). The second issue relates to the division of administrative labor. The phenomenon of agencification is the subject of much research (James, 2003; Lewis, 2003; Pollitt and Talbot, 2004; van Thiel, 2004) that deals with the reasons for and the conditions and forms of agency autonomization, both in Europe and in the United States. This research also looks at the effects of this process, in terms of the distancing from the political center, loss of control, transformation of expertise, and de-​politicization.

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    249 The third issue is characterized by transformations in relations between bureaucracy and democracy, which are explored through questions relating to politicization (Peters and Pierre, 2004), to the appearance of new forms of managerial accountability and loyalty of public servants toward elected representatives (Hood and Lodge, 2006), or to the reinforcement of the ability of parliaments to control administrations (Rosenbloom, 2000). Others (Gruber, 1987; Ansell and Gingrich, 2003) emphasize the analysis of reforms that have created and introduced rights for citizens or those subject to bureaucratic administration (Roberts, 2005), which Charles R. Epp (2009: 25–​6) calls “legalized accountability,” that imposes unprecedented constraints on administrations. The fourth dynamic reflects the process of flexibilization of public functions, which have, partially or more radically, altered the strong institutional protections (status, career, institutional examinations, length of service) that have historically structured bureaucracies (for overviews see Bach and Bordogna, 2011; Meer, Raadschelders, and Toonen, 2015; Bezes and Lodge, 2015). It also addresses the theme of representative bureaucracy (Maravic, Peters, and Schroeter, 2013). The fifth and final dynamic corresponds to what could be called the “blurring” of state administrations functioning in response to at least two phenomena, each with a substantial literature: the decentralization and privatization of administrative activities. On one hand, the weight of infra-​national levels has been considerably reinforced under the impact of decentralization, which transfers resources, power, and responsibilities from central bureaucracies to local authorities with democratic legitimacy (Keating, 2013). On the other hand, many reforms have entrusted public activities to private enterprises through public–​private partnerships or contracting out, or by introducing market mechanisms into the administrations. These two kinds of reforms lead to the blurring of boundaries between the public and the private, and to designing a hybrid system within which hierarchy and responsibilities are more obscure. The success of notions of governance (Pierre and Peters, 2000; Pierre, 2000), new public governance (Osborne, 2009), “delegated governance” (Morgan and Campbell, 2011), or network governance (Rhodes, 1996) echo the desire of analysts to now emphasize the relational aspects of government and public administration, as a result of decentralization and diverse forms of marketization.

Exploring the Various Dimensions of French Public Administration: An Assessment Historically speaking, French scholarship on public administration has been strongly marked both by the importance of public law and the influence of great lawyers and thinkers (e.g. Raymond Carré de Malberg, Maurice Hauriou, Léon Duguit, and Adhémar Esmein) on one hand, and by the central role played by the state in the French

 

250   Philippe Bezes context on the other. In this context, the writings of Durkheim on the state and the importance of public servants as a specialized group and a vector of collective representations ([1898–​1900] 1990) appear as some of the first essential sociological texts on French administration. However, these studies remain very dependent on abstract and objectivist conceptions of the state, which dominated French political science at the end of the nineteenth and in the early twentieth centuries (Favre, 1989). It was only from the 1960s on that the administration progressively became the object of sociological and political study, as well as the heart of a newly created discipline: administrative science. We will begin by looking at the classic social science research on administration, showing how it was able to identify the main characteristics of French bureaucracy and emphasizing how these studies remain meaningful today. Then we will go on to look at the strong dynamism of contemporary research on French administration by demonstrating how it is marked—​much like research in other countries—​by the analysis of both administrative reform policies and their effects. Finally, we will emphasize the influence of certain original sociological and historical perspectives in the French academic context—​what we call a “French touch.”

The Four Pillars of French Public Administration: Centralization, Territoriality, Administrative Law, and Politicized Administrative Elites French public administration has often been seen as an archetypally Napoleonic bureaucracy (Page, 1992; Peters, 2008; Ongaro, 2009), but some authors have suggested that the idea of a “Napoleonic tradition” is a myth (Wunder, 1995). However, social sciences perspectives on French bureaucracy have identified four interconnected pillars of the administrative system in France: centralization, territoriality, administrative law, and politicized administrative elites.

Crozier’s Bureaucratic Phenomenon: Exploring French Centralization and its Mechanisms as Relational and Cultural Patterns Michel Crozier’s The Bureaucratic Phenomenon ([1964] 2010) is undoubtedly one of the most internationally prominent French studies in public administration. The book’s in-​ depth case studies of two French bureaucracies—​the Clerical Agency (an agency of the postal savings bank that processes applications for short-​term loans) and the Industrial Monopoly (the French national manufacturer of cigarettes and matches, SEITA)—​represent a seminal contribution in the tradition of early organizational sociologists like Herbert A. Simon, Peter M. Blau, Alvin W. Gouldner, and Philip Selznick. It is also the first comprehensive, theoretical, and empirically grounded analysis of French public administration, relying both on a new relational and expertise-​based conception of power and on a cultural perspective aimed at characterizing French specificities. From

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    251 this viewpoint, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon is a salient contribution looking at the micro-​mechanisms through which centralization has developed in the French context (for detailed analyses, see Grémion, 1992; Bezes, 2015). Two central arguments are emphasized in this work. The first is the idea that bureaucratic rules in the two French cases grant considerable discretion to the shop floor and workers: although the existence of impersonal rules standardize the organizational life, they do not prevent unanticipated uncertainties and contingencies that give discretionary power to the “problem-​solvers” or the “strategic resources-​owners” (workers, occupationally based groups). These groups build parallel power ​relations that make other actors dependent on their actions. The second argument is that French bureaucracies institutionalize distance between the lowest and the highest ranks and favor an isolation of strata: different grades avoid each other and regard adhering to rules as rational. For Crozier, formal bureaucracies are not self-​correcting because the isolation among strata and their structural patterns results in self-​reinforcing behaviors that favor conformity to abstract rules. From this, Crozier identifies certain cultural traits that are specifically French. He generalizes the isolation of the strata as a struggle for (maintaining) privileges (1964: 214), resulting in a characterization of French group life marked by the “horror” of face-​to-​ face relationships (l’horreur du face à face) and the avoidance of open conflicts. This leads to a second cultural feature corresponding to a French pattern of authority where relationship-​avoidance mechanisms favor impersonal and distant forms of leadership, reproducing an inherited absolutist and aristocratic style. Since authority cannot be exerted by cooperation, work-​based voluntary team association, and informal communication, the French “art of the state” relies on written rules, formal hierarchy, and deference to status and rank.

Exploring the Territorial Dimension of the French Public Administration: The Findings of the Group for the Sociology of Organizations Crozier’s approach was a key milestone in the French academic field and was even further institutionalized when Crozier created the Group (later the Center) for the Sociology of Organizations, bringing together high-​powered researchers who were exploring changes in French public bureaucracy. Among many others, the great merit of scholars like Jean-​Pierre Worms (1966), Pierre Grémion (1976), and Crozier and Thœnig (1975) was to understand the crucial importance of the territorial dimension in French public administration. This refers to the fact that the French “Napoleonic state,” often recognized as the archetype of a “unitary and centralized state,” was historically built on a dual territorial administrative structure (Bezes and Le Lidec, 2010). The first is its “political–​territorial pattern” combining strong territorial specialization and political hierarchy, based on a rationalized geographical administrative organization (the département)1 and “supervised” by a “prefect.” The second is the embodiment of the state’s main political chain of command over the territory and channel of communication between levels of government. The second aspect is the “bureaucratic–​ministerial

 

252   Philippe Bezes logic” that is related to historical development of sector-​based ministerial organizations (Rosanvallon, 1990) with strong sub-​ministerial cultures which established their own specific territorial network of field offices outside the prefecture (Le Lidec, 2006). French scholars from the “Crozier school,” working from a relational perspective, focus a lot on the coexistence of these logics. Jean-​Pierre Worms (1966) insisted on the strong interdependent relationships between the prefects and their “notables” (the members of the local elite such as the mayors or the département councilors). Jean-​ Claude Thœnig theorized this system of inter-​organizational and “zig-​zagging” relations between political and administrative actors more systematically, from the center (top bureaucrats in ministries, members of the Parliament and the Senate) to the periphery (state bureaucrats from ministerial units in the field, the prefects, general councilors, mayors, local society, etc.) (Crozier and Thœnig, 1975). Pierre Grémion (1976) investigated the complexity of centralization mechanisms in France through what he called the “Republican model of territorial administration;” but he also diagnosed its breakdown. Although France has historically been considered a centralized state, the major roles of local representatives and local governments as well as local ministerial units and prefects have always been identified within the successive republican regimes, and have been much debated in French academia and in important international empirical works on France (Machin, 1977; Tarrow, 1977; Ashford, 1982; Le Lidec, 2001).

Exploring the Legal and Institutional Backbone of French Public Administration: The Development of “Administrative Science” Between the 1960s and the 1980s a field of research developed that became known as “administrative science” in France, similar to public administration overseas. In France, this field was characterized by a weak autonomization, low levels of disciplinary authority, and by strong interconnections with law as a discipline and with the senior public service. Eminent members of the Conseil d’Etat (Council of State) and the Cour des comptes (Court of Audit) were active participants in the emergence of this “administrative science” (Leca and Muller, 2008; Kickert, 2008; Bezes, 2009). Several studies followed this development: the Traité de Science Administrative (Treaty of Administrative Science), edited by Georges Langrod (1966), the introduction to administrative science by Bernard Gournay (1967), and, a little later, the treatise (some 1,300 pages) in two volumes of Science administrative by Jacques Chevallier and Danièle Loschak (1978). The growth of this administrative science, which proposes a hybridization of law, sociology, and political science, reflects what Ezra Suleiman (1970), calls the end of the “moratorium on studies of the French administration” (124) and a gradual “de-​sanctification of the state” in his critical review of these studies—​studies which he considers insufficiently founded on social science methods. The merit of these studies, which still have a rich heritage today, is to emphasize new important dimensions of French administration. At the heart of the first group of studies is the existence of a distinctive administrative law within the French state, distinct from common law, but also the structuring influence of various concepts like the general interest (intérêt général), public service (service public), and public power (puissance

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    253 publique), which constitute central myths in French society (Legendre, 1968/​1992; Chevallier, 1978–​9; 1987; Cassese 2000; Caillosse, 2008; Picard, 2009). Another group of texts studies several core institutions of French administration: the State Council (Conseil d’Etat) (Kessler, 1968); the general statutes of public servants (statut général des fonctionnaires) which organizes all the details of the professional life of all civil servants, such as rights and duties, entry exams, freedom of opinion, right to unionize, etc. (Siwek-​Pouydesseau, 1989a; 1989b; Chevallier, 1996); the specific training schools in France responsible for training senior civil servants, of which the first and most prestigious is the National School of Administration (Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) (Bodiguel, 1978; Kessler, 1978). Studies on the ENA show that the 1945 reforms failed to democratize the higher civil service and emphasize how limited reforms have been in addressing the accusations of elitism. These results have since been confirmed and updated by analyzing reforms of the upper civil service or by measuring the resilient forms of social elitism (see below and Bourdieu, 1989; Eymeri, 2001; Gally, 2012; Rouban, 2015; Denord and Thine, 2015). These institutional features are all the more important since many institutional actors within the French state have developed professional and strategic interests in maintaining and developing the coherence and the rationality of what has been called, from a comparative perspective, a “rigid [legal] backbone” (Knill, 1999:  115). They have had a major impact, for instance, on the way in which NPM ideas have been spread and adopted within the French state, with strong resistance from the ENA and initially low levels of permeability of the French bureaucratic elite to external expertise (Bezes, 2009; 2010; 2012).

Administrative Elites, the French Grands Corps, and the Mechanisms of Politicization Last, but not least, another set of publications, including both early works by political scientists belonging to the “administrative science’ movement (Kessler, 1968; 1986; Siweck-​Pouydesseau, 1969) and studies by American political scientists (Suleiman, 1974; 1978) and French sociologists (Birnbaum, 1977; 1982; 1985; Thœnig, 1973/​1987; Bourdieu, 1989) have proposed varied accounts of the fourth pillar of French public administration. This pillar focuses on the strength of the administrative elites, embodied in the role played by the Grands corps in the Fifth Republic, achieved through the existence of mechanisms of politicization of top positions in ministerial cabinets, central directorates, and agencies (for broad, recent, and detailed views, see Bezes and Le Lidec, 2007; Eymeri-​Douzans et al., 2015). Suleiman (1974; 1978), for instance, who described the role conflicts between directors in ministerial central directorates and members of ministerial cabinets, was one of the first to argue that French senior civil servants are “political actors” in many senses (political loyalty, policy orientation, politicized positions). French sociologist Pierre Birnbaum (1977; 1982; 1985) paid more attention to the social background of the French administrative elites and underlined the influence of the Grandes Ecoles and their related corps, including those outside the state, through the colonization of top business positions—​a process known in France as pantouflage.

 

254   Philippe Bezes With his historical power-​structure approach, articulated with a “sociology of the state” perspective, Birnbaum showed how the Fifth Republic instilled a “closed” system where political, administrative, and economic elites have become growingly interchangeable, the higher civil service serving as their common recruiting ground. He thus diagnosed the decreasing autonomy of the French state, and was one of the first to point out a “neo-​ liberal turn” in France in the 1960s. He depicted this as characterized by the end of the planification, the rise of a new managerial class, allied with managers within the state, and the setting up of a coalition between administrative technocracy and modernizing business elites taking political, administrative, and economic control. This argument of a dominant and ascendant administrative elite has also been refined by sociological investigations within specific policy sectors. In his classic book The Era of Technocrats, Jean-​Claude Thœnig (1973/​1987) analyzed the foundations of the hegemonic role of the corps of Ponts et Chaussées and shows how civil engineers—​and specifically new “young technocrats” (1973/​1987: 89–​96)—​have played a central role within the state in the renewal of urban policy. Their adaptive capacities allow them to either defend state policies and their centralizing orientations, or local authorities and their claims in favor of decentralization objectives. These alliances between members of the administrative elite and influential social groups leading to significant reforms were also observed in such areas as agricultural policy (Muller, 1984), hospital reorganization and public health training reform (Jamous, 1969), planning policy (Nizard, 1971), and territorial policies (Grémion, 1976; 1979; Le Lidec, 2001). Finally, in La Noblesse d’Etat (1989; in English, The State Nobility, 1996), French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu offered an insightful perspective on the making of French administrative elites by emphasizing their mechanisms of selection, education, and legitimation through an exploration of the field of the French Grandes Ecoles and the system of special classes preparing students to enter them. Here, Bourdieu’s sociology of higher education helps our understanding of the strategies enabling the reproduction of power and of the making, legitimation, reproduction, and operation of the various forms of capital (economic, academic, cultural, symbolic) that give access to the field of power and thus favor “heirs” from privileged social backgrounds, from families with high social status, who are thus able to convert their economic capital into academic credentials.

The Renewal of Academic Studies on French Public Administration: Analyzing French Bureaucracy Under Reform In the 1980s, French sociology and especially political science were said to have “forgotten their administration” (Dreyfus, 2002), notably because of the success of imported approaches such as public policy analysis. One of the effects of the latter was to dissolve the analysis of administrative institutions into organizational and polycentric approaches (Bezes and Pierru, 2012). However, a genuine revival of interest emerged

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    255 at the end of the 1990s, which has not declined since, enabling a renewal of the fruitfulness of this field of research in the 1970s. The first major orientation of recent studies places France in a comparative perspective. It emphasizes the transformative dynamics of French administration in connection with the development of policies for state reform and the importance of government instruments taken from NPM.

Administrative Reform Policies and the Changing State While the French administrative system was not initially as strongly influenced by NPM ideas and tools as were those of Britain, the United States, or the Antipodean countries, scholars observe that French bureaucracy has indeed also been affected by repeated political reforms. The specificities of the contents and timing of administrative reforms, as well as the institution-​dependent diffusion of NPM ideas (Rouban, 2008b; Cole, 2008; Bezes, 2009) are also emphasized. Bezes (2009) has examined the making of French administrative policies from 1962 to 2008 from a historical–​sociological perspective. He shows how over 50 years of changing configurations of powerful actors at the core of the state (experts, politicians, and transversal departments such as the Budget, Interior, and Civil Service ministries) have competed for the development of administrative policies, mobilizing new management knowledge and tools to reaffirm their centrality in the governance process. Bezes insists in viewing reform episodes cumulatively over the long term, as a trajectory unfolding over time. He sees a historical shift in the 1960s, from an administrative state becoming an object of rationalization (“le souci de soi de l’Etat”), to a gradual but steady institutionalization of NPM ideas, resulting in the intensification of reform processes in the early 2000s. Other scholars have also studied the importation and spread of NPM ideas through the growing influence of consultancy firms and private sectors templates. Saint-​Martin (2000), Berrebi-​Hoffmann and Grémion (2009), Bezes (2010; 2012), Gervais (2012), and Pierru for the health sector (2012) have all observed an intensification of private sector influence and the much closer relationships between top bureaucrats and consultants in the 2000s, due to the emergence of new networking activities between the Grands corps and consultants from big “merged” international firms (KMPG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Accenture). This also occurred through the strong involvement of strategy consultants like McKinsey and the BCG in the design and implementation of state reform policies during the Sarkozy government’s “General Review of Public Policies” (Révision générale des politiques publiques, RGPP) (Bezes, 2010a), a global strategy of reform only partially transformed under the Hollande presidency (Cole, 2014).

The Uses and Effects of Performance Management Tools An early effect of the institutionalization of administrative reform policies in the 1990s and 2000s has been the wide diffusion of performance m ​ anagement tools within the French bureaucracy. Quantitative studies confirm the large diffusion of managerial instruments in the French administrative system (Guillemot and Jeannot, 2013; Jeannot and Guillemot, 2013) but also reveal (Hammerschmidt et al., 2016; Jeannot and Bezes, 2015) that French bureaucracy has been significantly less exposed to managerial

 

256   Philippe Bezes tools than European countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, or the Scandinavian countries, but more so than Southern European countries (Spain, Portugal) and even Germany. A major change was introduced in the 2000s through the reform of the French budget procedure. The Institutional Act on Budget Legislation (Loi organique relative aux lois des finances, called—LOLF) adopted on August 1, 2001 and implemented since January 2006, has spread many internationally dominant instruments of performance management very widely and has reinforced the role of the French Parliament in the budgetary process (Bezes, 2010b; Corbett, 2010). Since the early 2000s, many scholars have explored the effects of performance-​ management tools in the French context. Generally speaking, the work of French sociologists has particularly prioritized the interpretations that assimilate performance-​based management to forms of commerce. This has been analyzed as an indication of the influence of capitalism over the state (Eyraud, 2013), the adoption of the “business model” for the state (Ogien, 1995; Bruno and Didier, 2013), the domination of neo-​liberal ideology (Hibou, 2012), or unequivocal forms of economization and de-​politicization (Linhardt and Muniesa, 2011; Ogien, 2013). This overall interpretation is present but also occasionally nuanced in the studies that show how indicators and objectives have become widespread in reforms to the hospital system (Pierru, 2007; Belorgey, 2010; Bertillot, 2014), in research (Bruno, 2008; Barrier 2011), the education system (Barrère, 2006; Normand, 2011), the justice system and the courts (Vigour, 2006; Vauchez and Willemez, 2007), the police (Matelly and Mouhanna, 2007; Lemaire, 2011; Purenne and Aust, 2007), and even the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Boussard and Loriol, 2009). These qualitative studies carried out in France reflect in their results the extensive international work on the effects of performance-​based government. They offer many illustrations of how useless or poorly constructed indicators often are. But they also identify gaming and cheating behaviors in the making, updates of goals and indicators, and also tricky issues of responsibility. Another series of convergent observations is the growing institutionalization and influence, within ministerial departments, of managerial functions and organizational layers. These are boosted by the LOLF reform, by new technologies for “governing at a distance,” and by renewed activities of control units like inspectorates, quality specialists, audit experts, or the Cour des Comptes (for this phenomenon in the British context, see Hood et al., 1999). This is illustrated by the professionalization of “new” occupations—​ HRM activities, supervisors, auditors, etc.—​forming a new hierarchy with new managerial positions in public organizations (Bezes and Demazière, 2011; Barrier, Pillon, and Quéré, 2015), as illustrated in various policy sectors like the police (Aust and Purenne, 2007), education (Barrère, 2006; Buisson-​Fenet, 2015), the courts (Vigour, 2011), and the health sector (Divay and Gadea, 2008; 2015).

Reorganizing French Administration: Agencies and Mergers While, since the 1990s, French administration has also been increasingly exposed to a dynamic of agencification, this has been unsystematic and somewhat limited compared to the experiences of other European countries (such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands). The increasing creation of new autonomous public bodies has, however, been steady and has essentially taken the legal form of établissements publics

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    257 (établissement public administratif or établissement public industriel et commercial). This legal category has been used for decades regarding many established autonomous public bodies (Lafarge, 2012; Conseil d’Etat, 2012). The health, food, and risk sectors have been privileged sites for the creation of agencies over the last few years, often in crisis situations (Benamouzig and Besançon, 2005; Alam, 2010), but there are also many new agencies in agriculture, social affairs, culture, and research. While the literature on agencies often emphasizes political explanations, French scholars have often preferred explanations based on bureaucratic politics. The creation of new agencies is viewed as deeply embedded in power struggles within the state. This was the case for the creation of the Food Safety Agency in 1999, for example, the emergence of which revealed the transfer of policy issues from the corporatist control of the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Health (Alam, 2010). In some cases, the creation of a new health agency actually represents an extension of the state (rather than its fragmentation, according to the NPM agenda), with the integration of a new body of knowledge, defended by outsiders, that was initially seen as lacking legitimacy and supporters within the state (Buton and Pierru, 2012). Far from reducing bureaucracy, these agencies are also said to create an intermediary layer of “technical bureaucracies” between politicians and classic ministerial central administrations (Benamouzig and Besançon, 2005), generating new forms of bureaucratization at the margins and provoking severe difficulties in steering from the center. However, other scholars on urban policy observe that these agencies have profoundly reshaped the Napoleonic administrative system by weakening the hierarchical conception of the executive in favor of renewed forms of steering from a distance (Epstein, 2013). Classic political explanations for agencification (in terms of political uncertainty, credible commitment, or blame-​shifting) are not lacking. In their studies of the development of 34 Independent Administrative Authorities (AAI) in France, Elgie (2006) and Elgie and McMenamin (2005) identify three good explanations for the creation of regulatory agencies in France: the desire to make a credible commitment to obtaining policy outcomes; the idea that policy complexity implies delegating decision-​making to acknowledged experts; and political leadership. However, Bezes et al. (2013) suggest that French politicians have as a rule been hostile to systematic organizational changes likely to decrease their political control, specifically due to the and long-​standing use of politicization and centralization mechanisms. This may explain why vertical specialization was developed more on an ad hoc rather than a systematic basis. It is also therefore not surprising that systematic horizontal de-​specialization, through a strong wave of mergers, was the preferred option from 2007 to 2012 under President Sarkozy (see below) because mergers tighten control over ministerial activities by creating a reduced number of leading positions (Bezes and Le Lidec 2010; 2011).

Exploring Reform Carriers: Programmatic Elites, Policy Turns, and Corporatism in the French Senior Civil Service The existence of these administrative reform policies and the penetration of NPM ideas suggest that a group of elites has brought change and supported the introduction of international instruments and devices into the French bureaucracy (Bezes, 2009; 2012).

 

258   Philippe Bezes But obviously, the affirmation of new policy programs carried out by elites has also taken place in many across a broad range of public policies. Since the 1980s, the economic crisis, the growing criticism of the state, the processes of European integration and decentralization, and the development of neo-​liberal strategies have brought about significant re-​orientations of many public policies. These have affected the welfare state, the economy, unemployment, health care, industry, immigration, and so forth. Many of these reform initiatives have reoriented traditional French ways of thinking about policies, and senior officials have played a major role in these changes. The role of policymakers in various sectors has been described as “strategic politicization” (Rouban, 2004), as “functionally politicized” involvements (Leca, 1996; Eymeri, 2003; Bezes and Le Lidec, 2007: 133–​9; Rouban, 2009), and as the work of “programmatic elites” (Genieys and Hassenteufel, 2001; Genieys, 2010). This phenomenon is characterized by: the strategic overview of a specific policy; strong commitment to the design of its goals and instruments, as well as to achieving results; personal loyalty to the minister in charge; and higher political responsiveness. From a range of theoretical perspectives many researchers have identified the role of top-​ level bureaucrats in forming a policy sector elite that defends significant policy shifts in various sectors with a certain autonomy from the political sphere. These sectors include economy (Hall, 1986), defense (Genieys, 2010; Irondelle, 2011), health and family policy (Genieys and Hassenteufel, 2001; Genieys, 2010), immigration (Laurens, 2009), European affairs (Mangenot, 2001), administrative reforms (Bezes, 2009; 2012), and the budget (Bezes, 2007). In the context of new economic, European, and international constraints, these salient policy reversals have often led senior civil servants to elaborate, negotiate, and support significant departures from the existing historical arrangements. In some cases, reversals carry visions of a reinforced role of the state, while in others they lead to a shift toward greater liberalization and market-​ oriented policies. It is clear that this functional politicization also results from the resilience of politicization mechanisms, previously identified as a pillar of the French administrative system. Recent publications on politicization have confirmed the persistence of this French pattern, and occasional increases in politicization under the Sarkozy presidency (Rouban, 2007; 2009), although this trend is not yet confirmed for Hollande’s mandate. However, a few significant shifts related to changes in political leadership have also been identified (Bezes and Le Lidec, 2011; de Maillard and Surel, 2012). The presence of specific political, public opinion, and communication advisers has increased significantly since the nineties (Sawicki and Mathiot, 1999; Rouban, 2007; 2009; see also Eymeri-​Douzans et al., 2015). Top-​level bureaucrats are not just proactive agents carrying reform policies. To a certain extent, they are also affected by administrative reform initiatives that attempt to “govern top officials from the center” and to challenge traditional corporatist regulation patterns such as the Grands corps’ self-​regulations, as well as ministerial autonomy within personnel management policies. However, the emergence, in the late 1990s and 2000s, of a central neo-​managerial human resources policy in the French context

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    259 to regulate senior executives was severely constrained by the opposition of the French Grands corps, which managed to reduce the scope of these initiatives (Gally, 2012). Similarly, in her study of the recent merger affecting the prestigious engineering corps of the Civil Engineers (Ponts et Chaussées), Gervais (2012) has shown how managerialist reforms have served the corporatist interests of this elite (including wage increases and statuary advantages), thus reaffirming their central place within the Ministry for Public Works, now (since 2007) transformed into a “mega-​ministry” for Sustainable Development. Gervais specifically emphasizes how top civil servants can celebrate the “entrepreneurial state” and NPM ideas in defense of their own positions, while at the same time possibly weakening their distinctiveness within the state by transforming themselves into “managers.”

A “French Touch” in the Study of French Public Administration Since the late 1990s, a second group of studies, representing something of a “French touch,” has been developing research in administrative analysis. This approach is somewhat unusual in that it prioritizes sociology and political science research perspectives that are quite important in the French research field of social sciences (occupational sociology, studies of social or gender trajectories, sociology of institutions, socio-​history). As such, it focuses on issues to do with professional groups facing neo-​managerial reforms, and street-​level bureaucrats, as well as the history of public institutions, and knowledge and instruments and their circulation. These studies are able to engage in dialogue with the reflections that have developed in North America, and to defend the genuine originality of French political science and sociology.

Exploring Professional Groups within the State: Professional, Social, and Gender Dimensions First, state agents and numerous professional groups have been the object of many innovative sociological studies. These are fed by the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, the sociology of occupations, the sociology of work (for an alternative formulation of this overview see Jeannot, 2008), and more recently gender studies. Forms of change linked to the evolutions in the groups that make up administrations are thus studied in ways that enable an emphasis to be put on long-​term evolutions (social and demographic evolutions in recruitments and hierarchies for example). These research projects cover a very broad range of professional groups within the state: for example, postal agents (Join-​Lambert, 2001; Cartier, 2003), policemen (Monjardet, 1996), policewomen (Pruvost, 2008), police commissioners (Ocqueteau, 2006), hospital assistants (Arborio, 2001), hospital personnel (Chevandier, 2009), social workers (Serre, 2009), local government officials (Bellanger, 2008), intermediary public servants such as tax collectors and senior workers in local prefectures (Le Bihan, 2008), and public servants working in social and health-​care policies (Dubet, 2002).

 

260   Philippe Bezes The first great merit of these approaches is to pay attention to a particular quality of French public administration: the strength of its corporatist dimension, not only illustrated by the organization by corps, but also by the importance of professional bureaucracies (education, health, justice, social work, etc.) in the ordinary functioning of the French state. This includes: the weight of knowledge and expertise possessed by public agents; the importance of collegiality in organizing work and regulating activities; the autonomy of expertise-​based bureaucrats; and the direct relations with citizens. Second, scholars also address the effects of NPM reforms on these professional groups and the extent to which they alter their autonomy, identity, and professional models (for a global view, see Bezes and Demazière, 2011). Third, these studies are also very interested in emphasizing the importance of social trajectories and agents, as well as their gender identifications and sexual orientations. These professional groups are most often analyzed from the perspective of the tension between organizational belonging of individuals and the “diversity” of their forms of social embeddedness. Some of these studies have particularly emphasized the issue of gender, studying the specific processes of feminization of certain professional groups (for state employees, see Gardey, 2001; for the police, Pruvost, 2007; 2008; for finances and social affairs, Marry et al., 2015). But they have also looked at the weight and the biases of career management practices in the fabrication of gender inequalities, particularly strong for managing elites, and the presence of “glass ceilings” with their discriminating effects (for an overview, see Bereni et al., 2011; Marry et al., 2015).

French Street-​Level Bureaucrats in Context A second “French touch” has been particularly influenced by the sociology of work, or ethnographic approaches. This group of studies favors, in a more micro-​sociological way, the description and analysis of daily activities carried out by agents, in connection with users, with the public policies they develop, or with the technical and material frameworks in which they find themselves operating. In its prolongation of the seminal work of Michael Lipsky analyzing street-​level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 1980), this research pays particular attention to the analysis of face-​to-​face encounters between front-​line public servants and users, and to the micro-​effects of modernization policies on these relations (Demazière, 1992; Warin, 1993; Weller, 1998; 1999; Dubois, 1999; Warin, 2002; Siblot, 2006). It also studies the forms of appropriation, discretionary power, and autonomy in the implementation of regulatory texts (Lascoumes, 1990; Spire, 2005). In this vein, some studies describe public servants as being in an intermediary position for which bureaucratic autonomy is an issue; caught between the state that they embody, their own personal trajectories that bring them back to their “social body” (Dubois, 1999), and the members of civil society with whom they interact. Other studies put more emphasis on the technological and societal mutations that affect administrative work and the meaning agents give to it (Gardey, 2001; Weller, 1999; Hanique, 2004). The sociologist’s attention turns here toward the micro-​activities of writing, calculating, qualifying, organizing, coordinating, and physically handling texts and documents or case management (Weller, 1999). Other investigations value the analysis of the work of certain public servants, who are in privileged positions for understanding the production of

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    261 certain public policies (Deroche and Jeannot, 2004), whether as inspectors (Lascoumes, 1994), intermediary agents in the police hierarchy (Monjardet, 1996) or in the prefecture (Spire, 2005), or as managers operating elaborate forms of coordination (Jeannot, 2005). The analysis of their activities therefore constitutes an entry point for understanding the actions and transformations of the state.

Rediscovering French Administrative Institutions Studies comprising a third group, particularly inspired by the work of Bourdieu on the state and its processes of reproduction and socialization, but also drawing from other heterodox sources, have recently returned to certain key institutions of French administration and renewed their interpretations. We might think firstly of the studies that focus on the skills of senior public servants, their training registers, and the ways their positions and roles have evolved since the Fourth Republic, particularly in light of their ability to represent themselves as “modernizers” or “reformers” (Dulong, 1997; Gaïti, 1998; 2014). The studies of schools for public servants are also being renewed, given that they are considered prime places from which to observe the “fabrication” of (senior) public servants in France, as well as the content of the reproduction that occurs there. They also allow for the observation of any attempts to modify the abilities and the formation of the loyalties and identities of these senior public servants, particularly with the introduction of management training. In this framework, Jean-​Michel Eymeri-​ Douzans’ (2001) seminal study on the ENA revealed the importance of the logics of appropriateness that lead students to conform to the figure of the enarque (the ENA student) through the inculcation of “know-​how” and “knowing how to be.” Other studies, such as those by Julie Gervais (2007) on the engineering college Ponts et Chaussées, or by Natacha Gally (2012) on the reform to training within ENA, or by Olivier Quéré (2015) on the regional administrative institutes (IRA), constitute intermediary frames that extend these perspectives. From a complementary viewpoint, Michel Mangenot’s work (1998) regarding the énarques’ training in European issues, or that of Emilie Biland with Rachel Vaneuville (2012), or with Sarah Kolopp (2013), on the transformations of knowledge, and economic and legal training at the ENA, are all part of this perspective. They particularly emphasize the way in which competition with managerial knowledge has led to transformations in the way law is taught. In this context, Bruno Latour’s book (2002), dealing with what he calls the “manufacture of the law,” proposes an ethnography of the State Council from a very different intellectual tradition. Latour studies the process of legal decision-​making where the making of laws in the Council is analyzed with his “actor–​network-​theory.” The production of law is viewed as the result of a network of people and things (documents, files, architecture, office objects, etc.) where legality is constituted by and attached to the relations among the various entities. The work of jurists and the making of legality correspond to activities such as associating, assembling, and mediating. However, the specificity of Latour’s ethnographic approach is to set aside the political and administrative dimensions of the Council; it thus paradoxically develops its sociology “by setting the state to one side” (2002: 271).

 

262   Philippe Bezes Of course, one should also mention here the strong renewal of historical perspectives in the study of French administration and its institutions (Baruch and Duclert, 2000), with various foci such as: the systematic exploration of bureaucrats’ behaviors during the Vichy regime (Baruch, 1997); the long-​term analysis of the statistical, administrative, and political issues involved in counting the number of state employees and regarding the state’s social perception in France from 1850 to 1950 (Ruiz, 2010; 2013) or the slow evolution of the Finance Ministry from 1918 to the 1960s (Descamps, 2014).

Socio-​History and the Knowledge of Government The fourth and final “French touch,” called “socio-​history” (socio-​histoire), bases its analysis on the study of the processes of the construction of bureaucracies and the managerial state, based on scholarly administrative knowledge. The considerations here are based on the formalization and codification of an often disparate ensemble of principles regarding the “good” functioning of public administration into a “doctrine,” “state knowledge,” or even into an academic discipline. Government sciences (Ihl et al., 2003; Delmas, 2006), cameral sciences (Laborier, 2008), municipal sciences (Payre, 2007), public administration (Saunier, 2003), or managerial sciences, studied from a genealogical and historical (Ihl, 2007) perspective, or from a more contemporary one in the form of public management (Bezes, 2012): all these are productions of bureaucracies, their practitioners, and the experts who examine them at different points in time. More generally, socio-​history insists on the dynamics of construction and institutionalization of categories of public policy (frames), often elaborated within administrations and which will determine future public policy developments. Work in socio-​history also looks at what authors call “mise en administration” (Pollet and Payre, 2013)—​or “state-​ization.” Vincent Dubois (1999), for example, studies the invention of cultural policy by the state, and Buton (2009) analyzes the state management of the profoundly deaf in the nineteenth century. Associated with a constructivist program, these approaches often aim to elucidate the construction of public action categories and to recollect unrealized lateral possibilities (borne by the “losers” of official history). They also investigate processes of the importation, exportation, and legitimation of guidelines for good administration between states, and study national and international networks of expertise.

New Pathways for a Research Agenda It is important to identify the paradoxes that emerge from research on French administration, which is based on its strengths, but also on its blind spots. From here it is possible to make some suggestions and address important research questions for the future. These areas of research are by no means neglected at the moment, but they can be further developed in the future.

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    263

Re-​exploring the Structuring Institutions of French Public Administration and the Dynamics of the French Civil Service in a Context of Change This chapter has shown the increased interest in research on public administration. But even with this growth, the research is far from having covered all actors and institutions of French administration. There are still too few studies on the institutions linked to the Grands corps (the Council of State, the Inspector of Finances, the Court of Audit, and the Prefects, to mention only the main ones), in the contemporary period, whichever dimension is considered (ordinary functioning, mutation of activities and practices, circulation of members). Of course some of these corps have been the subject of systematic studies which provide figures on the circulation of elites.2 However, there is a lack of systematic quantitative primary source data on: the movement of elites between state administrations, public enterprises and businesses, local government, and private enterprises (banks, consulting groups, law firms, etc.); the effects of these movements on the beliefs, careers, and identities of senior civil servants; but also on public policy. What might be the effects of this mobility on the autonomy of the state and the nature of its policy? Similarly, the major ministries appear not to have been sufficiently studied, either in their organizational and institutional dimensions, or in the changes in the roles adopted by their agents, linked to changing contexts, the deep alterations to public policy that they implement, and the evolutions linked to the transformations of the state. Although there are some exceptions (the Minister for Work in France, Chatriot et al., 2006; the Minister for Sustainable Development, Lascoumes et al., 2014), many other key state organizations are not studied, or are not studied enough (the Ministry of Finance, for example; the Budget Department (the Treasury); the Ministry of Health; the Ministry of the Interior, etc.). More generally, there is a lack of research iton the civil service in France, in the various dynamics that shape it. Ultimately, we know very little, outside a few studies on specific professions (Cartier, 2003; Musselin, 2005; Pruvost, 2007; 2008), about the reasons that lead individuals to become public servants today; their motivations and expectations, but also their social background and their perceptions of being recruited into the civil service in terms of social mobility. This is particularly important as the context is marked by several phenomena that affect the perception individuals have of how attractive a career and employment in administration might be. On one hand, deep social and economic dynamics have affected the training and employment systems. We have seen transformations in higher education: a democratization of university qualifications and an increase in levels of qualification, but also a simultaneous (relative) de-​valorization of degrees. There has been a degradation of the labor market, but also a valorization of the principle of equal opportunities between men and women, mobilization around rights, and developments in social perceptions relating to careers in the state, etc. On the other hand, public service in France has been considerably transformed by the effect of

 

264   Philippe Bezes discrete and more visible dynamics. It has seen changes in the competencies required for state service; the now dominant place of the highest category of positions (Level A only 18.7 percent in 1956, but 53.9 percent in 2012) within the state; stagnating pay rates (in the public service) due to austerity policies; the effects of managerial reforms on hierarchies and positions in public organizations; the rise of recruitment outside public service entry exams; the increasing percentage of non-​permanent staff (casuals, contractual, temporary workers, etc.); the variety of statuses in public enterprises comparable to agencies; and the feminization of positions, with the frequent glass ceilings that this entails. While a few broad overviews of these changes have been published (Rouban, 2014; Gautié, 2013; Hugrée, Pénissat, and Spire, 2015), as well as some empirical explorations (Gollac and Hugrée, 2015), there remains a lack of systematic research paying attention to the complexity and interconnectedness of these dynamics, and to their effects on the very nature of the French civil service system and its agents.

Exploring New Regulations within the French Administrative System Also of great interest are the new regulations within the French administrative system, due to the many changes that have occurred either gradually or through reforms. The first important matter is related to what has been called “delegated governance” in the UK (Flinders, 2008) and in the United States (Morgan and Campbell, 2011). It refers to the delegation of responsibility for public programs to non-​state actors (private firms, non-​profit organizations) or to remote organizations such as agencies. In the French case, although these phenomena have been more gradually developed and less publicly acknowledged, one can also observe a disaggregated administrative landscape, with a great variety of public bodies including the various types of autonomous agencies and specifically the public administrative bodies amassing a workforce of nearly 450,877 people in 2012 (Conseil d’Etat, 2012). In addition, the use of public–​private partnerships (PPPs) has also grown considerably since the early 2000s (a partnership contract was created in 2004) leading to new networks and the blurring of the public–​private distinction. PPPs have been more specifically used in policy domains like hospitals, defense, prisons, and water (Mazouz, 2009). Similarly, the importance of non-​profit organizations and community associations has been underlined in the context of a depleted state and in many sectors like education, social services, health, and culture (Hely, 2009). There is no doubt that these three major trends (delegated governance and the growth of PPPs and non-​profit organizations) have created new regulations and new forms of delegated governance, raising various issues of capacity, complexity, accountability, etc. These new topographies of the French state have not really been explored, although two French scholars (Penalva-​Icher and Lazega, 2013) called PPP a new “relational embeddedness,” with new hierarchies and relationships between actors such as ministerial administrations, banks, and private firms, but also agencies and non-​profit

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    265 organizations. These perspectives also reflect the few historical studies that analyze administrations on the basis of the multiple interdependencies that they build with the actors they interact with—​politicians, senior civil servants, supra-​national organizations, private institutions and businesses, associations, and professional and industrial unions. Some see administrative institutions as being “caught” in the network of actors that influence them (for this approach as applied to the National Economic Council, see Chatriot, 2002; for an example regarding a “variable-​geometry” administration such as the Ministry for Employment in France, see Chatriot, Join-​Lambert, and Viet, 2006). In any case, this type of approach is necessary today, in a context where the boundary between public and private is more blurred than ever. Further crucial aspects of reform in French administration are the changes in its territorial dimension, in relation to the major reform called RéATE (réforme de l’administration territoriale de l’Etat) that took place between 2007 and 2009 during the Sarkozy presidency. This reform was dominated by a quasi-​systematic “merger policy” affecting the regional and départemental levels of the French central ministries (on this, see Bezes and Le Lidec, 2010; Cole, 2011; 2012; Poupeau, 2013). With these reforms, the French territorial administration was comprehensively redesigned. It was decided that the numerous ministerial regional directorates (present in all 22 French regions) would be merged into eight cross-​sectoral regional directorates. At the départemental level, the dozen pre-​existing ministerial directorates were merged into two or three inter-​ministerial directorates. These mergers were accompanied by a reform of the role played by prefects in territorial supervision. As analyzed empirically by Bezes and Le Lidec (2010), this reform has transformed the two historical structural patterns we described earlier. On one hand, the ministerial–​historical pattern was converted because the creation of large regional ministerial services by merger introduced a more generalized, almost “inter-​ministerial” approach, which has resulted in the internalization of former conflicts and greater coordination of issues within each regional unit. On the other hand, the political–​territorial pattern has been maintained but also redirected at the départemental level by the transformation of former ministerial départemental directorates into inter-​ministerial units, under the supervision of the prefects of the département. These reforms have considerably modified the previous kind of regulations (emphasized by the Crozier school) between central ministerial administrations, their territorial units at regional and départemental levels, and the prefects. The French research program MUTORG-​ADMI, funded by the Agence nationale de recherche (ANR), has systematically explored these new regulations in a first series of publications (Bezes and Le Lidec, 2010; Poupeau, 2013; Lascoumes et al., 2014; Bonnaud and Martinais, 2014), specifically emphasizing new forms of more direct steering between central administrations and regional units and confirming the existence of a new trend of centralization, as already observed in other fields, where the regional level is the main layer of territorial government (Epstein, 2005; Aust and Cret, 2012). However, there are still complex modes of negotiated regulations in some policy issues, where départemental prefects and their services continue to play an active role. Because many variations can be observed among French territories or across various policy fields, there is no

 

266   Philippe Bezes doubt that these important transformations require further research for us to understand the new regulations inside the French state.

Exploring the Global Picture: The Trajectory of the French State from a Comparative Perspective Public administrations like the French one have experienced multiple long-​term changes in many of their institutional components: their political–​administrative relationships (through politicization or professionalization); their organizational forms (by agencification or mergers); their intergovernmental relationships (by decentralizing or recentralizing); their civil service systems (with new contracts or reforms to traditional institutional protection); their steering mechanisms (through performance management); and their relationship to users and the broader public. By way of conclusion, we suggest that more systematic comparative efforts should be made to understand the global picture of how and in which directions the French public bureaucracy has been transformed. While some general statements have been made (France as a laggard in the implementation of NPM reforms, or as a Neo-​Weberian state in its trajectory, see Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011), too few empirical studies (see Ongaro, 2009; Barzelay and Gallego, 2010; Bezes and Parrado, 2013) have tried testing comparatively how the specific French/​Napoleonic institutional arrangements may have influenced the content and results of administrative reforms in Napoleonic states. Scholars studying Napoleonic countries have usually broadly suggested that there is a common pattern of reform content and a general resistance to change (Loughlin and Peters, 1997; Kickert, 2007; Peters, 2008; Ongaro, 2008). However, Bezes and Parrado’s argument (2013) is that comparative studies do not pay sufficient attention to the precise contents of reforms, their timing, and the ordering of sequences in the long term in order to identify the specificities of national patterns in most similar European cases. They also suggest that scholars do not identify the causal mechanisms generating changes. For Bezes and Parrado, comparing the French and Spanish administrative reform trajectories, one could expect that most similar (so-​called Napoleonic) administrative systems not only experience the same dominant contents of reform but also the same timing and a similar order of sequences. They suggest comparing “administrative reform trajectories”—​for example a chain of chronologically ordered administrative reform policies that have taken place since the early 1980s and which have affected various components of the administrative system—​with different contents and issues. In their view, most similar historical administrative institutions may be expected to generate similar changes and to shape administrative changes in the same way. Of course, there are several caveats to this analysis because so-​called similar administrative systems do not have identical administrative institutions, cannot produce one homogeneous effect (because they are composed of many entities), and are exposed to different contexts (political and electoral systems, welfare states, and the like) and external shocks. Comparative research has to look for similarities and differences in terms

 

Challenges to French Public Administration    267 of issues, content, and timing that could be linked to institutional influences in similar Napoleonic countries. In their study, Bezes and Parrado (2013) show that decentralizing reforms have been the first motor of change in France and Spain, while the scope and degree of decentralization has varied considerably between the two countries due to the context and previous political regimes. The distinct character of each case of decentralization seems crucial in explaining the divergences in the long-​term reform trajectories of these two Napoleonic models. Simply put, regional decentralization triggered challenging effects for the Napoleonic Spanish system, whereas local decentralization in France has not fully reversed its Napoleonic nature. Bezes and Parrado also identify similar blocking mechanisms engrained in the Napoleonic model that have prevented the reform of state field administrations in both countries, but show how they have been transformed in different ways. They suggest that these changes were caused and obtained more quickly by the radical process of decentralization in Spain, whereas they were more gradual, and resilient, in France. In France, however, they have recently led to a drastic administrative reorganization of field administrations, with significant effects. These authors also emphasize that NPM tools were not introduced through the same channels or with the same intensity in both countries. The Spanish government was more inclined to accept trends toward agencification, whereas French reformers put a greater emphasis on hierarchy and control through managerial techniques in the steering of public organizations, including semi-​autonomous entities like the établissements publics. Overall, we suggest that further investigation should be developed in this line of research in order to better understand the specificities of the changes that have affected the French bureaucracy. This should be done by comparing the French trajectory to other Napoleonic states like Italy and Spain, or to other European Continental states like Germany. Comparisons of more diverse cases could also be developed to better understand the differences and possible similarities that exist with Scandinavian countries (for an attempt, see Bezes et al., 2013) or with Anglo-​Saxon countries like the United Kingdom.

Conclusion As we have argued and demonstrated in this chapter, studies on French administration are numerous and have emerged in sociology, history, and political science. The development of comparative perspectives cannot therefore be limited to administrative reform policies but should be expanded to the many dimensions of studying bureaucracies: the sociology of administrative actors and institutions; professional groups within the state; dynamics of control; politicization; changes in civil service systems; issues of representativeness, etc. We hope this chapter makes visible how the possible bridges between French and international research into public administration are numerous and how their development is conducive to building a greater awareness of the field.

 

268   Philippe Bezes

Notes 1. The département as an administrative division of the territorial organization of France was created in 1791 to replace the provinces of the Ancien Régime. There were initially 83 départements (there are now 96, and five overseas départements). The département is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the region (only recently created) and the commune. 2. See Luc Rouban on the State Council, 2008a, or the Inspector of Finances, 2010, or the trajectories of énarques in three different decades, 2015; see also the innovative qualitative study by Pierre François and Claire Lemercier, 2014, on the influence of the Grands corps in the management of major companies.

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Chapter 13

Regional a nd L o c a l Govern me nt interpreting territorial politics Romain Pasquier

For many years, territorial politics was neglected in political science under the influence of a modernist paradigm according to which territory gives way to function as a principle of social and political organization. In the last thirty years, it has received more attention as territorial political movements and economic globalization have made an impact on state reform. Indeed, Western states have been confronted for some years by the treble pressure of economic globalization, sub-​continental integration, and the growing desire for autonomy on the part of subnational political communities. As a result of decentralization reforms, the central administrative organs have lost their monopoly on political initiative. The growing power of cities and regions in the public policy process is one of the most striking consequences of decentralization processes in most Western states (Keating, 1998; Hooghe and Marks, 2001; Le Galès, 2002; Pasquier, 2012). These new economic, social, and cultural logics to which national governments are increasingly exposed are contributing to the erosion of the nation state mythology. This has provoked a reconsideration of territorial politics in political science debates (Keating, 2008). This is particularly the case for France, which continues to symbolize in a variety of ways the classical model of nation. However, France has changed. 2012 was the thirty-​year anniversary of French decentralization, providing a logical standpoint to evaluate the longer-​term significance of this major reform. The French Socialist government’s decentralization reform of 1982 established 22 elected regional councils and greatly enhanced the decision-​making powers of the 96 (mainland) departments and of the larger communes. The 1982 reforms transferred executive authority from the prefect to the elected heads of the 96 departments and 36,500 communes. The decision-​ making responsibilities of a range of local actors were increased, with the extension of their influence into policy sectors within which they had previously been marginal

 

Regional and Local Government    283 or excluded altogether, such as social affairs, economic development, and education (Loughlin, 2007). The object of this chapter is precisely to understand how the paradigmatic changes of the international territorial politics literature impacts on the French research agenda on local and regional governments. Rooted in comparative analysis, one of the central claims here is that French academic debates are increasingly connected to international controversies, notably through the impact of the governance research agenda.

Territorial Politics in Comparison In a context of increasingly dense political and economic interdependencies, sub-​state spaces (cities and regions) are today central to our thinking on new ways of managing societies (Keating, 2008). The processes of economic globalization, continental or sub-​continental integration, and decentralization which are being played out across the world have sparked a number of debates within the social sciences on the territorial question.

Bringing Territory Back In For much of the twentieth century the dominant paradigm for the understanding of territory was provided by theories of national integration and assimilation, closely associated with particular view of modernity. Territorial divisions were analyzed as superficial, taking the part of old social roles, norms, and forms of community (Durkheim, 1893). After the Second World War, national integration linked up with diffusionist theories, notably in the work of Karl Deutsch (1966) who saw national states as being formed around centers, which gradually extended their reach into peripheries, absorbing them economically, culturally, and politically. Centers, being “modern,” have history on their side, and the result is “sovereign governments which have no critical regional or community cleavages” (Deutsch, 1966: 80). The neglect of territory was exacerbated by the behaviorist revolution from the 1950s and the attempt to establish a universal science of politics. From this perspective any territorial variation in political behavior could be reduced to universal variables. At best, territories could be included in analyses as dummy variables, pending their resolution into proper variables (Keating, 2008). Thus, the nation state became the default unit of analysis of social and political change, of the advance of democracy, and of modernity itself. A strong normative element permeated many of these interpretations. The creation of the unified national state was identified with “modernity” in a very broad sense, and resistance to it thus logically qualified as anti-​modern. Seymour Martin Lipset (1985) included peripherical nationalisms among his “revolts against modernity,” while in France a long tradition associated regionalism with anti-​revolutionary reaction and clericalism.

 

284   Romain Pasquier The wave of territorial mobilizations in the 1960s and 1970s, in particular in Western Europe, contributed strongly to a reformulation of analytical frameworks. In the elections of 1974, a clutch of nationalist (and unionist) MPs was elected from the peripheral nations in the United Kingdom. The regional–​national question became a major preoccupation for Spain’s post-​Francoist democracy. Revived movements in Brittany, Corsica, and Languedoc directly put the myth of the indivisible French Republic in question. Among the earliest efforts to readdress the territorial state and confront the simply assimilationist theory was the work of Stein Rokkan in the 1960s and 1970s. He problematized the question of state formation, identifying the divide between the center and the periphery as one of the fundamental political divisions, and he addressed the problem on a European scale. The Rokkanian paradigm is an indispensable point of reference for all comparative scholars working on the structure of European political systems. When considering territorial divisions, long-​term factors remain essential for an understanding of the ethno-​regionalist phenomenon. Long economic cycles (the industrial revolution at the end of the nineteenth century, the economic boom after the Second World War, and the globalization of the end of the last century and the beginning of the 2000s); the policies of central administrations toward national unification (based on the capacity to integrate all regional political spaces at the economic and cultural level); and the consecutive transformations within the regions (industrialization, emigration, immigration, the survival of distinct regional identities, etc.) continue to shape the structural framework of regionalism–​nationalism (Rokkan and Urwin, 1982; 1983; Tarrow et al., 1978). Using these long-​term variables as a starting point, political scientists identified periods of growth for regional movements in Western Europe: the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, the 1960s–​1970s, and the 1990s–​2000s emerge as key periods in the proliferation of ethno-​regional mobilizations (de Winter and Tursan, 1998; de Winter, Gomez-​Reino, and Lynch, 2006; Keating, 1998). The next phase of the study of territorial politics gave a more central place to politics itself and to the strategic actions of state elites and territorial actors. The French school of sociology of organizations produced a series of studies in the 1960s and 1970s on local systems and central–​local dynamics in the supposedly monolitihic Napoleonic state. The main insight was that centralization, far from destroying territorial politics, merely recreates it in new forms. The key figures are the notables (politicians with local roots operating in national politics) and the territorial administrators of the central state, particularly the prefects. These serve as territorial intermediaries, conveying local demands to the center and bending central decrees in their local application. In the United Kingdom, Jim Bulpitt (1983) addressed the issues of central autonomy with his concept of the dual polity, in which the center would look after “high politics,” while leaving “low politics,” that is the management of local affairs, to trusted collaborators. This strategy of territorial management ensured the integrity of the state while avoiding entanglement in local politics. Micheal Keating (1988) placed territorial management at the center of a comparative study of France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The central questions were how states come together and how they stay together. Keating argued that states pursue territorial management strategies through party incorporation, political

 

Regional and Local Government    285 and bureaucratic channels, policy concessions (e.g. planning policies), and institutional decentralization. The aim of an earlier phase of administrative decentralization was to ease the excessive burdens of highly centralized political systems, but this gave little by way of political decision-​making powers to lower levels of government (Sharpe, 1988; 1993). By contrast, the political decentralization of the 1980s and 1990s was much more about devolving political power and giving regional and local authorities greater decision-​making discretion. Examples during this period were the establishment of the Autonomous State (El Estado de las Autonomias) in Spain on the basis of its 1978 Constitution, and the Decentralization Act in France launched in 1982. During the 2000s, this general shift continued to increase asymmetrical diversity, which can be political, administrative, and/​or fiscal. Even Central and Eastern Europe has been affected by the political decentralization trend. In line with the EU membership process, several of this region’s countries, such as Poland and the Czech Republic, implemented decentralization reforms despite the centralist heritage of communism. However, these reforms vary according to nation state traditions and political opportunities, ranging from functional regionalization in Bulgaria and Romania to political decentralization in Poland.

The Rescaling of Governance The 1990s and 2000s saw a strong revival of urban and regional studies across disciplines (Amin, 2004; Bagnasco and Le Galès, 2000; Brenner, 2004; Keating et al., 2003; Le Galès, 2002; Storper, 1997). This was a response both to the events of the times and to new intellectual approaches. The broad context was the transformation of Western states with the consecutive impacts of globalization and European integration, with the loss of some capacities and a search for others. Literature in social sciences stressed the new scales of governance below, above, and across the state. The best documented example concerns economic development. A large literature has developed on the increased importance of space for economic development and change. Economic dynamism in general has had a strong territorial component over the last two decades (Brenner, 2004; Le Galès and Voelzkow, 2003; Storper, 2013; Veltz, 2008). Between the late 1970s and the 1990s, economic development shifted away from the regions of old industrialization and mass production (steel, shipbuilding, the car industry, and so on). Through the processes of globalization, economic activities performed in a variety of regions and countries are becoming increasingly integrated into cross-​national systems of production. The reasons for this growing focus on meso and micro levels of economic performance and governance and on local production systems are manifold and come from different fields. First are the changes that certain researchers have identified in the evolution of the capitalist system. For example, Michael Storper (1997) highlighted the profound transformation undergone by the traditional system of accumulation, based on mass production and Taylorist principles, which is giving way to a post-​industrial system in which flexibility seems to be the key word. Parallel to these

 

286   Romain Pasquier structural changes, the dominant economic system of the post-​war decades has been challenged from another angle. Advances in technology, information, goods, and services have transformed traditional forms of governance. Economic globalization and the rise of the information society have created a space of flows which has altered the traditional conception of space (Brenner, 2004). Previously, space was usually conceptualized as distance—​from raw materials and markets—​and as a matter of cost, which could be compensated by subsidies for producers in disadvantaged areas. Different approaches to the study of varieties of space showed how local societies can provide the conditions for successful development (Crouch et al., 2003). The old, top-​down regional policies, based on central government policies on industry, subsidies, tax incentives, and infrastructure, have given way to a decentralized model in which the emphasis is on what regions, cities, and localities can do for themselves. Economic globalization became a new parameter of the European territorial puzzle in the 1990s. This combination of socio-​economic restructuring and economic globalization is posing serious challenges while also offering new opportunities for the development of regions, cities, and localities (Lefevre, 2012). Large metropolitan areas, because of their ability to attract and generate pools of capital, technology, and information, have been expected to perform better. Good examples here are cities (Barcelona, Helsinki, Lyon, London, Milan, Paris) and regions (Bavaria, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Rhônes-​Alpes, Scotland) that have been more or less successfully inserted into the new global logic, sometimes in a way that is passive or functional to the global situation, and sometimes exploiting characteristics and individual aspects of societies and districts and their productive networks with a distinctive strategy for competitiveness (Le Galès and Voelzkow, 2003). The economic and political dynamism of a series of regions (Baden-​Württemberg, Catalonia, the Third Italy) caught the eye of researchers. In political science, the “new regionalism” approach revealed for the first time this new economic trend and the transformation of the state and government (Keating, 1998). Debates over the new regionalism in the late 1990s drew a basic distinction between identity-​based forms of sub-​state mobilization and more instrumental considerations of competencies and intergovernmental relations (Keating, 2008; Keating, Loughlin, and Deshouwer, 2003; Keating, 1998; Le Galès and Lequesne, 1998). Instrumental models are more likely to focus on levels as being the appropriate ones for the delivery or coordination of a range of services, while identity models look to regions as historic, cultural, and political entities and argue for an institutional focus for identity-​based loyalties. The instrumentalism/​ identity dichotomy is misleading in many respects, but it illuminates how France’s territorial governance sits easily neither with rational discussions of the optimum distribution of competencies between levels nor with the expression of non-​state collective identities. Rather than focusing on functional services, the identity model views regions as subjects, and investigates the linkage between regionalism and the critical identity markers comprised by culture and language. For Keating (1998) the revival of local and regional cultures is part of a broader process of social change provoked in part by globalization. Identity markers can be highly disruptive of existing state formations. In Belgium, the linguistic cleavage has divided society and reshaped political institutions.

 

Regional and Local Government    287 In Spain, the historic nationalities have contributed to reshaping the party system and have created a powerful dynamic of asymmetrical devolution, possibly leading to separatism in the case of Catalonia. In the United Kingdom, Welsh and Scottish nationalists combined arguments based on internal colonialism and national affirmation with those of economic need. Moreover, there has been a huge literature on territorial politics and European integration, most of it concerning regions (Keating and Jones, 1985; Hooghe and Marks, 2001; Marks, 1996). Since the end of the 1980s European public policy, particularly cohesion policy, has been identified as a key factor in the reconfiguration of territories and public policy in Western Europe. European integration is analyzed as a political opportunity structure and as a process for creating new resources likely to strengthen the position of regional actors in their confrontations with the political and administrative apparatus of the long-​established nation states. However, analyses of the types of changes occurring have evolved: in the 1990s, for example, a striking number of scholars concluded that the European variable played a key role in the construction of multi-​level governance (Marks, 1996). If we accept the predictions of Hooghe and Marks (2001) then the end point of European integration would be the rise to power of a level of regional government which would inevitably come into conflict with the older nation states. The Commission and regional actors are understood to be engaged in a governance process which seeks to institutionalize relations in ways which will enable both sets of actors to bypass or evade the center qua central government, with a view to strengthening the supranational and regional tiers of the system. This approach has to date driven research in specific ways and has led in particular to the study of four empirical phenomena—​the strategy of the European Commission in regional policy design, the implementation of the EU Structural Funds policy, the institutionalization of regional representation at the EU level, and the transnational activity of the regions. More recently, work has been published focusing on the impact of Europeanization on domestic political systems (Carter and Pasquier, 2010b; Börzel, 2002; Bourne, 2003) which describes a more complex reality in which changes of scale, when they happen, are more to be found in regional society, in the transformation of relations between the center and the periphery, or in the dynamics of economic globalization than in a European “big bang” (Bukowski, Piattoni, and Smyrl, 2003; Elias, 2008; Jeffery, 2000; Pasquier, 2004). European integration affects the regions and territorial actors in two main ways: as normative Europeanization and as strategic Europeanization. In the first, the format of the principle phases of public policy negotiation between the state and the regions is dictated by Europe, both in terms of development paradigms and of objectives and tools of governance. As far as the second is concerned, the regions do not all have the same political capacity to act. Regional actors perceive European regional development policies differently, and consequently do not adopt similar positions in relation to them. This analysis of the European strategies deployed by the regions demonstrates that, although they are all embedded in Europe via their para-​diplomatic efforts in Brussels or via inter-​regional cooperation policies, only some regions are capable of devising and following up strategies to defend regional interests. Those regions in which

 

288   Romain Pasquier specific prestructured political beliefs and practices facilitate collective action are most likely to position themselves within inter-​organizational exchanges and the new policy networks which are organized at the European scale.

Territorial Politics in France The French literature on territorial politics is increasingly influenced by international debates (Pasquier, 2015). However, understandings of decentralization have varied, with conceptual frameworks usually lagging somewhat behind substantive changes in territorial policies and practices. In the ensuing section we link three interpretations of decentralization with an analysis of contemporary territorial politics in France.

Decentralization and Historical Path Dependency The first approach to regional and local governement might be described as institutional. Highly influenced by administrative and constitutional law, this top-​down approach focuses essentially on how administrative deconcentration or decentralization is implemented by central government. Change is seen as occurring through the creation of new institutional structures and its interpretation in this context rarely strays from a study of the forms taken by constitutions and state administrative structures (Hauriou, 1927). Thus, this approach systematically takes institutional reform as its starting point—​in other words new statutes or legislation—​which is supposed to bring about a number of changes in the relations between center and periphery as new structures of administration and/​or representation are introduced (Bourjol, 1969). In France the sociology of organizations has greatly enriched this approach by highlighting the gap between the goals of these reforms and their effects on the strategies of local actors (Worms, 1966). It has thus produced some highly textured studies of the different regional reforms in France, such as the creation of the Commissions de développement économique régional (CODER—​Commissions for Regional Economic Development) in 1964 (Grémion and Worms, 1968). The upshot has been a dominant paradigm in the interpretation of the relationship between the center and the periphery in which the préfet and local notables contrive to adapt the central norm to local circumstances, thus assimilating the Jacobinism of the state (Grémion, 1976). The earliest interpretations of decentralization, produced during the 1982–​92 period in particular, emphasized the continuity of practices of the pre-​decentralization era. Organizational sociologists assumed continuity (Rondin’s (1985) Sacre des notables, the continuing practice of cumul des mandats) and underplayed the significance of the 1982 reforms. Political scientists identified the removal of constraints on existing actors, such as big city mayors or the presidents of departmental councils, rather than the emergence of new subnational institutions and practices (Mabileau, 1993). Lawyers centered their

 

Regional and Local Government    289 discussions around the ongoing battle over legal competencies, a constant feature of the period since 1982. The mainstream French public law tradition—​which emphasizes the autonomy of the state, the superior legitimacy of state actors, the pyramid of laws, and the necessary preservation of a distinct system of public law—​has regularly been mobilized as a weapon to limit regulatory diversity. For a long time, jurists even refused the idea of local government; at best, they would accept only the idea of local public policy. These plural accounts privileging the historical long term emphasize the institutional and ideational constants associated with a particular French state tradition. According to the Jacobin ideal of the “nation state,” the nation is a product of the (democratic) state. The French nation state is the product of centuries of state-building and of the gradual development of national consciousness within recognized institutional and spatial boundaries (Rosanvallon, 2004). The French system of local administration that was defined by statute following the 1789 Revolution became the model on which local government systems were to be based throughout much of Western Europe. It resembled the Bourbon system that preceded it in its centralization of power and in being based on the same towns and villages. However, the Jacobin governments in 1789–​90 codified this centralization process into a uniform structure of 83 departments, each headed by a central government official (the prefect), and 44,000 communes, each headed by a mayor. This system of centralized direction stayed basically unchanged for over 180 years through two imperial, two royal, and four republican regimes, though local powers gradually developed toward a form of local democracy. Departments were recognized as local authorities in the 1830s and they obtained full recognition as local authorities (“collectivités territoriales”) in 1871. Mayors of communes became popularly elected in 1882 and were vested with budgetary responsibility, as well as a general competence provision allowing municipal authorities to undertake policies in the interests of the locality. In the departments, the prefects remained the chief executives until the law of March 1982. As a by-​product of centralization, however, a class of hybrid local/​national politicians, the notables, developed through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Worms, 1966). The more able and ambitious notables could acquire great prestige and authority, often through the accumulation of electoral offices (cumul des mandats). They “managed” relations with representatives of the state, including prefects and sub-​prefects and sometimes members of central government, in order to advance their own interests and maintain political support for their localities. The system was described as one of “tamed Jacobinism” by Pierre Grémion (1976), implying that the lion of Jacobinism had been tamed by local interests. Decentralization has been the subject of political and institutional controversies for several decades in France (Le Galès, 2006; Le Lidec, 2007; 2012; Pasquier, 2012; 2015). One core hypothesis, drawn from the insights of historic institutionalism, is that of institutional resilience. Institutional veto players have frustrated the adaptation of France’s complex pattern of subnational public administration to social and economic pressures. Specifically, the basic architecture of the Napoleonic state (based around leadership from Paris, powerful civil service corps, departmental prefects, ministerial field services, the communal bloc, and the departmental councils in local government)

 

290   Romain Pasquier has proved highly resistant to reform. The Defferre laws in 1982–​3 had already placed the pro-​departmentalist Mitterrand supporters (départementalistes mitterandiens) in opposition to the pro-​regionalist supporters of Rocard (regionalists rocardiens) (Rondin, 1985: 67); an opposition that has remained constant ever since and that, in most respects, has observed the victory of the two-​century-​old departments over the regional councils, created as “new institutions” in 1982. The constitutional law of March 28, 2003 recognized the decentralized organization of the republic and included the regions in the constitution alongside the communes and departments. Notwithstanding this constitutional recognition, the decentralization reform driven by former premier Jean-​Pierre Raffarin, from the end of 2002, most clearly demonstrated the departmentalist veto of the rise of the regions. Though proclaiming himself to be a regionalist, Raffarin had to accommodate the departmentalist coalition, in particular in the Senate. Numerous, influential, and taking advantage of gaps between the regions, the departments finally obtained a more significant transfer of competencies than the regions. Of a total of 11 billion euros transferred from the state to the local and regional authorities, the departments obtained 8 billion. They were notably strengthened in their role as the implementers of social policy. Under the pressure of the Senate, several competencies claimed by the regions (for national roads, university buildings, and recognized leadership in the field of economic development and innovation) were not included in the law. The departmentalist coalition has always succeeded, in political and parliamentary battles, in preserving the broad contours of the territorial status quo. The most recent territorial reforms from the Sarkozy and Hollande presidencies demonstrate the continuing weight of the departmentalist coalition and of institutional veto players in the Senate, Council of State, and Constitutional Council (see Table 13.1).

Table 13.1 Subnational authorities in France (2013) Type

Number

Functions

Communes

36,680

Varying services, including local plans, building permits, building and maintainance of primary schools, waste disposal, first port of administrative call, some welfare services.

Intercommunal public corporations (EPCI)*

2,599

Permanent organizations in charge of intercommunal services such as fire-​fighting, waste disposal, transport, economic development, some housing.

Departmental councils

101

Social affairs, some secondary education (collèges), road building and maintenance, minimum income (RSA).

Regional councils

26

Economic development, some transport, infrastructure, state–​ region plans, some secondary education (lycées), training, some health.

Source: author’s elaboration * with their own tax-​raising powers. One can also add 11,831 EPCIs which rely on communal taxes.

 

Regional and Local Government    291 This institutional resilience hypothesis has strong elements of path dependency (Thelen, 1999; Steinmo, 2008). French subnational governance operates within the system of the millefeuille institutionnel, the rather colorful metaphor used to describe the many layers of local public administration: the communes, inter-​communal public corporations, departments, regions, city-​wide authorities, and special statute authorities that were given constitutional recognition in the 2003 constitutional reform and confirmed in the law of December 16, 2010. A steady process of institutional accretion has taken place. New social and economic problems produce new innovations, while older institutions remain in place. Successive reforms in the 1990s (the Joxe law of 1992; the Voynet and Chevènement laws of 1999) strengthened more joined-​up, intercommunal councils through developing intercommunal public corporations with pooled tax revenues (Établissements publics de coopération intercommunal—​EPCIs) throughout urban and much of rural France. The French constitution now recognizes four levels of local authority: the commune (and by extension the communal bloc), the department, the region, and those with a “special statute.” Recent decentralization reforms—​of 2003–​4, 2010, and 2013–​14—​have not altered the basic, highly fragmented structure of French local government. Decentralization has embedded a system of inflationary institutional layering, whereby institutions maximize staff and financial resources, and seek redress by insisting on a favorable interpretation of legal norms (Le Saout, 2012).

Decentralization and Governance The evolution of French decentralization in the 1990s was accompanied by the development of new conceptual frameworks, especially those of governance and political capacity (Pasquier, 2003; 2004). In the realm of French subnational politics, Le Galès (1995: 57–​95) formulated the classic distinction between traditional local government and local governance. Local government refers to a rational, organized form of public administration, where the local authority is the only legitimate site of local power and policy. Local governance, on the other hand, signifies a much broader community of local stakeholders, composed not only of local authorities, but also of private firms, public and semi-​public agencies, state field services, consultancies, and research institutes and associations, as well as external actors such as the European Commission. Writers such as Barone (2011), Le Galès (1995), Douillet and Faure (2005), and Négrier (2005) emphasized variable configurations of local power which shape local forms of regulation. This contingency is far from the older models of center–​periphery relations that conceptualized local government as of interest only insofar as it “integrated the periphery” into a state-​centric system. For the regional level, Pasquier (2003; 2004) developed the concept of political capacity as a process of construction in which elites and social groups produce a joint vision of the world that allows them to mobilize material and cognitive resources in pursuit of shared strategies. The capacity of regional elites to organize informal relations among relevant policy actors varies significantly among regions, which do have identical resources at their disposal. Over a span of centuries, but most particularly of decades, the strategies

 

292   Romain Pasquier of regional and local elites have resulted in each region acquiring a distinct regional model of collective action. Comparative analysis of Brittany and Languedoc-​Roussillon sheds light on two such models, one largely consensual and the other more conflictual. In Brittany, the stabilization of relations among political, economic, and cultural elites within an enduring regional coalition made possible the elaboration of a regional development project and forced the state to support it. The Breton model has been successfully adapted to contemporary conditions. In contrast, the elites of Languedoc-​Roussillon have yet to succeed in overcoming the traditional system of local political mediation. The region remains highly fragmented, with most policy choices strongly politicized. Rather than coming together to pool their means, each unit of political or administrative power has persisted in seeking to extend its own political clientele. Competition remains the modal behavior for elites in Languedoc-​Roussillon (Pasquier, 2003). These analyses looked beyond formal competencies and emphasized either new forms of public–​private service delivery or the role played by networks of public, voluntary, and private actors in local and regional governance (Pinson, 2009). Emphasis was placed on the development of new institutions (especially the elected regions, far more significant actors than given credit for in early accounts), new spheres of policy intervention (economic development, transport, higher education, training, European networking), and new actors (not only local authorities, but also private firms, public and semi-​public agencies, state field services, consultancies, research institutes and associations, and the European Commission). As well as describing a broad array of local actors, the governance perspective signified that there is no single model of local power but patterns of variable geometry. These theoretical entry points allow a rather different take on the empirical data. The questions raised by governance theorists can be applied to any level of territorial public administration, but are most appropriate to urban or regional spaces. Urban governance theorists in particular insist upon the creation of new scales and the emergence of new actors in the public space (Cole, 2012; Le Galès, 2002). The chief question that interests urban governance theorists is that of regulation; what allows the regulation (coordination and direction) of urban societies? There are conflicts of power and interest; how are these resolved? Sociological accounts, especially those of Le Galès (1995; 2002), emphasize above all the role of governance as coordination (“regulation”) and exchange between political, social, and economic spheres. Regulation refers to relatively stable relations between actors and social groups, who exchange resources and who are brought together in institutional relationships that are bound by rules and norms (Commaille and Jobert, 1999). The French Regulation School describes distinct modes of coordination between actors, the five ideal types being the market (competition), the firm (hierarchy), the state (constraint), the community (solidarity), and social partnership (negotiation). To describe a mode of governance of a place or a policy sector, different combinations of these ideal types are used. Governing requires coordination; but modes of coordination vary across sector, space, and level. However, analysts such as Epstein (2005; 2013) emphasized the development of central government strategies of steering from a distance, whereby the state has engaged in a new interventionism via agencies of territorial management, and attempts to

 

Regional and Local Government    293 control local government expenditure and the audit of local authorities as part of the broader effort to control the public sector. Such activities have characterized one important dimension of central–​local relations over the last decade, particularly during the Sarkozy period (2007–​12). If a comparative approach is adopted, and if we take into account the structure of public expenditure by type of administration in Europe for 2012, France appears as a country where the circuits of public spending remain relatively highly centralized. Indeed, if we add the expenditure of central government to that of the Social Security system (mainly health care and pensions), around 90 percent of public debt is centralized, against just over 60 percent in Germany or just under 50 percent in Spain. In a move reminiscent of Thatcher in the United Kingdom in the 1980s, in 2010 the Fillon government announced the abolition of the local collection and setting of business rates (taxe professionnelle), and its replacement by a more centralized formula-​based method of tax collection, considerably limiting the fiscal autonomy of local authorities, especially the departments and regions (Hertzog, 2010). The effects of this radical move were immediate; from 2010 to 2012, the proportion of local government finances raised by local taxes declined from 50 percent to 20 percent for the departments and from 38 percent to 10 percent for the regions. This nationalization of the local tax base was criticized by the Socialists while in opposition, but the Hollande–​Ayrault administration has not rescinded the measure.

Decentralization and Territorial Identities Has centralization in France been challenged by new forms of identity-​based territorial mobilization? The French republican model emphasizes formal equality and individual rights, rather than territorial equity and group identities. And yet the hypothesis is not implausible. Strong cultural, language, and territorial defense movements have emerged since the 1970s (Hechter, 1975). New forms of collective mobilization have raised the status of the Breton, Occitan, and Basque languages. There has been a revival of regional cultural traditions, languages, and historic identities. There is even an electoral clientele for regionalism. This clientele is relatively small in Alsace, Savoy, Brittany, the Basque country, and French Catalonia but much wider in Corsica and overseas territories such as Guadeloupe or French Guyana. Regionalist or autonomist parties have occasionally elected representatives to local and regional councils, though they have found it difficult to operate independently of the main French parties (Pasquier, 2012). On the other hand, the history of regionalization in France bears the imprint of the centralizing French republican tradition. With the partial exception of Brittany, Alsace, and Corsica, France’s historic regions and communities do not enjoy institutional expression. The Basque movement has so far failed in its minimal demand for a Basque department (though the Ayrault government has acknowledged the need to address the Basque issue). Referendums in Corsica (2003) and Alsace (2013) produced narrow majorities against creating stronger regional councils that would have subsumed existing departments.

 

294   Romain Pasquier In October–​November 2013, the social movement of the “Red Bonnets” illustrated the singularity of the Breton model of collective action. Using different identity symbols such the Breton flag (Gwen ha du) and the red bonnet (the symbol of the Breton revolt at the end of the seventeenth century against a new tax imposed by the King Louis XIV), this regional coalition composed of different groups (business owners, employees, cultural associations, and regionalist leaders) forced the central government to stop the implementation of a new environmental tax and to pledge to negotiate a new economic model for Brittany. This example confirms survey evidence providing some support for this framing of the Breton region as distinctive. Dargent (2001: 787–​806) revealed that Brittany was the only mainland French region with a sense of regional identity as strong as that of its national belonging. Cole (2006) concluded, on the basis of survey evidence carried out in 2001 using the Moreno scale, that Bretons combined a strong sense of regional (Breton) and national (French) identity. Later, the Citizenship after the Nation State (CANS) project provided a fuller comparative framing of Breton identity (see Table 13.2).

Table 13.2  The Moreno identity scale in 14 European regions (2009) (figures in percent) Exclusively More regional Equally regional More national Exclusively Don’t regional than national and national than regional national know Scotland

19

41

26

4

7

3

Catalonia

16

29

37

6

6

6

Wales

11

29

33

10

15

2

Upper Austria

10

16

38

11

22

3

Bavaria

9

19

36

11

19

6

Thuringia

9

18

44

9

17

3

Salzburg

9

17

50

9

10

5

Vienna

7

14

38

15

19

7

Galicia

6

25

57

6

4

2

Lower Saxony

6

11

34

15

27

7

Brittany

2

23

50

15

9

1

Castille–​La Mancha

2

4

52

18

20

4

Alsace

1

17

42

20

15

5

Île-de-France

1

7

30

42

12

8

Source: Survey carried out in April and May 2009 with a representative sample of 900 people in 14 regions, as part of the Citizenship after Nation State (CANS) project, funded by the European Science Foudation.

 

Regional and Local Government    295 If the French regions in this survey are remarkable for the low number of people claiming to feel “exclusively regional,” a major phenomenon is nonethless visible: that a strong dual regional identity in Brittany has a firm base. 87.9 percent of the Bretons interviewed declared themselves, to varying degrees, to be both Breton and French, with one half (50 percent) feeling as much Breton as French (Pasquier, 2012). The CANS data might be interpreted in two distinct ways. They confirm a degree of regional specificity within the French context, illustrated by the “Red Bonnets” movement in Brittany at the end of 2013. But they also emphasize how modest ethno-​territorial politics are in France in a comparative perspective. The structure of opportunities in the French Fifth Republic is well understood. Regional interests have traditionally best been defended by demonstrating cross-​partisan solidarity in Paris, rather than by supporting autonomist parties in Brittany (Cole and Harguindeguy, 2009). A strong sense of cultural regionalism has spilled over into party platforms, but Breton interests have been channeled through the main state-​wide parties (and notably the Socialist Party). In France, regionalism can be used as a political repertoire for ad hoc economic and cultural mobilizations but has not yet directly challenged the unitary character of the state form. France’s 22 regions have a shared general competency and some limited tax-​varying powers (in retreat), but no hierarchical control over other layers of local government. Governance might challenge the central administration, but not the unitary state (Bezes and Le Lidec, 2010).

Territory as a Unit of Analysis of Political Change Making territory a unit of analysis of change is not straightforward in theoretical and methodological terms, insofar as the established frameworks in the social sciences, and especially in France, privilege analysis at the level of the nation state. For future research, it will be necessary, therefore, to effect an epistemological shift; first of all by reconceptualizing political change in sub-​state spaces using empirical research strategies which are both comparative and multidimensional.

Moving from the Territory as Object to the Territory as Subject Just like the field of territorial politics, subnational comparative studies have seen an expansion over the last thirty years. This dynamic has naturally launched several generations of researchers in social sciences into a great variety of academic fields. Urban politics, regional politics, sectoral politics: the accumulated body of work is now fairly substantial. The rediscovery of territories, of the capacity of local and regional actors to set strategies in motion in polycentric contexts, and the growing interdependence

 

296   Romain Pasquier between spaces of governance have contributed to the weakening of national frameworks of comparison, or, in any case, to shift the gaze of comparative scholars toward alternative units of comparison which have long been ignored, if not actually scorned. However, the conceptual inheritance of the state is still very much with us—​“methodological nationalism” in Leibfried and Zürn’s terms (2005)—​and still wields considerable influence over the formulation of research questions in the humanities and social sciences (Beck, 2000). More importantly still, the influence of this methodological nationalism on broad swathes of comparative research makes it difficult to align new concepts of the state with a suitable empirical research approach. This historical legacy has created bias within contemporary analysis. Thus research on the impact on nation states of processes of globalization or European integration may be fundamentally flawed if these nation states were actually historically more territorialized than we believe to be the case today. The new research agenda will be to consider subnational spaces as relevant units of analysis for understanding the changes in European political systems. This means considering how the institutionalization of sub-​state spaces is part of a global transformation of national political space and ways of steering public policy. It is about opening up the black box that is the territory to explain how it becomes a subject of research, and not simply an object (Hudson, 2007). At the methodological level, it is therefore important to break with a series of research frameworks which in recent years have developed an exogenous notion of political change. The approaches described in Figure 13.1 have in common that they take as their starting point exogenous variables (globalization, Europeanization, or state reform) and seek to evaluate the impact of these at the territorial level (i.e. cities and regions). The research frameworks summarized in Figure 13.1 convey a reactive and static notion of change. The causal chain of political change makes the territory nothing more than an object of research: outside pressures mediated by different variables (institutions, political strategies, etc.) provoke reactions and change in sub-​state spaces. Change is thus conceived in narrow terms and as unidirectional. The analytical frame I am proposing in this chapter aims to develop an alternative conception of change in which the territory is not simply an object but also a subject of research, as a space which itself produces proactive political strategies (see Figure 13.2). This frame is based on an understanding of the development Globalization

Territory

Europeanization

Territory

State reform

Territory

Figure 13.1  Exogenous political change: the territory as an object of research.

 

Regional and Local Government    297 Regions

Territory Political space

Figure 13.2  Endogenous political change: the territory as subject of research.

of sub-​state spaces as an interactive process of construction, and not as a simple unidirectional process of reaction to globalization within the European Union or the state. It thus seems useful for us to approach sub-​state territories beyond narrow conceptions of change, given that, here again, territorial systems are not passive receptacles of any number of exogenous variables but unique spaces of political production. In effect, in a world which is interconnected and criss-​crossed by multiple flows, so many borders spring up that they overlap. Infra-​state spaces—​regions, metropolitan areas, cities, various other places—​appear as spaces which fit together, whose limits are subject to a constant process of redefinition. Territorial actors have to adapt to these changes in scale, to being multiply embedded, by endlessly reconstructing new frontiers for public policy (Pasquier, Simoulin, and Weisbein, 2013; Storper, 2013). Most analysts today agree that the manner in which public authority is wielded in France and Europe has evolved considerably. Accordingly, any analysis of policy at the territorial level must avoid two pitfalls. In the first place, it is important to avoid overestimating the autonomy of territorial political actors and institutions. Considerable structural constraints continue to handicap their potential for action. At the same time, however, we should not underestimate the political capacity of territorial institutions and actors. The structural handicaps of cities and regions are well known. Cities and regions are intermediate levels that are dependent on other levels of government, and particularly on central government regarding the policies that regulate the implementation of different public policies. Although the structural handicaps under which they labor are real and apply to all, cities and regions are far from homogeneous in their abilities to overcome them. Beyond the design of the research, comparing and analyzing sub-​state spaces requires the construction of a transferable analytic framework: in other words we need to mobilize conceptual tools which make it possible to draw subnational comparisons which go beyond the political traditions and the cultural and social values specific to each state. The perspective I am proposing here is to focus my analysis initially on how sub-​state spaces become institutionalized, then to assess the key parameters of territorial power.

Mechanisms of Institutionalization of Sub-​state Spaces The process of institutionalization is a long one and includes a wide spectrum of economic, political, and social phenomena. When we study the institutionalization of a territorial space we therefore need to identify what makes up this space—​in other words, the institutions, the actors, their ideas, their motivations and strategies for action, and their interactions with one another—​and to take a diachronic perspective in analyzing how these constituent parts evolve (Carter and Pasquier, 2010a). This approach should allow

 

298   Romain Pasquier us to understand how the boundaries of an infra-​state space are constructed, stabilize, and change. Local and regional institutions constitute one actor amongst many in this process and we must thus discern the contribution not only of other institutional actors but also of various socio-​political actors (political parties, cultural movements, trade unions) or economic actors (businesses, and networks of chambers of commerce and industry). Three major instruments of local regional institutionalization should be distinguished: cultural and social mobilizations; state restructuring policies; and local and regional policies. The first of these dynamics is a bottom-​up phenomenon. It refers to the set of cultural, social, and political mobilizations which make up sub-​state spaces. For instance, regionalism contributes to the institutionalization of regional spaces in two essential ways: it (re)produces regional narratives and representations which are different from those of the nation state; and it develops ethno-​regionalist political organizations which aim to create a power relationship with that same state on the basis of statutory demands. However, the variety of mobilizations in regional spaces over the long term means that we have to classify types of regionalism (cultural, economic, or political). The second facet of our approach is to consider the local and regional spaces as functional spaces; in other words spaces in which the state or the European Union intervenes. The institutionalization of the subnational space is here the subject of a top-​down analysis. The mark left by these different processes is particularly noticeable in France. From the implementation of urban policies to the passing of laws on decentralization via the formulation of European regional policy, this vertical dynamic has contributed directly to the institutionalization of sub-​state spaces. In France, then, functional, administrative, and institutional policies have confirmed cities and regions as spaces for the planning of public policy for a wide range of actors and institutions at multiple levels. Finally, this approach will allow us to understand the institutionalization of sub-​state spaces through the rolling-out of a system of territorial governance. The horizontal logic of territorial governance, through the public policy which it produces and the strategies which it gives rise to, contributes to the institutionalization of local and regional spaces in Western countries. Cities and regions are composite spaces within which various actors and institutions operate. Research should not therefore limit itself to the public policy of local and regional governments, but should analyze the institutionalization of territorial governance at the point where the logics of interdependence and territorial political cultures intersect. The emphasis is on the capacity of territorial actors to take action on a series of collective problems—​ such as economic development, regional accessibility, public health, the management of energy resources, jobs, etc.—​within a polycentric context. This means that we need to examine both the resources and the constraints of territorial actors in different types of political activities, and the possibilities for public policymaking that they possess.

The Parameters of Territorial Power Identifying instruments of institutionalization allows us to focus the research around how territorial political spaces are produced, whatever their geographical location.

 

Regional and Local Government    299 However, if we want to go further in our analysis and understand the differences between territories and states, and explain variations in time and space, then we need to refine our perspective; preferably by selecting the key parameters of territorial power—​those which determine actors’ capacity to intervene in local and regional spaces (Pasquier, 2015). In analyzing this perspective we will refer here to the concept of political power. Taken from the notion of “the capacity to govern” (Stone, 1989), we are defining territorial power as a process of defining the interests, organization, and coordination of collective action which allows institutions and groups of public/​private actors to regulate collective problems within a given area. Territorial power thus has two sides: the capacity to produce a shared territorial vision and the capacity to build territorial coalitions of actors over the long term. Table 13.3 summarizes six parameters that contribute to stabilizing this territorial political capacity. From the top of the left column, these parameters are as follows. Institutional resources determine the amount of available budgetary and legal resources which will influence the capacity of the actors in question to intervene in the system. This is also the case for economic resources which, directly or indirectly, influence the financial capacity of public and private actors. On the other hand, the logic of identification and the territorial narrative relate back to how the identity of the territory in question is configured, and allow us to assess territorial actors’ feelings of belonging to that community and their capacity to construct a territorial narrative of the past and of the future. The last two parameters—​intergovernmental relations and political leadership—​allow us to understand the relative capacity of the territorial coalition to influence national, European, or even global decision-​making. Territorial power is thus not just a matter of institutional resources but leads to the construction of forms of cooperation between various institutions and actors around a possible future world. This is not intended to suggest that conflict is absent from socio-​ political relations, but that the process of government requires practices and norms that Table 13.3 The dimensions of territorial power Political capacity

Beliefs

Coalition

Institutional resources

Finances and legal competences

Economic resources

Relative wealth of private and public actors

Notions/​logics of identification

Self-​representation and feeling of belonging

Territorial narrative

Constructing a past and future narrative for the territory

Intergovernmental relations

Relative cooperation

Political leadership

Stability and access to coalition decision-​making

 

300   Romain Pasquier affect the capacity for collective action and regulation on the part of regional institutions and actors. Territorial political capacity is the result of a permanent interaction between inherited practices and beliefs and the dynamics of social change which regularly alter the action repertoires of regional actors. The issue is to understand how local and regional institutions and groups of actors incorporate historical experience and social change into the logic behind their actions. Territorial power is analyzed here through a double perspective: the capacity of actors to project a vision of the territory and of its development; and then their capacity to assemble coalitions and produce blueprints for public policy around the big issues of local and regional development.

Conclusion The French state, like other European nation states, has been confronted for some years by the opposing pressures of European integration and the growing desire for autonomy on the part of subnational political communities. As a result of the decentralization laws of 1982–​3, the evolution of EU policies, and, more generally, the increasing globalization of the overall economic context, the central administrative organs of the French state have lost their monopoly on political initiative. The French state is increasingly exposed to new economic, social, and cultural logics. The growing power of local and regional authorities in the public policy process is one of the most striking features of the erosion of the Jacobin myth of the unity and indivisibility of the republic. The governance paradigm has fundamentally shifted the terms of the debate and has brought French analysis further into the mainstream of international and European local and regional studies. The most useful governance literature is that which emphasizes contingency and variable situational and spatial dynamics. This emphasis on contingency, diversity, and the effects of scale naturally leads analysts to perceive a rather different ontological reality than those concerned primarily with the legal division of competencies, public management, or center–​periphery relations. In France, then, to analyze territorial power is to analyze regional differences (Pasquier, 2015). In the shadows of a national narrative which demonizes and rejects local specificities, highly differentiated territorial political spaces have been created, shaped by the dynamics of identity, of decentralization, and of public policy. This revenge of the real France, in all its diversity, against the abstract image of uniformity cannot fail to beg the question of how the republican state is changing. An analysis of local and regional powers paints a picture of a controversial central state undergoing fundamental changes, and of a decentralized republic at a crossroads.

References Amin, A. (2004). “Regions Unbound: Towards a New Politics of Place,” Geografiska Annaler 86B/​1: 33–​44.

 

Regional and Local Government    301 Bagnasco, A. and Le Galès, P. (eds) (2000). Cities in Contemporary Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barone, S. (ed.) (2011). Les Politiques Régionales en France. Paris: La Découverte. Beck, U. (2000). The Brave New World of Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bezes, P. and Le Lidec, P. (2010). “L’Hybridation du Modèle Territorial Français:  RGPP et Réorganisations de l’Etat Territorial,” Revue française d’administration publique 136: 919–​42. Börzel, T. A. (2002). States and Regions in the European Union. Institutional Adaptation in Germany and Spain. Cambridge: Cambridge: University Press. Bourjol, H. (1969). Les Institutions Régionales de 1789 à Nos Jours. Paris: Berger Levrault. Bourne, A. K. (2003). “The Impact of European Integration on Regional Power,” Journal of Common Market Studies 41(4): 597–​620. Brenner, N. (2004). “Urban Governance and the Production of New State Spaces in Western Europe, 1960–​2000,” Review of International Political Economy 11(3): 447–​88. Bukowski, J., Piattoni, S., and Smyrl, M. (eds) (2003). Between Global Economy and Local Society: Political Actors and Territorial Governance. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield. Bulpitt, J. (1983). Territory and Power in the United Kingdom. Manchester:  Manchester University Press. Carter, C. and Pasquier, R. (2010a). “Studying Regions as Spaces for Politics: rethinking territory and strategic action,” Regional and Federal Studies 20(3): 281–​94. Carter, C. and Pasquier, R. (2010b). “Europeanization of Regions as Spaces for Politics: A New Research Agenda,” Regional and Federal Studies 20(3): 295–​314. Cole, A. (2006). Beyond Devolution and Decentralisation. Building Regional Capacity in Wales and Brittany. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Cole, A. (2012). “The French State and its Territories,” Public Administration 90(2): 335–​50. Cole, A. and Harguindeguy, J.-​B. (2009). “La Politique Linguistique de la France à l’Épreuve des Revendications Ethnoterritoriales,” Revue française de sciences politique 59(5): 939–​66. Commaille, J. and Jobert, B. (eds) (1999). Les Métamorphoses de la Régulation Politique. Paris: LGDJ. Crouch, C., Le Galès, P., Trigilia, C., and Voelzkow, H. (eds) (2003). Local Production Systems in Europe. Rise or Demise? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dargent, C. (2001). “Identités Régionales et Aspirations Politiques: l’Exemple de la France Aujourd’hui,” Revue française de science politique 51(5): 787–​806. Deutsch, K. W. (1966). Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Foudations of Nationality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. de Winter, L., Gomez-​ Reino, M., and Lynch, P. (eds) (2006). Autonomist Parties in Europe: Identity Politics and the Revival of the Territorial Cleavage. Barcelona: ICPS. de Winter, L. and Türsan, H. (eds) (1998). Regionalist Parties in the European Union. London: Routledge. Douillet, A.-​C. and Faure, A. (eds) (2005). L’Action Publique et la Question Territoriale. Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. Epstein, R. (2005). “Gouverner à Distance. Quand l’Etat se Retire des Territoires,” Esprit 11(1): 96–​111. Epstein, R. (2013). La Rénovation Urbaine. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Elias, A. (2008). “Introduction: Whatever Happened to the Europe of the Regions? Revisiting the Regional Dimension of European Politics,” Regional and Federal Studies 18(5): 483–​92. Grémion, P. and Worms J.-​P. (1968). Les Institutions et la Société Régionale. Paris: Copédith. Grémion, P. (1976). Le Pouvoir Périphérique. Paris: Seuil. Hauriou, M. (1927). Précis de Droit Administratif. Paris: Sirey.

 

302   Romain Pasquier Hechter, M. (1975). Internal Colonialism. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA:  University of California Press. Hertzog, R. (2010). “Collectivités territoriales:  La réforme sans l’argent, impossible ou indispensable?” in Nemery, J.-​C. (ed.) Quelles Perspectives pour la Réforme Territoriale. Paris: L’Harmattan, 91–​106. Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (eds) (2001). Multi-​level Governance and European Integration. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield. Hudson R. (2007). “Region and Place: Rethinking Regional Development in the Context of Global Environmental Change.” Progress in Human Geography 31(6): 827–​36. Jeffery, C. (2000) “Sub-​National Mobilization and European Integration: Does it Make any Difference?” Journal of Common Market Studies 38(1): 1–​23. Keating, M. (1998). The New Regionalism in Western Europe:  Territorial Restructuring and Political Change. London: Edward Elgar. Keating, M. (2008) “Thirty Years of Territorial Politics,” West European Politics 31(1–​2): 60–​81. Keating, M., Loughlin, J., and Deschouwer, K. (eds) (2003). The New Regionalism in Europe: a Comparative Study of Eight Regions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Lefevre, C. (2012). Struggling Giants: City Region Governance in London, New York, Paris and Tokyo. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Le Galès, P. (1995). “Du Gouvernement des Villes à la Gouvernance Urbaine,” Revue française de science politique 4(1): 57–​95. Le Galès, P. (2002). European Cities, Social Conflicts and Governance. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Le Galès, P. (2006). “Les Deux Moteurs de la Décentralisation:  Concurrences Politiques et Restructuration de l’Etat Jacobin,” in Culpepper, D., Hall, P. A., and Palier, B. (eds) La France en mutation 1980–​2005. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 303–​41. Le Galès, P. and Lequesne, C. (eds) (1998). Regions in Europe. London: Routledge. Le Galès, P. and Voelzkow, H. (2003). “Introduction: The Governance of Local Economies,” in Crouch, C., Le Galés, P., Trigilia, C., and Voelzkow, H. (eds) Local Production Systems in Europe: Rise or Demise? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–​13. Le Lidec, P. (2007). “Le Jeu du Compromis: l’Etat et les Collectivités Territoriales dans la Décentralisation en France, ” Revue française d’administration publique 121/​122: 111–​30. Le Lidec, P. (2012). “La Réforme des Collectivités Territoriales sous Sarkozy. Entre (Mise en Scène du) Volontarisme et Incrémentalisme,” in De Maillard, J. and Surel, Y. (eds) Les Politiques Publiques sous Sarkozy. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 189–​210. Le Saout, R. (2012). Réformer l’Intercommunalité. Enjeux et Controverses autour de la Réforme des Collectivités Territoriales. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Leibfried, S. and Zürn, M. (eds) (2005). Transformations of the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Loughlin J. (2007). Subnational Government:  The French Experience. Basingstoke:  Palgrave Macmillan. Mabileau, A. (1993). Le Système Local en France. Paris: Montchrestien. Marks, G. (1996). “An Actor-​Centred Approach to Multilevel Governance,” Regional and Federal Studies 6(2): 20–​40. Négrier, E. (2005). La Question Métropolitaine. Les Politiques à l’Epreuve du Changement d’Echelle Territoriale. Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. Pasquier, R. (2003). “From Patterns of Collective Action to the Capacity for Governance in French Regions,” in Bukowski, J. Piattoni, S., and Smyrl, M. (eds) Between Global Economy

 

Regional and Local Government    303 and Local Society:  Political Actors and Territorial Governance. Boulder, CO:  Rowman & Littlefield, 67–​90. Pasquier, R. (2004). La Capacité Politique des Régions. Une Comparaison France/​Espagne. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Pasquier, R. (2012). Le Pouvoir Régional. Mobilisations, Décentralisation et Gouvernance en France. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Pasquier, R. (2015). Regional Governance and Power in France: The Dynamics of Political Space. London: Palgrave. Pinson, G. (2009). Gouverner la Ville par Projet. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Rokkan, S. and Urwin, D. (eds) (1982). The Politics of Territorial Identity. Studies in European Regionalism. London: Sage. Rokkan, S., and Urwin, D. (eds) (1983). Economy, Territory, Identity. Politics of West European Peripheries. London: Sage. Rondin, J. (1985). Le Sacre des Notables. Paris: Fayard. Rosanvallon, P. (2004). Le Modèle Politique Français. La Société Civile contre le Jacobinisme de 1789 à nos Jours. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Sharpe, L. J. (1988). “The Growth and Decentralization of the Modern Democratic State,” European Journal of Political Research 16: 365–​80. Sharpe, L. J. (1993). The Rise of Meso-​Government in Europe. London: Sage. Steinmo, S. (2008). “Historical Institutionalism,” in Della Porta, D. and Keating, M. (eds) Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 118–​38. Storper, M. (1997). The Regional World:  Regional Development in a Global Economy. New York: Guilford Press. Storper, M. (2013). Keys to the City: How Economics, Institutions, Social Interaction and Politics Affect Regional Development. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stone, C. (1989). Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Tarrow, S., Katzenstein, P., and Graziano, L. (eds) (1978). Territorial Politics in Industrial Nations. New York: Praeger. Thelen, K. (1999). “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” Annual Review of Political Science 2: 369–​404. Veltz, P. (2008). Des Lieux et des Liens. Essai sur Les Politiques du Territoire à L’heure de la Mondialisation. Paris: Edition de l’Aube. Worms, J.-​P. (1966). “Le Préfet et ses Notables,” Sociologie du Travail 3: 249–​76.

 

 

Pa rt I V

PA RT I E S , E L E C T ION S , A N D  VOT E R S

 

 

Chapter 14

P olitical Repre se ntat i on bringing elections back in Nicolas Sauger

Political representation is the cornerstone of modern democracy. Developed in ancient Rome and throughout the Middle Ages (Lee, 2008; Podlech, 2014), the concept gained momentum in the eighteenth century (Manin, 1995) as the process by which an individual or a group of individuals (the representative) is designated to take decisions on behalf of a larger set of people (the represented) for collective choices. In this regard, representation is often considered today to be a process of delegation where the represented is the principal and the representative its agent (Przeworski et al., 1999; Bergman et al., 2003). From this broad definition, political representation has been approached in many different ways. At the crossroads between political theory and comparative politics,1 the definitions are innumerable. Research about political representation entails at least three distinct lines of inquiry. The very first question raised is about the resemblance between representatives and represented. Do they look alike? Are they following the same goals? Do representatives actually act for the benefit of those represented and how can the latter make the former comply with their wishes? The second line of questioning deals with the legitimacy of and the belief in the representation linkage. Do the represented actually feel represented? Are they satisfied? How do the representatives perceive their role? The third line of questioning looks at the mechanisms by which representation is created. It explores the institutional, social, and political processes by which some individuals become representatives and the impact of these mechanisms on the two former dimensions. Of course, all these questions have been asked both in normative (what should be) and positive (what is in real life) terms. Until recently, representation was linked mostly with the dynamics of the electoral process. Representative democracy has indeed been described as a chain of delegation, in parliamentary democracies at least. Members of Parliament entrust most of their discretion in collective decision-​making to the government in the same way voters delegate their sovereignty to the parliament (Strøm et al., 2006). Political representation occurs

 

308   Nicolas Sauger outside the central chain of delegation in political systems as well. Recent developments in participatory and advocacy democracy have led to, for instance, deliberative assemblies where citizens are represented (Cain et al., 2006). Access to this type of representation is even more varied than the institutions of the electoral process (Nagel and Smith, 2013). It encompasses lottery, self-​selection, and more traditional designation processes such as nomination, co-optation, and election. Beyond these diverging approaches and varying loci of the study of political representation, this chapter focuses on the developments of political representation in France, with an explicit emphasis on representation through elections. After a more thorough definition of representation (section 1), the French case will be put into perspective (section 2). Section 3 then develops the discussion by providing suggestions about areas where our knowledge about representation in France could be improved and how this may lead to a better understanding of the concept in a more general perspective. A brief conclusion ends the chapter.

Political Representation: Norms and Models Although the idea was invented outside the democratic context, the concept of political representation is now generally understood within the framework of representative democracy. As such, Pitkin’s definition of representation as “making present again” (Pitkin, 1972), that is the inclusion of people’s preferences in collective decisions, is generally accepted (Runciman and Vieira, 2008; Shapiro et al., 2010). This inclusion can, however, take different forms. It can be understood as an explicit and a priori consent by citizens to the delegation of their sovereignty by a mechanism often called “authorization.” It can also refer to the ex post evaluation of actions taken in name of the people, by another mechanism often called “accountability.” The interplay between authorization and accountability is not simple. In a democratic process, they represent the starting point and the end of the electoral cycle. However, they often entail trade-​offs because they are based on either forward-​looking or backward-​looking perspectives. These concepts have led to the first important framework in our contemporary understanding of political representation, based on the fourfold distinction by Pitkin (1972). This framework will be briefly introduced before presenting contemporary advances in the understanding of the concept.

Varieties of Representation: Pitkin’s Legacy Pitkin (1972) offered a breakthrough in the study of political representation. Dismissing earlier approaches as evasive, her main contribution was probably her claim that the contradictory character of the concept should be the basis of its understanding. Without

 

Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    309 providing keys to their relations, she claimed that representation has different dimensions. Being aware of these various meanings of representation, varying in accordance with contexts, was the solution for assessing the quality of representation. She thus proposed to disentangle four approaches to political representation. By formalistic representation, Pitkin referred to the institutional arrangements that create representation. It specifically entails authorization, the process by which the representative obtains her position. It mostly refers to the electoral process but could also apply to the accession to cabinet positions as well. The electoral system, broadly defined, or the rules of government formation and investiture are key examples here. Representation in this area can be assessed by reference to more general concepts such as fairness—​do institutions treat fairly all actors for the accession to this kind of position?—​or freedom. In addition to authorization, formalistic representation also includes accountability mechanisms. They require monitoring regimes, to gather information on the behavior and choices of the representative, and how to sanction deviations. Actual representation can be achieved if political systems have sufficient clarity (Powell and Whitten, 1993)—​ that is, if they enable voters to give credit to or blame representatives for specific actions or outcomes—​and if voters constitute a credible threat to the representative. Symbolic representation, for Pitkin, is the ways in which a representative stands for those she represents and the acceptance, for those represented, of the role of the representative. This dimension is closely linked to the idea of legitimacy and how it is created. Convention, symbols, myths, and rituals are of course important tools in establishing this type of representation. Trust in government is typically an indicator of effective representation in this case. By descriptive representation, Pitkin proposes to understand the extent to which the representative resembles those she represents. Ethnicity, gender, and professional background have been widely used indicators to measure the gap between the two. But descriptive representation may also be based on similarity in values, attitudes, and preferences. Pitkin emphasizes the existence of a trade-​off between descriptive representation and accountability. Contrary to descriptive representation, substantive representation does not focus on the characteristics of the representatives but rather on his/​her actions. Substantive representation is driven by the extent to which the policy outcomes to which the representative contributes are in line with the preferences and/​or interests of the represented. In this area, policy decisions are often compared with electoral outcomes or opinion polls to assess the extent to which governments are responsive to changes in voters’ preferences.

Delegate vs. Trustee and Models of Representation Just as Pitkin highlighted some trade-​offs between the various dimensions of representation, the literature has also been structured by the delineation of models embodying opposite definitions of the concept.

 

310   Nicolas Sauger Debates between two visions of political representation have structured the understanding of democratic elections. On one hand, the delegate vision of representation assumes that representatives should act as an individual incarnation of those represented. No difference is expected between the choices of the representatives and the preferences of their constituent. In the United States, The Federalist Papers in 178–​88 (Hamilton et  al., 2010)  articulated such a view; Rousseau, in France, had proposed an even more radical perspective twenty years before (Rousseau and Bernardi, 2011), describing representatives as “simple officers acting in the name of the people.” On the other hand, the trustee vision understands representation as a process that preserves the autonomy of judgment of the representative. Burke, for instance, is famous for claiming that representatives have to do what they think best, in accordance with circumstances, whatever the opinion of their constituents (Burke and Mitchell, 2009). A historical illustration of this debate is the issue of the imperative mandate. The imperative mandate is an institutional setting that binds representatives by mandatory instructions (Rosanvallon, 2001; 2003). It has been enforced once in France, during the Commune (1871). It is also linked to the recall in some US states, by which the population can dismiss at any moment their local representative by a vote. Most countries would, however, not recognize the imperative mandate as a legitimate form of electoral representation today, the possibility even being constitutionally banned in several countries such as Germany, Spain, and France (for the latter, Article 27 of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic). This debate about the type of linkage between voters and their representatives was complemented by a second issue, that is who is represented. Two types of orientations can be differentiated: a district/​constituent-​oriented representation and a state/​national interest-​oriented representation (Eulau et al., 1959; Mansbridge, 2011). Representatives can be either seen as representatives of their districts (or voters) or of the nation as a whole. In a pluralistic view, the former perspective assumes that the general will comes from the competition of various interests while the latter posits a competition among different views of the general interest (Rehfeld, 2008). The role of representatives is thus either to articulate interests or to aggregate them (Lawson and Poguntke, 2004). Seeing each representative as aiming at the general interest is considered as a key feature of a French myth of political representation (Rosanvallon, 2002). In any case, these dichotomies should be regarded as ideal types. Trustees could be portrayed rather as “paternalistic aristocrats” (Mansbridge, 1983); conversely, delegates would suppose the existence of a knowledge of voters’ opinions, which are often considered elusive. Hence, the need to go beyond this early approach to representation has led to new approaches to the concept. These two core distinctions in the understanding of political representation (delegate vs. trustee; specific vs. general interest) have been combined so as to create a more general typology of political representation (Rehfeld, 2009). It is Mansbridge, however, who produced the most important efforts at rethinking representation (Mansbridge, 2003). Mansbridge started by grouping the two initial models into a single model, promissory representation. The delegate does in fact promise to comply with constituents’

 

Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    311 instructions. The trustee promises to push voters’ interests. Both models are indeed based on an initial promise in the founding authorization step. Re-​election is then contingent upon the extent to which voters are satisfied with the representative’s fulfillment of her promises. Anticipatory representation focuses on representatives’ actions rather than authorization. In this type of representation, Mansbridge delineates a system where the decisions taken by a representative anticipate voters’ reactions in the next election. Consistent with the idea of retrospective voting (Fiorina, 1981), anticipatory representation relies on the responsiveness of the representatives to voters’ wishes. But Mansbridge underlines the importance of communication, with representatives and constituents trying to educate, persuade, and influence each other over the electoral cycle. With gyroscopic representation, authorization plays a greater role than accountability. Representatives are expected to behave predictably, because they base their decisions on consciences, principles, and common sense. In this regard, representatives’ actions do not depend on external monitoring. In the authorization phase, voters choose in accordance with the similarity of motivations, allowing then a large discretion to representatives between elections. Observable cues (personality, character, descriptive characteristics, party identification, etc.) and heuristics play a key role in voters selecting representatives who can be trusted to make choices that the voter would have made for herself in similar conditions, because they are of the same “type.” Finally, surrogate representation leaves room for interests that lie beyond representatives’ constituencies. For Mansbridge, its critical role was to give representation to voters who lose in their own districts. More generally, surrogate representation detaches representation from the authorization/​accountability mechanisms. In majoritarian systems in particular it gives voice to under-​represented interests, thus preventing feelings of alienation and loss of trust from the minority in the institutions (Anderson et al., 2007). It is at odds, however, with the usual understanding of representation as a principal–​ agent relation. In Mansbridge’s work, as in former conceptualizations, models of representation are ideal-​types, which empirically are not mutually exclusive. Models are in fact more cumulative than oppositional, representatives being able to change their style over time and across different settings. What is important in Mansbridge is the idea that representation can develop outside the traditional promissory model. Accountability is not always a key characteristic, as it is in the gyroscopic model. She also underlined that political trust does not play the same role in all models. If it is not particularly important in the promissory model, because effective sanction is possible, gyroscopic and surrogate representation cannot be conceived without a strong confidence in representatives. She emphasized, too, that these various models fit different contexts. Anticipatory representation makes it possible for rapid adaptation to a changing environment while the gyroscopic model accommodates un​crystallized interests and preferences, when a consensus exist about the general goals but no deliberation has enabled the formation of clear policy options.

 

312   Nicolas Sauger

Representation by Political Parties Representatives are not always individuals. With modern democracy, political parties have been key in representing voters. Comparative politics and political history have emphasized this more than political theory, which is still largely framed by the view of a direct and individual link between voters and their representatives within districts. Schattschneider probably provided the most explicit statement that representative democracy was based on representation through parties (Schattschneider, 1960). But the role of parties has changed throughout time, from periphery with the cadre party of the late nineteenth century to center in the era of mass parties after the Second World War (Manin, 1995). Yet some claim that parties have largely abandoned this function of voters’ representation to act today more like agents of the state (Katz and Mair, 1995). From the same perspective, the role of parties in representation is also linked to the concept of party identification. The concept, cornerstone of the Michigan school of electoral studies, supposed a long-​term attachment of voters to parties through an actual identification process. In Europe in general and in France in particular, debates have raged on whether such party identification exists. If Converse and Pierce (1986) found that party identification worked in France as in the United States, ideology and especially the position on a left–​right scale has been seen considered as more important by others (Fleury and Lewis-​Beck, 1993), leaving thus less space for parties that have been characterized by their limited social anchorage and by their instability. Conversely, parties cannot always been considered as unitary actors (Offerlé, 2012). Internal dissent has long been a French characteristic, although the rationalized parliamentarianism of the Fifth Republic has brought cohesion close to a maximum (Rosenthal and Voeten, 2004; Sauger, 2009b). Yet party splits and mergers are still a regular feature of French politics (Sauger, 2009c).

Political Representation Beyond Elections and the Nation State Representation, as it has been described so far, is mostly linked to electoral politics. If this is the core focus of this chapter, two important contemporary evolutions of political representation should be underlined because they also loop back on how representation through elections is considered. Political representation is no longer conceived as confined to the electoral arena. Representation outside elections has been granted more importance in recent decades, with a shifting focus to social movements for instance. In this regard, representation is not only about aggregating interests, but also about manifesting the plurality of interests. Urbinati, for instance, has proposed seeing representation as advocacy (Urbinati, 2008). Mobilization becomes a key feature. It underlines the crucial role of disagreement in democracy. It also emphasizes that opinions and interests vary. This has direct

 

Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    313 resonance with how public opinion is shaped. With thermostatic dynamics (Soroka and Wlezien, 2009), representation of opinions that mechanically evolve against the direction of government actions becomes problematic. Globalization and the end of the fiction of a purely sovereign and independent state have changed our view of representation as well. The question is raised of representation in supranational bodies, from European Union institutions—​which still mimic, to some extent, the representative regime—​to various international regimes and organizations. Light is also shed on the external constraints on representatives’ behaviors and choices. The hollowing out of the state questions the very meaning of national representation (Mair, 2013).

Political Representation in France Political representation in France can be fruitfully approached from these different perspectives on representation. In this section, we first start with a general overview of the literature on representation in France, and then look at the dynamics of representation in this country.

French Perspectives on Political Representation Looking back at the literature developed in France about representation, the history of the concept is largely the history of the discipline (Favre, 1989). It has mainly been dependent on the developments of neighboring disciplines—​history, law, and sociology especially—​but has remained quite disconnected from institutional developments. It is, for instance, remarkable that, in a country used to changing and amending constitutions and electoral systems, so little has been written on the impact of institutions on representation. Parity laws have been the great exception in this regard. To a large extent, most contributions to the study of representation in France have started with the assumption that they had to depart from legal perspectives based on electoral processes. It is indeed in this tradition that what are still the most influential contributions to the study of representation in France were made. On one hand, Duverger’s work on political parties and electoral systems (Duverger, 1951)  contributed to the creation of the whole subfield of electoral systems and representation. His book was the first effort at systematizing the consequences of electoral laws on patterns of party competition. Although comparative in its approach, this book was largely anchored in French debates about institutions, with regard to the legacy of the two-​ round run-​off system for the stability of the Third Republic. On the other hand, Political Representation in France from Converse and Pierce (1986)2 focused more on individual electoral behavior and the congruence between voters and their representatives. Once again, this book depended heavily on the context

 

314   Nicolas Sauger in which it was developed, that is, the May 1968 protests. This book has recently been echoed by a large-​scale study of political representation, CITREP,3 which has aimed to understand the congruence between and feeling of representation in a comparative study of France and Germany (Brouard, Costa, et al., 2013; Brouard, Kerrouche, et al., 2013; Dageförde, 2014). Yet, most of the contemporary literature about representation in France stands explicitly against, or at least on the margins of, this literature. Three major strands of research have been dominant since the 1980s. Standing at the crossroads between history and philosophy, the first of these three strands has been embodied by two particularly influential French scholars; Pierre Rosanvallon and Bernard Manin. Rosanvallon has been key in proposing a thorough analysis of the developments of political representation in France, from the Revolution of 1789 until now (Rosanvallon, 2001; 2002; 2003; 2006). In this work, Rosanvallon proposes an “intellectual history” of democracy and how it has shaped our understanding of such key concepts as popular sovereignty. In a longer-​term perspective, Bernard Manin has also contributed to the history of the concept of representation, notably in showing how, historically, representation and democracy have been considered as contradictory terms since the Middle Ages (Manin, 1995). These two authors represent the two most prominent figures in an intense effort at understanding the invention and transformations of representative democracy, building on the rich history of France. In this vein, one of the most active seminars on political representation in France is the AFSP’s GRePo, which has a particular emphasis on historicity.4 The second important strand of research has been coined by Bourdieu’s work on political representation. In this perspective, representation has to be deconstructed. Representation is in fact a claim of representativeness from the elite; representativeness which should be questioned. Bourdieu has coined this understanding of representation by saying that it should be understood as a “symbolic coup” (Bourdieu, 1984). Representation is a claim aiming at legitimizing the elite. Hence, a large body of the French literature on representation is in fact framed as studies of legitimacy. Once again, the history of the development of universal suffrage has been largely mobilized in this regard (Huard, 1992; Gaxie, 1978). A more contemporary approach tries to show how representation and legitimacy are “created,” with a more direct look at practices and interactions between the represented and their representatives (Mazeaud, 2014). The third strand of research that has to be mentioned is linked to a more empiricist current; to the study of social movements and public policy scholars. The edited book by d’Arcy is probably the cornerstone of this strand (d’Arcy, 1985). This book is one the first to make explicit the claim of switching the emphasis from political representation to sociological representation. With this book, interest representation is particularly underlined, in an attempt to accommodate the idea of neo-​corporatism to France. Unions, social movements, and networks of local policymakers all contribute to representation. What is common to most of these approaches is the idea that representation is a process by which the community is created. Inverting the usual view of representation as delegation, representation here is constitutive of the political and social community.

 

Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    315 In this regard, elections and electoral institutions are only a peripheral aspect of representation. They do, however, constitute the core body of knowledge that we have about France, which is reviewed next.

Formalistic Representation in France Formalistic representation focuses mainly on the institutional mechanisms of authorization and accountability. In this regard, France has from a comparative perspective two main characteristics (Brouard et al., 2009; Grossman and Sauger, 2009b): its electoral system, based on two-​round elections; and the general architecture of its regime, based on a semi-​presidential model. The combination of both of these contributes to a majoritarian semi-​presidential system. In terms of electoral systems, France can be associated with two-​round elections (Blais and Loewen, 2009; Golder, 2005). If multi-​round elections were quite common throughout the nineteenth century, France departed from the norm with the Fifth Republic where almost all elections are now of two rounds (with the exception of the election for the European Parliament), though this type of system has been abandoned in most other countries, except for presidential elections (Golder, 2005). Two-​round elections are used in the form of majority run-​off elections for the presidential race, run-​off with varying thresholds to access to the second round for legislative elections, and even two-​round mixed electoral systems with a framework of proportional election with a majority bonus for local governments (both municipal and regional, see Bedock and Sauger, 2014). Despite these different systems, all lead toward very disproportional outcomes (Sauger, 2007). French legislative elections have, indeed, been characterized as highly disproportional by world standards. Carey and Hix (2011) examined 609 elections since 1945 in 81 countries considered democratic according to the Polity IV index. Disproportionality is computed via Gallagher’s least squares index (Gallagher, 1991). Retabulating the French data from their data set5 by omitting the 1986 elections held under a proportional system, we find an average Gallagher index of disproportionality value of 15.8 for French legislative elections held under the run-​off rule. We must look outside the set of OECD nations to find the seven out of the other 80 countries in the Carey and Hix data set (Jamaica, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mongolia, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea) with a higher average disproportionality than France in parliamentary elections for the lower chamber. Looking at individual elections, only 59 out of 609 elections in the Carey and Hix data set reached a disproportionality level above the French average. Most of these high values occurred in non-​consolidated democracies. Elections in Canada (1949, 1958, 1984, 1993), New Zealand (1981, 1990, 1993), and the United Kingdom (1983, 1997, 2001) are the only Western cases to exceed the French average. The second key characteristic of formalistic representation France lies in its semi-​ presidential architecture. The prime minister and the government are responsible to the lower Chamber of Parliament; the president is directly elected and has significant

 

316   Nicolas Sauger influence on policy decisions. This has attracted considerable scholarly attention (Elgie, 1999; 2009), France being the case that led to the concept of semi-​presidentialism being invented (Duverger 1978; 1986). The existence of a dual channel of representation in this context was initially seen as accommodating two different types of representation. The president was to embody the country, being both a symbol of the national unity and a guardian in times of crisis. The Parliament and the government were expected to reflect partisan politics, in the manner of classical promissory representation. However, the situation drifted rapidly away from this idea. By the 1960s, the of the role of the president had been politicized (Donégani and Sadoun, 1998; Grossman and Sauger, 2009a). This led to presidential domination, until its full institutionalization by the double reform of the early 2000s, with the shortening of the presidential mandate from 7 to 5 years, now aligned on the legislative term, and the so-​called inversion of the electoral calendar. In 2002, the presidential election should have taken place a few weeks after the legislative elections. The Socialist government led by Lionel Jospin finally decided to postpone the date of the legislative elections until a few weeks after the unchanged timing of the presidential race (Dupoirier and Sauger, 2010). With its semi-​presidential regime, France also “invented” a specific type of divided government, namely cohabitation, where the Presidency and the majority in the lower Chamber are held by two opposing blocs (Parodi, 1997). This case of directly concurrent representation led to important debates about preeminence and more generally the role of the president. Despite her direct election, the president has been forced back to her initial standing in the case of cohabitation. The question of accountability in this context has been forcefully raised, because of the lack of institutional clarity (Grossman, 2009). Empirically, it appears that a president has higher chances of reelection when experiencing a period of divided government; governments can be thus seen as accountable for their decisions, but the effective sanction of the president is less likely.

Symbolic Representation in France French political science has paid close attention to the symbolic dimension of representation for a long time. The sociology and anthropology of elections as political practices have emphasized the role of elections not only as means of choosing representatives but also of conferring legitimacy upon them. Elections have, furthermore, been understood as the representation of the nation itself, with electoral procedures contributing to the nation-​building process and the consolidation of the republic throughout the nineteenth century. Elections are in this sense one of the most important “republican feasts” (Ihl, 1996; Déloye and Ihl, 2008). The very technologies of electoral practices (polling station, ballot box, the ballots themselves, and so on) have had a crucial role in this perspective, making present what remains otherwise virtual or a fiction. Hence, we notice important resistance in public and academic debates to the possible dematerialization of these procedures (through postal ballots, machines, or e-​voting for instance) precisely

 

Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    317 because the act of voting (rather than choosing) is seen as the core of representation, because of the perception of collective participation. Pushing further the conception of representation as a symbolic construction, Bourdieu (1981) himself wrote unambiguously about political representation. Representation, for Bourdieu, and following a rather Marxian ethos, was a form of domination; a form of social relations that aims to perpetuate social and political positions. The interesting paradox, for Bourdieu, was that the logic of representation pushes representatives of those who are dominated to build such relations of domination and capital concentration within the organizations that try to defend their interests. From a more modern perspective, the style of representation has been also looked into. In the case of local office holders, Daloz, for instance, has depicted how representatives have to play in two distinct, but not easily compatible, registers: proving and transcending proximity (Daloz, 2008). In other words, French politicians have to accommodate both the republican ideal of equality and the aristocratic nature of the election. Presidents and presidential campaigns have largely reflected these contradicting figures. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, president from 1974 to 1981, has left immutable memories of him playing the accordion, while in 2012 François Hollande tried to convince voters that he would be a “normal President,” in a nicely sketched oxymoron (Grossman and Sauger, 2014). Voters’ perspectives on political representation provide a similar image (Rozenberg, 2013), and constituency work remains an important way of creating linkage (Brouard et al., 2013). If so much attention has been paid to how representatives build their legitimacy, this is also probably because for decades trust in politicians has been low in France. In accordance with data from the European social survey (round 6, data weighted for sample design), on an eleven-​point scale of trust (with 0 meaning no trust at all and 10 complete trust), the average trust in politicians in France registers a low of 3.18, and trust in political parties records an even lower score of 3.15. Yet declining trust in government is a trend observable in many consolidated democracies. The situation in the UK is not that different (average of 3.66 and 3.69 respectively) or Germany (3.78 and 3.75 respectively). In this regard, these countries seem to be in between those of Northern Europe (for instance Norwegians trust their politicians with an average of 5.10) and Southern Europe (Italian do so at a level of only 1.94). Anyway, government ratings have been declining in France, each of the last four presidents having broken the record to become the most unpopular president in history. In 2014, just 16 percent6 of citizens were confident in President Hollande’s ability to cope with problems in France.

Descriptive Representation in France In its descriptive dimension, representation is based on the similarity between the representative and her constituent. As noted previously, this proximity is a claim which is not always verified in terms of socio-​political background, for instance. Studies of the socio-​ economic background of the French political elite have been a recurrent area of inquiry

 

318   Nicolas Sauger in France. After the foundational Le député français (Cayrol et al., 1973), which represented the first systematic effort to collect data on French MPs, a number of projects have updated these statistics (Sineau and Tiberj, 2007; Costa and Kerrouche, 2007). The general conclusions are unambiguous. The French political elite is also a social (rather than economic) elite, recruiting largely from the ranks of professionals and civil servants (especially the alumni of the famous Ecole Nationale d’Administration). Farmers have now almost disappeared from the National Assembly (they comprised about 12 percent of MPs in 1958), and blue-​collar workers have almost always been in short supply. As in other countries, representatives have increasingly become professional politicians, accumulating party positions and various political offices. That said, the cumul des mandats—​the practice of holding different political offices at the same time, for instance being an MP and the chief executive of a local government—​has been portrayed as being particularly specific to France (Navarro and François, 2013). A key issue in French politics in terms of descriptive representation has been the question of women’s representation around the debate of the so-​called parity laws (Bereni and Revillard, 2007; Praud and Dauphin, 2011; Murray, 2010). If women were excluded from politics until the end of the Second World War in France (with universal suffrage enacted only in 1944), they have had a leading role in the implementation of quotas to ensure the political representation of women, with legislation passed in 1999–​ 2000. Despite these rules, women remain in a minority. In 2012, only 26 percent of the members of the National Assembly were women, 22 percent for senators (2011), and 14 percent for mayors (2008). This is explained by the provisions of the law and an electoral system that is largely based on single-​member districts. Parity applies fully only to list systems, such as regional elections (48 percent of regional councilors are women), although the new law for departmental elections, which was first applied in 2015, was an innovation in terms of the provision of closed lists of one female and one male candidate, seats being attributed by a run-​off system.7 Only one woman has been prime minister—​Edith Cresson, for one year in 1991–​2. Women are not only the only severely underrepresented minority. In addition, minority ethnic groups and handicapped persons are still largely excluded from political offices (Avanza, 2010). The reason for this situation comes from difficulties in terms of both the recruitment and selection of candidates within parties. For instance, in 2002, 39 percent of the candidates for the legislative election were women, dropping to 23 percent of those present in the run-​off, and to 12.5 percent of elected candidates. Changing modes of candidate selection within parties, such as the diffusion of party primaries or at least democratic selection, has not changed the situation a great deal.

Substantive Representation in France The analysis of substantive representation offers a paradoxical situation in France. It is the area, along with the history and philosophy of representation, where France has produced a major reference work (Converse and Pierce, 1986). Yet, the book has received little attention in France itself, because its authors were American and because it came

 

Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    319 almost twenty years after its fieldwork was completed. Converse and Pierce’s book could have been seminal; Outside the United States, it is probably the most notable attempt at testing the Miller–​Stokes theory of congruence (Miller and Stokes, 1963). This theory is still a landmark in contemporary empirical political science in the way it aims to define representation linkage. The focus is on the degree to which individual congressmen represent their constituencies, and its perspective is influence from below—​from voters to representatives. It fits nicely the single-​member district electoral system in France, but the case provides interesting insights in a country with a multi-​party system and where ideology is thought to be prevalent over party identification. Its empirical design is innovative in Europe, with a dual sample composed of voters on one hand and elites on the other. The problem is that Converse and Pierce’s study was commenced in 1967. Less than a year later, the massive May 1968 demonstrations occurred. This led the authors to try to account for the changes these events had on the political processes, by interrogating voters in the elections of 1968. Converse and Pierce’s main conclusion is, rather unsurprisingly, that congruence is highest between higher-​status voters and the elite. Converse and Pierce’s massive effort has not been reproduced since, but we are observing an increase in studies related to this issue of congruence. These aim at a better understanding of the relation between public opinion and public policies. On one hand, the impact of public policies in shaping public opinion has been specifically analyzed, the main conclusion being, as in the United States, that public opinion is thermostatic (Stimson et al., 2012). As in physics, public opinion resists change. Demands taken into account by those in power often lead to a change in public opinion in the opposite direction. Yet this seems to apply more to domains linked to economic issues; on moral issues liberal policies on abortion, the death penalty, and same-​sex marriage have not prevented the continuous progress of more liberal ideas. The impact of public opinion on policies, on the other hand, has been more difficult to discern. Patterns of public spending are remote from a general influence of the orientation of the government (Baumgartner et al., 2006; 2009). Responsiveness appears to be limited, probably because voters remain ignorant, uninterested, or undecided on a large number of policy issues (Sauger, 2009a). This general overview of what we know about political representation in France can lead us to ask the following. What are the new (or old) avenues for research that can be identified for, on one hand, actually grasping the political malaise that is very clear in France, and, on the other, reconnecting the French research with the international literature? We propose in the next section three main areas for both these aims.

Challenges in the Study of Representation: The Way Forward So far, we have shown that knowledge about representation in France appears to be quite extensive, although the French and international literature are seldom connected. We identify in the following some areas where these connections could be made,

 

320   Nicolas Sauger delineating thus a research agenda based on the assumption of potential positive feedback loops between the French case, French approaches, and more international mainstream developments.

Institutional Manipulation and Representation The Fifth Republic follows a strong majoritarian logic. It gives the leading bloc an almost certain working majority. The electoral system is highly disproportional and the legislative procedure has been rationalized (Huber, 1996) so as to give complete control to the government and force party cohesion (Sauger, 2009b). What is also striking with the Fifth Republic is that this majority position seems to have often been used as a means to consolidate itself. The majority bloc was given large advantages between 1988 and 1995, for instance by party funding proportional to results in the legislative elections (François and Sauger, 2006) and by having almost complete control of the redistricting process (Sauger, 2009c). The only two general redistricting plans since 1958 (1986 and 2009) were passed through decree laws. The inversion of the electoral calendar, the change to proportional representation in 1985 and the quick return to a majoritarian system in 1986, and the announcement right after the massive electoral defeat in the municipal elections in 2014 that regional elections scheduled in 2015 were likely to be postponed because of a reform of the territorial structure are all indicators of strategic manipulation of the institutional system for electoral advantages. France is indeed one of the countries with a record of frequent changes in the core institutions of democratic representation (Bedock et al., 2012). The analysis of institutional change has received more and more attention in recent years (Renwick, 2010; Pilet, 2006). The overarching question is the extent to which these changes reflect power-​maximization strategies, ideologies, and the appeal to voters for more inclusive forms of political participation, which, once on the agenda, are difficult to oppose (Bedock, 2014). Documenting in detail and explaining reforms of the institutions of representation in France would certainly be a significant contribution both to the field of representation in France and to institutional change.

The “Crisis of Representation” A recurrent question when working on representation in France is the issue of the “crisis of representation.” Numerous papers have considered this subject (Perrineau, 2003; Shields, 2006), though the issue is as old as the French republic (Mineur and Donegani, 2010). This debate has been fueled by worries about declining political participation, not only in terms of electoral turnout but also engagement in political parties, with declining trust in government and the rise of protest politics, especially those of the National Front, causes of concern. April 21, 2002, when the National Front leader Jean-​Marie

 

Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    321 Le Pen came second in the first round of the presidential election, has been particularly symbolic of this feeling of crisis. May 25, 2014, when the lists supported by the new leader of the National Front, Marine Le Pen (the daughter of Jean-​Marie) came first at the European election may represent a second shock, although this time the news did not bring massive demonstrations against the FN on the streets. While the National Front for long been under the close scrutiny of political scientists (Mayer and Perrineau, 1996; Mayer, 2002; Dézé, 2012), these new developments certainly call for renewed attention. The key question, in this regard, is whether the National Front and its voters are on a path of “normalization,” as has occurred in several other European countries with formerly extreme right-​wing parties, or if it still stands for a wholesale change of the political system. More generally, the crisis of representation in France has had several worrying indicators. No bloc has managed to secure a second election since 1981 (with the very special exception of 2007); electoral volatility is strong The feeling of alienation is high as well, with, for instance, 87 percent of French citizens thinking that political elites do not care about what people like themselves think.8 Interestingly, Rosanvallon, through his concept of “counter-​democracy” (Rosanvallon, 2006), has shown that these trends of dissatisfaction with democracy can in fact be explained by “democratic” developments in other areas, thanks to new media, new forms of consultation, and a general imperative of irreverence toward authorities. As others have shown (Manin, 1995), the crisis of representation is then first and foremost a crisis of representative democracy, but a crisis which does not endanger the very principle of democracy. The paradox is also that the extension of electoral democracy has probably undermined representation. European elections and the multiplication of local elections and referendums may have contributed to weakening the value of the vote, both in terms of norms and importance. Research on the effects of this type of election and what people think about representation and how they behave in elections would be worthwhile. Rather than assuming fixed models of, for instance, representative democracy vs. participatory democracy, the context of a crisis of representation should be considered as a particular opportunity to observe the transformations of the models of representation. The demise of electoral democracy is unlikely, at least on the short term. Understanding how voters consider what should be the new representation ideals and how representatives should adapt their norms and behaviors to this changing situation is certainly an important area for research. Brouard, Costa, Kerrouche, and their team have recently made significant progress in this direction (Brouard, Kerrouche, et al., 2013; Brouard, Costa, et al., 2013). A further step could be the understanding of how new models of representation such as the gyroscopic model can shed light on contemporary dynamics.

Representation after the Great Recession A third and related area for future research is representation after the great recession. The economic crisis of the early 2010s has had a tremendous impact. Two areas at least

 

322   Nicolas Sauger are worthy of notice. First, a new cleavage has become more acute between what have been called the winners and losers of globalization (Kriesi et al., 2008). More precisely, this now takes the form of a cleavage between losers and non-​losers of welfare state retrenchment and states’ limited financial resources. It especially means, contrary to the time prior to the crisis, that, for instance, civil servants have experienced cuts in their salaries and may have moved toward the losers’ side. Second, the crisis has changed expectations toward the state, both because of its budgetary limitations but also because of the increasingly visible impact of supra-​national bodies, notably the European Union. The economic crisis seems not to have had any tremendous electoral impact in France, the 2012 elections being only moderately influenced by the economic context (Sauger, 2014). The European elections of 2014 may have changed the situation, however. Beyond electoral fortunes, the important questions this raises deal with the perception and the role of national representation in a context of transnationalization. These changes mean that classical accountability has to be considered now as a fiction. The question is about the way people accommodate various levels of governments; with governance rather than government; with politics outside the promissory model. Gyroscopic representation is more adapted to this now fluctuating context of practicing politics; surrogate representation becomes more important as larger portions of population are again excluded from political representation, either because they are migrants or for sociological reasons of differential abstention. In a normative perspective, it is now important to determine whether political representation is following this path of necessary change or whether real-​world dynamics and patterns of political representation continue to diverge.

Conclusion As we have seen, political representation is a very broad issue, touching upon many fields of political science. As such, any attempt at a synthesis of the literature about France will certainly have a numbers of gaps and shortcomings. This chapter in particular has not covered extensively the more recent developments in the political theory of representation in France, despite the lively debates in this area (see for instance Hayat and Sintomer, 2013). However, three general observations do emerge: the empirical literature about representation in France remains quite disconnected from the contemporary theoretical and comparative literature on the issue; representation in France is quite well documented, even if we still lack the long-​term data-​collection projects needed to precisely understand the shifting patterns of representation; and the sociological and symbolic dimensions of representation are an area of particular interest in France, substantive representation being rather on the periphery of scholarly attention. With regard to this overview, this chapter has tried to show that studying representation from an electoral perspective is still relevant and that the agenda for research remains open in this direction. The new fields of representation, especially that of participatory forms of

 

Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    323 democracy, are indisputably of interest, although their study should not lead to too pronounced a neglect of the other fields of research. From a comparative perspective, France’s sometimes peculiar institutional features could probably be employed more in order to gain a broader understanding of representation. The two-​round format of elections, for instance, provides significant opportunities (Indridason, 2008), as do the patterns of partial coincidence of election timing (Fauvelle-​Aymar and Lewis-​Beck, 2008). France is one of the oldest democracies with a bipolarized but fragmented party system, but with significant fringe parties. Yet, as the French literature does not build very much on comparative contributions, France is seldom used as a test case. And, when this does happen, as with Converse and Pierce’s study (1986), the reach of the study remains limited. Conversely, the imprint of Bourdieu’s works on representation, though extremely influential in the French literature, has had limited impact elsewhere, especially when compared to his influence in other fields of sociology. All in all, the main exception is probably Bernard Manin’s book, The Principles of Representative Government (1995), even though France as a case is far from central there. The book is one of political theory; the mix between history and political theory appears to be the main contribution of the French literature. Moving to an empirical and methodological point of view, it should also be emphasized that work on representation in France is still largely focused on archives and interviews. If opinion surveys have also documented feelings of representation in France, newer and more innovative approaches are yet to be invented. Experimental approaches seem to be particularly relevant in this regard. Field experiments such as direct controlled mailing to representatives to observe response rates or laboratory experiments monitoring feelings toward representation in accordance with the dynamics of a fictitious electoral campaign offer promising new avenues of inquiry.

Notes 1. In the Oxford Handbook series, a whole section of four chapters is dedicated to political representation in Dalton and Klingemann’s Political Behavior (Dalton and Klingemann, 2009). Notice, however, the surprising absence of reference to representation both in chapters titles and even index keys in the Political Theory volume (Dryzek et al., 2008). 2. We include Converse and Pierce’s book in the review of the French literature, despite the facts neither author is francophone and the book was not published in French, though the sole focus of the book is France. 3. A presentation of the project can be found at: (accessed on April 24, 2015). 4. See the presentation of this seminar at: (accessed on April 24, 2015). 5. Available at (accessed on January 18, 2014). 6. Popularity rating come from TNS Sofres: (accessed in May 2014).

 

324   Nicolas Sauger 7. This new electoral system has been called the scrutin binomal paritaire (gender-​balanced binominal system). 8. Trust barometer, data collected in January 2014: (accessed on April 2014).

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Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    325 Cayrol, R., Parodi, J.-​L., and Ysmal, C. (1973). Le député français. Paris: Armand Colin. Converse, P. E., and Pierce, R. (1986). Political Representation in France. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Costa, O. and Kerrouche, E. (2007). Qui sont les députés français ?: Enquête sur des élites inconnues. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Dageförde, M. (2014). “Citizen-​Elite and Citizen-​Policy Linkages.” SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 2451388. Rochester, NY:  Social Science Research Network. . Daloz, J.-​P. (2008). “Between Majesty and Proximity: The Enduring Ambiguities of Political Representation in France,” French Politics 6(3): 302–​20. Dalton, R. J. and Klingemann, H.-​D. (eds) (2009). The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press. d’Arcy, F. (ed.) (1985). La Représentation. Paris: Economica. Déloye, Y. and Ihl, O. (2008). L’acte de vote. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Dézé, A. (2012). Le Front national : à la conquête du pouvoir ? Paris: Armand Colin. Donégani, J.-​ M. and Sadoun, M. (1998). La Ve République, naissance and mort. Paris: Calmann-​Lévy. Dryzek, J. S., Honig, B., and Phillips, A. (eds) (2008). The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dupoirier, E. and Sauger, N. (2010). “Four Rounds in a Row:  The Impact of Presidential Elections Outcomes on Legislative Elections in France,” French Politics 8(1): 21–​41. Duverger, M. (1951). Les partis politiques. Paris: Armand Colin. Duverger, M. (1978). Echec au roi. Paris: Albin Michel. Duverger, M. (1986). Les régimes semi-​présidentiels. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Elgie, R. (1999). Semi-​Presidentialism in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Elgie, R. (2009). “Duverger, Semi-​presidentialism and the supposed French archetype,” West European Politics 32(2): 248–​67. Eulau, H., Wahlke, J. C., Buchanan, W., and Ferguson, L. C. (1959). “The Role of the Representative: Some Empirical Observations on the Theory of Edmund Burke,” American Political Science Review 53(3): 742–​56. Fauvelle-​Aymar, C. and Lewis-​Beck, M. S. (2008). “TR versus PR: Effects of the French double ballot,” Electoral Studies 27(3): 400–​6. Favre, P. (1989). Naissances de la science politique en France. Paris: Fayard. Fiorina, M. P. (1981). Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven: Yale University Press. Fleury, C. J. and Lewis-​Beck, M. S. (1993). “Anchoring the French Voter: Ideology versus Party,” The Journal of Politics 55(4): 1100–​9. François, A. and Sauger, N. (2006). “Groupes d’intérêt and financement de la vie politique en France: une évaluation des effets de l’interdiction des dons de personnes morales,” Revue française de science politique 56(2): 227–​54. Gallagher, M. (1991). “Proportionality, Disproportionality and Electoral Systems,” Electoral Studies 10(1): 33–​51. Gaxie, D. (1978). Le Cens Caché. Inégalités culturelles and ségrégation politique. Paris: Seuil. Golder, M. (2005). “Democratic Electoral Systems around the World, 1946–​2000,” Electoral Studies 24: 103–​21. Grossman, E. (2009). “The President’s Choice? Government and Cabinet Turnover under the Fifth Republic,” West European Politics 32(2): 268–​86.

 

326   Nicolas Sauger Grossman, E., and Sauger., N. (2009a). “The End of Ambiguity? Presidents vs. Parties or the Four Phases of the Fifth Republic,” West European Politics 32(2): 420–​34. Grossman, E., and Sauger, N., (eds) (2009b). The Institutions of the French 5th Republic at 50. Special issue of West European Politics, 32(2). Grossman, E., and Sauger, N. (2014). “‘Un Président Normal’? Presidential (in-​)action and Unpopularity in the Wake of the Great Recession,” French Politics 12(2): 86–​103. Hamilton, A., Madison, J., and Jay, J. (2010). The Federalist Papers. New York: Tribeca Books. Hayat, S., and Sintomer, Y. (2013). “Repenser la representation politique,” Raisons Politiques 50(2): 5–​11. Huard, R. (1992). Le suffrage universel en France, 1848–​1946. Paris: Editions Aubier. Huber, J. D. (1996). Rationalizing Parliament:  Legislative Institutions and Party Politics in France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ihl, O. (1996). La fête républicaine. Paris: Gallimard. Indridason, I. H. (2008). “Competition & Turnout:  The Majority Run-​off as a Natural Experiment,” Electoral Studies 27(4): 699–​7 10. Katz, R. S. and Mair, P. (1995). “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party,” Party Politics 1(1): 5–​28. Kriesi, H., Grande, E., Lachat, R., Dolezal, M., Bornschier, S., and Frey, T. (2008). West European Politics in the Age of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lawson, K. and Poguntke, T. (eds) (2004). How Political Parties Respond: Interest Aggregation Revisited. London: Routledge. Lee, H.-​Y. (2008). Political Representation in the Later Middle Ages:  Marsilius in Context. New York: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. Mair, P. (2013). Ruling The Void: The Hollowing Of Western Democracy. London: Verso. Manin, B. (1995). Principes du gouvernement représentatif. Paris: Flammarion. Mansbridge, J. J. (1983). Beyond Adversary Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mansbridge, J. J. (2003). “Rethinking representation,” American Political Science Review 97(4): 515–​28. Mansbridge, J. J. (2011). “Clarifying the Concept of Representation,” American Political Science Review 105(3): 621–​30. Mayer, N. (2002). Ces français qui votent Le Pen. Paris: Flammarion. Mayer, N. and Perrineau, P. (eds) (1996). Le Front National à découvert. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Mazeaud, A., (ed.) (2014). Pratiques de la représentation politique. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Miller, W. E. and Stokes, D. E. (1963). “Constituency Influence in Congress,” American Political Science Review 57(1): 45–​56. Mineur, D. and Donegani, J.-​M. (2010). Archéologie de la représentation politique. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Murray, R. (2010). Parties, Gender Quotas and Candidate Selection in France. New  York: Palgrave Macmillan. Nagel, J. H. and Smith, R. M. (2013). Representation:  Elections and Beyond. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Navarro, J. and François, A. (eds) (2013). Le cumul des mandats en France : causes et conséquences. Brussels: Université de Bruxelles. Offerlé, M. (2012). Les partis politiques. 8th edn. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

 

Political Representation: Bringing Elections Back In    327 Parodi, J.-​L. (1997). “Proportionnalisation périodique, cohabitation, atomisation partisane: un triple défi pour le régime semi-​présidentiel de la Cinquième République,” Revue française de science politique 47(3–​4): 292–​312. Perrineau, P. (ed.) (2003). Le désenchantement démocratique. La Tour d’Aigues: Editions de l’Aube. Pilet, J.-​B. (2006). Changer pour gagner?: Les réformes des lois électorales en Belgique. Brussels: Université de Bruxelles. Pitkin, H. F. (1972). The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Podlech, A. (2014). “La représentation:  une histoire du concept,” Trivium. Revue franco-​ allemande de sciences humaines and sociales—​Deutsch-​französische Zeitschrift für Geistes-​ und Sozialwissenschaften, 16. . Powell, G. B. and Whitten, G. D. (1993). “A Cross-​National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context,” American Journal of Political Science 37(2): 391–​414. Praud, J. and Dauphin, S. (2011). Parity Democracy: Women’s Political Representation in Fifth Republic France. Vancouver: UBC Press. Przeworski, A., Stokes, S. C., and Manin, B. (eds) (1999). Democracy, Accountability, and Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rehfeld, A. (2008). The Concept of Constituency:  Political Representation, Democratic Legitimacy, and Institutional Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rehfeld, A. (2009). “Representation Rethought: On Trustees, Delegates, and Gyroscopes in the Study of Political Representation and Democracy,” The American Political Science Review 103(2): 214–​30. Renwick. A. (2010). The Politics of Electoral Reform. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosanvallon, P. (2001). Le Sacre du citoyen: Histoire du suffrage universel en France. Paris: Folio. Rosanvallon, P. (2002). Le Peuple introuvable : Histoire de la représentation démocratique en France. Paris: Gallimard. Rosanvallon, P. (2003). La Démocratie inachevée:  Histoire de la souveraineté du peuple en France. Paris: Folio. Rosanvallon, P. (2006). La contre-​démocratie : La politique à l’âge de la défiance. Paris: Seuil. Rosenthal, H. and Voeten, E. (2004). “Analyzing Roll Calls with Perfect Spatial Voting: France 1946–​1958,” American Journal of Political Science 48(3): 620–​32. Rousseau, J.-​J. and Bernardi, B. (2011). Du contrat social. Paris: Editions Flammarion. Rozenberg, O. (2013). “Wisdom or Indifference? The Principles of Representative Government in the Eyes of the French Voters,” Journal of Legislative Studies 19(2): 196–​218. Runciman, D. and Brito Vieira, M. (2008). Representation. Oxford: Polity. Sauger, N. (2007). “Un système électoral vecteur d’instabilité ? L’impact du système électoral sur la structuration du système partisan sous la Cinquième République,” in Les partis politiques en France. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 359–​91. Sauger, N. (2009a). “Agenda électoral and vote sur enjeux,” in Comment les électeurs font-​ils leur choix? Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 181–​200. Sauger, N. (2009b). “Party Discipline and Coalition Management in the French Parliament,” West European Politics 32(2): 310–​26. Sauger, N. (2009c). “The French Party System: Fifty Years of Change,” in Brouard, S., Appleton, A., and Mazur, A. G. (eds) The Fifth Republic at Fifty. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 79–​98. Sauger, N. (2014). “Économie et vote en 2012,” Revue française de science politique 63(6): 1031–​49. Schattschneider, E. E. (1960). The Semi-​Sovereign People. A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. New York: Wadsworth.

 

328   Nicolas Sauger Shapiro, I., Stokes, S. C., Jean Wood, E., and Kirshner, A. S. (2010). Political Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shields, J. G. (2006). “Political Representation in France:  A  Crisis of Democracy?,” Parliamentary Affairs 59(1): 118–​37. Sineau, M. and Tiberj, V. (2007). “Candidats and députés français en 2002,” Revue française de science politique 57(2): 163–​85. Soroka, S. N. and Wlezien, C. (2009). Degrees of Democracy:  Politics, Public Opinion, and Policy. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Stimson, J. A., Thiébaut, C., and Tiberj, V. (2012). “The Evolution of Policy Attitudes in France,” European Union Politics 13(2): 293–​16. Strøm, K., Müller, W. C., and Bergman, T. (eds) (2006). Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Urbinati, N. (2008). Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

Chapter 15

How to Study P ol i t i c a l C u ltu re Wi t h ou t Nam ing  I t Nonna Mayer and Vincent Tiberj

French politics and culture have long been considered as an “exceptional case.” In the 1960s Philip Converse and George Dupeux (1962: 1) wrote: The turbulence of French politics has long fascinated observers, particularly when comparisons have been drawn with the stability or, according to one’s point of view, the dull complacency of American political life. Profound ideological cleavages in France, the occasional threat of civil war, rather strong voter turnout, the instability of governments and republics, and the rise and fall of “flash” parties like the R.P.F. in 1951, the Poujadists in 1956 and the U.N.R. in 1958 have all contributed to the impression of a peculiar intensity in the tenor of French political life.

Following on from this, some of the authors of In Search of France (Hoffmann et al., 1963), like Jesse Pitts, although explicitly focusing on the transformation of post-​war France, still conveyed the idea of an irreducible “national character.” The boom of survey research; the increasing internationalization of political science; and the creation and the development of comparative projects such as the Eurobarometers, the European and the World Values Surveys (EVS/​WVS), and more recently the European Social Surveys (ESS) and the International Social Science Program (ISSP), have renewed political culture studies and invalidated the notion of a French “exceptionalism.” But French scholars have a different understanding of political culture, and prefer to use other concepts (Schemeil, 1985: 231–​8). After a rapid overview of the founding studies and debates, this chapter shows how the French research on political culture developed following its own path, and outlines the major challenges it is facing today.

 

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Milestones in the Comparative Study of Political Culture There is a long tradition of studies about political culture in the European social sciences, from Emile Durkheim defining “collective consciousness” as the system of beliefs and sentiments ensuring the social cohesion of a society, to Max Weber analy­ zing the cultural legitimacy of power and the spirit of capitalism. But in the aftermath of the Second World War this field of study developed further in the United States, with the development of survey research.

The “Civic Culture” and its Posterity The Civic Culture (Almond and Verba, 1963) was the first large-​scale comparative survey on political culture. Its objective was to identify the factors of democratic stability. Drawing from Harold Lasswell’s psychology of the “democratic character,” Talcott Parsons’ sociology of culture, and the work of psycho-​anthropologists such as Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, the authors defined “political culture” as the cognitive, affective, and evaluative orientations toward the political system and its inputs and outputs, and toward the role of the self in politics. Based on samples drawn in United States, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Mexico, the study sketched out three ideal types of political culture: the participant culture (more developed in the first two countries), the subject culture, and the parochial one. The “civic culture” congruent with democracy was a balance between the three types, and was a mix of activism and indifference. Civic attitudes were mainly learned in non-​political settings; at school, at work, in the family, and above all in voluntary associations, breeding trust and self-​confidence. The book inspired many follow-​up studies, from Robert Putnam’s analysis of declining “social capital,” defined as “social networks, and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” and make democracy work (Putnam, 1993; 2000) to Russell Dalton’s survey-​based approach of changing political values and norms in advanced industrial democracies (Dalton, 2008a; 2008b). But it was also much criticized for its US-​centered and developmentalist perspective, its psychological definition of political culture, its blindness to differentiated subcultural groups, its deterministic bent, and its neglect of the social and gendered bias of participation (for a summary see Almond and Verba, 1980). As a consequence, later research gave more attention to political inequalities of participation and the specific impact of gender, race, and ethnicity (Nie, Verba, and Kim, 1978; Verba et al., 1993; Burns, Schlozman, and Verba, 2001). But the focus of main reproach was the work’s static definition of culture.

The Post-materialist Turn In the wake of the social unrest of the 1970s, two books marked a new approach centered on cultural change and value conflict. The first was The Silent Revolution (Inglehart, 1977).

 

How to Study Political Culture Without Naming It    331 The core argument, inspired by the theory of needs of psychologist Abraham Maslow, was that “a process of intergenerational value change” was gradually transforming the political and cultural norms of advanced industrial societies, shifting from materialism (giving priority to physical sustenance and safety) to postmaterialism (giving priority to self expression and quality of life) (Inglehart, 1990: 66). Drawing from comparative cross-​sectional surveys (Eurobarometers and World Value Surveys), Inglehart showed that this value change concerned above all the generations born and raised in the post-​ war context, who benefitted from mass education and an exceptional level of prosperity and security. The shift was part of a larger cultural change reshaping gender roles toward more equality (Inglehart and Norris, 2003), and promoting secularization (Inglehart and Norris, 2004). The second book came out of the comparative survey “Political Action” (Barnes and Kaase, 1977; Jennings and Van Deth, 1990). It showed that in the US, Britain, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands, “Protest potential” or support of unconventional modes of action (demonstrations, strikes, occupations, etc.) was on the rise and correlated with youth, education, left-​wing orientations, and Inglehart’s post-​materialism index. Its conclusions have been confirmed by all the follow-​up surveys (Jennings and van Deth, 1990; van Deth and Scarbrough, 1995; Dalton, 2008a; 2008b; Bréchon and Gonthier, 2014). Each new generation seems more critical and prone to “elite-​challenging” actions, in contrast with the former “elite-​directed” ones (voting, party membership). Hence the burgeoning of the “new” social movements (feminist, environmentalist, anti-​nuke, pro-​ civil rights, etc.) and the rise of “new” parties, like the Greens. The “Contentious French” (Tilly, 1986) still appear a little more prone to illegal strikes and street demonstrations than other countries (Mayer, 2013; Dompnier, 2014: 59), but differences are fading. The French have adopted ways of protest that were specific to other political cultures, such as petitions and boycotts, while elsewhere demonstrations have become usual.

The Shortcomings of Post-​materialism Inglehart fought for the “renaissance” of political culture studies, against rational-​choice models based on economics and interests, to explain politics and democratic support (see for the debate Eckstein, 1988; Inglehart, 1988). But his theory of cultural change as well as his methodology were sharply questioned (for an inventory see Schweisguth, 1997; Abramson, 2011). For Scott Flanagan (1987) post-​materialism mixed up two distinctive shifts, one from materialist to non-​materialist priorities, the other from authoritarian to libertarian values. The far-​right parties that have flourished in Europe since the mid-1980s reject the post-​materialist revolution, but not in the name of material interests. A vast research field has opened up on the so-called second or non-​economic dimension of politics; on how, contrary to the traditional left/​right cleavage based on class, this depends mostly on education, and on how it expands the audience of far-​right parties (Kitschelt and McGann, 1995; Hooghe, Marks, and Wilson, 2002; Kriesi, 2008; van der Waal, Achterberg, and Houtman, 2008). Another major critique came from the psychologist Shalom Schwartz (1992), who suggested a loose definition of values, which he saw as desirable and trans-​situational

 

332    Nonna Mayer and Vincent Tiberj goals serving as guiding principles in people’s lives, rather than just attitudes. In line with Milton Rokeach’s “Inventory of human values,” he outlined ten basic orientations (achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-​direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, security, and power) which could be summarized under two headings: the “self-​enhancement vs. self-​transcendence” dimension, placing power and achievement values in opposition to those of universalism and benevolence; and the “openness to change vs. conservation” dimension, placing values of self-​direction and stimulation in opposition to those of security, conformity, and tradition. Schwartz considered his method superior to Inglehart’s because it was not context dependent and was less politics oriented. Thanks notably to its integration in the European Social Survey, his work spurred a new block of research reassessing value change in Europe. The basic value structure is the same in all countries, only their rankings change. In France a supplementary divide was discovered, placing those who emphasize rationality in opposition to those who emphasize intuition (Wach and Hammer, 2003).

“Cultural Studies” and Beyond In sharp contrast with this survey-​based comparative political culture research is the approach of culture as shared meanings and identities. This trend mixes many intellectual traditions. The sociologist Herbert Blumer, founder of the “symbolic interactionism” school, was one of the first to underline the artifactual and atomistic nature of opinion polls. His followers at Chicago University, like Erving Goffman, Howard Becker, Anselm Strauss, and Everett Hughes, focused on the interactions of ordinary people in their everyday lives, accessed by life stories, in-​depth interviews, or participant observation. The constructivist school (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Schutz and Luckmann, 1973) unveiled the mechanisms of the “social construction of reality” and of culture, of which the researcher and his theories are part, and in which science is a construction among others. Clifford Geertz, founder of the symbolic anthropology school, building on his fieldwork on the state in Bali, stressed the political importance of protocols, ceremonies, and symbols in the construction of public meaning. His seminal work, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), gave a dynamic and interactive ring to culture, miles away from the once-​and-​for-​all typology of Almond and Verba. Emblematic of these trends is the British school of “cultural studies” that took shape at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, established in 1964 by Richard Hoggart and Stuart Hall (for an introduction, see Chen and Morley, 1996) at the University of Birmingham. With Raymond Williams and Edward Thompson, they founded a new transdisciplinary, anti-​positivist, and critical way to look at culture. They focused on cultural domination, power and race relations, multiculturalism and post-​colonialism; but also on the resilience of dominated groups and popular publics, their capacity to decode and recode the message of the media and mass culture, and to achieve a worldwide influence (see also Neveu and Mattalard, 2008).

 

How to Study Political Culture Without Naming It    333

In Search of French Political Culture(s) Research on political culture in France developed on parallel but somewhat different tracks, drawing from an different epistemology to that of the pioneering American studies. Influenced by Marxism, French social sciences give more importance to conflict, class struggle, and domination than to civic attitudes, and prefer the term “ideology” to that of “political culture.” There is no large-​scale French study equivalent to The Civic Culture, with the exception of a little book by Jean Meynaud and Alain Lancelot (1961), immediately dismissed as “behaviorist” (Gerbet and Grosser, 1961). The first study devoted to political participation per se was Bernard Denni’s doctoral dissertation in 1986. French scholars showed more interest in non-​participation, whether in the form of “depoliticization” (Vedel, 1962), abstention (Lancelot, 1968), refusal to answer questions about politics in polls (Bourdieu, 1973; Michelat and Simon, 1982), political exclusion (Gaxie, 1978), or disengagement (Fillieule, 2005). As for methods, the behavioralist paradigm was not well received in the country of Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim. Although polling techniques were introduced early by Jean Stoetzel in 1938, and the first electoral survey was conducted in 1956, at the National Foundation for Political Science where he was a teacher, a strong opposition developed in university circles to opinion polls. Sociologists like Georges Gurvitch or Georges Friedmann openly expressed their hostility to a technique seen as too American, hyper-​empiricist, and subject to political manipulation. Criticism grew as the technique spread, and two articles by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1972 and 1973) marked the start of a lasting divide. Survey-​based research developed at Sciences Po, Paris, particularly at CEVIPOF, the Center for Studies of French Political Life (Mayer and Sauger; 2011; Mayer, 2015), and beyond in the network of the Instituts d’études politiques. Elsewhere, however, the symbolic dimension of politics was favored, and qualitative approaches were preferred to big surveys (Billordo and Dumitru, 2006).

Two Antagonistic Subcultures Classe, religion et comportement politique (Michelat and Simon, 1977) is the seminal work on French political culture for political sociologists. Funded by the Communist party, the study aimed “at studying the meanings (systems of values, representations, symbols, affective valorisations, etc.) that, associated with political behaviours, allow us to make sense of them and understand their eventual evolutions” (Michelat and Simon, 1977: 5). It combined in-​depth interviews with a representative survey of French voters conducted in 1967. The authors found two antagonistic social subcultures that structured the vote. The first was a working-​class culture based on class awareness, collective solidarity, and identification with the Left, particularly the Communist party,

 

334    Nonna Mayer and Vincent Tiberj perceived as the party which defended the workers. The more integrated a person was to the working-​class milieu, as measured by the number of class “attributes” (being a worker oneself, having a working-​class father or spouse, etc.), the more likely she was to feel part of the working class, and support the Left. The second subculture was Catholic-​ conservative and individualistic, centerd on religion, defending the individual and property against the state and communism, and identifying with the Right. Michelat and Simon’s founding work was the starting point for similar research on political cultures in the plural, from army non-​commissioned officers (Schweisguth et al., 1970) to managers (Grunberg and Schweisguth, 1979) and small shopkeepers (Mayer, 1986), and beyond, to all social and political groups composing French society (Bréchon and Perrineau, 2000).

Political Socialization Another milestone was the study of political socialization by Annick Percheron (for an introduction see Mayer and Muxel, 1993). The concept was developed by Herbert Hyman (1959), applying to politics a notion first coined by Durkheim to describe the way young generations learn the norms and rules necessary to the reproduction of society. Percheron, who completed her doctoral studies in the US, was influenced by David Easton, Fred Greenstein, and Kent Jennings’ pioneering empirical surveys of children and teenagers in the 1960s, as well as by the genetic psychology of Charles Piaget and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” (see below). Her starting hypotheses were that the socialized were not passive, and that socialization lasted for one’s whole life and was part of a more general process; the construction of one’s identity. Her first survey was about political socialization of some 500 pupils between 10 and 15 years old, in two schools around Paris. She used projective techniques more adapted to children. The “political universe” of young children she described was coherent, formed very early (Percheron, 1974), and was very different from the political universe of American children. The benevolent image of political authorities and regime in the United States contrasted sharply with the negative image of parties, unions, and leaders in France, where politics was associated with division and conflict, and massively rejected. The only consensual notions were the tricolor flag, the Republic, and the homeland. Percheron’s second major contribution was to show how the French political scene was structured by the left/​right divide, while Americans thought in terms of party identification with the Republicans or the Democrats. Comparing French and American children, Philip Converse and George Dupeux (1962) saw discontinuities in the transmission of party identification as the main reason of the Fourth Republic’s structural instability. Working with paired samples of parents and their children, Percheron showed that the discontinuity disappeared almost completely if one relied on left/​right self-​placement (1981). Actually, just after religious values, political preferences displayed the highest rate of transmission by parents to children. Various works have confirmed that the left/​right divide still remains essential:  among the French, of all ages, even

 

How to Study Political Culture Without Naming It    335 though the content and significance of left and right have much evolved since the 1970s (Jaffré and Muxel, 1997; Muxel, 2001; Michelat and Tiberj, 2007).

A French Version of Post-​materialism? Very close to Inglehart’s materialist/​post-materialist indicator is the scale of “cultural liberalism” devised by Gérard Grunberg and Etienne Schweisguth (1981). For the authors the main factors explaining the rise of the Left in 1978 and its victory in 1981 were increasing secularization, a demand for state interventionism in the economy (nationalizations), but above all the development of “cultural liberalism” (“social libertarianism”)—​a set of hedonistic, anti-​authoritarian, pro-​choice values, developed in the wake of the May 1968 events. The highest scores on the scale were found among young, educated, middle-​class voters. At the time the authors did not mention Inglehart’s work, but they would later, when they theorized cultural liberalism as the distinctive feature of the new “salaried middle classes,” far closer to the economically interventionist but culturally liberal socialist Left than to the Communist party. Their findings anticipated the debate about the “new politics” in post-​industrial societies, but because of the isolationism of French political science, they were not acknowledged. Later, the authors split their “cultural liberalism” index into three distinctive dimensions: sexuality and mores, relations to authority, and the “universalism/​anti-​universalism” divide.

Cultural Distinction Another central contribution to the study of culture and politics comes from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, especially his Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979, translated in 1984). The study focused on the social conditions that produce taste and showed how cultural distinctions and lifestyles (ways of eating, drinking, and entertaining, listening to music, and going to the movies) served in a subtle way to reinforce the mechanisms of social and political domination. Class positions were defined by the volume of their economic, social, and cultural capital and by their structure (the respective weight of cultural versus economic capital). The main cleavage placed the dominant classes, more likely to vote for the Right, in opposition to the dominated ones more likely to vote for the Left; a secondary cleavage placed the “dominant-​dominant” (business owners, managers) in opposition to the “dominated-​dominant” (intellectuals, teachers, artists, with little economic capital but large cultural capital) tempted by a temporary alliance with the working classes. The central concept was “habitus,” “an acquired system of generative schemes objectively adjusted to the particular conditions in which it is constituted” (Bourdieu, 1977: 95), ensuring the reproduction of the social, cultural, and political order. The last chapter was about “political culture,” analyzed as an instrument of class domination. Daniel Gaxie followed up Bourdieu’s work with Le cens caché, that is “the hidden disfranchisement,” in 1978, showing how the less-educated voters exclude

 

336    Nonna Mayer and Vincent Tiberj themselves from the polls because they lack both the objective and subjective competence to understand the complex world of politics. Bourdieu’s monumental work sparked a lot of criticism for its social determinism and incapacity to explain change. People have plural identities, and they change throughout their lifetimes (Lahire, 1998). Yet Bourdieu’s theories have had a lasting influence in France and abroad. A recent symposium (Coulangeon and Duval, 2013) exploring the international reception of La Distinction shows the enduring relevance of his insights on topics as diverse as food practices, political attitudes, housing conditions, forms of residential and geographic mobility, attitudes in the areas of mores and the family, educational styles, cultural practices, etc. Bourdieu is now considered one of the ten major sociologists of the twentieth century (Coulangeon and Duval, 2013: 14–​15).

A New “Cultural” Look at Social Movements Another pivotal figure was post-​Marxist sociologist Alain Touraine, among the first to coin the expression “new social movements” (describing, for example, the causes of women, minorities, and ecologists) and to connect their rise to the emergence of post-​industrial society (Touraine, 1969). To study these movements, Touraine and his colleagues elaborated a new method, “sociological intervention,” based on the active implication of the researchers with their object. And their focus shifted from economic class interests to identity, values, and culture as drivers of mobilization. A second generation of studies went even further in this direction, stimulated by the rise in the 1990s of a new generation of movements that connected materialist and post-​materialist claims: workers’ “coordinations” rejecting the existing unions and associations, radical anti-​AIDS networks such as Act Up, global justice protesters led by ATTAC, and movements defending the social rights of “the have-​nots” (“les sans”), that is, those without papers, without a job, without a roof, etc. (Sommier, 2003; Crettiez and Sommier, 2006). The reader edited by Olivier Fillieule, Eric Agrikoliansky, and Isabelle Sommier (2010) is a good introduction to this burgeoning field of research. The message was that the “contentious politics” paradigm imported from the United States had stretched its main concepts too far (mobilizing structures, political opportunity structure, frame analysis, repertoire) and was losing its explanatory power. Instead, they pleaded for a cultural, historicized, and recontextualized approach to the study of social movements, taking a long-​term “processual” perspective, comparing non-​Western forms of protest and extending the boundaries of social movements to include acts of resistance or self help. Their perspective was explicitly interactionist and actor-​centered, looking for the meaning individuals give to their actions, to their emotions and affects, to the way they accepted or modified their frames of interpretation (Cefai and Trom, 2001) at the micro level. They turned away from quantitative methods, with the exception of the pioneering studies of demonstrations by Danielle Tartakowsky and Olivier Fillieule (Fillieule, 1997; Tartakowsky, 1997; 1998; 2004; Fillieule and Tartakowsky, 2008) and the invention of “individual surveys in rallies” (INSURA), a tool developed

 

How to Study Political Culture Without Naming It    337 in France as early as 1994 (Favre, Fillieule, and Mayer, 1997; Fillieule and Blanchard, 2010) and applied on a large scale in Europe since (Agrikoliansky and Sommier, 2005; Sommier, Fillieule, and Agrikoliansky, 2008; van Stekelenburg et al., 2012, on the new CCC (Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation) project. They anticipated the “cultural turn” taken since by American studies of social movements (Johnston and Klandermans, 1995). The result was a rich collection of case studies on the subcultures giving birth to “unlikely” mobilizations, by prostitutes, illegal immigrants, precarious art performers (“intermittents du spectacle”), seen as “laboratories of democracy” (Mouchard, 2010).

The French Socio-​history of Politics Last, but not least, a growing body of literature began to investigate the historical making of political culture and citizenship. It has proposed, for instance, a neo-​institutionalist approach to the emergence of French electoral democracy, focusing on voting rituals and rules, and the symbolic dimension of the act of voting (Déloye and Ihl, 2007). Starting with the pioneering work of the historian Maurice Agulhon and his study of “the Republic in the village” (Agulhon, 1979), a major French school of “socio-​history” has taken shape (for an introduction, see Buton and Mariot, 2006). Claiming to be different from historical sociology as well as from sociological history, it has its own review, Genèses, sciences sociales et histoire, and a book series “Socio-​histoires,” co-​edited by Michel Offerlé and Gérard Noiriel.

Today’s Research Challenges France is now well integrated in almost all large-​scale comparative projects (EVS, ISSP, ESS, EES). Basically, long-​term value trends are similar throughout Europe, even if their timing and pace can differ from one country to another. Almond and Verba’s study explored what held citizens together and what linked them to the state. Today, micro-​ level and ethnographic observations show an increasing fragmentation of political cultures and the rise of identity politics. Research has shifted to what makes citizens different and unequal, in multicultural and diverse societies. It focuses on their changing attitudes toward politics, in a globalized world where the nation state is no more the only locus of politics. The recent research developing in France takes a fresh look at these challenges.

Bring the Citizens Back In Representative democracy is clearly under pressure: turnout rates are declining, while contentious modes of action have spread. Consequently, a growing number of French

 

338    Nonna Mayer and Vincent Tiberj scholars, led by figures such as Loïc Blondiaux and Yves Sintomer (2002) have been investigating if and how participative democracy tools can bring citizens back to the heart of the political scene. This has led to varied research on: how different groups voice their message; which participative devices assure a relative equality among voters and which do not; and how to stimulate electoral mobilization in disadvantaged suburbs (Braconnier and Dormagen, 2007). This lively field of research has led to the creation of a new journal simply called Participation. This is quite a change in a country where previous work rejected the very concept of political participation as ideologically biased (Memmi, 1985).

Post-​national Citizens Another line of research explores how citizens, in a globalized world, connect with the different levels (national, transnational, local), and which matter most to them. Yasemin Soysal (1994) coined the concept of “post-​national” citizenship. Saskia Sassen (2002) has pointed more generally to the de-​nationalization of politics. One of the main issues is assessing the impact of the European integration process and the possible emergence of a European citizenship and identity. Perhaps the most abrasive introduction to the debate is the special issue of Politique européenne coordinated by Sophie Duchesne, which explores the idea of a European identity somewhere “between political science and science fiction” (2010) and brings together scholars from different disciplines, using different methods. Paradoxically, all authors point to the very low saliency of the European issue, in sharp contrast with the common idea, conveyed by Eurobarometer data, of a rising Euro-​pessimism and criticism of the EU’s democratic deficit (see also Duchesne, Frazer, and Haegel, 2013). A second finding is that European identity, when it exists, is not in contradiction with national identity, but that they reinforce each other. The last and perhaps more far-​ reaching conclusion comes from Adrian Favell’s in-​depth study of free-​moving cosmopolitans, the “Eurostars and Eurocities” customers (Favell, 2011). They are not the prototype of an emerging involved European citizenry. But they do practice a non-​partisan mode of participation, “as consumers, public service users, neighbours, and cultural entrepreneurs,” “integrating Europe from below.” This finding resonates with the early work of Sophie Duchesne (1997) sketching out two models of citizenship in France: the “inheritance” model characterized by a strong identification to the nation; and the “scrupules” model—​individualistic, typical already of “citizens of the world,” taking their distance from a citizenship solely defined by one’s nation of birth. It is also in line with more recent work such as Henrik Bang’s conceptualization of “everyday makers” and “expert citizens.” These scholars do not address the state; they prefer to engage in the building and running of governance networks and reflexive political communities. They invent a variety of “small” everyday tactics and narratives, which make a difference (Bang, 2005). Symmetric with the Europeanization/​globalization debate and sometimes complementary to it is the debate placing rootedness in opposition to transnationalism—​global to local. Patrick Le Galès and his colleagues (Andreotti, Fuentes, and Le Galès, 2012) have explored the mix of mobility and belongingness characteristic of the upper middle

 

How to Study Political Culture Without Naming It    339 classes in four large European cities—​Paris, Madrid, Milan, and Lyon. They show a complex blend of cosmopolitanism and rootedness, of proximity and distance in relation to local social groups and politics. At one extreme one finds the “nomads/​barbarians,” genuine uprooted citizens displaying partial exit strategies. At the other are the “local stalwarts,” anchored and self-​segregated in their local communities.

New Social Stratification; New Political Cultures French and European scholars are focusing on how societies are transforming around new social and geographical cleavages, and the political consequences of these changes. A blooming block of research looks at the unskilled working classes exposed since the mid-1970s to unemployment, job insecurity, and semi poverty. They are close to what Elisabeth Cohen has called “semi-​citizens” (Cohen, 2009). They also remind us of the rising category of “outsiders,”—​with insecure jobs or no jobs at all, and little social protection—​as opposed to stable and protected insiders (Emmenegger et al., 2012). Because these groups are overrepresented in dilapidated suburbs, there also seems to be, at least in France, a relocalization of politics, in relation to the territorialization of social policies. In the past citizenship was rooted in the workplace; now it is in the place of residence—​the working class is no more, just inhabitants (see Merklen, 2012; Bègue, 2011; Castel and Martin, 2012). As a consequence, the ties of these “outsiders” with party politics have eroded. Braconnier and Dormagen (2007) show this in their ethnographic study of a housing project in the former communist suburbs of Paris, where over 60 percent of the inhabitants do not vote; where many have lost the very habit of going to the polls, with no family or friends around them to mobilize them on election day. Just above, at the border between the lower middle class and the upper working class, a new group attracts attention; the “petits moyens” (Cartier et al., 2008). Hard work allowed them to become home owners, and to achieve a modest upward mobility. But the neighborhood has deteriorated, immigrant families have settled in, and precariousness has developed. The “petits moyens” are afraid of falling down the social ladder. They resent the rich above—​those who have—​but also the poor—​the assisted, welfare recipients below—​feeling that they pay for them (on this “tri-​partition of the social conscience” linked to the decline of working-​class solidarity, see Schwartz, 2009). And this resentment is feeding support for the exclusionist ideas of the National Front (Peugny, 2009). More generally there is a renewed interest in contextual approaches to politics (Braconnier, 2010) and electoral studies at the local level, as shown by the developments of large-​scale projects such as Cartélec (Cartographie des grandes villes françaises à l’échelle des bureaux de vote: ) or PAECE (Pour une approche écologique des comportements électoraux), coordinated by Jean-​Yves Dormagen. These approaches shed new light on what citizenship means to people, from those on the higher to those on the lower rungs of the social ladder; from Paris’s deprived suburbs, to the gentrified West of the city, where the upper bourgeoisie is not as “civic” and politicized as one might expect (Agrikoliansky, 2013).

 

340    Nonna Mayer and Vincent Tiberj

Race, Ethnicity, and immigration A fast-​developing research field, and one that for a long time was almost absent in France, explores the relationship of ethnic and religious minorities with politics. The Marxist tradition considered class more important than any other characteristics, including race and ethnicity (Jaunait and Chauvin, 2012). The French universalist–​republican model is color blind. Still now, the very notion of “ethnic statistics” is highly controversial, making it difficult to conduct surveys on minorities for comparison with, for instance, the Ethnic Minority British Election Survey (EMBES). With the exception of the pioneering work of Catherine Wihtol de Wenden on the politicization of immigrants (1988), it was only in the mid-1990s that the first studies of immigrants’ electoral participation appeared. Since then, a growing number of studies have examined the field of migrant-​ origin French identities (Venel, 2004; Ribert, 2006). In 2005 the first large-​scale survey of French immigrant citizens’ politics was conducted by Sylvain Brouard and Vincent Tiberj (2011). And in 2008 a monumental public survey on “trajectoires et origines” (TeO), was conducted by INSEE (the census office) and INED (National Institute for Demographic Studies), showing how diverse the relations betweenpolitics and citizenship are, depending on country of origin and generation (Tiberj and Simon, 2012). A connected field of research focuses on the relation between religion and politics. The place of Islam is particularly well studied in a country like France, which has one of the largest estimated Muslim communities in Europe; a community which is more and more visible in the public space and which is often described as at odds with supposed European mainstream values. Brouard and Tiberj challenge the idea of a crisis of integration of the “new French” immigrants, as well as of their children and grandchildren born in France, and show, despite existing differences, that they share a wide scope of behaviors and values with other French citizens. On this matter France is now a regular case study in comparative research (see for example Fetzer and Soper, 2005), and a laboratory both for understanding how Islam can (re)shape European political culture and also how mainstream society reacts, accepting or rejecting it. There is the heated debate about rising “islamophobia,” fueled not only by the xenophobic platform of the French extreme Right, but by state policies such as the laws banning first the headscarf in state schools, then the face veil in public (Mayer et al., 2014; Hajjat and Mohammed, 2013).

Gender Another rapidly expanding field of research in France, in line with the pioneering work of Janine Mossuz-​Lavau and Mariette Sineau (Mossuz-​Lavau and Sineau, 1983) is gender studies (Bereni et al., 2008), particularly the persisting gender gap in political attitudes and political participation. The laws on la parité have marked a major improvement (see Lépinard, 2007), allowing more women to be candidates and to be elected, though they are still underrepresented. But, interestingly for political engagement and knowledge indicators, women, even the educated and middle class, still score systematically and

 

How to Study Political Culture Without Naming It    341 dramatically lower than men (Chiche and Haegel, 2002; Schemeil et al., 2008). It seems to be a global phenomenon, according to a recent ten-​nation study of media systems and national political knowledge, done for the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (). But it could also be an effect of the way questions are framed (Mondak and Anderson, 2004). When facing quiz-​type questions, being asked to answer yes or no, or select the “true” answer, men take the risk and guess, while women are far more willing to admit their ignorance. The same goes for the gender gap in levels of political participation. As shown recently by Coffé and Bolzendahl (2010) in their comparative article on 18 Western democracies, the issue is not so much that women participate less, but that they participate differently. Controlling for all socio­economic and ideological variables, women are more likely than men to go to the polls and be engaged in “private” activism (boycott/​buycott for instance), while men are more likely to have engaged in direct-​contact, collective types of actions (demonstrations and more active party membership).

Cultural Voting In the wake of the debates surrounding the rise of the non-​economic “second” dimension of politics, the concept of “cultural voting” has gained importance. In the USA, the issue brought into opposition Thomas Franck (“What’s the matter with Kansas?,” 2004) and Larry Bartels (“What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with Kansas?,” 2006), the latter finding no evidence for such a trend. In Europe, Jeroen van der Waal and his colleagues (2008) held a different position: “Class is not dead—​it has been buried alive,” under the weight of cross-​cultural voting, pushing the less educated to the Far Right on issues of immigration and authority, and the better educated toward the Left, on socially libertarian issues. What is the case in France? Is there or is there not a growing importance of “cultural” non-​economic issues in the public debate and the voting booth? Do they influence the votes more than economic issues, even following the “Great Recession” of 2008? And as a result has education, instead of class, become the key variable of political orientations? France may be an interesting case because of the early success of the National Front in the 1980s. Grunberg and Schweisguth (1997), followed by Chiche et al. (2000), were early to conceptualize the tri-​partition of the French political space on the basis of cultural values. The main divide no longer sets the Right in opposition to the Left, but the extreme Right to both the Left and the Right (Grunberg and Schweisguth, 1997; and see also their debate with Jocelyn Evans and Robert Andersen, in several issues of French Politics, from 2003 to 2005). Peter Achterberg (2006) investigated the reality of issue change and the rise of “new political cultures” in the post-​war period in 20 Western countries, including France. On the basis of political party manifestos, his first conclusion was that class issues have neither decreased nor increased in importance and that new—​cultural and environmental—​issues have risen in importance. Second, using data provided by the

 

342    Nonna Mayer and Vincent Tiberj World Values Surveys (1990–​2000), he demonstrated that the observed changes in political cultures have led to lower levels of class voting. A third conclusion was that the importance of old and new issues in the public debate conditions individual voting motives: the rise of these new issues undermines traditional class–​party alignments. But the very concept of “cultural” voting needs clarification, for some of the above so-​ called non-​economic issues, such as immigration or “welfare chauvinism,” can equally be seen as economic. In France this has given an impulse to methodologically innovative research, based on systematic comparative data analysis and long-​term time series. For example, Tiberj (2012), analyzing French presidential elections since 1988, demonstrated the rising impact of cultural values on support for the Socialist Party and the UMP and showed that this explains the changes in the sociological profile of their electoral base. In addition, Gougou and Labouret (2013) have shown that the value profiles of UMP and FN voters are becoming more and more similar, the Right as a whole moving to the “cultural right.”

The Culture of Poverty Revisited A last challenge, in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession, is the extension of poverty and precariousness, undermining citizenship and political participation of large segments of the population (Braconnier and Mayer, 2015). The concept of a “culture of poverty,” coined by Oscar Lewis, is controversial, and is often interpreted as a way to blame the poor, more specifically African Americans, for their situation, and to justify cutting welfare expenditure. It is making a comeback in the United States, with research stressing the diversity of poverty subcultures, the way they can help eachother to resist, and the importance of symbolic boundaries (Harding, Lamont, and Small, 2010). It is the same in France (see the special issue of La Vie des idées coordinated by Nicolas Duvoux, 2010), where the study of Hugues Lagrange on second-​generation migrants of African descent (2010) in particular has sparked fierce criticism for its alleged “culturalism” (Mucchielli, 2010). Lagrange’s conclusion is that the difficulties of the sub-​Saharan African youth (juvenile delinquency, high failure rate at school) stem partly from their family context, where traditional norms from their countries of origin predominate. These findings show the need to work more on the articulation of poverty and ethnicity, so as to understand better the transformations taking place in the disadvantaged urban suburbs of France.

Conclusion France may not be, and probably never was, “exceptional.” Just like other countries, it has its idiosyncrasies, such as its “Hunting, Fishing, Nature, and Tradition Party,” its “republican model,” and its vibrant culture of protest. It also has specific research traditions,

 

How to Study Political Culture Without Naming It    343 which at times have insulated it from mainstream international debates. This is less and less the case. Methods, theories, andconcepts are going global. Multilateral comparison is the key term here. French research on political (sub)cultures is thriving, in spite of its reticence to use the term “culture.” It contributes to our global understanding of increasingly topical issues such as support for democracy and extension of citizenship, and also of problems like declining electoral participation and political inequality, and how to overcome these. The situation could improve in two directions. The first, pointed out by Frédéric Sawicki and Johanna Siméant with regard to studying trends in political involvement, is not to lose sight of the global picture, and to link the more tightly detailed monographs at the grassroots level to macrosocial factors and structures (Sawicki and Siméant, 2009). The second issue for French research to address is its reluctance to employing quantitative methods; it needs to engage more with comparative survey research on political culture. By building on its own scientific traditions (socio-​history, Bourdieu’s legacy of “critical sociology,” etc.) and its innovations in qualitative methodology, French political science can shed new light on the scholarly debates of today.

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Chapter 16

Expl aining Fre nc h Electi ons the need to meet in the middle Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-​B eck

The goal of this chapter is to give an overview of the work done on elections in France. In doing so, we will pay particular attention to presidential elections. While they are by no means the only elections in France, presidential elections drive the political system and provide an orderly framework for navigating through its lesser-​studied parts. This chapter is divided into three main sections, followed by a brief conclusion. The first of these is dedicated to a review of the literature on electoral behavior. This overview centers around the Michigan model, which inaugurated the modern era for work on vote choice (Campbell et al., 1960). The model stipulates that vote choice depends on both long-​term factors (which push voters to remain loyal to a party over time) and short-​term factors (linked more specifically to the context of a particular campaign, which can lead voters to vote for different parties from one election to another). We will show in this section that most work on electoral behavior over the past fifty years has taken its inspiration from this model (Lewis-​Beck et al., 2008). The second section of this chapter deals with work specifically done in France and on French elections. The work of French political scientists on their own country has adopted a perspective that privileges what are known as “variables lourdes,” such as religion and social class, for explaining French elections (Michelat and Simon, 1977). These studies are also characterized by the consistent practice of taking each election as a unique case (Goguel, 1966; Cautrès and Muxel, 2009). In contrast, work on French elections done by political scientists outside of France has sought to find out whether voter behavior in France can be explained by a general vote model, one applicable to other countries as well, and allowing analysis of many elections at one time (Nadeau et al., 2012). The third section of the chapter deals with a research agenda for French elections. Three areas of research seem particularly promising. First, that of convergence. Recent

 

350    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck work by French political scientists is using more generalizable models, and more foreign political scientists are becoming attuned to the French case. This “meeting in the middle” will allow us to refine our explanations of French voter behavior in the future. Another promising area is the use of a particularly fruitful concept developed in France to explain elections—​that of patrimony. The final area of research has to do with the effect of short-​term variables, such as leader image and issues, on French voters’ choices. To date, these variables have been under-​studied in the French context. To address this, using batteries of appropriate questions in large-​scale French surveys would allow us to better judge the effect of these variables both in general, and with particular regard to France.

Models of Voter Behavior It would not be an exaggeration to say that the publication of The American Voter in 1960 by Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes marked a turning point in the study of electoral behavior. This book distinguished itself from previous work in the field of electoral studies by proposing a more systematic and complete explanation of voter behavior. The American Voter proposed a model that identified two types of factors that could explain voter choices. The first category consists of factors that tend to anchor voters to a party over the long term. Membership of a particular group, be it religious, ethnic, social, or something else, corresponds to this type of factor. An important contribution of what would later be called the Michigan School was the addition of a key variable into this category of long-​term determinants to vote choice—​party identification. Party identification is a socio-​psychological variable. It has to do with the feeling of identification and attachment that individuals develop toward a political party. This sentiment is fostered during the period of political socialization, which roughly corresponds to the period between 15 and 25 years of age, when a person is politically awakened for the first time. A person’s social surroundings, notably their family environment and peer influences during adolescence, play an important role in the formation of party identification. A key point about the Michigan model is the resilience of party identification. Identification with a particular party tends to develop during a voter’s first experiences and continues thereafter. Only a major event such as deep economic crisis resulting in a major change in orientation on a central question for a party would bring a voter to change their partisan allegiance. The corollary to this stability of partisan attitudes is the stability of the vote. For many voters, the decision of which party to vote for is already made even before the electoral campaign has started. In these conditions, changes in vote intentions during the campaign should be relatively few and the strategy of political parties should consist of mobilizing partisans by reinforcing their feelings of attachment to a party. The importance of long-​term variables, such as belonging to a particular social group or attachment to a certain party, does not mean that factors directly linked to electoral

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    351 campaigns cannot play a role. In fact, the effect of short-​term factors should be more significant among those who do not identify with a particular party, independent voters, and those whose feelings of attachment to party are less pronounced (i.e. “weak partisans,” in contrast to “strong partisans”). The two main short-​term factors are candidate image and the nature of the issues up for debate. A candidate’s unpopularity can lead a certain number of partisans to defect and support another party’s candidate. This is what happened during the American presidential elections of 1952 and 1956 when many Democrats supported the Republican candidate Dwight David Eisenhower. This situation is interesting because it can seem paradoxical. The Michigan model has often been associated with the party identification variable, whose effect would seem to limit greatly changes in voter behavior. When the 1952 and 1956 elections were analyzed in The American Voter, Democrat partisans were clearly more numerous than Republican partisans, but this did not stop the latter party from gaining the White House in those two elections. The other type of short-​term variable deals with issues. Each election is marked by the presence of certain issues. A partisan could vote for another party if their preferred party takes a position that is contrary to their own views about an issue important to them. This partisan could even desert their own party if that party goes on to form a government and its performance in terms of an issue such as the economy is disappointing. Thus, the Michigan model distinguishes itself by proposing that vote choice rests on the combined effect of long-​and short-​term factors (see Equation 1). As Equation then 2 shows, these long-​term factors include belonging to a social group (male/​female, young/​ old, rich/​less rich, etc.) and party identification. These structural factors tend to be dominant and limit the effect of short-​term variables such as leader image or the nature of issues debated. This suppression of short-​term factors happens even more among those who identify with a party, as they tend to have a positive opinion of the party leader, and so favorably evaluate their positions in what is called a “projection effect.”

vote = f (lt, st ) Eq. 1



vote = f ( groups, party identification, issues, leaders) Eq. 2

One final aspect of the Michigan model has to do with the proximity of different types of variables and vote choice. From this point of view, long-​term variables are thought to durably influence voter behavior well before an election is called. In contrast, short-​ term variables come into play much closer to the decision to support a party, in that they are influenced by information only available during a campaign and changable from one election to another. The sum of these factors thought to influence vote choice is then represented as a “funnel of causality,” where long-​term variables sit at the top of the funnel, where they are the furthest away from the actual voting decision, and short-​term variables sit at the bottom, where they can immediately affect a voter’s choice. In truth, almost all the studies of electoral behavior done in the decades following the publication of The American Voter make reference to this seminal volume, be it to

 

352    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck borrow from its framework, to amend it, or to reject it. We will now briefly examine some of these works that have drawn their inspiration from The American Voter.

Work on Electoral Behavior After 1960 For the most part, work on electoral behavior after 1960 has been based on the Michigan model (Lewis-​Beck et al., 2008). These studies have focused on three big questions. The first asks if the Michigan model could be used outside of the United States. In other words, can the Michigan model be exported to understand voter behavior in other countries? The second question asks if the model is still useful. Is it still appropriate to represent voter behavior as the result of both short-​and long-​term factors? Are long-​ term factors still predominant? The final question asks what changes should be made to the Michigan model to make it better suited to explaining voter behavior in the US and elsewhere. The main question that was brought up with regard to the Michigan model had to do with the usefulness of party identification as a concept in contexts other than the United States. Largely, two sides have formed with regard to this question. The first says that the concept of party identification has no utility outside of the US. The most extreme version of this position states that the party identification variable should not be included in vote models outside of the US because of its proximity to the vote itself. Another approach, which has grown popular over time, states that party identification is one of many structural factors and that its impact varies from one country to another. In some cases, party identification is the dominant variable, whereas in other cases it is an individual’s ideological orientation (that is, their position on a continuum from extreme Left to extreme Right) that is the most influential on vote choice. Ideological orientation has the same characteristics as party identification. It has to do with a central political orientation acquired early in one’s life and is not easily changed afterwards. Positioning on this spectrum has often been used to identify the opinions of voters on the role of state intervention. An individualist attitude, favoring laissez-​faire policies and leaving very little place for the state to reduce social inequalities, would correspond to a firm rightist attitude. At the other extreme, a collectivist attitude that favors state intervention to regulate economic activity and reduce inequalities would correspond to a strong leftist position. Over time, other dimensions have been associated with leftist and rightist attitudes, such as liberal or conservative positions on questions of morality or issues such as immigration. What are the respective impacts of party identification and ideology as structuring factors of electoral behavior in established democracies? Work on Anglo-​Saxon countries such as Australia (Jackman, 2003), Canada (Gidengil et al., 2012), the United States (Lewis-​Beck et al., 2008), Great Britain (Clarke et al., 2009; 2012), and New Zealand (Vowles, 2005), as well as the studies on Latin America in general (Nadeau et  al., 2015)  have shown that party identification plays a dominant role in explaining vote choice in this group of countries. Several studies on European countries have concluded

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    353 the opposite: that ideology plays a larger role than party identification in vote choice (Bengtsson et al., 2014; Nadeau, Lewis-​Beck and Bélanger 2013; Kritzinger et al., 2013). Keeping in mind these diverse findings, one must amend the Michigan model. Equation 3 shows the addition of ideology to vote models in order to determine which of these factors plays a more important role in a given country.

vote = f ( groups, party identification, ideology, issues, leaders) Eq. 3

The other big criticism brought against the Michigan model has to do with the importance given to long-​term variables. Numerous studies have shown a weakening of these variables over the past few decades in favor of more short-​term variables, such as issues and candidate image (see notably Gidengil et al., 2012 for Canada; Clarke et al., 2012 for the United Kingdom). The number of partisans firmly attached to a party is declining in most Western countries (Dalton, Flanagan, and Beck 1984; Dalton, 1988). Once important, class voting is also becoming less and less important (Butler and Stokes, 1974; Evans and Norris, 1999). The arrival of new media, first with television, followed by the Internet, has allowed candidates to communicate directly with voters without going through political parties, allowing us to move from a “party-​centered era” to a “candidate-​centered era” (Wattenberg, 1991). Finally, the number of voters who make up their minds about who to vote for at the last minute has been on the rise for the past few decades (Fournier et al., 2001). The debates over the relative effect of long-​and short-​term variables have moved in two main directions. First, while recognizing the increased importance of short-​term factors, most political scientists now conclude that long-​term factors still play an important role in voters’ decisions. Thus, the Michigan model still seems relevant, even if the relative impact of short-​term factors has increased over time and can vary from one country to another. Second, the increased importance of leader image and issues on vote choice has led to numerous studies, with attention to issues being the focus of political scientists. The work of Downs (1957) on the strategic positioning of parties led to the development of a spatial theory of voting, which stipulates that voter decisions depend on the distance between the voter’s position on particular issues and the political parties’ positions on the same issues (Enelow and Hinich, 1984; 1990). Furthermore, Stokes’s (1963) distinction between “valence” and “positional” issues is fundamental for understanding the effect of issues on voting behavior (Green, 2007). An issue is a valence issue when there is a consensus around the goals of a policy. Using the example of the economy, one can say that almost everyone is in agreement over low unemployment and inflation rates. On the contrary, opinion is deeply divided over abortion. On valence issues, the performance of the incumbent government seems to be crucial, but on positional issues, the position of a party on that issue seems to be determinant. The economy is the valence issue that has received the most attention (Key, 1966; Fiorina, 1981; Lewis-​Beck, 1988; Nadeau, Lewis-​Beck, and Bélanger, 2013). Hundreds of papers have been published on “economic voting,” which is the link between voters’

 

354    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck economic perceptions and their inclination to vote for or against the incumbent government (Lewis-​Beck and Stegmaier, 2013). The economy is the most-​often studied issue and also the one that has been most systematically at the center of election campaigns (Vavreck, 2009). The results from these studies clearly show that an incumbent government’s chances of re-​election depend on the economic situation, and this is even truer when voters believe that the incumbent party is responsible for it (Powell and Whitten, 1993; Nadeau, Niemi, and Yoshinaka, 2002). The impact of issues has led political scientists to look into parties’ strategic behavior. The main idea behind these studies is that some parties benefit more than others when certain issues are at the center of an election campaign. For example, an incumbent government would have an interest in putting the economy in the spotlight when the economic situation is good, but when the economy is not doing so well, it would prefer to focus on other issues. It has also been established that some political parties have the reputation of being best suited to taking care of certain issues (e.g. the leftist parties for social issues and the rightist parties for preventing crime). Therefore, parties’ strategies depend on their performance and reputation on issues, which leads us to the concept of “issue ownership” (Petrocik, 1996; Egan, 2013). Based on work in communication science about the indirect effects of the media through factors such as agenda-setting and priming, political scientists have sought to show that parties in a campaign adopt strategies to heighten the visibility of issues that are politically profitable for them (Iyengar and Kinder, 1987; Nadeau, Pétry, and Bélanger, 2010). While work on the role of issues has been plentiful, studies on the effect of candidate and leader image on vote choice have been far less numerous and systematic. Nonetheless, they have taken three directions. The first, and probably the most important, establishes that leader image is not idiosyncratic (meaning specific to each candidate), but rather conforms to expectations that voters have about their leaders (Funk, 1996). The second direction consists of identifying these expectations. These studies have shown that the four sought-​after traits in a leader were competence, integrity, honesty, and empathy. Finally, other studies have tried to measure the effect of candidate image on vote choice by introducing variables corresponding to these traits. For example, so-​called thermometer scales have been introduced into some surveys where respondents give their opinion about candidates on a scale going from 0 (very negative feeling) to 100 (very positive feeling). In general, the results of these studies show a very strong relationship between these variables and vote choice (Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck, 2014). That being said, these variables are not used systemically. In fact, several researchers argue that leader evaluations come from projection effects and that their effect on vote choice is largely spurious. Evidently, there is still work to be done in terms of theory and operationalization of the “leader vote.” The previous works nuance more than question the Michigan model. The heavy emphasis put on party identification in The American Voter does not pose any particular problems, assuming this variable refers to a category of factors that can be expanded without harming the logic behind the model. This expansion has led specialists in electoral behavior to speak of “anchor variables” and to include amongst them party

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    355 identification and ideology. If it is true that belonging to a social group seems to weigh less and less on voters’ choices, certain socio-​demographic variables, such as race in the US or language in Canada, continue to play a very important role in vote choice. Realities also change. The material situation of individuals seems to influence their political preferences. However, the link between an individual’s income and occupation and their vote choice is less straightforward than before. But recent work has shown that holding financial and non-​financial assets (such as investments or a home) can have a large impact on vote choice (Nadeau, Foucault, and Lewis-​Beck, 2011; Stubager et al., 2013). Contrary to criticism, the fact that the relative weight of certain variables can change across time and space highlights the generalizability of the Michigan model, rather than its limitations. However, one more serious limitation can come from the classification of the issue variable. In the Michigan model, the issue variable is often grouped with short-​term factors. Nowadays, several models tend to regroup the issue variables into blocs that correspond to an individual’s fundamental political attitudes regarding the role of the state or questions of morality. Notably, this is the case for work on the Scandinavian countries. In Canada, these blocs of variables are often called “values” and are often included in the funnel of causality above party identification (Blais et al., 2002). Two results related to these composite variables are important to note. First, these variables seem to reflect an individual’s deep-​seated political attitudes that are unlikely to change over time. Second, these blocs of variables have a significant effect on vote choice, especially when an individual’s party identification and ideological orientation are not included in the model. These results show that “anchor variables” can also include an individual’s deeper political attitudes. Therefore, these variables join partisan identification and ideology as being long-​term socio-​psychological determinants that can consolidate a voter’s loyalty toward a particular party. Similarly to what we proposed with regard to party identification and ideology, the respective effect of these anchor variables could vary from one country to another. Thus, adding this variable could increase the influence of long-​term factors on vote choice. Doing so would amend the Michigan model in the following way:

vote = f ( groups, party identification, ideology, attitudes, issues, leaders) Eq. 4

Seeing an individual’s positions on issues as a long-​term variable does not pose a problem for the Michigan model for three reasons. The first is that the responses obtained from a series of questions about issues allow us to measure an individual’s durable orientations toward fundamental questions such as the role of the state or questions of morality. In this way, these composite variables effectively measure long-​term attitudes. The second is that these attitudes will actualize into more precise questions such as the right to abortion, same-​sex marriage, healthcare reform, or the implementation of tax proposals during an election. These are precise questions that constitute the issues of an election. The final reason goes back to the distinction between valence and positional variables. As we have seen, positional variables can be at the heart of election campaigns. However, valence issues are the prototypical short-​term issue, since they are directly

 

356    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck linked to the performance of the incumbent government. Thus, the importance of these issues and the evaluation of the government vary from one election to the other. Work inspired by the Michigan model has shown that an individual’s vote choice depends on long-​term factors such as belonging to a socio-​demographic group, feelings of attachment toward parties, overall ideological orientation (left–​right or liberal–​ conservative), or deep-​seated attitudes toward big questions such as the role of the state or “lifestyle” questions. However, this same vote choice also depends on short-​term factors such as leader image and the issues at stake, particularly the economy. What comes out of this characterization is one of a voter who is torn between predispositions that would lead them to vote consistently for the same party and newer information about leaders and issues that may lead them to switch camps. The weakest anchor points of some voters (e.g. those with weak attachments to social groups, independent voters without any partisan attachments, centrists on the left–​right continuum, and voters with little or no interest in politics) explain the political changes of the past. Recent weakening of these anchor points can explain the rise in electoral volatility.

Studying French Electoral Behavior Multipartyism and the large number of candidates during a presidential election (along with the constant evolution of electoral rules and types of elections; see Fauvelle-​Aymar, Lewis-​Beck, and Nadeau, 2011) seems to render the search for a general explanation of voter behavior in France doomed from the start. However, regularities and durable traits have been discerned by both French and foreign political scientists. Over time, there has also been some convergence between French and foreign studies of French elections. These studies are now more based on an interpretive framework of voter behavior that generally conforms to the Michigan model. That being said, in spite of this combination, the study of elections still has distinctive features in France.

French Political Science Perspectives on French Elections Spatial and geographic analysis, areas with which André Siegfried (1913) and Paul Bois (1960) are inevitably associated, have long been consistent and dominant elements of election studies in France. This tradition lives on thanks to the work of François Goguel (1951, 1970, and 1974) and, more recently, through a renewed analysis of territorial socioeconomic dynamics and distances of territories from urban centers (Bussi, 2007). While ecological analysis is not specific to the study of elections in France, it enjoys more of a privileged place in election studies here than elsewhere. However, this approach lost ground in the 1960s to explanatory models based on sociology. This contributed to giving two distinctive traits to the study of voter behavior in France. First, contrary to what happened in other countries such as Great Britain (Butler and

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    357 Stokes, 1974) and Canada (Kanji, Bilodeau, and Scotto, 2012), the research into elections in France did not entail the use of large-​scale election studies conducted by university scholars.1 As such, studies of voting in France almost exclusively concentrated on long-​term variables, notably class, religion, and ideology (Michelat, 1962; Michelat and Simon, 1977; Michelat and Tiberj, 2007). This particular orientation meant that French political scientists’ most significant contributions were with regard to long-​term determinants of voter behavior in France. Not until the 1990s was there an interest in studying short-​term factors in French electoral behavior. And it was not until the 2000s that CEVIPOF surveys started to systematically include measures of candidate image and valence issues, such as economic perceptions (Pierce, 2002; Lewis-​Beck and Nadeau, 2010; Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck, 2014).

Long-​Term Factors French political scientists have seen a weakening in the effect of long-​term variables on vote choice in their country. The overall contribution of socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, education, and religion to explaining voter behavior remains very limited (see notably Muxel, 2007; Perrineau, 2007). Once a so-​called variable lourde (or anchor variable) in voter models in France, religion remains a significant variable, but the steady decline of practicing Catholics reduces its scope (Dargent, 2004; 2010). French political scientists have also noted the sizeable decline in the class vote in France (Cautrès, 2004; Cautrès and Mayer, 2010), which they attribute to two very different dynamics. The first, which is common to most Western societies, relates to “gentrification” of the leftist vote, a phenomenon that is particularly notable among the socialist electorate (Gougou, 2007; Rey, 2007). The second, more unique to France, is the attraction of the Front National (Perrineau, 1997), notably among blue-​collar workers and less-​educated voters. However, the structuring factor par excellence in analyses of French voting is still ideology (Deutsch, Lindon, and Weill, 1966; Michelat and Simon, 1977; Boy and Mayer, 1993; Perrineau, 2007). The distinction between left and right, born in France during the French Revolution, continues to be seen as the dominant factor in explaining French electoral behavior. This perception endures, in spite of the historical presence of a centrist electorate, sometimes called the marais, and the breakthrough of candidates such as François Bayrou in 2007, who tried to go beyond this polarization by attracting voters from both the moderate left and right (Strudel, 2009). It is interesting to note that French political scientists have paid relatively little attention to party identification; but this does not mean that they are not interested in studying political parties. The work of Maurice Duverger on parties (1951) is considered a classic, as are the works of Georges Lavau (1968) and Annie Kriegel (1968) on the Communist Party. Furthermore, the remarkable analyses of Pascal Perrineau on the Front National (e.g. Perrineau, 1997) have also been influential. But the concept of party identification as it is used in the United States is rather absent from French studies. As such, the debate over the relative importance of ideology and party identification essentially involves foreign political scientists studying France, as we will see later.

 

358    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck However, the emphasis on long-​term vote determinants has allowed French political science to bring a significant contribution to understanding voter behavior on two levels. First, by insisting on the importance of voters’ ideological positioning in France, French researchers have contributed considerably to the debate over the nature of “anchor variables.” The importance of ideology as a structural factor of electoral behavior in France has helped to raise awareness of this concept among political scientists and to push for adapting the Michigan model to the context of different countries. It is in this vein that ideology has become part of the model, and it is now generally accepted that the relative effect of this variable and partisan identification vary across both time and space. The second important contribution from electoral sociology is the conceptualization and operationalization of the patrimony effect. Presented for the first time in the landmark work France de gauche, vote à droite on the 1978 legislative elections (Capdevielle and Dupoirier, 1981), this idea stipulates that an individual’s political preferences are not exclusively determined by socio-​economic factors such as occupation and income, but also by the nature of their assets. These assets can be financial (such as stocks) or non-​ financial (such as a house). Furthermore, the investment strategy that a person pursues also matters: the assumption is that those with a more diversified asset portfolio are more likely to vote for a rightist party. This “patrimony effect” was originally developed to explain why voters with leftist political leanings ended up voting for the Right during the 1978 legislative elections (Capdevielle and Dupoirier, 1981). This variable’s broader effect has been highlighted more recently in a series of works which show not only that patrimony is still pertinent for explaining voting in France (Foucault, Nadeau, and Lewis-​Beck, 2012; 2013; Le Hay and Sineau, 2012; Nadeau, Foucault, and Lewis-​Beck, 2010; 2011), but also that it can help explain voter behavior in Great Britain (Lewis-​Beck, Nadeau, and Foucault, 2013), Denmark (Stubager, Lewis-​Beck, and Nadeau, 2013), and the United States (Lewis-​ Beck and Nadeau, 2011), along with Australia, Switzerland, Mexico, and New Zealand (Foucault and Nadeau, 2014). The fruitfulness of the patrimony effect as a variable clearly shows that it has been one of the most significant contributions of French political science to electoral behavior studies.

Short-​term Factors The study of short-​term factors, such as issues and leader image, and their effects on electoral choices has seen considerable progress. Its main characteristic is that it has a long-​run parallel with large-​scale election studies having to do with political campaigning (Cayrol, 1989; Maarek, 1992; Gertslé, 2004). However, these variables took up very little space in the first large-​scale French election studies, which looked at the 1978 legislative and 1988 presidential elections. It was not until the 1995 presidential election that a CEVIPOF study included, in addition to measures of party identification and ideology, a relatively complete battery of questions on issues (positional and valence) and leader image (thermometer and traits; Boy and Mayer, 1997). However, this battery was not repeated in the 2002 presidential election (Cautrès and Mayer, 2004) and it was not until

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    359 the CEVIPOF survey of the 2007 election that there were a significant number of indicators to measure short-​term vote determinants (Cautrès and Muxel, 2009). The consequence of these variables being relatively absent has been two-​fold. The first is that the specific effect of these variables, in the context of complete voting models, could not be evaluated until recently. The second is that the contribution of French political scientists with regard to these variables has been more limited due to the lack of data. Work on issues in France has mostly focused on single-​issue parties such as the Greens (Boy, 2007) or the Front National (Perrineau, 1997). However, more recent work has started to explore the link between issue salience and vote choice (see Chiche and Mayer, 1997, and especially Sauger, 2009). Work on leader image in France based on large-​scale election studies is relatively recent (Boy and Chiche, 2009; Lewis-​Beck and Nadeau, 2010; Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck, 2014).2 In spite of the limited number of works on leader image, French political scientists have been innovative and developed the concept of “étoffe d’un président.” This concept corresponds to the term “right stuff ” and consists of a synthesis question that allows respondents to say without ambiguity if a candidate has the necessary qualities to be president. It is an interesting idea that could be useful in other national election studies (Lewis-​Beck and Nadeau, 2010).

Perspectives of Foreign Political Science on France French political life has long caught the attention of political scientists outside of France (Hoffman, 1974). Their contributions to our understanding of French electoral behavior over the past few decades have been in three broad areas. The first is in terms of offering a general model of electoral behavior in France that includes both long-​and short-​term factors suspected of influencing vote choice (Converse and Pierce, 1986; Pierce, 1995). The Michigan model à la française—​meaning taking into account the prominence of ideology as a structuring factor for the vote—​has been fruitful and has helped to satisfactorily explain the full cycle of presidential elections going from the re-​election of François Mitterrand in 1988 to that of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 (Lewis-​Beck, Nadeau, and Bélanger, 2012; Nadeau et al., 2012; Perrineau, 2012). The second contribution of foreign political scientists to an understanding of French electoral behavior has been to broaden the debate on socio-​psychological variables and how they structure electoral behavior in France. French political scientists have focused mainly on social class, religion, and ideology as structuring factors of political behavior in France. In contrast, little attention has been paid to party identification. American political scientists who have studied France have often included ideology and party identification in their models (Converse and Pierce, 1986; Pierce, 1995). That being said, the relative importance of these two variables in explaining vote choice in France has been the subject of many debates outside of France. Some argue that party identification plays a predominant role in France (Converse and Pierce, 1993), while others counter that ideology is the key factor that weighs on French voting behavior (Fleury and Lewis-​ Beck, 1993a; 1993b). The debate on this question has focused on both measuring party

 

360    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck identification (open or closed questions) and the appropriate estimation techniques for identifying the specific effects of these two variables (Lewis-​Beck and Chlarson, 2002; Bélanger et al., 2006). From this debate, two conclusions can be drawn. The first is that it seems to be indispensable to use an open question to measure party identification in France, lest one overestimate its impact on vote choice (Lewis-​Beck and Chlarson, 2002). The second is that the effect of ideology is generally equal to or larger than that of party identification in the newer vote models used in France (Bélanger et al., 2006; Lewis-​Beck, Nadeau, and Bélanger 2012). Given the numerous changes to the French party system over the past few decades and the complexity of measuring the effect of party identification on vote choice, the most common technique used in current models of French voting has been to almost exclusively use ideology as a “standing decision that guides the French voter” (Nadeau, Lewis-​Beck, and Bélanger, 2013; Nadeau et al., 2012). The third contribution of foreign political scientists has been to systematically include measures of issues and leader image in models that already contain the main long-​and short-​term variables that influence vote choice. This has allowed for the measurement of how short-​term variables, notably leader image, affect vote choice in France. For example, Converse and Pierce (1986: 174–​8, 318–​22) established that General de Gaulle’s image helped raise the number of votes for rightist parties during the legislative elections in 1967. Pierce showed that the image of François Mitterrand played a small role in his re-​ election in 1988, while that of Jacques Chirac was more influential in his winning of the Elysée in 1995 (Pierce, 1995; 2002). Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck (2014) systematically studied leader image and concluded that the personal popularity of the candidates played an important role in French presidential elections. The study of issues was another contribution of international political science to the study of elections in France. French elections are dominated by two issues: immigration and the economy (Nadeau et al., 2012). The issue of immigration has mostly been examined in studies on the rise of the extreme Right in Europe and from the perspective of single-​issue voting (Mudde, 1999). Immigration has also been the subject of work focusing on mainstream party strategies to counter the rise of the extreme-​Right parties capitalizing on this issue (Meguid, 2009). The other major contribution has to do with valence issues, notably economic voting. In a series of studies spanning more than twenty years, Michael S. Lewis-​Beck has shown that French voters tend to punish or reward incumbent governments in France according to the prevailing economic situation during an election (Lewis-​Beck, 1988; Lewis-​Beck, Nadeau, and Bélanger, 2012). His work on economic voting also showed the sophistication of French voters. They clearly assign responsibility for the economy to the prime minister rather than the president in times of cohabitation, meaning when they belong to different ideological camps (i.e. Mitterrand and Chirac from 1986 to 1988; Mitterrand and Balladur from 1993 to 1995, and Chirac and Jospin from 1997 to 2002; see Lewis-​Beck, 1997, and Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck, 2014). Similarly, the impact of economic voting is lower in European elections than in national elections to the extent that the French government’s responsibility is less clear and more indirect (see Lewis-​Beck and Nadeau, 2000).

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    361

Some Turning Points of French Political Life Works on economic voting are in and of themselves important, but they are also significant because they reflect in some way the great turning points in French politics since the 1960s. The impact of economic conditions on the vote means that short-​term variables in France have, over time, come to play an increasing role in French elections. The changing nature of economic voting according to the circumstances—​during times of cohabitation or during national or European elections—​shows the importance of institutions for electoral dynamics in France. The rise of short-​term factors and institutional changes in France over recent decades are two essential keys to understanding elections and voter behavior in France. The increased role of short-​term variables can be attributed to factors prevalent in France but also common to most European democracies. The weakening of class voting, measured by changes in Alford’s index, for example, has also been observed in Britain and the United States. However, French politics has some specific traits that affect the entire country’s political dynamics. An influential leader like General de Gaulle governing France gave a peculiar color to the country’s political life for over a decade. His departure and the election of Georges Pompidou in 1969 resulted in a return to normal in French politics (Pierce, 2002). The other unique characteristic of French politics was the dominance of the Right between 1958 and 1981. The facts that the Left has been fractured and that France is home to one of the largest communist parties in Western Europe have long kept the Left away from power. The election of François Mitterrand in 1981 ended the Right’s domination and signalled the beginning of France’s dynamic switching between left and right. The failure on the economy of Mitterrand’s socialist-​ led government policy in the early 1980s and its replacement with a policy that put much more emphasis on the market economy accentuated the return to “normal” in French politics. Nowadays, alternating between leftist and rightist governments in France is seen as normal and unlikely to cause political upheaval. François Hollande’s election as president in 2012 entailed far less of the drama that surrounded François Mitterrand’s election, with the slogan “changer la vie,” in 1981 (Nadeau and Guillemette, 2013). Despite the continued differences between left and right in France, political life in the country is now dominated by moderate parties who do not necessarily seek to get elected due to their advocacy of radically different policies, but rather due to their competence in improving the economy and creating wealth. Thus, General de Gaulle’s departure in 1969, and the election of François Mitterrand in 1981, contributed greatly to a return to normal in France, where elections are characterized by short-​term factors, notably economic performance, playing a major role in deciding outcomes. The other key to understanding electoral dynamics in France is the frequent changing of electoral rules. To date, the most significant change has been modifying the electoral calendar so that the presidential elections now take place every five years, with the legislative elections (those held since 2002) taking place about a month after the second

 

362    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck round of the presidential election. The political objective of this change was to avoid cohabitation, where a sitting president may have to deal with a National Assembly where their own party is a minority party, and with a prime minister belonging to a party from the other side of the political spectrum. The result of this change made parliamentary elections a simple confirmation of the presidential election, giving the new president-​ elect a parliamentary majority that allows for a prime minister to be named from the same political party as the president, thereby ensuring quicker implementation of policies. As a result, there has been a dramatic decline in interest in French parliamentary elections and the hyper-​presidentialization of political life, as seen in the sharp drop in participation during legislative elections and high participation during presidential elections (Fauvelle-​Aymar, Lewis-​Beck, and Nadeau, 2011). The devaluation of parliamentary elections is most likely a main reason behind the academic community’s dampened interest in studying these elections. These days, one cannot imagine a landmark study such as France de droite, vote à gauche being conducted during a legislative election. While changing the electoral calendar lowered interest in legislative elections, it has also had the unintended consequence of increasing interest in local elections. Since the early 1980s, a decentralization process has been underway in France, aiming to give more powers and resources to local governments, notably to municipalities. Thus, municipal elections have over time become more meaningful to voters due to the increased role of municipal governments. The changes to the political calendar have only accentuated this trend. In France, municipal elections are held a few years away from the presidential election. In addition, the dynamics of these local elections is entirely structured by national political forces in that mayors also position themselves along the major rift between left and right. The combination of these factors has transformed the municipal elections into some sort of French-​style midterm elections, where voters can express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the current government (Nadeau, Foucault, and Jérôme-​Speziari, 2015). French politics is now marked by a hyper-​presidentialization, declining interest in parliamentary elections, increased interest in municipal elections, and widespread indifference toward European elections.

Electoral Studies in France: What’s on the Research Agenda? Electoral studies in France are based on a long and rich tradition. In addition to the contributions of French political scientists, the French case has also long attracted the interest of foreign researchers. Together, work done inside and outside of France has created a happy synthesis. A more complete account of voting behavior in France is enriching our understanding of the country’s own political dynamics; also it furthers understanding the profiles and motivations of voters in general. To this end, we propose a number of avenues for further research. But before discussing them, we should first say that in the

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    363 past an obstacle to studying elections in France was a lack of regular and large-​scale funding for election studies. A major breakthrough occurred with the 1995 French National Election Study, about one-​third of which was funded by a grant from the US National Science Foundation, under the direction of Principal Investigator Michael S. Lewis-​Beck. This participation enabled the different party identification measures, the inclusion of items about the leaders’ images (such as feeling thermometers), and the full economic voting battery, among other things. In 2002, another big step was made with a first partnership between CEVIPOF and the Ministry of the Interior. Furthermore, these partnerships were renewed for the 2007 and 2012 elections, and we hope that they continue to be renewed in the future. Securing stable financing and ensuring the continuity of data gathered across time remain two large items on the agenda for studying elections in France.

Election Campaigns First, we argue that the dynamics of election campaigns in France deserve more attention. The fact that all the major political parties now use primary elections to designate their leadership highlights the need to better understand the role and impact of electoral campaigns in France. Since the presidential elections of 2002, French political scientists have used panel surveys to understand movements in public opinion during election campaigns. However, the data obtained through this technique have not yet been very fruitful. Other techniques, such as rolling cross-​section, could be used to better understand the volatility of French voters during elections. More in-​depth study of the effects of electoral campaigns in France would make a useful contribution to answering questions of “do, and when do, campaigns matter?”

Long-​term Variables Long-​ term variables that influence vote choice are generally divided into three blocs: socio-​demographic variables such as age, gender, religion and education; socio-​ economic variables such as income and occupation; and socio-​psychological variables such as ideology and party identification. The main variables that have caught the attention of researchers in the first bloc to explain French electoral behavior are age, gender, religion, and education. Yet, two important variables remain understudied in major French electoral surveys. First, and this may seem paradoxical for a country that is the home of electoral geography, is the regional variable. While it is true that using surveys with small samples makes studying this variable difficult, the virtual absence of regional variables in explanations of voting patterns in France is a shortcoming that should be addressed, not only to measure the effect of region on vote choice but also to estimate potential interaction effects between region and other determinants. To this end, strategies such as pooling data or tapping into the potential of “big data” could be considered as sources of information in the future.

 

364    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck The other under-​studied variable in a country that talks a lot about immigration is precisely the vote of immigrants and their descendants. In 2007, Vincent Tiberj asked the question “Is there an immigration vote in France?” and it largely remains unanswered. However, as in most Western countries, immigrants make up an increasing proportion of the French population. This demographic shift is likely to change the partisan balance in the medium and long term, if immigrants largely chose to support one political party over another. For example, the increasing Hispanic population in the United States highlights the importance of studying the electoral behavior of relatively newer populations in Western democracies. In this way, the French case is quite interesting, particularly because it is a former colonial power that has adopted a specific immigrant integration policy that revolves around the so-​called republican model. We hope that immigrants’ political opinions and attitudes in France will be the subject of detailed studies in the future. The2012 publication of Brouard and Tiberj’s Des français comme les autres was a significant step in this direction and it is hoped that further studies continue in this vein of research. The effect of socio-​economic variables such as occupation and income on vote choice in France has been the subject of many notable studies. That said, the biggest breakthrough in this regard has been that of a “patrimony effect,” developed by Jacques Capdevielle and his team in their study of the 1978 legislative election (Capdevielle et al., 1981). More recent work has shown that patrimony does indeed still play an important role in French voting behavior and is also a significant vote determinant in many other democracies (Foucault and Nadeau, 2014). An important element on the research agenda in the field of French electoral studies would be to deepen our understanding of this patrimony effect. The patrimony effect was originally measured by taking into account the diversity of an individual’s portfolio of assets, be they financial assets (e.g. stocks, bonds, etc.) or non-​financial assets (e.g. primary residence, second home, rentals, etc.). However, recent work has emphasized the importance of differentiating assets by their level of risk. For example, possessing more risky assets, such as stocks or a company, can have a greater influence on an individual’s voting behavior than other factors (Nadeau, Foucault, and Lewis-​Beck, 2011). It would also be interesting to measure the patrimony effect on political behavior by taking into account not only the diversity of assets, but also their value. In short, work on patrimony and politics in France has shown that an individual’s material situation continues to influence their electoral preferences. French voter studies have built upon this idea by showing that an individual’s wealth cannot be measured using the usual variables of income and occupation, since in modern-​day economies an individual’s sources of income may be much more diversified. We hope that future work on the concept of patrimony is pursued in France, not only to better explain voting behavior in this country, but also to help explain the persistent link between the wealth of individuals and their political choices in general. The last bloc of long-​term variables usually includes ideology and party identification, and the relative effect of these variables varies by country. Ideology dominates in France, while party identification is the key variable in the United States. This question of the relative importance of ideology and party identification is central to the explanation of voting behavior. Work on the French case, showing the predominance

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    365 of ideology, has largely shown that the Michigan model should be amended to take account of national specificities. But the debate on ideology and party identification in France remains unsettled. In a detailed study on the presidential election of 1995, Lewis-​ Beck and Chlarson (2002) showed that party identification appears to have a greater effect than ideology on voters in the first round, while the opposite is true in the second round. However, Bélanger et al. (2006) conclude that ideology remains dominant. These nuanced, but somewhat contradictory, conclusions have unfortunately not led to subsequent work advancing the debate. This is probably partly due to a lack of adequate data on party identification in recent surveys. The rich and interesting findings of Lewis-​Beck and Chlarson (2002) are based on an open question for measuring partisan attachment. Hopefully, such wording will be used again in future to establish whether their conclusion can be generalized or applies only to the 1995 election. Thus, we hope that these core items of the 1995 election study can be replicated for the 2017 election. Such data and findings would be both relevant for understanding electoral dynamics in France and reflecting on the operationalization of party identification. Ideology and party identification are two keys to understanding an individual’s voting behavior. (On this, see the useful essay of Evans, 2004). Work on France has contributed to the more general debate over the relative effect of these two variables lourdes. However, the debate has not yet been settled and more work must be done on this issue to better understand French politics and, more generally, the electoral choices of individuals in democracies where these two forces are at work. We mentioned earlier that some researchers amended the Michigan model by adding psycho-​social variables measured through an item battery on individual attitudes regarding fundamental policy positions, such as the role of the state or morality issues. These batteries consist of responses to a series of questions on “positional” issues. It would be interesting if such batteries were used to study French voting behavior—​first, because the effect of issues remains under-​studied in France (see, however, Sauger, 2009), and second, because the results for France would allow us to see more generally whether the addition of “super-​issues” could be generalized to better understand the motivations of voters in other countries.

Short-​term Variables Looking into short-​term variables remains a priority for those studying the French case. The reason is simple. First, these variables have only been measured for a relatively short period of time in France. Therefore, each new election study adds significant information to what we already know about the effect of these variables. That said, the French electorate can probably no longer be considered as a “stalled electorate;” alternating between left and right seems to have become routine practice. In addition, the Left and Right roughly constitute equally sized voting blocs, as evidenced by the very tight nature of presidential races in France over the past 40 years. All these factors point toward the necessity of extensively studying short-​term factors influencing the vote in this country.

 

366    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck It would be interesting to see the study of issues in French elections progress in two directions. First, the study of valence issues should help better understand the relationship between the performance of an incumbent government and their chances of re-​election. The few studies on this issue have focused on the relationship between economic perceptions and voting (Lewis-​Beck, Nadeau, and Bélanger, 2012). Other issues, such as tax policy, could be studied to better measure the effect of economic positional issues in an established democracy such as France. However, there should also be further work on valence economic voting to see to what extent French voters believe that the economic performance of their country depends on their national government and to what extent it is the result of EU policies. Studying issues could also advance research on party image and presidential candidates’ election strategies in France. Many recent studies have used the idea of “issue ownership” to study party strategy during election campaigns (Petrocik, 1996; Belanger and Meguid, 2008; Egan, 2013). This type of work is fairly uncommon in the case of France. To date, the questionnaires used in large-​scale surveys in France have primarily been designed to study the spatial theory of voting. Thus, questions on party image, including on the perceived competence of parties on various issues, have had a very limited place in these surveys. However, the strategy of French presidential candidates, as elsewhere, has been to focus on certain issues and frame them in specific ways (Nadeau, Pétry, and Belanger, 2010). A deeper study of the “battle” over issues in France would contribute to what we know about the link between parties’ images and their electoral strategies. As most of the work on this has been done in the United States, extending the analysis of this issue to a context where partisan affiliations are more complex would be fruitful. The study of candidate image and how it impacts on vote choice also remains a priority in France, for two reasons. First, because candidate image has only recently been systematically measured in the country. Second, hyper-​presidentialization of the French political system, starting with de Gaulle and furthered with the changes to the electoral calendar, has relegated parliamentary elections and the premiership to the background. France is perhaps the most well-​established democracy where the powers of the president and their ascendancy in political life are so pronounced. In such circumstances, studying the image and perceptions of French presidential candidates is of particular interest. Work on this issue has been late in taking off due to the lack of data (Pierce, 2002; Lewis-​Beck and Nadeau, 2010; Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck, 2014). Despite this, French political scientists have developed the idea of “l’étoffe du president” to study candidate image. But much remains to be done to better understand what the most-​desired qualities of a presidential candidate are in France, and what the relationship is between these candidates’ qualities and their level of electoral support.

Conclusion Over the past few decades, the study of French voting behavior has been characterized, on one hand, by a tradition of French scholars looking at the unique aspects of their

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    367 own country. On the other hand, there has been the work of foreign experts, notably Americans, using a model designed for the United States but aiming to apply it to most other democracies, including to French elections. A synthesis of the two approaches has been slow to develop, for two reasons. The particular circumstances that led General de Gaulle to power, and the domination of the Right from 1958 to 1981, have long given the impression that elections in France have a particular character that is hardly suitable for generalization. The lack of large-​scale scientific surveys in France has limited opportunities to pursue a dialogue, one based on data, to empirically measure the impact of various long-​and short-​term factors on the French vote. The normalization of French politics, starting with General de Gaulle’s departure from politics and the alternating power dynamic between the Left and the Right, when combined with the implementation of large-​scale electoral surveys, has helped stimulate this dialogue. It now seems clear that the variables lourdes previously identified to explain elections in France—​social class, religion, and ideology—​constitute “French-​style” long-​term factors that structure the vote in this country. Resistance to the Michigan model in France helped highlight the fact that the variables lourdes impact on vote choice differently from one country to another. That said, the dominance of ideology in France over party identification, the (continued but declining) persistence of the effect of religion, and the impact of an individual’s wealth on their vote choice all show the need to adapt the Michigan model to the realities of the countries under study. The study of long-​term factors should continue to grow in France over the coming years. But it is mainly short-​term variables, such as issues and leader image, that should receive more attention in future attempts to account for the French electorate’s more volatile behavior in recent decades. The influence of campaign effects, issues, and candidate image on vote choice should be at the heart of the research agenda on French elections in the coming years. The availability of increasingly fine-​tuned measures on these issues, and the possibility of determining their impact in complete voting models, makes this task both possible and necessary. France, with its historic traditions, particular institutions, and hyper-​presidentialization, is not only a fascinating case study, but also provides a unique laboratory in which to illustrate several general aspects of voter behavior. This is why the French case will continue to generate significant work on the subject both within France and abroad.

Notes 1. The ambitious panel study carried out by IFOP on the 1958 referendum under the direction of Jean Stoetzel, Alain Girard, and Georges Dupeux did not have any follow-​ups (Pierce, 2002). It was not until the 1988 presidential election that one saw the inauguration of large-​ scale election studies headed by university scholars and carried out in a way that would maintain continuity in terms of the data gathered. Furthermore, it was not until the 2002 election that stable sources of funding were available to support these projects. 2. The pioneering study of Converse and Dupeux (1966) on the images of presidents de Gaulle in France and Eisenhower in the United States is a notable exception (a previous edition of this work was published in France in 1962; see Converse and Dupeux, 1962).

 

368    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck

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370    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck Foucault, M. and Nadeau, R. (2014). “Comparing Patrimonial Voting.” Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association. Washington, DC, August 28–​31. Foucault, M., Nadeau, R., and Lewis-​Beck, M. S. (2012). “La persistance de l’effet patrimoine lors des élections présidentielles françaises,” Revue française de science politique 61: 659–​80. Foucault, M., Nadeau, R., and Lewis-​Beck, M. S. (2013). “Patrimonial Voting:  Refining the Measures,” Electoral Studies 32: 557–​62. Fournier, P., Nadeau, R., Blais, A., Gidengil, E., and Nevitte, N. (2001). “Validation of Time of Voting Decision Recall,” Public Opinion Quarterly 65: 95–​107. Funk, C. L. (1996). “Understanding Traits Inferences in Candidates Images,” in Delli Carpini, M. X., Huddy, L., and Shapiro, R. Y. (eds) Research in Micropolitics:  News Directions in Political Psychology 5. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 97–​123. Gertslé, J. (2004). La communication politique. Paris: Armand Colin. Gidengil, E., Nevitte, N., Blais, A., Everitt, J., and Fournier, P. (2012). Dominance and Decline: Making Sense of Recent Canadian Elections. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Goguel, F. (1951). Géographie des élections françaises de 1870 à 1951. Paris: Armand Colin. Goguel, F. (1966). “L’élection présidentielle française de 1965,” Revue française de science politique 16: 221–​54. Goguel, F. (1970). Géographie des élections françaises sous la Troisième et la Quatrième République. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Goguel, F. (1974). “Du 5 mai 1946 au 19 mai 1974,” Revue française de science politique 24: 893–​910. Gougou, F. (2007). “L’éclatement du vote populaire,” in Perrineau, P. (ed.) Atlas électoral: qui vote quoi, où, comment? Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Green, J. (2007). “When Voters and Party Agree:  Valence Issues and Party Competition,” Political Studies 55: 629–​55. Hoffman, S. (1974). Decline or Renewal: France since the 1930s. New York: Viking. Iyengar, S. and Kinder, D. (1987). News that Matters. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Jackman, S. (2003). “Political Parties and Electoral Behavior,” in McAllister, I., Doorick, S., and Hassan, R. (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of the Social Sciences in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 266–​86. Kanji, M., Bilodeau, A., and Scotto, T. J. (eds) (2012). The Canadian Election Studies. Assessing Four Decades of Influence. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Key, V. O., Jr. (1966). The Responsible Electorate. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kriegel, A. (1968). Les communistes français. Paris: Seuil. Kritzinger, S., Zeglovits, E., Lewis-​Beck, M. S., and Nadeau, R. (2013). The Austrian Voter. Vienna: University of Vienna Press. Lavau, G. (1968). “À la recherche d’un cadre théorique pour l’étude du Parti communiste français,” Revue française de science politique 18: 445–​66. Le Hay, V., and Sineau, M. (2012). “‘Effet patrimoine’: 30 ans après, le retour?” Revue française de science politique 60: 869–​900. Lewis-​Beck, M. S. (1988). Economics and Elections: The Major Western Democracies. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Lewis-​Beck, M. S. (1997). “Who’s the Chief? Economic Voting Under Dual Executive”. European Journal of Political Research 31: 315–25. Lewis-​Beck, M. S. and Chlarson, K. (2002). “Party, Ideology, Institutions and the 1995 French Presidential Election,” British Journal of Political Science 32: 489–​512.

 

Explaining French Elections: The Need to Meet in the Middle    371 Lewis-​Beck, M. S., Jacoby, W. G., Norpoth, H., and Weisberg, H. F. (2008). The American Voter Revisited. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press. Lewis-​Beck, M. S., and Nadeau, R. (2000). “French Electoral Institutions and the Economic Vote,” Electoral Studies 19: 171–​82. Lewis-​Beck, M. S. and Nadeau, R. (2010). “Leadership Traits in French Election Studies,” French Politics 8: 215–​21. Lewis-​Beck, M. S. and Nadeau, R. (2011). “Economic Voting Theory: Testing New Directions,” Electoral Studies 30: 288–​94. Lewis-​ Beck, M. S., Nadeau, R., and Bélanger, É. (2012). French Presidential Elections. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lewis-​Beck, M. S., Nadeau, R., and Foucault, M. (2013). “The Compleat Economic Model: New Evidence from the UK,” British Journal of Political Science 43: 241–​61. Lewis-​Beck, M. S. and Stegmaier, M. (2013). “The VP Function Revisited:  A  Survey of the Literature on Vote and Popularity Functions over 40 years,” Public Choice 157: 367–​85. Maarek, P. (1992). Communication et marketing de l’homme politique. Paris: Litec. Meguid, B. (2009). Party Competition between Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Michelat, G. (1962). “Attitudes et comportements politiques à l’automne 1962,” in Goguel, F. (ed.) Le référendum d’octobre 1962 et les élections de novembre 1962. Cahiers de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Paris: Armand Colin: 242–​54. Michelat, G. and Simon, M. (1977). Classe, religion et comportement politique. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale de science politique. Michelat, G. and Tiberj, V. (2007). “Gauche, centre, droite et vote: permanence et mutation d’une opposition,” Revue française de science politique 57: 369–​92. Mudde, C. (1999). “The Single-​Issue Party Thesis: Extreme Right Parties and the Immigration Issue,” West European Politics 22: 182–​97. Muxel, A. (2007). “Les jeunes,” in Perrineau, P. (ed.) Atlas électoral: qui vote quoi, où, comment? Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 71–​4. Nadeau, R., Bélanger, É., Lewis-​Beck, M. S., Cautrès, B., and Foucault, M. (2012). Le vote des Français de Mitterrand à Sarkozy. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Nadeau, R., Bélanger, É., Lewis-​Beck, M. S., Gélineau, F., and Turgeon, M. (forthcoming). “How Latin America Votes” (unpublished manuscript). Nadeau, R., Foucault, M., Jérôme, B., and Jérôme-​Speziairi, V. (2015). Villes de droite, villes de gauche. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po (forthcoming). Nadeau, R., Foucault, M., and Lewis-​Beck, M. S. (2010). “Patrimonial Economic Voting: Legislative Elections in France,” West European Politics 33: 1261–​77. Nadeau, R., Foucault, M., and Lewis-​Beck, M. S. (2011). “Assets and Risk:  A  Neglected Dimension of Economic Voting,” French Politics 9: 97–​119. Nadeau, R. and Guillemette, M. (2013). “Les élections présidentielles françaises vues de la presse québécoise,” in Maarek, P. (ed.) Les élections présidentielles de 2012. Paris: L’Harmattan, 231–​41. Nadeau, R. and Lewis-​Beck, M. S. (2014). “Between Leadership and Charisma, the Importance of Leaders,” in Curtice, J. and Lobo, M. C. (eds) Personality in Politics? The Role of Leaders Evaluations in Democratic Elections. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 169–​90. Nadeau, R., Lewis-​Beck, M. S., and Bélanger, É. (2013). “Economics and Elections Revisited,” Comparative Political Studies 46: 551–​73.

 

372    Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck Nadeau, R., Niemi, R. G., and Yoshinaka, A. (2002). “A Cross-​National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context Across Time and Nations,” Electoral Studies 21: 403–​23. Nadeau, R., Pétry, F., and Bélanger, É. (2010). “Strategic Issue Framing in Election Campaigns:  The Case of Healthcare in the 2000 Canadian Federal Election,” Political Communication 27: 367–​88. Perrineau, P. (1997). Le symptôme Le Pen:  radiographie des électeurs du Front national. Paris: Fayard. Perrineau, P. (ed.) (2007). Atlas électoral: qui vote quoi, où, comment? Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Perrineau, P. (2012). “Préface,” in Nadeau, R., Bélanger, É., Lewis-​Beck, M. S., Cautrès, B., and Foucault, M. Le vote des Français de Mitterrand à Sarkozy. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 17–​19. Petrocik, J. R. (1996). “Issue Ownership in Presidential Elections, with a 1980 Case Study,” American Journal of Political Science 40: 825–​50. Pierce, R. C. (1995). Choosing the Chief. Presidential Elections in France and the United States. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Pierce, R. C. (2002). “Candidate Evaluations and Presidential Electoral Choices in France,” in King, A. (ed.) Leaders’ Personalities and Outcomes in Democratic Elections. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 96–​126. Powell, B. G., and Whitten, G. D. (1993). “A Cross-​ National Analysis of Economic Voting:  Taking Account of the Political Context,” American Journal of Political Science 37: 391–​414. Rey, H. (2007). “L’électorat socialiste: volatilité et inconstance,” in Perrineau, P. (ed.) Atlas électoral: qui vote quoi, où, comment? Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 49–​53. Sauger, N. (2009). “Agenda électoral et vote sur enjeux,” in Cautrès, B. and Muxel, A. (eds) Comment les électeurs font-​ils leur choix? Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 181–​200. Siegfried, A. (1913). Tableau politique de la France de l’Ouest sous la Troisième République. Paris: Armand Colin. Stokes, D. E. (1963). “Spatial Models of Party Competition,” American Political Science Review 57: 368–​77. Strudel, S. (2009). “La tentation bayrouiste,” in Cautrès, B. and Muxel, A. (eds) Comment les électeurs font-​ils leur choix? Le Panel électoral français 2007. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 221–​37. Stubager, R., Lewis-​Beck, M. S., and Nadeau, R. (2013). “Searching for the Welfare State: Patrimonial Economic Voting in Denmark,” Electoral Studies 32: 438–​44. Vavreck, L. (2009). The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Vowles, J. (2005). “New Zealand: Consolidation or Reform?” in Gallagher, M. and Mitchell, P. (eds) The Politics of Electoral Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 280–​306. Wattenberg, M. (1991). The Rise of Candidate-​Centered Era: Presidential Elections in the 80s. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

 

Chapter 17

Parties and Pa rt y Systems making the French sociocultural approach matter Florence Haegel

The European academic literature on Western European political parties has always been comparative. Moreover, it has favored general approaches that have led to the dissemination of global typologies. This chapter addresses the question of the place of the French case within this extensive literature on political parties: Does the French case count for the development of research on European political parties? To what extent does it fit into this comparative approach? Or does it challenge these global typologies? Furthermore, this chapter addresses the issue of the potential specificity of French research on political parties. How did French research on political parties develop? What are its major fields of interest? Is this research connected to English-​language literature or isolated from it? In sum, the first group of questions considers French parties “from the outside,” assessing how the comparative literature addresses French political parties. The second group reverses the logic and focuses on the French case “from the inside,” asking how French scholars support or challenge the international frameworks of analysis. As far as political parties are concerned, we will argue that the discrepancy between the English-​and French-​language literature is strong, and even stronger than it used to be, because of the French penchant for the sociocultural approach. Thus this chapter aims to give an account of French works largely ignored by international scholars and argues for the need for an opening on both sides up in order to avoid the risk of isolation and fossilization. With this aim in mind, the first section provides an overview of the literature on parties and party systems by identifying major milestones. It focuses on the founding fathers and gives an overview of English-​language literature by mapping out its various theoretical frameworks of analysis. The second section focuses on France, drawing attention to the place taken by the French case in this classic literature and providing a

 

374   Florence Haegel critical review of the literature on France. It describes how contemporary French scholars study political parties, and examines the sociocultural approach that tends to dominate French literature both in theoretical and methodological terms. Then, by mapping out French works within the same structural space as that used for English-​language work, it stresses the discrepancy between them. The third section outlines the major challenges that French research on political parties faces today, and the chapter ends with a short conclusion.

The Comparative Literature on Parties and Party Systems Any overview of the comparative literature on parties and party systems should combine a historical view with a comparative one, but the task is extremely challenging. Indeed, from the end of the nineteenth century up to now a lot of work has been conducted on parties, and one cannot possibly review it all. At the outset, between 1888 and 1911, the so-​called founding fathers, Bryce (1995), Ostrogorski (1965), and Michels (1962), were riting. They came from various backgrounds but all three aimed to observe and analyze the birth of parties empirically. Nowadays, the party literature is flourishing using sophisticated quantitative methods, but it sometimes risks being self-​referential. Thus, this section does not try to review all the field of research on political parties but provides a rapid insight into the founding studies and major milestones, and then sketches out the theoretical frameworks used in English-​language literature.

Mapping out Major Theoretical Frameworks There is neither a general theory of political parties nor a unified research field. Indeed, the global picture looks more like a “confederation of individual works” (Crotty, 1991: 138). Figure 17.11 is an attempt to create a schematic map of these “individual works” within English-​language literature.2 Of course, this figure does not include all the authors of works on parties. Rather, it features several major or particularly representative figures, and mainly book authors. The vertical axis refers to the level at which parties are observed, from the micro (at the bottom of graph) to the meso (in the middle), and then to the macro (at the top). At the bottom, one finds authors who study parties as either a system of cooperation of individuals or a local configuration. The middle level gathers authors who focus on parties as a single organization at the national level. The top level includes authors who focus on the party system. The horizontal axis contrasts two types of environments in which parties are embedded. The left side shows scholars who prioritize institutional (i.e. institutions, electoral

 

Parties and Party Systems    375 MACRO

Party systems’ analysis institutional and relational approaches SARTORI

Systemic analysis

Typological analysis

Party systems analysis cleavages* and functions** approaches *ROKKAN, LIPSET **MERTON

KIRCHEIMER, KATZ and MAIR

Sociology of organizations PANEBIANCO Organizational analysis

INSTITUTIONAL and POLITICAL

SOCIAL

Entrepreneurial analysis SCHUMPETER

Local analysis ELDERSVELD, CROTTY

Rational choice DOWNS, ALDRICH, SCHLESINGER MICRO

Figure 17.1  How the study of parties and party systems has developed in the English-​language literature. Source: Dézé and Haegel (forthcoming)

rules, etc.) and political environments (relations shaping political competition). The right side includes scholars who relate parties to their social environment. These authors diverge on how they take the social environment into account; either they focus on how parties mobilize specific social segments or they refer to parties’ social functions. The former analyze parties’ social roots by looking at the social profiles of various partisan actors, voters, grassroots members, activists, leaders, etc. The latter consider the social function carried out by specific parties. For example, Merton considered the specific social functions of the American political machine (Merton, 1949). In sum, Figure 17.1 enables us to place individual works in a structured space, combining two dimensions and based on two questions: At what level are the parties being observed? What type of environment is being studied? Thus, it provides a comparative overview of the distribution of the English-​language literature on parties. For instance, Rokkan and Lipset’s (1967) and Sartori’s (1976) insights on party systems introduced new perspectives by emphasizing not the organization itself (the meso level) but rather the system of relations that parties combine to form (the macro level). Among the studies located at this macro level one can distinguish between, on one hand, Sartori and Duverger (although Duverger’s work falls under both the meso and macro levels), and,

 

376   Florence Haegel on the other, Rokkan. The former explain party-​system dynamics by reference to electoral systems or ideological polarization; the latter relates party system formation to socio-​historical cleavages. One can draw a similar distinction for micro-​analyses since they differ according to how they conceive of the party environment. For instance, rational choice studies fall under the category of micro-​analysis, insofar as they focus on individual behavior. However, they consider party actors to be framed by institutional and political environments and not the social environment. The same cannot be said of local or anthropological approaches because they largely neglect institutional and political environments and emphasize the social one. They observe parties as networks of individuals and groups embedded in local and social environments.

The Success of “Catch-​all Models” This structural space can be used to map in broad strokes the existing English-​language literature on parties. Unfortunately, Caramani and Hug’s previous attempt to create a map of the European literature on parties and party systems based on a systematic and quantitative inventory of publications since 1945 (Caramani and Hug, 1998)  has not been yet updated, especially as the birth in 1995 of a specialized review (Party Politics) devoted to the topic has strongly shaped the subfield. Nevertheless, our overview is not based on a quantitative database and so is far more impressionistic than theirs. Organizational approaches, which account for the bulk of the academic literature, are located in the middle of Figure 17.1, at the meso level. At the beginning, when theoretical debate dominated academic work, Bryce, Ostrogorski, and Michels were driven by sociological interest. They focused on how parties were organized and ruled in concrete terms, but they did not jettison all normative considerations and shared strongly pessimistic views on party functioning and influence. Surprisingly, this organizational approach did not become widespread following their seminal works until Duverger’s book relaunched it in the 1950s. Caramani and Hug (1998) emphasized the fact that this literature blossomed from the beginning of the 1950s to the end of the 1970s. This period corresponds to the institutionalization of political science, and this blossoming is most likely a common trend shared by other thematic subfields. Nevertheless, the publication of Duverger’s famous book Les partis politiques (published in French in 1950 and rapidly translated into English in 1954) had a real impact on the literature on political parties.3 In line with his predecessors, who were present at the birth of the parties they studied, he claimed to promote an organizational approach, as opposed to an ideological one. The organizational approach includes two major strains: a classical organizational and typological approach, including Panebianco’s attempt to apply the sociology of organizations to political parties; and an entrepreneurial approach. Organizational and typological approaches are tightly connected. Duverger’s claim that parties were defined less by their ideology than by their organization has

 

Parties and Party Systems    377 developed together with its typological variant. Along the same line, Panebianco also adopted a typological approach while drawing on Crozier and Friedberg’s French sociology of organizations (Crozier and Friedberg, 1977). Indeed, typologies are a sort of hallmark of party literature (Gunther and Diamond, 2003) and scholars are keen to discuss, criticize, and enrich them with the aim of capturing major historical changes and large geographical diversity on the grounds of national case studies as well as big datasets. They also create new labels in order to be quoted according to the rules of academic market and all these typologies and labels give neophytes a feeling of repetition and closure. Indeed, after Duverger, the party literature entered a prolific period when party models and typologies flourished. During this time, the creation of new labels based on global and synthetic comparative approaches regularly appeared in academic works. The list is far too long to be exhaustively commented on. From Duverger’s “mass party” (Duverger, 1951) to Katz and Mair’s “cartel party” (Katz and Mair, 1994), to Kirchheimer’s “catch-​all party” (Kirchheimer, 1966), to Panebianco’s “electoral professional party” (Panebianco, 1988), each can be considered a “catch-​all model.” They all attempt to frame the historical development of parties by combining various dimensions, including electoral, organizational, and ideological ones. Each label underscores a specific change. Kirchheimer emphasized social de-​segmentation and its political consequences; the vanishing of ideological conflicts and de-​ideologization. Meanwhile, Panebianco focused on party professionalization and related this process to the fact that parties were increasingly electorally driven. Finally, Katz and Mair brought all these features together and took a step further by challenging the tradition of favoring the study of the party–​society linkage at the expense of the party–​state linkage. They argued that parties move from society to state as party competition closes—​the so-​called cartelization of the party system. Each author’s specific input aside, they all share a common basis insofar as they all include, in a more or less integrated way, four major changes: professionalization, electoralism, and the vanishing of both party subcultures and ideologies. They assume that new, largely de-​ideologized professional parties driven by electoral goals have replaced old bureaucratic parties centered on social integration and ideological production. Contrasting with these “catch-​all models,” entrepreneurial approaches cover another variety of organizational analysis based on Weber’s seminal concept of the party leader as “entrepreneur.” These approaches share the belief that political parties are organizations driven by the competition for posts. This entrepreneurial conception of political parties partly overlaps with rational choice’s analytical framework since both of them emphasize the intrinsically competitive nature of political parties, given that parties comprise actors competing for posts and votes. However, they differ in at least one respect: their conception of how citizens relate to politics. In line with Downs, rational choice scholars postulate that citizens are rational and aware of their interests, but limited by their lack of information. Schumpeter’s “realistic” view of the political realm (Schumpeter, 2008) is far from postulating that individual political behavior is rational. On the contrary, his conception is based on a very pessimistic psychology according

 

378   Florence Haegel to which citizens are naive, childish, crude, and of course irrational. In this respect, Schumpeter is related to the entrepreneurial conception, but he cannot be considered a rational-​choice scholar, while Downs’ (1957) rational-​choice modeling approach provided a theoretical basis for the study of party competition addressing the question of strategic “hard decisions” (Müller and Strom, 1999) including voter targeting, coalition formation, programmatic choices, etc. The rational modeling approach also impacted on other topics such as party birth (Aldrich, 1995), or the careers of party actors (Schlesinger, 1991). In sum, rational-​choice assumptions based on individuals cooperating within teams fueled a large amount of work on political parties, especially in the United States, replacing an old tradition on local and urban context and social groups (Eldersveld, 1964; Crotty, 1986).

How the Study of Parties and Party Systems in France Has Developed Having reviewed the literature on parties and party systems by mapping its various theoretical frameworks of analysis, this section focuses on France. It addresses two major questions: how has the international literature dealt with the French case? How has the French literature on parties developed? First, it shows that France was considered a somewhat peripheral case because of the weakness of its parties until a strong Communist party and then a puzzling Gaullist emerged. Then it gives a detailed account of the sociocultural approach that tends to dominate the French literature, both in theoretical and methodological terms, explaining the discrepancy between the English-​ language literature and that of the French language.

The French Case in European Founding Works on Political Parties The three founding fathers of party literature were all European scholars who had experienced or studied various national cases. Bryce and Ostrogorski believed that “the best way to observe a political system was from outside” (Pombeni, 1994: 321). They did work on foreign countries, respectively on the United Sates for the British Bryce, and the United States and the United Kingdom for Ostrogorski, a Russian trained in France. Michels was much more of an insider. Coming from an Italian–​German background, he experienced German and Italian socialism and was a trade unionist, but he was also very well informed about the French political situation (Cook, 1971). The three of them chose their national cases with a view to the impact of party-​ based democracy on the political system. As a result they neglected France, on the grounds that it was too peripheral a case since parties were not as strong and central

 

Parties and Party Systems    379 as they were in the United Kingdom, the United States, or Germany. In fact, France is still considered a “deviant case” (Von Beyme, 1985: 16) in the comparative literature on parties. Indeed, the French party system is known for its instability and French parties are famous for their weakness. In his comparison of the birth of parties in various Western countries, Hans Daalder classically explained this specificity by pointing to institutional parameters stemming from the impact of the French Revolution on institutional stability: “The French Revolution and reaction to it, however, created persistent divisions in French political development, burdening the legitimacy of successive regimes, complicating the formation of strong nationwide political parties and leading to alternative rassemblements, plebiscitary adventure, and repeated institutional tinkering rather than stable party politics” (Daalder, 2001: 44). In this context, Duverger’s success has been attributed to the fact that his method appeared “truly comparative” (Beer, 1953: 514), since it was not only based on French experience but on a range of information gathered elsewhere, mainly in the United Kingdom and in the United States (even though some American scholars criticized his understanding of American politics). During the golden age of the literature on parties, scholars paid special attention to parties originating from four countries, in descending order: Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdm (Caramani and Hug, 1998: 500). Communism as a Southern European particularity and Gaullism stimulated their interest in the French case. For instance, Kirchheimer referred to France while he was creating his “catch-​all model.” On one hand, he considered the French Gaullist party—​the UNR—​as a paradigmatic case of a de-​ideologized party appealing to a vast population with its vague nationalist ideology and emphasis on personalization. On the other, he argued that Italian and French Communist parties were deviant cases insofar as they were reluctant to de-​ ideologize. Panebianco also examined the French Gaullist party. He included it in the category of “charismatic parties,” together with the Nazi party, on the grounds that those organizations were “founded by single leaders who used them for their own purposes” (Panebianco, 1988: 143), arguing that this particular “genetic model” largely shaped their organization. More specifically, he argued: “The Gaullist party was one of the rare charismatic parties in which charisma was successfully objectified” (1988: 147). Sartori (1976) also referred to the French case when he analyzed the dynamics of party system polarization. In addition to using the historical cases of the German Weimar Republic and the post-​war Italian party system, he illustrated many of his arguments with examples taken from the French Fourth Republic. Once again, the impact of Gaullist and Communist parties on the system was particularly interesting because these two “anti-​system” parties exerted a counter pressure on the whole system. In sum, European literature on parties and the party system has been truly comparative, but the French case was for the most part overlooked by the founding fathers. France was considered a somewhat peripheral case because French parties were not as strong as they were in other European countries. However, the French case did garner attention as a strong Communist party emerged and a puzzling Gaullist party took root. France then became an extreme or “deviant” case.

 

380   Florence Haegel

The Renewal of French Research on Parties: A Sociocultural Turn? For a long time political parties were neglected by French political scientists, but there has been a renewed academic interest since the 1990s. PhD theses have been defended, young scholars specialized in political parties have been appointed at universities, and many books on the subject have been published. Broadly speaking, this renewal is in line with a societal and cultural approach to political parties. This partly explains why the French academic literature is not visible in the English-​language academic work, which is dominated (at least in political science) by rational choice or organizational and typological approaches. Indeed, a quick overview of publications in Party Politics since 1995 is sufficient to demonstrate the marginality of the societal or cultural approach there. This lack of international visibility necessitates a detailed account of how French scholars approach parties. What is at stake in this so-​called “societal and cultural” approach? In the French context it implies both theoretical and methodological choices. The paradigm postulates that political parties are socially embedded institutions, and gives priority to qualitative fieldwork at local level.

Political Parties as Socially Embedded Institutions We need to begin by saying that not all French studies on political parties share the sociocultural paradigm. Some of them favor historical inquiry and still address the questions of power and institutions. For instance, some have investigated how the French Socialist Party (PS) has established highly complex relations with power (Bergounioux and Grunberg, 1992), and how this party has dealt with institutional issues (Grunberg, 2013). Others are interested in the dynamics of the party system, including the growing bipartisan trend within the French party system and challenges to it (Grunberg and Haegel, 2007), how party discipline is managed (Sauger, 2009), and how the National Front has interacted with the French system from its birth to Marine Le Pen’s leadership (Dézé, 2012). Broadly speaking, though, the trend is clearly marked by a sociocultural turn. Theoretically, this approach falls within new sociological and historical institutionalisms. It emphasizes some of the latter’s major elements insofar as it shares the same “scepticism toward rational-​action models of organization, and […] views institutionalization as a state-​dependent process that makes organizations less instrumentally rational by limiting the options they can pursue” (DiMaggio and Powell, 1984: 12). Proponents of this paradigm therefore view political parties neither as organizations sharing common goals nor as tools in the hands of politicians. They consider them as institutions producing meanings, norms, codes, senses of belonging, affects, etc. Consequently, many French scholars studying parties would prefer the term “institutions” over “organizations.” In this respect, they both stand apart from rational choice by arguing that parties are not exclusively goal-​oriented groups led by instrumental drives

 

Parties and Party Systems    381 (vote-​, office-​, or policy-​seeking) and also distance themselves from classic organizational approaches, which they call to fault for separating political parties from their social and cultural backgrounds. Thus, they criticize the analysis of “organizational order,” as Panebianco put it, on the grounds that this type of study of internal power relations assumes that party actors are distinguished by their organizational status (elected versus administrative, local versus national, factional versus non-​factional, etc.), ignoring their social positions. To consider political parties as socially embedded cultural institutions is to emphasize party culture and how the behavior of party actors is constrained by specific codes and norms. Such an approach addresses the question of how parties shape meanings, rituals, symbols, and ideologies, and how they “manage meanings,” as Hastings (2001) put it. From this perspective, the recent French literature on parties has favored particular points of view such as the study of internal organizational culture, party socialization, and sociability. A large number of French scholars analyze the extent to which social rooting shapes an organization’s internal culture. For instance, in line with elitist perspectives, parties and their leaders have mostly been studied in terms of top-​down power relationships. But a cultural approach tends to focus more on internal relationships between “peers” that occur at the top of political organizations (Bachelot, 2012). In this respect, collegiality, deliberation, and the search for compromise account for a large part of how the French PS, for example, functions. French socialists discuss policies at length and spend a lot of time drafting consensus texts. This “organizational culture” has something to do with the fact that the French PS is rooted in specific social milieus dominated by teachers and social networks devoted to secularization (Sawicki, 1997; Sawicki and Lefebvre, 2008). The party’s workings reflect its social and intellectual features. Moreover, one can also argue that party culture does not vanish as soon as socialist leaders and sub-​leaders are in office. This is why an understanding of socialist organizational culture is especially relevant to the analysis of Hollande’s “art of government.” By contrast, the organizational culture of the UMP is based on a military model infused with the cult of personality and discipline that has deeply influenced Gaullist and post-​ Gaullist parties. Today, the UMP still bears the legacy of this culture, but the business model has become far more common than the military one. Under Sarkozy’s party leadership, managerial and marketing tools and rhetoric spread within the party. Here too, organizational changes have been largely introduced in accordance with the professional codes of some of the new UMP members. Indeed, the share of private sector employees who joined the party clearly grew during Sarkozy’s leadership (Petitfils, 2007; Haegel, 2012). In the same vein, party socialization and sociability are heavily emphasized. Party socialization is understood in a more or less intensive and demanding way. For instance, the communist institution took charge and controlled the whole socialization process of its members. Thus Pudal analyzed the French Communist Party as a “biographical institution.” He showed how communist executives were formed under Thorez’s leadership in the 1930s, pointing to how socially controlled recruitment and biographical presentation lent credence to the so-​called workers’ party (Pudal, 1989).

 

382   Florence Haegel Other scholars, working on less institutionalized organizations, use a more interaction-​based definition of party socialization. They highlight the role of party socialization among young party activists both in mainstream and in illegitimate or “counter-​cultural” parties. In mainstream parties (Bargel, 2010), socialization in the youth branch involves a sort of professional training and takes place under the umbrella of the main parties. In parties often considered illegitimate, such as the National Front, stigmatization leads to a strong sense of community, leading to the feeling of “a party family” (Orfali, 1999). In both cases it is important to be wary of gender relations given that masculinity is the main code of party behavior. More generally, scholars underline the role of the family matrix. Family or matrimonial linkages are still relevant to party involvement and in the building of party identity, for example in mainstream right-​wing parties (Haegel, 2009). Party sociability and its influence in everyday behavior are especially prominent in the case of Green parties, which promote an alternative way of life (Faucher, 1999) and attempt to create a small and warm “counter-​community” sharing similar tastes and lifestyles. In examining the way parties are related to their social environment, some scholars focus on party boundaries, on exchanges between parties and other social and association networks, and on the multi-​positioning of partisan actors (both leaders and activists). Young scholars (Johsua, 2007) have underscored this when analyzing the recent success of extreme-​left parties (La Ligue communiste révolutionnaire now renamed Nouveau Parti Anti-​capitaliste). The notion of “structure of abeyance” (Taylor, 1989) is used to describe the position taken by trade unions and other associations receiving “Trotskyite” activists during the party’s decline in the late 1980s. What is the explanation for this sociocultural turn in the French literature on parties? There is no question that a sociological orientation has characterized French political science beyond the study of political parties. But it is also true that the study of French communism left its mark on the French literature on political parties; it largely explains the success of this social and cultural emphasis. In this respect, French scholars are close to their Italian colleagues, who have developed a subcultural approach to political parties. It becomes clear that the communist model has strongly shaped the French sociocultural approach to political parties when one considers the number of works devoted to this specific mode of organization in French literature. In this respect, Kriegel was a pioneer in focusing on communist clusters and the “counter-​community” they shape; she underlined how “the Party” supervised the daily lives of all of its members (Kriegel, 1970). Hastings investigated communist municipal influence between 1919 and 1939 in a town in the north of France close to the Belgian border (Hastings, 1991) and showed that the communist locus of power is not the town council but the local trade union offices. He also addressed the issue of party rituals and memories deeply anchored in local culture (carnivals, celebrations, processions). More specifically, Lavabre analyzed PCF memory by comparing party historiography and members’ memories (Lavabre, 1994). She called for a sociology of party memory that draws on Halbwachs’ insights, and underlined the need to analyze how the adoption

 

Parties and Party Systems    383 by party members of the party’s vision of the past varies according to their social groups, their generation, and their party position. But the study of party languages and ideologies has not been central in the new French trend. A few years ago, Frédéric Bon (1991) proposed a very thought-​provoking analysis of communist language. In line with Levi Strauss and Barthes, his insight was based on the classic analogy between myths and ideology: both use simple and diverse materials, both are bricolage, and both are highly resistant to change. The study of ideology is, however, not at the core of French works, though recent attempts to review it do employ it. These attempts focus on parties with high ideological intensity—​once again the French Communist Party (Ethuin, 2003; 2009) and the National Front (Dézé, 2007). Both works call for a consideration of both production and reception. The former work focuses on party training and investigates how party members learn and adapt themselves to the ideology; the latter focuses on party iconography and shows how labels, images, and slogans have circulated among European extreme-​ right parties. Today, at a time of communist decline (Lavabre and Platone, 2003; Pudal, 2009), Mischi has observed the shrinking of communist influence. The communist bulwark in the countryside can be explained by the strength of party sociability in rural contexts. But, to put it bluntly, the party is now reduced to its leisure associations, which mainly consist of elderly party members (Mischi, 2007).

Methodological Choices: Prioritizing the Local Level and Qualitative Fieldwork The increasing importance of the social and cultural approach to political parties has been accompanied by an emphasis on specific methodological choices. These include prioritizing the local level and qualitative fieldwork, and a tendency to favor biographical data. French party specialists have been influenced by the Italian paradigm of microstoria, revisited by French historian Jacques Revel (1996). He called for “un jeu d’échelles” based on the principle that changing the focal length of the lens not only magnifies (or reduces) the size of the object under observation but also modifies its shape and composition. Much of the recent research on political parties has been carried out at the local level:  township (Hastings, 1991; Lefebvre, 2004), departments (Sawicki, 1997; Fretel, 2004; Haegel, 2012), and labor pools (Mischi, 2010), for example. Indeed, the local level enables scholars to observe the interweaving of the partisan and sociocultural dimensions, and to emphasize the fact that political parties cannot be reduced to national headquarters or electoral platforms. Studying political parties at the local level provides an opportunity to see the social and cultural density of the party phenomenon, as well as the diversity of party subcultures. Prioritizing qualitative fieldwork is the other rule of thumb in the French social and cultural approach. This is not to say that the research is exclusively qualitative. Many researchers use mixed methods, some of these including quantitative surveys of leaders,

 

384   Florence Haegel sub-​leaders, or activists (Bachelot, 2007; Bargel, 2010; Haegel, 2009; Johsua, 2007). But a special emphasis is placed on qualitative fieldwork and, even more so, on ethnography. That said, party ethnography was not absent from the previous French literature on political parties. Annie Kriegel claimed that her analysis of the French Communist Party was an ethnography (Kriegel, 1970), as did Schonfeld with regard to his comparison of how neo-​Gaullist and Socialist party sub-​leaders interacted with others in their party’s inner circles (Schonfeld, 1985). However, ethnographical work is now more widespread:  an increasing number of young scholars are doing ethnographic work, including long-​term stays within a party to observe formal meetings and informal socializing as well, in addition to in-​depth interviews and work on party or personal archives. Often party ethnographic observations are carried out in local settings and view parties from the bottom up, but some scholars have observed parties from the inside and from the top down. In her study of Socialist party leaders, Bachelot (2011) observed their interactions in different meetings, including the party’s routine meetings (the regular activity of the Socialists’ headquarters in Paris) and special meetings when the different factions seek to reach an agreement before the end of the Party congress. She has argued that the cultural approach is still relevant at the top of the organization as rules, norms, and rituals shape the interactions of leaders and sub-​leaders. The opportunity to obtain party archives depends on the period, the party, and how the party perceives academic work. Communist archives used to be closed but are now largely open, even though this openness depends on the subject of inquiry (past members’ files are not provided if your research focuses on party decline!). Socialist archives are partly stored in the Fondation Jean Jaurès and by the Socialist review L’Ours, but are incomplete. The UMP has a very poor track record on access to archives; only papers provided to journalists are available to researchers (Bachelot and alii, 2011). The increasing importance of fieldwork has generated a new tendency to value academic introspection. This trend was launched by scholars doing ethnography among National Front activists (Bizeul, 2003). These researchers raised the following questions: How can a scholar be a good ethnographer when he/​she hates his natives (Avanza, 2009)? How can he/​she deal with the disapproval of colleagues when he/​she takes the comprehensive and empathic stance required in fieldwork? More broadly, the great number of recent studies on political parties (not only in France but elsewhere) based on qualitative fieldwork has justified devoting a special issue on this topic in order to compare fieldwork experiments and the degree of openness or lack thereof of political parties, and to generally address the question of what the fieldwork can teach us about political parties (Aït-​Aoudia et al., 2011). In addition to the emphasis on local-​level studies and fieldwork, the use of biographical data must also be noted. This biographical shift concerns both interviews and archives. The focus on party involvement, party withdrawal, and activists’ “careers” went hand in hand with the use of life stories from in-​depth interviews. Lavabre (Lavabre, 1994) used this type of interview to understand how communist activists viewed the communist past, but she needed to use a second wave of projective interviews (for

 

Parties and Party Systems    385 instance, she used iconographic materials in order to fill in the blanks after noticing that few activists mentioned Stalin). Leclercq has also used biographical interviews to help understand the process of withdrawal from the Communist Party (Leclercq, 2005). She reached out to former communist members of various social backgrounds and carried out in-​depth interviews with them. She underscores the diversity of the matrix of party involvement followed by party exit. Far from being largely influenced by national and international events, these party exits are related to changes in private and local life. Pudal (1989) based his works on the Communist Party on biographical and prosopographical data (published and unpublished autobiographies, biographies produced by the PCF itself, public biographies of MPs, obituaries, etc.).

Mapping out French Major Frameworks Figure 17.2 duplicates the same schematic map structuring Figure 17.1 but applies it to French literature.4 Thus, the comparison of the two figures offers an overview of the discrepancy between the English-​language and French literature on political parties. Each approach mentioned in the figure can be associated with a French expert on parties, except for one: rational choice theory. Though one of the dominant analytical frameworks in the English-​language literature, this is unpopular in France and to date no book based on such a theory has been published in the country’s research field of political parties. Many French scholars do refer to an entrepreneurial conception of political parties (Gaxie, 1977; Offerlé, 2010) mixed with Bourdieu’s sociology in that they consider parties to be driven by “office seeking.” In this respect they claim to be Weber’s and Schumpeter’s followers, but they did not adopt the view of citizens postulated by rational choice theory. Unfortunately, Figure 17.2 does not assess the temporal dynamics of academic work on parties, but if it did it would most likely show how the gap between the French-​and English-​language literature has increased recently. During the 1980s, functional and cleavage approaches were well depicted in French political science. On one hand, Lavau imported a functional theoretical framework and applied it to communism. Actually, it used the term “tribune function” (in reference to the Roman tribune) to characterize the French Communist party’s position in its environment (Lavau, 1981). On the other hand, Seiler introduced a Rokkanian framework into the French academic field promoting a comparative approach largely neglected by others scholars (Seiler, 1978; 1980). Actually, the Rokkanian approach is less marginalized than the functional one in French political science insofar as historical sociology remains popular, although French scholars favor studies at the micro level at the expense of macro level. More recent French works on political parties are mainly located at the bottom of the graph, distributed between entrepreneurial approaches and local and anthropological ones (Sawicki, 2001). Indeed French scholars working on political parties distinguish themselves from the international literature by promoting micro and sociocultural approaches. There is something of a paradox here that can be formulated as follows: in

 

386   Florence Haegel MACRO Party systems analysis institutional and relational approaches DUVERGER, CHARLOT, GRUNBERG/HAEGEL

Systemic analysis

Typological analysis

Party systems analysis cleavages* and functions** approaches *SEILER, **LAVAU

DUVERGER, CHARLOT

Organizational analysis

INSTITUTIONAL and POLITICAL

SOCIAL

HAEGEL

Entrepreneurial analysis OFFERLE

Local analysis SAWICKI Rational choice ?

MICRO

Anthropological analysis HASTINGS

Biographical analysis PUDAL

Figure 17.2  How the study of parties and party systems has developed in the French literature. Source: Dézé and Haegel (forthcoming)

spite of the international influence of Duverger’s book, what is striking is that it did not generate a distinctive French tradition of party analysis. As Ware put it: “there was no ‘Duverger school’ in France” (Ware, 2007). As soon as Duverger’s famous book was published in French, an academic controversy arose. Georges Lavau, an expert on the French Communist Party (Lavau, 1981), criticized Duverger’s analytical framework in a book entitled Partis politiques et réalités sociales (Lavau, 1953). While Duverger had claimed that political parties should be analyzed in institutional and organizational terms, Lavau criticized Duverger’s approach for its endogenous and formal features and its tendency to consider political parties as autonomous entities separated from their social and cultural environment. He called—​ once again—​for a “realistic analysis” of political parties focusing on party ideology as well as social density. Today, Duverger is clearly the most famous French political scientist and his book is still quoted by scholars studying both individual political parties and the party system as a whole, while Lavau’s perspective has been relegated to the fringe of the English-​language academic literature on political parties. But this French paradox persists, since the societal and cultural framework can be considered the dominant French paradigm, at least in most recent research.

 

Parties and Party Systems    387

The Future of French Research on Political Parties What are the contributions of this French sociocultural turn? What are its limits? What is the research agenda going forward? The social and cultural approach to the understanding of political parties has made numerous contributions to the French literature. It brings into focus the complexity and diversity of political parties, which can no longer be seen as unified actors. It also provides an opportunity to observe the overlaps between party, family and friends, and work and local networks. The focus on party socialization brings to light what happens once people become party members (or withdraw from the party) in terms of sociability, activities, and the sharing of norms, codes, and ideologies. It shows to what extent parties create party loyalty, or fail to do so. More broadly, the sociocultural approach to party challenges the catch-​all thesis that argues that parties are now disconnected from their social bases. Katz and Mair’s model of party cartelization is indeed now the most popular example of such a comparative overview. It claims not only to provide general trends that deepen our understanding of different national cases, but also to link together various historical processes. In line with previous models, it emphasizes the replacement of party bureaucracy by professionals and the disappearance of party cultures and ideology; it also raises two specific new trends: the move from society to the state and the closing of party competition. In fact, the French case confirms some of these trends (for instance, professionalization), invalidates some (for instance, de-​ideologization), and calls for qualification or moderation of others (the move toward the state). All in all, it argues in favor of disconnecting different processes that are generally brought together: the growing importance in France of what Panebianco calls “electoral professional parties” is actually not associated with diminishing cultural and ideological differences between French parties. The UMP is a case in point (Haegel, 2004; 2005; 2012). It increasingly looks like an “electoral professional party”—​run according to electoral objectives, shaped by electoral cycles, and using marketing tools. In fact, under Sarkozy’s leadership, party members have been marginalized from inner party life, and political pluralism has been checked; in sum, democracy has been frozen while professionalization has been strengthened. Yet Sarkozy’s impact on the UMP has not only been assessed in terms of organizational changes; ideological changes are even more relevant. Regarding the radical Right, Sarkozy made a break with Chirac’s fluctuating strategies by calling for an ideological clarification that marked a genuine shift. During his leadership, the UMP’s strategy toward the National Front mixed ideological imitation and public policy co-​optation with electoral isolation. Indeed, the use of themes associated with the radical Right was one of the drivers of most of Sarkozy’s presidential term, as was clearly reasserted during 2012 presidential campaign. In sum, the UMP has been characterized by a form of ideological radicalization. But radicalization is not disconnected from the party’s internal

 

388   Florence Haegel dynamics that are grounded in sociocultural and local milieus. For instance, the UMP’s agents of radicalization are strongly locally rooted in the south-​east of France and are often individuals who were impacted by Algerian decolonization. Such a fact illustrates the importance of a sociocultural approach (Haegel, 2012). In sum, an “electoral professional party” is not free of ideology anchored in social and cultural contexts. However, the French sociocultural turn in the study of political parties is also failing in many respects, and its limits largely result from its endogenous development. As has already been mentioned, a large part of the French literature has focused on communism, even though some thought-​provoking works are available on the Socialist Party (Lefebvre and Sawicki, 2006), and a few on right-​wing parties. Scholars are increasingly calling for this communist paradigm to be put into perspective, and especially for more attention to be paid to right-​wing parties. For instance, within the cultural approach two opposite models are suggested but never directly compared: the model of the “countercommunity” created for the Communist party (and re​used for the National Front) and the porous network model of the Socialist party (Sawicki, 1997). More systematic comparison of these models is needed. With its combination of fieldwork and the ethnographic turn, French research on political parties tends to focus on the local level. As previously noted, this local approach offers obvious benefits. But what are its potential drawbacks? Indeed, the emphasis on the local level may lead to a new form of orthodoxy by considering that parties are basically local entities, at the expense of other forms. Moreover, this simplistic statement is not consistent with the original microstoria’s insight, which is that the principle of variation is important, not the choice of any particular level. In line with this principle, parties should be observed at various levels, using different methods. Lastly, according to this local approach, parties are a sort of set of local arenas. The only legitimate way to grasp party realities is to observe them from the bottom up. Given the weakness of French political parties in terms of local membership, this is a challenging goal. Indeed, the first paradox—​the lack of Duverger’s legacy in his own country—​ leads to a second. This is that while French political parties are rather weak institutions in comparison with those in other European countries, French scholars favor sociological institutionalism to study them. This paradox underscores the need for comparative research and more academic exchange to de-​compartmentalize French scholarship. This is one of the major challenges French research on political parties faces today. Moreover, different areas of research should be explored in order to deepen or complete what has already been done in the field. One first such area of research would be the link between parties and social movements. Experts have traditionally focused on social movements when studying the birth of political parties; but then they turn away, even though the connection between parties and social movements remains puzzling. For instance, in France the strength of social and political contestation contrasts with the weakness of political parties. French scholars have investigated social movements assuming that social mobilization is very different from party mobilization; conversely, political party experts have highlighted the fact that party members generally also belong to others associations and are involved in

 

Parties and Party Systems    389 various social mobilizations. But beyond these limited observations, they have not more broadly examined the connection between both types of mobilization. Yet both the circulation of members and the circulation of ideas are major issues. Parties and social movements are not only connected in social and economic subfields, but also interact on cultural matters such as sexual and gender issues. The 2013 controversy in France about gay marriage is a good case in point. Gay and lesbian associations all called for the legalization of gay marriage, but they were connected to left-​wing political parties (the PS, Greens, far left) in different ways. They act not only as external lobbies, but also as internal actors through each party’s internal gay and lesbian commissions. At the same time, the right-​wing counter-​mobilization was driven by new movements such as “La manif pour tous” or “Le Printemps français,” which successfully called for big demonstrations. The relationship between this cultural counter​movement and right-​wing and extreme-​right parties deserves special attention in terms of membership, sub-​leaders, and candidate recruitment, but also in terms of ideological diffusion and programmatic influence. French scholars should also focus on topics they have not examined as a result of their emphasis on social and cultural dimensions. Indeed, when French research on parties took its sociocultural turn, it automatically overlooked other views and did not address major issues such as parties’ programmatic tasks or how parties impact on public policies. Using different methods, some recent research studies have raised the issue of agenda-​setting by revisiting the “partisan hypothesis” in the case of France. They conclude that, far from being segmented, party competition is based on a common focus of attention, as parties do not allow their opponents to maintain a monopoly on any policy issue (Baumgartner et al., 2009). They confirm the inertia of the parliamentary agenda, but establish the link between certain parties and certain public policies, and the impact of electoral cycles on the agenda; the party’s imprint on the parliamentary agenda is likely to be stronger just before re-​election and sometimes the year after the election (Persico et al., 2012). Aside from this recent research on agenda-​setting, very few scholars have studied how parties draw up manifestos.

Conclusion French research on political parties has not vanished since Duverger’s landmark work. Scholars are still working on political parties. Moreover, there has been a renewal of work in this area since the 1990s. But this chapter shows a growing discrepancy between the English and French-​speaking literatures. While English-​language political science tends to favor organizational and typological approaches, together with rational modeling and quantitative methods, most French scholars research parties based on a sociocultural turn prioritizing qualitative methods and local-​level studies. In the earliest period, the French case was for the most part overlooked by the founding fathers on the grounds that political parties in France were not as strong as they were

 

390   Florence Haegel in other European countries. Then, the emergence of a strong Communist party and a puzzling Gaullist party drew the attention of international party specialists to France. Nowadays, French specialists are often excluded from English-​language debates, not because of the so-​called specificity of the French case but because most of them promote a sociological approach that is marginal in these discussions. This sociological turn is not peculiar to the study of political parties. French political science as a whole has a sociological orientation and has been deeply influenced by Bourdieu. But the weight of the communist model on French literature has strengthened the success of the social and cultural emphasis within this subfield. Are French researchers on parties isolated? No, if one considers that many French party specialists prefer to hold discussions with sociologists or historians rather than with political scientists. Yes, if one values debates within political science. The opening up of French research on parties might present two benefits. First, it might be a way to discuss sociologically, anthropologically, and historically driven researches on parties in an international party literature that is heavily segmented. Second, such an opening up would diversify but also strengthen and broaden the French approach to political parties.

Notes 1. This figure was created with Alexandre Dézé as course material for our class on “Political Parties and Party Systems” at Sciences Po. 2. Although French, reference to the work of Maurice Duverger is included in this section since his book has left its mark on English-​language literature. 3. More precisely his audience as party expert has been progressively overtaken by the success of his contribution on the impact of electoral systems on party systems (Bowler, 2010). 4. French publications focusing on the parties existing in other countries are not mentioned here.

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Parties and Party Systems    391 Bachelot, C. (2012). “A Govenrment of Peers? Collegiality at the Top Levels of Political Parties: The Case of the Parti Socialiste in France,” Revue française de science politique 13(62): 1–​24. Bachelot, C., Combes, H., Dechezelles, S., Haegel, F., and Leclercq, C. (2010). “Les partis s’intéressent-​ils à nos enquêtes? Éléments comparatifs sur la réception des recherches sur les partis,” Revue Internationale de Poitique Comparée 17(4): 15–​30. Bargel, L. (2010). Jeunes socialistes, Jeunes UMP. Lieux et processus de socialisation politique. Paris: Dalloz. Baumgartner, F., Brouard, S., and Grossman, E. (2009). “Agenda-​Setting Dynamics: Revisiting the ‘Partisan Hypothesis’,” French Politics 7(2): 75–​95. Beer, S.-​H. (1953). “Les partis politiques,” The Western Political Quarterly 6(3): 512–​17. Bergounioux, A. and Grunberg, G. (1992). Le long remords du pouvoir. Le parti socialiste français 1905–​1992. Paris: Fayard. Bizeul, D. (2003). Avec ceux du FN. Un sociologue au Front National. Paris: La Découverte. Bon, Frédéric. (1991). Les discours de la politique. Paris: Economica. Bowler, S. (2010). “La réception des Partis politiques en Grande Bretagne et aux Etats-​Unis,” Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée 17(1): 38–​54. Bryce, J. (1995). The American Commonwealth. Indianapolis: Liberty Found. Caramani D. C. and Hug, S. (1998). “The Literature on European Parties and Party Systems Since 1945: A Quantitative Analysis,” European Journal of Political Research 33: 497–​524. Cook, P. (1971). “Robert Michels Political Parties in perspective,” Journal of Politics 33(3): 773–​96. Crotty, W. (ed.) (1986). Political Parties in Local Area. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Crotty, W. (1991). “Political Parties: Issues and Trends,” in Crotty, W. (ed.) Political Science. vol. 4: Looking to the Future: American Institutions. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 137–​201. Crozier, M. and Friedberg, E. (1977). L’acteur et le système. Paris: Seuil. Daalder, H. (2001). “The Rise of Parties in Western Democracies,” in Diamond, L. and Gunther, R. (eds) Political Parties and Democracy. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 40–​51. Dézé, A. (2007). “Le Front national comme ‘entreprise doctrinale’,” in Haegel, F. (ed.) Partis politiques et système partisan en France. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 255–​84. Dézé, A. (2012). Le Front national: à la conquête du pouvoir? Paris: Armand Colin. Dézé, A. and Haegel, F. (forthcoming). Sociologie comparée des partis politiques. Paris: Armand Colin. DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W. (1984). “Introduction,” in Powell, W. and DiMaggio, J. (eds) The new institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago/​London: University of Chicago Press). Downs, A. (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper. Duverger, M. (1951). Les partis politiques. Paris: Seuil. Eldersveld, S. (1964). Political Parties: A Behavioral Analysis. Chicago: Rand McNally. Ethuin, N. (2003). “De l’idéologisation de l’engagement communiste. Fragments d’une enquête sur les écoles du PCF (1970–​1990),” Politix 16(63): 145–​68. Ethuin, N. (2009).“La formation des communistes à l’heure du ‘décentralisme démocratique’,” in Lefebvre, R. and Roger, A. (eds) Les pratiques délibératives dans les partis politiques. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 87–​104. Faucher, F. (1999). Les habits verts de la politique. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

 

392   Florence Haegel Fretel, J. (2004). “Le parti comme fabrique de notables. Réflexions sur les pratiques notabiliaires des élus de l’UDF,” Politix 17(65): 45–​72. Fretel, J. (2004). “Quand des catholiques vont au parti. De la constitution d’une illusion paradoxale et du passage à l’acte chez les ‘militants’ de l’UDF,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 155: 76–​89. Gaxie, D. (1977). “Economie des partis et rétributions du militantisme,” Revue française de science politique 27(1): 123–​54. Grunberg, G. (2013). La loi et les prohètes. Paris: CNRS Editions. Grunberg, G. and Haegel, F. (2007). La France vers le bipartisme? La présidentialisation du PS et de l’UMP. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Gunther, R. and Diamond, L. (2003). “Species of Political Parties:  A  New Typology,” Party Politics 9(2): 167–​99. Haegel, F. (2004). “The transformation of the French Right: Institutional Imperatives and Organizational Changes,” French Politics 2: 185–​202. Haegel, F. (2005). “Parties and Organizations,” in Cole, A., Le Galès, P., and Levy, J. (eds) Developments in French Politics, vol. 3. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 18–​34. Haegel, F. (ed.) (2007). Partis politiques et système partisan en France. Paris:  Presses de Sciences Po. Haegel, F. (2009). “La mobilisation partisane de droite. Les logiques organisationnelles et sociales de l’adhésion à l’UMP,” Revue française de science politique 59(1): 7–​27. Haegel, F. (2012). Les droites en fusion. Transformations de l’UMP. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Hastings, M. (1991). Halluin, la rouge, 1919–​ 1939. Aspects d’un communisme identitaire. Lille: PUL. Hastings, M. (2001). “Partis politiques et administration de sens,” in Andolfatto, D., Greffet F., and Olivier, L. (eds) Les partis politiques. Quelles perspectives? Paris: L’Harmattan, 21–​36. Johsua, F. (2007). “Les conditions de (re)production de la LCR. L’approche par les trajectoires militantes,” in Haegel, F. (ed.) Partis politiques et système partisan en France. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 25–​67. Katz, R. and Mair, P. (1994). “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy. The Emergence of the Cartel Party,” Party Politics 1(1): 5–​27. Kirchheimer, O. (1966). “The Transformation of Western European Party System,” in LaPalombara, J. and Weiner, M. (eds) Political Party and Political Development. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 177–​200. Kriegel, A. (1970). Les communistes français. Essai d’ethnographie politique. Paris: Seuil. Lavabre, M.-​C. (1994). Le Fil rouge. Sociologie de la mémoire communiste. Paris: Presses de la FNSP. Lavabre, M.-​C. and Platone, F. (2003). Que reste-​t-​il du PCF? Paris: Editions Autrement. Lavau, G. (1953). Partis politiques et réalités sociales. Paris: Armand Colin. Lavau, G. (1981). A quoi sert le Parti communiste français? Paris: Fayard. Leclercq, C. (2005). “Raisons de sortir. Le désengagement des militants du PCF,” in Fillieule, O. (ed.) Le désengagement militant. Paris: Belin, 131–​54. Lefebvre, R. (2004). “Le socialisme français soluble dans l’institution municipale? Forme partisane et emprise institutionnelle. L’exemple de Roubaix (1892–​1983),” Revue française de science politique 54(2): 237–​60. Lefebvre, R., Sawicki, F. (2006). La société des socialistes. Paris: Editions du Croquant. Merton, R. K. (1949). Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

 

Parties and Party Systems    393 Michels, R. (1962). Political Parties. A  Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Free Press. Mischi, J. (2007). “Pour une histoire sociale du déclin du PCF,” in Haegel, F. (ed.) Partis politiques et système partisan en France. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 61–​101. Mischi, J. (2010). Servir la classe ouvrière. Sociabilités militantes au PCF. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Müller, W. and Strom, K. (1999). Policy, Offices or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Offerlé, M. (2010). Les partis politiques (10th edn). Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Orfali, B. (1990). “Le FN ou le parti-​famillee,” Esprit 164(2): 15–​24. Ostrogorski, M. (1965). Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties. New York: Anchor Books. Panebianco, A. (1988). Political Parties: Organization and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Persico, S., Froio, C., and Guinaudeau, I. (2012). “Action publique et partis politiques; L’analyse de l’agenda législatif français entre 1981 et 2009?” Gouvernement et action publique 1: 11–​35. Petitfils, A.-​S. (2007). “La seconde fondation de l’UMP : techniques de recrutement et sociologie des nouveaux adherents,” Mouvements 52: 57–​63. Pombeni, P. (1994). “Starting in Reason, Ending in Passion. Bryce, Lowell, Ostrogorski and the Problem of Democracy,” The Historical Journal 37(2): 319–​41. Pudal, B. (1989). Prendre parti. Pour une sociologie historique du communisme. Paris: Presses de la FNSP. Pudal, B. (2009). Un monde défait: Les communistes français de 1956 à nos jours. Paris: Editions du Croquant. Revel, J. (ed.) (1996). Jeux d’échelles. La micro-​analyse à l’expérience. Paris: Seuil/​Gallimard. Rokkan, S. and Lipset, S. M. (1967). “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments. An Introduction,” in Lipste, S.-​M. and Rokkan, S. (eds) Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross National Perspectives. New York: Free Press, 1–​64. Sartori, G. (1976). Parties and Party Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sauger, N. (2009). “Party Discipline and Coalition Management in the French Parliament,” West European Politics 32(2): 307–​23. Sawicki, F. (1997). Les réseaux du Parti socialiste. Sociologie d’un milieu partisan. Paris: Belin. Sawicki, F. (2001). “Les partis politiques comme entreprises culturelles,” in Cefaï, D. (ed.) Culture politique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 191–​211. Schlesinger, J. (1991). Political Parties and the Winning of Office. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Schonfeld, W. (1985). Ethnographie du PS et du RPR: les éléphants et l’aveugle. Paris: Economica. Schumpeter, J. (2008). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (3rd edn). New  York:  Harper Perennial Modern Thought Edition. Seiler, D.-​L. (1978). Les partis politiques en Europe. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Seiler, D.-​L. (1980). Partis et familles politiques. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Taylor, V. (1989). “Social Movement Continuity:  the Women’s Movement in Abeyance,” American Sociological Review 5(5): 761–​75. van Beyme, K. (1985). Political Parties in Western Democracies. New York: Saint Martin Press. Ware, A. (2007), “Les partis français et la science politique comparativé,” in Haegel, F. (ed.) Partis politiques et système partisan en France. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 407–​17.

 

Chapter 18

P olitical C om mu ni c at i on from international institutionalization to national conquest of scientific legitimacy Jacques Gerstlé

To write the history of political communication as a discipline is a particularly difficult exercise, not only for normative reasons due to its potential effects on the legitimacy of knowledge, but also because of the fundamentally interdisciplinary nature of this area of expertise. Some have tried to summarize French research, with varying degrees of success: Neveu attempted it (1998); so did Cayrol and Mercier (1998), who were harshly criticized by Neveu (2000b) for their overly simplistic take on the discipline and its issues. Mercier (2001) made a new, “lighter” attempt. However, by inserting this chapter in a part of the volume focused on “Parties, Elections, and Voters,” the makers of this Handbook have made our job easier by narrowing down the scope of our intervention.1 Our ambition will be to focus our panorama on the theoretical, empirical, and practical problems the admittedly limited community of those who accept the label “political communication theorists” consider theirs. To do so, we will travel through time, observing, all too briefly, how the field of political communication was built internationally, then nationally, before we point out certain areas deemed interesting for future research. Inevitably, this retrospective then prospective study will frame political communication in a way that will provoke some controversy due to the issues presented as “canonical” and the writers referred to as representative. In this regard, the choice was made to give priority to the most recent scientific contributions to illustrate the issues as they are currently studied by the French political science community.

The International Institutionalization of Political Communication Upon seeing the number of references to Aristotle as the father of rhetoric, we can immediately see how difficult a job it will be to trace the origins of political communication

 

Political Communication   395 and identify all the contributions that fed a flow of knowledge whose concretion occurred only recently. Should the rhetorical approach be considered the ancestor of what is nowadays called political communication? Should this title be attributed to the studies relative to propaganda that were only developed in the twentieth century? Or was the analysis of electoral campaigning in the 1940s the real starting point of the empirical approach to these matters? Regardless, one can only observe it was not before the 1970s that a corpus of data relative to political communication truly emerged, aided by previous, more or less sporadic manifestations of its existence. As early as in 1956, some behavioral theorists saw in PC (political communication) one of the three “processes (alongside leadership and group structures) through which political influences are mobilized and transmitted between government institutions and the voters’ electoral behavior” (Eulau et al., 1956). Chaffee in 1975 headed a collective work titled Political Communication which displayed the scattering of work in the 1960s and 1970s. Later Nimmo (1977) opened the way for an integrated study of PC by considering that four traditions of research contributed to its birth: the studies of propaganda, of the vote, of the effects of mass communication, and of the interaction between press, government, and public opinion. We can see how important the issue of the effects was in this seminal inventory. Nimmo took his cue from Lasswell’s question/​program so as to present a (fragile) theoretical frame that integrated many different approaches of PC. He used the same frame (Nimmo, 1978) to introduce the sending out of political messages (that is to say communicators, languages, political persuasions), their broadcasting (media, information), their audiences (public opinion), and their effects (socialization, participation, voting, the link between public opinion and policies). In 1981, he then published with Keith Sanders the Handbook of Political Communication, which served to prove the discipline’s undeniable institutionalization. They identified the main approaches, the ways of persuasive communication, and the effect of different political situations, and ended with a review of the methods. Nine years later, Swanson, along with Nimmo, published a book that illustrated the evolution of PC studies. Titled New Directions in Political Communication, it served as a summary and showed the vibrancy of a field largely dominated by Americans. Beyond rhetoric, electoral studies, and media/​government relations, all still very much fundamental issues, PC broadened its scope to include more “everyday life” considerations such as the impact of “pop culture’s” domestic aspects, whether in the area of information or entertainment. It was an opportunity for Blumler to emphasize the necessity of comparative research which he had already promoted in a Chaffee-​headed book and which he would use in 1978 with the publication of a work in French La télévision fait-​ elle l’élection? (Does TV make election?). Amongst the different schools of thoughts of the time, the constructivist conception, understood as the Chicago School’s heir, distinguished itself by underlining the negotiated nature of PC that develops in the relations between the public, communication experts, and the media. Research dedicated to information was particularly intense. While, in the 1950s and 1960s “research focused on gatekeeping, content bias, and news flows,” to quote Davis’ 1990 diagnosis, used to be rather kind to the press, it would become much more critical in the following decades. There were various branches to the research: the school of “cultural studies” developed in the UK, the theory of socially constructed reality defended by Berger and Luckmann

 

396   Jacques Gerstlé (1986), Schütz (1987), and Goffman (1974), the perspective of the media’s intrusion into politics studied by Patterson amongst others, the study of media organizations and their practices (Gans, 1980; Tuchman, 1972; Schudson, 1978), the narrative theory of information, with Edelman (1964) as its most famous representative, and so on. All these approaches painted a less flattering picture of the political part played by the media. The coup de grâce would come from the theory of information processing, inspired by the cognitive revolution then taking place in the human and social sciences. Doris Graber (1987), and Robinson and Levy (1986), were amongst the first to show partiality for this cognitive approach to information. Nevertheless, to understand better the evolution of this emerging discipline called PC, we have to list the different changes that affected its object: what Nimmo and Swanson (1990) called “the electoral persuasion paradigm” for electoral campaigns is viewed as an archetype of the political influence process on the public. Undeniably, Lazarsfeld and his colleagues gave birth to the empirical studying of electoral communication during the 1940 American presidential campaign. Seeking to validate the hypothesis of efficient electoral propaganda, they could only demonstrate its inaccuracy thanks to the observation of a panel of voters. Two main explanations are to be emphasized: (1) the social determination of electoral preferences for voters is as politically constructed as it is socially. The political predisposition index is calculated by aggregating essential socio-​demographic properties and clearly helps determine an individual’s voting choice. (2) The selective exposure process serves to defend political integrity and explains the voter’s stability during a campaign. The low rate of electoral conversion results mainly from peer pressure on individuals and conformist electoral communication practices. This model of the vote as a mirror image of the individual’s social status would dominate the representations of the effects of electoral communication for about twenty years and be summarized by Klapper (1960) in the concept of limited effects. The Michigan model put forward by Campbell et al. (1960) replaced it with the idea of a reflex vote, which presents political behavior as indicative of individual voting. Partisan identification became the main explanatory factor of voting. We note that these two models share with André Siegfried’s first electoral studies (1913) the central idea that electoral campaigns do not have any influence on the outcome since only long-​term effects carry any weight. It was only in the early 1970s that a hypothesis of short-​term effects emerged with the “uses and gratifications” model. A behaviorist continuation of the functionalist analysis used in sociology, it postulated that the communication practices and the individual motivations at their origins shape political behavior. Blumler and McQuail (1968) elaborated the best application of this model during their observation of the 1964 British general elections. Four years later, Shaw and McCombs (1972) introduced agenda-​centered research which would become a veritable research tradition by subdividing into different cognitive models: agenda-​setting, priming, and framing. Mass communication could influence the citizens’ interpretation of politics (framing), the way in which they decide what matters (agenda-setting) and how they evaluate political alternatives (priming) (Kinder, 2003). Both mirror voting and reflex voting were then replaced by reasoned voting, partly described by Popkin (1994).

 

Political Communication   397 The voter is now perceived as an individual who handles rough, imprecise information, made of shortcuts, and uses heuristics to simplify his/​her thought process. Impressions rather than pure and perfect information are what the voter uses to define his/​her electoral orientation; impressions whose formation must be analyzed by political psychologists (Kuklinski, 2001). This dominant cognitive frame’s scientific effects can now be seen in different areas of PC, such as the media’s news production, studies relative to politicians’ approval rates (especially that of the president), and of course electoral communication—​no matter what the medium (ads, news coverage, debates, web, etc.; see Kaid, 2004). Therefore, the main questions asked by American PC (now called “media politics”) specialists can be applied to the French context These address: the relations between the media system, politicians, the public’s news sources, and journalists; the rise of new media; electoral campaigns; and popularity/​public opinion (Iyengar and McGrady, 2007; Shapiro and Jacobs, 2011).

Political Communication in France: The Slow Conquest of Scientific Legitimacy In France, in spite of the (mostly international, not so much domestic) success of Jacques Ellul’s 1962 Propagandes, translated in English under the title of Propaganda, it took another couple of years for a scientific object called political communication to emerge. In France like in many other countries, PC has had to struggle to have its scientific credibility acknowledged. More so than other disciplines perhaps due to the fundamental heterogeneity of its objects, which clashed with the institutional frontiers separating the different disciplines of Human and Social Sciences. Fields other than political science have contributed to the exploration of certain of PC’s aspects in France. Information and communication sciences covered not only the institutional aspects, with electoral communication (Veyrat-​Masson, 2011), but also the “newer” ones, with infotainment (Le Foulgoc, 2010), and even endeavored to summarize the interactions between the political and communicational spheres (Mouchon, 1998). Chabrol’s (2008) and Marchand’s (2004) social psychology contributed to a better understanding of persuasive communication, the journalists’ influence, and televised political discourse. We cannot forget the contribution made by historians, who described the evolution of PC’s main manifestations (Delporte, 2007). Sociologists studied the media system and its relation with the political world (Rieffel, 2005) as well as the shaping of opinion on social networking sites (Ferrand, 2011). However, political science has been the main contributor in terms of French PC conceptualization and analysis. In France, scientific interest for PC can be traced back to the 1970s with, amongst others, the publication in 1970 of Monica Charlot’s La Persuasion politique (Political

 

398   Jacques Gerstlé Persuasion) in which she drew attention to the Anglo-​Saxon experiments and the much more developed American literature relative to the topic. Undoubtedly the Fifth Republic and General de Gaulle gave rise to the first political science studies (Maitrot and Sicault, 1969). But scientific attention was particularly attracted by his use of television. The go-​ahead was given by Cotteret and Moreau (1969) with Le vocabulaire du Général de Gaulle (The Vocabulary of General de Gaulle) and, in 1973, Cotteret’s Gouvernants et gouvernés (The Governing and the Governed) whose original title, refused by the publisher, was “Political Communication,” defined by him as “an exchange of information between rulers and ruled through structured and informal channels of transmission.” The first empirical study of political discourse resulted in the distinction between “discours-​bilan,” where the president took stock of the governmental action and “discours-​ appel,” where s/​he was concerned about his support at the time of the Algerian crisis or at election time. But the first empirical study relative to communication during a presidential campaign was published in 1976, two years after the Giscard d’Estaing/​Mitterrand electoral confrontation (Cotteret et al., 1976). It focused on the language used by the two presidential candidates during their radio and TV appearances in the course of the official campaign. The overall intellectual context was favorable to linguistics and semiotics, not s/​hewhich accounts for the interest provoked by the linguistic dimension of the electoral campaign. This study allowed the identification of two main forms of electoral discourses: confirmation discourse with which the candidate confirms to his/​her electorate that s/​he is their champion. Such discourse is used mainly in preparation for the first electoral round. As the campaign progresses, both candidates slowly replaced it with an “aggregation” discourse meant to attract more critical sections of the general electorate to the pool of the candidates’ supporters. The refocusing of the electoral positioning can be seen through the vernacular used to convince politically indifferent or undecided voters. This vocabulary dismisses overly partisan and ideologically charged terms in favor of a decidedly neutral terminology. Discourse is personalized: the “I” dominates, and enunciation markers are unambiguous. The lexical analysis of political speeches is now well established in France (Mayaffre, 2012; Labbé and Monière, 2013; Mots, 2010), but then, this type of analysis was entirely novel in the academic research on electoral campaigns. Les Cahiers de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques are profoundly inspired by the Michigan model adapted to the French context, with the domination of class voting and religious voting as fundamental explanatory principles. The superiority of long-​term factors that leads to the supremacy of reflex voting leaves little room for communication factors and the observation of changes in electoral behaviors, as explained by C. Ysmal (1994). It was also during the 1974 campaign that the study of voters’ motivations for following the campaign on television, the overwhelmingly dominant medium, was first used. The “uses and gratifications” model was applied to the campaign by Blumler et al. (1978) and helped put an emphasis on its media coverage, a short-​term factor contributing to the electoral result. The growing importance of communication is revealed by the growing attention given to campaign processes in election studies. From 1974 on, electoral campaigns have come to be seen as objects for legitimate scientific researchand each

 

Political Communication   399 election has had at least one specific study dedicated to its campaign’s characteristics (Cotteret et al., 1981; Cayrol, 1980; 1985; 1988; Missika and Bregman, 1986). The calls for further development in the area of comparative research were heard and answered: the simultaneity of the 1988 French and American presidential elections allowed a project dedicated to the contrast between the respective campaigning processes to be put in place (Kaid et al., 1991). Numerous aspects were analyzed and almost systematically compared: electoral messages, argumentative speeches, television programs, platforms and manifestos, placards, and electoral agenda. Concerning the campaigns’ media coverage, we compared TV news with news magazine covers as well as televised debates and satire. Concerning the impact of the campaigns’ media coverage, audiences and the public’s perceptions of the candidates were observed. We can say that Mediated Politics in Two Cultures is at least the most detailed comparative study, and the only one dealing with the 1988 French presidential campaign except that of Coulomb-​Gully (1994). Its publication would have a lasting impact on later research focused on electoral communication in France. Since the 1990s, special attention has been paid to the observation of news broadcasting during campaigns to understand its dynamics. Therefore, over the past twenty years we have examined the news dynamics for: two regional elections (Gerstlé, 1992; Piar and Gerstlé, 2005), three European electoral campaigns (Gerstlé, 1995b; 1999; Gerstlé et al., 2005), one referendum campaign (Gerstlé, 2006), three legislative campaigns (Gerstlé, 1993; 1998; 2008) and four presidential campaigns (Kaid et al., 1991; Gerstlé, 1995a; 2003; 2008; 2013; Gerstlé and Metché, 2014). These studies have, for the most part, been published in the Chroniques Electorales (Electoral Chronicles) of Presses de Science Po. The priority given by the media to the game frame over the issue frame has been a constant, as have the media’s structural biases, which draw attention to the spectacular and generate delegitimizing representations of politics. The generalizability of this work was challenged by Gaxie (2003b) on the basis of qualitative material. However, this form of investigation led to Christophe Piar’s 2008 dissertation, focused on the content analysis of television news programs broadcast during 18 electoral campaigns between 1981 and 2007. The thesis was published (Piar, 2012)  as Comment se jouent les élections? (How do elections work?), a title that references the hypothesis of powerful information effects in electoral contexts. Alongside these empirical studies, an interest for electoral communication’s instrumental dimension has developed, though more so at an academic level than at a more professional one. Exemplified by the works of Cayrol (1986), Maarek (2001), Ruitort (2007), and more recently Dosquet (2012), this approach is dominated by a practical take on politics. Ruitort, for example, reduces PC to “the set of practices put in place to establish connections between politicians and their electorate, notably through the media” (Ruitort, 2007: 27). Reducing communication to marketing, even political marketing, provokes critical reactions due to its disenchanting effects (Curapp, 1991) and feeds a reflection on the marketing specialists’ excessive pretensions which fail to take into account the immateriality of political capital (Parodi, 1989). However, one of the first people to produce work on the PC advisors in France was Jean-​Baptiste Legavre (1993). He studied the progressive institutionalization of a division of labor between political advisors and

 

400   Jacques Gerstlé the difficult legitimization of those “new” experts, increasingly present since the 1960s (Legavre, 2005) and even more so since the 1980s, at a central as well as a local level (Legavre, 1994). Deeply influenced by Bourdieu, he named them “dominated agents of the domination” due to their limited resources, which, while they may single them out in a positive way, isolate them from the political competition auxiliaries who often emanate from the very best schools and hold high positions in the civil service. Legavre also showed how they manage to impose themselves by using, in the course of their interactions, purely political resources (an understanding of the political game, command of the categories of political classification, and so on) more than technical ones. Their number is rather limited and their technical nature is quite relative (command of the journalistic field, preparation of press releases, organization of “pseudo-​events,” etc.). We can therefore see that, generally speaking, the “electoral persuasion paradigm” now dominates in France as well as abroad, that the paradigm orientated the first studies in PC, and that it emphasized the discipline’s pioneering dimension. Certainly, it is through this paradigm that the Anglo-​Saxon influence has been the most important in France. Conversely, French research has had little impact on studies at an international level. In this case, like in many others before, French political science’s impact has been hindered most notably because of a language barrier: the necessity to write in English operating as a very selective filter. We can, however, note that after this first wave, a second generation came forth, one more open to other aspects of PC and its impact on society. With the state’s institutional communication (Ollivier-​Yaniv, 2000)  and the development of local communication following the 1980s “devolution,” the category “Public and General Interest Communication” was created. and immediately became difficult to dissociate from PC, both forms of communication relying heavily on proximity (Lebart and Lefebvre, 2005). Likewise, the anthropological dimension already analyzed by Balandier (1980) opened the way for very rewarding studies on the running of the National Assembly (Abélès, 2001) and on presidential visits (Mariot, 2006). Moreover, the interactions between the different actors of PC (politicians, journalists, communication experts, pollsters) have been analyzed to account for the functioning of a media-​dominated democracy. The issue of public opinion is still a bone of contention between French political scientists (Champagne, 1990; Blondiaux, 1998), and Neveu (2000a) sums up the main grievances directed at the failings of opinion polls: “asking what many respondents consider arcane or worthless questions, incorporating analytical frames that emphasize issues most of them find irrelevant, leaving numerically important populations out of the survey, transforming artifacts manufactured by the polls into opinions, and misinterpreting the collected data’s meaning.” The debate with the pollsters is fierce (Cayrol, 2011), and Manin (1995) counters by pointing out that polls allow the public to express itself, in afree and peaceful way; in contrast with engaging in violent protests, yet in as spontaneous a manner as that of marches. However, most political scientists agree that political journalism is one of PC’s most important objects of study (Neveu, 1998; 2001; Kuhn and Neveu, 2002). Indeed, television news is strategic to audience domination and thus is symptomatic when dealing with the main transformations of the French media landscape (Brochand, 2006;

 

Political Communication   401 Sauvage and Veyrat-​Masson, 2012). Very much controlled under the state monopoly of the Office de Radiodiffusion-​Télévision Française, established by the Gaullist government in 1964 and in operation until 1982, media news was progressively liberalized under the Giscard d’Estaing presidency and then with the socialist alternation in power. “Audio-​visual communication is free” proclaimed the law of July 1982 that also created the first regulatory agency in the audio-​visual domain—​the High Authority for Audio-​visual Communication. Privatization was implemented through the creation in 1984 of a pay TV channel (Canal+) and by the establishment of two commercial television networks (La Cinq, and TV6 (now renamed M6)). In 1986, the creation of La Sept preceded its transformation into a Franco-​German cultural channel (Arte) in 1992. The electoral victory of the mainstream Right parties in 1986 was translated into a new law on freedom of communication that established a new regulatory body (the National Committee for Communications and Freedoms—​CNCL), as well as the privatization of the main public channel, TF1. Mitterrand won the presidential election in 1988 and the socialists enacted a new law in 1989 that replaced the CNCL with another regulatory agency, the Higher Audiovisual Council, while a double private–​public sector has strengthened its position since 2000. Between 2005 and 2011 the terrestrial digital television was progressively set up and we witnessed the revolution introduced by rolling news channels (LCI, i-​Télé, BFM-​TV, France 24) that broadcast 24-​hour news and have completely changed the rhythm of news circulation, especially that of political news. In the media landscape, TV news programs were the first objects to be studied (Mercier, 1996), but, as presenters and hosts increasingly took over from pundits, the definition of newsworthiness changed. The press, more so than the radio, has nevertheless been analyzed in detail (Legavre, 2004). Other fields of study opened up, notably the building of the European Union (Mercier, 2003), approval rates (especially that of the president) (Gerstlé et al., 2011), the communication around policies and their policymakers’ accountability (Gerstlé, 2003), the relations between the media and collective action (Lévêque, 2000; Garcia, 2012), and the transformations of political life caused by the use of the Internet (Greffet, 2011). These are aspects of PC that must be developed further, and should guide the drafting of a research agenda outlining the future of French research; a subject we turn to now.

Agenda for Future Research Certain universal themes are worthy of researchers’ attention in France and abroad: the issue of the reception of political messages, tackled by Le Grignou (2003) and Berjaud (2014), or the difficult questions relative to the international dimensions of PC, especially that of misinformation. One of PC’s main themes is the “Americanization” of the practice. While it is very often referred to, there has still not been an in-​depth analysis of this process’s conditions; a difficulty caused by historical and institutional specificities (Bucur and Elgie, 2012). Likewise, the theme of the personalization of the political game,

 

402   Jacques Gerstlé often blamed on the development of modern PC, would benefit from being revisited in a more critical way, following the example of Aarts et al. (2011). In spite of its relative domination of the field of research we can say that the electoral persuasion paradigm has yet to exhaust all its areas of investigation. In France, we are still far from having developed experimental studies like those conducted by James Druckman et al. (2011; 2015) amongst others. This is firstly because experimentation has not yet achieved full academic recognition, and secondly because the cognitive analysis of political behavior is still in its infancy, despite our best efforts to promote it, as proven by the evolution from (Gerstlé, 1992) to (Gerstlé et al., 2014). Even if electoralists seem to doubt a campaign’s ability to alter voting (Nadeau et al., 2012), research on information effects will have to be developed and associated with the empirical observation of media uses which has led to the acknowledgment of the need for a more ecological approach (Le Hay et al., 2011). To complete the empirical analysis of direct or indirect persuasive communication, research on the different types of social groups and their respective responses to persuasion will have to be conducted. This way, we might dispel the confusion surrounding studies in this domain. To this day, we still do not know if less politically competent groups are more likely to be influenced by electoral communication or if more politically “literate” groups are more likely to have their opinions altered by it; or if we should admit, like Gaxie (2003a), that it is intermediary groups that are in this regard more exposed to persuasion after the fashion of Zaller (1992; 1996). To put it simply: We have to assess whether the French behave in the same way the Americans do. According to Claassen (2011), “those with a high level of political competence are more likely to be subject to priming effects where those less competent are more exposed to direct persuasion effects;” so the effect of information processing affects all levels of competence. In this case, studies have to use both experimental and empirical protocols to be convincing. Concerning campaign communication, there is room for a follow-​up to the first general investigations on the comparative effects of disjunction and conjunction between news and “controlled” communication. My own work brought to light that disjunction hurts a candidate’s chances of electoral success whereas conjunction boosts them (Gerstlé, 2012). Mitterrand and Le Pen in 1988, Chirac in 1995, and Le Pen in 2002 all benefitted from a conjunction that eluded Barre, Balladur, and Jospin, respectively. The general theory of communication teaches us that repetition is the best way to fight the noise and where conjunction creates a repetition, disjunction only generates more noise. As for the dispute surrounding public opinion, its resolution may well come from the distinctions operated by Entman and Herbst (2001) between survey-​born opinion, mobilized public opinion, latent public opinion, and perceived majorities—​all categories that could be applied to many French controversies. The historical approach constitutes without doubt a suitable field for fruitful investigation; on an individual level (Guigo, 2013) for politicians and political personnel who have been able to carve out an endogenous representation of PC (Rocard, 1987), but also on an institutional level where the endeavors both of Bourdon (1994) and Kuhn (2011) must be extended to reach a more complete representation of the French PC

 

Political Communication   403 field’s evolution. A more in-​depth understanding of the relations between media and politics, across time, would probably allow us to paint a more nuanced picture than that presented by Hallin and Mancini (2004). Indeed, given that the frontiers of journalism have evolved greatly since the era of the first political pundits, it would be rewarding to revisit this history with the hindsight provided by P. Norris (2010) and her triptych of journalistic figures: watchdog, gate-​keeper, and agenda-​setter. Charron’s (1994) and Kaciaf ’s (2005) works could help us in this endeavor. But the emergence of infotainment demands that close attention be paid to this more popular news broadcasting form. In this regard, Le Foulgoc (2010), Amey and Leroux (2012), Neveu (2003), and Leroux and Ruitort (2013) have paved the way in a different manner from Prior (2007) in the United States. Such research would allow us to verify the validity of the historical reconstitution of the three ages of political communication devised by Blumler and Kavanagh (1999). The role of communication in relation to policymaking is still largely unknown. Gerstlé (2001) opened the way for an analysis of information effects in terms of policies and for the acknowledgment of the contribution of cognitive approaches developed by Mueller (2013), amongst others. But much remains to be discovered about the interactions between the deciders, the media, those affected by policies, and the public at large, even if seminal works have shown the way in the field of the sociology of public issues (Nollet, 2010; Henry, 2007). We could find our source of inspiration in studies focused on the management of public attention (Jones and Baumgartner, 2005). More generally, the link between policy and public opinion should be further analyzed, especially the relation between institutional and party agendas and democratic reactivity, studied in depth by Jones and Baumgartner as well as Erikson et al. (2002) in the United States. Here, information effects are undeniably powerful whether on the individual (in relation to personal preferences), the collective (relative to rallying), or the institutional (agenda-​setting) level. A good representative of this type of research would be Thiebaut’s dissertation (2015) on the interactions between opinions, information, and reception as a means of gauging the French public’s reactivity to media representations of European defense. Also, Kuhn (2010) showed how the news-​management techniques used in France under Sarkozy were comparable to other methods put in place in similar political systems elsewhere. Concerning collective action, Garcia (2013) managed to put into perspective the American “protest frame” according to which mass media are naturally prejudiced against anti-​establishment social movements. Nevertheless, one would have to show how those media can change bystanders’ behaviors by encouraging them into or diverting them from the causes in question, using mainly framing techniques (Gamson, 2004). Of course, in France as in any other country, the Internet is the focus of innumerable studies and the chosen subject of an ever-​increasing proportion of young researchers, alongside seasoned analysts (Cardon, 2010). Amongst the numerous works, we can name that of Greffet (2011) relative to the way in which political parties colonized this new medium, as well the (provisional) conclusions and reserved diagnosis drawn by Lilleker and Vedel (2013) on the Internet’s contribution to the public forum’s transformation. When we look at news practices during campaigns either by candidates (Gadras

 

404   Jacques Gerstlé and Greffet, 2014) or by citizens (Koc Michalska and Vedel, 2013) it seems that moderation in the assessment of the impact is the done thing. Darras (2008a) echoes their observations when he writes: “the influence of the Internet was greater on political journalists themselves who took advantage of the new medium as a major source, and it remains to be seen whether the Internet will become a major influence on political campaigning or public opinion in France.” In addition, political parties’ communication is still something of a blind spot for French research outside of voting times. Observation fields could be created in this domain as well as in that of the approval rates of institutional political actors (Gerstlé et al., 2011) as studied by Edwards and Howell (2011) or Druckman and Jacobs (2015). Concerning political theory, the low number of works relative to PC, especially in relation to its links with deliberative and representative democracy, is regrettable. Opinion democracy was well defined by Manin (1995), but Gastil’s (2008) and Lipsitz’s (2011) thoughts on the matter deserve to be pushed further in order to gauge the exact scope of these new types of democracy’s alleged transformation (see Blondiaux, 2008), if we are to view it as more than a mere revamping of representative democracy. Comparative analysis pays only little attention to PC, and there is much to understand about the political communication culture and its disputed national character (Pfetsch, 2013) as well as about comparative political communication practices, as analyzed by Aarlberg and Curran (2012). Nevertheless, Neveu (2004) tried to summarize the relations between the government, the media, and the state by identifying the repertoire of actions used by the latter on the media. This analysis led him to criticize the notion of PC as an autonomous social process. However, the field of research has contributed to the identification of four important changes in modern political life: opinion phenomena, the professionalization of PC, the rise of symbolic competition, and the spectacularizing of politics. Political news is covered in a way that mirrors power structures: “the cogs of representative democracy: institutions, parties, elections and parliamentary debates. It pays conversely much less attention to realities whose impact is nonetheless strong for ordinary citizens: lobbying, policy processes, social movements” (Schudson, 1998). The issue of “good information” is therefore completely dependent on the way “good citizenship” is defined (ibid). So how to sum up what are the main questions that must be developed in order to structure the French research agenda on political communication? There are, as we have seen, many aspects where more scientific investigation could well be of interest, such that the following straight selection seems too strict and subjective. We will nevertheless emphasize three main axes of research: 1. Of course the “electoral persuasion paradigm,” and more generally a persuasion paradigm to take into account permanent campaigns of routinized political conjunctures, must be developed. In particular we have to better know the relative impact of controlled political communication and of news coverage to get a better assessment of different channels and strategies. Moreover the new profiles of presidential popularity, which has exhibited a faster decline since the election

 

Political Communication   405 of Sarkozy and then Hollande, are quietly intriguing, and pose ask new questions. Is the decline caused by an accelerated wearing effect of being in power? What is the role of the news media in the disappearance of honeymoon effects and the increased public impatience for immediate fulfillment of electoral promises? We see here how information effects, including infotainment, have in different ways contributed to structuring political situations, and we need to develop observations and experiments taking into consideration an ecological approach to media uses. Concerning electoral communication, we have to get a better representation of the information effects according the level of political awareness of the voters. Are those with a high level of political competence more likely to be subjects to priming effects, but those less competent more exposed to direct persuasion effects? It is desirable that such questions are asked in research projects that are more integrated; where voting intentions, political attitudes, and communication practices with their cognitive components are observed as in the earlier study of Lazarsfeld. 2. A second facet of the research agenda would be composed of the intersection of communication with collective and public action. The emergence and diffusion dynamics of collective causes in the public sphere need to be clarified. Of course we know about agenda-​setting processes, advocacy coalitions, political opportunities; we know what McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly called the “dynamics of contention” (2001); but what are largely ignored are the discursive conditions in which these takes place. That is why the pragmatic attempt of Chateauraynaud (2011) is so important. He tries to relate the genesis and transformation of mobilized arguments to the power struggle and considers the whole process of social diffusion of a discourse. What he calls “sociological ballistics” is also important for studies of public policies and their relations with collective action, and more generally for the understanding of public opinion formation. As a result, it is possible to understand that a “climate of opinion,” as Noelle-​Neuman (1984) would say, will emerge. 3. Finally, everywhere in the world we can see the development of new technologies of information and communication as a field where the renewal of enduring questions will probably, but not certainly, change the conditions of the debate about the “growing intrusiveness of media,” as Seymour-​Ure (1987) might say. Ultimately, what remains to be done is to define PC and identify the main concepts that dominate this “research program,” which was characterized by Imre Lakatos as a structure of competing theoretical conceptualizations. Here, four notions are in competition (Gerstlé, 2008). First, the instrumental conceptualization, which assimilates PC with an ensemble of techniques used to circumvent public opinion. Second, the ecumenical conceptualization, put forward by Norris (2000), which took its inspiration mainly from structuro-​functionalism and sees in PC the process of information-​relaying between political actors, the news media, and the public. This conceptualization rejects the idea of anything impeding the information flow, anything such as obstruction processes (as

 

406   Jacques Gerstlé non-​decision) used by opposing social forces to hinder the progress of certain political issues. Third, the competitive, interactionism-​inspired conceptualization (Blumler, 1990; Mutz, 1998) sees in PC a competition for the influence over and control of, thanks to mass media, public perceptions of major events and political issues. We extended this conceptualization to define electoral communication as the interaction between strategically oriented interpretations of the political situation. Finally, the dialogic conceptualization, inspired by Habermas, considers that PC will only be freed from its constraints once equal citizens are engaged in a discussion in which only the force of the best argument matters in a public exercise of reason. From this research program we propose, as an approximate and still debatable definition of PC, that it relates to the ensemble of endeavors, based on structural, symbolic, and pragmatic resources, to gather supports and promote a definition of the situation meant to contribute to the resolution of a collective problem and/​or to make the actors’ preferences operant. It relates to all the efforts made by those who seek to gain approval for public perceptions that will orientate preferences either by imposing them through propaganda or by rendering them acceptable though discussion.

Conclusion To finish this chapter, we can only notice how it is framed in a dominant way by the “electoral persuasion paradigm.” But it is not by accident that this frame is dominant. It reflects the dominant form of political regime that was installed in the countries able to exercise a scientific domination during the times where political communication was developing. This regime is representative democracy, where election is for the citizens the main way of selecting political deciders in a very temporary form of political participation. We have seen that political communication developed so as to become institutionalized internationally, where American scholars dominated the stage. Then, from the 1970s, we can observe the slow emergence of a field of study which has had to gain a greater national scientific legitimacy according the different disciplines it concerns. We can assert that this conquest is now achieved in the domain of political science, where particular aspects complement the results from the “electoral persuasion paradigm.” We can also assert that it is probably because of the consubstantiality between politics and communication that this legitimacy has been accepted. It is, indeed, in the tension between conflict and cooperation that communication can be found, making it an integral part of politics.

Note 1. While we will favor the “electoral persuasion paradigm,” we will endeavor not to ignore the many other dimensions of political communication.

 

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408   Jacques Gerstlé Chaffee, S. H. (ed.) (1975). Political Communication. Issues and Strategies for Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Champagne, P. (1990). Faire l’opinion. Paris: Minuit. Charlot, M. (1970). La persuasion politique. Paris: Armand Colin. Charron, J. (1994). La production de l’actualité. Québec: Boréal. Chateauraynaud, F. (2011). Argumenter dans un champ de forces. Essai de balistique sociologique. Paris: Editions Petra. Claassen, R. L. (2011). “Political Awareness and Electoral Campaigns: Maximum Effects for Minimum Citizens?” Political Behavior 33(2): 203–​23. Cotteret, J.-​M. (1973). Gouvernants et gouvernés. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Cotteret, J.-​M., Emeri, C., Moreau, R., and Gerstlé, J. (1976). Giscard d’Estaing/​Mitterrand: 54774 mots pour convaincre. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Cotteret, J.-​M., Gerstlé, J., Ayache, G., and Casile, N. (1981). “Démocratie cathodique. L’élection présidentielle de 1981 et la télévision,” Les Cahiers de la Communication 1 (4/​5). Cotteret, J.-​M. and Moreau, R. (1969). Le vocabulaire du Général de Gaulle. Analyse statistique des allocutions radiodiffusées. Paris: Armand Colin. Coulomb-​Gully, M. (1994). Radioscopie d’une campagne. La représentation politique au journal televise. Paris: Kimé. CURAPP, (1991). La communication politique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Darras, E. (2008a). “Free Journalism Under Control:  Election Coverage in France,” in Strömback, J. and Kaid, L. L. (eds) The Handbook of Elections News Coverage Around the World. New York: Routledge, 90–​108. Davis, D. K. (1990) “News and Politics,” in Nimmo, D. and Swanson, D. L. (eds) New Directions Political Communication: A Resource Book. Newbury Park: Sage, 147–​84. Delporte, C. (2007). La France dans les yeux. Paris: Flammarion. Dosquet, F. (2012). Marketing et communication politique. Cormeilles-​Le-​Royal: Editions EMS. Druckman, J., Green, D. P., Kuklinski, J. H., and Lupia, A. (2011). Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Druckman, J. N. and Jacobs, L. R., (2015). Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion and Manipulation. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Edelman, M. (1964). The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Edwards III, G. C. and Howell, W. G. (2011). The Oxford Handbook of the American Presidency. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellul, J. (1962). Propagandes. Paris: Armand Colin. Entman, R. and Herbst, S. (2001). “Reframing Public Opinion as We have Known It,” in Bennett, L. W. and Entman, R. M. (eds) Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 203–​25. Erikson, R. S., MacKuen, M. B., and Stimson, J. A. (2002). The Macro-​Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eulau, H., Eldersveld, S. J., and Janowitz, M. (1956). Political Behavior. New  York:  The Free Press. Ferrand, A. (2011). Appartenances multiples, opinion plurielle. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion. Gadras, S. and Greffet, F. (2014). “La présence web des candidats en 2012. Espaces officiels et espaces non officiels de campagne,” in Gerstlé, J. and Magni-​Berton, R. (eds) La campagne présidentielle. Observer les médias, les électeurs et les candidats. Paris: L’Harmattan/​Ed. Pepper, 73–​86.

 

Political Communication   409 Gamson, W. (2004). “Bystanders, Public Opinion and the Media,” in Snow, D. A., Soule, S.A., and Kriesi, H. (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 242–​61. Gans, H. (1980). Deciding What’s News. New York: Vintage. Garcia, G. (2012). La cause des “sans.” Sans-​papiers, sans-​logis, sans emploi à l’épreuve des médias. Rennes: Presses de l’Université de Rennes, INA éditions. Gastil, J. (2008). Political Communication and Deliberation. London: Sage. Gaxie, D. (2003a). La démocratie représentative. Paris: Montchrestien. Gaxie, D. (2003b). “Une construction médiatique du spectacle politique? Réalité et limites de la contribution des médias au développement des perceptions négatives du politique,” in Lagroye, J. (ed.) La politisation. Paris: Belin, 325–​56. Gerstlé, J. (1992). “La région entre nation et département,” in Habert, P., Perrineau, P., and Ysmal, C. (eds) Le Vote éclaté. Les élections régionales et cantonales des 22 et 29 mars 1992. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 115–​34. Gerstlé, J. (1992). La communication politique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Gerstlé, J. (1993). “La campagne électorale au prisme de l’information télévisée,” in Habert, P., Perrineau, P., and Ysmal, C. (eds) Le Vote sanction. Les élections législatives des 21 et 28 mars 1993, Chroniques Electorales. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 66–​87. Gerstlé, J. (1995a). “La dynamique sélective d’une campagne décisive,” in Perrineau, P. and Ysmal, C. (eds) Le Vote de crise. L’élection présidentielle de 1995. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 21–​46. Gerstlé, J. (1995b). “La dynamique nationale d’une campagne européenne,” in Perrineau, P. and Ysmal, C. (eds) Le Vote des douze. Les élections européennes de juin 1994. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 203–​28. Gerstlé, J. (1998). “Dissolution, Indifférence et Rétrospection. Les vicissitudes d’une campagne de temps court,” in Perrineau, P. and Ysmal, C. (eds) Le Vote Surprise. Les élections législatives des 25 mai et 1er juin 1997, Chroniques Electorales. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 55–​76. Gerstlé, J. (ed.) (2001). Les effets d’information en politique. Paris: L’Harmattan. Gerstlé, J. (2003). “Préférences collectives et réactivité politique,” special edition of Revue française de science politique, 53, (6). Gerstlé, J. (2003). “Une fenêtre d’opportunité électorale,” in Perrineau, P. and Ysmal, C. (eds) Le Vote de tous les refus, Chroniques Electorales. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 29–​52. Gerstlé, J. (2006). “L’impact des médias télévisés sur la campagne référendaire française de 2005,” Notre Europe, Etudes et recherches, 53. Gerstlé, J. (2008). La communication politique. Paris: Armand Colin. Gerstlé, J. (2012). “Les effets de la disjonction et de la conjonction entre information et communication électorale,” in Cayrol, R. and Charon, J.-​M. (eds) Médias, opinions et présidentielles. Paris: INA éditions, 71–​80. Gerstlé, J. (2013). “Les campagnes présidentielles depuis 1965,” in Bréchon, D. (ed.) Les élections présidentielles en France (3rd edn). Paris: la documentation Française, 79–​119. Gerstlé, J. and Magni-​Berton, R. (eds) (2014). 2012: La campagne présidentielle. Médias, électeurs, candidats. Paris: Ed. Pepper. Gerstlé, J. and François, A. (2011). “Médiatisation de l’économie et fabrication de la popularité du président Français (2007–​2010),” Revue française de science politique 61(2): 249–​80. Gerstlé, J. and Metché, S. (2014). “La dynamique de la campagne présidentielle de 2012 dans l’information,” in Gerstlé, J. and Magni-​Berton, R. (eds) 2012: la campagne présidentielle. Médias, électeurs et candidats. Paris: Ed. Pepper.

 

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Political Communication   411 Le Foulgoc, A. (2010) Politique et télévision. Extension du domaine politique. Paris:  INA éditions. Legavre, J.-​B. (1993). Conseiller en communication politique. L’institutionnalisation d’un rôle, political science doctoral thesis. Paris: Université Paris 1. Legavre, J.-​B. (1994). “L’horizon local de la communication politique,” Politix 28(7): 76–​99. Legavre, J.-​B. (2004). La presse écrite: objets délaissés. Paris: L’Harmattan. Legavre, J.-​B. (2005). “La quête des origines. Retour sur la fondation de la communication politique en France,” Questions de communication 7: 323–​43. Le Grignou, B. (2003). Du côté du public. Paris: Economica. Le Hay, V., Vedel, T., and Chanvril, F. (2011). “Usage des médias et politique: une écologie des pratiques informationnelles,” Réseaux 29(170): 45–​74. Leroux, P. and Ruitort, P. (2013). La politique sur un plateau. Ce que la télévision fait à la représentation. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Lévêque, S. (2000). Les journalistes sociaux. Rennes: Presses de l’Université de Rennes. Lilleker, D. G. and Vedel, T. (2013). “The Internet in Campaigns and Elections,” in Dutton, W. H. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lipsitz, K. (2011). Competitive Elections and the American Voter. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press. Maarek, P. (2001). Communication et marketing de l’homme politique. Paris: Litec. Maitrot, J.-​C. and Sicault, J.-​D. (1969). Les conférences de presse du Général de Gaulle. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Manin, B. (1995). Principes du gouvernement représentatif. Paris: Calmann-​Lévy. Marchand, P. (2004). Psychologie sociale des médias. Rennes: Presses de l’Université de Rennes. Mariot, N. (2006). Bains de foule. Paris: Belin. Mayaffre, D. (2012). Le discours présidentiel sous la Ve République: Chirac, Mitterrand, Giscard, Pompidou, de Gaulle. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. McCombs, M. E. and Shaw, D. L. (1972). “The Agenda-​Setting Function of the Media,” Public Opinion Quarterly 36: 176–​87. Mercier, A. (1996). Le journal télévisé. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Mercier, A. (2001). “La communication politique en France: un champ de recherches qui doit encore s’imposer,” L’Année Sociologique 51: 353–​63. Mercier, A. (2003). Vers un espace public européen? Paris: L’Harmattan. Missika, J.-​L. and Bregman, D. (1986). “La campagne:  la sélection des controverses politiques,” in Dupoirier, E. and Grunberg, G. (eds) Mars 1986: la drôle de défaite de la gauche. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 97–​116. Mots: Les langages du politique (2010). “Trente ans d’étude des langages du politique (1980–​ 2010),” no. 94. Mouchon, J. (1998). La politique sous l’influence des médias. Paris: L’Harmattan. Muller, P. (2013). Les politiques publiques. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Mutz, D. (1998). Impersonal Influence. How Perceptions of Mass Collectives Affect Political Attitudes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nadeau, R., Bélanger, E., Lewis-​Beck, M. S., Cautrès, B., and Foucault, M. (2012). Le vote des Français de Mitterrand à Sarkozy. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Neveu, E. (1998). “Media and Politics in French Political Science,” European Journal of Political Research 33: 439–​58. Neveu, E. (2000a). “De quelques effets des processus de médiatisation sur les démocraties contemporaines,” Réseaux 18, 100: 107–​36.

 

412   Jacques Gerstlé Neveu, E. (2000b). “Colloquy:  Political Communication Scholarship in France. Imagined Academic Communities: A ‘Critical Denunciator’s’ Reply to Cayrol and Mercier,” Political Communication, 17(1): 85–​92. Neveu, E. (2001). Sociologie du journalisme. Paris: La Découverte. Neveu, E. (2003). “Le chercheur et l’infotainment: sans peur, mais pas sans reproche. Quelques objections à la critique d’une imaginaire orthodoxie critique,” Réseaux 21(118): 167–​82. Neveu, E. (2004). “Government, the State and Media,” in Downing, J. D. H., McQuail, D., Schlesinger, P., and Wartella, E. A. (eds) The Sage Handbook of Media Studies. London, Sage, 331–​50. Nimmo, D. (1977). “Political Communication. Theory and Research: An Overview,” in Ruben, B. D. (ed.) Communication Yearbook I. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 441–​52. Nimmo, D. (1978). Political Communication and Public Opinion in America. Santa Monica: Goodyear. Nimmo, D. and Sanders, K. R. (eds) (1981). Handbook of Political Communication. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Nimmo, D. and Swanson, D. L. (eds) (1990). New Directions in Political Communication: A Resource Book. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Noelle-​ Neuman, E. (1984). The Spiral of Silence:  Public Opinion, Our Social Skin. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Nollet, J. (2010). Des décisions publiques ‘médiatiques’? Sociologie de l’emprise du journalisme sur les politiques de sécurité sanitaire des aliments, political science doctoral thesis. Lille: l’Université de Lille 2. Norris, P. (2000). The Virtuous Circle. Political Communications in Post-​industrial Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Norris, P. (2010). Public Sentinel. News Media and Governance Reform. Washington, DC: World Bank. Ollivier-​Yaniv, C. (2000). L’Etat communiquant. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Parodi, J.-​L. (1989). “Ce que tu es parle si fort qu’on entend plus ce que tu dis,” Hermès, IV. CNRS: 223–​33. Pfetsch, B. (2013). Political Communication Cultures in Europe: Attitudes of Political Actors and Journalists in Nine Countries. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Piar, C. (2012). Comment se jouent les élections. Paris: INA. Piar, C. and Gerstlé, J. (2005). “La campagne des régionales dans l’information télévisée. Le cadrage national d’un scrutin local,” in Dolez, B., Laurent, A., and Patriat, C. (eds) Le Vote Rebelle. Les élections régionales des 21 et 28 mars 2004. Dijon:  Editions universitaires de Dijon, 223–​33. Popkin, S. L. (1994). The Reasoning Voter:  Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Prior, M. (2007). Post-​Broadcast Democracy. How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rieffel R. (2005). Que sont les médias? Pratiques, identités, influences. Paris: Gallimard. Robinson, J. P. and Levy, M. R. (1986). The Main Source: Learning from Television News. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Rocard, M. (1987). Le coeur à l’ouvrage. Paris: Odile Jacob. Ruitort, P. (2007). Sociologie de la communication politique. Paris: La Découverte. Sauvage, M. and Veyrat-​Masson, I. (2012). Histoire de la télévision Française. Paris: Nouveau Monde éditions.

 

Political Communication   413 Schudson, M. (1978). Discovering the News. A Social History of American Newspapers. New York: Basic Books. Schudson, M. (1998). The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life. New York: Free Press. Schütz, A. (1987). Le chercheur et le quotidien. Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck. Seymour-​Ure, C. (1987) “Leaders,” in Seaton, J. and Pimlott, B. (eds) The Media in British Politics. Aldershot: Avebury. Shapiro, R. Y. and Jacobs, L. R. (eds) (2011). The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thiebaut, C. (2015). Opinions, Informations et réception:  la réactivité du public français aux représentations médiatiques de la défense (1991–​2008), political science doctoral thesis. Paris: Université Paris I. Tuchman, G. (1972) “Objectivity as a Strategic Ritual,” American Journal of Sociology 77(4): 660–​78. Veyrat-​Masson, I. (ed.) (2011). Médias et élections. La campagne présidentielle de 2007 et sa réception. Paris: INA, L’Harmattan. Ysmal, C. (1994). “The History of Electoral Studies in France,” European Journal of Political Research 25(3): 367–​85. Zaller, J. R. (1992). The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Zaller, J. R. (1996). “The Myth of Massive Media Impact Revisited: New Support for a Discredited Idea,” in Mutz, D. C., Sniderman, P. M., and Brody, R. A. (eds) Political Persuasion and Attitude Change. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 17–​78.

 

 

Pa rt V

CIVIL SOCIETY

 

 

Chapter 19

Interest G rou p s moving beyond state-​centric models Darren M c Cauley

The study of interest groups often revolves around various notions of the state in contemporary comparative politics (Baumgartner and Leech, 1998; Beyers et al., 2012). An interest group, after all, seeks to exploit influence and power within the corridors of government (Jordan and Maloney, 2007; Truman, 1951). From such an Anglo-​American-​ dominated viewpoint, the government is thus more or less open to such exploits, leading to a plethora of state-​interest models based upon pluralist or corporatist national traditions. Hitherto underappreciated, the French contribution to this literature has largely been to emphasize the role of non-​state sociology-​based explanations for interest group behavior (Courty, 2006; Duriez, 2004; Fillieule, 2010; Jacquot and Woll, 2008; Mathieu, 2007; Offerlé, 2009; Saurugger, 2008). This approach moves us away from narrowly defining such groups in relation to the state. Inspired by a wide variety of French and associated non-​French scholarship, this chapter argues that such a political sociological approach offers significant potential. The first section of the chapter begins with an introduction to the study of interest groups in comparative perspective. It outlines some key definitions on what constitutes an interest group, as well as reflecting upon the relation between the study of interest groups and social movements and social movement theory. I then introduce Europeanization as an emerging influence on national interest groups, with some definitional reflections. Lastly, this section presents mainstream understandings of interest group and state relations in comparative politics. The next section details the study of interest groups in France. It proceeds with historical and contemporary accounts of theorizing the specific nature of French state–​group relations. I  then identify the main “outside-​in” pressures in this field from Anglo-​ American scholarship, which prioritizes state-​driven accounts. I expand further with an assessment of mainstream state-​centric accounts of inclusion and exclusion (Cole, 2008; Keeler and Hall, 2001; Wilson, 1987; 2008). Their necessary dilution, in order to fit the French case, has resulted in a search for more appropriate models. The protest

 

418   Darren McCauley and policy network models have been forwarded as potential approaches to state–​group relations in France (Thompson, 2003; Cole, 2011; Vassallo, 2010). However, even these models have not avoided criticism for their relative inapplicability to French state–​ group relations (Epstein, 1997; Elgie and Griggs, 2000; Woll, 2009). The third part of the chapter presents the main “inside-​out” pressure from French literature, inspired by political sociological accounts. I locate such a pressure firstly in Europeanization literature where ties with the nation state are broken (Grossman, 2003; 2004; Jacquot and Woll, 2003; Saurugger, 2007; 2009). I argue that the real novelty in French literature is the emphasis on “group-​centric” accounts of interest representation. Drawing equally from related non-​French accounts, it is argued that social movement theory provides an opportunity to further solidify a more group-​centric approach. Associated more traditionally with social movements, it offers a series of analytical tools, which allow us to explore the role of interest groups independent—​but mindful of—​the state (Fillieule and Tartakowsky, 2014; Mathieu, 2009; Offerlé, 2009). Above all, it provides an opportunity to unleash interest group studies from the straightjacket of state-​centric conceptual frameworks.

The Study of Interest Groups This section covers the main definitional questions surrounding interest group research. It argues that interest groups and social movements (rather than the concept of ‘new social movements’) are not as distinct as they are often portrayed in the literature. Moreover, social movement theories offer significant potential for expanding our understanding of interest groups. It concludes with some introductory reflections on the influence of Europeanization and the state on interest groups.

Interest Groups and Social Movements Much of the literature on interest groups is based on case studies or cross-​sectional examinations of collective action. This has resulted in little reflection on the definition of an interest group, or indeed the field of study. The oft-​cited Truman version concentrates on organizations, which make “certain claims upon other groups in society for the establishment, maintenance, or enhancement of forms of behavior that are implied by shared attitudes” (1951: 33). An interest group seeks to influence policy on targeted shared issues on the basis of its membership without any wish to govern. The study of interest groups is dominated inherently by the exploration of influence, exploitation, and, above all, power. An interest group is, after all, “organized only for a specific collective political end […] [without] seek[ing] to form a government, merely to influence public policy” (Jordan and Maloney, 2007: 29, emphasis added). As a result, interest group studies have developed most notably within the field of comparative politics (Baumgartner and Leech, 1998).

 

Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models    419 The political science origins of this field lead, most notably, to an intellectual enchantment with the state. Indeed, the raison d’être of an interest group within such definitions is predicated on its relationship to government or formal policymaking processes. Within an Anglo-​American context, the phrase “interest group” is regularly interchangeable with the Truman rhetoric of “pressure groups.” The object of such pressure has invariably been the state apparatus. The first dichotomy of such an approach rests upon exploring “insider” and “outsider” interest groups. The exploration of interest groups in the US has tended to focus on the traditionally “insider” powerful organizations. Outsider groups have become more recently the focus of studies in the UK-​based literature (Grant, 2001). Binderkrantz (2005) reveals, for example, how interest groups in Denmark slip in and out of the political system. Her comparative analysis of strategies reminds us that such groups are dynamic entities. In one of the few attempts to differentiate between social movements and interest groups, Sydney Tarrow defines interest groups as “formal organizations, which activate already defined constituencies, often with dues paying or institutionally determined membership, in mainly non-​contentious interaction with authorities” (1995:  228–​9). This definition is similar to mainstream political science versions (such as Truman or Jordan and Maloney above) whereby an interest group is a formalized grouping with a collective membership seeking to influence government and policy. Social movements are alternatively referred to as “collective challenges by groups with purposes and solidarity in sustained and mainly contentious interaction with elites, opponents and authorities” (1995: 229). However, recent work (e.g. Binderkrantz, 2005) calls into question the validity of differentiating along the lines here of contentious versus non-​ contentious action. It is argued, therefore, that we need to accept significant crossover between interest group and social movement studies.

New Social Movements and Social Movement Theory We do need to differentiate between new social movements (NSMs) and Social Movement Theory (SMT). Largely attributed to Habermas, NSMs are a response to “the colonization of the lifeworld” and “cultural impoverishment” (Crossley, 2003: 290). These phenomena have taken the form of politics ceasing to address issues of truly public concern. NSMs have arisen in response to this colonized and impoverished context. These NSMs consisted of “those who traditional institutions had forgotten or excluded” (ecologism, antinuclearism, feminism, consumerism, and postmaterialism (Fillieule and Meyer, 2001: 52). The concept of NSMs refers specifically to the apparition of movements during the ’60s/​’70s. It has been equally argued that the rise of the human rights or counter-​globalization movement represents examples of new NSMs. Social movement theory provides, rather, a framework for studying group behavior while allowing us to generate questions on how and why social mobilization takes place (Kriesi, 2004). In fact, a range of social movement theories has emerged over the past thirty years:  resource mobilization theory (RMT), political opportunity structures (POS), social psychology (SP), and social networks (SN). This largely stems from

 

420   Darren McCauley different approaches and methodological choices from political scientists (mostly RMT and POS) and sociologists (often SP and SN). Similarly, European (SP) and American (RMT) scholars have built up particular approaches to social movement theory. It is argued that a combined approach to these theories has the ability to shed light on how and, to an extent, why not only movements, but also interest groups, are mobilized.

Broadening Our Understanding of Interest Groups In general terms, there are two major groups of interest representation. First, the “occupational” groups (trade unions, business, farmers, etc.) are seen to be the most active, with sophisticated networks of power and influence with government. Such groups are often central to the study of interest groups (Baumgartner and Leech, 1998). The “promotional” groups (environmental, feminist, consumer groups) have evolved quickly in recent years, but remain less influential in interest group studies. In presenting a further interpretation of collective action, these “promotional” groups are explicitly linked to the notion of NSMs. The origins of these “promotional” groups are found in the emergence of NSMs from the student protests of 1968 (Escafré-​Dublet, 2010). The student movement of 1968 provided the motor for a variety of NSMs (ecologism, antinuclearism, feminism, consumerism, and postmaterialism). Promotional groups (feminists, anti-​racists, environmentalists, etc.) have, nevertheless, had little success in imposing their will on government. Whereas single-​issue groups were able to exert considerable influence in the UK and Germany, the French political system remained impermeable (Cole and Harguindeguy, 2013). As is common among organizations that find their origins in the NSMs of the 1970s, promotional groups have been largely forced into state relations based on pre-​emption, incorporation, contestation, and direct action. The necessity for state–​group relations can be seen as an impediment to such groups. We should, however, not irrevocably tie promotional groups to the study of NSMs. Interest group studies have much to offer in building understanding of promotional groups. This new reality for national interest groups is most evident in the development of Europeanization research.

Interest Groups in Europeanization Frameworks A key distinction in the literature that only appears hitherto implicitly is between the “Europeanization of interest groups” and “Europeanization and interest groups.” While the former presents a clear linkage between EU pull and interest group behavior, the latter positions interest groups within a broader context of EU pressure that is transforming domestic institutions and policies. From the former perspective, the multi-​ institutional nature of decision-​making at the EU level creates a number of targets and opportunities for interest groups (bottom-​up approach). UK business groups found that they could access EU-​level policymakers through direct contact with EU officials and

 

Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models    421 EU-​based groups, as well as other national groupings that are in contact with EU officials (Fairbrass, 2003). In stark contrast to the former perspective, the application of Europeanization and national interest representation is defined primarily as a top-​down pressure that brings about changes in the domestic arena for non-​governmental organizations (Exadaktylos and Radaelli, 2009; Ladrech, 1994). The EU is conceptualized as a motor for the potential transformation of the objectives, strategies, and operating environment of a domestic actor. Therefore, Europeanization refers to changes in national institutions and policymaking, which consequently influences the behavior of national and subnational non-​ governmental organizations. This process is, therefore, expected to bring about a certain level of change in the traditional forms of interest group interaction with the state.

Models of Interest Group–​State Interaction The state remains, overall, the central focus for interest group studies. Indeed, it is argued throughout this chapter that the primary “outside-​in” influence of Anglo-​American literature on understanding interest groups in France remains most observable in debates surrounding the insider/​outsider dichotomy in relation to the nation state. As explored in what follows, comparative political accounts of interest groups in France were captured by a US disciplinary obsession with pluralism—​or as termed here “state-​centric systems of interest representation.” Authors such as Truman (1951) argued vehemently that the rise of interest groups in the US symbolized a new modern theory of political pluralism. A divisive normative reflection on interest groups led to the marginalization of the field in the US until the 1990s (Tichenor and Harris, 2005). American and British political scientists viewed France as an intriguing non-​pluralized system of interest representation (Keeler and Hall, 2001; Wilson, 2008). The pluralist model defines power as being shared among multiple groups that represent social and political forces in society. According to Wilson, “these groups confront government and each other in constant but shifting patterns of competition and cooperation that determine public policy […] [while] the state moderates among the[se] conflicting demands […] as it determines official policy” (1987: 18). The pluralist perspective no longer views the state as a formidable dominating force overpowering a weakly divided civil society (Beyers et al., 2012). Corporatist accounts have, on the other hand, concentrated on the tripartite relations between the state officials and the two key areas of capital and labor (Lavdas, 2005). There has been a retreat among supporters of a pure corporatist stance to a “meso-​ corporatist/​neo-​corporatism” viewpoint. This form of corporatism acknowledges that state–​group relations change from one policy subsystem to another. Given the weakness of labor in certain policy systems, French corporatism, for example, is considered to be sectoral (Goyer, 2008). Meso-​corporatists define the policymaking process as being a closed negotiating process between government and privileged interest groups. These groups exercise an exclusive monopoly on access to policy formulation, while providing

 

422   Darren McCauley expert information and advice. As Shain comments, “corporatism is more than a model of policy-​formualation, it is a model of social control […] [where] open conflict is channeled into limited bargaining” (1980: 191). Both pluralist and corporatist models have been applied (to the case of France as explored in the following section). They do not, however, offer an exhaustive account of state–​group interaction. The state regularly calls upon a variety of devices and structures in order to rebuff the demands of even the most powerful interest groups. Similarly, interest groups enter into a range of relationships with the state in accordance with the sensitivity of the particular issue. Interest groups and government are constantly readjusting to changing political circumstances, in order to better achieve their objectives (Beyers et  al., 2012). This observation has resulted in a plethora of comparative and France-​specific state–​group modeling, as explored in the next section.

The Study of Interest Groups in France The “exceptional” nature of interest group behaviors in France has captured the attention notably of Anglo-​American and French scholars in political science and political sociology. The perceived exclusionary approach of the French state toward interest representation has resulted in an explosion of state–​group relations theorization, from new “French-​only” models to the tailored application of mainstream accounts. It is argued below that French scholars are at the forefront of a new agenda, which frees the “group” from overly state-​centric understandings of interest groups.

Historical Understandings of Interest Groups in France As an idea that can be traced back as far as Jean-​Jacques Rousseau, interest group pressure is seen, historically, as being illegitimate (Thomas, 2001: 48). Following the traditional French conception of democracy, Cohen-​Tanugi (1991) underlines that lobbying or interest groups represent an attempt to prioritize particular interests to the detriment of the general public. In the French Republican tradition, the state has been held to be superior to the total of competing interests: groups exist in a subordinate relationship with the state. The traditional role of the French state is classified as Jacobin, which stipulates that elected governments are mandated with the will of the people directly, without the mediation of other interests (Hazareesingh, 2002). The traditional Jacobin distaste for interest groups is only partly relevant for contemporary state–​group relations. First, a transformation has occurred, mainly through the loosening of state control of civil society. Second, there has been a modernization of public administration that has ensured freedom of access to information. More recently, the multifaceted influence of the EU has been largely accredited with this change. Although French pressure group activity would appear to be weaker in France than in

 

Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models    423 the Northern European democracies, the traditional image of France as a state that pays no attention to associational life is becoming increasingly irrelevant to understanding the reality of French politics.

Models of French Exceptionalism With regard to conceptualizing a relevant theoretical model, this mixture of a traditionally exclusive and an increasingly open state reinforced the “exceptional” status of French state–​group relations among Anglo-​American scholars. Models of French “exceptionalism” may be defined as the situation where the policymaking style in France is different from the equivalent style in any other country. It has, therefore, been contended that the French case cannot be easily fitted into the mainstream pluralist or corporatist models of state–​group relations. Two theoretical models of exception that have been applied to the French case are termed the “domination-​crisis” model, and the “endemic and open conflict” model. The former concentrates on French attitudes toward authority and change. This analysis heavily relies upon traditional Jacobin feelings of suspicion and fear with regard to the validity of interest group existence. Accordingly, interest groups are poorly represented and highly fragmented under a highly authoritarian state. With very similar conclusions, the latter model shares the same authoritarian notion of the state, but it focuses on the importance of political institutions. It refers to the decreasing influence of parliament and a generally hostile institutional environment for interest groups as the reasons for growing demonstrations, direct action, and violence. Both models have also failed to adequately capture contemporary state–​group relations (Elgie and Griggs, 2000). The Marxist model is another long-​standing “exceptional” account of French state–​ group interaction. This standpoint has been further developed, partly as a critique of pluralist perspectives in this area. The core argument concentrates on the inability of interest groups to influence government. Capitalist groups can manipulate a larger resource base, and ensure a well-​organized and professional lobby of government. From this perspective, the Marxist/​neo-​Marxist approach to explaining state–​group relations in France centers on the exclusion of any intermediate group between society and the capitalist elite. In light of certain ambiguities surrounding the definition and role of these capitalist groups, the main criticism of this model points to its highly idealist stance. Following such an argument, it ignores privileged links between some societal groups (such as agriculture) and government (Wilson, 1983). The failure of the above models to adequately capture contemporary state–​group relations in France led to the creation of the “untidy reality model.” Associated originally with Vincent Wright (in his Government and Politics of France), this approach underlines the infinite variety of potential state–​group interaction. The model highlights the divisions within governmental institutions, which result in a competitive environment unable to present one voice. Moreover, interest groups enter into a multitude of relations with different organs of government. Knapp and Wright (2006) deal with four models

 

424   Darren McCauley (the “domination-​crisis,” the “endemic and open conflict,” the “corporatist,” and the “pluralist” models of state–​group interaction), and conclude by dismissing the validity of their findings.

Mainstream State-​centric Models and France There has generally been an explicit debate between viewing state–​group relations in France as pluralist (championed by Wilson, 1987; 2008), and considering them as primarily corporatist (supported by Keeler and Hall, 2001). French state–​group relations capture some of the distinctive features within pluralism and corporatism, while presenting a number of unique traits. Corporatist accounts have concentrated on the tripartite relations between the state officials and the two key areas of capital and labor (Lavdas, 2005). Pluralist studies have emphasized the multiplication of non-​state actors in technical and non-​technical deliberations with the state (Chafer and Godin, 2010). Various empirical/​theoretical studies are outlined below in order to demonstrate supporting and opposing evidence for these models.

Pluralism Wilson (2008) comments that the interest group universe in France is largely pluralist, but with a more active role played by government. It tries to structure the wide-​ranging interests that are represented by using subsidies to reward allies and punish foes. By shaping policy process largely above the demands of competing interest group actors, the French case is often referred to as “state pluralism” (Elgie and Griggs, 2000: 151). Since the 1960s, a range of group interests has been represented on approximately 5,000 councils, committees, and commissions at the national level, as well as double that figure at the local level (Chafer and Godin, 2010). The most well-​organized and powerful groups (business, agriculture, industry) demand the attention of government representatives. The FNSEA (agricultural interest group) has benefitted from a privileged partnership with government over agricultural matters (Thompson, 2003). By attempting to create the most favorable balance of power, the French government also accords greater official recognition to some interest groups than others. During the 1960s and ’70s, the government purposefully disadvantaged the most powerful trade union (CGT) (Keeler and Hall, 2001). From this perspective, a purist pluralistic standpoint is alien to the institutional and philosophical framework of the Fifth Republic (Woll, 2009). All interest groups in France are not playing on a completely level playing field, as the state determines which players are legitimate. Contemporary French policymaking now reflects a rather uneasy compromise between Jacobin ideas and pluralism (Cole and Harguindeguy, 2013). However, the recognition that French pluralism is different to the standard form of pluralism leads to the possible conclusion that pluralism à la française may not be pluralism at all. The continued existence of privileged state–​group partnerships underlines a major weakness in the assertion that the French case is pluralist. Not only do

 

Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models    425 many of the privileged state–​group relations still remain, but they have been partly expanded into new areas where the government confronts new intractable policy problems (Elgie and Griggs, 2000). Moreover, the public officials in the various consultative bodies have the choice to accept or decline the advice given to them by interest groups. Many less well-​organized interest groups bemoan the failure of officials to heed their opinion. French interest organizations rarely feel involved in policymaking, despite the recent proliferation of consultative bodies (Le Queux and Sainsaulieu, 2010). Pluralism cannot adequately explain the existence and impact of such well-​defined privileged relations.

Corporatism Industrial relations (employers’ organizations, trade unions, and government) in France are cited as the core element to applying a corporatist viewpoint to French state–​group relations. Neither the state nor employers’ confederations have, however, been willing to grant trade unions the recognition of institutionalized power. In comparison to trade unions, employers’ organizations have sometimes managed to ensure a well-​organized and professional lobby during industrial negotiations, which are of course considered in a more favorable light by government than presenting a poorly organized and fragmented voice. In fact, the state and employers’ federations have encouraged the isolation of trade unions by offering alternative institutional arrangements (Fitch, 2007). There is one dominant employer’s interest group (MEDEF) that enjoys a privileged position in governmental relations. Presenting a study into educational policymaking and interest group structure in France and the United States, Baumgartner and Walker (1989) found an inherent bias in the French system in allowing for intimate relations between the largest interest groups and state institutions and officials. In contrast to the United States, many decisions are made at the national level (as opposed to the local levels), almost exclusively by civil servants within the Ministry for Education in this particular case. The small size, limited resources, and recent formation of many educational interest groups have resulted in a highly competitive and ideologically divergent environment. This has encouraged the government to maintain a structured and corporatist style of, in this example, educational decision-​making in France. Wilson (1983; 2008) presents a series of arguments against the dominance of a corporatist standpoint on state–​group relations in France. In contrast to other Western European countries, there has, first, been a feverish resistance among French trade unions to personal relations with government (Le Queux and Sainsaulieu, 2010). Loyalties to syndicalist traditions have maintained an open unwillingness to participate in any corporatist practice. (Labbe, 1994). Second, the existence of numerous trade unions and employers’ associations make it more difficult than in other European countries to present a united voice. In no country in Europe is the level of fragmentation comparable (Beyers et al., 2012). In trade unionism alone there are over twenty major interest groups with an additional myriad of approximately fifty to a hundred smaller organizations. Outside a handful of policy areas, it is indeed difficult to demonstrate corporatist patterns in state–​group relations in France.

 

426   Darren McCauley

Alternative State-​centric Models Both corporatism and pluralism have not proved to be entirely relevant or accurate for studying state–​group interaction in France. Both models ignore the ongoing concern for maintaining a certain level of autonomy, which is crucial for group members and governmental officials. Similarly, interest groups enter into different types of relationships with the state on particular issues. Changing venues for power render previously influential and efficient policymaking coalitions irrelevant. These models also do not appreciate that state–​group interaction represents only one priority for either entity. Indeed, the importance of these relations for interest groups depends on their individual objectives (Wilson, 2008). In referring to the French case, Wilson underlines that “a theory of interest-​group/​government relations must thus include recognition of external actors beyond the object of the theory and the activities and priorities of both groups and government that may detract from their interaction with each other” (Wilson, 1987: 410). One attempt to apply a more relevant model has been the introduction of “policy network theory” to French politics. In stark contrast to Britain, policy network theory had been “rarely, if ever, explicitly evoked in the French literature” (Cole and John, 1995: 92). This theory posits that decision-​making is seldom limited to a group of key actors in certain organizations. Instead, a range of bargains is struck through negotiations between numerous bodies and organizations. In stark contrast to Baumgartner and Walker (1989), contemporary educational policy includes a wide range of actors within a policy network perspective, particularly in the implementation of an agreed policy. A deeper concentration on local-​level educational decision-​making reveals a complex environment of policy networks (John and Cole, 2000). A more long-​standing competing approach applied to the French case is referred to here as the “protest model.” It alludes to an alleged inclination toward protest behavior among French citizens and groups. Accordingly, organizations are formed in order to defend very narrow interests (Wilson, 2008). Many high-​profile cases have managed to successfully influence government policy. Sustained pressure from a wide range of anti-​waste-​incinerator interest groups led to the abandonment of several waste-​to-​ energy plants throughout France (McCauley, 2009). There has also been a long list of protests from excluded agriculture groups against certain objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (Thompson, 2003), cross-​interest anti-​GM-​food protests (Joly and Marris, 2003; McCauley, 2011; 2015), and indeed an even wider set of groups in the anti-​globalization protests (Fougier, 2002; 2004; Le Queux and Sainsaulieu, 2010).

French Contributions to Moving Beyond State-​centric Models From a notably Anglo-​American standpoint, understandings of interest group relations in France are entrenched in mainstream comparative-​politics state-​centric models (see Table 19.1) of inclusion1 and exclusion.2 The traditional Jacobin distaste for interest

 

Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models    427 Table 19.1 State-​centric models of inclusion and exclusion State-​centric models Inclusion

Exclusion

(neo-​, meso-​) Pluralism

(neo-​, meso-​) Corporatism

Policy networks

Protest

Source: Keeler and Hall (2001), Cole (2008), Wilson (2008), Vassallo (2010).

groups and the weakening of the “exception” thesis have led to several attempts (Chafer and Godin, 2010; Grossman, 2009; Knapp and Wright, 2006; Wilson, 2008; Woll, 2009) to theorize this relationship. This chapter argues in what follows that we need to move beyond an understanding of French interest groups as simply locked within such state-​centric models. Interest groups often participate in both including and excluding models, and policy processes also emphasize that these associations can be involved in both including and excluding models at the same time. In response, the major contribution of French writings on interest groups is the emphasis on political sociology (Courty, 2006; Duriez, 2004; Fillieule, 2010; Jacquot and Woll, 2008; Mathieu, 2007; Offerlé, 2009; Saurugger, 2008) above comparative or mainstream political science. It is evident above that the French contribution is most notable in the less conventional “protest model” as well as new “sociological perspectives” on Europeanization. The inside-​out influence of French scholarship on interest group studies begins with a rejection of the assumption that interest group behavior is tied to state action. As Saurugger puts it, “the specificities of sociological approaches […] lie in the spheres of ontology and epistemology […] reject[ing] research designs and logics based on a strict unidirectional causality principle” (2009: 938). This inside-​out influence challenges researchers in the field to embrace sociological approaches—​even, as argued below, social movement theories. The distinctly sociological perspective in French literature has challenged researchers to examine bottom-​up (i.e. Europeanization of interest groups) Europeanization, through understanding processes of “usage” introduced by Jacquot and Woll (2003). This is a call to arms for scholars to reflect upon how local or national interest groups “use” opportunities that arise in a multi-​level system—​especially at the supranational level. Non-​French writers have sought to emphasize the lack of bottom-​up Europeanization taking place. Rootes (2005) and Warleigh (2001) have found that interest groups throughout Europe are not substantially Europeanizing their activities —​in their view defined as relocation to Brussels. McCauley (2011) presents a more nuanced picture from a wide variety of interest representations of sporadic examples of bottom-​ up Europeanization among French interest groups. In French writing, bottom-​up Europeanization is most associated with economic interest groups in France. Grossman (2003; 2004) demonstrates that French interest groups involved in financial services are able to employ EU specialists and consultants while establishing offices in Brussels. The focus of such interests groups in France has

 

428   Darren McCauley “necessarily shifted towards Brussels” (Thomas, 2001: 46). Privileged with substantial resources, they have learnt how to side-​step the state’s traditional monopoly on economic affairs. The EU has increasingly served to alter the traditional balance in French state–​society relations by allowing greater access and influence at the European level to French societal interests at the policy-​formulation stage. However, the ability of non-​ economic interests groups to follow suit is empirically less proven (Saurugger, 2007). Saurugger and Grossman (2006) emphasize the contrainte financière (financial limitation) on such French groups, which prevents them from benefitting from supranational opportunity structures. Interest group-​based research should focus, therefore, on the role of organizations rather than the state.

Future Research Agendas: A “Group-​centric” Approach This section proposes the development of a new research agenda, which builds on group-​centric notions of interest groups behaviors. The inside-​out pressure of French scholarship reorients our understanding of the state and the group. Building on French and related non-​French research, I propose here a more fluid account of the state than in mainstream pluralist or corporatist accounts. In addition to re-​conceptualizing the state, we also need to find better ways of reflecting the abilities of interest groups. Due to space restrictions, I limit this investigation to focusing on resource capabilities of the group. The section ends with the development of a new group-​centric framework for interest group analysis.

The State as Multiple Opportunities and Constraints The presence of sympathetic elites increases opportunities for interest groups to maximize the political system. Jacquot and Woll (2008) reveal that interest groups tend to engage in more conventional lobbying activities when there are discernable allies in the political process. With fewer or no allies, they are more likely to concentrate on protests and demonstrations. Political parties are especially important potential allies for groups or movements that wish to make a challenge. The SOS Loire Vivante, an interest group in opposition to a dam at Serre de la Fare, benefitted from the support of local politicians. Although the dam project was originally a socialist party project, many local PS figures came out in opposition to the program after a series of municipal elections (Hayes, 2002; Hayes and Ollitrault, 2014). The EU has multiplied both restrictions and opportunities for various movements (Grossman, 2009; Saurugger, 2009). McCauley (2011) underlines that future research on interest groups in France should involve at least the inclusion of European-​level

 

Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models    429 opportunities (bottom-​up Europeanization). He finds that political opportunity holds out promise for the analysis of the inter-​, supra-​, and trans-​national levels. Tarrow elaborates further: “Europeans are beginning to realize more and more that the sources of many of their claims […] are increasingly found in Europe’s integrated market and institutions […] [with] open opportunities for coalitions of actors […] to exploit its [Europe’s] political opportunities” (2001: 237, 243). There has been a substantial increase in interest group activity at the EU level over the past two decades. Groups have now begun to see the European Commission more in terms of it being an opportunity structure. The following model (see Figure 19.1) is primarily derived and adapted from Hayes (2002) and Kriesi (2004). It is essentially a three-​pronged model, with political opportunity structures set alongside the configuration of political actors and within the specific context of interaction. It analyzes the “receptivity of political elites to collective action” through examining how the actors are structured, as well as their interaction patterns. Opportunity structures represent the first level of analysis of the political opportunity model. The core of the structures consists of the formal political institutions, which can be considered as either “open” or “closed.” Kriesi’s model (2004) holds that increased decentralization and the separation of power results in wider formal access and opportunities for groups to exploit. This model emphasizes rather the key role of EU institutions and actors in determining the level of access for non-​state actors.

Political opportunity structure Institutional context MS

Cultural models EU

Integrative

Exclusive

Configuration of political actors

Interaction context EU actors

EU nonstate actors

Repression Strategies

Strategies Facilitation

MS actors

MS nonstate actors

Figure 19.1  An enlarged model of the state. Source: Inspired by Hayes (2002) and Kriesi (2004).

 

430   Darren McCauley Cultural models refer to the adoption of either “exclusive” (repressive, confrontational) or “integrative” (cooperative and inclusive) strategies that are usually rooted in a country’s political system. Additionally, they refer to cultural or symbolic opportunities that determine the ideas that are visible and resonate with the public. Full access to political opportunities is ensured if both institutional and cultural/​symbolic integrative opportunities are readily available. EU institutions influence both the institutional structures and the cultural models. First, EU-​level institutions provide a different supranational institutional and cultural setting for non-​state actors. Second, the involvement of national institutions in EU-​level decision-​making can lead to domestic institutional or cultural transformation. Actor configurations, the second level of analysis, represent what we know about the actors at a given point in time and the extent to which their interests are compatible with each other. The configuration of actors is essentially the result of processes of actor and coalition formation (Kriesi, 2004). This represents the starting point for the examination of any strategic interaction between non-​state actors, their allies, and adversaries; that is, the interaction context. The third level of analysis (the interaction context) systematizes the interaction between strategies adopted by both national and supranational non-​state and state actors. Interaction among and between the non-​state and state actors modifies in turn the larger political context, re-​configuring the relevant actors, and facilitates/​represses further political opportunities for non-​state actors. In addition to acknowledging an enlarged conceptualization of the state (defined here as the political opportunity model), interest group scholarship must equally appreciate the ever-​changing nature of political structures; the configuration of actors and patterns of interaction. Shifts in actors and interactive patterns may increase political opportunities for particular groups. Power between groups is often redistributed in favor of the previously excluded or currently powerful. Change is best understood within the policymaking process (Hayes, 2002). It consists of three distinct phases: agenda-​setting, decision-​making, and policy implementation. Each phase can mobilize different actors in a wide range of multi-​level venues. This idea is termed “policy opportunity windows.” Irrespective of policy cycle, opportunity windows provide a series of timeframes (agenda-​setting, decision-​making/​policy translation, and implementation) for analyzing interest group behavior.

Resources and Interest Groups Resource mobilization theory posits simply that sufficient levels of resources are needed for initial and sustained mobilization. In other words, “the group can do no more than its resources […] permit” (Freeman, 1979: 167). Accordingly, the behavior and existence of a group depends on a variety of resources. This theory emphasizes the key role of rational incentives for collective action (Offerlé, 2009). The principal hypothesis posits that the activity of any group is increased when it acquires more resources. As a result, the groups with more resources can exert more effort for all types of political action. Dalton et al.

 

Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models    431 (2003) reiterate, indeed, that poorer-​resourced interest groups are more likely to concentrate on more confrontational activities. In contrast, better-​resourced associations are more able to enact a wider series of both cooperative and confrontational activities. Resource mobilization theory emerged in the late 1960s with Olson’s The Logic of Collective Action, in response to the shortcomings of classical collective behavior theories. It sought to develop an understanding of what makes collective action possible. Although it does not systematically evaluate different resources, his work introduces the relationship between group size and the effectiveness of the group (Olson, 1965). Obershall (1973) used this theory to identify and define potential resources for individual actors in reacting against the state. Tilly (1978) introduced the importance of internal organization for interest groups. The size of the organization is a resource that can play a crucial role in its overall strategy. Dalton et  al. (2003) found that groups with large staffs were more likely to be involved in all forms (both conventional and non-​conventional) of political activity. Often vital for civil society organizations is the size of their voluntary and membership base. However, the level of funding is often cited as the most significant material resource for mobilizing collective action (McCauley, 2015). Two factors in the funding issue of civil society associations are identified as particularly significant. First, the origin of funding can sometimes determine the potential remit of the association while limiting its overall agenda (Woll, 2007). Second, the level of funding can often control the lifespan of an association. Experience can often act as a critical resource for interest groups. Sometimes the experience of individuals becomes the most important resource for certain organizations (Fillieule, 2012). Igoe (2003) revealed that the lack of experienced individuals in a land rights movement in Tanzania resulted in the future of member groups hinging on one individual’s decision. In addition to personal or individual experiences, the experience of the particular organization can also represent an essential resource. Dalton (1994) demonstrates that older organizations tend to partake in conventional forms of behavior (lobbying, consultation), largely due to a legitimacy and knowledge base built up over time. The less experienced younger organizations were often found to concentrate on protests and demonstrations. Many organizations decide to concentrate on the national arena because they have already experienced the “habits of action” necessary to operate effectively in the national system (Ollitrault, 2001). Interest groups frequently seek to form and join various umbrella organizations at both the national and European levels (Duriez, 2004). In an EU context, the Commission has often displayed a preference for dealing with Europe-​wide umbrella organizations. The growth of MNNPE (multi​national non-​profit enterprises) has created multiple membership opportunities for smaller associations (Woll, 2006). These associations can take advantage of the superior resources wielded by the “parent” group (Beyers and Kerremans, 2007). In both cases, there is always a trade-​off between gaining resources and maintaining independence. Involvement in umbrella organizations, larger parent organizations, and national and transnational networks often increases mobilization through benefitting from a heightened sense of legitimacy.

 

432   Darren McCauley Cole and Harguindeguy (2013) underline the pivotal role of a common philosophy and ideology for the mobilization of direct action in the case of language rights in France. A sense of solidarity between activists ensured the long-​term survival of loosely formed organizations or movements. Moreover, their shared belief structure became as important as other resources in stimulating collective action (Fillieule and Meyer, 2001). La Goutte d’eau campaign3 is an example of how sustained mobilization can be ensured through shared ideology alone (Doidy, 2004). Moreover, memberships and networks, as we have seen, often provide resources to local environmental groups through a strong ideological belief in a shared philosophy (Ollitrault, 2004). These shared belief structures can both differ between groups and influence the form of mobilization adopted. It is acknowledged that treatment of this resource category cannot cover such issues in any real depth. As a result, particular attention should be accorded to examining the core issue of a group’s ideology vis-​à-​vis the state.

A New Group-​centric Framework for Interest Group Studies Commentators continue to struggle with the nature of state–​group relations in France. The seemingly exceptional circumstances posed by the French case have led numerous authors to elaborate specific frameworks. Domination-​crisis, endemic/​open, and Marxist models have all failed to fully explain the relationship between the French state and interest groups. Perhaps the “untidy reality” model is the embodiment of this failure. It admits overtly that the best description for such relations would simply be “complex and untidy.” However, a myriad of authors maintain that this complexity is best understood as variations on both traditional comparative politics models and more recently applied approaches in this area. It is argued here that these attempts have also failed to adequately describe state–​group relations in France. We still find ourselves unsatisfied with both traditional “exceptional” accounts as well as more recent “mainstream” comparative politics attempts to understand French state–​group relations. This chapter has argued that we need to include concepts found in social movement theory in our understanding of state–​group interaction. Inspired by French political sociological accounts, Figure 19.2 sets out a proposed new theoretical framework for analyzing interest groups. It assesses the dynamics involved in a group’s decision to exploit shifting opportunities in light of the size and composition of its resource base (resource/​opportunity usage). There are three distinct opportunity windows located within any policy development: agenda-​setting, decision-​ making/​policy translation, and policy implementation (Hayes, 2002). Different institutions, cultural models, and actors are more/​less involved according to the specific policy opportunity window. From this perspective, political opportunity structures, the configuration of political actors, and the interaction context can all differ according to the particular opportunity window. As a result, this framework outlines three separate (and potentially distinct) policy windows in accordance with the three phases of policy

 

Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models    433

Agenda-setting

Decision-making

Implementation

POS

POS

POS

Actor configuration

Actor configuration

Actor configuration

Interaction context

Interaction context

Interaction context

Strategies ‘Direct’ action repertoires

Material resources

‘Soft’ action repertoires

Group

Human resources

Network resources

Ideological resources

Figure 19.2  Resource/​opportunity usage for interest groups. Source: Inspired by Hayes (2002), Kriesi (2004), and McCauley (2011).

development. Above all, this group-​centric model analyzes the strategies employedby civil society groups in response to shifting opportunities. The four main resource categories (material, human, network, and ideological) all feed into the particular group in question. It is argued that the specific size and composition of their resource base largely defines the group’s ability to employ both proactive and reactive strategies over the lifespan of the policy process. Strategies are essentially defined as the employment of particular forms of action (action repertoires) at certain points in the development of a policy (defined according to the particular case study). As groups are not restricted to being labeled as either “fundamentalists” or “pragmatists,” the group has a choice between a wide collection of activities that are described in the model as “direct”4 (most associated with the former) or “soft”5 (connected with the latter) action repertoires. The particular strategy (one or more direct and/​or soft action repertoires) targets the interaction context. More precisely, the group attempts to influence the collective/​individual strategies of both EU and domestic policy actors. The resulting “facilitation” or “repression” of the group can lead to a shift in the future strategic decisions of the group within or between policy phases. The “group” is considered in the resource/​opportunity usage model to be a rational actor that responds to its resource capacities and operating environment. It selects from a broad list of either “soft” or “direct” action repertoires as a reaction to facilitory or repressive opportunity structures. As a result, there are three important limitations

 

434   Darren McCauley found with the explanatory and predictive value of this model. It does not, first, provide a detailed account of the collective moral imperative driving the overall movement. The model largely concentrates on individual accounts of resource and opportunity exploitation. Second, there is insufficient space to explore individual moral imperatives. The “ideological” resource type is capable of only modest contributions to understanding psychological reasons for mobilization. This approach does not, third, seek to offer non-​ resource/​opportunity explanations for mobilization activities. The limitations stated above are a necessary discipline for exploring a resource/​opportunity account of why only certain interest groups mobilize while others do not.

Conclusion The state should not take precedence in the study of interest groups. To revise Truman’s interpretation (1951), the “corridors of power” are not uniquely associated with government—​but also Oxfam, the WWF, and Transparency International, as well as newer organizations such as Wikimedia Foundation or FrontlineSMS. In the study of government, we are increasingly ready to accept that power is dispersed throughout a myriad of local, regional, supranational, international, and horizontal networks of power. We must adopt a similar understanding in the study of interest groups. Groups allocate as much time to “lobbying” each other as they do to the now many guises of the state. We should, therefore, adopt, adapt, and apply research frameworks that are sensitive to this new reality. French scholarship offers a significant contribution to broadening our understanding of interest groups in line with these new realities. A transformed French state, within an ever-​changing, multi-​faceted European and decentralization context, has inspired a deep exploration of interest group activities. Above all, a distinctly sociological outlook emerges from the resultant literature. Whilst acknowledging the role of the state, French scholars have theorized more on when, how, and why interest groups act, or indeed, do not. This presents a more fluid understanding than the static modeling undertaken on French politics by largely Anglo-​American scholars. It offers, moreover, new research agendas for interest group studies beyond France. This chapter has proposed a “group-​centric” approach to the study of interest groups in and beyond France. Research on interest groups is at an exciting stage of development. The multiplication of organizations, types of activities, and loci of power challenges researchers to find new ways of exploring the many “truths” (from a social science ontological perspective) of interest group reality.

Notes 1. Inclusion is defined from the perspective of interest groups as participation in formal decision-​making processes.

 

Interest Groups: Moving Beyond State-​Centric Models    435 2. Exclusion is also defined from the perspective of interest groups as the prohibition of such groups from formal decision-​making processes 3. This is a mountain ranch that was occupied by Eric Petetin on the site of a proposed European road project. It became the venue for concerts, festivals, public debates, and general assemblies arranged by local groups. Throughout a ten-​year period, la Goutte d’eau created a loosely knit network of environmental groups, ecologists, and sympathizers (Doidy, 2004). 4. Various forms of protests, aggression, and disobedience represent “direct” forms of action repertoires. 5. Lobbying, publishing reports, and providing expertise (and non-​confrontational activities generally) are basically characterized as “soft” forms of action repertoires.

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436   Darren McCauley Duriez, H. (2004). “Modèles d’Engagement et Logiques de Structuration des Réseaux Locaux de la Gauche Mouvementiste à Lille,” Politix:  Revue des Sciences Sociales du Politique 17: 165–​99. Elgie, R. and Griggs, S. (2000). French Politics: Debates and Controversies. London: Routledge. Epstein, P. (1997). “Beyond Policy community: French agriculture and the GATT,” Journal of European Public Policy 4(3): 355–​72. Escafré-​Dublet, A. (2010). “Art, Power and Protest:  Immigrants’ Artistic Production and Political Mobilisation in France,” Diversities 12(1): 232–​56. Exadaktylos, T. and Radaelli, C. (2009). “Research Design in European Studies: The Case of Europeanization,” Journal of Common Market Studies (JCMS) 47(3): 507–​30. Fairbrass, J. (2003). “The Europeanization of Business Interest Representation: UK and French Firms compared,” Comparative European Politics 1(3): 313–​34. Fillieule, O. (2010). “Some Elements of an Interactionist Approach to Political Disengagement,” Social Movement Studies 9(1): 1–​15. Fillieule, O. (2012). “The Independent Psychological Effects of Participation in Demo­ nstrations,” Mobilization 17(3): 235–​48. Fillieule, O. and Meyer, N. (2001). “Devenirs militant,” Revue française de science politique 51(1): 19–​25. Fillieule, O. and Tartakowsky, D. (2014). La Manifestation. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Fitch, K. (2007). “Water Privitisation in France and Germany: The Importance of Local Interest Groups,” Local Government Studies 33(4): 589–​605. Fougier, E. (2002). La Contestation de la Mondialisation: Une Nouvelle Exception Française? Paris: Institut Français des Relations Internationales. Fougier, E. (2004). “Le Mouvement Altermondialistes en France: Les Groupes Contestaires Français,” Problèmes Politiques et Sociaux 897: 25–​8. Freeman, J. (1979). “Resource Mobilization and Strategy: A Model for Analyzing Social Movement Organization Actions,” in Zald, M. and McCarthy, J. (eds) The Dynamics of Social Movements: Resource Mobilization, Social Control, and Tactics. Cambridge: Winthrop Publishers, 167–​90. Goyer, M. (2008). “The Transformation of Corporate Governance in France,” in Culpepper, P., Palier, B., and Hall, P. (eds) Changing France. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Grant, W. (2001). “Pressure Politics: From ‘Insider’ Politics to Direct Action?” Parliamentary Affairs 54: 337–​48. Grossman E. (2003). “Les groupes d’intérêt économiques face à l’intégration européenne: le cas du secteur bancaire,” Revue française de science politique 53(5): 737–​60. Grossman, E. (2004). “Bringing Politics Back In: Rethinking the Role of Economic Interest Groups in European Integration,” Journal of European Public Policy 11(4): 637–​54. Grossman, E. (2009). “Interest Groups in France and Europe,” in Perrineau, P. and Rouban, L. (eds) Politics in France and Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Hayes, G. (2002). Environmental Protest and the State in France. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Hayes, G. and Ollitrault, S. (2014). La désobéissance civile. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Hazareesingh, S. (2002). The Jacobin Legacy in Modern France. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Igoe, J. (2003). “Scaling up Civil Society: Donor Money, NGOs and the Pastoralist Land Rights Movement in Tanzania,” Development and Change 34(5): 863–​85. Jacquot, S. and Woll, C. (2003). “Usage of European Integration—​Europeanisation from a Sociological Perspective.” Available at:  edn. EIoP (European Integration online Papers).

 

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438   Darren McCauley Saurugger, S. (2008). “Une sociologie de l’intégration européenne?” Politique européenne 2: 5–​22. Saurugger, S. (2009). “Sociological Approaches in EU Studies,” Journal of European Public Policy 16(6): 935–​49. Saurugger, S. and Grossman, E. (2006). “Les groupes d’intérêt français,” Revue française de science politique 56(2): 197–​203. Shain, M. (1980). “Corporatism and Industrial Relations in France,” in Cerny, P. and Shain, M. (eds) French Politics and Public Policy. London: Frances Pinter Ltd., 191–​218. Tarrow, S. (1995). “The Europeanisation of Conflict:  Reflections from a Social Movement Perspective,” West European Politics 18(2): 223–​51. Tarrow, S. (2001). “Contentious Politics in a Composite Polity,” in Imig, D. and Tarrow, S. (eds) Contentious Europeans: Protest and Politics in an Emerging Polity. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 233–​51. Thomas, C. (2001). Political Parties and Interest Groups:  Shaping Democratic Governance. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Thompson, D. (2003). “Protest Politics and Violence in the French Countryside in the 1990s: An Expression of Euroscepticism,” Modern and Contemporary France 11(3): 293–​306. Tichenor, D. and Harris, R. (2005). “The Development of Interest Group Politics in America,” Annual Review of Political Science 8: 251–​70. Tilly, C. (1978). From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-​Wesley. Truman, D. (1951). The Governmental Process: Public Interests and Public Opinion. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Vassallo, F. (2010). France, Social Capital and Political Activism. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Warleigh, A. (2001). “‘Europeanizing’ Civil Society: NGOs as Agents of Political Socialization,” Journal of Common Market Studies 39(4): 619–​39. Wilson, F. (1983). “French Interest Group Politics:  Pluralist or Neocorporatist,” American Political Science Review 77(3): 895–​910. Wilson, F. (1987). Interest Group Politics in France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, F. (2008). Interest-​Group Politics in France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woll, C. (2006). “National Business Associations under Stress: Lessons from the French Case,” West European Politics 29(3): 489–​512. Woll, C. (2007). “Leading the Dance? Power and Political Resources of Business Lobbyists,” Journal of Public Policy 27(1): 57–​78. Woll, C. (2009). “The Demise of Statism? Associations and the Transformation of Interest Intermediation in France,” in Bouard, S., Appleton, A., and Mazur, A. G. (eds) The French Fifth Republic at Fifty. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.

 

Chapter 20

T he Stu dy of S o c ia l Movements i n Fra nc e the “French touch” and a comparative contribution Olivier Fillieule

In the eyes of foreign analysts, in political terms France is characterized by three traits: having a “strong state” that is fairly impervious to pressure from a weakly organized civil society (Kriesi et al., 1995); having a very low level of social capital, as measured by participation in associations (Vassallo, 2010); and, nonetheless, displaying a strong propensity for political activism via unconventional political participation (Fillieule, 1997; Fillieule and Tartakowsky, 2013). This country, culturally springing from the Revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848, and marked by several major events including the Paris Commune of 1871, and the strikes of the Popular Front in 1936 and May 1968, could lay claim to being an archetype of “demonstration democracy” (Etzioni, 1970). However, though it was in France that the very first publications on mass movements appeared (by Henri Taine, Gustave Le Bon, and Gabriel Tarde), the sociology of social movements was long to remain marginal there.1 Indeed, with the exception of certain works (in particular those by Alain Touraine), it was not until the 1990s that this academic field in France witnessed an exponential growth, becoming the site of a significant accumulation of knowledge. It would be impossible here to enumerate exhaustively all the relevant studies, but they are summarized in three books: an encyclopaedia of social movements in France (Crettiez and Sommier, 2006); a dictionary of social movements (Fillieule et al., 2009); and a handbook (Fillieule et al., 2010) the specific aim of which is to start from a critical review of the North American literature, and then highlight the particular nature of French research and research on France. Nowadays, French publications in the field of social movements are becoming stronger and stronger, and, far from being stuck in a kind of splendid isolation, they have definitely joined the fray of international literature, even if they continue to distinguish themselves by some theoretical and methodological specificities.

 

440   Olivier Fillieule

Paradigm Shifts and the “Thrust of Real History” The emergence of social movements—​“the sustained, organized challenge to existing authorities in the name of a deprived, excluded or wronged population” (Tilly, 1995: 144)—​is closely intertwined with the development of state-building and nationalization, capitalism (i.e. industrialization and communication networks), urbanization, and print capitalism (Anderson, 1991; Gellner, 1983; Tilly, 2004). That is why social movements initially appeared in Western Europe, around the mid-​nineteenth century, apparently first in Great Britain (Tilly, 1995: 144) and, subsequently, in the wake of the 1848 revolution, in continental Europe. Therefore, it is not surprising that all the founding fathers of the sociology of contentious politics were Europeans: the German Lorenz von Stein who first introduced the term “social movement” into scholarly discussion in his History of the French Social Movement from 1789 to the Present (1850); the French Hypolyte Taine, Gustave Le Bon, Gabriel Tarde, and particularly Emile Durkheim (with his The Elementary Forms of Religious Life published in 1912), who can be considered the leading figures of the collective behavior paradigm; and, above all, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who were the first to develop a robust theory of working-​class mobilization in The Communist Manifesto (1848), and inspired major political and theoretical contributions by thinkers like Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and later Antonio Gramsci. In the United States, it was only in the 1930s that the first Chicago School, building on Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and also Max Weber, started to develop a specific conception of collective behavior and social movements, which was to dominate research for more than 20 years. Most reviews of the literature and textbooks on subsequent developments in the sociology of social movements have followed the same script. They neglect European research, while describing how American theories of collective behavior, characterized by a psychosociological and normative approach to the process of mobilization, largely ignoring macropolitical and organizational factors, generally dominated the field, with prominent researchers such as Neil Smelser and Ted Gurr. The situation changed once again at the end of the 1960s, with an American paradigm shift in favor of the school of resource mobilization, and in Europe renewed interest in social movements through the emergence of the “new social movements” paradigm. In the United States, the common theme uniting the various trends of the new model is the ideological legitimacy of social movement activity, perceived as the result of voluntary and intentional behavior. Consequently, the central research focus shifts, from the study of crowd movements to that of social movements, from analysis of deep-​rooted causes of mobilization to the more complex study of the forms of action and goals that movements adopted as a function of a given opportunity structure. Two major tendencies can be distinguished (Perrow, 1979): one based on an entrepreneurial model (McCarthy and Zald, 1977), and one viewing collective action as nothing but the pursuit

 

The Study Of Social Movements In France    441 of politics by other means (Gamson, 1975; Tilly, 1978). Yet it is indeed the same theoretical substratum, that is, the utilitarian paradigm of individual rationality, and the same interest in resolving the “free-​rider” paradox posed by Mancur Olson (1965), which links all these works. This paradigm did not give way to a rival theory. It transformed itself from within, mostly spurred by Charles Tilly (1978) and then Doug McAdam (1982), who reintroduced the political dimension of mobilization, causing the model to evolve toward what we tend to call today the “political process model,” which emphasizes the role of political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and framing processes, along with protest cycles and contentious repertoires (McAdam et al., 1996; McAdam et al., 2001). In the European context, characterized by profound economic and social transformations, the upheaval of May 1968 prompted renewed interest in research into social movements. These were considered “new” movements, given the “post-​materialist” causes they defended, their values, their forms of action, and their participants (Cohen, 1985). Most researchers emphasize that this new research trend was first developed in Germany by researchers such as Claus Offe, Werner Brand, and Herbert Kitschelt, owing to the development of citizen initiative groups (Bürgerinitiativen and Bundesverband Bürgerinitiativen Umweltschutz), and a strong ecological and anti-​nuclear movement (Dalton and Kuechler, 1990: 4). Yet this also happened in post-​1968 France, with Alain Touraine, and in Italy with one of his students, Alberto Melucci (1989). This unified vision of a “European identity paradigm”—​developing independently of the resource-​ mobilization theory and uniformly inspired by a desire to explain the disappearance of the working class as a central actor in social movements, replaced by inter-​classist movements concerned with post-​materialist identity demands—​certainly had some basis in reality. Nonetheless, it is too simplistic, especially in the way in which it homogenizes political trajectories and intellectual traditions in European countries, as though, from Lisbon to Berlin and the Shetland Islands to Sicily, a single history unfolded, in the streets and in university lecture halls.2 The obvious link between larger socio-​historical processes, the development of social movements, and, subsequently, that of a new area of research in social science stresses that it is not “internal logics but external concerns [that] are vital to understanding the sociological study of social movements” (Gusfield, 1978: 122). Indeed, the first hypothesis that comes to mind when reflecting on the development of the sociology of social movements and the succession of paradigms which characterized it, is that of the “thrust of real history,” as Louis Althusser wrote in Pour Marx (1967: 80); social reality evolving outside the theories which consider it and theories finally being altered or bypassed by events, sometimes leading to very abrupt shifts in paradigms. It is in reaction to the threat of social revolution, which appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, that the first works on mass movements appeared. Thus, the theory of the “madding crowd” owes much to the ghosts of thinkers frightened by the progress of liberal democracy. It was again in the name of ideological assumptions in favor of political pluralism and respect for institutional rules that social movements continued to be analyzed in terms of irrational phenomena responding to frustrations right up until the middle of the 1960s. This was particularly the case in the United States, which was confronted immediately after

 

442   Olivier Fillieule the war with the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement and the development of political unrest in communities of color. Subsequently, the abandonment of theories of collective behavior for a rational vision of mobilization was in part due to the scale of collective action at the time and its spread to large segments of society, especially university students opposed to the Vietnam War. All that gave way to the progressive incorporation of the reflections of practitioners of mobilization, such as, for example Lenin, Mao, Martin Luther King, and Saul Alinsky, in academic analytical instruments. These leaders formulated general principles and lines of action, insisting on tactical choices and the social and organizational infrastructure necessary for success in their struggles. Thus, it is at least in part under the impetus of the thrust of this “real history” that the field of the sociology of mobilization, with its own analytical instruments and theoretical issues, gradually emerged.

Social Movement Studies in France: A History in Four Stages In this section, I will proceed in three steps. After consideration of the stages of research development in this field of social science since the 1950s, I will offer several explanatory hypotheses of this development, and will then end by emphasizing certain aspects, which, I believe, are at the core of the agenda for research produced in France compared to other European or North American research.

The Stages of Development First Stage In the 1950s and 1960s, the dominant academic paradigm in social history associated a macro-​historical vision founded in part on the Labroussian paradigm (Revel, 1996) and reified aggregates (social “classes” as historical actors). In working-​class social history, the social group serves as a collective hero, with activist groups as its most conscious expression. Characterized, implicitly and explicitly, by intellectual empathy, with the authors themselves participants in the workers’ movement, this research quickly gave great importance to the working-​class activist, conferring on activist biographies a determining role from the outset. In the post-​war period, biographies of activists abounded. Le Dictionnaire Biographique du Mouvement Ouvrier Français (The Biographical Dictionary of the French Workers’ Movement) (Maitron, 1964–​1997), a collective work of a community of historians politically divided but united in their empathetic relationship with the “workers’ movement,” was its major achievement. In this context, the history of the PCF and communist activists became a central concern. On one hand, there was an edifying history, supported by the quasi-​official historians of

 

The Study Of Social Movements In France    443 the PC, and, on the other, an eventful political history of communism that challenged this instrumentalized history from the 1950s on (Pudal, 1989).

Second Stage At the outset of the 1970s, a fundamental shift in the issue, simultaneously academic, cognitive, and political, gradually contributed to devalue the dominant paradigm in two main directions. In the wake of the so-​called new social movements which appeared at the start of the decade, Alain Touraine and his team (e.g. François Dubet, Michel Wieviorka, and Didier Lapeyronnie) initiated a major trend in sociology. They undertook to construct a “great theory” of social movements from a more comprehensive perspective, keeping its distance from individual strategic rationality, and questioning the processes by which collective actors would create solidarity and collective identities (Touraine, 1973; 1978). Using Marxist analytical frameworks, the Tourainian school followed in the footsteps of the earlier analysts of the appearance of inter-​classist social movements, already published in Germany. They took into account (and perhaps for granted …) the disappearance of the working class as a central actor in the single most important social movement. Thus, a series of case studies was published on the anti-​nuclear movement, the student movement, the mobilization of peripheral regions against the Jacobin state, and the Solidarity movement in Poland. However, Touraine’s contribution remained on the margins of academic debates, while the identity paradigm spread throughout much of Europe, via, among others, Alberto Melucci, his former student. Establishing the precise reasons for this is beyond the scope of this chapter, but certainly the very particular vision of The Social Movement (in capital letters) offered by Touraine, in a search for the functional equivalent of the workers’ movement in post-​industrial society, as well as his method (sociological intervention), contributed to making this sociology a comet which only illuminated the French sky.3 In research on activism, less objectified and substantialist approaches than before appeared. Substantialism did not limit itself to the social group (the class) but also touched on other analytical categories that had to be deconstructed because they were still attached to the objectification of collective actors:  “the activist;” “the believer/​ member;” “believing/​membership;” “the party” or “the organization;” “the leadership of a particular group,” etc. If we restrict ourselves to working-​class history alone, many works now studied the development of the workers’ group from a socio-​genetic perspective, following in the footsteps of E. P. Thompson and his seminal work, The Making of the English Working Class (1966), although this was only translated in 1988. We will not discuss this research in detail here. Gérard Noiriel has provided an outline of a synthesis of this work under a title deliberately at odds with substantialism, Les ouvriers dans la société française, XIXe–​XXe (Workers in French Society in the 19th and 20th Centuries) (2007). The perspective he adopted profoundly altered earlier interpretive frameworks. This shifting of the issue did not lead to a new unified historians’ paradigm but rather to the multiplication of viewpoints or analytical scales. Nonetheless, we may discern certain key points. First, increasing recourse to prosopography (or collective biography)

 

444   Olivier Fillieule allows us to study smaller activist groups and from various perspectives. This shift is especially true in the field of history. On the other hand, edifying biographies or autobiographies of activists were replaced by self-​critical autobiographies by activists. These, in sociology and political science, focused more specifically on the history of the evolution of sociological analyses of mobilization and political representation. Whether through the Olsonian paradigm or a sociology of the rewards of activism (Gaxie, 1977; 2005), whose intellectual origin could derive from the work of Max Weber or from Bourdieu’s sociological reflection on the phenomena of political delegation, this scientifically constructed doubt, combined with the resistance to substantialism, gave rise to the development of multiple analytical frameworks for activism. Introducing a break between activism and the motives claimed by activists, between activists and the groups they represent, this shifting of the issue helped to raise questions about the contradictions inherent in activism. Research gradually moved to a collection of analyses which are more critical of workers’ activism, questioning their “motivations,” sometimes psychoanalyzing their commitment, always insisting on the specific issues of representation, on social predispositions of the spokesperson, and on selective incentives or rewards for activism (symbolic, therapeutic, financial, promotional, social capital, cultural, etc.).

Third Stage Starting at the end of the 1970s, French research in the field entered a period of generalized sluggishness. On one hand, the pursuit by Tourainians of the “true” Social Movement petered out; on the other, there was little research on activism, in a political context—​the 1980s—​when the coming of the Left to power seemed to have permanently demobilized social movements (Duyvendak, 1994). Now, this was just the moment when there was a rapprochement between North American authors writing about the mobilization of resources and European researchers (Tarrow et al., 1988). Despite some rare efforts to distribute the work of American writers and a few isolated publications discussing American literature critically (Dobry, 1986), the transplant did not succeed. When Dieter Rucht was drawing up a description of the state of the art in the sociology of social movements in Europe and the USA, he could not find a single author to write a chapter on France (1991).

Fourth Stage At the start of the 1990s, the landscape was rapidly transformed, with a flourishing of initiatives in political science. At Sciences Po, Paris, following Pierre Favre, there was a renewed interest in protest activity (Favre, 1990), and a series of PhD dissertations appeared on the subject of demonstrations (Fillieule, 1997), the movements of illegal immigrants (Siméant, 1998), the League for Human Rights (Agrikoliansky, 2002), and the homeless movement (Péchu, 2006). It was also at Sciences Po, Paris, that in 1994 Nonna Mayer and Olivier Fillieule created GERMM (Groupe d’etude et de recherche sur les mutations du militantisme (the Study and Research Group on Transformations in Activism)), a standing group of the Association française de science politique that, over twenty years, spearheaded a renewal in research on political participation, then

 

The Study Of Social Movements In France    445 referred to as “unconventional.”4 At the same time, at University Paris 1/​Sorbonne, Philippe Braud launched a research program on political violence (Braud, 1993) which gave rise to a series of doctoral studies (Bruneteaux, 1996; Duclos, 1998; Crettiez, 1999; Sommier 1998), while Michel Offerlé supervised a number of projects on forms of collective action (Contamin, 2001 on the petition; Mariot, 2006 on collective effervescence; Giraud, 2009 on strikes; Cossart, 2010 on political meetings). This wholesale renewal was carried out by a new generation of researchers who, encouraged by a few of their elders and supported by a number of European and Francophile (and often French-​speaking) North American colleagues,5 both started to investigate hitherto neglected empirical topics and imported North American theories and concepts. Representative of this trend are the appearance at the start of the decade of two textbooks exploring the scope and range of the North American literature (Mann, 1992; Fillieule and Péchu, 1993) and a collective work in which, for the first time, the principal references were in English (Fillieule, 1993). This new era was also characterized by two striking traits. One was the preponderant role of research dedicated to the repertories of action—​in other words, to protest performances—​signalling the triumph of Charles Tilly, who was still scorned by historians (Bourguinat, 2002) at this time. For example, there were publications on demonstrations (Favre, 1990; Fillieule, 1997; Fillieule and Tartakowsky, 2013), marches (Le Mouvement social, 2003), hunger strikes (Siméant, 1998), barricades (Corbin and Mayeur, 1997), petitions (Contamin, 2001), squats (Péchu, 2006), self-​immolation (Grosjean, 2006), rent strikes (Hmed, 2006), public meetings (Cossart, 2010), strikes (Béroud et al., 2008; Giraud, 2009; Politix, 2009a and 2009b), banquets (Robert, 2009), ethical consumption (Dubuisson-​Quellier, 2009; Balsiger, 2010; 2014), and suburban riots (Waddington et al., 2009). On one hand, there was also the examination, beyond the forms of open, more immediate forms of protest, of the inclusion of modes of resistance to authority, starting with the research of James Scott, associated with the initiative to import social movement theory in research on the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region (Bennani-​Chraïbi and Fillieule, 2003; 2012; Zaki, 2005; Vairel, 2014), on Turkey (Gourisse, 2014), on Latin America (e.g. Massal, 2005), and on black Africa (Lafargue, 1996; Pommerolle and Siméant, 2009; Siméant, 2014); and there was renewed interest in the modes of action deployed by those with the most resources (Pinçon and Pinçon-​Charlot, 2007; Offerlé, 2009; Politix, 2014) who tend to adopt a phenomenological approach attentive both to performances as situated action composed of exchanges of blows and to the meaning that the actors give the situation. On the other hand, if the period was characterized by a renewal in research on the labor movement, unions, and strikes, the activism under examination was above all a “novelty.” Research focused on the “new struggles” of the day, which were observable in situ. These included political associations (Attac and SOS racisme) (Juhem, 1999); solidarity movements (Lechien, 2003; Duchesne, 2003) humanitarian commitments (Dauvin and Siméant, 2002; Collovald et al., 2002; Parizot, 2003; Zunigo, 2003); the struggles of the most deprived populations, such as the homeless, unemployed, etc. (Maurer, 2001; Pierru, 2003; Dunezat, 2004; Péchu, 2006; Mathieu, 2006; Garcia, 2005;

 

446   Olivier Fillieule Mouchard, 2009; Chabanet and Faniel, 2013); new union organizations (Bruneau, 2006, on the Peasant Confederation of José Bové); battles on specific issues (Broqua, 2005; Broqua and Fillieule, 2001; Voegtli, 2009, on AIDS and questions around homosexuality; Mathieu, 2001; 2014 on prostitution); and associations connected with immigration (Siméant, 1998; Hamidi, 2006; Hmed, 2006), the environment (Ollitrault, 2008), and anti-globalization (Agrikoliansky et al., 2005; Agrikoliansky and Sommier, 2005; Sommier et al., 2008). Other forms of political activism were studied from both a socio-​ genetic perspective and using fresh analytical approaches: localized analysis and that of networks (Sawicki, 1997; Mischi, 2010 on political parties of the Left); as well as that of forms of activist reconversion (Fretel, 2004). Political activism became quite diverse, from the National Front (Boumaza, 2002; Bizeul, 2003) to the trotskyist party (LCR) (Johsua, 2011) and parties of the Right (Bargel, 2009). Finally, “May ’68” began to interest university researchers (Damamme et al., 2008; Pagis, 2009), after Isabelle Sommier published her path-​breaking thesis devoted to this issue from the perspective of a comparative analysis of France and Italy (Sommier, 1998). Today, the sociology of social movements is a structured subfield, with its standing groups and distribution lists, its conferences and its seminars, its very numerous publications, its dedicated series, and, of course, its textbooks (Mann, 1992; Fillieule and Péchu, 1993; Neveu, 1996; Mathieu, 2004; Tilly and Tarrow, 2008; Cefaï, 2007; Fillieule et al., 2009; Fillieule et al., 2010; Mathieu, 2012). French social movement scholars have increasingly attended international conferences and publish more and more in English.6 North American references are no longer perceived as “exotic,” even if they are only rarely taken for granted. But how can we explain this upheaval in the 1990s that we have just outlined?

Explanatory Hypotheses and the Research Agenda Beyond those general comments and specifically concerning the French case, one must stress that the generation which assumed control of this renewal of the study of social movements in this country was socialized politically in the 1980s, the era of the presidency of François Mitterrand who administered a blow to the social movements of the 1970s, fostered the increased power of the extreme Right by introducing an electoral reform, and supported, even gave birth to, the anti-​racist movements mobilizing youth against the traditional Right. These years also saw the emergence of different public problems linked to the worsening economic situation, with the media beginning to speak about the “new poverty” and the “working poor,” starting in 1984, at the time when the movements of the homeless, unemployed, etc. emerged. There were also many in this generation who were marked by the student movement of November–​December 1986 against yet another university reform defended by the Right, who had returned to power in March of that year. The serious difficulties surrounding the Parisian demonstrations of this movement, which gave rise to two parliamentary commissions of inquiry, played a key role in the start of the first research projects on street demonstrations (Favre, 1990).

 

The Study Of Social Movements In France    447 This gradual renewal of social conflicts continued with the vast strike movement in the winter of 1995 and the spring of 2003, and gave rise to a new formulation of the social question which partially explains the emergence and success of the anti-globalization movement (Agrikoliansky et al., 2005; Sommier and Fillieule, 2013). While this relative political effervescence generated a renewal in research, this renewal was also due to the formative role of its financing by public bodies. Thus, a number of state agencies financed or co-​financed a good part of the research mentioned above, on the changes in participation in organizations, illegal immigrants, the homeless, the battle against AIDS, and environmental mobilization. A point which all the more deserves to be stressed is that French researchers had long lacked research funding sources established by European bodies, depriving them of a major source of research financing on the Continent—​until the recent creation of the Agence Nationale de Recherche (ANR), there was no equivalent in France to the National Science Foundation in the USA or the National Fund for Scientific Research in both Belgium and Switzerland. We can add some endogenous elements to these exogenous factors, characteristic of the rapid and profound transformations in the academic field at the end of the twentieth century and which affected all the social sciences and, doubtless, beyond. First, what we could call “the narrowing of academic spaces,” to use Benedict Anderson’s vocabulary, is associated with new practices. The development of the Internet, with its consequences of increased interaction via e-​mail, access to international literature through catalogues (including commercial services such as Amazon), and data bases available online, has considerably decreased the cost of searching for information. Also, there has been an increase in study-​abroad programs and research abroad by French citizens, as well as foreigners in France (via Erasmus programs in particular), all authorized by another relatively recent transformation in France—​one which has met with some singular resistance at times7—​the widespread adoption of English in academic work. Furthermore, the criteria of academic excellence (and, thus, the paths for recruitment, like the chances of being published in quality journals) gradually became aligned with international standards. This is the case for the Revue française de science politique or the Revue française de sociologie, the latter of which, in a recent editorial, announced that all articles published from now on will be translated into English, and these translations will be available online. From this, it follows that the journal’s objective is to participate “in the international chorus” of the discipline and, therefore, to publish works “which by their nature will attract the attention” of professional sociologists outside France (Galland, Menger, and Segrestin, 2012: 386). Even the journal Politix, of a school defending an approach critical of social sciences (that is, inspired by Pierre Bourdieu, as well as Luc Boltanski), whose sphere of reference had long been quintessentially French, finally became internationalized. In a recent article appearing on the occasion of the 100th edition of the journal and which reviewed its own history, Pierre Favre remarked that when in 1991 a double edition was devoted to the “construction of causes,” the opening article then broached this foremost element of mobilization without a single English-language reference. This is no longer the case, and theme-​based issues devoted to mobilization published since the year 2000 rely extensively on English references.

 

448   Olivier Fillieule Finally, and I would like to stress this point, the renewal of the sociology of social movements is occurring at a crucial moment when the dominant North American paradigm is no longer spreading. While the development, since the 1970s and 1980s, of a collection of works based on shared and consistent concepts and common methodological instruments was a necessary condition for the emergence of this sub-​discipline, since the end of the 1990s the evolution of “normal science” within this paradigm seems to have gone as far as it could go. As with any paradigm, the model proposed by the adherents of the contentious politics approach has for the last two decades superficially responded to the critiques to which it has been subject without any deep-​seated reform. It has become a sort of out-​of-​control monster, absorbing dissident works; and its theoretical unity is more due to the strength of institutions which structure it than to the consistency of the research program and theoretical tools it offers. In this context, the survival of key concepts (political opportunities, organizations and resources, contexts, and repertories of actions undertaken) is achieved increasingly at the cost of the lessening of their capacity to explain the protest phenomena and, especially to give rise to new research questions. This means that we are moving toward a hybrid and multi-​centered approach rather than to a new coherent paradigm (Smelser speaks about a hybrid subfield (2003) with respect to the sociology of social movements) based on a variety of disciplinary foundations, but also a diversity of intellectual and social contexts. This fragmentation of research agendas, methods, and conceptual systems that main proponents of the contentious politics paradigm deplore was particularly well received in France where, in a number of ways, it was anticipated. The fruitfulness of critical sociology, the suspicion of positivist administration of proof and construction of argumentation, and the lack of success of stratospheric comparisons and of the quantophrenia in favor of different forms of qualitative analyses can only reinforce the desire to further the dialogue with a sociology of social movements in the process of reinventing itself. To put it in a nutshell, the “French touch” in social movement studies could be summarized along four main traits: its trans-​disciplinary framework, its focus on micro-​ level individual activism and micro-​level processes, its constructivist bias, and finally its relative reluctance to engage in comparative studies.

France Across Borders: An Agenda for Future Research French publications in the field of social movements are now strongly anchored in the international literature. They are also distinguished by their theoretical orientations, their refusal to be limited to a sub-​discipline (and, therefore, their fresh approach), and by their choice of methods. In terms of theoretical orientations, the intellectual influence of Marxist concepts, the socio-​genetic and configurational thought of Norbert Elias, that of Bourdieusian critical

 

The Study Of Social Movements In France    449 sociology, and the expanding dominance of an interactionist paradigm in the domain of research on activism give a relatively original coloration to current research, and result in a series of alternatives to the dominant but contested paradigm of contentious politics (McAdam et al., 2001).8 Consideration of the emergence and development of a particular way of doing social science, inspired by contributions from socio-​history (Buton, 2009b and the journal Genèses) and, thus, especially attentive to the genealogies of labels, causes, and groups (Boltanski, 1982), is essential to understanding the French touch. This point brings us back to the promise of an approach referred to as constructivist and in tune with the work of Pierre Bourdieu, which leads to a questioning of the construction of groups by the state and by the groups themselves, and thus to the struggles to form groups, such as the “workers’ movement,” and “the communist party” (Offerlé, 1984; Pudal, 1989), and to generate collective identities. Along with the construction of groups comes the need to reflect on the construction of causes going beyond the conundrum of interest versus altruism to focus on grasping the ways in which the processes affect the “increase in generality” (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991) and the broadening of the causes in a less naïve, strategic, and mechanical way than suggested by framing analysis. Finally, while in the North American literature the actors are often reduced to mere puppet theater, or disappear completely behind the holy trinity of political opportunity structures, mobilizing structures, and framing strategies, French researchers have explored the question of activism and the process of engagement much further, especially with reference to an interactionist model of careers (Fillieule, 2001a; 2005; 2010). Doug McAdam and Hilary Schaffer Boudet recently launched a wholehearted plea for an opening of the sociology of social movements, which in its academic structure is increasingly cut off from the rest of social science, withdrawn into its own world of reference and only working on “mobilization, those who mobilize, and in general, internal movement dynamics. […] Instead of situating movements in a fuller constellation of political and economic forces and actors, movements and movement groups increasingly came to be the central animating focus of the field” (2012: 21–​2. See also Walder, 2009). This reproach is much less meaningful for French research, which, since the outset, has operated in different subfields of social science and, thus, has developed a constant dialogue with other disciplinary worlds.9 This started with the activities of CEVIPOF (Perrineau, 1994)  and, more particularly, of GERMM, which contributed to not separating the research field on social movements from that on political participation, as has often been the case elsewhere. Therefore, the use of individual-​level data has been integrated into the range of methodological approaches of social movement scholars since the start of the 1990s. Similarly, very early on, a dialogue was initiated with specialists in public policy (Muller and Surel, 1998; Lascoumes and Le Gallès, 2007). This was particularly enriched by the connection established with the sociology of public scandals (Rayner, 2005; Latté, 2008; 2012), with the field of professional expertise (especially that of public health) (Barbot, 2002; and Pinell, 2002) and that of ecology (Ollitrault, 2008), and finally with the literature on social problems, inspired by the work of Joseph Gusfield.10 Consequently, much

 

450   Olivier Fillieule research has been produced at the boundaries of these different subfields, whether on the impact of alcohol and the consumption of tobacco on public health, on the opposition to large-​scale development projects (Valluy, 1996; Lolive, 1999), or on public policies for the deaf and mute (Buton, 2009a) or retirees (Lambelet, 2011). Directly inspired by socio-​legal studies developed by the law and society movement in the United States, a number of researchers have worked on the recourse to the legal system and to legal action by protest groups, generating a now extensive body of work. (Please see Israël, 2009 and Agrikoliansky, 2010 for a review). Also, a number of media and cultural studies specialists, with Erik Neveu at the forefront (1999), have established links between the sociology of media and the sociology of mobilization (Juhem, 1999; Ferron, 2012), an especially valuable contribution since the 1980s and 1990s were dominated internationally by protest-​event analysis based on the written press as a source, without really questioning the logic of relying on media accounts of events. Finally, due to the strength of Marxism and the centrality of the workers’ movement in the French context, the first research on the social relationships of gender in social mobilization stemmed from the sociology of work and was applied to union action. Aside from several pioneering studies (Guilbert, 1966), it was the work of Margaret Maruani that intended to both return women to their rightful place and raise questions about the gender process, starting from the comparative study of women’s strikes and mixed strikes (Maruani, 1979). For her part, Danièle Kergoat introduced the notions of “sexuated social relationships” and of “sexuated social movements,” which allow us, based on Christine Delphy’s (1978 (1998)) analysis of housework as a foundation of patriarchal exploitation, to go beyond the notion of sexual roles and update the relations of domination at work within movements (Kergoat et al., 1992). More precisely, the notion of a “sexuated social movement” advanced in a collective research project on French nurses’ mobilizations allows Kergoat and her colleagues “to get rid of the usual labeling of such movements as ‘women’s social movements’, and to contend that the nurse’s movement is, like any other movements, a sexuated movement.” In other words, “this is not a question of ‘adding’ women as one more element that would color the social movement, the analysis of this remaining outside any taking into account of sexuated social relationships. […] But this means that sexuated social relationships profoundly permeate all social movements, and that this consideration must always be present when we analyze them” (Kergoat et al., 1992: 122). Considerable research then followed similar lines, with, amongst others, Trat (2002) on social workers, Dunezat (2004) on the French movement of the unemployed in 1997, Galerand (2006) on the World March of Women, and Bereni (2007) on “le mouvement pour la parité.” Last but not least, we have witnessed in the last decade the renewal of the sociology of activism from an interactionist perspective. This has had the effect of directly bringing together research in the slightly marginalized studies on socialization, understood as an assembly of conscious or unconscious processes by which, throughout their lives, individuals internalize the standards of authorities as diverse as the family, school, the professional milieu, their partners, etc. Consequently, contrary to the North American academic field where, as Sapiro (1989) remarked, researchers specializing in the subfield

 

The Study Of Social Movements In France    451 of studies of socialization have kept their distance from the sociology of activism,11 French specialists in activism have considered questions about socialization studies pivotal. This gives rise to reasoning in terms of “careers” (Becker, 1963), leading us to examine a number of essential dimensions of social identities and offering a powerful tool for thinking about relations between individuals and institutions, starting with forms of institutional socialization. These include: (1) the acquisition of know-​how and interpersonal skills, (2) a vision of the world (ideology), and (3) the restructuring of networks of sociability, in association with the construction of individual and collective identities (social networks and identities). In this area, it is ethnographic qualitative approaches which prove best able to analyze activist work and its social division, starting with the observation that collectives are necessarily heterogeneous. This last remark leads us to emphasize the particular nature of approaches developed in France in terms of methods. On one hand, the French usually exercise caution with respect to undue simplifications of a stratospheric comparativism, which end by losing sight of the weight of the historical, social, cultural, and economic contexts in which social movements are rooted. The numerous French studies referred to here readily demonstrate that we learn more about the dynamic of protests and collective action from in-​depth case studies than in compiling vast databases that risk stripping the explanatory factors chosen of all meaning. Faced with the “heavy industry” of North American research, the still structurally hand-​crafted dimension of French research, encouraging qualitative research over quantitative, is not a handicap but, on the contrary, an advantage. It offers a genuine means of investigating many paths outlined in theory but rather unexplored in practice, due to the lack of adequate methodological tools: the logic of activist trajectories; emotions and affects (Traïni, 2009; 2011); the dynamic of events; and the face-​to-​face interactions which comprise the texture of protest. Investigations in France of the so-​called anti-globalization movement are a particularly effective illustration of this originality in the analysis of social movements. We see this first in the methods selected, which, while also employing quantitative data,12 have concentrated heavily on qualitative data. The first inquiry on the subject, during the anti-​G8 protests in Evian in the spring of 2003, as well as that on the second European Social Forum the following fall, therefore, combined the two methodologies. This was done on one hand through administration of a questionnaire to participants, aiming to determine their activist trajectory and their worldviews (Fillieule et al., 2004), and, on the other, through a series of measures, such as interviews before and after the event with leaders of some of the organizations most involved, designed to understand what prompted them to participate, what they expected as a result, and what they got out of it, as well as the particular place that promoters of the “international turning point” could have at their core; the study of the entirety of the organizational process at different levels (preparatory meetings, and European assemblies and their executive leadership), as well as the ethnography of approximately fifty debates focused on forms of organization of public speaking and its register (Agrikoliansky and Sommier, 2005). The development of a collection of work in the United States and in the rest of Europe that also began to adopt this perspective (e.g. Snow and Anderson, 1993; Lichterman,

 

452   Olivier Fillieule 1996; Auyero, 2003; Wood, 2003; Mische, 2008) demonstrates that this methodological renewal offers a fruitful avenue for future research, and an exciting opportunity for French researchers.

Conclusion To conclude, one must acknowledge that, unlike the United States where the success of social movement studies has had the effect of closing off the field, its exponential development in France has, on the contrary, translated into an invasive spreading of its instruments and issues into a great number of academic domains. There is an important point of convergence with the increasingly voiced ambition across the Atlantic to reposition the study of protest activities in the context of the political, economic, and social relations which surround them, taking into account the multiplicity of actors involved and their strategies. From this perspective, the recent propositions of James Jasper and Jan Willem Duyvendak (2015) or of Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam (2012) are very promising. It is in placing these social movements once again in their environment that we may hope to escape a disciplinary closing-​in that too often leads to esoteric language and concepts, routinization, and closing off of bibliographies and the references employed. At the level of professionalization and autonomization at which the sociology of social movements has arrived, where it is no longer necessary for it to shut itself off to exist, in terms of methodological principles it is time once again to heed most carefully this warning of Peter Berger (1963): “in truth, a good part of what passes for sociology could be labelled barbarous, if by that we mean displaying an ignorance of history and philosophy, a narrow field of expertise, lacking broader horizons, a preoccupation with technical matters and a complete absence of literary sensitivity.”

Notes 1. To such an extent that a number of the key publications in the field were the fruit of foreign researchers, such as Charles Tilly with The Contentious French (1986). 2. For a developed critical assessment of that homogeneizing vision of social movement studies in Europe see Accornero and Fillieule (2016). 3. A rather unfair comment if one considers the influence of the Tourainian school on social science in Latin America, where we still sometimes find traces today, although increasingly rarely. 4. On the transformations of activism, also see the research of Jacques Ion (1997) who prompted a lively debate in the French academic community. (Please see Lambelet, 2009 for a summary.) 5. This list is not exhaustive but I am thinking particularly of Charles Tilly, Sidney Tarrow, John McCarthy, Clark McPhail, David Snow, and, more recently, James Jasper in the USA; and Donatella Della Porta, Dieter Rucht, Mario Diani, and Chris Rootes in Europe.

 

The Study Of Social Movements In France    453 6. While only one French author appeared in the Blackwell Companion to Social Movements published by Oxford in 2004, this was far from the case in the Wiley-​Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements published in 2013. 7. Very recently, a new measure in a law to reform the university, stating that approximately 10 percent of university teaching should be done in English, gave rise to an extraordinary outcry on the part of the Académie française (which is not surprising), but above all, subsequently from a number of renowned scholars. This raises questions about the way in which the French perceive themselves and their language, long after the colonial empire was dissolved. 8. To which must be added the emergence of a “pragmatist” path of analysis initiated by Louis Quéré, Daniel Cefaï, and Danny Trom, but which for the moment is limited to a collection of normative prescriptions more than an empirical research program. Please see Cefaï and Trom (2001) and Cefaï (2007). 9. This does not eliminate the need for constant warnings to French researchers about the risks of withdrawal into the narrow space of contentious politics (e.g. Sawicki and Siméant, 2009; Fillieule et al., 2010). 10. Including the book The Culture of Public Problems which was translated in 2009 by Daniel Cefaï. 11. Social movements are populated by adults, and only recently have socialization scholars turned their attention in any serious way to adult socialization. Moreover and probably more important, political behavior or participation in political organizations is generally conceived of as a dependent rather than independent variable. Socialization research has been aimed at understanding why individuals do or don’t participate in politics not at revealing the effects of political activity. We have rarely studied the socialization effects of explicitly political organizations as compared with others such as families or schools. (Sapiro, 1989: 268) And vice versa, one could say—​with several notable exceptions, however. (Please see Whalen and Flacks, 1989; McAdam, 1988). 12. That is, INdividual SUrvey in Rallies, a method of administration of individual questionnaires on the sites of protests, updated by Pierre Favre, Olivier Fillieule, and Nonna Mayer (1997), and widely used ever since. (Please see Fillieule and Blanchard, 2009 for a review).

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458   Olivier Fillieule Mathieu, L. (2012). L’Espace des Mouvements Sociaux. Paris: Le Croquant. Mathieu, L. (2014). La fin du Tapin. Sociologie de la Croisade pour l’Abolition de la Prostitution. Lormont: François Bourin. Maurer, S. (2001). Les Chômeurs en Action. Paris: L’Harmattan. Melucci, A. (1989). Nomads of the Present:  Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society. London: Hutchinson Radius. Mische, A. (2008). Partisan Publics. Communication and Contention Across Brazilian Youth Activist Networks. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mischi, J. (2010). Servir la Classe Ouvrière. Sociabilités Militantes au PCF. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Mouchard, D. (2009). Etre Représenté. Paris: Economica. Muller, P. and Surel, Y. (1998). L’Analyse des Politiques Publiques. Paris: Montchestien. Neveu, E. (1996). Sociologie des Mouvements Sociaux. Paris: La Découverte. Neveu, E. (1999). “Medias. Mouvements Sociaux, Espaces Publics,” Réseaux 17(98): 17–​85. Noiriel, G. (2007). Les Ouvriers dans la Société Française, XIXe–​XXe. Paris: Seuil. Offerlé, M. (1984). “Illégitimité et Légitimation du Personnel Ouvrier en France avant 1914,” Annales ESC 4: 681–​7 13. Offerlé, M. (2009). Sociologie des Organisations Patronales. Paris: La Découverte. Ollitrault, S. (2008). Militer pour la Planète: Sociologie des Ecologistes. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Olson, M. (1965). Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pagis, J. (2009). Les Incidences Biographiques du Militantisme en Mai 68. Une Enquête sur Deux Générations Familiales. PhD dissertation. ENS–​EHESS. Parizot, I. (2003). Soigner les Exclus. Identités et Rapports Sociaux dans les Centres de Soins Gratuits. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Péchu, C. (2006). Droit Au Logement, Genèse et Sociologie d’une Mobilisation. Paris: Dalloz. Perrineau, P. (ed.) (1994). L’Engagement Politique, Déclin ou Mutation. Paris:  Presses de Sciences Po. Perrow, C. (1979). Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay. New York: Random House. Pierru, E. (2003). L’Ombre des chômeurs—​Chronique d’une indignité sociale et politique depuis les années 1930. PhD dissertation. Université de Picardie. Pinçon, M. and Pinçon-​Charlot, M. (2007). Les Ghettos du Gotha. Comment la Bourgeoisie Défend ses Espaces. Paris: Seuil. Pinell, P. (ed.) (2002). Une Epidémie Politique. La Lutte Contre le Sida en France (1981–​1996). Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Politix (2009a). “Conflits au travail.” 22(86). Politix (2009b). “La Syndicalisation en France.” 22(85). Politix (2014). “Mobilisations Conservatrices.” 2(106). Pommerolle, M.-​E. and Siméant, J. (2009). Un Autre Monde à Nairobi, Le Forum Social Mondial 2007 entre Extraversions et Causes Africaines. Paris: Karthala. Pudal, B. (1989). Prendre Parti. Pour une Sociologie Historique du PCF. Paris:  Presses de Sciences Po. Rayner, H. (2005). Les Scandales Politiques, l’Opération ‘Mains Propres’ en Italie. Paris: Michel Houdiard Editeur. Revel, J. (1996). Jeux d’Echelles, de la Micro-​Analyse à l’Expérience. Paris:  Hautes Etudes/​ Gallimard/​Le Seuil.

 

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460   Olivier Fillieule Vassallo, F. (2010). France, Social Capital and Political Activism. Basingstoke:  Palgrave Macmillan. Voegtli, M. (2009). Luttes Contre le Sida, Luttes Homosexuelles: Histoires Croisées d’Engagements Militants en Suisse. PhD dissertation. Université de Lausanne and EHESS. Waddington, D., Jobard, F., and King, M. (eds) (2009). Rioting in the UK and France. A Comparative Analysis. Oxford: Willan Publishing. Walder, A.G. (2009). “Political Sociology and Social Movements,” Annual Review of Sociology 35: 393–​412. Whalen, J. and Flacks, R. (1989). Beyond the Barricades:  The Sixties Generation Grows Up. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Wood, E. J. (2003). Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. New York: Cambridge University Press. Zaki, L. (2005). Pratiques Politiques au Bidonville, Casablanca (2000–​2005). PhD dissertation. Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. Zunigo, X. (2003). Volontaires chez Mère Teresa. Paris: Belin.

 

Chapter 21

Women’s Mov e me nts and Fem i ni sm French political sociology meets a comparative feminist approach Laure Bereni

France has a long tradition of mobilization around women’s rights, dating back to the late nineteenth century and the early years of the Third Republic (Bard, 1995; Klejman and Rochefort, 1989). The word “feminism” was itself coined—​in its modern meaning—​ by the French suffrage activist Hubertine Auclert (Offen, 2000). Likewise, as is the case in many other Western societies, France experienced a revival of women’s protests in the wake of the social and political unrest that marked the late 1960s and 1970s (Picq, 1993), and has witnessed since then a continuous, although sometimes discreet, collective effort to challenge gender hierarchy, from the campaign for gender parity in political office (Bereni, 2015; Giraud, 2005; Lépinard, 2007; Scott, 2005) to mobilizations for gender equality in the workplace (Revillard, 2007a), against domestic violence (Delage, 2015; Herman, 2013), and concerning sexual rights (Pavard, 2012). Yet, it is only in the last decade that women’s movements and feminism became fully integrated into the social sciences agenda in France. The late institutionalization of gender perspectives in political science and the centrality of class (rather than gender, sexuality, and race) in the common definition of progressive social movements account for the late legitimization of this research object in France (Achin and Bereni, 2013), while an international field of research on women’s movements and feminism has expanded since the 1990s.1 Despite its late arrival, the study of French women’s movements and feminism has been steady and prolific over the past ten years. A new generation of analysts emerged throughout the 2000s, in the wake of pioneering works by Anglophone political analysts whose research centered around France (Allwood and Wadia, 2000; Appleton and Mazur, 1993; Duchen, 1986; Mazur, 1995; Stetson, 1987), and against the backdrop of an unprecedented legitimization of gender studies in French political science. Research on French women’s

 

462   Laure Bereni movements and feminism developed a close dialogue with comparative research on women’s movements, while maintaining some of its roots in the French tradition of social sciences. In this chapter, we will first examine certain aspects of the field of comparative research on women’s movements and feminism,2 pointing to the insights that have particularly informed the study of the French case and emphasizing the ways in which this field of research has participated in challenging dominant conceptions of social movements. We will then consider some innovative insights from the unfolding research on the French case, emphasizing what it brings to international research on women’s movements. Finally, we will take a look at the future of the field of research on French women’s movements and the gaps to be filled, and then summarize with a conclusion.

Comparative Research on Women’s Movements: Challenging Social Movement Theory The first comparative studies on women’s movements emerged in the 1980s, either from scholarly exchanges between specialists of single-​country cases (Dahlerup, 1986; Katzenstein and Mueller, 1987) or studies informed by comparative designs on two or three countries (Gelb, 1989; Jenson, 1982; Kaplan, 1992; Lovenduski, 1986). Yet, comparative research on women’s movements really gained momentum in the second half of the 1990s and throughout the 2000s, giving birth to a structured field of research, including large-​scale comparisons, and fostering theoretical and definitional debates. As pointed out by Karen Beckwith, this rising body of work has informed many research questions in a variety of research fields, including “comparative politics, social movement analysis, democratization scholarship, gender and politics research, and feminist theory” (Beckwith, 2013: 1). Complementing a series of overviews of the international field of research on women’s movements (Beckwith, 2000; 2013; Bereni and Revillard, 2012; Ewig and Ferree, 2013; Ferree and Mueller, 2004; McBride and Mazur, 2008), the focus will be placed here on what this research field brings to the study of social movements. In this respect, two major contributions can be identified. First, comparative studies on women’s movements have broadened the scope of what can be identified as political and disruptive collective action. Second, this body of research has challenged the reified boundary between protest and institutions.

Setting up Analytical Definitions of Women’s and Feminist Movements Concerned with the necessity to delineate operational definitions for a widening scope of comparative research, women’s movements scholars have engaged in a great deal of

 

Women’s Movements and Feminism    463 definitional work over the last twenty years. While a first generation of studies was centered around the “new” women’s movements that were unfolding in Western democracies in the 1960s and 1970s, a second body of scholarship explored women’s movements in a range of other cultural, political, and and socioeconomic settings, from Latin America to Asia, Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe (Alvarez, 1990; Banaszak, 2005; Basu, 1995; Cîrstocea, 2008a; de Haan et al., 2006; Rai, 2001; Ray and Korteweg, 1999; Tripp et al., 2009). The field of comparative research on women’s movements also benefitted from the definitional insights of historical perspectives (Cott, 1987; Hagemann et al., 2008; Offen, 2000). This growing field of comparison in space and time led to the building of new analytical definitions of women’s and feminist movements. While there is no unique analytical definition of women’s movements, most scholars tend to center around two major criteria: first, women are the major actors and leaders of these movements (Beckwith, 2001: 372; 2013: 4; McBride and Mazur, 2008: 226); second, they organize as women, which means that their claim-​making is based on their gender identities as women (or based on a variety of roles traditionally assigned to women in most societies, such as mothers, spouses, sisters, daughters …), whatever content is given to the category of women in a range of historical and cultural contexts. This definition encompasses a broad array of movements that have historically revolved around a variety of goals, such as peace, nationalism, democracy, moral reform, or feminism. Yet, women’s movements are distinct from political and social movements that do not make their claims primarily as women, even though women might participate in high numbers in these movements (peace or nationalist movements, for example). Most comparative scholars also agree that women’s movements should be distinguished from feminist movements. The latter are often defined as primarily endorsing a feminist discourse, that is, a discourse that explicitly challenges gender hierarchies in a given context. In many instances, feminist movements do not challenge the entire gender order, and they do not necessarily self-​identify as “feminist”—​a highly contested term, notably in contemporary non-​Western settings. While there is a continuing debate over the criteria distinguishing women’s movements from feminism, most scholars agree on the usefullness of this analytical distinction: many women’s movements do not include feminism among their objectives, and some have explicitly pursued anti-​feminist goals. In other words, not all women’s movements are feminist, and feminist movements are often defined as a subset of women’s movements (McBride and Mazur, 2008). While a major contribution of women’s movements research has been to provide an analytical distinction between women’s and feminist movements, an important deal of work has also explored how they interact and sometimes overlap. Historical studies have documented how some women’s movements conveying a conservative vision of gender roles and often explicitly pursuing anti-​feminist goals have empowered their female members and paved the way for the development of future feminist protest. For instance, the temperance movement, which brought together middle-​and upper-​ class white women in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century (Giele, 1995; Skocpol, 1992), gave its female members the opportunity to escape

 

464   Laure Bereni the private realm, build solidarity with other women, raise new gender identities, and acquire the skills necessarity to take political action. Some of the women involved in the temperance movement even joined the suffrage movement at the end of the century. Several studies conducted on contemporary women’s movements in societies where gender roles are rigidly defined have also investigated the conditions under which traditional gender identities are being displaced, spilling over into feminist consciousness of gender subordination (Kaplan, 1990; Ray and Korteweg, 1999).

Challenging Routinized Definitions of Political and Disruptive Collective Action Calling attention to the blurred boundaries between women’s movements and feminism, this body of scholarship has challenged the categories of political and disruptive that implicitly lay behind the dominant understanding of political and social movement. Social movements have been mostly defined as developing outside mainstream institutions, employing overtly disruptive means of action, and clearly targeting political elites (McAdam et al., 2001). Yet, this vision tends to limit attention to the most visible, contentious manifestations of women’s movements, embodied by the feminist protests that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in Western democracies. Distancing themselves from this narrow definition of protest, many women’s movements scholars have shed light on collective efforts that may not appear to be political and transgressive at first sight. Especially (but not only) in societies or historical contexts where the presence of women in the public sphere remains problematic, women’s movements do not clearly self-​identify as political and do not necessarily use what is commonly labeled as disruptive means of action. Their collective actions tend to draw on traditional roles of women in the private sphere, like caring, educating, healing, moralizing, or pacifying. They do not walk the streets holding signs and shouting slogans. In some political contexts, for example in Latin America under the dictatorships, endorsing traditional gender roles as women appeared as a tactical move to apparently “depoliticize” the mobilization and then avoid the repression of public authorities (Kaplan, 1990). Yet, many of these invisible women’s movements have contributed to major political and social changes, such as the emergence of the welfare state in the early twentieth century (Skocpol, 1992). As mentioned earlier, in some instances, behind a conservative façade, they have contributed to the displacement of existing gender roles and dominant visions of gender among their participants and beyond (Cott, 1987). Research on second-​wave feminist movements has also enriched the understanding of the categories of political and disruptive that lay behind social movement theory. The US radical feminist local groups of the 1970s and 1980s that were studied by Susan Staggenborg, Nancy Whittier, and Verta Taylor first took an explicit political stance (Staggenborg, 1996; 1998; Taylor and Whittier, 1992). By the end of the 1970s, however, feminist activists increasingly directed their actions toward cultural change at the local scale, or at the individual level of everyday practices, in the domestic, professional, or

 

Women’s Movements and Feminism    465 artistic realm. Rather than structuring themselves as political organizations with clearly stated goals, and targeting public authorities, they formed feminist communities which included a range of social and cultural activities (feminist music festivals, bookstores, shelters for victims of domestic violence, etc.) and encompassed a wide array of individuals recognizing themselves in a discursively defined feminist movement rather than as “members” of “political organizations” (Mansbridge, 1995). Finally, as we will see in detail in what follows, research on the development of feminist “unobtrusive mobilization” within the state and other institutions also led to challenging dominant visions of protest (Katzenstein, 1998a). In sum, the comparative field of studies on women’s movements and feminism broadens the definitions of the political and the disruptive on which male-​dominated social and political movements have traditionally relied. In the following section, we go further in this idea by examining how the prolific body of comparative research on women’s movements, feminism, and institutions has challenged the dominant scholarly divide between social movements and institutions.

Blurring the Line between Movements and Institutions State institutions have responded to second-​wave women’s movements’ pressures, whether confrontational or moderate, by being increasingly open to their demands (Banaszak et al., 2003; McBride Stetson and Mazur, 1995). Gender equality bodies, positions, and policies proliferated in a variety of national contexts through the 1980s and 1990s, in the North and in the South, with the strong support of international and supranational organizations, most notably the United Nations and the European Union (Jacquot, 2015). Feminist scholars have drawn on this empirical path to map out new theoretical views on the relationship between feminist protest and the state. Breaking with feminist theorizations of an irreducible state patriarchy (Ferguson, 1984), the concept of state feminism was introduced as early as the 1980s to refer to a possible presence of feminist ideas and actors within mainstream institutions, primarily inside the state (Hernes, 1987). Studies that developed around this concept in subsequent years have placed the emphasis either on individuals pursuing gender equality goals within the state (usually referred as “femocrats”), or on bureaucratic bodies formally devoted to the advancement of women’s status (women’s policy agencies) or on gender equality policies carried out by the state. While many of these works have followed the paradigms and research questions of policy studies (see Chapter 25 in this volume for a detailed review), some of them have fully engaged in social movement theory debates, challenging “the view that social movements are clearly and completely ‘outside the state’ ”(Banaszak, 2010: 2) and blurring the boundaries between social movements and other political actors, between disruptive action and conventional politics (Bereni and Revillard, 2011). The works of Hester Eisenstein and Marian Sawer on Australian femocrats (Eisenstein, 1995; 1996; Sawer, 1990), as well as Mary F. Katzenstein’s study of feminist protest inside the US

 

466   Laure Bereni Catholic Church and the military (Katzenstein, 1998a) and Lee A. Banaszak’s research on women mobilizing inside the US federal bureaucracy (Banaszak, 2010), have been key to this strand of research. They all explored different forms of feminist activism within dominant institutions. Rather than considering femocrats (members of women’s policy agencies) as former movement participants co-​opted by the state and/​or as allies of the women’s movement, these authors consider them as full participants of a reconfigured women’s movement. Eisenstein proposes thinking about this continuity through the notion of “multiple accountabilities:” “femocrats, like all bureaucrats, are accountable in a formal and legal way […] to government,” she writes; yet, “informally,” “in the Australian context, there has been a strong notion that the femocrats are in some sense accountable to the women’s movement.” (Eisenstein, 1995: 72–​3). These works have led to redefining the notion of institutionalization: as put by Sawer, “there is still a strong tendency [in social movement research] to see ‘institutionalization’ in negative terms: to view it as a strategy mistakenly adopted by social movements, which results in co-​option, marginalization, or ‘fading’ ” (Sawer, 2010:  604). Rather, she contends, “institutionalization is part of the way that the women’s movement has always operated.” In the same vein, Katzenstein defines institutionalization as “the establishment of organizational habitats of feminists within institutional environments” (Katzenstein, 1998b: 197), and Banaszak suggests thinking about feminist protest in state institutions in terms of a “state–​movement intersection” (Banaszak, 2010). These authors also challenge the routinized definition of “outsider status,” which is based on location (outside the state) and tactics (overtly disruptive) in most theoretical and empirical works on social movements. As Banaszak puts it, there is a continuum of possible positions between full exclusion and full integration into institutions, such as “inside government but marginalized” and “inside participation with no chance of influence.” In line with Katzenstein, she defines outsider status by “the degree of inclusion in institutions” (Banaszak, 2010: 6). This is not to say that the location of feminist activism has no consequences. Constraints and opportunities specific to institutions strongly shape women’s advocates’ repertoires and framing strategies (Katzenstein, 1998a & b). Moreover, working with/​ within institutions does lead, in many instances, to a de-​radicalization of the movement goals (Lang, 2013). Yet, the women’s movement has penetrated mainstream institutions, and there is no mechanical link between institutionalization and de-​radicalization. In sum, comparative research on women’s movements has challenged canonic definitions of social movements and protest politics in two intertwined ways. On one hand, research on women’s movements has brought into the picture an array of movements whose discourses and repertoires do not fit the conventional visions of political and disruptive. On the other, by placing the focus on how feminist actors and ideas play out within institutions, this field of research has challenged the idea that movements, activism, and protest politics are necessarily located outside institutions. This insight from the comparative field of women’s and feminist movements has strongly informed the development of the French strain of research.

 

Women’s Movements and Feminism    467

The Boundaries of French Women’s Movements and Feminism Under Scrutiny Until the mid-2000s, French contemporary women’s movements and feminism were mainly studied by Anglophone scholars. A series of works conducted in the 1980s and 1990s by historians and political scientists provided the first scholarly overviews of the contemporary women’s movement in France and documented its transformations since the 1970s’ second-​wave of feminism. Several studies focused on the ambivalent relationship between women’s movements and post-​May ’68 left-​wing organizations, unions, and political parties, examining the feminist attemps to act inside these organizations and the latter’s particular resistance to feminist demands. Dorothy McBride (Stetson, 1987) and Amy G. Mazur (Mazur, 1995) examined the development of women’s policy agencies and policies aimed at advancing women’s rights within the French state, emphasizing their “symbolic” dimension and their structural marginality, yet pointing to the ongoing institutionalization of feminist ideas and actors within the French state. Other studies focused on women’s organized efforts to increase the presence of women in political office, from the battle for gender quotas within political parties in the 1970s and 1980s to the campaign for gender parity in the 1990s (Mazur, 2001; Opello, 2006; Scott, 2005). It was not until the mid-2000s that women’s movements were present at the center of a structured field of research in France, as a new generation of political sociologists completed their doctoral dissertations on this subject matter. (For a brief overview of women’s and feminist movements in France, see Box 21.1). Many of these scholars, including the author of this chapter, fully benefitted from the pioneering works of Anglophone researchers on contemporary women’s movements, and anchored their work in the international field of comparative research on women’s movements. At the same time, this new body of research on women’s movements and feminism has been very much informed by what can be referred to as the French tradition of political sociology, strongly influenced both by Bourdieu’s structuralist constructivism (Bourdieu, 1994) and by the US interactionist tradition (Becker, 1998; Goffman, 1959; Hughes, 1958). French political sociology is also marked by an interdisciplinary perspective, at the crossroads of history and anthropology, with major epistemological and methodological consequences, including a critical distance from a positivist model of scientific research, the importance granted to microlevel processes, the attention to the complexities and instabilities of social reality, and the centrality given to qualitative methods such as historical analysis and ethnography. French research on women’s and feminist movements and activism combines some of the insights of the international field of comparative research and those of the French tradition of political sociology. The next section considers the two main contributions of French research to the analysis of women’s movements and feminism. The first of these is a series of studies that

 

Box 21.1 A Brief History of Women’s and Feminist Movements in France Feminist voices have been heard in the public space since at least the Revolutions in France, for example Olympe de Gouges (author of the 1791 Déclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne) and Eugénie Niboyet (editor of the newpaper La Voix des Femmes during the 1848 Revolution). Yet, it was not until the first years of the Third Republic, in the 1870s, that the first organized movement for women’s rights emerged—​several decades later than in the US and Britain. The 1901 law creating the status of association (non-​profit organization) allowed for the development of a network of feminist organizations that gained momentum during the interwar period. Mostly reformist and moderate, this “first wave” of feminist mobilizations centered around the battles for women’s suffrage, for equal access to professions, and against women’s inferior status in marriage inherited from the 1804 Napoleonic Code. Besides these feminist organizations, a network of “feminine” organizations developed, mainly related to the Catholic movement, some of them being strongly opposed to feminist demands, and promoting a competing vision of women centered around their domestic duties and values. After suffrage was won in 1944, the French feminist movement entered a period of quiescence, known as “le creux de la vague” (going through a quiet period) (Chaperon, 2000). The publication of The Second Sex by philosopher Simone de Beauvoir in 1949, widely discussed in intellectual circles, did not spur a renewal of protest. Women’s organizations became more and more engaged in the Cold War political divides and few voices publicly challenged the dominant familialist ideology of the 1950s and 1960s. In the wake of May 1968, and in line with women’s liberation movements that were already flourishing in North America and in other European countries, a new wave of feminist protest emerged. The Mouvement de libération des femmes (MLF) made its first public appearance in August 1970 when a dozen feminists placed flowers at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in tribute to the “wife of the unknown soldier.” The movement that developed in subsequent years was diverse, but mainly loyal to the revolutionary mood of the post-​May ’68 era. Second-​wave feminist activists mostly rejected organizing and political delegation. Following the motto “the private is political,” they centered around free sexual rights and against domestic violence, women’s labor exploitation, and gender stereotypes. President François Mitterrand’s accession to office in 1981 is usually presented as the end of the 1970s protest cycle. The visibility of feminist protests to the public declined. The movement experienced a process of institutionalization, as the new Ministry of Women’s Rights took a growing centrality in feminist activities and as the second-​wave movement transformed into a myriad of specialized and often professionalized state-​funded organizations. Feminist protest came back to public visiblity in the 1990s, through the campaigns for gender parity, for equality at work, and for the defense of sexual rights. At this time, a new generation of activists appeared, and redefined the norms of feminist activism by including men, challenging gender dichotomy, and placing the intersectionality of power relations at the center of their agenda. Conflicts and debates, partly along generational lines, have been particularly vivid, especially around prostitution, trans and queer identities, and the wearing of the veil by Muslim women.

 

Women’s Movements and Feminism    469 have explored the historical interplay between mobilizing as women and doing so for women. The second comprises an examination of the complex ways in which women’s protest might develop within mainstream institutions.

Rethinking the Politicization of Women’s Identity in Historical Perspective A first strong line of research on French women’s movements and feminism consists of studies placed at the crossroads between history and political sociology. These studies have emphasized the fluctuating boundaries of the women’s movement, and have called specific attention to the historical shifts between mobilizing as women and for women. Three studies are particularly emblematic of this research stream:  Magali Della Sudda’s study of a conservative organization of Catholic women during the first half of the twentieth Century (Della Sudda, 2007); Bibia Pavard’s research on the movement for legalizing contraception and abortion from the 1950s to the late 1970s (Pavard, 2012); and Alban Jacquemart’s work on male participants in the feminist movement from the 1870s to the early 2000s (Jacquemart, 2015). In her study of the Ligue des Femmes Françaises, the largest French Catholic female organization in the first part of the twentieth century, Magali Della Sudda pointed out the paradoxical discrepancy between a very conservative discourse on gender and organizational practices that unobtrusively challenge this discourse. The Ligue was created in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair with the aim of organizing a female Catholic opposition not only to republicanism and secularism (laïcité), but also to the feminist movement that was gaining visibility through the first decades of the twentieth century. Despite its very conservative discourse on gender, Della Sudda showed that the Ligue constituted a setting of politicization for middle-​and upper-​class women at a time when they were legally excluded from political citizenship. As they were involved in male electoral campaigns for the sake of the Catholic movement, the female leadership of the Ligue acquired political skills and prepared Catholic women to exert the right of suffrage, even though they continued to combat organizations that called for women’s enfranchisement. The Ligue stood for female influence on the political sphere that both respected and displaced the traditional gender divide between private and public realms: women should pursue the religious mission of “putting” public affairs “in order” on behalf of their presumed virtue and moral superiority as women. Renamed Action catholique générale féminine (ACGF) in the 1950s, the organization gradually shifted away from the male ecclesiastical hierarchy and from its most conservative roots, notably in the wake of the reform movement within the Catholic Church (Vatican II) in the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s, the organization became increasingly involved in domestic and international institutional networks of women’s rights organizations; in the 1990s, ACGF members actively participated in the campaign for gender

 

470   Laure Bereni parity in political representation, alongside self-​identified feminists of the second wave (Bereni, 2015). Bibia Pavard explored the role of women’s collective identity in the development of the movement for free contraception and then free abortion (Pavard, 2012). She focused on the organization Maternité heureuse, founded in 1956 to promote free access to contraception for all women. The group initially gathered a few highly educated, bourgeois, and professional women. The image of the “respectable,” upper-​class woman was at the core of their collective identity: they rejected the term “feminist,” harbored strong family values, and advocated their cause through education without apparently disturbing the social order, at a time when the 1920s legislation made it a crime to advertise contraceptive means. In the following decade, as the movement was renamed Mouvement français pour le planning familial (MFPF) and grew substantially, male physicians became increasingly important to the organization’s leadership. Their professional legitimacy and social/​political networks became more and more central to the group’s strategy. Although women still made up the large majority of the rank-​and-​file members, they were no longer at the center of the organization’s collective identity. The 1967 Neuwirth reform legalizing contraception rewarded this male-​dominated strategy. In the early 1970s, while the radical Mouvement de libération des femmes called for free access to abortion, women regained a dominant position in the leadership of the MFPF. The organization increasingly identified as part of the new feminist movement, acting on behalf of women and for women (Pavard, 2013). In sum, Pavard’s work stresses the continuities between women’s organized efforts around sexual rights before and after the “irruption” of the second-​wave feminist movement while at the same time putting the emphasis on the shifting constituencies of the movement over time, from professional women (1950s) to male physicians (1960s) to feminist activists (1970s). Alban Jacquemart’s study on men’s participation in the French feminist movement from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-​first century also fruitfully questions the boundaries and constituencies of women’s and feminist movements (Jacquemart, 2015). He finds that while men have participated in feminist movements since the outset, their presence has always been, to varying degrees, problematic in the eyes of women activists. Men visibly participated in the first wave of feminist protest without encountering strong resistance from female activists, at a time when women were excluded from political institutions. In contrast, second-​wave feminists upheld new political norms, such as excluding men from visible participation (non-​mixité) and defining them as “allies”—​rather than participants—​of the feminist struggle. By contrast, in the last wave of feminist protest, which began in the mid-1990s, men’s participation appeared as a new defining principle for the younger participants in the feminist movement (Henneron, 2005). Drawing on rich, empirical material, within an extended time frame, Jacquemart distinguishes two models of male participation in feminist movements: the humanist model, by which men activists seek to extend the scope of universal principles; and the identity model, by which men activists seek to challenge dominant gender roles and especially the dominant definition of masculinity. While

 

Women’s Movements and Feminism    471 the first model prevailed during the first wave of feminist movements, the second one gained increasing importance through the 1970s and onward. Beyond its empirical and analytical value, Jacquemart’s work is a major theoretical contribution to the scholarly debates over the definition of feminist movements. He shows that feminist movements should not be considered a subset of women’s movements, which are defined as organizations composed of women taking action for women: not only have men long participated in feminist movements in the name of universal values, but the equation between women and feminism has been strongly challenged by the recent emergence of trans, queer, and prosex feminism, which center around the deconstruction of the gender dichotomy. Thus, Jacquemart argues that women are not necessarily the political subject of feminism, and defines the feminist movement as overlapping the women’s movement, rather than being encompassed by it.

Thinking about the Institutional Embeddedness of Feminist Protest A second major line of contemporary French research on women’s movements and feminism has focused on the way in which feminist protest has come to be engrained in state institutions. Building on insights from international scholarly debates on women’s movements and institutions, a series of works have proposed new analytical categories to characterize the intersection between women’s movement activism and dominant institutions. These theoretical reflections have drawn on various fieldworks, from state women’s policy agencies (Revillard, 2007b and forthcoming) to the campaign for gender parity (Bereni, 2015) to the organizations charged by the state to provide help to victims of domestic violence (Herman, 2013; Delage, 2015). Anne Revillard researched women’s policy agencies in France and Quebec from the 1970s to the early 2000s. While many studies on women’s policy agencies consider them as the allies or relays of a women’s movement inevitably located outside of the state, Revillard argued, building on Katzenstein’s (1998 a & b) and Banaszak’s (2010) work, that these bureaucratic instances can be considered to some extent as “contentious institutions” (institutions militantes). Marginal within the state, they provide a specific feminist socialization to the bureaucrats who work within them. They actively participate, on their own, in purveying feminist protest in contemporary societies, through specific repertoires (Tilly, 1986) such as legal action and institutional communication (Revillard, 2007b and orthcoming). In work on the campaign for gender parity reform, I  haveintroduced the concept of “field of women’s advocacy” (espace de la cause des femmes) to grasp the transversal dimension of women’s claim-​making (Bereni, 2012; 2015). This concept refers to the configuration of groups and organizations mobilizing on behalf of women and for women in a variety of social settings, either inside or outside institutions. Groups or organizations standing for women’s rights in the state, political parties, trade unions, academic institutions, religious bodies, business organizations, etc. are as much a part of the field

 

472   Laure Bereni of women’s advocacy as “autonomous” women’s groups and organizations. In other words, in this theoretical framework, what is usually referred to as the “autonomous” women’s movement is considered to be one component of the field of women’s advocacy, in relation with many other components. Although the multiple actors that make up the field of women’s advocacy might use a variety of means of action and discourses, they are linked together in an entanglement of social networks and through a series of circulating discourses and practices, which make possible, in certain historical contexts, the emergence of cross-​sectional feminist campaigns—​such as the gender parity campaign in the 1990s (Bereni, 2015). By focusing on work activities in organizations that were closely associated with the French women’s movement in the 1970s, French researchers have been able to better understand the way feminist activism has become engrained in state institutions. In the decade that followed, these movements became the official providers of the state social policies directed toward women. In an ethnographic study of organizations that help women who are victims of domestic violence, Elisa Herman explored the tensions between social work and feminist activism (Herman, 2013). The organizations analyzed were founded by women’s movement activists in the late 1970s. In the following decade they became increasingly professionalized, benefitting from state subsidies and relying on paid staff. By closely studying the trajectories, representations, and practices of the women who work in these organizations, Herman found that many of them could be described as “activist workers” (travailleuses militantes), inventing new subjectivities beyond the opposition between activism and work. Their definition of violence breaks with dominant definitions inspired by psychology and centered on the personality of the perpetrator. Relying on a feminist rhetoric, they insist on the major role of the pervasive social structure of gender. Pauline Delage found similar results in her comparative study on organizations against gender violence in France and the United States: while explicit references to feminism tend to fade through the professionalization process, social workers are still strongly influenced by feminist views in the way they frame their work activities (Delage, 2015). Erika Flahault’s study of the MFPF tells a comparable story (Flahault, 2013). Since the 1970s, this organization has grown in size and has increased its dependency upon state subsidies as well as its degree of professionalization as it carries out the “public service mission” of “sexual information.” At first sight, the MFPF lacks the overt feminist dimension it used to have during the heyday of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s (Pavard, 2012). After conducting an ethnographic study on couple and family counseling within the MFPF, Flahault pointed out that many women counselors (conseillères) view sexuality in its social and political dimension and envision their professional activity as political rather than psychological and medical. In sum, while many comparative studies on women’s movements and feminism have tried to establish stable, analytical definitions of these categories, French works have been predominantly interested in their fluctuating boundaries: how and by whom they are historically constructed, how they move over time, and how they overlap and sometimes get blurred.

 

Women’s Movements and Feminism    473

New Research Perspectives: Studying the Dissemination of Feminist Ideas and the Intersectionality of Women’s Movements Two other lines of reflection have recently emerged in women’s movement research in France, paving the way for future investigation: a series of works have focused on the process of diffusion and appropriation of feminist ideas outside the women’s movement (Albenga et al., 2015), while others have examined the way in which women’s movements are cross-​cut by the different power relations that structure the category of women (race, sexuality, class, age, etc.).

Appropriating Feminist Ideas beyond Feminist Movements A first category of this research focuses on the settings and mechanisms by which feminist ideas spread to outside militant organizations. In a study of the “Tupperware circles” that proliferated in France in the 1970s, Catherine Achin and Delphine Naudier provided a micro-​level exploration of the appropriation of feminist ideas by non-​militant middle-​class women in a small town of provincial France in the 1970s (Achin and Naudier, 2009). Their research showed that being a demonstrator (démonstratrice) was often experienced as a form of economic emancipation, and as an opportunity to escape the home. Démonstratrices turned out to be agents of new ideas and spread practical information about contraception or divorce. Tupperware circles allowed the creation of female sociability networks beyond the domestic sphere, connecting middle-​class housewives and allowing them to verbalize personal experiences as women, questioning familial roles and assignations, as well as the traditional female path through life. They allowed for the diffusion of feminist ideas and practices “by capillarity” although these middle-​class women did not self-​identify as feminist and did not know much about the women’s liberation movement that was unfolding at the same period. In her doctoral research on the biographical consequences of feminist activism based on a series of in-​depth interviews with participants in the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s and their children, Camille Masclet examines the ways in which a feminist politicization is transmitted through family education (Masclet, forthcoming). The feminist activists who became mothers considered the family to be a realm where they could question dominant gender norms. Masclet finds that only a minority of feminists’ children actually get involved in feminist organizations: those who do are women and they tend to draw a line between their feminist activism and that of their mothers, which they envision as “traditional” feminism. Although feminists’ children do not automatically

 

474   Laure Bereni engage in the feminist movement, Masclet finds that a “feminist inheritance” (héritage féministe) is passed on through education. Most of the children have incorporated throughout their socialization some dispositions that are partly unconventional in terms of gender, and have inherited an interpretative framework of the social world that is sensitive to gender issues—​a form of gender consciousness. A second line of this research examines the various forms of appropriation (or non-​ appropriation) of feminist ideas by individuals located outside the realm of feminist activism (Jacquemart and Albenga, 2015). Soline Blanchard, Isabel Boni, and Marion Rabier all investigated ways in which professional and executive women can appropriate feminist ideas in their work practices and challenge gender norms within the French corporate world. Since the early 2000s, a series of public policies have been set up or strenghtened in order to break through the “glass ceiling” in the workplace, such as the obligation to collective bargaigning and reporting on gender equality and, more importantly, gender quotas in corporate boardrooms (2012) and in governmental appointments to positions of leadership in the administration (2013). This new legal context has made it easier for women to speak as women and for women in the corporate world. Soline Blanchard studied the emergence of a professional field of gender equality consultants, who work both in the fields of women’s advocacy and in management, combining professional managerial values with a social change agenda (Blanchard, 2013). Marion Rabier documented the development of elite women’s circles and networks of professional women who graduated from the French “Grandes écoles” (several of the top universities in France) and held senior leadership positions in the corporate world or in public administration (Rabier, 2013). Although they avoid the “feminist” label, their discourses and practices attest to the development of a discreet yet growing movement toward improving the interests of professional and executive women in the workplace (Blanchard et al., 2013). Other studies call attention to the obstacles to the appropriation of feminist ideas beyond feminist movements. Eve Meuret-​Campfort and Fanny Gallot, for example, focus on how working-​class, female union activists have historically related to their identity as women, and to feminism—​both as an ideology and as a movement (Gallot and Meuret-​Campfort, 2015). The relationship between left-​wing organizations and feminism in France has historically been more contentious than in other European countries with strong Socialist traditions, such as Germany or Britain (Sowerwine, 1982). In the 1970s, although a minority of union members explicitly endorsed feminist ideas and participated in the autonomous women’s movement, the term feminism was mainly rejected by female and male union activists, seen as anti-​men and bourgeois. Female union members and women workers tended to place their class identity at the center and reject the feminist label. Yet, because of the segregation of labor by gender, the plants where women worked often operated as large-​scale women’s groups, gathering women of the same age and class. Studying female participation in the social unrest that marked the decade, Gallot and Meuret-​Campfort emphasize what they call a “feminist agency” (puissance d’agir féministe) in their practices. In some of their struggles, such as during the 1970s strikes at the Chantrelle plants (manufacturing lingerie), they

 

Women’s Movements and Feminism    475 built new subjectivities of working-​class women workers resisting sexist and classist representations, and sometimes—​although rarely—​politicizing their gender identity as women. In this case, researchers are interested in the obstacles to the diffusion of feminist ideas, because of the class distance between working-​class women and middle-​and upper-​class feminists, and because of the context of left-​wing unions that reject feminism as an ideology. Class position and political ideology are not the only obstacles to the diffusion of feminist ideas, however. Gwénaëlle Perrier tells another story of the non-​, or limited, appropriation of feminist ideas, by exploring how actors in charge of implementing employment policies at the local level in Paris and Berlin and their suburbs include the principle of gender equality in their activities. Despite the institutionalization of the principle of gender mainstreaming, which holds every public policy actor accountable in terms of gender equality, she finds that the goal of equality is sustained at the local level by a handful of (female) equality specialists, often with an activist background. The vast majority of non-​feminist actors (“les profanes de l’égalité”) have a limited appropriation of this public policy goal because of their professional ethos and gender-​blind public policy routines, restricting the scope and efficacy of the principle of gender mainstreaming (Perrier, 2010; 2015).

Studying the Women’s Movement through an Intersectional Lens A final line of research has recently put emphasis on the intersecting power relationships that shape the contemporary French women’s movement. A few works have shed light on the structural heterogeneity of the women’s movement and on the continuing inclusion and exclusion processes by which the women’s movement is being produced. In her doctoral work on collective-​memory building in the French women’s movement, Marion Charpenel investigates how collective representations of a movement’s past are shaped by movement leaders as a way to create or maintain that organization’s unity (Charpenel, 2012; 2014). She gives the example of the violent murder of Sohane Benziane, a 17-​year-​old girl of Magrebian descent, who was killed by a young man of her age in a poor neighborhood in the suburbs of Paris in 2002. This event was successfully framed by a handful of leading feminist activists as a symbol of sexist violence and placed in the long story of feminist struggles dating back to Simone de Beauvoir. By transforming this terrible event into a symbol, they were able to attenuate existing tensions and dissensions that were unfolding at that time within the women’s movement along generational, ethnic, and class lines. Eléonore Lépinard explores how intersectionality challenges the universalist project of many contemporary women’s rights organizations in France (on this matter see also Bassel and Lloyd, 2008). Lépinard particularly grasps this issue through a study of the feminist controversies over the 2004 law banning the headscarf in public schools, and around a 2010 law outlawing the burqa and niqab (voile intégral) in public spaces

 

476   Laure Bereni (Lépinard, 2007; 2014). Many (white) leaders and members of feminist organizations strongly called for these bans, under the argument that Muslim girls and women should be protected from gender oppression deriving from religious principles. These feminist activists, Lépinard points out, refused to frame this issue in terms of intersectionality and failed to see the veil bans as a way to racialize and marginalize Muslim women. According to Lépinard, two main factors account for this misrecognition of intersectional issues in feminist movements. First, she emphasizes the extent to which the struggle against the Catholic Church marked the identity of the French second-​wave women’s movement—​notably in the early 1970s campaign for free abortion. For many feminists of the second-​wave generation, opposition to religious oppression remains the dominant political agenda, preventing them from recognizing the processes by which certain religious groups might be racialized. Second, feminist blindness to intersectionality reflects increasingly dominant visions of French republicanism, placing the emphasis on cultural assimilation, color blindness, and conveying a conception of secularism (laïcité) which is increasingly defined as a strict invisibility of religious signs in public spaces (neutralité).

Conclusion: Challenges, Puzzles, and Questions As shown in this chapter, France has a recent yet rich body of research on women’s movements and feminism. These studies build on the insights of comparative research while bringing to the table an original perspective, rooted in the French tradition of political sociology. This chapter has particularly placed the focus on studies that have challenged the mainstream definition of social movements as being visibly disruptive and located outside institutions. It has also called attention to recent developments in French research that focus on the diffusion of feminist ideas beyond the boundary of women’s movements, and on the intersection of power relations within these movements. I would like to conclude by pointing to a few challenges, puzzles, and questions that the study of women’s movements in France is currently facing. First, there is a need for more comparative research. The French tradition of political sociology, insisting on the necessity of in-​depth, micro-​sociological analysis through ethnographic or historical work, has led to an overlooking of the importance of the comparative lens. This is not due to a lack of interest in non-​French cases: in recent years, a prolific body of research has developed around women’s and feminist movements outside France, especially in non-​Western contexts. These works have examined the ways in which gender identities are being politicized outside the realm of Western feminism, and the impact of globalized gender equality policies and discourses on local women’s activism in Southern and Eastern countries (Cîrstocea, 2008; Dutoya, 2014; Lacombe et al., 2011; N’Diaye, 2011; Le Renard, 2010). A rich dialogue has existed between specialists of the French cases and other cases, and a few notable comparative studies have

 

Women’s Movements and Feminism    477 been carried out (Delage, 2015; Engeli, 2009; Giraud, 2005; Lépinard, 2012; Perrier, 2010; Revillard, 2007b and forthcoming). Yet there is still a need to fill the gap between the in-​depth studies limited to the French context and the large-​scale comparative projects in which France is included along with a range of other national cases (McBride, Mazur, and Lovenduski, 2010). This middle-​scale, in-​depth comparative perspective should be developed, as many theoretical insights drawing from the French case need to be tested on other cases. Second, France has experienced, like many other countries, a growing influence of political science perspectives on the study of women’s movements and feminism. This “institutional move” (Revillard and Bereni, forthcoming) has been fruitful in France as elsewhere, but it has also led to overlooking traditional research questions of social movement theory, such as why and how movement organizations and campaigns emerge, develop, and die, and how movements select their strategies and targets. The dimension of the social movement agenda that has been the most addressed in the French case relates to social movement framing strategies, which have been at the center of a series of studies on the campaign for gender parity (Bereni, 2015; Lépinard, 2007; Scott, 2005). There are many other questions that should be brought back into the picture, in line with France’s important tradition of research on social movements and activism (see Chapter 20 in this volume). Finally, there is still a need for a more systematic dialogue between French studies on the French case and comparative research on women’s movements and feminism. Until now, exchanges have been more commonly from the outside in (French works discussing and integrating international research) than from the inside out (French works being discussed in the international arena). Although scholars working in France and on France increasingly participate in international academic arenas, most research carried out in France and on France is not included in these English-​speaking venues. This is partly because the French body of research is mainly written in French and published in French-​speaking journals. However, a more important obstacle to the internationalization of French research has to do with the discrepancy between the paradigms and methods that prevail in Anglophone political science and those which are dominant in the French social sciences. In research on women’s movements and feminism as in other areas, this gap has come to be a serious obstacle to international intellectual exchanges. This is why this collective book, gathering francophone and anglophone scholars from diverse intellectual traditions and pointing to the similarities and differences between various ways of studying the case of France, is such a valuable intellectual project.

Notes 1. For an overview of this research field, see Banaszak (2008), Beckwith (2000; 2013), Ewig and Ferree (2013), Ferree and Mueller (2004), McBride and Mazur (2008). 2. By comparative research, I not only refer to the works designed to be comparative but also to research works on national cases that are informed by and dialoguing with comparative literature.

 

478   Laure Bereni

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482   Laure Bereni Histoire [online], (12–​13) spring–​autumn 2013, online December 28, 2013, at: (accessed May 11, 2016). Perrier, G. (2010). “Intégrer l’égalité entre les hommes et les femmes dans la mise en œuvre des politiques de l’emploi. Une comparaison entre Berlin et la Seine-​Saint-​Denis.” Doctoral dissertation in Political Science. Sciences Po, Paris. Perrier, G. (2015). “L’objectif d’égalité des sexes dans la mise en œuvre des politiques d’emploi à Berlin. De la diffusion professionnelle aux difficiles réappropriations profanes,” Politix 109: 111–​33. Picq, F. (1993). Libération des femmes: les années-​mouvement. Paris: Seuil. Rabier, M. (2013). “Entrepreneuses de cause. Contribution à une sociologie des engagements des dirigeantes économiques en France.” Doctoral dissertation in Sociology. EHESS, Paris. Rai, S. (2001). “Gender, Globalisation and Women’s Activism: Critical Engagements,” Law, Social Justice & Global Development Journal (1). Available at: (accessed May 12, 2016). Ray, R. and Korteweg, A. C. (1999). “Women’s Movements in the Third World:  Identity, Mobilization and Autonomy,” Annual Review of Sociology 25: 47–​7 1. Revillard, A. (2007a). La cause des femmes au Ministère du Travail: le Comité du Travail Féminin (1965–​1984), Final report. Paris: DARES/​CNRS. Revillard, A. (2007b). “La cause des femmes dans l’Etat:  une comparaison France–​Québec (1965–​2007).” Doctoral dissertation in Sociology. ENS, Cachan. Revillard, A. (forthcoming). La cause des femmes dans l’Etat. Une comparaison France–​Québec. Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. Revillard, A. and Bereni, L. (forthcoming). “From Grassroots to Institutions. Women’s Movements Studies in Europe,” in Accornero, G. and Fillieule, O. (eds) Social Movement Studies in Europe: The State of the Art. New York: Berghahn Books. Sawer, M. (1990). Sisters in Suits. Women and Public Policy in Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Sawer, M. (2010). “Premature Obituaries:  How Can We Tell if the Women’s Movement is Over?” Politics & Gender 6(4): 602–​9. Scott, J. W. (2005). Parité:  Sexual Difference and the Crisis of French Universalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Skocpol, T. (1992). Protecting Soldiers and Mothers : The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sowerwine, C. (1982). Sisters or Citizens? Women and Socialism in France since 1876. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Staggenborg, S. (1996). “The Survival of the Women’s Movement: Turnover and Continuity in Bloomington, Indiana,” Mobilization 1(2): 143–​58. Staggenborg, S. (1998). “Social Movement Communities and Cycles of Protest: The Emergence and Maintenance of a Local Women’s Movement,” Social Problems 45(2): 180–​204. Stetson, D. M. (1987). Women’s Rights in France. New York: Greenwood. Taylor, V. and Whittier, N. (1992). “Collective Identity in Social Movement Communities: Lesbian Feminist Mobilization,” in Morris, A. D. and Mueller, C. M. (eds) Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 104–​29. Tilly, C. (1986). La France conteste, de 1600 à nos jours. Paris: Fayard. Tripp, A. M., Casimiro, I., Kwesiga, J., and Mungwa, A. (2009). African Women’s Movements. Transforming Political Landscapes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Chapter 22

National Ide nt i t y in Franc e a blind spot Sophie Duchesne

This chapter deals with the way French social scientists study their fellow citizens’ national identity. It does not, as is often heard in public debates, consider nations as groups of people who share a common origin and specific characteristics and identities. Following Billig (1995), national identity refers here to the way people feel “emotionally situated” within nations, whatever these emotions are; how they feel attached to their nation, to what extent they believe that being French (in this example) is part of their personal identity.1 Over recent decades, social scientists all over the world have investigated the complex feelings citizens have about their nations. In France, however, this issue has been somewhat overlooked. Indeed we might even say this question is a blind spot in the French academic context. This chapter, after accounting for the discrepancies between the general literature on national identity and French work on the subject, will try to provide an explanation for this disparity and outline a research agenda that could help shed light on this sociological blind spot.

New Trends in the General Literature on Nations and National Identity Social science scholarship on national identity developed in the wake of the initial debate on nationalism and the origin of nations in the 1980s and 1990s. This debate mainly involved historians and it has been reviewed extensively.2 As a result of this debate, nations are now widely considered to be a political product of modernity, and the sequence between nations and nationalism has been reversed with Gellner stating: “It is

 

484   Sophie Duchesne nationalism which engenders nations, and not the other way round” (Gellner, 1983: 55). Instead of differentiating, as Stanley Hoffman did in the 1960s (Hoffmann, 1966), between national consciousness (a neutral way of thinking about one nation’s interests) and nationalism (an ideology that gives priority to national interests) so that nations appear to be independent objects,3 nationalism is now considered an ideology that created nations. This ideology, according to Billig, has become the only universal one (Billig, 1996). As a historical form of political organization, nations could and should, at some point, become obsolete. One of the most prominent modernists, the British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, indeed foresaw their decline in the early 1990s (Hobsbawm, 1992). From a different perspective, sociologists examining political attitudes around the same time also predicted that national attachments would fade in the context of cultural shift, regional integration, and globalization, especially in Europe (See for instance Dogan, 1994; Inglehart, 1990). Has national attachment weakened since? Nationalism clearly has not, as we can see in the electoral successes of nationalist right-​wing parties in Europe and elsewhere, as well as in the succession of wars all over the world. Publications on nations, nationalism, and national identity have increased since the end of the 1990s. We shall briefly address the new trends of research in this area with three major questions.

Do Nations Matter? Historians have shown that nations are political constructs, propelled by elites trying to adapt to the requirements and the consequences of the industrial revolution, notably in terms of communications.4 Within this framework, the national political community is no longer understood as a (natural or essential) link inherited from traditional cultures and kinship: rather, it is analyzed as the result of a process of state formation and nationalization of citizens’ behavior. This was accompanied by a cognitive revolution, a new representation of the relationship between people, forged by elites (not necessarily consciously) and circulated by the media. Anderson’s well-​known definition of the nation as “an imagined political community” (Anderson, 1991) may have occasionally been misleading if we see imagination as contrasting with reality. Does imagination matter in the real world? Moreover, nationalism, now known to be responsible for the making of nations, was and still is the cause of evil: war, genocide, xenophobia, and the persistent mistreatment of people. Should we not fight to defeat national attachments forever? Are there not other forms of identification that would foster peace and justice? Craig Calhoun’s (Calhoun, 2003a; 2003b) debate with Brubaker (Brubaker, 2003) and, indirectly, with the promoters of cosmopolitanism, addresses these two questions. Calhoun first contests the idea that identity—​ethnic or national—​does not matter because the groups that it refers to are not natural ones.5 Second, he denies that national identity should be opposed even if we know that attachment with one’s nation is fueled by conservative or

 

National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    485 xenophobic nationalism: “Feeling that one belongs to something larger and more permanent than oneself is either a wonderful or a terrible thing. […] It is also the only way in which many people are able to feel that they belong to the world. […] Nationalism still matters, still troubles many of us, but still organizes something considerable in who we are” (Calhoun, 2007: 171). According to Calhoun, cosmopolitanism is therefore an elitist ideology. Taking national feelings of belonging seriously is paramount because nations are crucial to democracy and provide solidarity that is indispensable to social inclusion and distributive justice. Brubaker’s contribution to nationalism and national identity is important. Brubaker has always taken national identity seriously, both in his early work (Brubaker, 1994) and more recently (Brubaker, 2012; Brubaker et  al., 2004). However, he strongly argues against what he calls “groupism,” that is, “the tendency to take discrete, sharply differentiated, internally homogeneous and externally bounded groups as basic constituents of social life, chief protagonists of social conflict and fundamental units of social analysis” (Brubaker, 2002: 164). In this sense, nations and the way people relate to them should be analyzed together with other feelings of belonging to groups such as ethnic or racial ones. The core of the argument thus becomes the micro-​analysis of group interaction and the way social actors negotiate the cognitive categories and boundaries that construct social groups in a world of power and domination. What he calls a “cognitivist turn” in the analysis of nations and nationalism (Brubaker et al., 2004) extends Billig’s refusal to distinguish between nationalism and patriotism, between “hot” and “plain” nationalism. It also implies that feelings of belonging to one’s nation—​or race—​have to be empirically verified and might be less profound and crucial than the vocabulary of identity suggests. As the conclusion of impressive fieldwork in Cluj (Romania), Brubaker and his team indeed show that ardent nationalist politics do not necessarily translate into strong national feelings within the general population (Brubaker et al., 2008). In this sense, nations might not matter as much as some believe they do.

Should We Renounce the Ethnic/​Civic Dichotomy? Does this mean that nationalism is diverse, that it might be violent or peaceful, exclusive or inclusive, ethnic or civic, crucial or banal? Kohn’s classic dichotomy between Western and Eastern nationalism (Kohn, 1991 [1944])—​between an organic, closed conception of the national community and a political, open one—​is widely cited. Yet it has been seriously criticized by various scholars. First, it is said to be too simplistic to accurately account for reality—​as any dichotomy would be. Moreover, Brubaker (1998: 298–​301) along with others such as Calhoun (2007:  Ch. 6), Dieckhoff (2005), and Haller and Ressler (2006), condemn this opposition because it serves as a form of justification for Western nationalism; it encourages its promoters to be complacent, and to avoid being critical of their own beliefs. A similar dichotomy was introduced in political sociology and political psychology:  the distinction between cultural versus political understandings of nationhood.

 

486   Sophie Duchesne This distinction is used notably by Europeanists (social scientists specializing in European integration). Michael Bruter, in particular, distinguishes cultural and civic identification with one’s political community, and he uses experimental surveys to show that identification with Europe is more civic than identification with one’s nation (Bruter, 2003). The very nature of European identity is thus considered to be part of the explanation of multiple national and European identities. More recently, Hooghe and Mark have asked how national identification can be related either positively or negatively to identification with Europe, depending on the individual (Hooghe and Marks, 2004). They refer to scholarship from social psychology that again distinguishes between a closed conception of national attachment (chauvinism) and an open one (patriotism) (see Coenders et al., 2003). Chauvinists tend to be xenophobic, while patriots do not; they tend to have exclusive identities, patriots do not. If the ethnic/​civic dichotomy has been replaced by a cultural/​civic one, the latter is validated only at the individual level. It is a social-​psychological opposition, not a cultural-​political one, as Bonikowski (2013) carefully demonstrated. He scrutinized comparative surveys and concluded with a typology of what he calls “everyday popular nationalism” that does not match a “Manichean” cultural/​civic division between West and East, or North and South. The heterogeneity in the distribution of the ways in which one can feel connected to one’s nation within a given country clearly exceeds heterogeneity among countries (ibid.).

How are Nations Perpetuated? In the 1980s and 1990s, historians debated the origins of nations. In the decades that have followed, psychologists and sociologists have moved on to the question of the perpetuation of nations, to the affective feelings people have in order to believe in nations. Indeed, how are nations perpetuated in a globalized world? Billig introduced the notion of “banal nationalism” in a way that mirrors the conceptual switch between nations and nationalism (Billig, 1995). Billig brought our attention to the fact that in Western countries, where people are naturally supposed to have national identities—​that is, to feel national—​political citizens are in fact constantly reminded of their nationhood. So nationalism is not only at the origin of nations, it also perpetually creates and re-​creates them over the long term. National identities are no more than the product of constant reminders of nationhood. The idea of banal nationalism introduced a new focus on citizens and everyday life into the analysis of nations and nationalism. The new research agenda examines “the actual practices through which ordinary people engage and enact (and ignore and deflect) nationhood and nationalism in the varied contexts of their everyday lives” (Fox and Miller-​Idriss, 2008: 537). The objective is to observe how “nation-​work” functions, that is, to analyze “the social labor of objectifying the abstract concept of ‘nation’ ” (Surak, 2012: 173). Hobsbawm highlighted the need to investigate the role of citizens in nation-​building in greater depth (Hobsbawm, 1992: Ch. 2). This point becomes all the more salient with the switch from the question of how nations are built to how they are

 

National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    487 maintained. What is quite overlooked in Billig’s seminal contribution to the everyday nationhood agenda, however, is the charge against nationalism. Emphasis on the psychological dimension of belonging on one hand (Reicher and Hopkins, 2001), and on the mass public (understood as the majority of the population in Western countries by opposition to minorities) on the other (Skey, 2013), results in a reappraisal of national belonging, at least in established nations. In the first debate on the origins of nations, France was an iconic case. Weber’s often-​ cited Peasants into Frenchmen, although controversial, still constitutes the classic example of how populations became nationalized at the turn of the nineteenth century (Weber, 1976). Renan’s definition of the nation as a daily plebiscite is universally quoted (Renan, 1988 [1882]). French historians had an important role in the careful examination of French nation-​building (Braudel, 2008 [1986]; Nora, 1997 [1984]) and this contributed to making France a widely recognized reference case. Yet in spite of this historically central position France has been almost entirely absent from the new developments in the study of national identity. The fact is that these new trends in the sociology of nations and nationalism and the fruitful debates and research programs they have generated have gone quite unnoticed in French social sciences. As we shall see, national identity has become a kind of blind spot in the French context.

French Social Sciences on French National Identity: A Scientific Blind Spot French academics specializing in nationalism and the study of national attachment are often specialists of other regions, for example Christophe Jaffrelot on India (Jaffrelot, 2005b), Alain Dieckhoff on Israël (Dieckhoff, 2013), Denis Constant Martin on East Africa (Martin, 1988), Romain Bertrand on Indonesia (Bertrand, 2005), and Jean-​ François Bayart on Africa and beyond (Bayart, 2006 [1989]). Although French political scientists took an early interest in the matter (Birnbaum, 1997; Delannoi and Taguieff, 1991), research that empirically addresses the question of the relationship between French citizens and their nation is still scarce. The work that does exist tends to tackle the issue mainly from very specific angles.

A Quick Tour through the Limited French Contribution to the Study of French National Identity In 1997, Nonna Mayer, a leading French political sociologist, observed that there were almost no studies of what she calls “le sentiment national” (national feeling), that is, “the way individuals experience belonging to the nation-​group, values they associate with

 

488   Sophie Duchesne it, factors that determine it” (Mayer, 1997: 273). A notable exception was the pioneering Dimensions du nationalisme (Michelat and Thomas, 1966). In 1962, Guy Michelat and Jean-​Pierre Thomas carried out an in-​depth survey of national identification and nationalism among students, using a very detailed set of questions in order to reveal the different dimensions of the individual relationship between citizens and their nation. The questionnaire contained ninety-​four questions, all dedicated to the understanding of nationalism and national identity. They constructed sixteen different attitude scales that allowed them to differentiate between three distinct and relatively independent dimensions of attitudes toward one’s nation: feeling of belonging, superiority, and attachment to sovereignty. Each of these dimensions related differently to attitudes to the left–​right political scale. Interestingly, they found that being proud of one’s country was a crucial indicator of the belonging dimension and less importantly related to superiority and sovereignty. Yet this pioneering work had little legacy. This is all the more surprising given that the data remained available. In the electoral surveys carried out by the Centre d’étude de la vie politique française (CEVIPOF), Sciences Po’s well known political sociology research center, most surveys contain at least two questions regarding how interviewees feel about their nation; one regarding national pride, and another regarding the degree to which they “feel” European and/​or French. Moreover, the Observatoire interrégional du politique (literally the Interregional Observatory on Politics), a publicly funded survey research center founded in 1985 at Sciences Po, was particularly interested in territorial feelings of belonging. From 1985 to 2005, between ten and fifteen thousand people were asked about their national sentiments every year. However, the few papers published on the topic in academic journals or books were mainly focused on the relationship between national identification and other levels of belonging, for example the region and/​or Europe (Dargent, 2001; Dupoirier, 2007). French academics were indeed involved in the long-​standing debate on European integration and the role that national identity plays in so-​called Euroscepticism. Duchesne and Frognier showed early on that national identification does not impede the development of attachment to Europe. On the contrary, in an era of individualization, it is the template for “we” feelings associated with political agency. This hypothesis, tested on all EU members, was elaborated on the basis of the French case (Duchesne and Frognier, 1995). After 1994 it encountered criticism including for the French case (Dargent, 2000; Mayer, 1996). Yet Duchesne and Frognier then showed that the apparent increase in the antagonism between the two levels of attachment—​France and Europe—​was due first to a change in indicator, and second to the polarizing effect of the referendum debate. The negative statistical relationship between survey indicators of attachment to the nation and attachment to Europe reappears in every European electoral year, but it does not last long afterwards (Duchesne, 2008; Duchesne and Frognier, 2008). The absence of contradiction between feeling national (French in particular) and feeling European has been widely acknowledged in European studies (Belot, 2010). More recently, it was confirmed as a basic feature of the socialization of French children, as a characteristic both of what children are taught in school (Bozec, 2010) and what they say when they are asked about Europe (Throssell, 2010a).

 

National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    489 The relationship between national and European identifications is also at the core of Cyril Jayet’s recent doctoral dissertation, one of the very first PhDs to address directly the question of individuals’ national attachment (Jayet, 2013). Jayet considers seriously what feeling national means to people, in Europe and in France in particular. He understands the nation as a “catégorie de langage” (a language category), that is, a way to refer to reality just like any other word used to account for what we believe to be real, like “birds” for example (Jayet, 2012: 91). While Jayet does not disqualify a priori the impact of this particular category on a citizen’s expectations of the political order, he uses a large variety of data sets and indicators to eventually invalidate the theoretical link established, notably by Calhoun (see above) between national identity and people’s solidarity with one another. He also confirms that feeling attached to one’s nation does not prevent people from supporting the European project. Indeed, the first young French researcher who has seriously and empirically addressed national identification in the vein of Michelat and Thomas has concluded by invalidating its influence on the political order. There are two other areas in which French political sociologists have empirically addressed the question of French national feelings: in the analysis of comparative surveys designed at the international level, which include the French case;6 and in research projects on the attitudes of immigrants to France and French people of immigrant origin. Céline Belot’s papers are a good example of the former. A specialist of French attitudes toward European integration from a comparative perspective, and of French public opinion more generally, she has published a number of articles using the four waves of the European Values Studies collected between 1981 and 2008 (Belot, 2009; Belot and Cautrès, 2010). She shows that French pride has increased over the years,7 to the point where pride in being French no longer seems to be ingrained in an ideologically nationalistic pattern. The link between chauvinism and national pride is mediated by a restrictive understanding of the nature of national belonging. This analysis confirms two results discussed in the international debate: the ways in which people relate to their nation are very diverse, and there is no empirical evidence for the distinction between ethnic and civic dimensions of national belonging. The second domain of analysis of national feelings in France is the relationship that French citizens from immigrant backgrounds maintain with France. In 2006, Evelyne Ribert wrote a book entitled Liberté, égalité, carte d’identité (Ribert, 2006). For her PhD, she interviewed young first-​generation French citizens in the Parisian suburbs about the way they relate to their national community. Ribert concluded from her fieldwork that, contrary to claims made in the media, these young people do not experience any identity struggle between France and their parents’ country of origin. This is mainly due to the fact these young people have no strong feelings about either country. According to Ribert, the French nation does not seem to be at the core of collective representation any longer. In a complementary article in the Revue française de science politique, called “In search of the ‘identity feeling’ of young French people of migrant origin” (Ribert, 2009), she acknowledges the difference between her results and others’ using other research methods, namely survey research.

 

490   Sophie Duchesne The way that people from immigrant backgrounds feel about society, the nation, other people around them, and themselves, was the object of a major study carried out by Christelle Hamel and Patrick Simon for the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) and called “Trajectories and Origins” (TeO8). Simon along with Vincent Tiberj analyzed the TeO data set on the political dimension (Simon and Tiberj, 2012). They investigated the accusation of divided allegiances that is repeatedly made against French people of immigrant origins. They question it both theoretically (why does France refuse the possibility of multiple allegiances while it is widely accepted in other countries?) and empirically. According to their data, origins and ethnicity do matter. However, although immigrants and their children possess multiple identities, these multiple identities do not prevent immigrants from feeling French. Their frequent experience of xenophobia contributes to the development of a minority identity, more than the community feelings they are constantly accused of. By way of conclusion, Simon and Tiberj—​who have been both regular visitors to American universities and are influenced by English-​speaking literature—​underline the difficult relationship France maintains with cultural diversity in its population. Their interest in national feelings (like Jayet’s, Belot’s, or Mayer’s) might also be related to their practice of quantitative survey data analysis. The quantitative/​qualitative divide has remained quite influential in the French context. Most researchers who investigate national feelings in empirical terms belong to the quantitative side of this academic divide. Furthermore, French political sociologists rarely consider seriously citizens’ attachment toward France: these feelings are often invalidated as being a simple reaction to the state and elites’ power of identification. Anne-​Marie Thiesse is a notable exception in this respect. Her socio-​historical contribution to the modernist approach of nationalism (Thiesse, 1999) shows how European nations invented themselves in very similar ways between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries. Together, thanks to multiple exchanges and collaborations, highly motivated national militants succeeded in the elaboration of an “identity check list” including: founding fathers, history, heroes, language, monuments, landscapes, and folklore. These elements provide a country with a national identity; with all the characteristics required to be considered a nation. The checklist is almost the same for all nations, but each element must be as genuinely specific and distinctive as possible. Thiesse clearly contributes to a constructivist understanding of national identity. And she takes nations seriously, considering that they have been the political framework of modernization and remain the level at which political and social solidarity is enacted. National identity is a construct; it is neither an artifact nor a distraction. In her most recent book, she writes about France: In 1789, the nation was declared sovereign. The proclamation was revolutionary: this abstraction remained to be materialized. A kingdom of subjects had to be turned into a nation of citizens; the new society of individuals declared free and equal needed shape and strength. National identity is the result of a complex process, crisscrossed by violent antagonisms, but it also brings creative dynamics, which offer solutions to these challenges. (Thiesse, 2010a: 11–​12)9

 

National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    491 Thiesse’s profound conviction that the nation was and is an appropriate and democratic form for modernity contrasts with mainstream social science in France. However, she does not approach the nation from an individual perspective and her empirical work is historical. Another more recent and controversial exception is Laurent Bouvet’s book, Le sens du people (Bouvet, 2012). Professor of political science, Bouvet investigates the different meanings of “the people” in democratic theory and shows how left-​wing parties—​and more particularly, the French Socialist Party—​turned their backs on this notion from the 1960s onward and promoted multiculturalist conceptions of the French people. As a result, they became contemptuous of white working-class people (men in particular), refusing to acknowledge that the policies decided and implemented by left-​wing governments were actually working against them. He concludes that the Socialists should urgently change direction and address French people “who believe in their national destiny, and who [the Socialists] forgot, then despised and abandoned to populism” (Bouvet, 2012: 295). Like Thiesse, Bouvet values the attachment that the French people have with their nation but does not empirically investigate this connection. The tone of Bouvet’s final words echoes the heat of public debates regarding national identity in France10 and the way left-​wing social scientists intervene on the subject in order to de-​ legitimize the use of this concept. The title of Noiriel’s book, A quoi sert ‘l’identité nationale’? (Noiriel, 2007) (literally, what purpose does national identity serve?), published at the height of these debates, summarizes the reservations of these academics. These reservations are directly related to the controversy around issues to do with immigration and its overlap with themes of national identity in French politics.

A Heated Political Context Interestingly enough, the initial debate on nationalism occurred precisely when the National Front (FN) was beginning its rise in France and immigration and racism were becoming major topics in public debate. Nations and nationalism (Gellner, 1983) was published in the same year as the FN candidate Jean-​Pierre Stirbois’s success in both rounds of the municipal election in Dreux (where he was elected deputy mayor). It was also the year of the march against racism and for equality (also called la Marche des Beurs, the “Beurs’ March,” where beur is the slang word for Arab). Discussions regarding the way to acquire French nationality have been fairly constant since 198611 and a link between immigration and nationhood has been firmly established in public debates. This link was staged in very dramatic terms after Nicolas Sarkozy became president and created the new “Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and Co-​ development.” During the 2007 presidential campaign, national identity was already a buzz phrase. Both main candidates, Sarkozy and Royal, emphasized the importance of the definition and the value of national identity. Royal paid more attention to the ethnic diversity of French citizens while Sarkozy was clearly dedicated to the reinforcement of what he considered to be the historic values of ancient France. According to surveys, the public was interested in the debate. Sarkozy promised he would create a ministry

 

492   Sophie Duchesne of national identity if he were elected. The ministry embodied French state nationalism, which is nothing new according to Vincent Martigny (2012). However, it gave rise to widespread contestation, among which was the resignation of a group of intellectuals and social scientists from the scientific advisory board of the planned museum on immigration, the Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration (Noiriel and Mauger, 2007). Another illustration occurred a few years later: the public discussion of “what it means to be French” (called the “Grand débat sur l’identité nationale”) organized by Sarkozy’s minister of immigration, Eric Besson, in November 2009. A public consultation was organized through a website at the national level and local debates organized by the regional representatives of the state. As soon as the debate was announced, Mediapart, a left-​leaning online investigative and opinion newspaper, initiated a petition with the motto “We shall not debate,” claiming that the state should not organize a debate that would necessarily generate racism. Forty-​six thousand people signed the petition while twenty-​six thousand contributed to the debate by posting messages on the official website. Meanwhile, press outlets reported that many local debates went off track with participants expressing openly xenophobic opinions. The failure of the debate was confirmed by the government itself when Besson announced that the final conference, scheduled on February 4, 2010, was canceled. However, the saliency of immigration issues has not decreased in French politics. Perceived challenges to laïcité have multiplied, with controversies about the wearing of Islamic headscarves at school, the banning of the burqa in public places, and debates about accommodating religious diets in school restaurant menus and the place of public prayers in the streets, etc. These issues usually result in proposed legislation to prevent the public display of religious beliefs. Islamophobia has spread dramatically, especially with Sarkozy’s sustained shift toward nationalism and the persistent success of the National Front. Indeed, the far-​right party has made continuous progress since Jean-​ Marie Le Pen unexpectedly took second place in the first round of the 2002 national election, thereby edging out the socialist candidate, before being trounced by Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac. Le Pen’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, became the new president of the party in 2011. Journalists and observers of French political life consider that, although the Front National program has not changed much, she has succeeded in normalizing, or “un-​demonizing” her father’s party (Mayer, 2013). In the first round of the presidential election in May 2012, she won 17.9 percent of the vote, the party’s best result ever for a presidential election. In this context, French political sociologists have been particularly careful in using the notion of national identity. For some of them, it is in line with a strong tradition of Marxist engagement of intellectuals in the public sphere, for whom national belonging is a false community of interests, administratively enforced and politically publicized; it prevents the less wealthy—​most French people from immigrant backgrounds fall into this category—​from acting collectively and defending their class interests (Balibar, 1992). But the reluctance to address the issue extends far beyond this Marxist tradition.

 

National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    493

Explaining the Blind Spot Gérard Noiriel’s work is a good illustration of how public engagement influences the way French social scientists deal with national attachments. As a well-​known historian Noiriel played an important part in the development of the socio-​historical analysis of French immigration policies (Noiriel, 2006). In 2005, he published a collection of articles entitled Etat, nation et immigration (State, nation, and immigration), which included a new chapter called “Nations, nationalités, nationalismes.” In this piece, in line with modernist historians, he analyzed the making of nations and insisted on the process of nationalization of people’s behavior by nation states. He borrowed Elias’ notion of “national habitus” and commented on citizens’ internalization of the norms, categories, and structures of the state “in such a way that they end up becoming a component of their personal identity” (Noiriel, 2005:  203).12 Although he questioned its current strength in long-​established democracies, he did acknowledge that the making of nations did involve a process of collective identification with the nation. But a few years later, in What purpose does national identity serve? (Noiriel, 2007), he concentrated exclusively on the (ab)uses of the words “national identity” in French politics. He radically opposed this notion, which he considered “electoral scheming aiming to flatter the prejudices of the most xenophobic part of the population”13 (Noiriel, 2007: 126). This discrepancy, between the consideration for citizens’ attachment with their nation in Noiriel’s scholarship and his public engagement against it, illustrates the way French sociologists generally choose to renounce a notion because of its political uses and possible consequences. However, the relative scarcity of research on national identity in French social sciences is not only related to the polemics of French politics on these issues: it is also scientifically rooted. A few theoretical discrepancies between French-​and English-​speaking social sciences as well as translation issues matter here. First of all, Dominique Schnapper had a point when she suggested that, due to the different histories of the democratic idea in their respective countries, French academics tend to refer to citizenship when their Anglophone colleagues mention nations (Schnapper, 2002). In his comparative study of Catholic and republican civic education curricula in the nineteenth century, Yves Déloye analyzed the struggle to teach French pupils how to become citizens in a way that clearly involved national belonging (Déloye, 1994). Similarly, Duchesne examined the manner in which French citizens understand the meaning of their own citizenship (Duchesne, 1997); based on in-​depth interviews she showed that “feeling French” is at the core of one of the two models of citizenship she identified. These studies converge toward a quite controversial understanding of national identity in the French case, torn between particularism and universalism. Heirs to the long struggle between Catholics and republicans, the French have difficulties with the very idea of the individual; in the sense of the personal—​the individual with her or his own particularities, as opposed to the universal conception of the individual (Duchesne, 2005). In France there tends to be a confusion between being equal and being the same. The French nation itself is,

 

494   Sophie Duchesne according to political theorists (Schnapper, 1994), conceived as a universal community of citizens, which is difficult to reconcile with the notion of belonging to a particular political community. Therefore, the apparent disaffection of French scholars with national identity might partly be related to their tendency to address issues of belonging to the political community under the banner of the citizenship issue, rather than as national identification and attachment. Second, French scholars may also experience difficulties in contributing to Anglophone debates on national identities because of language issues, which might also be seen as a confirmation of the conceptual blind spot. In 2005, Martina Avanza and Gilles Laferté commented on Rogers Brubaker’s and Frederic Cooper’s14 well-​known paper “Beyond Identity” (Avanza and Laferté, 2005; Brubaker and Cooper, 2000), suggesting the term “identity” be replaced with more specific terms, because they considered it too polysemous. Avanza and Laferté proposed other terms better adapted to the French social science audience, namely identification, social image, and belonging (identification, image sociale, and appartenance). These words broadly coincide with the processes singled out by Brubaker and Cooper, although not entirely. What is particularly interesting is that the word “identification” was considered by Avanza and Laferté as referring exclusively to the process of identification by the state: the way external and powerful agents attribute identity to or impose identity on people. The authors unambiguously rejected what they called “more ‘individualized’ uses” of the term (usages plus ‘individualisés’) (Avanza and Laferté, 2005: 142), that is, the way people identify themselves with groups, although they acknowledged that this is commonly used in Anglophone literature. In their discussion of “belonging,” Avanza and Laferté explained that what is at stake here is indeed the idea of feeling part of a group and the examples they provided all refered to the groups that people experience in daily life, such as social environments. They did not take into account the kind of abstract entities that people would identify with primarily through “imagination.”15 In a way, Avanza and Laferté inadvertently confirmed that French social sciences today do not provide researchers with a solid vocabulary and concepts that enable them to address the relationship between citizens and their nation. More importantly, they emphasized the relative importance attributed by French social scientists to the state and elites’ actions identification programs over people’s individual self-​identification. This emphasis is reflected today in the fashion for memory policies (politiques mémorielles) where researchers invest a great deal more in analyzing how political actors and historians try to shape memory and identity than in trying to investigate the actual impact of these policies on individual and collective memories and identities (Gensburger and Lavabre, 2011). This tendency to give full attention to the state’s symbolic power and to neglect citizens’ capacities and actions with regard to identification was, according to Yves Déloye, characteristic of Bourdieu’s work (Déloye, 2014). French social scientists’ reluctance to address national identity issues might indeed also be related to Bourdieu’s legacy. Bourdieu set a highly skeptical tone against the notion of nation and national identity in a short article called “Identity and

 

National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    495 Representation” (Identité et représentation, Bourdieu, 1980). He affirmed that identity claims are part of processes of domination. The power to draw the line between groups, to make and unmake them (“de faire et défaire les groupes”—​in italics in the original text), is paramount. It is the power to “impose a vision of the social world through principles of division which, when they impose on the whole of a group, make meaning and consensus over the meaning, and in particular over the group’s identity and unity, which makes the reality of the group’s identity and unity” (Bourdieu, 1980: 65).16 Sociologists have to be very careful when they study this kind of claim as they inevitably enter the game and what they say or write becomes a resource for or against dominant views of how the world is divided up. In particular, taking into account people’s diverse understandings of these divisions, including their self-​identifications, “is anything but a simple contribution among others to the production of beliefs whose foundations and social effects it is necessary to describe” (Bourdieu, 1980: 68). Bourdieu’s dismissal of individual identity was dramatically confirmed in the last chapter of the collective book The Weight of the World (Bourdieu et al., 1999: 607–​26). In this final chapter, entitled “Understanding,” he accounted for the way his team conducted the interviews displayed in the book as illustrations of social suffering. His analysis of what understanding means is quite different from mainstream research, and far from empathetic. The example is given of an interview where empathy brings the interviewer to accept without contradicting the description a young woman born in North Africa gives of her search of identity. According to Bourdieu, this was an example of bad interviewing; where the interviewee “cheats” the interviewer. This de-​legitimization of the interviewee’s owns words and feeling was criticized by other sociologists (Duchesne, 1996; Mayer, 1995), but it exerted a strong influence on French scholars: scrutinizing people’s identity (and people’s national identity in particular) using in-​depth interviews is an operation that still needs justification in the French context. Interestingly, Bourdieu’s clear negation of the heuristic validity of self-​identification (national and otherwise) has gone quite unnoticed in Anglophone work. On the contrary, Bourdieu’s habitus is often used as a concept that legitimates constructivist understanding of identity and, in particular, national identity. Wodak and her team, in their oft-​ quoted “Discursive construction of national identity,” analyzed Austrian representations of national belonging using focus groups and discourse analysis. They defined “national identity as habitus,” acknowledging that they were “borrowing loosely from Bourdieu’s concept” (Wodak et al., 2009: 27–​8). They did not seem to differentiate between Elias’ and Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus. In the French context, Bourdieu’s sociology is known for studying and denouncing domination processes and his concepts cannot be used outside this framework. This is not the case in mainstream anglophone sociology. On the contrary, it is quite common to read that national self-​identification is a reflexive process that should be analyzed with the Bourdieusian concept of habitus. Brubaker’s sophisticated thesis of “Ethnicity Without Groups” (Brubaker, 2002) is an exception, whose result is nevertheless also to downplay the role of people’s self-​identification in this matter. Bourdieu’s skepticism regarding the notion of individual self-​identification with groups and nations was reinforced by other influential social scientists, more or less

 

496   Sophie Duchesne close to his work:  historian Gérard Noiriel mentioned above, anthropologist Marcel Detienne, and political scientist Jean-​François Bayart, for example. In The Illusion of Cultural Identity (1996; translated into English in 2005), Bayart, a well-​known French Africanist and comparative political scientist, provided a radical critique of the uses of culture and identity as sociological explanations and emphasized the dangers of identity politics in all parts of the world, including Europe. That “nations matter” is not an easy thesis to defend among French social scientists. Moreover, Billig’s work is rarely quoted; even though it is highly critical of nationalism, it does take national identification very seriously. Banal Nationalism was not even translated into French. This may be related to the weakness of French social psychology and the links between psychology and social sciences in France more generally. However, the absence of a French version of this text may have contributed to the lack of serious analysis of French national identity.

Agenda: For the Development of French Everyday Nationhood Studies Surprisingly, in the Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism it was a French scholar, Yves Déloye, general secretary of the French Political Science Association and editor of the Revue française de science politique, who introduced the notion of “everyday nationhood.” He underscored precisely what is commonly refuted in French social sciences: the “ordinary mystery of national identity;” that is, the way individuals “identify themselves with the nation just as they feel they are members of other, often closer, human groups” (Déloye, 2013:  627). Yet the only publication in French dedicated to French everyday nationhood is an issue of Sciences Po’s political theory journal Raisons politiques, edited by a young researcher, Vincent Martigny (Martigny, 2010b). Although he refered explicitly to Billig’s concept, Martigny chose the French expression “nationalisme ordinaire,” as a compromise between banal and everyday nationalism. Most articles in the issue in question dealt with countries other than France,17 except for Martigny’s chapter and three others, by authors we already mentioned:  Sylvain Antichan, Anne-​Marie Thiesse, and Katharine Throssell (Antichan, 2010; Martigny, 2010a; Thiesse, 2010b; Throssell, 2010b). Martigny analyzed gastronomy as a form of banal nationalism (given that the French government sought UNESCO recognition of it as intangible cultural heritage). Antichan underlined the theoretical input that Halbwachs’ notion of memory offers to the conceptualization of banal nationalism. Thiesse denounced Sarkozy’s numerous attempts to influence the understanding of who belongs to the French national community and, in particular, his political instrumentalization of national history via the creation of a national museum of French history. In the three cases, the French state remains at the core of the argument and overshadows citizens’ possible genuine identification with the French nation, although Antichan’s theoretical framework is more open. Katharine Throssell’s chapter is the exception. Her

 

National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    497 article summarized part of her doctoral dissertation, entitled “Child and Nation,” in which she studied how children feel about nations (Throssell, 2012; 2015). She carefully designed and carried out interviews with eight-​year-​old children in France and England that showed a strong sense of belonging to their respective nation. She concluded: In many respects we see here a confirmation of Billig’s theory of banal nationalism as an international ideology that operates through the perpetuation of the “naturalness” of nations. In light of our results however we would argue that banal nationalism needs to be considered as based not just in the everyday “flagging” of the nation, in the national “habitus”, but also, perhaps primarily, in the reality-​building process of childhood. It is this early construction of nationalism as reality that confers upon it its singular characteristics; appearing both everywhere and nowhere, fundamental and yet unimportant, combining self-​evidence and a tendency to slip from conceptual awareness. This is nationalism as the nursemaid (rather than the midwife) of nations: lulling us all into the normalcy of national belonging, and this from the very beginning. (Throssell, 2015: 348)

Although Throssell completed her PhD in France, she was born Australian. It is noticeable that the first significant qualitative work on everyday nationalism in France was comparative and carried out by a researcher very familiar with English-​speaking literature. Now might be the time to overcome the conventional taboo and look inside the way French people, or people in France, relate to the nation. As Cyril Lemieux rightly asked in his article for the hundredth issue of Politix,18 “Can anyone in France today not be a constructivist?” But this epistemological position has lost its heuristic power, mainly because it does not accept the limits of sociological analysis (and with them, of the construction of reality): the materiality of social practices (Lemieux, 2012). The castigation of historically constructed categories, if this means refusing to acknowledge that these categories are indeed rooted in social practices, is a kind of blindness. Considering national sentiments as a dangerous ideology, and as a result forbidding proper investigation into the way citizens relate to the nation, means forgetting that nations remain the framework for organized solidarity. Indeed, people feel national and care for their nations because they depend on what public policies provide for them in terms of protection and empowerment. As Norbert Elias explained, “we” feeling is the manifestation of an identity that first relates to people’s units of survival; to the communities, concrete and imagined, that give them the resources to go on (Elias, 2001). Nations generate political identification because they provide their citizens with resources that secure their social rights (or what is left of them). Moreover, national identity is closely associated with the fulfillment of citizens’ duty, voting first of all (Duchesne, 2001; Subileau and Toinet, 1993). Brubaker’s point that racial, ethnic, or national groups are all alike should be challenged. Nations are indeed social groups in that they are historical constructions based on the in/​out group dynamic. They are politicized identities (Howard, 2000) and were politically constructed with a democratic purpose. They are meant to be political communities; groups of people

 

498   Sophie Duchesne whose purpose is to govern themselves. Thus the group’s boundaries are only part of what defines them. The nature of the ties between group members and the relationship between any member and the group is just as important, because these connections determine the citizens’ empowerment (Duchesne, 2008). In European societies, where distrust toward political elites continues to grow, feeling attached to one’s nation might well provide powerful and necessary leverage in the democratic process. It cannot be denied that governments and far-​right movements in France have succeeded in shaping the content of national sentiments in such a way that there is more and more opportunity for xenophobia and exclusion. Nevertheless, or perhaps because of this, we must examine these sentiments more closely and see how they work, instead of looking elsewhere in fear that talking about national identity will bring on xenophobic and bellicose nationalism.

Conclusion The development of nations and nationalism studies at the international level opened up a new research agenda regarding the way citizens take part in their own emotional commitment to their nations. Loosely inspired by Billig’s critical charge against the universal ideology that constitutes “banal nationalism,” promoted by Brubaker’s long-​term inquiry into the power of “groupism,” and firmly grounded in qualitative research methods, the “everyday nationhood” agenda went quite unnoticed in French social sciences. France was a central case in the debates on nation-​building; it is less central now that attention has shifted to the issue of how nations are maintained. French work on the issue is mainly limited to three areas: European integration and the development of multiple identities; national feeling of citizens with immigrant backgrounds; and the analysis of French answers to comparative survey data. Even historical sociologists, such as Anne-​Marie Thiesse or Yves Déloye, who consider that national sentiment is an important issue, are not investigating these areas themselves. Cyril Jayet and Katharine Throssell’s works are exceptions that might lead the way for future research. However, this research might be difficult given that the reluctance of French social scientists to study national identities has resulted in this quasi double blind spot—​both a scarcity of French scholarship on national identity and the resulting marginality of the French case in international debates. The heated nature of of political debates partly explains why French social scientists resist looking into the issue, as governments, media, and political parties have succeeded in linking national identity issues almost exclusively with immigration policies. In line with the traditional intervention of intellectuals in public debates, researchers avoid using a notion that tends to be interpreted in essentialist terms, whatever care they may take to underline how nations and the emotions attached to them are political and social constructions. The Bourdieusian legacy has made researchers well aware of the power of categorization. It also reinforces a

 

National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    499 general tendency to give priority to the general and symbolic power of the state over the role citizens play in their own beliefs and actions. The quantitative versus qualitative divide in France is also influential, with quantitative research being associated with a kind of “international mainstream,” understood as a threat of normalization and resented by many. In this case, the new agenda is clearly a qualitative one. It suggests investigating citizens’ beliefs and everyday practices, with ethnographic observations and in-​depth interviews. That might help. Citizens’ attachments to their national political community, in France as elsewhere, no doubt remain powerful, in spite or because of globalization. The time has come now to open our eyes to this blind spot and implement the agenda of everyday nationalism research within French social sciences.

Acknowledgments Many thanks to Benn Williams and Katharine Throssell who helped to put this chapter into proper English, as well as Magali Vautelin; and to Camille Hamidi, as well as Yves Déloye, Jean Leca, and Jérôme Tournadre, for their comments on an earlier version of it and additional readings they suggested.

Notes 1. Billig (1995: 8) writes more precisely: “To have a national identity […] also involves being situated physically, legally, socially, as well as emotionally: typically, it means being situated within a homeland, which itself is situated within the world of nations. And, only if people believe that they have national identities, will such homelands, and the world of national homelands, be reproduced.” 2. For detailed reviews by French social scientists, see (Déloye, 2007; Jaffrelot, 2005a; Roger, 2001). 3. “Whereas national consciousness is a feeling and the national situation a condition, nationalism is a doctrine or (if one uses a broad definition) an ideology—​the doctrine or ideology that gives to the nation in world affairs absolute value and top priority” (Hoffmann, 1966: 868). 4. The question “do nations matter?” is in reference to Craig Calhoun’s book title (Calhoun, 2007). 5. Brubaker rightly contests Calhoun’s interpretation of his article, “Ethnicity Without Groups,” which is at the origin of the debate (Brubaker, 2002). See Brubaker’s position in the text that follows. 6. France is, unfortunately, not always part of major comparative surveys. For instance, it did not participate in the first ISSP (International Social Survey Programme) survey dedicated to national identity in 1995, but joined the second one in 2003. The long bibliography provided on the ISSP website shows that publications on the French case rarely concern national identity: most of them deal with work and religion.

 

500   Sophie Duchesne 7. Pride in being French. Source: European value surveys, French results. Year

Very proud

Rather proud

1981 2008

35 39

47 51

Not very proud 8 8

Not proud at all

Total

10 2

100 100

8. For more information, see . 9. Translated by the author. 10. His book gave rise to a series of public debates with his colleagues regarding the notion of “cultural insecurity” that Bouvet considers an explanation of voting for the Front National. Listen for instance to or read . 11. For a detailed chronology of the discussions and/​or reforms on the path to French nationality, see (accessed October 20, 2013). 12. Translated by the author. 13. “Une simple magouille électorale destinée à flatter les préjugés de la fraction la plus xénophobe de la population.” Translated by the author. 14. Translated into French as “Au-​delà de ‘l’identité’”and published under Brubaker’s name alone in the Bourdieusian review Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales (2003: 1). 15. Following Anderson, it has become obvious in social sciences to refer to the nation as an imagined community. But is a nation more a product of imagination than a social class? That is debatable. The way people in interviews tend to explain that they feel national when they are abroad suggests that this is just a question of experience. For a similar argument, see Bayart (1996: 99). 16. Translated by the author. 17. A more recent issue of another Sciences Po journal, Critique Internationale, dedicated to the diversity of contemporary patriotism, refers explicitly to everyday nationalism. Again, no article deals with France, not even the introduction (Daucé et al., 2013). 18. This political science journal—​or more precisely, social science journal—​was founded in 1987 by young researchers inspired by critical sociology and constructivist social sciences and challengers of the institutional Revue française de science politique.

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National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    501 Belot, C. (2010). “Le tournant identitaire des études consacrées aux attitudes à l’égard de l’Europe,” Politique européenne (1): 17–​44. Belot, C. and Cautrès, B. (2010). “Etre Français: force et diversité du sentiment d’appartenance nationale,” in Bréchon, P. and Galland, O. (eds) L’individualisation des valeurs sociétales. Paris: Armand Colin, 197–​212. Bertrand, R. (2005). État colonial, noblesse et nationalisme à Java: la tradition parfaite. Recherches internationales. Paris: Karthala. Billig, M. (1995). Banal Nationalism. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Billig, M. (1996). “Nationalism as an International Ideology: Imagining the Nation, Others and the World of Nations,” in Breakwell, G. M. and Lyons, E. (eds) Changing European Identities:  Social Psychological Analyses of Social Change. Oxford:  International series in social psychology; Butterworth Heinemann, 181–​94. Birnbaum, P. (ed.) (1997). Sociologie des nationalismes, first edn. Sociologies. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Bonikowski, B. (2013). “Varieties of Popular Nationalism in Modern Democracies:  An Inductive Approach to Comparative Research on Political Culture.” Weatherhead center working paper series 13-​0001. Available from:  (accessed August 5, 2013). Bourdieu, P. (1980). “L’identité et la représentation: éléments pour une réflexion critique sur l’idée de région,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 35(1): 63–​72. Bourdieu, P., Sayad, A., Lenoir, R., et al. (1999). The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). Bouvet, L. (2012). Le sens du peuple:  la Gauche, la démocratie, le populisme. Le Débat; Paris: Gallimard. Bozec, G. (2010). “L’Europe au tableau noir,” Politique européenne 1: 153–​86. Braudel, F. (2008). L’identité de la France. Paris: Flammarion. Brubaker, R. (1994). Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brubaker, R. (1998). “Myths and misconception in the study of nationalism,” in Hall, J. A. (ed.) The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 273–​306. Brubaker, R. (2002). “Ethnicity Without Groups,” Archives Européennes de sociologie 43(2): 163–​89. Brubaker, R. (2003). “Au-​ delà de l’identité,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 139(1): 66–​85. Brubaker, R. (2003). “Neither Individualisme nor ‘Groupism’:  A  Reply to Craig Calhoun,” Ethnicities 3(4): 553–​7. Brubaker, R. (2012). “Religion and Nationalism: Four Approaches,” Nations and Nationalism 18(1): 2–​20. Brubaker, R. and Cooper, F. (2000). “Beyond ‘Identity’,” Theory and Society 29(1): 1–​47. Brubaker, R., Feischmidt, M., Fox, J. E., et al. (2008). Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town. Princeton, NJ and Woodstock, Oxfordshire: Princeton University Press. Brubaker, R., Loveman, M., and Stamatov, P. (2004). “Ethnicity as Cognition,” Theory & Society 33(1): 31–​64. Bruter, M. (2003). “Winning Hearts and Minds for Europe. The Impact of News and Symbols on Civic and Cultural European Identity,” Comparative Political Studies 36(10): 1148–​79. Calhoun, C. (2003a). “‘Belonging’ in the Cosmopolitan Imaginary,” Ethnicities 3(4): 531–​53.

 

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National Identity in France: A Blind Spot    503 Dupoirier, É. (2007). “De l’usage de la Question Moreno en France,” Revue internationale de politique comparée 14(4): 531–​43. Elias, N. (2001). The Society of Individuals, Michael Schröter (ed.). New York: Continuum. Fox, J. E. and Miller-​Idriss, C. (2008). “Everyday Nationhood,” Ethnicities 8(4): 536–​63. Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and Nationalism. New Perspectives on the Past. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gensburger, S. and Lavabre, M. C. (2011). “Un point de vue sur la controverse autour de la ‘Maison de l’Histoire de France.’ La sociologie de la mémoire comme tierce position,” in Backouche, I. and Duclerc, V. (eds) Quel musée pour l’histoire de France ? Paris: Armand Colin, 89–​98. Haller, M. and Ressler, R. (2006). “National and European identity,” Revue française de sociologie 47(4): 817–​50. Hobsbawm, E. J. (1992). Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, 2nd edn. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Hoffmann, S. (1966). “Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation-​State and the Case of Western Europe,” Daedalus 95(3): 862–​915. Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2004). “Does Identity or Economic Rationality Drive Public Opinion on European Integration?” Political Science and Politics 37(3): 415–​20. Howard, J. A. (2000). “Social Psychology of Identity” The Annual Review of Psychology 26: 376–​93. Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press. Jaffrelot, C. (2005a). “For a theory of nationalism,” in Dieckhoff, A. and Jaffrelot, C. (eds) Revisiting Nationalism. Theory and Processes. CERI series in Comparative Politics and International Studies. London: Hurst and Company, 10–​61. Jaffrelot, C. (2005b). Inde, la démocratie par la caste: histoire d’une mutation socio-​politique (1885–​2005). L’espace du politique; Paris: Fayard. Jayet, C. (2012). “The Ethnic-​ Civic Dichotomy and the Explanation of National Self-​ Understanding,” European Journal of Sociology/​ Archives Européennes de Sociologie 53(1): 65–​95. Jayet, C. (2013). “État-​nation et ordre politique européen: quels dilemmes entre diversité, légitimité politique et solidarité? Essais sur les identités nationales, le nationalisme et l’intégration européenne.” Doctoral dissertation in Sociology. Paris: EHESS. Kohn, H. (1991). Idea of Nationalism: A Study in its Origins and Background. New York: Simon & Schuster. Lemieux, C. (2012). “Peut-​on ne pas être constructiviste?” Politix 100(4): 169–​87. Martigny, V. (2010a). “Le goût des nôtres:  gastronomie et sentiment national en France,” Raisons politiques 37(1): 39–​52. Martigny, V. (2010b). “Penser le nationalisme ordinaire,” Raisons politiques 37(1): 5–​15. Martigny, V. (2012). “Le nationalisme culturel français: récit national et usages politiques de la culture en France (1981–​1995).” Doctoral dissertation. Paris: Institut d’études politiques. Available from: (accessed October 19, 2013). Mayer, N. (1995). “L’entretien selon Pierre Bourdieu: analyse critique de La misère du monde,” Revue française de sociologie 355–​70. Mayer, N. (1996). “La fierté d’être Français, de l’indépendance algérienne à Maastricht,” L’année sociologique 46(1): 151–​65. Mayer, N. (1997). “Le sentiment national en France,” in Birnbaum, P. (ed.) Sociologie des nationalismes. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 273–​94.

 

504   Sophie Duchesne Mayer, N. (2013). “From Jean-​Marie to Marine Le Pen: Electoral Change on the Far Right,” Parliamentary Affairs 66(1): 160–​78. Michelat, G. and Thomas, J. P. H. (1966). Dimensions du nationalisme. Enquête par questionnaire (1962). Cahiers de la Fondation nationale des Sciences Politiques; Paris: Armand Colin. Noiriel, G. (2005). État, nation et immigration: vers une histoire du pouvoir. Paris: Gallimard. Noiriel, G. (2006). Le creuset français: histoire de l’immigration XIXe–​XXe siècle (first published 1986). Paris: Éd. du Seuil. Noiriel, G. (2007). A quoi sert ‘l’identité nationale’. Marseille: Agone. Noiriel, G. and Mauger, G. (2007). “‘L’identité nationale’ en France. Grand entretien avec Gérard Noiriel,” Savoir/​Agir 2: 79–​89. Nora, P. (1997). Les lieux de mémoire. Paris: Editions Gallimard. Reicher, S. and Hopkins, N. (2001). Self and Nation: Categorization, Contestation, and Mobilization. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Renan, E. (1988). Qu’est-​ce qu’une nation?: Ernest Renan (texte intégral): littérature et identité nationale de 1871 à 1914. Paris: Bordas. Ribert, E. (2006). Liberté, égalité, carte d’identité:  les jeunes issus de l’immigration et l’appartenance nationale. Textes à l’appui. Enquêtes de terrain. Paris: Découverte. Ribert, E. (2009). “À la recherche du ‘sentiment identitaire’ des français issus de l’immigration,” Revue française de science politique 59(3): 569–​92. Roger, A. (2001). Les grandes théories du nationalisme. Paris: Armand Colin. Schnapper, D. (1994). La communauté des citoyens: sur l’idée moderne de nation. NRF essais; Paris: Gallimard. Schnapper, D. (2002). “Citizenship and National Identity in Europe,” Nations & Nationalism 8(1): 1–​14. Simon, P. and Tiberj, V. (2012). Les registres de l’identité. Les immigrés et leurs descendants face à l’identité nationale. Documents de travail; Paris: INED. Available from:  ​ (accessed March 2, 2012). Skey, M. (2013). “Why do Nations Matter? The Struggle for Belonging and Security in an Uncertain World” British Journal of Sociology 64(1): 81–​98. Subileau, F. and Toinet, M. F. (1993). Les chemins de l’abstention: une comparaison franco-​américaine. Textes à l’appui. Paris: La Découverte. Surak, K. (2012). “Nation-​Work: A Praxeology of Making and Maintaining Nations,” European Journal of Sociology/​Archives Européennes de Sociologie 53(2): 171–​204. Thiesse, A. M. (1999). La création des identités nationales: Europe, XVIIIe–​XXe siècles. L’univers historique. Paris: Seuil. Thiesse, A. M. (2010a). Faire les Français: quelle identité nationale? Parti pris. Paris: Stock. Thiesse, A. M. (2010b). “L’Histoire de France en musée: Patrimoine collectif et stratégies politiques,” Raisons politiques 37(1): 103–​17. Throssell, K. (2010a). “One Thing Leads to Another:  European and National Identities in French School Children,” Politique européenne 30(1): 131–​52. Throssell, K. (2010b). “Un berceau bleu, blanc, rouge: le nationalisme ordinaire et l’enfance,” Raisons politiques 37(1): 27–​38. Throssell, K. (2015). Child and Nation. Brussels: Peter Lang. Weber, E. (1976). Peasants into Frenchmen:  The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–​1914. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Wodak, R., de Cillia, R., Reisigl, M., et  al. (2009). The Discursive Construction of National Identity (2nd edn, critical discourse analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

 

Pa rt  V I

P U B L IC P OL IC Y A N D P OL IC YM A K I N G

 

 

A.  The Domestic Arena

 

 

Chapter 23

F re nch Ec onomi c  P ol i c y theory development and the three “I”s Ben Clift

This chapter explores the politics of economic policy in France against the backdrop of comparative politics debates about interventionism in the economy. It considers both contemporary theoretical developments in the field and empirical developments in the French case and beyond. In the first section, we explore how the literature situates the study of economic policy within institutional and ideational context, and how interests can be brought into analysis and explanation. We also tackle the relation between national economic policy autonomy and processes of liberalization within the international economic context. Thereafter, Section 2 looks in more depth at debates about and developments in the French case, before we explore a potential road ahead for future research in the third section, and finish with a brief conclusion. An understanding of economic policy rests upon a prior conception of the nature of state–​market relations, not least because economic policy regimes within advanced capitalism rest upon extensive regulatory and market-​making activities by governments and other political actors. It is unhelpful to think of states and markets as “analytically separate realms each with its autonomous logic,” a tendency which Fred Block and Peter Evans call “state–​economy dualism” (Block and Evans, 2005: 512). This is because the idea of a tug of war between “state” on one hand and “market” on the other is a very unhelpful way to conceptualize economic policy. There is a mutual constitution of state and market, such that “the notion that markets could exist outside of state action is simply inconceivable” (Krippner and Alvarez, 2007: 233; Polanyi, 2001[1944]: 71, 205). This intertwining of the political and the economic within market-​making processes takes different forms in different societies, leading to economic policy dynamics being nationally differentiated, despite some common trends and patterns (Clift, 2014). Within this broad conception of state–​market relations, we can identify three main currents in the literature offering distinct, but often complementary, explanations of economic policy dynamics and outcomes. First, historical institutionalist analyses of economic policymaking focus on the role of state policymaking apparatus and institutional context. Second, public choice accounts hone in on the role of interests of

 

510   Ben Clift economic actors, and rent-​seeking, in shaping economic policy institutions, processes, and outcomes. Third, constructivist and ideational political economy accounts focus on the economic ideas and shared inter-​subjective understandings underpinning economic policymaking. Some see the “three ‘i’s”—​interests, ideas, and institutions—​as three separable ways to approach explaining economic policy outcomes. Such a view can lead to a naive and unhelpful interrogation as to which of the three matters more, or explains more, in a given instance. That question cannot ultimately be resolved with satisfaction since it is formidably difficult to come to firm conclusions on the interactions and relative importance of the three “i”s. Rather, the three “i”s represent different but not mutually exclusive ways to focus attention in analyzing economic policy. Insights from each of the three “i”s literatures have enhanced understandings of French economic policy, and informed its conduct—​but to different degrees, with some ebb and flow over the last 70 years. A default institutionalism, which aligned with prevailing approaches to the study of politics in France, informed analysis of French post-​war growth and the politics of economic policy that underpinned it. Ideational political economy, which from a low base began to acquire more adherents within French academe, underscored the importance of state traditions, and what Dyson has termed “the underlying importance of ideas as real phenomena and of their internalisation by domestic elites” (2000: 647), both during and after the heyday of dirigisme. Interest-​based accounts have always been more prevalent outside French political science than within it. They were mobilized at the margins to explain the shortcomings of French dirigiste economic governance, using the “capture” of certain institutions of state planning by powerful sectoral interest groups to explain sub-​optimal outcomes such as “picking losers.” The upheavals of the 1980s, among them the economic policy U-​turn of 1983, exemplified the importance of international capital mobility for understanding the politics of economic policy. Responses to the crisis of the French franc and questioning of the credibility of French economic policy revealed the explanatory purchase of ideational account—​which identified a paradigm shift in French economic policy from dirigisme to neo-​liberalism. One important element of that shift, which also finds its origins in interest-​oriented theories of economic policy—​is the increasing salience of and reliance upon economic policy rules as mechanisms to secure and sustain economic credibility amidst advancing financial globalization and European economic integration.

Explaining Economic Policy Dynamics—​Institutions, Interests, and Ideas In specifying and delineating the institutional context of economic policymaking in advanced economies, four influential studies in the historical institutionalist tradition

 

French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s    511 stand out; those by Shonfield (1969), Zysman (1983), Johnson (1982), and Hall (1986). Andrew Shonfield’s Modern Capitalism mapped the contours of national economic policymaking and systematically compared selected post-​war advanced economies (1965), analyzing what he termed “the changing balance of public and private power”—​ and the “distinctive features of the new era of capitalism” (1965: 63). Economic policies were taking on novel forms, such as full-​employment-​oriented countercyclical macroeconomic policy (otherwise known as Keynesian demand management), indicative economic planning, enhanced regulation of industry, welfare state expansion, and overall a “vastly increased influence of the public authorities on the management of the economic system” (1965: 66). Each national configuration of economic policymaking, Shonfield argued, was rooted in distinctive institutional underpinnings in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Modern Capitalism explored successful post-​ war economic growth, and its depictions became the accepted view of the economic policymaking status quo ante in later studies of these advanced capitalisms. Building on Shonfield’s foundations, John Zysman’s Governments, Markets and Growth (1983) accentuated the importance of finance for economic policy, focusing on “national financial structures” in order to understand both government economic strategies and the political conflicts that surround industrial change (1983: 7–​8). Zysman’s organizing conceptual category, the national financial system, distils the essence of the historical processes of market-​making. National financial systems in Britain, France, Japan, West Germany, and the United States each rest upon “national political settlements about economic arrangements” (Zysman 1983: 27), profoundly affected by prior institutional settings. Thus, the legislative and regulatory environment of economic policy is shaped by national histories, political cultures, and state traditions. Exemplifying this theme, Chalmers Johnson’s study of Japanese economic policymaking and political economy conceptualized the capitalist developmental state (DS). Japan’s successful economic policies, and its spectacular economic growth in the post-​war era, Johnson argued, arose out of a particular institutional configuration of state–​society relations wherein the social forces of social mobilization and nationalism were harnessed to a national economic development project, with economic policy predicated upon the state as “guiding force,” providing capitalism with the necessary direction (1982; 1995). Subsequent comparativists then applied the developmental state concept more widely, identifying different DS trajectories and histories of development in East Asian Economies (Onis, 1991; Weiss, 2004; Woo-​Cumings, 1999), in Latin America (Evans, 1995; Ban, 2013), and indeed in post-​war Europe (notably France) (Loriaux 1991; 1999; 2003). Peter Hall’s influential book Governing the Economy (1986) set out in more detail the political and social parameters of the national institutional context, notably the constraints imposed by the organization of the state and the political system and its resultant constitutional and electoral practices, as well as the socio-​economic structure of society, the structure of the working class, and the nature of the trade union movement and industrial relations system. Its comparative analysis of the politics of economic policy in France and Britain in the 1980s charted the rise of neo-​liberal economic policies, and the attenuation of government influence over the economy.

 

512   Ben Clift

Interests and Economic Policy—​Public Choice One reason for reduced governmental influence within state–​market relations is the traction gained by a different variant of economic policy scholarship, the influential “Virginia School” public choice political economy of Niskanen (1971), Buchanan (1975), and Tullock (1965; 1989). This equates political processes to market exchange, and understands economic policy as driven be self-​interested behavior. The key methodological move for public choice involves analyzing the state not in terms of overarching structures or institutional make-​up, but from the perspective of the preferences and interests of individual citizens, bureaucrats, and state actors. Driven by an instrumental, self-​interested desire to secure office, politicians produce economic policies for voters to consume, notably distributing benefits and public spending commitments to favored electoral constituencies. Thus, office-​seeking politicians’ conduct of economic policy inherently lacks fiscal prudence. Meanwhile, interest groups, be they oligopolistic business interests or powerful trade unions, seek to shape economic policy and market outcomes, extracting “rents” from government and the policy and regulatory process (Tullock, 1990; Becker, 1983; 1985). Industrial lobbies will seek to secure from the state the regulation which most suits and sustains the dominant position of a few powerful producers in the industry (Stigler, 1971). In the face of these pressures on the economic policy process, public choice advocates insulating monetary policy through independent central banks and fiscal policy through constitutionalizing balanced budget rules. Such rules are needed to secure the credibility of economic policy, and to counter the “capture” of economic policy by insider groups and the profligacy of office-​seeking politicians. The historic origins of hostility to discretionary economic policy stretches back to medieval kings, and the belief that the authorities have an incentive to generate unexpected inflation, and thus gain benefits from a depreciating currency (Haldane, 1995: 5). This thesis was not formalized until the 1970s, when, christened the “time-​inconsistency” thesis, it became hugely influential. Kydland and Prescott argued the authorities faced incentives to expand the economy in a run-​up to an election to try and get re-​ elected, with the likely effect of increasing inflation in the short run even though this would be destabilizing in the long run (1977). The policy corollary of this was to develop rules-​based policy regimes to tie irresponsible state actors to the mast of economic rectitude (Gill, 1998; Burnham, 1999; Clift and Tomlinson, 2012). The bottom line was a concern to secure “sound money” (low inflation), a preference for fiscal conservatism and reducing state spending, and a distrust of discretionary economic policymaking, especially of a Keynesian character. More generally, there was chariness regarding governmental interference in free markets, a strong preference for laissez-​faire economic policy, and a desire to limit governmental latitude to intervene. As Hindmoor put it: “rent seeking also flourished because it offered to rational choice theory a distinctive and distinctively hostile theory of the state” (2006: 162; Dunleavy and O’Leary, 1987: 43, 108). Allied to this is deep skepticism about the potential of activist macroeconomic policy to do good. Of all the approaches to economic policy, public choice has gained the

 

French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s    513 most influence in shaping the real-world institutions of economic policymaking, as the increasing prevalence of independent central banks, fiscal policy rules, and independent fiscal councils demonstrates.

Economic Ideas—​Policy Paradigms Another approach to the analysis of economic policy identifies economic ideas as crucial, notably in explaining policy change. Scholars of this approach highlight crises as key catalysts of significant change in economic policy and its institutional infrastructure. In much of this work, the state is understood not only to wield power but to “puzzle;” to seek new solutions to economic policy problems as old economic ideas seem to lose their capacity to explain events (Blyth, 2002; Heclo, 1974; Hall, 1993: 280–​1; Hay, 2001: 193–​218). Major economic crises, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the oil crisis and “stagflation” downturn in the 1970s, are identified as crucial periods pregnant with possibilities for changes in underlying economic ideas informing policy settings and policy regimes. This work foregrounds policy paradigms—​ideational structures of internally consistent and coherent understandings of the world and how it works (Kuhn, 1970; Hall, 1989; 1993; Blyth, 2002: 11; 2013; see also Carstensen, 2011a). Within a paradigm, cohesion is provided by a set of underlying assumptions leading to an approach to economic policy which all share. Analysis in terms of policy paradigms focuses attention primarily on how “normative structures restrict the set of policy ideas that political elites find acceptable” (Campbell, 1998: 378). Policy paradigms provide “cognitive templates” which explain how policymakers “become institutionally embedded in norms, conventions and standard operating procedures” (Hay, 2004: 504–​5; see also Campbell, 1998: 378, 389–​92; Hall, 1993). For example, Keynesian demand management—​manipulating monetary and fiscal policy like the sluice gates in a plumbing system to ensure stable effective demand in the economy and therefore, it was thought, full employment—​had been a prevailing economic policy norm in the 1960s and 1970s (Bleaney, 1985; Hall, 1989). Policy paradigms help us understand the limits of the possible (and the feasible) in the minds of political actors in terms of policy responses to changing conditions. In exploring the rise of neo-​liberalism in the 1970s and 1980s and the demise (as he saw it) of Keynesian economic policies, Hall accentuated the focus on the politics of economic ideas within accounts of economic policy dynamics (see also Hall, 1989; 1993). This ideational approach has proved influential, and much contemporary work on economic policy explores how what is “at play” in the rise and decline of economic policy paradigms is a contingent and to some extent open-​ended struggle between different socially and politically constructed interpretations of economic phenomena (Blyth, 2002; 2013; Clift and Tomlinson, 2008; Hall, 2013). Economic ideas and orthodoxies are contested and contestable. Equally, the economic policies and policy prescriptions which flow from these are built on socially and politically constructed interpretations of economic rectitude (Schmidt, 2008; Campbell, 2004; 2010). Thus, processes of economic

 

514   Ben Clift policy change are not subject to deterministic, inexorable logics. More broadly, an ideational focus on shared inter-​subjective beliefs reveals how economic rationality, in France and elsewhere, was socially constructed (Woll, 2008; 2010). As such, economic rationality is a variable, not an assumption (Weber, 1978; Swedberg, 1998: 36). How economic actors understand their environment shapes how economic policy is enacted, and in this way economic ideas and state traditions shape national differentiation.

International Capital Mobility and Economic Policy One of the key contributions of the political economy literature on economic policy has been to theorize the relationship between economic policy and a changing international context. Katzenstein explored the interplay of international and domestic forces in economic policy responses to crisis, highlighting the “different kinds of constraints which the world economy imposes” on different states, and their economic policies (Katzenstein, 1977: 597). Varied domestic social and political structures in the advanced industrial states conditioned their economic policymaking. National economic policy responses are contingent upon the different points of insertion into the world economy, such as their export/​import dependencies, and the relative openness and competitiveness of their economies. In the wake of the break-​up of Bretton Woods, the boundaries of national political economies, which Shonfield, Zysman, et al. had so ably delineated and categorized, were becoming more porous, ever more deeply enmeshed within globalizing finance. This presented new challenges for economic policymakers, but also for scholars analyzing how international economic policy influences are mediated, contested, and challenged within domestic political context. Previously, many of the drivers of economic policymaking had been sought primarily within domestic politics, perhaps within corporatist policymaking institutions (Schmitter, 1974), or within treasuries and state elites (Brittan, 1964). With the advent of financial globalization, the parameters of the possible were increasingly recognized as being shaped by international factors. The key role of securing credibility with financial market actors (notably bond market participants) came to be seen as centrally important for stable economic policy regimes and strategies (Mosley, 2000; 2003). Increasingly open, liberalized economies put spanners in the works of Keynesian economic policy. With ever more “leakages” in national economic systems, increased demand could suck in imports and harm the trade balance whilst not boosting domestic manufacturing, for example. Capital controls had been a crucial corollary of Keynesian demand management policy, enabling interest rates to be set with a view primarily to domestic economic policy priorities. As capital controls were lifted amidst financial liberalization, interest rates were constrained by global financial market conditions. One highly influential take on the economic policy implications of financial globalization, drawn from the subfield of international political economy (IPE), is the capital mobility hypothesis, which posits a powerful constraining effect of financial capital mobility upon macroeconomic policy (Andrews, 1994). Cohen’s “unholy trinity”

 

French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s    515 identifies the intrinsic incompatibility of exchange-​rate stability, capital mobility, and national policy autonomy (Cohen, 1993: 147). Under fixed exchange rates, capital mobility increases the efficacy of fiscal policy but eliminates monetary policy autonomy; whilst under floating rates, capital mobility renders fiscal policy ineffective, but monetary policy can be set independently (Oatley, 1999: 1007–​9). Increasing financial liberalization and deregulation facilitated capital mobility, structurally empowering investors (and particularly large financial institutions) vis-​à-​vis governments (Frieden, 1991). These empowered actors, Oatley argued “prefer low inflation and balanced budgets and rapidly shift their funds in response to macroeconomic policies that threaten to generate inflation or otherwise reduce the return on investment relative to other national markets” (Oatley, 1999:  1004). The “stringent logic” of the “unholy trinity” imposes, according to Cohen, “an increasingly stark trade-​off on policymakers” (B. Cohen, 1993: 286) which allegedly leads governments to eschew expansionary fiscal and monetary policies in favor of tight money and balanced budgets. These constraints had implications for economic policymaking, because they asymmetrically targeted the favored economic policies of the Left. The economic policy settings tailored to protect poor and vulnerable groups and redistribute wealth toward the workers in the interests of the wider national economic good which had been a conspicuous feature of the social democratic consensus (Przeworski, 1985) came under threat. Could left-​of-​center parties still pull the levers of economic policy to redistribute wealth to poorer members of society and pursue goals of full employment consistent with their aspirations for a more equal society in an ever more open and liberalized world economy? The partisan politics thesis, advanced by Garrett, argues that governments of the Left are able to “use macroeconomic policy to lessen market dislocations and to redistribute wealth and risk in the ever more globalized economy” (2000: 169; 1998). Others see globalization as hemming in, or indeed snuffing out, social democratic economic policy aspirations (Boix, 1998; Gray, 1998; Cerny, 1997). The mooted constraints on economic policy are both ideational and institutional. The institutions of global trade regulation and supranational competition authorities, especially within European integration, have changed the national and international institutional and regulatory environment of economic policy. Within this, the comparative politics literature has focused on “freer markets, more rules” (Vogel, 1996; 2005). In a context where traditional industrial policy such as subsidies and discriminatory trade or other regulation are increasingly proscribed, policymakers attempt to inscribe national preferences into international standard-​setting through acts of market-​making and market shaping (Clift and Woll, 2012; Clift, 2014). At the level of ideas, conventional wisdoms about appropriate economic policy settings were evolving with the monetarist challenge to Keynesianism (Hall, 1993). With the shift from “embedded liberalism” (Ruggie, 1982) to neo-​liberalism, there was a shift in prevailing perceptions of appropriate state–​market relations. The increasing prominence of the presuppositions of public choice had important implications for economic policy. Dominant economic orthodoxies came to be shaped by increasingly empowered financial market participants with an instinctive affinity with neo-​liberal precepts in

 

516   Ben Clift favor of balanced budgets, low taxation, and sound finance. These came to be seen as cornerstones of economic credibility. The overwhelming priority was placed on controlling inflation, even if this came at the expense of securing full employment. Concerns about deteriorating public finances combined with fiscal conservatism to create pressure for reductions in welfare spending. Whether or not the trade-​offs are as stark as capital mobility hypothesis (CMH) presents, or as the doom-​mongers within the partisan thesis debate suggest, remains disputed (Clift and Tomlinson, 2004; Oatley, 1999; Widmaier, 2004), as does the extent to which scope for progressive social democratic economic policy strategies has been eroded (Pierson, 2001). However, all agree that economic credibility, especially with financial markets, is a crucial condition of economic policymaking in open economies under conditions of capital mobility. In the contemporary period of deregulated and liberalized financial markets, national governments can adopt carefully tailored rules-​based macroeconomics policy regimes, and attain (or not breach) targets for a small number of key, often quantitative indicators. Since these goals are favored by international capital markets, the governments will achieve a general policy credibility which will deliver a significant level of policy autonomy (Mosley, 2000; 2003; Clift and Tomlinson, 2004; 2007). In short, in a world of heightened capital mobility, public choice has enjoyed increased prominence since “rules rule” for economic policymakers in pursuit of the policy credibility which is the “elusive elixir” of modern economic policymaking (King, 1995; Balls, 1998; Friedman, 1953; Clift and Tomlinson, 2012). Burnham’s account of de-politicization in the 1990s indicates a qualitative shift in economic policymaking across advanced economies, with state economic policy elites deliberately “placing at one remove the political characterisation of decision-​making,” often retaining “arms-​length control over crucial economic and social processes whilst simultaneously benefitting from the distancing effects of depoliticisation” (1999: 47–​ 8; 2001: 128–​9). This suggests state elites wilfully embracing this shift to “depoliticised rules-​based policies,” as a technique in pursuit of credibility, given the context of the liberalizing re-​regulation of international financial markets (Burnham, 1999: 45–​6; Buller and Flinders, 2005; 2006).

French Economic Policy French economic policy has been studied and contested for centuries, with great scholars such as Henri de Saint Simon and Jean-​Baptiste Say advancing particular conceptions of state–​market relations and contributing to debates about nineteenth-​century French economic policy. Then as now, there has been interplay between the study and the implementation of economic policy. Economic policy is conspicuously conflictual in France, and competing interpretations and conflicts over priorities have been at the heart of French economic policy for a long time (Denord, 2007; Hayward, 2007). The scope of this chapter covers only more recent, post-​Second World War developments.

 

French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s    517 Drawing implicitly or explicitly on institutional and ideational political economy work, studies of the Trente Glorieuses set out how particular institutions and shared sets of understandings of economic policy issues and approaches underpinned French economic policy. The picture painted by Shonfield and Zysman captured much of the essence of post-​war French economic policymaking, characterized by its discretionary nature. Certain elements were accentuated in a more specialized literature, notably the imprint of elitism at the core of the French state and the French policy process (Suleimann, 1978; Bourdieu, 1989; Maclean, 1999). Top civil servants, politicians, and bosses followed a similar educational path into the French grands corps. Loriaux identifies “the extension of the domain of competence of the Grand Corps from the problems of engineering and issues of hygiene to questions of economic policy” (1999: 257). This informal community operated as a coordinating mechanism of French economic policymaking, in part through pantouflage, or smooth passage from higher civil service to the boards of major enterprises—​public or private (Hayward, 1973: 159–​60; Hancké, 2001: 313–​14). Trained in the grandes ecoles according to étatiste and Keynesian norms, in relative isolation from developments in academic economics, this republic of civil servants (Birnbaum, 1978; see also Bourdieu, 1989) adopted a broadly Keynesian economic policy approach (Rosanvallon, 1989). Underpinned by the republican étatiste tradition (Hazareesingh, 1994, Chs. 3 and 6; Dyson, 1980, 27–​9), state intervention in economic activity in France has been predicated upon the state conceived as “guiding force,” providing capitalism with the necessary direction (E. Cohen, 1996; Schmidt, 1996; Hayward, 1973; 1997). Executive dominance under the Fifth Republic transformed French economic policymaking, with increased technical expertise and support from an expanded grand corps operating within influential ministerial cabinets (Hayward, 1973: 159–​88; Loriaux, 1999: 259–​60). French dirigisme—​a political economic tradition associated with state interventionism and the discretionary actions of political elites—​shaped the economic policy regime. The panoply of instruments, institutions, and economic policy levers geared toward microeconomic interventionism was widely credited as forging France’s “national champions” (Hall, 2001: 173–​4; see also Cohen, 1992; 1996). France’s indicative economic planning was seen as key to the Trente Glorieuses of healthy growth and improving productivity, so the country compared well with its key European competitors (Coates, 2000: 1–​20; Crafts, 1998). French prosperity and affluence was admired, and its economic policies were even to some extent emulated. An extensive literature questions how much “glorious” growth was really due to French economic policy settings, raising concerns about efficacy and coherence (see for example Hayward, 1973:  180–​7, 213–​26; Hancké, 2001:  309–​12; Guyomarch et  al., 1998: 161–​8; Loriaux, 1999: 241–​7, 251–​2; Levy, 2000: 321). Two problematic pathologies of French economic policy received particular attention. First, there was the French state’s inability to control the inflationary growth of credit, compounded by “the consensual refusal of the state, the trade unions, and the employers to control nominal changes in incomes and prices” (Cohen, 1995: 26). Thus the French economic policy regime was underpinned by what Elie Cohen terms an “inflationist social compromise” (Cohen,

 

518   Ben Clift 1995), which required periodic devaluations to sustain competitiveness. Second, the French state policy apparatus was not one and indivisible but deeply fragmented (Hayward, 1973; 2007). The dirigiste technocrats authoring economic policy were often not steering the tiller but being “captured” by sectional interests within French industry (Hayward, 1986: 13, 16, 101; Loriaux, 1999: 264–​5) along the lines highlighted by interest-​ based public choice political economy. The critical account became more compelling as the health of the French economy faltered in the 1970s. A  deteriorating trade gap suggested France’s “stretcher-​bearer state” (Cohen, 1989) was propping up lame ducks in declining sectors rather than crafting national champions to dominate the high-​value-​added industries and sectors of the future (Levy, 1999; 2000). The norms and habits of dirigisme generated expectations of interventionist economic policy, but deteriorating public finances eroded the financial and institutional capacity to shape economic policy outcomes. Problems of unemployment, inflation, and industrial restructuring began to appear intractable. It was against this uncertain backdrop that a range of tumultuous upheavals occurred at the beginning of the 1980s. First, French economic policy took a decisive dirigiste and Keynesian turn, with the so-​called “Mitterrand Experiment.” The victorious Socialist president in 1981 promised a “rupture avec le capitalisme.” A range of nationalizations, particularly of key banks, and a wide range of industrial policy interventions was accompanied by a countercyclical fiscal stimulus amidst global downturn which Hall termed ‘redistributive Keynesianism’ (1986; see also Lombard, 1995). The 1981–​83 reflation including generous welfare expansion and a minimum wage hike (Hall, 1986: 192–​226; Fonteneau and Muet, 1985) was, in hindsight, one last attempt to reinvigorate French economic policy within the ideational and institutional parameters of post-​war dirigisme. Although these policies were initiated anticipating a pickup in global economic activity, when this never materialized France turned out to be going it alone on the road to reflation. This sucked in German exports and led to a cavernous trade gap and serious balance-​of-​payments problems. Downward pressure on the franc ensued, the Bourse fell sharply, and the French state had to defend the franc against repeated speculation. The expansionary Keynesian policies—​although more modest than often supposed (Muet and Fonteneau, 1990)—​were abandoned as they became incompatible with continued membership of the European Monetary System (EMS). This was widely interpreted as the key turning point in French political economy (Halimi et al., 1994; Cameron, 1996; Levy, 2000), marking the end of France’s dirigisme, and indicating that radical programs are no longer operable in the global economy. At this point France entered political science debates about heightened capital mobility and policy autonomy as a test case, bringing home the economic policy implications of international liberalization discussed above. The “Mitterrand Experiment” and its sorry fate was interpreted as an object lesson in the economic policy constraints on advanced economies accompanying the new post-​Bretton Woods world order. This took on canonical status in the comparative economic policy literature which decisively resolved (for some) the debate about the potentialities of partisan economic policies in an increasingly liberalized, globalizing world order (Abdelal, 2007: 58–​61; Gray, 1998).

 

French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s    519 The economic policy responses to the crisis of 1983 seemed to corroborate ideational political economy claims about crisis moments as catalysts for decisive shifts in economic policy thinking. In a French variant of the paradigm change account, Jobert identified a decisive shift in a neo-​liberal direction of what he termed the referential, or economic ideas underpinning French economic policy (Jobert and Théret, 1994: 21–​86). A related ideational approach focuses on the “political sociology of policy instruments” (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007), in an instance of French scholarship chiming with and informing broader comparative debates. This reveals how the definition and interpretation of the economic policy issue at hand which the policy instrument addresses needs to be unpacked in terms of processes of “problematisation” rooted in the “construction of agreed realities” (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007: 10; Callon, 1986). Different possible policy instruments capture differently (and entail different understandings of) the qualitative nature of the policy process. Thus the “creation of a public policy instrument may serve to reveal a more profound change in public policy—​in its meaning, in its cognitive and normative framework, and in its results” (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007: 16). Examples of economic policy instruments linked to particular conceptions of policy problems and the policy process include quantitative targets or limits for particular economic categories. Public choice theory is one inspiration behind many of these, instances being cash limits on public spending, credit ceilings, and fiscal policy rules. The U-​turn of 1983 reset the parameters of French economic policymaking, jettisoning significant parts (though not all) of France’s post-​war economic policy heritage. This engendered a paradigm shift of priorities in macroeconomic policy, relegating full employment to a distant future aspiration and promoting tackling inflation to priority number one (see Lordon, 1998; Blanchard and Muet, 1993). Competitive disinflation (Lordon, 1997; 1998) or the “franc fort” achieved bi-​partisan consensus as the new economic policy paradigm. It entailed: a policy of maintaining a high value for the franc; promoting competitiveness through stable, low inflation; restructuring and adjustment achieved through market discipline; and higher unemployment. Essentially firms were obliged to contain labor or “social wage” costs. The dirigiste approach was rejected in favor of importing both Germany’s anti-​ inflationary credibility and its “ordo-​ liberal” (Dyson, 2002:  176–​ 80; Bonefeld, 2012) norms of “sound” money, and wage and budget discipline (Howarth, 2002: 147). Keynesian-​inspired economic policies were supplanted by anti-​inflationary monetary policy combined with greater fiscal conservatism. This policy mix proved successful at reducing inflation and restoring competitiveness, but singularly failed to tackle unemployment (Blanchard and Muet, 1993; Lordon, 1998). This was an exemplar of the new politics of economic policy in an integrating Europe (Clift, 2003; 2004). The ordo-​liberal ideological agenda dovetailed with domestic impetus for change amongst key “conservative liberal” administrative elites within the French State, the (increasingly empowered) Trésor and Banque de France (Dyson, 1999; 2000; Howarth, 2001; 2002). Whilst France’s version of neo-​liberal economic policy orthodoxy, the pensée unique (Fitoussi, 1995), did not gain significant traction in international debates, its practical impact was much greater, with key exponents such as Michel Camdessus and Jean-​Claude Trichet

 

520   Ben Clift occupying top positions in key institutions like the IMF and the ECB in the 1990s and 2000s. Microeconomic policy reform was also moving in a neo-​liberal direction, prioritizing deregulation (and creation) of French securities, futures, and foreign exchange markets (Cerny, 1989). This heralded a further significant evolution in French economic policy, since this domestic and international financial liberalization rendered the old dirigiste credit rationing approach to monetary policy (encadrement du credit) increasingly unworkable (E. Cohen, 1996: 351). This culminated in the monetary policymaking system being overhauled, adopting open market operations, and Banque de France manipulation of interest rates as a means of controlling the money supply. Central Bank independence in 1993, integral to preparation for European Monetary Union, saw the culmination to the transformation of the institutions of French economic policy, securing credibility according to the precepts of interest-​based political economy. The funds available for “picking winners” were eroding, and the microeconomic interventionism of the once muscular Commissariat du Plan was receding in importance. A much more hands-​off, market-​conforming as opposed to market-​directing approach characterized French economic policy interventions (Levy, 1999; 2006; Tiberghien, 2007). Emblematic of the shift in French economic policy was the flagship privatization program of the mid-1980s. Public corporations were permitted to trade shares with the private sector, facilitating the intermixing of public and private share ownership (Schmidt, 1996: 187). Further privatizations ensued under governments of Right and Left. The need to fund social programs despite budgetary retrenchment provided the rationale for many privatizations. Indeed, the Jospin government (1997–​2002) privatized more state assets than all previous conservative governments put together. Thus, not only was the discretionary character of French economic policy being attenuated, but balance between public and private within France’s mixed economy was shifting decisively in favor of the latter. The state’s residual dirigiste role vis-​à-​vis the privatized firms, whilst still affirmed, became more circumscribed and market oriented (Schmidt, 1999: 446). In some quarters, these kinds of developments were seen as emulation of Anglo-​ Saxon approaches to economic policymaking, an erosion of “French exceptionalism,” or even convergence upon liberal market economy norms (Culpepper, 2005; 2006; Hall, 2006). Meanwhile, others saw these neo-​liberalizing reforms as too little too late to address problems of French economic decline (Smith, 2004). Within French academe the declinist debates (see Bavarez, 2003) have not gained the traction or spawned the cottage industry equivalent to the British decline debates from the 1960s onwards (see English and Kenny, 2000 for an overview). Indeed, the study of economic policy has been something of a quiet backwater in recent years within French political science, crowded out, perhaps, by the stronger tradition of applied economics in France compared to other academic specialisms, as exemplified by scholars such as Bruno Amable (2003), Jean-​Paul Fitoussi (1995), and the work of the Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (OFCE).

 

French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s    521 The three “I”s have all enriched understandings of French economic policy. Elitism and dirigisme reproduced a particular world view which has informed economic policymaking. In facing up to the dilemmas of increasing international capital mobility and the European attempts to secure credibility, French economic policy became more rules-​based. This shift owes some debt to public choice, as well as to the ordo-​liberal policy paradigm. Yet the policy legacies and pathologies identified by institutional accounts did not all evaporate. In the next section we explore how best to characterize contemporary French economic policy evolutions.

French Economic Policy and Post-​Dirigisme In France as elsewhere, economic policymaking has faced new challenges as a result of the global financial crisis. In this section we set out some of the big questions facing the study of French economic policy, which include calls to reduce size and scope of the French state given the state of French public finances, and the exigencies of post-​ crash European agreements. Alongside these we consider how French economic policy addresses high structural unemployment and low growth—​perhaps even “secular stagnation.” The discussion sets out how insights from the three “I”s can inform the analysis of some of those questions. The crisis has revealed once again how economic policy practice and outcomes are shaped by diverse national traditions of economic thought which leave their footprints on the “ideas, concepts and embedded forms of knowledge that have characterized understandings of national economies” (Rosamond, 2002: 162; see also Campbell, 1998: 378–​82; 2004: 69–​72, 81–​9; Hall, 1989). Different ideational and historical legacies of state economy relations can provide more or less conducive environments for particular forms of economic policy practice. Such an ideationally attuned analysis of economic policy sets out on a different path from most interest-​based accounts, avoiding what Schmidt terms the “inevitability” of rational choice and the “inexorability” of historical institutionalist analysis (2009: 540; see also Campbell, 2004: 71). In France, the dirigiste policy traditions continue, but the conditions of possibility for the pursuit of dirigisme no longer prevail. Therefore, here we make the case for post-​dirigisme as a framework for understanding the economic policymaking process in France. Building on the insights of institutional and ideational political economy, the making of economic policy needs to be analyzed in socially embedded terms (Woll, 2008: 10) wherein “economic action takes places within social contexts and is mediated by institutional settings,” and “socially embedded institutions produce a nationally specific logic of action” (Jackson and Deeg, 2008: 683). Campbell refers to “cognitive background assumptions” which, he argues, “constrain decision making and institutional change by limiting the range of alternatives that decision-​making elites are likely

 

522   Ben Clift to perceive” (Campbell, 2004: 94; 1998: 384–​92). In similar vein, O’Sullivan’s analysis of “acting out change” within evolving French finance focuses on “the users of the financial system” who “play a crucial role in enacting the rules” (O’Sullivan, 2007: 394). Weberian notions of verstehen can help us understand how French economic policy ideas “ ‘make sense’ within a particular ideational setting” (Schmidt, 2008: 313). A market-​oriented dominant economic policy orthodoxy has been sedimented into very different ideational settings across the advanced economies, affecting policymakers from very varied backgrounds, in different geographical locations, and with diverse ideological predispositions. How the economy on one hand, and the market on the other, are understood in France is distinctive (Fourcade, 2009; Denord, 2007; Schmidt, 2008; Woll, 2008, 2010). This distinctiveness gives rise to different understandings of economic policy priorities, and mechanisms for their pursuit. Thus economic policymaking in France needs to be analyzed against a background of the ideational particularities of the French dirigiste market, embedded in a social order of elitist oligarchic networks, spanning the public and private sectors. The reproduction of these influential ideational forms can in turn be explained by processes of socialization of close-​knit French elites, notably within grandes écoles. These are produced by and steeped in French dirigiste state traditions. They shape the way French elites understand the economy and the place and role of the state within it. Campbell has developed two useful concepts, “translation” and “bricolage,” for analyzing changing economic policy dynamics in a manner sensitive to these ideational particularities. Translation involves “the combination of locally available principles and practices with new ones originating elsewhere,” whereas bricolage is a process “whereby actors recombine locally available institutional principles and practices in ways that yield […] path-​dependent evolutionary change” (Campbell, 2004: 65). Campbell argues that actors “craft new institutional solutions” through recombinative bricolage “whereby new institutions differ from but resemble old ones” (2004: 69). This focus on creative processes serves to “infuse our understanding of path dependence with a greater sense of agency” (2004: 71). These are, after all political choices about economic policy and its conduct, and certain recombinations win out over alternative possibilities. In the wake of the reconstitution, internationalization, liberalization, and growth of French capital and especially bond markets in the 1980s, and through the process of European economic integration, the scope, scale, and degree of possible economic policy discretion is circumscribed (Clift, 2012). Recognition of this is at the heart of post-​dirigiste (Levy, 1999; Clift, 2012)  economic policy, and accounts for the significant qualitative differences from French economic policy of the post-​war era described above. Whilst the mechanisms of economic policy intervention have been to some extent dismantled since the 1980s, the expectation of directive economic policy endures in many quarters (Levy, 1999: 235), not least amongst the policy elites themselves. The anticipation is that the political economy of the dirigiste market will still prevail, despite the fact that conditions of post-​dirigisme make the full realization of this dirigiste conception of the market considerably less straightforward. The condition of post-​dirigisme

 

French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s    523 entails the quest for new forms of economic policy intervention, seeking to guide French capitalism and exert influence by new means and old. French post-​dirigiste economic policy is more constrained and rule-​bound than in the discretionary dirigiste heyday. This is in part because public choice proposed responses to credibility problems posed by international capital mobility, and these have taken root at the national and EU levels to provide yardsticks for economic policy conduct and evaluation. Yet the oligarchic, elitist, and networked character of French capitalism endures. As in the case of the recent bank bail-​outs (Jabko and Massoc, 2012; Clift, 2012; Howarth, 2013), there are often still a small number of key players involved in shaping French economic policy, within the Elysée, Matignon, and Bercy, and they tend to share close personal ties, forged at France’s grandes écoles. The prevailing comfort with markets dominated by a few “national champions” wielding significant market power underpinning aspects of French economic policy endures. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the IMF, rooted in a different conception of what “the market” should look like, have used the crisis to renew perennial entreaties for further and more deep-​seated liberalization of product and services markets to tackle French productivity and growth shortfalls and boost economic competitiveness. The at best halting progress across many sectors, and the enduring presence of many highly regulated markets, reveals the footprints of post-​dirigiste approaches to economic policy in France, and France’s underlying conception of the market. An enduring puzzle and question facing the study of economic policy in France is whether the post-​dirigiste character of French economic policymaking is compatible with the increasingly rules-​bound condition of twenty-​first-​century economic governance. How far will a deepening post-​eurozone crisis process of European economic integration, with more muscular and intrusive governance mechanisms, transform economic policy practice? This rules-​bound condition of economic policy is a broader comparative phenomenon, but the French case is particularly revealing because of its long association with dirigisme. Fiscal rules are increasingly integral to politics of fiscal rectitude in France, so how will dirigiste state traditions adapt to a European economic policy architecture which increasingly seeks to circumscribe the autonomy of elected politicians and finance ministries? European economic policy has been progressively more circumscribed since the 1986 Single European Act scaled up the European integration process founded on anti-trust and competition rules. Economic rules regimes bear the footprints of the economic policy ideas which inform their creation, in this case an ordo-​liberal vision of a rules-​based competitive market order (Bonefeld, 2012; Dyson, 2002) also aligned with precepts of the Virginia School of political economy. As European economic integration deepened, this German-​inspired vision of sound economic policy gained ground within the macroeconomic policy framework accompanying the advent of the euro. It shaped the myopically anti-​inflationary constitutional remit of the European Central Bank, and the fiscally conservative and anti-​Keynesian bias at the heart of the SGP (Stability and Growth Pact) (Dyson and Featherstone, 1999).

 

524   Ben Clift Such an ordo-​liberal conception of economic policy presents dilemmas of adaptation for French economic policymakers. However, on closer inspection, belying somewhat the dirigiste reputation of French economic policymaking, rules have been gaining traction within the making of French economic policy since the 1980s. Although not, until recently, a feature of high politics in France, under the radar rules have becoming increasingly important. Hitherto, France’s five-​year plans had been at best loosely tied to budgetary practices. During the 1990s and 2000s, this began to change. As the political sociology of policy instruments approach suggests, the introduction of new instruments reflects re-​conceptualization of the economic policy process, identifying rising public spending as an inherent problem requiring redress. The Maastricht convergence criteria induced attempts to steer French economic policy onto the unfamiliar path of medium-​term fiscal consolidation to get debt and deficit levels within the prescribed limits. Using the policy instrument of quantitative medium-​term objectives, French governments attempted to adjust economic policy settings to curtail spending. Inspired in part by public choice, increasing emphasis on rules-​based macroeconomic policymaking and rules-​based governance of the public finances was first introduced in a 1994 five-​year Guidance Law on Public Finance Control (see Martin et al., 2011: 8–​12). The rules regime then extended to other areas as French authorities sought to gain tighter control of economic policy levers associated with public spending. In 2001, the fiscal responsibility law enacted by the French parliament, the Loi organique relative aux lois des finances (LOLF) continued the path toward a more performance-​based new public management approach to budgetary politics in France, with increased oversight of parliament (see e.g. Cole, 2008). It forged a clearer link between medium-​term planning and short-​term fiscal policymaking (Martin et al., 2011: 14). In 2008, the Constitution was amended, inserting a commitment to budget balance in Article 34 (Camdessus and Guidée, 2010: 38). At the same time, the programming laws requiring the definition of three-​year plans for public finances were introduced, seeking to prohibit current general government spending from rising in volume year over year, and included the stated objective of a balance in the public budget. Thus public choice-​inspired approaches to rules have been gaining in traction and import within French economic policy, and there has been an incremental process of change, which may amount to something transformative (a mode of change much in favor in comparative debates—​see e.g. Streeck and Thelen, 2005; Carstensen, 2011a; 2011b). The policy dynamics identified in analysis of “depoliticisation” (Burnham, 1999) have increasing pertinence for the study of French economic policy, with governments in pursuit of credibility adopting rules-​based fiscal frameworks to restrain important aspects of economic policymaking. Yet the constraining effect of fiscal rules on economic policy discretion has until this point been questionable. Coexisting as they do with dirigiste policy reflexes, fiscal rules have often been observed in the breach. As Mathieu and Sterdyniak point out, “in times of crisis, multiannual guidelines rapidly lose any influence […]. This was the case in 2002 and 2009” (Mathieu and Sterdyniak, 2013: 209).

 

French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s    525 There was always scope within fiscal rules regimes introduced in the 1990s and 2000s for interpretive flexibility in application. Governments of left and right in the 2000s, prioritizing discretionary over rules-​based economic policy, overstepped SGP debt and deficit targets, and domestic undertakings on budget balance, in order to fund favored economic policies (Clift, 2006; Howarth, 2007). In this light, the 2012 Loi de programmation des finances publiques (LPFP), with its five-​year budgetary programming framework, and the advent of France’s new independent fiscal council, the Haut Conseil des Finances Publiques (HCFP), are but the culmination of a long process, building on the 1994, 2001, and 2008 laws and the 2008 constitutional change. However, they also represent a qualitative change in the binding character of French economic policy rules. They constitute the realization of the ambitions for pensée unique advocate and former IMF managing Director Michel Camdessus, whose fiscal consolidation commission sought “to join the missing links in the existing rules framework, by designing a comprehensive rule that would bind policymakers to medium-​term objectives and provide operational tools to undertake the required fiscal adjustment,” through “a mandatory multi-​year framework for budget programming, which would bind future yearly budget acts by setting milestones those budgets would have to meet to reach eventual fiscal adjustment” (Camdessus and Guidée, 2010: 38). The LPFP realizes that goal in transposing the EU Fiscal Compact into French law (IMF, 2012: 18). It is a much more binding constraint than the previous iteration of the SGP, with more automaticity of Excessive Deficit Procedure initiation. States in excess of a structural deficit norm of 0.5 percent are required to enter so-​called Economic Partnership Programs (EPPs) with the EU, covering both macroeconomic and “structural” policy, to eliminate the excessive deficit. Crucially, the EPPs are encoded in EU law, and take precedence over domestic law via EU legal norms of direct effect, supremacy, and state liability. Hence, should member states breach the terms of their EPP, action can be brought against them by the European Commission, or any other member state, in the European Court of Justice. The reasons why such a draconian regime was not only assented to but actively campaigned for by Sarkozy in alliance with Merkel relates to economic policy credibility in the context of international capital mobility issues central to comparative economic policy debates. Within monetary union, there has long been a concern that individual national governments would face looser constraints, potentially leading to spill-​over effects from national policies to the wider eurozone. To limit “bad behavior” by national governments the EU adopted the SGP’s legally enforceable constraints on fiscal policies of individual governments, and legislated the “no bail-​out” rule, so that financial institutions lending to individual governments would not be misled into believing that such lending would be guaranteed by the Union as a whole. The public choice logic of constraining (potentially profligate) politicians clearly underpins the regime, geared as it is to prevent fiscal indiscipline. As the eurozone crisis deepened between 2010 and 2012, and affected larger economies such as Spain and Italy, these measures on their own proved insufficient, and concerns about fiscal sustainability began to eat away at the credibility of the eurozone as a whole.

 

526   Ben Clift French Economic policy thus became increasingly bound up with the politics of eurozone fiscal rectitude. Market credibility concerns and rising borrowing costs on French debt gave greater salience and traction to fiscal rules advocates within economic policy reform debates. Uncertainty surrounding France’s banking sector, and its exposure to eurozone periphery economies generated fears of France being drawn further into the crisis. From 2010, French economic policy settings had been locked onto harsh fiscal consolidation in an attempt to retain France’s AAA bond rating, a struggle the French government eventually lost in January 2012. These market concerns receded, and, despite losing AAA status, French borrowing costs dropped steadily from mid-2011, aided later by ECB Chief Mario Draghi assuring markets that his institution would do whatever it took to secure the future of the euro. Nevertheless, the limits of what was possible for French economic policy remained tightly constrained. The politics of economic policy ideas plays out on the terrain of rules regimes which bear the imprint of different understandings of the role, scope, and limits of economic policy. Given their significance and their binding character, a lively debate surrounds the merits, demerits, and intellectual underpinnings of the Fiscal Compact, the HCFP, and the LPFP (see e.g. Mathieu and Sterdyniak, 2013). Following the eruption of the GFC (global financial crisis) there had been a brief flirtation with Keynesian economic ideas, as reflected in the fiscal stimulus of 2008–​9—​pursued internationally with France and Sarkozy vocally in the vanguard. Yet Keynesianism’s moment in the sun was brief (Blyth, 2013). By mid-2010 and the Toronto G20, “growth-​friendly fiscal consolidation” were the new watchwords. In Europe, a Germany never fully convinced by the merits of expansionary Keynesianism shifted to austerity. The conception “appropriate” or “sound” economic policy in Germany, and in Brussels in the post-​crisis period, took on a distinctive character (Clift and Ryner, 2014). These new fetters would constrain economic policy more than anything experienced in the 1990s or 2000s. Within the Fiscal Compact, austerity elements predominate, and Hollande’s 2012 hopes to renegotiate the European Treaties and infuse them with more fiscal activism in support of growth foundered (Clift, 2013), lacking support from European partners, the European Commission, and the ECB. Whilst the eurozone crisis may subside in significance for French economic policy debates, it has transformed French economic policy through the Fiscal Compact. That said, within the new Fiscal Compact, the adoption of new policy instruments—​ structural balance and structural deficit targets—​is significant. It entails a particular conception of economic policy incorporating a greater recognition (compared to the SGP) of the problems of procyclicality associated with nominal budget rules. This opens the door to the possibility of countercyclical fiscal policy. Indeed, the search for economic policy autonomy—​that familiar dirigiste policy reflex—​now finds expression in some arcane and unlikely places. The focus on structural, as opposed to cyclical, components of budget deficits within the new EU and national frameworks means that how potential growth rates and output gaps are defined is now of first-​order political significance. Each has major implications for the conduct of macroeconomic policy and acceptable fiscal policy settings.

 

French Economic Policy: Theory Development and the Three “I”s    527 Using structural deficit targets removes the cyclical element of the deficit or surplus from the calculation. This is not straightforward, and is predicated on contestable assumptions and measurement techniques relating potential growth and the output gap. To illustrate the point, a July 2012 OFCE study analyzed the tendential growth rate of the French economy 2003–​7, and estimated the output gap, by 2012, at 8 percent. In this scenario, much of France’s budget deficit is cyclical, rather than structural. The assessment contrasted with an OECD assessment which posits a gap of only 2.5 percent (assuming a lower tendential French growth rate), and in this assessment the majority of France’s budget deficit can be considered structural (Heyer, Plane, and Timbeau, 2012: 5; see also Heyer, Cochard et al., 2012: 117–​18). These differences are significant, because different degrees of fiscal space (or requirements for further fiscal effort) ensue from each scenario. Fiscal policy would need to be most restrictive under an OECD calculation; much less so according to the OFCE. At the policy level, this debate is conducted between economic policy technicians within finance ministries, or within the European Commission’s output gap working group. It is little followed by academics or commentators, let alone the informed public. Yet the character and potentialities of economic policy are shaped, perhaps determined, by the upshot of these deliberations. The output gap and structural balance calculation—​ whilst apparently technical—​is very significant in its policy implications. The French government has retained its own assessment of the structural balance (at the epicenter of the new rules regime), relying on its on finance Ministry rather than the European authorities. Thus economic policy room to maneuver is expressed through rejecting the EC calculation and metric in favor of Bercy’s own assessments. This illustrates eloquently the condition of post-​dirigiste French economic policymaking, and the tightly constrained limits of the possible—​provided by a ramped up eurozone economic policy architecture.

Conclusion France’s post-​war economic policymaking practices grew in part out of a state apparatus and a set of institutional structures designed to facilitate indicative economic planning and microeconomic intervention. Institutionalist accounts enriched our understandings of how these worked, and also how French economic governance has been transformed in recent decades. Ideational political economy underscored the causal and constitutive role of ideas in explaining economic policy outcomes, and how the post-​ war economic policymaking architecture was reinforced by state traditions of dirigisme. This is one illustration of what Dyson has termed “the underlying importance of ideas as real phenomena and of their internalisation by domestic elites” (2000: 647). The understandings of the economy and policy held by economic actors shape how economic policy is enacted. Heightened international capital mobility and the break-​up of Bretton Woods intensified the dilemmas and constraints which sustaining credibility imposed upon French

 

528   Ben Clift economic policy. In an episode which garnered widespread attention in the international literature, French economic policy underwent a dramatic shift in the early 1980s. In the wake of international liberalization, capital market deregulation, and deepening European economic integration, French economic policymaking became more rules-​ based. The policy instruments developed to institute a more rules-​bound approach owed a debt both to German ordo-​liberal state traditions but also to Virginia School public choice political economy. “New public management” has transformed French approaches to state reform, whilst increasingly binding medium-​term rules have overhauled the management of public finances; shifts understood by ideational scholars as changes in paradigm or réferentiel. It is important to underline that what is “at play” in French economic policy transformations in the face of international crises and pressures, and shifts in economic policy paradigms are a contingent and to some extent open-​ended struggle between different socially and politically constructed interpretations of economic policy logics and outcomes which are always contestable. Processes of paradigm change are not subject to deterministic, inexorable logics. Equally, the economic policies and policy prescriptions which flow from these are built on socially and politically constructed interpretations of economic rectitude. In the French and European cases, the anti-​inflationary and fiscally conservative principles of German ordo-​liberalismshaped understandings of economic policy rectitude from the 1980s onwards, and this became especially pronounced in the wake of the European sovereign debt crisis. These ideational and institutional transformations constitute the condition of post-​ dirigisme for French economic policy, where elite ambitions to mould economic policy and steer the French economy remain, but the purchase over economic outcomes is significantly reduced. This tension is exacerbated by the creeping influence of rules-​based policymaking which has coexisted (and conflicted) with dirigiste practices and aspirations, as exemplified in the new rules adopting in transposing the EU Fiscal Compact. The kinds of economic policy practice these rules proscribe and permit, and the trajectory for the public finances they inscribe into law, mean that the reach of French post-​ dirigiste economic policy exceeds its grasp.

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Chapter 24

E nvironmenta l a nd E nergy P olicy i n Fra nc e a critical case for comparative political research? Charlotte Halpern

This chapter examines why and how the study of environmental and energy policy (EEP) in France has long been considered a critical case for comparative policy research. It argues this is partly due to the nature of EEP itself, which poses specific analytic challenges to the comparative research literature beyond the French context (Carter, 2007). Understood in a broad perspective, the study of EEP refers to all public interventions that address, sometimes in relationship with non-​state actors, an ever-​increasing number of issues that are considered as problematic for the state of natural resources, such as ensuring sufficient provision and distribution of energy supply, managing ecological resources (water, soil, etc.), and monitoring the level of environmental protection. EEP study poses various issues of scale in space (from the local to the global), in time (from short-​to long-​term, that is geological, time), and in policy analysis (from the micro to the macro) (Dobson, 2007). It is now recognized as a policy area worthy of study in its own right, and as a dynamic academic field. By contrast, EEP in France long held—​and to a large extent, still holds—​an ambivalent position, both as a case study in comparison with other Western democracies (Bess, 2003) and as a field of study in French policy studies (Lascoumes, 2008). In this chapter, two main arguments are brought forward in order to account for this. First, the emergence of EEP study in the French context is closely related to this policy’s origins and long-​held strong relationships with the ecology movement. It mainly developed in an applied perspective and was understood as a contribution from higher civil servants to supporting the claims of the ecology movement for additional policy resources and developments (Kalaora and Vlassopoulos, 2014; Barré et al., 2015). Second, EEP in France long constituted a challenge for both comparative political research (Hayes, 2002) and for classic models about the functioning of the state and policymaking in France (Muller, 2013). While the former often considered EEP in France as a deviant

 

536   Charlotte Halpern or an outlier case, the latter long characterized it as a case of failed institutionalization. Indeed, the proliferation of non-​state actors, the poor ability of state authorities to effectively structure activities and groups, and the structural role of conflicts contributed to institutional instability (Lascoumes, 1994). This partly explains the lack of comprehensive work on this policy domain in France (Larrue, 2000; Lascoumes, 2012), most of which, until very recently, was produced abroad (Szarka, 2001; Hayes, 2002; Bess, 2003). Finally, this chapter examines if and why such analysis of EEP in France still holds, and considers the recent development of alternative conceptual and analytic frameworks. It argues that cross-​sectoral and cross-​country comparative policy research should, in the future, contribute to re-​examining EEP study in and about France. The chapter is structured as follows. Section 1 examines why and how EEP was long considered as a critical case for comparative research literature. Section 2 explores in more detail how this may still apply to EEP study in France. This is achieved, first, by highlighting its close relationship with various forms of environmentalism; and, second, there is a more detailed discussion of the contribution of EEP study to the development of alternative models of policymaking in France, focusing on debates about policy institutionalization and change. Finally, Section 3 identifies remaining gaps in the scholarly research and the ways in which these gaps may be filled, and a short conclusion completes the chapter.

The Study of EEP: A Challenge for Comparative Policy Research This section briefly examines why EEP research constitutes a major challenge to policy-​ makers and analysts from a substantive and an analytic perspective (Bell, 2013). It first shows how EEP research developed as a response to environmental mobilizations from the local to the global. Second, it discusses the way in which EEP research progressively emerged as an area of study in its own rights. Third, it considers the development of theoretical literature about EEP in spite of remaining empirical and conceptual challenges.

Literature as a Response to the Development of Environmental Mobilizations The origins of EEP research are closely related to the emergence of environmental issues onto the international agenda in the late 1960s (Dalton et al., 2003; Rootes, 2004). Following Hardin’s much discussed essay on The Tragedy of the Commons (1968), whether or not EE resources were to be considered—​or not, or partly—​as public goods has been a hotly debated topic (Ostrom, 1990). As with most finite resources, the benefits to be expected from increased regulation of natural resources are often concentrated in

 

Environmental And Energy Policy In France    537 a few producers’ hands while the costs are widely spread. Access to and the management of natural resources raises major issues of national strategic interest as well as specific distributional issues across social groups and space (Baumol et al., 1995). These debates also raised issues about environmental justice and equal access to natural resources worldwide, and, in the case of non-​renewable resources (e.g., fossil fuels, minerals and metals, etc.), about intergenerational equity (Dryzek et al., 2011). This continued debate among economists, policymakers, and environmental activists justified active mobilizations from the 1960s onwards regarding optimal resource management strategies, and degrees of adaptability to economic cycles. Whether or not a natural resource is defined as a public good also holds strong regulatory implications in relationship with the role of the state, that is, degrees and forms of involvement in regulating resources that had been unevenly regulated until then (Nahrath and Varone, 2014). It is strongly related to problem-​setting dynamics (Peters and Hoornbeck, 2005). Such concerns about EE issues fostered the development of a dynamic area of policy expertise and research worldwide, in which the borders between the study for and of policies are often blurred. Social scientists from various academic backgrounds have also contributed to these debates, thus accelerating the emergence of environmental studies as an interdisciplinary field of research (Kamieniecki and Kraft, 2012). Its development seeks two main objectives: first, examining whether or not EEP should be recognized as a policy area worthy of study in its own right; and second, highlighting the challenges these policy areas posed for existing conceptual frameworks. These will be examined successively in the following paragraphs.

Is EEP a Policy Area Worthy of Study in its Own Rights? Addressing the problem of (environmental and energy) policy problems (Peters and Hoornbeck, 2005) poses, as stated, various issues of scale in space (from the local to the global), in time (from short-​to long-​term, that is geologic, time) and in policy analysis (from the micro to the macro). Indeed, the main challenge for public policy research is to conceptualize the development of a policy domain that is traditionally characterized by a low level of political regulation; that is, the political capacity to actively regulate activities and groups is systematically challenged by various types of interest groups, social behaviors and practices, institutions, and, more importantly, by the very nature of the problems at stake. Indeed, it would be more accurate to refer to EE policies; that is, successive generations of policy objectives and approaches that sought to address environmental issues understood successively as nature conservation and the management of ecological resources (water, air, soil, etc.), the sustainable development agenda, and ecological modernization (Carter, 2007). More fundamentally, the growing salience of EE issues potentially shapes the framing of all policy problems and challenges relationships between states, markets, and societies at all levels of governance (Bell, 2013; Bourg and Fragnière, 2014). At the policy level, it raises specific issues of coordination and justifies major innovations in governance (Smith et al., 2010).

 

538   Charlotte Halpern Together, this accounts for EEP’s ambivalent position within political science research. To be sure, it is recognized as an undisputed field of study for political science research, as demonstrated by the growing number of specialized journals (e.g. Environmental politics; Global environmental politics; Energy policy), book series and handbooks (e.g. Carter, 2007; Dryzek et al., 2011), EEP research institutes in a number of universities, and permanent research groups within political studies associations worldwide. Yet it is often found wanting in its attempts at further theorizing its results and developing robust hypotheses for comparative public policy research. Insofar as it posed specific analytic challenges, it was often included as an outlier case in research designs that questioned the robustness of existing or alternative conceptual frameworks. As they highlighted the specificities of EEP vis-​à-​vis other so-​called “traditional” areas of public intervention, these authors further added to the belief that analyzing EEP required the development of specific conceptual frameworks. Much attention was devoted to examining processes and forms of policy change, as well as institutionalization dynamics and the constant search for innovative policy tools (Jordan and Lenschow, 2008). EEP also offered unparalleled opportunities to question the relationship between politics (e.g. public opinion, political participation, electoral turnout) and policies (agenda-​setting and decision-​making) (Downs, 1972; Dunlap, 2001). Furthermore, the nature of the problems at stake always justified the need for interdisciplinary research both within and outside social sciences (Dryzek et al., 2011; Dunlap and Brulle, 2015). From the earliest stage on, EEP research reached far beyond the scope of political research in order to discuss and adapt concepts, hypotheses, and methods from a wide range of other fields of scholarly work (international relations, economic theory, philosophy, biology, engineering, science and technology studies (STS), etc.). Indeed, comparative policy research is considered as one dimension of environmental studies or earth sciences understood as an interdisciplinary academic field, which systematically studies human interaction with the environment in the interest of solving complex—​or wicked—​problems. This also justified the creation of specialized publications and research institutes that were interdisciplinary and/​or policy-​oriented and contributed to maintaining strong relationships between policy and research. EEP study is a dynamic and blooming area of policy expertise and research, where borders between the two areas intertwine.

Coping with the Challenges Posed by EEP Study: The Development of Theoretical Literature In this context, the development of theoretical literature about EEP mainly sought to overcome the challenges posed by EEP research. It first aimed at characterizing EEP by mapping out its evolution over time, main actors, policy resources, and forms of

 

Environmental And Energy Policy In France    539 governance in various political contexts.1 It discussed why and how EEP had become an area of public intervention, from the local to the global level. Much attention was devoted to explaining this policy’s origins by highlighting such similarities across Western democracies (Kamieniecki and Kraft, 2012), as the emergence of a new generation of non-​governmental organizations (NGOs) (Princen and Finger, 1994; Dalton et al., 2003) and claims for more deliberative forms of knowledge and policymaking (Fischer, 2003). The literature discussed the respective weight of external and domestic triggers in shaping policy developments, as well as this policy’s impacts in terms of both policy results and outcomes (Sabatier and Jenkins-​Smith, 1993). It systematically identified major driving forces, contentious issues, and resistances that would account for the transformative role of EEP (Young, 2002; Haas, 2008). Finally, it identified two major features of EEP: chronic instability and the constant search for innovation (Busch and Jörgens, 2005; Smith et al., 2010). From a more general perspective, scholarly research about EEP also contributed to three major theoretical debates in comparative policy research. First, it examined, sometimes in cooperation with International Relations Theory, why and how EEP fostered original forms of collective action and cooperation within and outside the state apparatus (Cashore, 2002; Young, 2010). Specific attention was devoted to assessing the role of ideas, norms, and beliefs in shaping transnational policy dynamics. It contributed to challenging state-​centered approaches to policymaking by identifying the pivotal role of multi-​level policies and governance in shaping domestic policy change (Sabatier and Jenkins-​Smith, 1993; Young, 1996). It explored the relationship between various types of networks (e.g. global networks, policy communities), processes of horizontal policy transfer and diffusion, and processes of policy change across levels of government (Haas, 2002). It demonstrated the critical role of a large range of non-​state actors such as NGOs, think tanks, business organizations, universities, and research organizations in shaping policy developments. Second, the focus on conflict and contentious politics explains why EEP study directly contributed to wider debates about institutionalization and de-​institutionalization processes (Fligstein and McAdam, 2012). Whereas social movement theory focalizes on contentious politics, EEP research examined the extent to which conflicts shaped logics of policy resource accumulation and the restructuring of forms of interests’ representation and mobilization and state–​market relationships. Often described as a paradigmatic case of failed institutionalization, EEP offered a unique opportunity to explore incessant processes of problem (re)framing, the blurring of frontiers between policy insiders versus outsiders, and the restructuring of forms of policy expertise (Dupuy and Halpern, 2009). Insofar as it preceded a shift from government to governance that was observed in political research (Kooiman, 1993), EEP scholarly work was soon considered a source of inspiration for those authors wishing to account for wider dynamics of state and policy restructuring. Third, findings from EEP research directly fed into larger debates on national policy styles (Richardson, 1982), which sought to explain cross-​national and -​sectoral variations

 

540   Charlotte Halpern in the evolving relationships between governments and interest groups. It also shed new light upon the growing shift from a vertical and a hierarchical approach to policymaking toward a more integrated and hands-​off approach (Lenschow, 2002). By focusing from an early stage on the choice and selection of policy instruments, EEP research played a pivotal role in recent debates in comparative political research about policy implementation and outcomes (Halpern, 2010). Analyzing processes of policy diffusion and transfer through the lenses of their instruments allowed the highlighting of preferred types, levels, and scales of government involvement across and within nations (Jordan et al., 2003; 2005), and EEP’s long-​term outcomes in terms of evolving forms of governance (Nahrath and Varone, 2014) and power distribution (Kelemen, 2000) in a multi-​level polity. This literature review sheds some light on EEP’s ambivalent position in comparative policy research, and how scholarly work explained and addressed it. Continued issue salience and interest-​mobilization strategies account for the prevalence of literature linking policy and research. Yet, and insofar as the EEP study was considered a challenge for theoretical literature about comparative policy research, it contributed to developing alternative analytic frameworks and theories about processes of state restructuring and policy change in a context of governance. Section 2 examines in more detail scholarly debates about EEP in the French context.

EEP Study in France: From Policy Toward Political Research This section examines the development of EEP research in and about France, and the extent to which it contrasts with the above-​mentioned research traditions. It argues that, from the earliest stage on, EEP research has been closely related to EEP dynamics themselves, thus confirming the constant overlap between policy and research, and explaining the overall prevalence of thick descriptive empirical research outputs over theory-​building. In addition, the country’s unique position as a nuclear state often justified why it was often singled out in comparative political research as a deviant case, thus justifying the need for in-​depth monographic explorations (Bess, 2003; Topçu, 2013; Brouard and Guinaudeau, 2015). It is only in recent years that EEP study has become an area of study in its own right in political research in France. Together, these factors account for the fact that few attempts were made within policy research in France to produce a comprehensive analysis of EEP and governance (Larrue, 2000; Lascoumes, 2012). By contrast, several monographs about EEP in France were produced abroad (Hayes, 2002; Szarka, 2001; Bess, 2003). This section now offers a short summary of the background context of EEP developments in France. It then focuses on the scholarly literature by successively considering each of the above-​mentioned research traditions and examining their respective influence over scholarly debates about EEP in the French context.

 

Environmental And Energy Policy In France    541

EEP Developments in France: A Brief Summary of the Background Context The origins of EEP are closely related to the development of ecological and anti-​nuclear mobilizations on the late 1960s (Jacob, 2000; Bozonnet, 2012). In the context of the post-​ war modernization agenda, they opposed numerous infrastructure and development projects throughout the country in the name of nature conservation (Fillieule, 2002; Ollitrault and Villalba, 2014). Sharing many features with other “new” social movements across Western democracies (Kriesi et al., 1995; Rootes, 2003), these highly politicized movements challenged technocratic forms of decision-​making and state–​society relationships in the context of the Fifth Republic (Duyvendak 1995; Hayes 2002). Unlike the situation observed in neighboring countries, where such movements developed in close relationship with the extra-​parliamentary opposition, a majority of environmental activists sought a strategic alliance with the Socialist party at the national level (Kitschelt, 1986). Yet dissent about nuclear energy put an end to this strategic alliance, leading to the creation of the Green Party in 1984 (Rihoux, 2001):2 This trajectory has shaped debates within successive ecologist parties about whether or not to remain policy outsiders (Sainteny, 2000; Bourg and Papaux, 2010; Faucher, 2012). At the local level, however, a combined use of external and internal influence strategies were developed in order to ensure the representation of environmental interests in local politics (Lascoumes, 1994). In the meantime, grassroots organizations3 developed strong relationships across the state apparatus, and more specifically with a network of higher civil servants and professionals sympathetic to developing a coherent policy framework on nature conservation (Barraqué and Theys, 1995; Barré et al., 2015). Together, they pushed for the creation of an Ecology Ministry in 1971 and played a major role in “inventing” EEP as a new policy domain (Charvolin, 2003). Over time, this administration’s competences were regularly extended, following a linear pattern of evolution. As a principle of law, environmental protection was only constitutionalized in 2005, but it nonetheless constitutes a rapidly growing field, with some thousands of pieces of legislation from the 1970s onwards, mainly due to the pressure exerted by European and international law (Romi et al., 2010; Prieur, 2011). As observed in other Western democracies (Jordan, 2005), this rapid and all-​out process of policy expansion relied upon the accumulation of policy resources (e.g. information and data, knowledge and expertise, etc.) within the state apparatus (Lascoumes, 1996).4 Yet continued resistance against the Ecology Ministry prevented the centralization of EEP resources, thus explaining the creation of a large number of specialized agencies, the continued transfer of power and resources toward subnational levels of government, and the chronic instability of political leadership over the Ministry (Lacroix and Zaccaï, 2010; Bozonnet and Halpern, 2013). In terms of policy outcomes, however, degrees of environmental protection among from the thematic, the spatial, and the socioeconomic points of view (SOeS, 2014). Indeed, when compared with other EU and OECD countries, comparative policy reviews confirm unequal levels

 

542   Charlotte Halpern of EE performance according to the issue at stake and strong resistance when it comes to nature protection and water management (OECD, 2005; EEA, 2015). Finally, a distinctive feature of recent EEP developments in France lies in attempts to formally recognize environmental NGOs and EE issues as worthy of representation in their own rights (Boy et al., 2012). Following the organization of two major consultation processes that aimed at increasing the salience and reprioritizing EEP issues by including a larger range of stakeholders,5 a series of dedicated committees and networks were created within the state apparatus and legislative bodies. How did EEP research in and about France account for such developments? Three main issues are examined successively in the following paragraphs: EEP research as an output of environmentalism, debates about EEP in France as a case of failed institutionalization, and EEP in France as an outlier case in theories about policy change.

EEP Research as an Output of French Environmentalism EEP research is closely related to this policy’s origins. It was originally meant as a contribution from higher civil servants to support the claims of the ecology movement for additional policy resources and developments. At first, this quasi-​hagiographic research tradition encouraged the setting of archives and the co-​production of thick descriptive work about major events6 and key protagonists including Serge Antoine, who is considered EEP’s founding father in the French context (Barré et al., 2015). Since the mid1990s, however, the critical re-​examination of the movement’s early stages and further developments has been encouraged, with joint support from the Ecology Ministry and grassroots organizations.7 The regular organization of workshops and edited volumes directly contributed to systematically assessing this policy’s strengths and weaknesses by bringing together social scientists from various academic backgrounds in the field of social sciences and high civil servants (Barraqué and Theys, 1995; Larrue and Chabason, 1998; Lascoumes, 1996; Lacroix and Zaccaï, 2010). Following the creation of the French Institute for the Environment (IFEN), data about EEP in France were published on a regular basis, and the IFEN encouraged the development of academic work by commissioning research about EEP in France, including PhDs, in a wide range of disciplines. Publicly funded research programs and calls for application encouraged new directions in EEP research in France, such as the development of environmental history (Fressoz et al., 2014; Quenet, 2015). Access to longitudinal datasets allowed the identification of the width and scope of EEP development and its impact on degrees of environmental protection, as well as those areas in which few results, if any, had been achieved (Larrue, 2000). Facilitating access to archives encouraged the development of a strong interest for those areas in which EEP pre-​existed the creation of the Ministry, especially in the field of pollution control (Massard-​Guilbaud, 2010; Fressoz, 2012; Bonnaud, 2005). The detailed analysis of the Ministry’s origins (Charvolin, 2003) and its decentralized services (Lascoumes and Le Bourhis, 1997) was enabled. By contrast to this first EEP research tradition, the origins of EEP in the French context were also examined as part of the international comparative political research

 

Environmental And Energy Policy In France    543 agenda on social movement organizations and the development of Green parties (Richardson and Rootes, 1995; Rootes, 2003). In this perspective, EEP is considered one of the movement’s numerous outputs. In view of the movement’s low impact—​in comparison with the situation observed elsewhere—​the French case is often portrayed as a failure (Duyvendak, 1995). This is primarily explained by the smaller number of policy venues available in the context of the Fifth Republic, and less so by the movement’s characteristics (Nelkin and Pollack, 1981). Later work done on how and to what extent political opportunity structures shaped the environmental movement’s policy outputs (Kitschelt, 1986) confirmed that, in a system as “closed” as that of the Fifth Republic, for challenges to successfully impact on policymaking, strategic alliances, including with left-​wing political parties (Kriesi et al., 1995) were required. Over the recent period, these findings were critically assessed as part of another comparative political research tradition that put less emphasis on politico-​institutional variables in order to account for the environmental movements’ outcomes. In the case of France, these authors claimed that internal factors and power struggles also accounted for the continued position of ecological political and associative organizations as policy outsiders at the national level (Hayes, 2002). By contrast with the situation observed at the European and local levels, where they engaged in strategic alliances with public authorities (Fillieule, 2002; Lascoumes, 1994), the movement’s preferred strategy at the national level often led to the expulsion of those in favor of supporting mainstreaming political parties, and the use of alternative action repertoires such as lobbying and consultation (Sainteny, 2000; Faucher, 1999). Drawing on comparative policy research on multi-​level governance, these authors challenged the “clichéd” view of France that stemmed from the political opportunity structure literature; that is, an archetypically strong, centralized, and unified state (Hayes, 2002). Taking into account the limitations inherent to the notion of political opportunity structure, alternative theories were explored in order to account for later developments in EEP. However, comparative political research about EEP still often considers France a deviant case, in view of the country’s unique position as a nuclear state. This justified the need for in-​depth monographs that aimed at systematically exploring the main characteristics of the “light-​green society” (Bess, 2003; Szarka, 2013). Over time, this approach contributed to ascertaining the idea that EEP was to be considered an exception in the context of the “French model of public policy” (Muller, 2013). The focus on energy policy also led to underestimating other policy developments in EEP, including institutionalization processes and increased policy convergence in the context of European integration. Both debates are examined successively in the following paragraphs.

EEP: A Case of Failed Institutionalization? To a large extent, the interest of political research in France for EEP is related to the fact that it was often characterized as a paradigmatic case of failed institutionalization. More precisely, EEP developments directly challenged the idea of a “French model of public policy” (Muller, 2013) that long constituted the standard against which institutionalization

 

544   Charlotte Halpern dynamics were assessed as demonstrated in successive textbooks about public policy analysis (Mény and Thoenig, 1989; Muller and Surel, 1998; Hassenteufel, 2011) and special issues about the “French school of public policy analysis” (Muller et al., 2005; Boussaguet et al., 2015). In this perspective, which was very much influenced by the work of Jobert and Muller (1987), policymaking in France was characterized by the centrality of the state, the critical role played by corporatist arrangements, and a strong level of sectoral autonomy in the choice and selection of policy priorities and solutions. Forms of EE interests’ representation and mobilization offered a sharp contrast with the situation observed in other policy domains, in which close relationships between specific corporations and specialized segments of the administration played a critical role in shaping policy preferences and outcomes (Grossman and Saurugger, 2012). Insofar as sectorization was considered a central mechanism of policy institutionalization (Halpern and Jacquot, 2015), EEP was considered as an outlier case in the French context. Indeed, unusually high levels of fragmentation and institutional instability in EEP were mainly explained by the ability of interests and professional groups to effectively resist and obstruct EEP-​making and implementation (Larrue and Chabason, 1998). Moreover, the focus on interest mobilization and representation as a key variable for explaining the lack of EEP institutionalization was shared by the international political research literature about EEP in France (Szarka, 2000; Bess, 2003). The work done with the analytic tools and methods that had been developed by the sociology of organizations offered additional insights to this dominant view about EEP in France (Padioleau, 1982). Drawing on the work of Crozier and Friedberg, this research tradition produced detailed case study analysis about the day-​to-​day functioning of the state administration at both national and central levels. In addition to interest mobilization, it highlighted the pivotal role played by specialized elites within the state (Grands corps) in resisting the shift away from a technocratic and centralized approach to knowledge production (Thoenig, 1987). It gave some additional insights to institutionalization dynamics in EEP by suggesting the pivotal role of central–​local relationships as opposed to the state centrality, and the extent to which territorial interests and local politics offered additional opportunities for multiple actors to resist EEP implementation. On a different level, debates about EEP institutionalization in a French context were also addressed in the international comparative political research literature in relation to the role of the Green Party (Hayes, 2002). These authors offered an explanation complementary to that of the public policy analysis literature. They suggested that such outcomes could also be explained by the Green Party’s strategy, its poor understanding of the workings of the politico-​institutional system, and its lack of policy-​oriented resources. According to Szarka (2004), the focus on the Green Party also demonstrates the discrepancy between the “heroic rhetoric” that characterizes Green political discourses in France and the Party’s inability to make its political goals operational. While these explanatory variables were tested in monographic studies, the specificity of EEP in France was nonetheless assessed against the situation observed in other Western democracies. Recent work done by Persico (2014) and Brouard and Guinaudeau (2015) has further explored the role of party politics and competition in shaping the salience of

 

Environmental And Energy Policy In France    545 EE issues, and the way through which the situation observed in France somewhat contrasts with other European countries in regards to EE issue salience in the agenda of the Green Party and mainstream parties. In reaction to or as a result of this dominant view on policymaking in France, and in a context of debates about territorial decentralization, EU integration, and the growing role of non-​state actors, the debate about EEP as a case of failed institutionalization took a new turn. In the French context of policy research, this justified the need to refute the relevance of “classic” approaches to public policy; similarly to the situation observed elsewhere, this explains the extensive use of notions such as “network,” “governance,” and “rhizomes” (Rumpala, 2003) to make sense of EEP developments in France. The need to account for such levels of fluidity and dynamism in EEP developments also justified an increased interest for the tools and concepts that had been developed by STS, and more specifically, a pragmatist approach to EEP Study (Lolive, 1999). Authors such as Lascoumes (2008) suggested combining the conceptual and analytic tools of STS with a focus on policy implementation in order to make sense of a non-​linear patterns of policy development such as that observed in the case of EEP in France and beyond. Drawing on the work done by Callon (1986) (see also Akrich et al., 2006), this EEP research tradition relies upon an actor-​centered approach to public policy, which puts less emphasis on the role of ideas and socio-political structures and more on policy outsiders, conflicts, and continued negotiations throughout the policy process. It focuses more attention, from the empirical point of view, on technical and scientific controversies (Callon et al., 2001) and the study of non-​human actors (Latour, 2005); and, from the theoretical point of view, on the use of other theoretical models such as that of actor–​network theory (Lolive, 1999). This work also links up with an international policy research agenda that is interested in the deliberative turn in public policy and the development of lay expertise and non-​organized forms of policymaking (Fischer 2003). It has fostered a new interest in EEP research in participatory devices (Blatrix, 2011), innovations in governance (Boy et al., 2012), and policy outcomes (Barthe, 2006; Dupuy and Halpern, 2009). From this perspective, the long-​term evolution of EEP in the French context is not considered a case of failed institutionalization. Beyond the case of EEP in France, this research tradition strongly opposes the ideas of a linear approach to long-​term policy developments and of a direct relationship between policy resource accumulation on one hand and policy institutionalization on the other (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2011). Indeed, if the linear approach to EEP policymaking were correct, then several decades of continued EEP expansion (budget, legal, organizational, etc.) should have contributed to this policy’s institutionalization (Lacroix and Zaccaï, 2010; Halpern and Bozonnet, 2013). Yet, and in contrast to the “French model of public policy” in which institutionalization dynamics relied primarily upon a sectorization mechanism, EEP offers an opportunity to identify alternative institutionalization policy mechanisms. Similar to the situation observed in other political contexts, students of the French model of public policy assumed that the autonomization of EEP in France would remain incomplete and highly vulnerable to contextual changes. Drawing on the work done by Lindblom (1968), the autonomization of EEP suggests focusing on micro-​regulations at implementation

 

546   Charlotte Halpern stage as opposed to decision-​making in order to identify alternative policy mechanisms (Lascoumes, 1994; 2012). It provides empirical evidence of bottom-​up processes of policy change. It demonstrates the role of hybridization and recycling mechanisms in shaping long-​term EEP developments. Also, the focus on policy instruments, and the way in which these socio-​technical devices contribute to (de-​)stabilizing the representation of the issue at stake, sheds new light upon the transformative role of policy innovations as well as the reproduction of existing oligarchies and power relations (Halpern et al., 2014). This was not, however, to be understood as a case of failed institutionalization, but rather as an alternative form of policy institutionalization in a context of increased fragmentation and complexity. Insofar as it linked up with the work done in and about France on state restructuring (Culpepper et al., 2006), this research tradition about EEP directly contributed to opening new avenues for policy research in France (Borraz and Guiraudon, 2008; 2011). Yet by focusing on policy outsiders, conflicts, and policy innovations, this vast share of the literature also contributed to the idea that EEP was to be considered a deviant case in comparative policy research. Until recently, it promoted the idea that no such thing as an EEP could be accounted for in the French context (Lascoumes, 2008). Debate over this policy’s existence and its frontiers often justifies the lack of cross-​sectoral comparisons, and within-​case analyses remain scarce (Halpern and Le Galès, 2011).

EEP in France as an Outlier Case in Comparative Political Research? Debates about EEP Change Comparative political research in and about France did, however, include EEP as a case study when it came to assessing this country’s environmental performance in the context of EU integration and understanding processes of policy change. Small-​n comparative studies were developed in order to highlight infra-​and cross-​national variations in the context of the European multi-​level governance. When compared to other EU and OECD countries (OECD, 2005; EEA, 2015), this literature confirmed France’s ambivalent position. On one hand, it was repeatedly condemned by the European Court of Justice in view of low levels of compliance with the European EEP (e.g. on birds, nature protection, and water management). On the other hand, comparative research about environmental policy performance in the European Union showed that France was classified among those countries that counted neither as laggards nor as frontrunners (Liefferink and Andersen, 1998; Liefferink et al., 2009). Interest groups’ ability to collectively block and/​or shape EEP developments justified its characterization as a “fence-​sitter” when it came to exploring the dynamics of Europeanization (Jordan and Liefferink, 2004). More generally, these findings confirmed the methodological challenges linked with the study of Europeanization dynamics and the role of the EU as a driver for EEP change.8 While there is some consensus about the pivotal role of European and international law as a major driver for EEP developments in France (Berny, 2011) and other EU countries (Jordan, 2013), assessing degrees of Europeanization—​and

 

Environmental And Energy Policy In France    547 convergence—​in this policy domain remains a hotly debated topic in comparative policy research (Holzinger et al., 2008). As observed in other countries, European EEP and governance shaped the framing of old and new EE problems across member states, the strengthening of policy outsiders, and, in some cases, the restructuring of existing forms of governance. In their critical assessment of comparative environmental performance reviews, Knill et al. (2012) argued that the performance of France in terms of both substance and policy innovation rather tended to classify it among leaders when considering EEP’s long-​term trajectory beyond dynamics of Europeanization. In France as elsewhere, there is, however, a lack of consensus about the EU’s direct influence over the parameters of policy change (Jordan et al., 2005). Findings about France confirm the role of other factors in shaping EEP change (Evrard, 2012). More precisely, this results from a clear disparity between European EEP and domestic political and institutional settings. Others focused on EEP implementation, where degrees of change varied depending upon the capacity of territorial collective action to challenge corporatist arrangements and bureaucratic routines. These results confirmed the work done on alternative forms of territorial governance in the context of continued decentralization reforms, and confirmed the strategic uses of EE issues by local authorities in order to challenge centralized forms of policymaking (Pasquier et al., 2007). This debate about European integration and the impact of EEP in France links up with the work done on forms of institutional change (Streeck and Thelen, 2005). In the case of EEP, this research tradition allows an exploration of the gap between ambitious political discourses and the way in which they were made operational (Szarka, 2004). It links up with the work done on bottom-​up Europeanization processes and discusses the role of conflicts and environmental mobilizations over policy change at various levels of government. Comparative work done on forms of policy instrumentation in Europe also sheds light on other forms of resistance to policy change (Halpern, 2011). In the case of France, findings suggest that, insofar as the Environmental Ministry was unable to choose its own policy instruments, these specific types of institutions contributed to locking in pre-​existing power relations and problem-​settings. In this context, the permanent search for innovation and coordination, which is often highlighted as a characteristic of EEP (Jordan and Lenschow, 2008), is best explained as a “weapon of the weak.” It constitutes an attempt at bypassing resistances and deadlocks through highly visible and symbolic decisions without having the means to implement them. Drawing on the latest developments in EEP research in and about France, remaining gaps in the scholarly research have been identified. Together, they suggest an agenda for future research. This is now examined in Section 3.

Agenda for Future EEP Research In this section, three possible agenda items for future EEP research are examined. First, in spite of continued debates in the French context about EEP’s borders, cross-​sectoral comparative work should contribute to developing more robust research hypotheses about this

 

548   Charlotte Halpern policy’s long-​term evolution, and more generally, about forms of policy and state restructuring in France. Drawing on the policy instruments approach, it was recently suggested that the debate over the very existence of EEP and its frontiers could be overcome in order to develop cross-​sectoral comparative work (Halpern and Le Galès, 2011: Boy et al., 2012). Cross-​sectoral comparative research designs would also be an opportunity to explore if and why EEP should still be considered an outlier case in policymaking in France. It could link up with a comparative research agenda about policy institutionalization and change. A second agenda for future research lies with recent administrative reforms in the EEP domain (Lascoumes et al., 2014). In France, as in other Western democracies, four types of reforms were introduced from the 1990s onwards in the EEP domain, but not exclusively so: the devolution of powers toward subnational levels of government, the creation of specialized agencies, managerial reforms inspired by new public management in order to improve EEP efficiency, and governance reforms in order to increase the inclusiveness of EEP. In the French context, some authors advocate the need to analyze reforms in EEP and governance in combination with the state reform agenda as opposed to explanatory models that focalized on EEP (Bezès and Le Lidec, 2010). This literature also questions the reforms’ transformative impact on central–​local relations insofar as it constitutes a further step away from “cross-​regulation” as a classic form of territorial governance toward evolving power relations between local authorities and state representatives, and more importantly, between administrative and technical Grands corps (Duran and Thoenig, 1996; Poupeau, 2013). Complementary to this debate, others argue that these reforms’ transformative role should be analyzed in relation with parallel discussions about environmental governance (Boy et al., 2012). Indeed, little comparative research was devoted to these reforms’ main rational or their long-​term impact on EEP and governance (Jordan and Liefferink, 2004). Comparative political research often portrayed it as a highly fragmented and multi-​level governance system, which offers multiple venues for non-​state actors and interests. Yet the work done in several political contexts suggests that these administrative reforms’ impact on policy outcomes does not automatically result in EEP’s increased effectiveness and inclusiveness. Similarly, competing assumptions can be found in the existing literature about these reforms’ impact over the long-​term evolution of EEP: namely their strengthening of EEP as a result of its growing autonomization; or their restructuring, and at times dismantling, of EEP as part of massive rationalization dynamics. In the case of France, additional comparative research is also needed about the pivotal role played by the ADEME9 and its impact on both the substance and the functioning of EEP. Third, recent changes in forms of environmental activism also call for renewed attention from political research to the way in which attitudes and demands about EE issues are mobilized and represented in the political and the social spheres. Recent comparative work about how political competition and party politics shapes issue framing and salience throughout political cycles confirms the need to systematically explore the political dimension of EE policymaking. Following Persico’s suggestion (2014), this should not be limited to the role of Green parties, but should more generally consider the way in which EE issues are addressed throughout the political spectrum and how

 

Environmental And Energy Policy In France    549 this impacts policy choices. Similarly, over the past two decades much attention has been given, in France and beyond, to participatory devices, their main characteristics, and their functioning. Yet how and to what extent they shaped policy outcomes remains largely unexplored (Boy et al., 2012). Recent work done on the Grenelle and the Energy Transition round-​tables suggests that the impact of participatory devices on policy outcomes is only an indirect one. As observed across policy domains, it is shaped by parliamentary debates, economic cycles, and local politics. Yet in the case of EEP it also confirms the restructuring of forms of political participation (Hayes, 2006; Ollitrault, 2008). Indeed, participation in such devices is not restricted to voting, lobbying, protesting, or litigation, and nor does it occur in a vacuum. In the French context, the recent opening of a new, highly disruptive, cycle of protest (for example, Notre Dame des Landes airport in Nantes, the Sivens dam) and against eco-​taxes shows the need to critically address the long-​term impact of participatory devices over EEP outcomes. Indeed, recent reforms in environmental governance thus offer an opportunity to explore evolving forms of political participation in contemporary societies (Mayer, 2010) and to link up with the research agenda of comparative social movement studies (Tarrow and Tilly, 2006). Finally, debates about evolving forms of eco-​citizenship and sustainable consumption open new research avenues about the role of NGOs and the individualization of green practices in France and beyond (Dubuisson-​Quellier, 2010). Together, these research agenda items about EEP in and about France would contribute to the understanding of EEP dynamics, and to the development of conceptual frameworks that challenge public policy analysis.

Conclusion This chapter has examined the profound changes that have taken place in EEP study in and about France. It has explained why and how they constitute a challenge from both a substantive and an analytic perspective. It has also examined why the strong link between policy and research on one hand and the strong interdisciplinary dimension of environmental studies on the other has contributed to the dynamism of EEP study and to its ambivalent position in comparative political research in France and beyond. In the French context, and insofar as it is strongly related to EEP dynamics, EEP study has directly contributed to co-​producing a common narrative or “grand epic” of French environmentalism (Bozonnet, 2008). It has selectively—​and sometimes disproportionately—​highlighted founding events, protagonists, and major achievements while other, more discreet and less visible policy dynamics did not generate as much attention. It is only since the late 1990s that EEP research in and about France has sought to re-​examine and deconstruct some of this early work by drawing on other conceptual frameworks and methodologies (comparative politics, sociology of organizations, public administration, social movements theory, and science of technology studies). In doing so, it has benefitted from increased access to information and data, and from the support of public funded

 

550   Charlotte Halpern research programs. Its authors have highlighted the challenges EEP study has posed for classic models about the functioning of the state and policymaking, and more specifically, the “French model of public policy” (Muller, 2013). They have challenged traditional tools and concepts of public policy analysis, and fostered a shift toward a more bottom-​up, actor-​centered, and pragmatist approach to policymaking (Lascoumes, 2012). Beyond EEP study in France, comparative political research about France has also contributed to the idea that it constituted a deviant case. Insofar as France’s unique position as a nuclear state constituted a major puzzle for social scientists worldwide, it justified its exclusion from comparative research projects and the preference for in-​depth case study analysis. By contrast, this chapter concludes by challenging the idea that EEP in France is sufficiently specific, in terms of both a policy domain and a political context, to justify excluding it any further from comparative political research agendas.

Notes 1. See for example Jordan (2002; 2013) and Haigh (2004) in the case of Great Britain and the European Union, Jänicke et al. (2003), for Germany; Knoepfel et al. (2010), in Switzerland. 2. After regionalists, environmentalists, and social activists joined the Green Party in 2010, a new political party was created under the name of Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV). 3. See for example France Nature Environnement (FNE), which is an umbrella organization that was created in 1968 by bringing together hundreds of small grassroots organizations and constitutes, to this date, one of the most influential ecologist organizations (Ollitrault, 2008). 4. Since the early 1990s, a report on the state of the environment in France has been published on a regular basis. For the latest issue, see SoES (2014). This information also feeds in the country profiles and environmental performance review that are established, respectively, by the European Environment Agency (AEE, 2010) and the OECD (OECD, 2005). 5. Respectively, the Grenelle de l’environnement (2007) and the Energy Transition (2012) Round-​tables. 6. For example, the adoption of a major piece of legislation, conflicts about the Vanoise National Park and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, and the regionalization of EEP. 7. See for example the work done by the Environmental Ministry’s history committee, which has provided research funding and support for EEP study since 2005. In addition, the Association for the History of Nature Protection and of the Environment (AHPNE) was created in 2008 in order to produce an online biographical dictionary of the movement’s main protagonists and to safeguard their personal archives. 8. See Chapter 7 in this volume. 9. The Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME). It was created in 1991.

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Environmental And Energy Policy In France    555 Peters, B. G. and Hoornbeek, J. A. (2005). “The Problem of Policy Problems,” in Eliadis, P., Hill, M. M., and Howlett, M. (eds) Designing Government. Montreal: MacGill-Queens University Press, 77–​105. Poupeau, F. M. (2013). “L’émergence d’un État régional pilote,” Gouvernement et action publique 2(2): 249–​77. Prieur, M. (2011). Droit de l’environnement, 6th edn. Paris: Dalloz. Princen, T. and Finger, M. (eds) (1994). Environmental NGOs in World Politics: Linking the Global and the Local. London: Routledge. Quenet, G. (2015). Versailles: une histoire naturelle. Paris: La Découverte. Richardson, D. and Rootes, C. (eds) (1995). The Green Challenge: The Development of Green Parties in Europe. London: Routledge. Richardson J. (ed.) (1982). Policy Styles in Western Europe. London: George Allen & Unwin. Rihoux, B. (2001). Les partis politiques, organisations en changement:  le test des écologistes. Paris: L’Harmattan. Romi, R. (2010). Droit et administration de l’environnement, 6th edn. Paris: Montchrestien. Rootes, C. (ed.) (2003). Environmental Protest in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rootes, C. (2004). “Environmental Movements,” in Snow, D. A., Soule, S. A., and Kriesi, H. (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 608–​40. Rumpala, Y. (2003). Régulation publique et environnement:  questions écologiques, réponses économiques. Paris: L’Harmattan. Sabatier, P. A. and Jenkins-​ Smith, H. C. (1993). Policy Change and Learning. Boulder, CO: Westview. Sainteny, G. (2000). L’introuvable écologisme français. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Smith, A., Voß, J.-​P., and Grin, J. (2010). “Innovation Studies and Sustainabilty Transitions,” Research Policy 39(4): 435–​48. SOeS (Service de l’Observation et des Statistiques) (eds) (2014). L’environnement en France. Paris: Commissariat Général au Développement Durable. Streeck, W. and Thelen, K. (eds) (2005). Beyond Continuity. Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Szarka, J. (2000). “Environmental Policy and Neo-​Corporatism in France,” Environmental Politics 9(3): 89–​108. Szarka, J. (2001). The Shaping of Environmental Policy in France. New York: Berghahn Books. Szarka, J. (2003). “The Politics of Bounded Innovation:  ‘New’ Environmental Policy Instruments in France,” Environmental Politics 12(1): 93–​114. Szarka, J. (2004). “Sustainable Development Strategies in France,” European Environment: The Journal of European Environmental Policy 14: 16–​29. Szarka, J. (2013). “From Exception to Norm—​And Back Again?” Environmental Politics 22 (4): 646–​63. Tarrow, S. and Tilly, C. (2006). Contentious Politics. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Thoenig, J. C. (1987). L’Ère des technocrates: le cas des Ponts et Chaussées. Paris: L’Harmattan. Topçu, S. (2013). La France nucléaire. Paris: Le Seuil. Young, O. R. (1996). “Institutional Linkages in International Society:  Polar Perspectives,” Global Governance 2: 1–​24. Young, O. R. (2002). The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Young, O. R. (2010). Institutional Dynamics: Emergent Patterns in International Environmental Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

 

Chapter 25

Gender P oli c y St u di e s distinct, but making the comparative connection Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard

Unlike many other areas of study in this volume, scholars who work on French gender policy have participated significantly in the new field that focuses on gender and policy issues in a comparative perspective outside of France: feminist comparative policy (FCP).1 Feminist policy scholars in Western Europe first acknowledged the empirical gaps and gender biases in studies of the state and policy in the early 1980s. By the early 1990s, researchers in North America and Australia joined their Western European counterparts to systematically study the interconnections between gender (the social construction of men’s and women’s identities), policy, and the state in and across Western democracies. In the mid-1990s, a loose methodological consensus moved the new field into a stage of vitality and institutionalization. In 2014, with over 500 published pieces, an estimated 20 million euros in research funding, over 100 active researchers, and four journals that serve as publication outlets (Social Politics, International Journal of Feminist Politics, Politics and Gender, and Women, Politics and Policy), FCP has an important scientific presence in international political science and other adjacent disciplines As this chapter shows, while French researchers have been involved with FCP projects and non-​French scholars have contributed significantly to general understanding, knowledge, and theory on France, gender policy studies in France have maintained a distinctive twist, including more interdisciplinary connections, less formalization, less of an explicit feminist approach, and more use of in-​depth qualitative methods. The distinct nature of French gender policy studies has underpinned its dynamism inside and outside France and has allowed French research to make significant contributions to comparative feminist policy studies at an international level. In the first section of the chapter, the sub-​area of FCP is presented in terms of its development since the mid-1980s and the major streams of research conducted by FCP scholars. Next, the context for and features of gender policy studies in France are discussed as well as the evolution of work in three of the research streams of FCP—​gendering welfare

 

Gender Policy Studies    557 states, state feminism, and feminist policy formation. The third section discusses the research agenda for French gender policy studies—​including recent innovations in the study of policy implementation—​and its comparative connections.

Feminist Comparative Policy (FCP): Developments and Research Streams Emergence of the FCP Approach and Community, 1980s to the Present The development of FCP as a field of study has reflected, on one hand, the empirical realities of “feminist” government action in post-​industrial democracies; a response to the demands of the second-​wave women’s movements in the 1960s and 1970s and the policy campaigns and groups that came out of them through a complex set of policies and structures that were necessarily transversal, located across a range of policy sectors.2 On the other hand, FCP research has been driven by a pragmatic empirical feminist approach embraced by an international community of scholars from Europe, North America, and Australia. The “integrative feminist approach” uses feminist and non-​feminist work and theory to conduct comparative, empirical, and problem-​driven analysis where findings can be used to build theory by policy practitioners and activists in their effort to promote gender equality. While FCP research has sought to contribute to non-​feminist work, scholars in adjacent areas who are not specialists of gender have tended to ignore relevant findings; thus this dialogue has often been one-​way, with an “opaque glass wall” dividing the two areas (Mazur, 2012). The major large-​scale FCP projects presented in Table 25.1 all embrace the core aspects of this approach. Gender as a complex category of analysis, the social construction of sexual differences between men and women, and not just sex as a dichotomous variable or women alone, was used early on in FCP studies to capture the inherent power relations in the way states have responded to women’s movement demands. The state has also been a central analytical construct for FCP researchers, but it is not just treated as a single patriarchal entity, as many early feminist theorists had done. Rather, government is more porous and “disaggregated,” with certain arenas being more appropriate sites for feminist action than others (Pringle and Watson, 1992). The issue of state patriarchy, therefore, has been an object of research rather than a foregone conclusion. Key to understanding and studying whether states can actually pursue a feminist agenda has been the question of whether post-​industrial democracies are as democratic as observers think; a question asked by feminist theory more broadly speaking given the way women and gender equality issues have been excluded from politics in the context

 

558    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard Table 25.1 List of feminist comparative policy research projects Women’s Movements and Reconfigured States (1997–​2003) Banaszak et al. (2003). Gendering Europeanisation (1999–​2003) Liebert (2003). RNGS (1995–​2011). Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (e.g. McBride and Mazur, 2010). EGG (2002–​5). Enlargement, Gender and Governance: The Civic and Political Participation and Representation of Women in Central and Eastern Europe (e.g. Galligan et al., 2007). MAGEEQ (2003–​7). Policy Frames and Implementation Problems: The Case of Gender Mainstreaming (e.g. Lombardo et al., 2009). QUING (2006–​11). Quality in Gender Equality + Policies (e.g. Verloo and Walby, 2013). FEMCIT (2006–​10). Gendered Citizenship in Multi-​Cultural Europe: The Impact of Contemporary Women’s Movements (Halsaa et al., 2012). VEIL (2006–​9). Values Equality and Differences in Liberal Democracies . Governing Difference (2006–​9). A Challenge for New Democracies in Central and South Eastern European Countries. Gender Equality Policy in Practice Project (2013–​20) .

of the formal articulation of universal and gender-​blind values of equality, freedom, and representation in democracies. Feminist theorists have argued for a better inclusion of women and ideas that favor women’s rights in the political process, often through Pitkin’s (1967) categories of “descriptive,” (the presence of women in public office) and “substantive” (the inclusion of women’s interests in public discussions and policy) representation. The issue of democracy and women’s representation is central to much FCP work linking the level of democracy to women’s enhanced representation; substantively through policy content and descriptively through the participation of women in the policy process. FCP scholars have used principles of research design and methods developed outside the feminist perspective to pursue a comparative theory-​building agenda to identify the dynamics and major drivers of feminist state action. FCP work in the late 1990s utilized small-​to medium-​n analysis—​qualitative case studies based on process-​tracing, elite interviews, and archival research and the comparative method—​and took a “most similar systems” approach, where economic and political development in Western post-​ industrial democracies are the control variables and variations in nation-​based factors are examined as they influence gender, state, and policy issues. In recent years, studies have been on and/​or have included countries from Central and Eastern Europe, as the list FCP projects in Table 25.1 above shows.

 

Gender Policy Studies    559 To implement the comparative agenda, FCP practitioners began to develop international research networks in the early 1980s and in the 1990s created multi-​national research projects, securing significant funding to maintain formal research groups with publications, meetings, websites, and newsletters. All but one of the ten FCP projects listed in Table 25.1 have formal international research groups. Most groups have both European (often including researchers who work on France) and North American members, with the leadership not being dominated by a single nationality. The networks have often met at the conferences of the European Consortium of Political Research, the American Political Science Association, the International Political Science Association, and the International Studies Association, thus indicating FCP’s strong links to international political science. Increasingly, FCP researchers have been using quantitative large-​n analysis, sometimes out of necessity due to the tendency to include more countries in study designs (Htun and Weldon, 2010), as well as the tools of medium-​n analysis, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), and mixed-​method approaches (e.g the RNGS study in Table 25.1). In addition, reflecting the methodological pluralism of the feminist integrative approach, more recent feminist research has embraced the European “discursive turn” to focus on framing, discourse, and policy content reflected in most of the projects listed in Table 25.1. Another new development in recent years has been the shift to multi-​level studies that examine how gender–​state dynamics unfold at all levels of the system—​local, subnational, and extra-​national, the latter particularly given the role of the EU and Europeanization in the gender policy process at multiple levels (see e.g. Liebert, 2003).

Research Streams and Cross-​cutting Themes of FCP FCP work can be placed into four different research streams. Research on gendering welfare states takes the welfare state broadly construed as the primary object of analysis in terms of social policy and has had the most success in breaking down the glass wall with non-​feminist political science (Pierson, 2000). Using Esping-​Andersen’s taxonomy of welfare states in Western post-​industrial democracies as a critical point of departure (1990), feminist analysts assert that any understanding of the contemporary welfare state must be gendered (Orloff, 1993); that is, placing the question of what the gendered dynamics and impacts of welfare states and social policy are in terms of gender equality (Sainsbury, 2008) at the center of analysis. A special issue of Social Politics, edited by Orloff and Palier, exemplifies the way feminist and non-​feminist research on welfare states has become integrated (2009). Feminist policy-​formation scholarship scrutinizes the ways in which public policy promotes women’s status and strikes down gender hierarchies through the study of the obstacles to and actors, content, and processes of policy that is purposefully feminist. Feminist or gender-​equality policy is conceptualized as a distinct sector of government action that has a range of subsectors that promote feminist goals across all the areas

 

560    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard of government action that have the potential to change gender relations. A wide range of feminist subsectors of policy are studied here, from an increasingly cross-​national perspective.3 Like much non-​feminist policy scholarship, research in this area takes a policy stage approach. Problem definition has been a major focus of much FCP work, particularly scholarship that takes a discursive/​social constructivist approach (RNGS, MAGEEQ, and QUING in Table 25.1). A special issue of Revue française de science politique brought together FCP experts to look specifically at how women’s movements contribute to setting the agenda and defining problems on feminist policies in francophone Europe at national and EU level (Boussaguet and Jacquot, 2009a). This focus on agenda-setting, problem definition, and policy framing highlights the extent to which FCP work has not focused on policy outcomes and impact. This is an area of weakness of FCP that undermines feminist policy research to systematically determine whether the state has successfully pursued feminist policy in terms of achieving gender equality in society. While calls for more impact and implementation research have been made (Blofield and Haas, 2013), systematic comparative research on the later stages of the policy process is only in its nascent stages and still tends to focus on outputs in implementation rather than impact; although, as will be shown below, research on France has been making significant contributions to policy-​implementation studies. Research into women’s movements and policy is concerned with the interplay between women’s movements, the state, and policy.4 A major issue of interest here is to evaluate the success of women’s movements in influencing policy. Researchers turned to the state and public policy in the 1990s given the degree to which women’s movements had sought to engage with the state over the past forty years at all levels—​local, subnational, and extra-​national. For feminist analysts and theorists alike, women’s movements are defined as a major potential vector of feminist change and women’s representation. Banaszak et al. (2003) set the stage for this area of FCP research by conducting a comparative study of how women’s movements and organizations affected and were affected by “state reconfigurations” in the 1990s. Weldon (2011) asserts that movements—​women’s and class-​based movements—​are central to the promotion of democracy, and many other studies have shown that women’s movements “matter” in the development of meaningful state action. State feminism research studies state structures and actors that are formally charged with promoting women’s rights and striking down gender hierarchies: women’s policy agencies (WPAs)/​gender equality machineries and the agents who work for them—​ “femocrats.” The concept of state feminism went from a “loose notion” about women’s policy agencies to a more precise analytical construct about whether WPAs worked with women’s movements to promote women’s interests in the state through both promoting women’s movement actors’ participation and the inclusion of women’s movement ideas in state policy discussions and policy (McBride and Mazur, 2007). Thus, WPAs are potentially important arenas for women’s enhanced representation, both substantively and descriptively. Since its creation in 1995, the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS), presented in Table  25.1, a 40-​member international

 

Gender Policy Studies    561 research group, has been a major contributor to the research agenda on state feminism. RNGS conducted a cross-​national, longitudinal study of the interface between WPAs and women’s movements in 17 Western post-​industrial democracies across five policy sectors.

New Cross-​cutting Themes Issues of linkages between women’s descriptive and substantive representation have become central analytical foci for many FCP scholars. The questions of whether women make a difference in public policy formation and whether policies are representing women’s interests are at the fore of studies on feminist policy formation. At the same time, women’s movement and state feminism research that focuses on representation asserts that the ultimate test of democratic performance and representation is whether the substantive content of public policy is taking on formerly excluded interests (Celis and Childs, 2008). A methodologically rich cross-​national and cross-​regional literature has emerged on quota policies throughout the world as well (Dahlerup, 2006). This comparative work combines three out of the four FCP streams, given that quota policies are a specific example of political representation policies—​one of the feminist policy subsectors—​and that women’s movements and women’s policy agencies are potentially major partners in the adoption and implementation of quotas. Also, the new scholarship on quotas examines not just the content and diffusion of quota policies but also whether they make a difference in enhancing women’s substantive and descriptive representation in the crucial dynamics of implementation and impact (Krook et al., 2012). The relatively new concept of intersectionality—​the notion that systems of gender discrimination are interwoven with other systems of discrimination and inequality based on ethnicity, race, class, culture, religion, and sexual orientation—​is becoming an essential analytical tool as it relates to representation, democracy, and gender equality (Weldon, 2008). For example, working-​class  Muslim women from North Africa have interests different from upper-​class white women in European society. Thus, the representation and the equality policies that are formulated to respond to each group’s demands may be quite different. Many of the most recent FCP studies address intersectionality in part, given that this has been placed on policy agendas in European countries and at the EU level in recent years, often through “diversity” efforts as well as on the agendas of certain women’s movements, for example FEMCIT and MAGEEQ in Table 25.1. Other studies, building from these research networks, have taken a multi-​ level approach to examining the integration of intersectionality into gender equality efforts in Western Europe (Krizsan et al., 2012). The “new institutionalism,” with its emphasis on formal structures, rules, and norms, is an important touchstone for research on feminist institutionalism. Many FCP studies have directly dialogued with the various forms of new institutionalism in their theory building. The international network, Feminism and Institutionalism International

 

562    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard Network (FIIN), was created “to explore the interplay between feminist approaches to gendered institutions and new institutional theory” as its major goal ( and Krook and Mackay, 2011). New scholarship on “gender, politics and state architecture” that focuses on the territorial dimensions of government at multiple levels is also a part of feminist institutionalism (Chappell and Vickers, 2011).

Gender Policy Studies in France French scholars and work on gender policy in France have been a part of FCP since its beginnings. The early comparative volumes on gender policy coming out of ECPR meetings often included a chapter on France (Batiot, 1986; Mossuz-​Lavau, 1986; Mazur, 1991) and many of the subsequent international research networks included the French case.5 At the same time, a distinctive approach to gender policy studies has emerged in France, deriving from the specificities of the French context. This approach has led to contributions to the FCP agenda both directly and indirectly with more recent work offering important insights about gender policy implementation, multi-​level analysis, the influence of gender-​biased states, political representation policy, and the measurement of the impact of women’s movements.

The Scientific and Political Context Even though there has been an increase in studies of gender policy in the past few years in France (Achin and Bereni, 2013b; Engeli, Ballmer-​Cao, and Muller, 2008; Jacquot and Mazur, 2010; Jenson and Lépinard, 2009; Muller and Sénac-​Slawinski, 2009; Perrier, 2013b), this research does not constitute a distinct, self-​identified, and structured body of research. To be sure, the various works presented here relate and refer to each other, but they also, and for some of them primarily, relate to other areas of study outside a gender-​specific approach focused on the state. This is the result of the specific characteristics of the French scientific and public policy contexts.

The Social Science Context: Strong Interdisciplinary Foundations and Low Institutionalization of Gender Studies First, even though French academic departments and faculty recruitment are organized by discipline, there is, compared to other countries, a relatively high level of dialogue between political scientists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and, to a lesser extent, economists and legal scholars. For example, many research centers, conferences, and journals are interdisciplinary. Gender policy studies reflect this interdisciplinary tendency: they have not only developed in the context of political science but also in that of other disciplines; historians, sociologists, economists, and legal scholars have made significant contributions to the field.

 

Gender Policy Studies    563 Moreover, political scientists in France are very open to the empirical, methodological, and theoretical input of other disciplines, particularly from sociology and history.6 They often draw on methods from these fields, for example ethnography, the study of the social trajectories of relevant political actors, or archival research. The value put on in-​depth qualitative fieldwork, as well as on historical methods, is a key feature of contemporary French political science. Studies of gender policy in France share the same methodological approaches as policy studies in general and are largely integrated into the mainstream of the methodological and epistemological norms of the discipline (Boussaguet and Jacquot, 2009b). Second, gender policy studies in France unfold in the context of a low level of institutionalization of gender studies, which is particularly striking when one considers the significant increase in gender-​related research in the past few years (Bereni, 2014). There are few separate women’s studies departments and it is unusual to find gender-​ specific courses or subfield offerings. There are only a handful of journals on gender research and a few specific book series on gender at the top academic French presses.7 Moreover, the acceptance of gender-​specific perspectives and approaches is more recent and less established in political science than in other social sciences in France (Achin and Bereni, 2013a). The long-​standing prevalence of a class-​centered analytical perspective on inequality, the perception that gender studies are closely tied to feminist activism and hence unscientific, and the low feminization of political science (especially at the top levels), contribute to explaining this weak and late presence of gender studies within the discipline. While Janine Mossuz-​Lavau and Mariette Sineau made pioneering contributions to the field in the 1970s and 1980s (Mossuz-​Lavau and Sineau, 1983), studying women in politics and political participation, this area of research only really expanded as of the early 2000s. This being said, it is the consequences rather than the causes of this weak institutionalization that are the focus here. Indeed, this persisting lack of legitimacy, beyond functioning as an impediment to the development of gender policy studies, has contributed to its current shape and vitality inside and outside France in the following ways. First, the low level of institutional support favored the “mainstream” orientation of these studies: gender policy scholars do not have many gender-​specific venues to let their voices be heard. It also increased the lack of unity of the field, since gender policy scholars have not followed the same (if any) formal training in gender studies, and do not primarily relate to gender studies but to their diverse disciplinary or thematic areas (public policy, political history, social movement theory, socio-​legal studies, etc.). The weak institutionalization of gender studies at the domestic level has nurtured the development of transnational connections with the FCP community through the various European-​ level projects discussed above (Jacquot, 2013: 240). Moreover, many individual researchers have conducted two-​country studies of gender equality policies, comparing the French case with Canada (Dauphin, 2006; Giraud, 2005; Revillard, 2009b), Germany (Ledoux, 2011; Perrier, 2006), Spain (Frotiée, 2005), Sweden (Morel, 2001), Switzerland (Engeli, 2010), and the United States (Delage, 2013; Morgan, 2006), to mention but a few examples.

 

564    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard

The Public Policy Context: Social Policy, Parity Reform, and Europeanization French public policy and state action is characterized by an established tradition of social policies, many of which have a direct influence on gender relations, such as family policy. Welfare state research was also spurred by significant public funding devoted to the analysis of social and family policy in France, notably by institutions such as the CNAF (Caisse Nationale des Allocations Familiales), the national agency in charge of the allocation of family benefits (Commaille, 1993). The parity reform of 2000, which established quotas for women in elected office, played a major role in structuring research on gender policy issues, as well as favoring a broader awareness of gender issues on the part of political scientists. As Achin and Bereni stress, “the enactment of the 2000 parity law places the question of women and politics at the heart of the functioning of political institutions. […] [Thus] the reform could hardly be ignored by political scientists” (2013a: 32). Another major influence on the framing of gender policy research in France lies in the Europeanization of public policy. As French public policy has been increasingly influenced by the EU, studies of gender policy at the European level, as well as studies of this European influence on French policies, have been conducted, which have been a part of the EU-​funded projects discussed above. Hence, the EU itself has played an important role in the expansion of gender policy studies by means of specific funding.

Classifying French Research by the FCP Streams Gender policy research on France can be classified in terms of three of the four streams of FCP; each stream reflective of developments in the French political system and politics.

Gendering Welfare States The French state has provided scholars (from France and abroad) with a particularly interesting case in which to study gender and welfare state issues. The study of gender and social policy was also spurred by a strong materialist tradition among French feminist scholars, drawing on seminal theoretical contributions that placed the gendered division of labor at the root of women’s oppression (Delphy, 1998; Kergoat, 2000). Therefore, to the extent that the state was included as an object of analysis in feminist research (which was not always obvious), social policy (and notably aspects affecting work–​family reconciliation) was granted particular attention (Barrère-​Maurisson, 1984; Commaille, 1993; Gautier and Heinen, 1993). Two major trends of research—​historical and contemporary—​can be distinguished here. First, the definition and implementation of a broad social and family policy, including measures such as pension plans, injured workers’ protection, bans on night work, family benefits, and maternity leave, was a key aspect of the consolidation of the French state

 

Gender Policy Studies    565 during the Third Republic, and as such has been the subject of major historical studies. Not the least of these contributions was showing the role of gender-​related issues in state-​building, through the study of policy debates such as those regarding maternity leave, early schooling, and family benefits, which unfolded in relation to pronatalist, secularist, and nationalist concerns (Bard, 1995; Cova, 1997; Jenson, 1986; Lenoir, 2003; Michel and Koven, 1990; Morgan, 2003; Offen, 1991). Furthermore, these studies showed how policies were defined and what role women’s movements played in their definition (Bard, 1995; Cohen, 2012; Klejman and Rochefort, 1989; Offen, 1984). Second, sociologists, economists, and political scientists, echoing FCP critiques of Esping-​Andersen’s gender-​blind analysis of social policy (Morel, 2007; Orloff, 1993; Sainsbury, 2008), developed detailed studies of the contemporary French welfare state and its implications on gender inequalities. Work–​family reconciliation policies, and notably policies targeting young children’s care, have been the object of particular attention in this perspective, with authors often stressing the contradictions between different policy domains and between egalitarian political discourse and concrete policy tools that encourage a traditional division of labor (Fagnani, 1996; 2001; Jenson and Sineau, 2001; Martin, 1998; Revillard, 2006). 8 Feminist critiques of the Allocation parentale d’éducation (APE) provide a case in point of this analysis of the impact of family policy on gender inequalities. Created in 1985, this paid parental leave was made available to “parents” who interrupted their activity to take care of a child under the age of three at home. Promoted in the name of work–​family reconciliation, this measure was in fact underpinned, as feminist scholars showed, by pronatalist as well as employment concerns. Indeed, the idea was to reduce the unemployment rate of working-​class mothers, for whom the low amount of the benefit associated with the leave was financially interesting compared to the pay they could expect from working part-​time at minimum wage. Resorting to the APE, these women would shift from unemployment to “inactivity,” contributing to a decrease in (or limiting the increase of) the official unemployment rate (Fagnani, 1996; Jenson and Sineau, 1998). The measure was extended in 1986 and 1994. The measure was used by mothers in 98 percent of the cases, and it actually resulted in a historic decrease in the labor force participation of French young mothers, particularly for mothers of two children, whose labor force participation rate (for mothers of two including at least one child under three) dropped from 74 percent in 1994 to 56 percent in 1998 (Milewski, 2005: 144). More recently, scholars have paid particular attention to the Europeanization of French work–​family reconciliation policy (Jacquot, Ledoux, and Palier, 2011; Morgan, 2009). For example, studying the uses of European resources in domestic family policy reforms, Jacquot, Ledoux and Palier (2011) analyzed French ambivalence toward the EU model, an attitude which they sum up as “boasting […] but learning.” Despite the reluctance to refer to EU legislation and a tendency of political elites to see French policy as a model for Europe rather than the inverse,9 French reconciliation policy has in fact been reformed in a direction that brings it closer to the EU model. These authors thus show how French political discourse regarding work–​family reconciliation has integrated

 

566    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard references to gender equality, female employment, and welfare system sustainability beyond the traditional pronatalist argument.

State Feminism Following the pioneering work by Lévy (1988), studies of French “state feminism” and women’s policy agencies (WPAs) were notably spurred by the creation and experience of Yvette Roudy’s Ministry of Women’s Rights (ministère des Droits de la femme), which gave unprecedented visibility to the issue of women’s rights on the governmental agenda during the Mitterrand years through a well-​funded national and territorial administration (Jenson and Sineau, 1995; Mazur, 1995b; Thébaud, 2001). As studies conducted in the 1990s and 2000s show, the Roudy ministry was given more resources than any other gender equality machinery established since and some of the highest levels of funding for WPAs in the Western world (McBride and Mazur, 2010). Three trends may be distinguished among the works that have since been produced, either focusing directly on WPAs or placing them at the center of the analysis of feminist policy The first trend studies these institutions based on historical and/​or ethnographic methods, using archival work and in-​depth interviews. This published work makes a historical narrative of institutional change, showing how state feminist institutions and policy evolve from one government to the next and identifying different explanatory factors throughout the historical narrative. This body of work also includes detailed study of the social trajectories of the relevant actors as well as detailed descriptions of policy tools and modes of operation (Dauphin, 2010; Jenson and Sineau, 1995; Revillard, 2007; Thébaud, 2001). It has proven fruitful to account for the logics of action of women’s policy agencies, and notably their use of communication and legal tools in order to initiate social and cultural change, as well as their lobbying efforts within the state in order to promote gender equality reforms (Revillard, 2007; Thébaud, 2001). The study of this intra-​governmental activism has contributed to work on contentious politics, through the idea of “contentious institutions” lobbying for gender equality from within the state apparatus (Bereni and Revillard, 2012). The second type of analysis came out of the work of scholars who focused on women’s rights policy in France and identified the key role of the women’s policy agencies, particularly in the 1980s through the Roudy ministry (Lévy, 1988; Mazur, 1995a; McBride Stetson, 1987; Jenson and Sineau, 1995). McBride Stetson’s (1987) study of women’s rights in France and Mazur’s (1995) analysis of equal employment legislation up to the 1990s, which both showcased French women’s policy agencies, actually led them to meet and develop the larger comparative project, RNGS, discussed earlier. Both scholars were fascinated by the strength, power, and influence of the Roudy ministry. Their interest resonated with feminist scholars in other post-​industrial countries who had begun to grapple with the notion of a feminist presence within government through WPAs (McBride and Mazur, 2007). At the basis of the RNGS network were the questions: Why was the Roudy ministry so powerful? Did such power make a difference? And did other women’s policy agencies in Europe and North America have the same resources and impact? Thus, this second trend in state feminism work in France represents how the

 

Gender Policy Studies    567 French case can be the basis of second-​generation comparative theory-​building studies of FCP. More recently, a third promising trend in state feminism research has been to move away from the national to the supra-​and subnational levels. While many of the earlier studies of women’s policy agencies were on national level offices, recent works have challenged this national focus, drawing attention to policy dynamics taking place at the supranational, notably at the European, level (Jacquot, 2013; Sénac-​Slawinski and Dauphin, 2006), and to a lesser extent, at the local level (Mazur, 2000; Perrier, 2006). The development of studies of gender policy at the European level accompanied the definition and implementation of the policy itself, and more generally favored the development of gender policy studies in Europe, with significant input from French academics. For example, Jacquot analyzes the evolution of gender equality policy at the European level, from equal pay to gender mainstreaming, shedding light on interactions between WPAs at the national and supranational levels, focusing on the different types of tools (legal, budgetary, cognitive) this policy translated into, and analyzing the complex interplay between gender equality policy and market forces (Jacquot, 2009; 2010; 2014). While much less studied, focusing on state feminism at the local level appears to be a very promising direction of analysis (Mazur, 2000).

Feminist Policy Formation: Disaggregating the State; the Field of Women’s Advocacy and the Role of Gender-​biased Universalism Feminist policy formation, referring to the development of specific reforms with significant stakes for gender equality, has been a dynamic field of empirical investigation since the 1990s. Following pioneering works by Mazur on equal employment (1995a) and Mossuz-​Lavau on sexuality-​related legislation (1991), political scientists, sociologists, and historians have conducted in-​depth investigations on the genesis of several landmarks of gender equality policy in France, such as the 1967 law on birth control, the 1975–​9 laws on abortion (Engeli, 2010; Pavard, 2012) or the 2000 parity reform (Bereni and Lépinard, 2004; Bereni, 2007; 2015; Lépinard, 2007; Opello, 2006; Murray, 2010). British scholars Allwood and Wadia (2009) have provided an overview of gender equality policies in France in a comparative perspective. Policies less framed on the French political agenda as “gender equality” reforms, but yet including important stakes in terms of their impact on gender relations, have also been objects of investigation, often within comparative frameworks; for example job training (Mazur, 2001), divorce legislation (Revillard, 2009a), prostitution (Mathieu, 2013; Mazur, 2004), secularism and veiling politics (de Galembert, 2008; 2009), assisted reproductive technology (Engeli, 2009a; 2009b), and child abuse (Boussaguet, 2009). Based on such case studies, the analysis of gender policymaking in France has led to major contributions of broader relevance for a sociology of the state and the analysis of state–​social movement interactions. Of particular interest here is the analysis of conflict within the state, which resonates with the way FCP research more generally has disaggregated the state and the focus on different sectors of feminist policy. This dimension of analysis is particularly prominent in studies of gender issues which are also salient

 

568    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard for the family movement, such as abortion, family law, and work–​family reconciliation (Jenson and Sineau, 1998; Mossuz-​Lavau, 1991; Pavard, 2012; Revillard, 2006). Indeed, women’s advocacy on these issues has led to the formation of coalitions of feminist actors, inside and outside of the state, which face a strong countermovement; the defense of family interests being upheld by a strong movement within civil society, and strongly institutionalized within the state. As the study of mobilizations around the issue of the financial consequences of divorce shows, the presence of this countermovement and the strength of traditional family values within the state has not only functioned as an impediment to the success of feminist claims, but has also to some extent indirectly contributed to the framing of those claims, for example leading women’s rights advocates to under-​invest in the question of the economic consequences of divorce as defined in family law, focusing their activism elsewhere, and notably on equal employment issues (Revillard, 2009a). Beyond the analysis of conflict inside and outside the state, the study of the adoption of gender-​equality reforms also has led to major conceptual innovations in social movement theory, such as Bereni’s concept of a “field of women’s advocacy” (2015), which refers to “the configuration of groups and organizations mobilizing on behalf of women and for women in a variety of social settings, either inside or outside institutions” (Chapter 21, this volume). The diachronic study of how different poles of this field were successively activated during the parity campaign helps shed light on the broader movement–​institution connections that favor movement success and policy change, including governmental feedback on movement activity, such as when the setting of the parity reform on the governmental agenda actually spurs feminist activism, instead of putting an end to it as a more sequential model would predict (Bereni, 2009). Thus, French policy work also contributed to the fourth stream of FCP on women’s movements and policy. The republican universalist nature of the French state and political culture has been identified as an important obstacle to pursuing feminist and gender equality policy (e.g. Bereni, 2007; Offen, 1991). As Lépinard and Mazur (2009) assert, based on a review of the interdisciplinary French and non-​French literature, the way in which the Jacobin tradition of defining equality in class-​based terms rather than specific vectors of inequality like gender, race, ethnicity, disability, etc. has made it difficult to pursue policies that promote gender equality and strike down sex-​based discrimination. Moreover, this formally neutral notion of citizenship entails a deeply engrained gender bias. The universal abstract figure of the citizen therefore hides, since the French Revolution, a masculine persona and state policies define women as a particular group marked by difference—​gender—​that needs specific policies that tend to reinforce traditional gender roles and create dual citizenship. (Lépinard and Mazur, 2009: 248)

This “gender-​biased republican universalism” (Mazur, 2001; 2004) has not only been an important variable in explaining more symbolic policy responses and preventing

 

Gender Policy Studies    569 authoritative policy implementation as feminist policy has evolved in France, but it has proven to be quite resilient over time, apparently embedded in “the logic of appropriateness” (Chappell, 2006) of the French state; an institutional dynamic identified by feminist institutionalists more broadly speaking that has made states resistant to demands for gender equality.

The Research Agenda: Policy Implementation and Making the Comparative Connections Count The particular shape of gender policy research on France and the way it connects to FCP scholarship, both in terms of its distinctiveness and shared areas of overlap, sets the agenda for French research and FCP research alike. Here, we first examine the French contribution to the emerging comparative agenda on gender equality policy implementation and impact. Next, we turn to future directions for how research on France can further develop the comparative connection and contributions.

French Innovations in Studying Implementation and Impact The study of gender policy implementation is a particular focus for French political scientists and sociologists, due to a growing interest in policy implementation in general through the convergence of two research foci: understanding policy implementation through “policy tools” (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2004), and the study of street-​level bureaucracy (Dubois, 2010; Lipsky, 1980; Maynard-​Moody and Musheno, 2003; Siblot, 2006; Warin, 1993; Weller, 1999). These new research agendas also reflect the ethnographic turn in French social science more broadly speaking, with its focus on policy impacts from the bottom up (Cardi, 2010; Fischer, 2010; Jakšić, 2013; Mainsant, 2010). Moreover, while not necessarily self-​identifying as “implementation studies,” several contemporary studies on gender inequality in the fields of politics, business, education, and sociolegal studies provide precious insights into the diffusion, impact, and effects of gender equality policies. Arguably, the fact that these studies address broader questions than policy implementation as such is what makes them particularly interesting in terms of the analysis of gender policy impact in that they allow for an entrée into policy implementation within its broader social and legal contexts. Drawing on this group of studies, the contributions of contemporary social science research to the analysis of gender policy implementation is presented here in three key subsectors of feminist policy: political representation, equal employment, and gender-​based violence.

 

570    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard

Political Representation The implementation of the 2000 parity reform provides a case in point in terms of policy evaluation, in view of assessing the efficiency of punitive as opposed to incentivized or voluntary policy tools. In regional and municipal councils where the lists must alternate men and women in order to be valid, the law has proven very effective: women now represent 48 percent of all regional councilors and 48.5 percent of city councilors. Conversely, in department councils, the National Assembly, and the Senate, where the law is only an incentive to proposing women candidates (parties must pay a fine if they do not comply), the increase in the proportion of women is much less significant: women are 13.9 percent of department councilors, 26.9 percent of deputies, and 22.1 percent of senators. Moreover, scholars have addressed the question of how gender inequalities and relationships between politics and gender are transformed in the context of the parity reform in a variety of ways. First, election results were the subject of a more detailed analysis, showing for example that beyond consolidated figures men remain longer in elected office than women (due to their standing for re-​election more often) (Paoletti, 2013). Moreover, the analysis of election results was complemented by more qualitative approaches to gender and elections, notably drawing on a sociology of occupational inequalities and partisan activism to analyze the implementation and impact of parity laws. For example, Catherine Achin showed how being a member of parliament remains a “man’s job,” and how gender segregation remains high within parliamentary activities: for instance, women still tend to be confined to the more “feminine” committees dealing with family or social affairs (Achin, 2005). The context of the implementation of the parity reform also led to the definition of a major research project at the subnational level, entitled “inventing the elected” (L’invention de l’élue) and coordinated by Frédérique Matonti and Marion Paoletti (Achin et al., 2007). Fifteen researchers conducted ethnographic research in eight locations over five years following the enactment of the parity reform (2001–​5). They studied how the lists were established, the unfolding of the campaign, and the dynamics of the elected assemblies, through semi-​structured interviews, direct observation, and document analysis. Based on this extensive fieldwork, the authors found ambivalence surrounding the uses of gender in partisan politics following the parity reform. On one hand, the reform made it possible for women to claim their gender identity and use it as a political resource (valuing their specific input to political life), whereas such a strategic use of gender references was stigmatized prior to the reform. On the other hand, the way the reform was implemented contributed to some extent to weakening women’s legitimacy and power in elected assemblies. For example, in the designation of the candidate lists, male party leaders tended to assign women slots to other under-​represented minorities, such as youth and racial minorities. This reinforced the contrast between experienced male candidates and “lay” women. Similarly, the direct observation of the unfolding of the campaigns attests to the prevalence of a strong division of partisan labor (with men putting up posters and speaking in meetings and

 

Gender Policy Studies    571 women doing the phoning and support, for example). As Bereni notes in a review of this research (2010), this approach differs greatly from the more strictly quantitative evaluation of the impact of quota measures which is more common in English-​speaking works on gender and elections.

Equal Employment Although it was a major focus of studies of gender policy formulation in France, the implementation of the array of highly “symbolic” equal employment policies adopted in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s has not been systematically investigated beyond initial administrative outputs (see e.g. Levy, 1988; Mazur, 1995a; Laufer, 2003) to determine whether these complex policies have been followed through at all levels and have had any concrete impact. Recent work has turned to this important question, opening interesting venues for the broader field of policy implementation. Two examples of recent studies are presented here. Perrier’s work on the implementation of gender mainstreaming in employment policy at the local level, comparing France and Germany (2006; 2013a) illustrates the difficulties gender equality advocates are faced with when trying to put forward a feminist agenda within existing policy sectors (such as employment, in this case) at the local level. Her case study shows the persistence of gender stereotypes within the occupational routines of street-​level bureaucrats in the field of employment policy, which limits the impact of gender mainstreaming in spite of the integration of gender equality principles and goals within employment policy statements as of the beginning of the 2000s. Using Bereni’s concept “field of women’s advocacy,” Blanchard analyzes how the implementation of equal employment policy, notably by means of training, resulted in the formation of an “equal opportunity in employment field” at the intersection of women’s advocacy, employment policy, and management (2013). Her research opens very interesting avenues regarding the interplay between the institutionalization of a cause at the public policy level and its commercialization as well as its professionalization. She shows how a coalition of trainers and counselors, themselves increasingly professionalized, gradually formed, parallel to the institutionalization of equal employment policy. Research on these actors of the implementation of equal employment policy mainly within the private sector also raises the question of the interaction between the definition and implementation of equal employment policy and the transformation of women’s advocacy, with the development of spaces of contention at the interface of the corporate world and the sphere of social movements (Blanchard, Boni-​Le Goff, and Rabier, 2013).

Gender-​based Violence Implementation studies in the field of policies on violence against women also stress the discrepancy between the way an issue is framed (notably by women’s rights advocates) at the stage of policy formulation and the way it is locally appropriated by the actors in charge of its implementation, be they judicial, police, or women’s organizations. Connections with sociolegal studies prove particularly useful in this subsector,

 

572    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard helping make sense of the evolution of policy framing in relation to different areas of law (family law, social law, and penal law). Cador (2005) shows how feminist policymaking against domestic violence is undermined in the course of implementation at the level of family courts, where lawyers and judges tend to avoid conflict and see violence as a couple rather than a systemic issue. In this context, faults are implicitly conceived as shared, and divorce or separation is thought of as an adequate and sufficient answer to the problem, to the detriment of the actual sanction of the violent act (Cador, 2005). Focusing more directly on policy tools that pertain to feminist policymaking, Delage’s study of the role played by women’s organizations in the implementation of policies against domestic violence sheds light on another tension in the legal framing of gender-​based violence, between penal law and social welfare legislation (Delage, 2013). Comparing France and the United States, she shows how in the former the integration of the fight against domestic violence in the occupational routines of social workers results in a social policy framing of domestic violence, as opposed to a strategy of criminalization which is more common in the States. Studying yet another policy tool in the field of policies against violence (this time, not specifically gender-​based violence), the “local security contracts” (contrats locaux de sécurité), Lieber shows how this tool designed to fight against “insecurity” in fact poorly addresses the fears experienced by women in the public as well as in the private sphere: violence against women generally is not addressed as such in these contracts, and when it is (such is the case of Paris), it is mainly presented as violence occurring in the private sphere, generally framed as “family” violence rather than gender-​based violence, to the detriment of violence experienced by women in the public or semi-​public spheres (Lieber, 2003; 2008). From these cases studies, it is clear that French research is at the forefront of implementation studies, providing important qualitative research of the details of implementation at the local, municipal, and street levels in key areas of feminist policy that are currently being studied by FCP scholarship in equal employment and gender-​based violence. The highly developed work on parity reform should provide some important insights for emerging work on quotas from a comparative perspective, although much of the French work on this topic has not been published in English. An emerging comparative research project on gender equality policy implementation, the Gender Equality Policy in Practice (GEPP) project, co-​convened by Joni Lovenduski, Isabelle Engeli, and Amy Mazur and including many of the French gender policy researchers cited here, will greatly benefit from these fine-​grained case studies, in terms of selecting policies to be studied in other countries and in identifying some of the important forces at work that prevent feminist policies from being effectively pursued as future study hypotheses.10

Future Directions French work has taken seriously the call to conduct studies at the local level and thus can serve as a touchstone for future FCP work that also seeks to look at the local level.

 

Gender Policy Studies    573 Additional studies in France should be pursued at all of the subnational levels: regional, departmental, and local in multi-​level studies, potentially in the context of GEPP. Work on state feminism could benefit from taking this shift to the subnational level seriously, particularly given the existence of a dynamic set of women’s policy agencies at the levels of regional, departmental, and municipal councils. These efforts should stay connected to the emerging international efforts on feminist territorial architecture being pursued in the wider FCP community (see e.g. Chappell and Vickers, 2011; Verloo and Walby, 2012), particularly given that this international work pays little attention to the French case. The identification, operationalization, and application of Bereni’s concept of a field of women’s advocacy shows great promise for comparative efforts to define women’s movements and their roles. The strong evidence in English and French that shows that gender-​biased universalism is an important impediment for feminist state action could be better taken up by the FCP community as a major explanation in a comparative perspective, particularly since it shows the degree to which embedded gender-​biased state institutions are major impediments to feminist state action. The intersectional nature of gender equality policy undeniably represents a key direction for future research, in France as elsewhere, at a time when political leaders increasingly refer to gender equality and LGBT rights in order to legitimate restrictive migration policies and discriminatory practices toward religious and racial minorities at the domestic level, in a logic of “homonationalism” (Fassin, 2006; Jaunait, Le Renard, and Marteu, 2013). On a more institutional level, intersections of gender with other bases of social inequality raise much debate regarding the evolution of WPAs and the legitimacy of gender-​specific anti-​discrimination institutions (Stratigaki, 2008). Indeed the particularities of gender-​biased universalism and how French diversity policy has taken a different path to that in most other EU countries may very well be an important comparative point for other ongoing efforts on intersectionality at a comparative level. While there have been some emerging efforts in France to explore intersectionality issues in the gender policy context, and French researchers did participate to a certain degree in the QUING project which focused on equality plus policies, the French case is not included in the new published FCP work on intersectionality (Kirszan et al., 2012; Walby and Verloo, 2012) and intersectionality in the French case has been under-​ studied (see e.g. Bird, 2001). Thus, this area could benefit from additional organization and infrastructure as well. While the language gap has proven to be less of a problem in gender policy research than in other areas of study in this volume, given the degree to which non-​French scholars publish in French and French scholars publish in English, there is still much work to be done in translating both English-​and French-​language work so that an already strong two-​way comparative connection can be made stronger. Some current efforts in France to translate feminist work, by the Institut Emilie du Châtelet for example, represent a first step, but they are quite limited. Some English-​language publishers, such as Temple University Press, have also shown openness to translating French work in other areas, but again these are very isolated cases. Ideally, French-​language scholars should publish

 

574    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard in English and English-​language research should be published in French. French-​based and internationally based research meetings and conferences have been important sites for this two-​way international exchange as well. In one case a research conference held at Queen Mary College in London led to the creation of a gender and politics listserv by Rainbow Murray. More of these collaborative efforts which allow French researchers to better showcase their particular contributions to the international FCP community and vice versa should be pursued to advance the gender policy agenda in general through for example the bi-​annual meetings of the ECPR women and politics standing group, the European Conferences on Gender and Politics.

Conclusion Far from being an impediment, the distinctiveness of gender policy studies in France has clearly been an asset; it allows for innovative methodologies and theoretical framings that have made solid contributions to the study of gender policy inside and outside France. The use of comparative analysis and the field’s strong links to a broader tradition of in-​depth empirical investigation in French social science provide these studies with solid foundations. On a theoretical level, French gender policy studies have led to important conceptual innovations. The vitality of implementation studies should be stressed as one of the key assets of contemporary works, with very promising connections to neighboring fields such as the study of occupational inequalities and sociolegal studies. The extent to which French gender policy studies have made the comparative connection to FCP is quite exemplary for many research areas in this volume as well. While French work has its own identity and strengths that reflect the particularities of the national context and developments in French politics, it has developed a close two-​ way relationship to comparative work on gender policy on many different levels, which makes the French gender policy scholarship important, useful, and analytically meaningful inside and outside France. Setting the agenda for FCP work in terms of implementation studies and state feminism, French gender policy work has contributed to new trends in FCP including conceptualizing and measuring women’s movements, multi-​level analysis, feminist institutionalism, quota policies, and sectoral approaches to policy. The extent to which French gender policy studies have not been defined by a women’s studies infrastructure in the same way as in other countries has meant that the separation between feminist and non-​feminist scholarship is less pronounced. As a consequence, gender policy studies are more integrated into policy studies and the other areas to which French gender policy speaks. As such, French work may be taken more seriously by the mainstream in France than on the international level; there is no opaque wall blocking French gender policy studies. Thus, in the final analysis, French gender policy research is active and important, serving a wide range of scientific communities inside and outside France.

 

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Notes 1. While other gender policy scholars have identified feminist policy studies, for example Blofield and Haas (2013), Mazur (2002) formally introduced the label “FCP,” and first used the term to describe this emerging area of scholarship. FCP is a part of the larger subfield of study called gender and politics, which covers all of the different aspects of the political system as they relate to gender—​policy, behavior, structures, ideas, etc. Thus, this chapter covers only one aspect of the broader field of gender and politics. For the current state of gender and politics in the international context, see Waylen et al. (2013), and in the French context, see Achin and Bereni (2013b). 2. This analysis is based on an assessment of over 400 published pieces of FCP work in Mazur (2002) and of more recent FCP large-​scale projects in Mazur (2009). 3. A special issue of Comparative European Politics on gender and public policy in Europe covered six sectors (Sauer, 2009; Morgan, 2009; Engeli, 2009b; Zippel, 2009; and Haffner-​ Burton and Pollock, 2009) 4. It is important to note that although women’s movements are an inextricable part of FCP in terms of the foci of its research streams and are an analytical touchstone, the study of women’s movements, covered in Chapter 21 in this volume, is a separate area, with some overlap with FCP, that is primarily focused on movements, with state interactions being of secondary importance. 5. RNGS in particular systematically incorporated the French case across all five policy areas, in part due to funding from the French Ministry of Social Affairs through the women’s rights administration; only three other countries in the study were able to attain such systematic coverage. For the French-​language report on the RNGS findings, which includes a case study of WPAs in the PACA region, see Mazur (2000); for a summary of the findings on France, in English, see Lépinard and Mazur (2009). 6. The new gender and political science handbook coordinated by Catherine Achin and Laure Bereni reflects well this disciplinary pluralism (2013b). 7. See the Genre et sexualité series at La Découverte, as well as the Archives du féminisme series at Presses universitaires de Rennes. 8. Compared to the previously described historical work, these works on contemporary gender and welfare state issues focus more on policy reforms and implementation than on women’s movement activism, partly because the focus of activism in the past few decades has been elsewhere, notably on equal employment, abortion rights, and more recently gender-​based violence issues, rather than social policy and work–​family reconciliation. 9. As the authors stress, the equation “high female activity rates + high fertility rates = the French miracle” creates an unexpected consensus between three very different groups; family interests, feminist interests, and policymakers (Jacquot, Ledoux, and Palier, 2011: 81). 10. The French connection is even more direct in this area. The LIEPP (Interdisciplinary Research Center for the Evaluation of Public Policies) program at Sciences Po Paris hosted GEPP’s first research design meeting.

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580    Amy G. Mazur and Anne Revillard Maynard-​Moody, S. and Musheno, M. (2003). Cops, Teachers, Counselors. Stories from the Front Lines of Public Service. Chicago: University of Michigan Press. Mazur, A. G. (1991). “Agendas and Egalité Professionnelle: Symbolic Policy at Work in France,” in Meehan, E. and Sevenhuijsen, S. (eds) Equality Politics and Gender. London: Sage, 122–​41. Mazur, A. G. (1995a). Gender Bias and the State: Symbolic Reform at Work in Fifth Republic France. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Mazur, A. G. (1995b). “Strong State and Symbolic Reform. The Ministère des Droits de la Femme in France,” in Mazur, A. G. and Stetson McBride, D. (eds) Comparative State Feminism. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 76–​94. Mazur, A. G. (2000). “Appareils Gouvernementaux Chargés des Droits des Femmes, Représentation et Démocratie en France. Une Étude Internationale et Comparative.” Paris: Ministère de l’emploi et de la solidarité/​Service des droits des femmes. Mazur, A. G. (2001). “Republican Universalism Resists State Feminist Approaches to Gendered Equality in France,” in Mazur, A.G. (ed.) State Feminism, Women’s Movements, and Job Training: Making Democracies Work in the Global Economy. New York: Routledge: 155–​82. Mazur, A. G. (2002). Theorizing Feminist Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mazur, A. G. (2004). “Prostitute Movements Face Elite Apathy and Gender-​ Biased Universalism in France,” in Outshoorn, J. (ed.) The Politics of Prostitution: Women’s Movements, Democratic State and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 123–​43. Mazur, A. G. (2009). “Comparative Gender and Policy Projects in Europe: Current Trends in Theory, Method and Research,” Comparative European Politics 7(1): 12–​36. Mazur, A. G. (2012). “A Feminist Integrative and Empirical Approach in Political Science:  Breaking Down the Glass Wall,” in Kincaid, H. (ed.) Oxford University Press Handbook on Philosophy of Social Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 533–​58. Michel, S. and Koven, S. (1990). “Womanly Duties:  Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States in France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States, 1880–​1920.” American Historical Review 95(4): 1076–​108. Milewski, F. (2005). “Les inegalites entre les femmes et les hommes: Les Facteurs de precarite. Rapport à la ministre chargee de la parite.” 350. Morel, N. (2001). “Politique sociale et égalite entre les sexes en Suède,” Recherches et prévisions 64: 65–​79. Morel, N. (2007). “Le genre des politiques sociales. L’apport theorique des ‘gender studies’ a l’analyse des politiques sociales,” Sociologie du travail 49(3): 383–​97. Morgan, K. (2003). “The Politics of Mothers’ Employment: France in Comparative Perspective,” World politics 55(2): 259–​89. Morgan, K. (2006). Working Mothers and the Welfare State:  Religion and the Politics of Work–​Family Policies in Western Europe and the United States. Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press. Morgan, K. (2009). “Caring Time Policies in Western Europe:  Trends and Implications,” Comparative European Politics 7(1): 37–​55. Mossuz-​Lavau, J. (1986). “Abortion Policy in France Under Governments of the Right and Left (1973–​1984),” in Lovenduski, J. and Outshoorn, J. (eds) The New Politics of Abortion. London: Sage, 86–​104, Mossuz-​Lavau, J. (1991). Les lois de l’amour: Les Politiques de la sexualite en France de 1950 à nos jours. Paris: Editions Payot.

 

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B.  The International Arena

 

 

Chapter 26

France and t h e Evolu tion of E u rope a n Integrat i on the exemplary and pivotal case for broader theories Craig Parsons

France and Europe is a topic we might expect to connect poorly to broader scholarship. The European Union (EU) is often seen as occupying a sui generis category between international organizations and states, and France arguably relates to the EU in singular ways that could limit comparison even to its European partners. We might expect the country that has most consistently led the EU project to exhibit special motivations. We might expect the quasi-​federal EU to evoke unusual tensions in the country that first perfected the unitary state and that defined its democracy around a monolithic “General Will.” We might expect the country of Colbert and dirigisme—​a people who still express more skepticism about free markets than any other—​to relate atypically to Europe’s ambitious single-​market project. Yet the opposite is true. Of all the literatures on French politics covered in this volume, that on the French relationship to European integration may be most connected to scholarship beyond the French case. Broad theories have informed most work about France and the EU. The French case has had substantial impact on broad theoretical debates. Do we thus confront one of the paradoxes beloved by French essayists? Actually, no mystery lurks in the scholarly integration of literature on France and integration. It reflects the questions that have driven work on the topic, which came in two phases. From the 1950s to the 1990s the literature asked why the French government chose to construct the EU. These questions about a rising international organization were posed by scholars of international relations (IR) who theorized national cases as similar by definition. Around the mid-1990s, most scholarship reversed its arrows to target “Europeanization” of French politics and society. These questions about consequences

 

586   Craig Parsons of EU membership were posed mainly by comparativists who theorized France in comparative perspective with other EU countries. We will see that the “Europeanization” agenda also encouraged the rise of the first broad theoretical approach to European integration that is distinctively French—​the political sociology approach. This chapter first summarizes the literature’s dominant theories and traces the rise of French political sociology. Next it evaluates the evidence for leading theories over the evolution of European integration. After considering the feedback of the French case on broader theorizing, it offers suggestions for future research.

Outside In: Broad Theoretical Approaches to France and the EU The EU project began just as US-​based academics were creating a newly theoretical political science in the 1950s.1 It drew the attention of an IR subfield that was developing general theorizing in particular. Thus the first long phase of scholarship on France and Europe, which was strongly dominated by theorists at universities in the hegemonic United States, conceived of France simply as “a state.” For four decades debates centered on how to theorize why states delegated power to Europe. This phase consolidated with Ernst Haas’s book The Uniting of Europe (Haas, 1958). Haas saw his work as a social-​science restatement of the “Monnet method” that inspired the EU’s founding fathers. Recognizing that few post-​war Europeans supported rapid steps to Euro-​federalism, French bureaucrat extraordinaire Jean Monnet proposed a gradual route to the same goal. If the creation of “supranational” institutions coordinated and strengthened key economic sectors, Monnet hoped, Europeans would come to perceive such institutions as beneficial. These initial steps might then create incentives for deeper cooperation, encouraging further delegations of power. Haas made Monnet’s strategy a theoretical question:  under what conditions would a forward-​ leading dynamic of integration arise? Haas’s answer combined two tools available in the 1950s—​functionalism and interest-​ group pluralism—​with a dash of early institutionalism. David Mitrany’s normative theory of functionalism held that people should support whatever governing institutions best fulfilled their functional needs (Mitrany, 1966). Haas’s analytic theory of “neofunctionalism” predicted that people would transfer their loyalties to Europe given the right constellation of domestic interest groups and supranational institutions. If interest groups stood to gain sufficiently from cross-​border exchange, creation of supranational institutions could spark self-​reinforcing integration. One mechanism, known as “functional spillover,” reflected the interconnectedness of modern economies: once governments attempted integration in coal and steel, for example, they would encounter incentives to coordinate transport policies that affected coal and steel pricing. Other functional linkages would follow. The other main mechanism, “political spillover,” was

 

France and the Evolution of European Integration    587 an early institutionalist theorem. Once supranational institutions were created, their agents would offer new proposals and rally new coalitions, feeding back to strengthen support for further delegations of authority. Neofunctionalism was (and is) an extremely general theory. Though it was criticized for treating the EU as a sui generis phenomenon in taking creation of supranational institutions as point of departure (like in Moravcsik, 1993), this critique felt increasingly dated with the proliferation of similar institutionalist theorizing. Haas’s “political spillover” was just an early, ill-​specified hypothesis that institution-​building alters the context for action—​something most political scientists today see as a common general axiom. Haas’s thought was later updated into clearer institutionalist language by Wayne Sandholtz and Alec Stone ​Sweet and Paul Pierson (Sandholtz and Stone Sweet, 1998; Pierson, 1996). In sum, neofunctionalism is a combination of general interest-​group pluralism, a general emphasis on functional interconnectedness of economies, and general institutional path-​dependence. The general theory that eventually emerged as neofunctionalism’s rival, Andrew Moravcsik’s liberal intergovernmentalism (LI), is a combination of interest-​group functionalism with generic bargaining theory between national units. It shares a core interest-​group model of politics with neofunctionalism: in both theories the final drive and limit for integration is the underlying configuration of interests of domestic groups in gains from cross-​border interactions (see Parsons, 2000). On these foundations Moravcsik built a simpler story, however, in which domestic groups just pursue these gains by asking their governments to bargain out international frameworks (Moravcsik, 1993; 1998). Governments may create new institutions to facilitate coordination, but such institutions are so distant from social actors, resource poor, and formally subservient to governments that they rarely have effects besides making intergovernmental commitments more credible (Moravcsik, 1999). The resultant theorization of integration is pitched at the same level of generality as neofunctionalism; both expect the same dynamics to arise in all regions to some degree. Yet since neofunctionalism expects the most favorably configured cases of cross-​border integration to become endogenously self-​sustaining, it predicts a divergence of regional cases and implies that the most advanced result (the EU) operates quite differently from other international organizations. LI rules out endogenous dynamics and so paints a more substantively general picture of international relations. All cases of international integration, including the EU, ultimately operate in similar ways. In the 1990s and early 2000s new voices extended debates over the EU’s rise beyond general IR theories. Economic historians investigated how economic policy challenges explained France’s European choices (Lynch, 1997; Milward, 1992). Diplomatic historians related the same choices to geopolitical concerns (Hitchcock, 1998). Political scientists advanced constructivist arguments about the role of ideas in French policies on Europe (McNamara, 1998; Jabko, 2006). My own work in this vein argued that French elites fought a long “battle of ideas” over how French interests related to European institutions, with today’s EU reflecting the contingent victory of “pro-​community” leaders (Parsons, 2003). Yet if all this work was more French-​case focused and less generalizing,

 

588   Craig Parsons it too was framed more in broad theoretical claims about economies, geopolitics, or social construction than in particular conceptions of France. The literature’s bigger change in the 1990s was the shift to Europeanization. By this point the EU had become a worthy independent variable, with authority and resources that seemed likely to feed back on member-​state politics. At this point two overlapping categories of scholars flooded into EU studies. One was comparativists. Domestic-​ politics experts found that the EU was intruding on their objects of research. The other was Europeans. Internationalization of scholarly norms, the spread of English, and growing funding from the EU itself overwhelmed American scholarly hegemony. Abstract IR theorizing gave way to more concrete study by the EU’s inhabitants. Scholarship on France and the EU in this new phase became more theoretically eclectic and less prone to sharp clashes of paradigms. Its theoretical center is institutionalist. The core questions concern variation in the EU’s effects across member states; all answers attribute the variations they find largely to national institutions in some form. The most pervasive theorem is “fit” between national and European institutions, policies, and practices (Cowles, Caporaso, and Risse, 2001). Change is to be expected, that is, where “misfit” between EU and national practices generates tension. Scholars employ various theoretical vocabularies to elaborate this overarching notion (for a survey see Sedelmeier, 2012). Some rely on rationalist language of what March and Olsen (1989) called a “logic of consequences,” wherein the EU shifts resources among domestic actors and confronts varying national veto points. Others stress a sociological “logic of appropriateness,” wherein the EU empowers or disadvantages national norms, practices, or discourses. For most scholars these appear as complementary tools, however, not clashing theories of Europeanization. To theorize the France–​Europe relationship, this scholarship draws on national models from comparative politics. As a unitary state with a “statist” economic tradition, France suffers considerable “misfit” with the EU’s federal, liberal, regulatory-​state framework. French interest groups are accustomed to relatively closed semi-​corporatist relationships with French ministries, undergirded by elite networks in the system of grands corps, that contrast with the competitive lobbying of the EU arena. Skepticism of markets makes French citizens similarly ill at ease with Europeanization, which often overlaps in French discourse with globalization or Americanization. France thus stands out as the major state with the most pervasive apparent “misfit” with the EU polity (even more so, probably, than Britain, with its liberal tradition and greater comfort with a regulatory state). This image centers most scholarship on France and Europeanization on a very comparative question: to what degree has the EU hastened the “end of the French exception,” pressing France to converge with its neighbors? (as in Cameron, 1997; Smith, 2006; Drake, 2010).

France-​based Perspectives For a long time, France-​based scholarship on European integration was even more disconnected from US-​centered debates than French work on other political topics, to the

 

France and the Evolution of European Integration    589 point of being practically non-​existent. As Olivier Costa put it recently, French scholars simply “did not pay much attention to European integration until the 1990s” (Costa, 2012:  196). He explains this disinterest in terms of the underdevelopment of French political science, a low degree of academic internationalization, and a traditional French tendency to dismiss the importance of the European institutions. We can add that the highly general, extremely American-​style IR debates defined around neofunctionalism and then LI deterred French scholars whose training and presentational styles were far less positivistic. While individual voices like Raymond Aron or Françoise de la Serre addressed the European project (Aron, 1957; de Bussy, Délorme, and de la Serre, 1975), and Stanley Hoffmann connected these worlds at Harvard (Hoffmann, 1966; 1974), the rarity of such connections is striking. This situation changed rapidly in the 1990s. The most important reason lay in the real world: with the dynamism of the “Single Market 1992” program and especially the Maastricht Treaty of 1991, French social scientists were drawn into writing about the EU by its increasingly unavoidable impact on French political life. At the same time, emerging generations of French political scientists were often more fluent in English, and later in the 1990s the EU itself began offering large amounts of funding for Europe-​focused research. And intellectually, theoretical debates in the United States and elsewhere shifted from general, IR-​centered projects with little appeal in France to a more grounded, comparative-​centered context in which students of domestic French public policy and politics felt much more comfortable. A rising percentage of work on Europeanization thus came from French or France-​ based scholars like Olivier Costa, Bruno Cautrès, Renaud Dehousse, Emiliano Grossman, Virginie Guiraudon, Christian Lequesne, Bruno Palier, Sabine Saurugger, and Andy Smith (for a survey see Costa, 2012). By the 2000s these scholars were emerging internationally as field-​defining researchers on France and the EU. Moreover, while a few of these scholars pursued relatively Americanized approaches—​Grossman, for example, and most specialists on electoral politics—​most contributed to the emergence of the first distinctively French theoretical approach in these debates. Increasingly known as the “political sociology” approach, this broad school grew from similar but somewhat separate strands of Michel Crozier’s organizational sociology (Crozier and Friedberg, 1977), the “politiques publiques” approach of Yves Mény and Pierre Muller (Mény, Muller, and Quermonne, 1995), and most importantly the opus of Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1977). All three strands offered synthetic combinations of materialist and interpretive theories, a concrete focus on the organization and practices of politics, commitments to qualitative field research, and an open-​ended set of theoretical expectations that concern how political action changes rather than predicting directions of change. These orientations dovetailed neatly with the broader field’s turn toward Europeanization. Bourdieusan analysis in particular, with its conceptualization of action in evolving organizational “fields” and emphasis on tracing changing practices, seemed well conceived to orchestrate study of the multidirectional interactions of national and European fields. Not only did France-​based scholarship on the EU gain a newfound confidence from these homegrown tools, among many, Guiraudon

 

590   Craig Parsons 2003; Palier, Surel, and Jacquot, 2007; Smith, 2004; Kauppi, 2005; Georgakakis, 2009, but leading non-​French scholars began to employ them as well (Fligstein, 2008; Favell, 2008; Mérand, 2008; see also Favell and Guiraudon, 2011; Mérand and Saurugger, 2010). On-​the-​ground tracing of both material and ideational conditions in evolving organizational fields became an important and distinctive part of the scholarly terrain.

Evidence and Arguments about the France–​Europe Relationship This section summarizes how these theoretical approaches relate to evidence. I cannot narrate any step of the story of France and Europe, but I characterize what kind of story we see across its stages. Nor can I pretend to be impartial, since I have strong views about correct interpretations, but I try to hold to empirical observations. The tale falls roughly into three phases: construction of a “community” Europe (1945–​70), extension to the grander EU (1970–​2000), and hesitation and Europeanization since.

Construction (1945–​70) In 25  years France went from war with Germany to sharing sovereignty with it and other neighbors in an unprecedented supranational community. This path opened with French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman’s proposal of a European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1950. The ECSC’s creation in 1952 overlapped with turmoil over the European Defense Community (EDC), also proposed by the French in 1950 but killed by them in 1954. Given the EDC’s fate and the ECSC’s narrow sectoral profile, the key departure toward the future EU was the European Economic Community (EEC) treaty in 1957. The EU’s foundations consolidated by the late 1960s, once the EEC had survived the presidency of supranational skeptic Charles de Gaulle. The French origins of the ECSC and the EDC have drawn little attention from political scientists (though see Rosato, 2011). Haas took the ECSC’s existence as point of departure and interpreted the EDC fight in France as unimportant for the ECSC’s evolution (Haas, 1958: 124–​6). Moravcsik began his study around 1955. One reason for these starting points, probably, is that theories based on interest-​group pluralism fit integration’s first steps very poorly. Though the ECSC was all about regulating industry, French industry influenced it little and was broadly hostile to it (Gillingham, 1991: 237). Later the Conseil National du Patronat Français (CNPF, the peak business association) campaigned against ECSC ratification (Ehrmann, 1954). After losing this vote business was quieter on the EDC but still largely opposed. A few aerospace and electronics firms were hopeful about EDC contracts, but most saw it as an extension of what CNPF memos called ECSC-​style “authoritarian integration projects” (Marchand, 1957). Even if we

 

France and the Evolution of European Integration    591 stretch “interest groups” to groups within the state, the EDC attracted little support. The French military contained far more EDC opponents than proponents (d’Abzac-​Epezy and Vial, 1995). So did the diplomatic corps (Bossuat, 1996: 205). Instead it was French politicians who launched the ECSC and the EDC, with fragmented connections to deeper economic, social, bureaucratic, or electoral patterns. Even among politicians, moreover, these early years of integration were confused and contested. If Schuman’s ECSC proposal responded to broadly perceived French challenges—​supervising Germany, maintaining access to coal, appeasing US pressure to wind down the Occupation of Germany—​it was also a bold leap that evoked diverse reactions. It never obtained direct majority support, securing Assembly ratification in December 1951 only through side-​payments on other issues. The EDC escalated the contestation, sparking what Aron called “the greatest ideological and political debate France has known since the Dreyfus Affair” (Aron, 1957: 10). Forced onto the agenda by US insistence on German rearmament after the invasion of Korea, the EDC retained clear French government support only as long as Schuman and some allies controlled ministerial positions. Once coalitional shifts in early 1952 installed less pro-​“community” ministers—​despite shifting the coalition in Center-​Right directions that seemed slightly more supportive of integration—​it became clear that no leader would expend the political capital to rally a ratifying majority (Parsons, 2003: 74–​81). The EDC slid toward oblivion. Most political science literature on France and Europe begins at this point. The European project reignited with discussions in 1955 that led to two treaties: the EEC, which extended an ECSC-​like framework across European economies, and Euratom, a modest deal on atomic cooperation. For Haas, these steps resulted because the ECSC convinced interest groups to favor more integration. For Moravcsik, rising gains from trade inclined interest groups and then governments to a liberalizing bargain. What French evidence exists for these claims? Though The Uniting of Europe inspired a generation of scholars, Haas gave little evidence for functional spillover. He focused on arguing that business became resigned to ECSC over time. He interpreted such resignation, plus vague rhetoric, as support for more integration (Haas, 1958: 176–​93). He did not trace any clear functional link to the EEC/​Euratom deals from coal and steel. Overlooked were areas like transport that seemed to reject functional spillover:  the ECSC wrestled with transport policies that skewed coal and steel prices, but attempts to coordinate them failed for decades (Lindberg and Scheingold, 1970). Political spillover, too, is hard to find in Haas’s empirics. He noted correctly that Jean Monnet helped initiate the discussions in 1955 (Duchêne, 1994). Yet Monnet did so after resigning as President of the ECSC High Authority. He exerted influence more as a well-​connected Frenchman than a supranational agent. Still more troubling for both neofunctionalist and LI accounts is that interest groups did not push France into the EEC. Neither business nor farmers favored a supranational six-​country trade deal in the 1950s. Business was deeply fearful of liberalization. Legend (and Moravcsik) holds that this made them favor the EEC—​which narrowed liberalization to “little Europe” with supranationally administered safeguards—​but

 

592   Craig Parsons actually it did not. French business was mostly unhappy about the early Common Market talks and more open, not less, to liberalization in the 16-​nation Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) (Mahant, 1969:  363; Ehrmann, 1957: 414). They feared supranationality more than broad membership, expecting that France could ignore the OEEC’s less binding rules (as it had since 1950). In July 1956, as the EEC negotiations began, the business representatives in the French Economic and Social Council voted unanimously to relocate the discussions to the OEEC (Szokolóczy-​Syllaba, 1965: 287). Even after the EEC talks secured payoffs for France, the CNPF took no position on ratification. French farmers, meanwhile, entered legend as EEC supporters eager for exports through a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). What they actually sought, though, were bilateral export contracts. Most opposed supranationality and the ECSC model, seeing a CAP as a Dutch idea for liberalization (Milward, 1992: 283, 306–​9; Noël, 1988: 445). They only accepted (not demanded) the EEC after intense lobbying by French politicians. Even once most farmers endorsed ratification, most preferred the EEC’s transitional arrangements—​which were bilateral contracts—​and feared the CAP well into the 1960s (Délorme and Tavernier, 1969; Neville-​Rolfe, 1984; Keeler, 1987). Like with the ECSC and the EDC, then, the documentable impetus to the EEC came from politicians with erratic connections to other groups. Persuasion of farm lobbies secured ratification, but diverse parliamentary champions of supranationality did the persuading:  socialists like Guy Mollet and Christian Pineau, centrists like Maurice Faure and Félix Gaillard, conservatives like Antoine Pinay and Paul Reynaud. This scattered support made the EEC’s fate especially uncertain when the Fourth Republic collapsed in May 1958. Amid economic crisis and near civil war over Algeria, the political class called on Resistance hero Charles de Gaulle to restore order. Immense power was transferred to a harsh critic of the “communities” who seemed likely to renounce the not-​yet-​implemented EEC treaty. Yet de Gaulle implemented the treaty and later even accelerated its liberalization agenda. From neofunctionalist or LI viewpoints, this makes sense:  since both trace government choices to interest-​group demands—​whether channeled by spillover or not—​both imply that new leadership should not have altered French EEC policies. For Moravcsik, “Any other French government of the period would have sought the same objectives” (Moravcsik, 2000: 54). As I discuss in what follows, however, the evidence on de Gaulle’s choices has challenged both neofunctionalism and LI more than any other episode. Not only do they mischaracterize interest-​group pressures before 1958, but they disregard the political concerns that dominate the vast literature about the General and the EEC. My interviews and reading of the literature suggest that he implemented the EEC mainly to cut the British out of European discussions (see Parsons, 2003: 125–​41). De Gaulle’s core aim was to make France the clear leader of the Continent. He perceived the British as the main obstacle to that goal. He would never have proposed a community format himself, but the EEC was a platform from which the UK had self-​excluded. De Gaulle spent the next decade trying to build diplomatic cooperation into the EEC, keep the British out, dilute supranational provisions, and extract agricultural payoffs.

 

France and the Evolution of European Integration    593 Thus a supranational community Europe consolidated in the 1960s thanks to unforeseen fit with de Gaulle’s distinct political agenda.

Extension (1970–​2000) By 1970 France and its partners had delegated extensive powers to the EEC. In the following decades the European project went much further. After modest steps in the 1970s, when European ambitions were hamstrung by Gaullist influence and economic crisis, socialist President François Mitterrand led a “relance” in the Single European Act (SEA) of 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty of 1991. Even more than in the 1950s, the literature generally recognizes France as the leading actor and pivotal case in these episodes. The France–​ Europe relationship underwent pragmatic evolutions in the 1970s. President Georges Pompidou removed de Gaulle’s veto on British accession. His successor Valéry Giscard d’Estaing did the same for elections to the European Parliament and inspired the move to European Council summits. The decade’s main step, to tame exchange-​rate volatility in the European Monetary System (EMS) in 1979, was an intergovernmental deal of modest scope compared to the early treaties. A relative calm also marks scholarship on this period. After de Gaulle limited chances for supranational spillovers, neofunctionalism largely disappeared (Haas, 1975). The field was left mainly to intergovernmentalist arguments that attributed French policies to economic or geopolitical pressures. For economically minded scholars, French interests no longer barred the UK from the EEC once the CAP was secured. The EMS was an attempt to link the inflationary franc to the solid Deutschmark under post-​Bretton Woods conditions of currency volatility, rising capital mobility, and import dependence (Moravcsik, 1998; Loriaux, 1991). Geopolitical accounts portray Pompidou and Giscard coping with rising German power by seeking British allies and monetary constraints on the Deutschmark (Simonian, 1985; Soutou, 1996). Yet it is again empirically difficult to trace these policy changes tightly to economic or geopolitical evolutions. Instead, like in the 1950s, they reflected changing leaders amid ongoing contestation over integration. Politicians mainly stuck to their positions as shifts in electoral politics gave power to leaders with different views of Europe. Pompidou had preferred a more pragmatic EEC policy and British accession at least since the mid-1960s (Association Pompidou, 1995: 237). His endorsement of UK entry confronted major opposition from Gaullist barons who saw no reason for a change (Roussel, 1984: 438). Later, most Gaullists also opposed new steps to the EMS as overly threatening to French economic sovereignty (Nay, 1980: 283). Giscard had long favored British membership, European Parliament (EP) elections, and all previous community treaties. He was an established admirer of German economic policy and advocate of Franco-​German monetary cooperation (Cohen and Smouts, 1985). But his presidency was not the result of broad new support for such positions. Though Giscard’s pro-​ EEC views were formal doctrine for the Independent Republican party he built in the 1960s, its voters displayed attitudes on Europe identical to Gaullist voters (Safran, 1981). Many

 

594   Craig Parsons of the party’s leaders openly shared Gaullist preferences on the EEC (Petitfis, 1981: 29). And if Giscard’s dream was to construct a liberal, pro-​EEC political center, he was consistently elected by the Right. His presidential majority in 1974 was practically identical to Pompidou’s in 1969 (Frears, 1981: 202). French business, meanwhile, was supportive in principle of Giscard’s desire for more liberal economic policies. It expressed little enthusiasm, however, for the orthodox, constraining EMS deal that he managed to extract from Germany (Lauber, 1983: 139). France–​Europe relations evolved in the 1970s because new leaders gained the autonomy (not the mandate) to make changes they already preferred. With the 1980s the France–​Europe relationship moved from evolution to revolution. In ten years the SEA’s “Single Market 1992” plan and the Maastricht single-​currency deal transformed a quasi-​moribund EEC into a far more powerful EU. In both episodes the clear leader was Mitterrand. Though the wily socialist began the 1980s seeking “socialism in one country” with little regard for European commitments, construction of the EU ended up as his most important legacy. As integration revived the literature about it exploded as well. Moravcsik first built his theory around the SEA story, with French choices at its heart. He told a tale in which economic imperatives pressed Mitterrand to endorse liberalization and EEC institutional reforms to implement it. Mitterrand’s 1983 “U-​turn” in economic policy, when economic crisis undermined the socialist agenda and oriented France toward broader trends to liberalization, marked the key convergence of national interests (Moravcsik, 1998: 332–​43). Other scholars, meanwhile, interpreted these developments to revitalize elements of neofunctionalism. They saw the European Commission engaging in political spillover: Commission officials crafted the liberalization-​and-​reform package that became the “1992” plan, and new Commission President Jacques Delors brokered the deal between governments (Sandholtz and Zysman, 1989). These re-energized debates carried into interpretations of the deal on the European Monetary Union (EMU). Moravcsik argued that market pressures to establish stable, credible money drove the French to propose the single currency. Given the timing of Maastricht soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, geopolitically minded scholars added arguments in which France sought EMU to bind reunified Germany to European commitments (Baun, 1996). Post-​neofunctionalist institutionalists pointed to unintended consequences of the EMS: its commitments to exchange-​rate pegs became harder to sustain as capital markets grew, forcing French monetary policies to shadow German ones and French leaders to pursue further integration to recover some policy control (Sandholtz, 1996; Howarth, 2000). Institutionalists also again highlighted Delors and the Commission, suggesting that supranational agents maneuvered governments toward EMU (Dehousse and Majone, 1994). Ideational scholars stressed a French convergence with other countries on monetarist ideas that encouraged EMU, and deliberate campaigns by Delors’s team to sell the euro in different ways for different audiences (McNamara, 1998; Jabko, 2006). Once again the main theories capture aspects of France’s European choices but overlook the patterns of contestation over them. Moravcsik’s most basic point on the relance (or renewed emphasis on European integration), that the 1983 U-​turn created

 

France and the Evolution of European Integration    595 bargaining space for new steps, is incontrovertible. Only once all governments could discuss liberalization did new possibilities arise. Institutionalist and ideational arguments about the role of Delors and the Commission, too, have accumulated so much evidence that even Moravcsik accords them some recognition (Moravcsik, 1999: 292). If we look concretely at what French actors wanted over time, however, we find that neither broad economic pressures nor Commission persuasion shifted many French elites to support a package of liberalization and EEC reform. This is easiest to see at the end of the SEA story. In the final negotiations Mitterrand still fought against an “Anglo-​German front” to cut back the liberalization plan (Favier and Martin-​Roland, 1991: 216). His subsequent comments make clear that he saw the result as a bargain: he was so intent on reenergizing Europe institutionally—​an agenda he had personally supported since the 1960s—​that he agreed to more liberalization than he preferred (see Parsons, 2010a). That is, Mitterrand did not follow Moravcsik’s logic of endorsing liberalization and then pursuing EEC reform to make it work, and nor was he persuaded by the Commission that these elements made a tight functional package. He struck a deal with Margaret Thatcher, whose preferences were the reverse (and who remained unpersuaded that liberalization required institutional reform). The same disconnects between liberalization and EEC reform persisted broadly in French politics. A huge majority ratified the SEA (498 to 35), but a majority of that majority disliked the treaty. Mitterrand’s Socialists had little enthusiasm for the SEA’s liberalization. Besides the most Europhilic members, most simply found it difficult not to ratify a deal so identified with their president (Haywood, 1989). Chirac’s Gaullists largely opposed the SEA’s institutional reforms. They took over the government just after its signature in March 1986 and stalled for six months. Then they ratified it resentfully under threats to their coalition from small pro-​European allies (the CDS centrists led by Pierre Méhaignérie) and pressure from the Élysée (Parsons, 2003: 196). Around EMU arose similar dynamics: though economic, geopolitical, and institutional conditions motivated the push to the euro, only a minority of French elites with strongly pro-​European records championed EMU and pushed to make it happen. Interest groups were irrelevant. The most detailed study of French business found “no evidence of strong private sector preferences in favor of or against EMU” (de Boissieu and Pisani-​Ferry, 1998). As with the EEC, the CNPF took no position on the Maastricht ratification. The fall of the Berlin Wall also played little role in the French side of the story. As Moravcsik rightly points out, Mitterrand and his advisors were clearly pushing for EMU before November 1989 (Moravcsik, 1998: 415). Institutionalists are correct to see some spillover from the EMS and SEA, with broad French agreement emerging around 1987–​8 that new monetary steps were desirable to escape EMS asymmetries. Even Gaullists like Édouard Balladur and Chirac argued at this time that something had to be done (Balleix, 1994). Still, as “something” became EMU in the hands of Delors and advisors to Mitterrand and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, support in France fragmented once again. Chirac and other sovereignty-​conscious conservatives came out in opposition; Giscard and historically pro-​EEC conservatives were supportive (Parsons, 2003: 213). Mitterrandiste Socialists endorsed EMU and used organizational discipline

 

596   Craig Parsons to deliver parliamentary votes, but most of the Left despised Maastricht’s monetarist conditions. In the 1992 treaty referendum Mitterrand won a razor-​thin “yes” mainly due to votes from the Right (Criddle, 1993). Overall, patterns of French mobilization around integration through the 1990s largely frustrated the expectations of IR theories. Economic pressures and institutional path-​ dependence shaped the context for French choices, but neither compelled French elites broadly to endorse any of the steps to the EU. Instead, each step was driven by politicians who stood out from their compatriots for consistent support of a supranational Europe. Achieving policymaking power erratically in elections that were fought on other issues, these Europeanists repeatedly made side-​deals and expended political capital to overrule or persuade their allies on Right, Left, or in the Center who lacked similar integrative commitments. Thus French construction of the EU through 2000 appears as a conscious political project with diverse and scattered elite support. After 2000, though, it looks quite different.

Hesitation and Europeanization (2000–​) With the twentieth century ended an era in the France–​ Europe relationship. Monetary union realized the most ambitious policy step that anyone had imagined in the 1950s. The EU was still no “United States of Europe,” but beyond EMU nobody had any concrete idea what that meant. The post-​war generation of leaders who had led the project (or fought it, like de Gaulle, Thatcher, or Chirac) ended, too, with Mitterrand, Chirac, and Kohl. And with the end of the Cold War, Germany was reunited and post-​communist Europe sought entrance to the EU club. With much reluctance the French assented to enlargement, accepting it as necessary to stabilize their neighbors, but a broader Europe hugely complicated the hopes of French Europhiles for steps in foreign affairs or social policy. For all these reasons, the French politics of integration in the new millennium looked less like a conscious project advancing amid fragmented contestation. From the muddling-​through treaties of Amsterdam and Nice, through the public-​relations debacle of the Constitutional and Lisbon Treaties, to the euro crisis, the France–​Europe relationship came to look like contestation without a project. Scholarship too took on a new form. In America, IR theorists had been drawn to European integration as a transformative process. Less interested in an EU with ambiguous prospects and complex internal challenges, they largely left the field to area-​studies Europeanists. In Europe, the ranks of Euro-​comparativists swelled rapidly. Even a halting EU was plenty important, complex, and dynamic enough to call for comparative studies of Europeanization in all directions. In France, Bourdieusan political sociologists found that their synthetic, practice-​focused, non-​teleological approach fit well into a Europe that was dynamic but not driven. What sort of evidence have they found? This chapter can do even less justice to Europeanization research, which touches every corner of French and EU politics, than

 

France and the Evolution of European Integration    597 it has done to historical explanations. Fortunately, many chapters in this volume touch on Europeanization. In the briefest summary, it is fair to say that the recent literature echoes what we might expect given the historical narrative I  presented. France has delegated huge powers to the EU, but without broad and consensual support among interest groups or parties or voters on either Right or Left. The results since 2000 are a state and nation wrestling awkwardly with how to adapt and relate politically to their Europeanized elements. In policy terms, the direct and indirect consequences of delegations of power have reorganized many policy sectors profoundly, others partially, and have left few untouched. In broader institutions of the French polity EU-​related changes are generally modest. In French party and electoral politics, lastly, we see only poorly structured EU debates. The fragmentation that so confused French debates over the early communities, with parties struggling to digest or stifle European dilemmas, still troubles the relationship. The Europeanization of policy I can leave to Sabine Saurugger’s excellent Chapter 7, except to highlight its basic pattern. The baseline image of French policymaking in the Europeanization literature is a statist one, wherein a strong central bureaucracy and top elected officials lead weaker societal actors. This image has evolved most in areas where France has delegated major power to EU institutions, like monetary policy or agriculture (Balme and Woll, 2005). In supranationalized sectors we see strong changes in French policy processes and reorganization or at least redirection of traditional French policy actors. The further we move toward areas where delegations to the EU are less dramatic, the less we can point to ways in which integration per se has altered French statist patterns. Even in sectors like energy or industrial policy, while the EU has changed much of the context and content for French action, old state–​society patterns and elite networks have survived and still make French policymaking distinctively statist (Grossman, 2007). This is all the more true in areas where the EU is less present, like, say, social policy or education. At a wider institutional (or “polity”) level, the main thrust of literature points still more toward national inertia—​or even toward making France more distinctive. As Olivier Rozenberg summarizes, to the extent that the EU has altered French institutions, the clearest effect is “strengthening the original institutional features of the French political system” (Rozenberg, 2012). This finding contradicts the theorem of “fit,” since the key feature that has strengthened is “hyper-​presidentialism” that is the opposite of the consensual, multi-​level form of the EU. Successive presidents have played direct roles in most EU-​related decisions—​using the EU context to extend the president’s domaine réservé of foreign policy into more “domestic” areas—​while the day-​to-​day operation of French EU policies remains highly centralized under the prime minister’s office. Other ministers still largely relate to the EU through the Matignon and/​or the Élysée for major issues (Lequesne, 2010). The French Parliament has gained some prerogatives to discuss EU issues but “is still weak, in EU business and elsewhere” (Rozenberg, 2012: 64; Grossman and Sauger, 2007). In legal terms, France remains a laggard in compliance with EU directives, to which French administration continues to prove relatively resistant.

 

598   Craig Parsons In French electoral politics, scholars agree on an enduringly small role for EU-​ focused debates that they tend to see as somewhat surprising and also normatively troubling for French democracy. Few disagreed with Peter Mair’s assertion in 2000 that the EU had not yet greatly altered national party competition (Mair, 2000), but the literature before and after that point carries a tone of expectant excitement about potential change. Experts repeatedly find that, in France and elsewhere, conflicts over EU authority cross-​cut Right and Left at both elite and popular levels, creating periodic tensions within political formations that hint at possibilities of realignment (what Cees van der Eijk and Mark Franklin (2004) called the “sleeping giant”). Mair noted special tensions about Europe within the French Right, thanks to the Gaullist legacy and strong mobilization of a Euro-​rejectionist far Right. After 2000 the Left became even more conflicted over Europe than the Right, as the breakdown of Lionel Jospin’s Gauche Plurielle took the organizational lid off of Left discomfort with a liberalizing, monetarist EU that was being extended to competition from Eastern Europe (Parsons and Weber, 2011). With the cataclysm of the French referendum on the Constitutional Treaty in 2005 it seemed briefly that the giant had awoken. Left and Right (but especially Left) fell into fratricidal debates and France was gripped by mobilization that some compared to 1981 or even to 1968 (Rozès, 2005; Schmidt, 2007). For Euro-​optimists, it seemed like the French might have the debate about Europe that had been fragmented and smothered so far. But very quickly the institutional organization of French politics reimposed itself. Left and Right closed ranks to give little attention to Europe in the presidential election of 2007. Nor did Europe play a major role in 2012, despite the intervening financial collapse that presented itself in Europe most sharply through a debt crisis that lent itself to national recriminations. The core reason for the giant’s somnolence, experts largely agree, is that mainstream politicians on Left and Right still struggle to represent European issues that divide their organizations and constituencies. An echo of these dilemmas extends to the French media, who see little incentive to report on issues that the parties address so erratically and confusingly (Baisnée, 2005). The main results are distressing: French people have difficulty connecting their views on Europe to choices of representatives, and the only clear party positions on Europe come from extremists. For the institutionalist thinking that informs most literature on Europeanization, however, the resilience of the French party system and institutions should not be surprising. Though the Europeanization literature sometimes reads like a largely failed search for change, it (and especially the French Bourdieusan scholarship that has merged into it) is an exploration of the interaction of multiple institutional fields rather than a prediction of EU-​driven transformations. The rise of the EU created the potential for complex interactions of unintended change, prompting new questions about Europeanization, but this institutionalist theorizing does not retain neofunctionalist-​style teleology. Indeed, broad institutionalist thinking would surely expect that national-​level institutions would be quite resistant to changes flowing from EU institutions. The former are among the oldest, most legitimate, most resource-​rich institutions in world history; the latter are relatively new, resource poor, and have much weaker legitimacy. Thus “France’s

 

France and the Evolution of European Integration    599 mixed Europeanization,” as Rozenberg calls it, does not frustrate this research agenda. Familiar strains of institutionalism offer good theoretical reasons why “French exceptions” persist despite European pressures or incentives for change. Most scholars of France and Europe no longer study this subject out of hopes for post-​Westphalian transformation, but simply because the EU has pervasively anchored studies of French politics in multi-​level and comparative context.

Inside Out: Theoretical Impact and Future Potential of the French Case As an author whose first book focused on France but claimed to explain the EU broadly, I have been accused of being a Francophile who exaggerates France’s centrality. With that warning in mind, let me nonetheless argue that the French case has had special influence on theorizing about European integration. The same claim applies less to the Europeanization literature, where France appears as one major case among several, though here too France may well play an especially pivotal role in coming years. Consider how closely the fates of theories of integration follow from distinctively French developments. In the 1950s, the French proposed a supranational treaty in two economic sectors, rejected another linked to high politics, and then accepted a broader supranational economic framework. This was the perfect basic narrative to give birth to neofunctionalism. De Gaulle’s implementation of the EEC then seemed to confirm this view, supporting neofunctionalism’s heyday as a major school of thought in the early 1960s. But then the General attacked the EEC, limiting supranationality with the “Luxembourg Compromise” and vetoing British accession. Soon neofunctionalism’s founder declared it “obsolete,” unable to cope with de Gaulle’s “dramatic–​political” mode of action (Haas, 1975). The approach disappeared until Mitterrand took his “U-​turn,” fixed his sights on a European relaunch, and sent Delors off to Brussels. With the SEA’s reforms neofunctionalism returned, though in a more mainstream institutionalist guise. LI’s fortunes also follow closely from wrestling with the French case. Moravcsik built LI above all on the claim that the SEA followed from an interstate bargain made possible by Mitterrand’s U-​turn. He expanded that thesis into a book with roughly even attention to French, British, and German policymaking, but the one chapter he developed further concerned de Gaulle’s EEC policies (Moravcsik, 2000). He did so because it was a “hard case” to show that even this famously ideological and geopolitically obsessed leader followed the economic needs of interest groups. This attempt then drew the most devastating retort of his provocative career. According to a team of Dutch historians, a majority of Moravcsik’s citations about de Gaulle flagrantly misrepresent their sources (Lieshout et al., 2004). A decade later he has still made no response. Regrettably this historically detailed debate is not widely known among political scientists, but it likely weakens LI’s influence going forward.

 

600   Craig Parsons In the Europeanization literature the French position is less unique, but in the medium term it may nonetheless disproportionately influence scholarly findings. The hardest tests for EU-​driven change are big countries, which presumably have greater potential to maintain distinctive practices. Among the biggest member states Germany is widely seen as having the best “fit” with the EU, and thus the lowest tensions. The British simultaneously fit rather well with the EU’s regulatory state framework and suffer from extraordinary political issues that set them in a special category. Italy and Spain have long been mostly policy “takers” and are being remade in crisis. In coming years France is the case where we can most plausibly study how the EU interacts with distinct and robust national patterns over a span of time. These observations about a crucial French role in past interpretations of integration and a central place in ongoing study of Europeanization are closely related. France’s positioning as the initial default leader of integration made French options at the European level especially wide, French contestation about Europe especially sharp, and France’s European decisions especially consequential. Though the end of the Cold War erased some of that peculiar French positioning, creating a Europe with more potential leaders and less of a natural center, France nonetheless remains the most obvious claimant to those titles. At the same time the EU that has emerged is far more liberal, monetarist, and geographically broad than any French leader ever wanted. Thus the French remain torn about how to use the EU to pursue their interests and their visions of grandeur, and France remains a privileged site to study the politics of integration. What else does this survey suggest for future research? The driving questions of past literature remain relevant, largely unsettled (despite my personal sense of empirical interpretations offered above), and important in broader theoretical debates. Looking back at French mobilization to explain the rise of the EU, the empirical challenges that confront traditional IR theories may just mean that more empirically careful versions of these approaches need to be advanced. Looking forward, Europeanization continues, and continuing research on French Europeanization should interest not just Francophiles but those who address this pivotal case to pose questions about themes like liberalism, the power of institutions and law, or globalization more generally. In my view, the key to drawing further insights in either direction—​and insights that will garner broad scholarly attention beyond those who prioritize France en soi—​is for the scholarly traditions from these two main phases of past literature to learn something from each other in theoretical and methodological terms. IR-​focused scholarship about France and the construction of the EU could benefit from imitating the Europeanization literature’s more open-​ended research about politics and policymaking. Many of the empirical oversights of IR theories of integration follow, I suspect, from hasty assumptions about the simplicity of interests and the unity of collective actors. Part of what made Haas, and later Moravcsik as well, miss patterns of contestation in France is that they assumed that interest groups, parties, and governments must have fairly clear positions on such consequential issues. Their highly general theoretical approaches encouraged them to read formalistic statements by leaders

 

France and the Evolution of European Integration    601 as evidence of shared interests, when in fact such statements were often assertions of organizational authority over fragmented groups. Later institutionalist and ideational work did better on this score, though the literature still tends to assume coherent entities—​“the Commission,” interest groups, parties, and so on—​and thus perhaps to miss action and networks that cut across organizational channels. This is not to suggest that political action tends to cut across organizational channels, but good research asks questions about the shape of political action rather than assuming it. In other words, future work on France and the construction of the EU would do well to imitate the open-​ended problematization of the shape of action that is typical of French political sociology and work on Europeanization more broadly. These open-​ended approaches are equally promising in research on contemporary Europeanization, but they too can learn something from the American-​style grand theoretical debates over the EU’s emergence. The downside of open-​ended questions and multicausal nuance is that they often obscure an argument’s distinct contributions. French political sociology and the Europeanization literature overall tend to be theoretically eclectic. They stress that action inevitably mixes many dynamics, often making little effort to delineate a set of plausible but significantly distinct alternative stories. Without unpacking distinct dynamics before knitting them back together, such arguments blend multiple elements rather than revealing them. To become sharper, Europeanization scholarship needs to contrast alternative theoretical expectations which are at least partly distinct in a first phase of its accounts—​attempting to highlight how exactly a given instance of Europeanization (or the lack thereof) relates to certain conditions and contexts (Parsons, 2010b). Then, if the author wishes to combine dynamics into a multicausal account, s/​he also must spell out how the overall combined story runs differently from more monocausal versions. Contrasts to other interpretations will allow scholars of French politics to better communicate their contributions, both for France-​focused audiences and to more general theory.

Conclusion Together, then, the past strengths and weaknesses of scholarship on France and the evolution of European integration suggest some ways forward. Given literature that has so consistently been framed in broad theoretical terms, these lessons are quite general: students of France and Europe, like all social scientists, should pose open-​ended questions about the evolving shape of Franco-​European politics and then argue for the merits of one distinctive kind of answer against other alternatives. That said, the questions they have posed remain relevant and important. Even as the study of France and Europe further shifts from IR students of global transformation to comparative experts on more quotidian politics and policymaking, as it likely will, specialists of this topic need not be concerned about marginalization or disconnects from broader scholarly debates. The ongoing story of France and Europe is

 

602   Craig Parsons so remarkable, and so fraught with interesting political tensions, that it will remain a topic that connects powerfully to social science debates far beyond the Hexagon itself. Moreover, the increasing prominence of French political sociology in EU-​related literature makes this subject one of the main channels of French scholarly integration into the English-​language arena of social sciences. As with the EU itself, one thing that will come with this integration is contestation: the value and contributions of political sociology à la Bourdieu, Müller, or Crozier will attract both champions and critics in the cutthroat competition of Anglophone publishing. And as with the EU itself, while French scholars may have mixed feelings about integration into this broader context, we can have little doubt that they will leave their mark upon it.

Note 1. Good empirically grounded introductions to the subject are Guyomarch et  al., 1998; Gueldry, 2001; Drake, 2005.

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604   Craig Parsons Hoffmann, S. (1966). “Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation-​State and the Case of Western Europe,” Daedalus 95(3): 862–​915. Hoffmann, S. (1974). “De Gaulle as Political Artist: The Will to Grandeur,” in Hoffmann, S. (ed.) Decline or Renewal? France Since the 1930s. New York: Viking, 202–​53. Howarth, D. (2000). The French Road to Monetary Union. New York: St. Martin’s. Jabko, N. (2006). Playing the Market: A Political Strategy for Uniting Europe, 1985–​2005. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kauppi, N. (2005). Democracy, Social Resources and Political Power in the European Union. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Keeler, J. (1987). The Politics of Neocorporatism in France: Farmers, the State, and Agricultural Policy-​Making in the Fifth Republic. New York: Oxford University Press. Lauber, V. (1983). The Politics of Economic Policy: France, 1974–​1982. New York: Praeger. Lequesne, C. (2010). “L’administration centrale française et l’Union européenne,” in Doutriaux, Y. and Lequesne, C. (eds) Les institutions de l’Union européenne après le traité de Lisbonne. Paris: La Documentation Française, 145–​87. Lieshout, R., Segers, M., and van der Vleuten, J. “De Gaulle, Moravcsik and The Choice for Europe: Soft Sources, Weak Evidence,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6(4): 89–​139. Lindberg, L. and Scheingold, S. (1970). Europe’s Would-​Be Polity. Englewood, NJ: Prentice H ​ all. Loriaux, M. (1991). France After Hegemony. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lynch, F. (1997). France and the International Economy: From Vichy to the Treaties of Rome. New York: Routledge. Mahant, E. (1969). “French and German Attitudes to the Negotiations About the European Economic Community, 1955–​1957.” Doctoral dissertation in Politics, London University. March, J. and Olsen, J. (1989). Rediscovering Institutions. New York: Free Press. Marchand, J. (1957). “A Tableau of the French Press,” in Aron, R. and Lerner, D. (eds) France Defeats EDC. New York: Praeger, 102–​27. Mair, P. (2000). “The Limited Impact of Europe on National Party Systems,” West European Politics 23(4): 27–​51. McNamara, K. (1998). The Currency of Ideas: Monetary Politics in the European Union. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mény, Y., Muller, P., and Quermonne, J. (1995). Politiques publiques en Europe. Paris: L’Harmattan. Mérand, F. (2008). European Defence Policy:  Beyond the Nation State. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Mérand, F. and Saurugger, S. (2010). “Does European Integration Theory Need Sociology?” Comparative European Politics 8(1): 1–​18. Milward, A. (1992). The European Rescue of the Nation-​ State. Berkeley:  University of California Press. Mitrany, D. (1966). A Working Peace System. New York: Quadrangle Books. Moravcsik, A. (1993). “Preferences and Power in the European Community:  A  Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach,” Journal of Common Market Studies 31(4): 473–​524. Moravcsik, A. (1998). The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Moravcsik, A. (1999). “A New Statecraft? Supranational Entrepreneurs and International Cooperation,” International Organization 53(2): 267–​306. Moravcsik, A. (2000). “De Gaulle Between Grain and Grandeur: The Political Economy of French EC Policy, 1958–​1970 (Part I),” Journal of Cold War Studies 2(2): 3–​43. Nay, C. (1980). La double méprise. Paris: Grasset. Neville-​ Rolfe, E. (1984). The Politics of Agriculture in the European Community. London: European Center for Policy Studies.

 

France and the Evolution of European Integration    605 Noël, G. (1988). Du pool vert à la politique agricole commune. Paris: Economica. Palier, B., Surel, Y., and Jacquot, S. (eds) (2007). L’Europe en action. L’Européanisation dans une perspective comparée. Paris: L’Harmattan. Parsons, C. (2000). “Domestic Interests, Ideas and Integration: Lessons from the French Case,” Journal of Common Market Studies 38(1): 45–​70. Parsons, C. (2003). A Certain Idea of Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Parsons, C. (2010a). “Revisiting the Single European Act (and the Common Wisdom on Globalization)” Comparative Political Studies 43(6): 706–​34. Parsons, C. (2010b). “How—​ and How Much—​ Are Sociological Approaches to the EU Distinct?” Comparative European Politics 8(1): 143–​59. Parsons, C. and Weber, T. (2011). “Cross-​Cutting Issues and Party Strategizing in the European Union,” Comparative Political Studies 44(4): 383–​411. Pierson, P. (1996). “The Path to European Integration: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis,” Comparative Political Studies 29(2): 123–​63. Petitfis, J. (1981). La démocratie giscardienne. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Rosato, S. (2011). Europe United: Power Politics and the Making of the European Community. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Roussel, E. (1984). Pompidou. Paris: Lattès. Rozenberg, O. (2012). “France: Genuine Europeanization of Monnet for Nothing?” in Bulmer, S. and Lequesne, C. (eds) Member-​States of the European Union, 2nd edn. New York: Oxford University Press, 57–​84. Rozès, S. (2005). “La renationalisation du débat européen,” Le Débat 136: 29–​43. Safran, W. (1981). “Centrism in the Fifth Republic: An Attitude in Search of an Instrument,” in Andrews, W. and Hoffmann, S. (eds) The Fifth Republic at Twenty. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 123–​45. Sandholtz, W. (1996). “Membership Matters: Limits of the Functional Approach to European Institutions,” Journal of Common Market Studies 34(3): 403–​29. Sandholtz, W. and Stone Sweet, A. (eds) (1998). European Integration and Supranational Governance. New York: Oxford University Press. Sandholtz, W. and Zysman, J. (1989). “1992: Recasting the European Bargain,” World Politics 42(1): 95–​128. Schmidt, V. A. (2007). “Trapped by Their Ideas: French Elites’ Discourses of Europeanization and Globalization,” Journal of European Public Policy 14: 992–​1009. Sedelmeier, U. (2012). “Europeanization,” in Jones, E., Menon, A., and Weatherill, S. (eds) Oxford Handbook of the European Union. New York: Oxford University Press, 825–​39. Simonian, H. (1985). Privileged Partnership:  Franco-​ German Relations in the European Community, 1969–​1984. Oxford: Clarendon. Smith, A. (2004). Le gouvernement de l’Union européenne: une sociologie politique. Paris: LGDJ. Smith, A. (2006). “The Government of the European Union and a Changing France,” in Culpepper, P., Hall, P., and Palier, B. (eds) Changing France: The Politics that Markets Make. New York: Palgrave, 179–​97. Soutou, G. (1996). L’alliance incertaine:  les rapports politico-​stratégiques franco-​allemandes, 1954–​1996. Paris: Fayard. Szokolóczy-​Syllaba, J. (1965). Les organisations professionnelles françaises et le marché commun. Paris: Armand Colin. van der Eijk, C. and Franklin, M. (2004). “Potential for Contestation on European Matters at National Elections in Europe,” in Marks, G. and Steenbergen, M. (eds) European Integration and Political Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 32–​50.

 

Chapter 27

Varieties of C a pi ta l i sm a distinctly French model? Vivien A. Schmidt

The literature on political economy has over the years divided into two reasonably distinct areas of concern: international and comparative political economy. International political economy tends to concern itself with global trends—​in terms of global flows of investment and trade—​and with global actors and industries—​including multinational corporations, international regulatory regimes and bodies—​and the spillovers—​ migration flows, poverty trends, and most recently inequality. Comparative political economy, instead, tends to be more nationally focused, although it also considers the effects of global dynamics on national capitalism. Its main concerns have been questions related to the scope and limits of different kinds of capitalism, and the interrelationships of business, labor, and government. France is naturally considered in both contexts, as one of the biggest economies in the world with many of its multinationals global players, and as having a distinct kind of capitalism. In this chapter, we focus on French capitalism in the comparative political economy literature over time, mainly because this is the literature that gives us a better picture of the development of the French political economy—​both as a political economic entity and as a subject of political economic study. But we also put it into the context of the global political economy and even more importantly the European Union’s political economy. The study of the EU political economy sits in between international and comparative political economy, and was for a long time left on its own. International political economists tended to treat the EU as little more than an advanced trade organization while comparative political economists considered it as yet another pressure from the outside, but little more. This was a mistake in both literatures. We cannot understand the changing nature of European countries’ varieties of capitalism without considering how European integration was very much a product of European states’ deliberate actions to reform their own economies in light of globalization, and that Europeanization has itself then served to transform European political economies. Moreover, in the political economic history of the EU, France has played a major transformative role even as the EU has served to transform France.

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    607 Scholars of comparative political economy have long treated French capitalism as exceptional. But whereas this had positive connotations in the post-​war era, when all touted France as the exemplary model of state-​led or dirigiste capitalism, by the 1970s scholars no longer saw France’s model as exemplary, while from the 1990s on most no longer saw it as any model at all. First, convergence toward a single neo-​liberal model came to dominate scholarly views, with the United States and the United Kingdom touted as best adapted to globalization, although critics countered that capitalist diversity continued. Then, beginning in the early 2000s, the mainstream switched to a binary view of capitalist divergence between “liberal market economies” and “coordinated market economies,” although critics here too countered that greater diversity existed, citing three, four, or more varieties of capitalism. In both mainstream approaches, France largely disappeared, treated first as aberrant because not converging on neo-​liberalism, then as an anomaly or, at best, a “mixed market economy” with perverse interaction effects. Beyond disagreement over substantive theories about how many varieties of capitalism there are, scholars have also split over methodological theories and their consequences for explaining change (or continuity). While proponents of binary divergence made their case through an equilibrium-​focused combination of rational choice and historical institutionalism, opponents raised questions about the static and functionalist presuppositions of such an approach and about its empirical applicability. In light of such criticism, whereas some comparative political economists posited further hybridization and incremental change within rationalist and/​or historical institutionalist frameworks, others pushed for more agent-​centered accounts focused on cultural frames, historical legacies, ideas, and discourse using sociological and discursive institutionalist frameworks. Today, although the methodological splits remain, scholars seem to have come to agreement that capitalism is substantively more diverse than the varieties of capitalism dualism, with varieties largely tracking regional differences, complicated by policies, political institutions, and politics, and developing over time, mainly in response to neo-​ liberal ideas and the pressures of both globalization and Europeanization. The questions now focus on how to explain the transformations in all capitalisms, in particular in light of the economic crisis beginning in 2007–​8 and of the resilience of neo-​liberal ideas, and to assess the extent to which one can still identify clear varieties as opposed to multiple forms of hybridization. As for France, most scholars now appear to have come round to seeing the country again as part of a distinctive variety of capitalism, albeit one totally transformed by comparison to the post-​war role. Differences continue to exist here, too, with regard to methodological approach, in particular the greater attention to the importance of culture, ideas, and discourse in institutional and historical context. But the main question for all French political economists is how to explain France’s ongoing crisis. This may very well be related not just to the country’s economic problems but also to the changing role of the state, as one government after the next instituted neo-​liberal policies without admitting it. For the French public, the old ideas about the state may very well remain a “state of mind,” even as the “state in action” has been transformed.

 

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Varieties of Capitalism The “varieties of capitalism” literature dates back at least to the 1960s, when three models—​liberalism, corporatism, and statism—​were used to explain capitalist diversity in the post-​war era. These held steady in the literature until the 1990s, when they were replaced by a neo-​liberal model of convergence, which was itself displaced in the following decade by a model of binary divergence in which liberalism and corporatism had morphed into “liberal market economies” and “coordinated market economies,” leaving statism out in the cold. Whereas critics of neo-​liberal convergence in the 1990s insisted on continued national diversity, critics of binary divergence in the 2000s argued that national diversity made for more varieties, including one based on statism.

From Three to Two Varieties of Capitalism? The contemporary literature on the varieties of capitalism has its origins in the 1960s, when Andrew Shonfield in Modern Capitalism (1965) divided European capitalism into three varieties: France’s “statism,” Britain’s “liberalism,” and Germany’s “corporatism.” This division of national political economies into three ideal types held over the next two decades, reflected in Peter Katzenstein’s (1978) Between Power and Plenty and in John Zysman’s Governments, Markets and Growth (1983), which more specifically divided financial systems into three ideal-​typical models of finance: the capital-​market based model (US and UK), the credit-​based model with government-​administered prices (France and Japan), and the credit-​based model with private financial institution-​ administered prices (Germany). By the 1990s, however, both corporatism and statism as explanatory categories were dropped, leaving only “liberalism.” Scholars in international political economy in particular had come to agree that, like it or not, capitalism was converging with a single neo-​liberal model in which the retreat of the state and the decline of labor in favor of unfettered markets—​engineered via liberalization, deregulation, and privatization—​ spelled the end of any other models (see e.g. Cerny, 1994; Strange, 1996). Scholars in comparative political economy argued, in contrast, that despite general economic trends and neo-​liberal reform initiatives, differences among national varieties of capitalism remained (Berger and Dore, 1996; Boyer and Drache, 1996). They challenged arguments insisting on the radical decline of the nation state and the rise of “stateless” business (Schmidt, 1995) by highlighting instead the continuing diversity in firms’ levels of exposure to the financial markets, in the bases of firm ownership and control, in the operation of industrial sectors, in the nature of inter-​firm relations, in the organization of labor-​management relations, in the patterns of production and innovation, in the rules and financing of welfare provision, and in the role of the state in the economy (see e.g. Hollingsworth, Schmitter, and Streeck, 1994; Crouch and Streeck, 1997; Scharpf and Schmidt, 2000).

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    609 In the early 2000s, the firm-​centered approach to the varieties of capitalism (VOC) pioneered by Hall and Soskice (2001) took comparative political economy by storm. It divided capitalism into two main ideal types: liberal market economies (LMEs), consisting ideal-​typically of the US and the UK as well as other Anglophone countries, and coordinated market economies (CMEs), including Germany, many smaller countries in Continental Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan. These two varieties were differentiated mainly in terms of how firms coordinate with their environment, with coordination either market managed (LMEs) or non-​market managed (CMEs). This approach, by combining historical institutionalist attention to path-​dependent institutional rules and regularities and rational choice institutionalist concern with interest-​based logics of coordination, produced an equilibrium model that predicted that instead of convergence with one neo-​liberal model there would be persistent binary divergence into two ideal-​typical varieties of capitalism. As for other advanced industrialized countries that fell outside the scope of the two varieties, they were put into the category of “mixed market economies” (MMEs) and were mainly treated as anomalies or, worse, plagued by intra-​system contradictions, misfits, and perverse spillovers (Hall and Gingrich, 2004; Molina and Rhodes, 2007). VOC posited that in LMEs the market coordinates interactions among socioeconomic actors. Firms depend upon the financial markets for capital, and therefore focus on short-​term profits, while inter-​firm relations tend to be competitive and contractual. Management–​labor relations tend to be market reliant, with radically decentralized labor markets and low levels of job protections leading to bifurcated wage structures between highly paid, highly skilled workers and low-​paid, low-​skilled workers (Hall and Soskice, 2001). The “liberal” state, if considered at all, plays at most a supportive role in creating a positive regulatory environment, acting as an agent of market preservation by locating decision-​making power in companies while limiting the power of organized labor (King and Wood, 1999). The resulting system is posited as highly responsive to changing market conditions with a comparative advantage in areas where radical innovation is the key to market dominance, such as biotechnology, the new economy, and high-​end financial services, and in low-​end services and low-​tech industries, in which workers’ low wages, low skills, and minimal vocational training makes for competition on the basis of price rather than quality. For CMEs, VOC presented socio-economic actors as engaging in non-​market coordination. Here, firms tend to be less exposed to financial market pressures because of the more long-​term investment view of providers of finance and of the higher concentration of share ownership through strategic investors, which also helps protect against takeover. Moreover, inter-​firm relations tend to be network-​based, with close, mutually reinforcing relations with suppliers, subcontractors, and customers, while labor-​ management relations tend to be trust-​based and cooperative, ensuring that corporate governance tends to be more driven by “stakeholder” rather than “shareholder” values. This is reinforced by an employment system with highly skilled, highly paid labor with high levels of employment protection and long-​term employment (Hall and Soskice, 2001). The state, finally, again if considered, plays an understated “enabling” role by

 

610   Vivien A. Schmidt facilitating collaborative inter-​firm relations and cooperative labor management relations. The resulting system, although slower to respond to changing market conditions, has a comparative advantage in sectors such as high-​precision engineering and high-​ value-​added manufacturing, which depend upon a more stable long-​term investment environment where highly paid, technically skilled workers ensure the incremental innovation necessary to the production of high-​value-​added, high-​quality products. Although this binary division of capitalism has been highly seductive because of its parsimony, and has since generated a veritable cottage industry of scholarship, it has been the subject of numerous critiques. The most pervasive criticisms are that a binary division into ideal types tends to be too reductive, overly functionalist, and highly static because it is equilibrium-​focused, making for too much path-​dependence and an inability to account for institutional change–​–​particularly in light of the very real disaggregating forces coming from globalization pressures and neo-liberal policies (see Crouch, 2005; Schmidt, 2002, Ch. 3; and Hancké et al., 2007). Scholars have also been concerned that VOC has been unable to deal adequately with country cases that do not fit well into either ideal type or, more damning yet, that it does not even apply to the countries that it purports to describe.

How Many Varieties of Capitalism are there? Some comparative political economists argued from the very beginning that the binary approach to VOC pushed to the margins a number of countries with equally distinctive patterns, but in which the state has traditionally played a larger role in the economy. This is why scholars have argued that there are at least three varieties of capitalism (see e.g. Coates, 2002; Schmidt, 2002; 2009), differentiable along lines of development from the original three post-​war models (as identified by Shonfield, 1965), in which liberalism, corporatism, and statism have given way not just to “liberal market economies” and “coordinated market economies” but also to “state-​influenced market economies” (SMEs) (Schmidt, 2009). This third variety of capitalism includes all countries in which the state plays and has played a much more active role than in the ideal-​typical LME or CME. In the post-​war period, SMEs encompass state-​influenced models such as France’s “state-​led capitalism” (Schmidt, 2002, Ch. 3, 4) and the “developmental state” for South Korea and Taiwan or even Japan (Weiss, 2003; Woo-​Cumings, 1999). Today, SMEs include France’s “state-​ enhanced capitalism” or Italy’s “state-​hindered capitalism” (Schmidt, 2002, Ch. 3), also termed “public neo-​capitalism” (Barca, 2010) and “dysfunctional state capitalism” (Della Sala, 2004); and Spain’s “state-​influenced mixed market economy” (Royo, 2008), which has also been described as an MME (Molina and Rhodes, 2007) that comes very close to the definition of an SME. This focus on the state in SMEs and its contrast with the different ways in which the state works in LMEs and CMEs also builds on the recent theoretical literature on the continuing importance of the state (Weiss, 2003; Levy et al., 2006; Leibfried and Zürn, 2005; Schmidt, 2009).

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    611 But are there really only three varieties of capitalism? Other scholars have argued for even more varieties of capitalism, once one considers additional variables and geographical regions. Thus, some have argued that there are four varieties of capitalism, with Asian countries constituting another category (Boyer, 2004; Whitley, 2005). Others see five models of capitalism, adding welfare regimes to the mix of empirical variables (Amable, 2003), leading again to geographical differentiation. Still others see even more varieties, including regional and local (Crouch et al., 2004). Very recently, for Europe alone, adding to the two or three varieties of VOC has come a fourth clearly identified variety, the dependent market economies (DMEs) of Central and Eastern Europe (in particular the Visegrád countries of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary). These are defined as largely driven by outside forces, primarily capital through foreign direct investment (FDI) (Nölke and Vliegenthart, 2009; Bohle and Greskovits, 2012; Ornstein, 2013), although one might also want to add the regulation coming from global as much as European sources (Schmidt, 2013). That said, Central and Eastern Europe has alternatively been differentiated into a range of models, depending upon the kind of FDI and/​or the kind and degree of reform, with Slovenia classified as a pure CME following the example of Austria, while the Baltics, with Estonia’s flat tax and Latvia’s hardline austerity, are often seen as LMEs (Drahokoupil and Myant, 2010; Bohle and Greskovits, 2012; Ornstein, 2013). Most recently for Europe, yet another fourfold variety of capitalism reorganizes the mix by bringing in political orientation on top of other institutional factors. This leads to a differentiation in terms of four dynamic models, including the “equality-​oriented capitalism” of polities like Sweden and Denmark; the “competitiveness-​oriented capitalism” of polities like the UK and the US; the “status-​oriented capitalism” of polities like Germany, France, and the Netherlands; and the “capture-​oriented capitalism” of polities like Italy and Spain (Beramendi et al., 2015). But does considering capitalism in terms of varieties, whether one, two, or more, really explain the realities of capitalism and the many adjustments over time in national varieties under the pressures of globalization and Europeanization? Critics of VOC have questioned whether the characteristics described for its two ideal types actually square with reality at any one time let alone over time, while even proponents of VOC in a second wave of scholarship have sought to grapple with how to explain change (and continuity) in the many varieties of capitalism. This has led to further methodological differentiation among scholars between those who stayed within rationalist and/​or historical institutionalist frameworks focused on interests and institutional rules and those who preferred sociological and/​or discursive institutionalist frameworks concerned with cultural frames, ideas, and discourse. A further division involved whether and/​or how to add other factors beyond political economic institutions, including policy, polity (political institutions), and politics—​whether based on interests or ideas and discourse. Today, scholars on all sides of the methodological divide now focus on how to explain the major transformations and hybridization of all varieties of capitalism in the midst of the economic crisis that began in 2007–​8, as they grapple with the effects of Europeanization and globalization as well as the resilience of neo-​liberalism.

 

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Explaining Variation and Change over  Time in the “Varieties of Capitalism” From the very outset, critics of VOC questioned the empirical applicability of the ideal-​ typical dualism of LME and CME. Take, for example, the differentiation of varieties of capitalism in terms of radical innovation as a defining characteristic of LMEs versus incremental innovation for CMEs. Scholars have found this problematic both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, problems stem from the identification of innovation with sectors, which leads one to assume that even incremental changes such as updating a software package in the high-​tech industry would be considered radical whereas a major engineering innovation in the automobile industry would necessarily be incremental (Crouch, 2005). Empirically, moreover, it turns out that the data do not support the assumptions about the radical nature of innovation in an LME such as the UK or the incremental nature of innovation in Germany’s CME. A statistical study of innovation across a number of years, rather than in VOC’s narrower sampling of years (mainly 1993–​4), yielded very different—​and mixed—​results for both models, using the cases of the UK and Germany (Taylor, 2004). Other complications for the ideal-​typical CME come from its decreasing applicability to labor relations in Continental European countries, given the increasing dualization of the labor market between “outsiders” with low pay, low skills, and little protection in an increasingly large services industry and the protected “insiders” in the shrinking high-​value-​added manufacturing industry which has been the model for CMEs (Emmenegger et al., 2012; Palier and Thelen, 2012). This also speaks to the larger problem of defining capitalism on the basis of high-​value-​added manufacturing, which occupies a shrinking part of the overall economy, even if it is most often cited as the reason for CMEs’ economic success through export-​led growth. Problems for VOC’s empirical applicability also stem from the rationalist attribution to actors of fixed preferences for their own variety of capitalism, which fails to deal with agents’ changing ideas about their interests. For example, at the very basis of CME’s definition is the assumption that employer preferences for cooperative collective bargaining limit the potential impact of neo-​liberal ideas in favor of labor market deregulation (see e.g. Hall and Soskice, 2001; Thelen, 2014:  23, 30; Hassel, 2014:  77). This flies in the face of evidence that employers’ preferences have in fact increasingly shifted toward (neo)liberalization, as is clear from a study which shows that employers’ associations pushed hard for liberalization in the 2000s, and moderated their demands subsequently to the economic crisis, not only because the LME model had been somewhat discredited but also because they had already gained far-​reaching concessions from employees (Kinderman, 2014). Similar assumptions about political elites’ interest in maintaining the Scandinavian model of the CME intact also fail to explain government policies, in particular since the crisis. In the case of Denmark, for example, political elites on the Left as much as the Right, under the influence of neo-​liberal ideas coming from the EU and other international organizations, picked “facts” that made the case for austerity and structural reforms related to labor and unemployment benefits. By ignoring the concrete economic evidence that painted a more positive picture, they

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    613 instituted pro-​cyclical policies that may actually have undermined the distinctive roots of Denmark’s competitive strength (Kristensen, 2015). Scholars who engage with the VOC tradition have responded in various ways to these problems of empirical applicability in what could be seen as the second wave of VOC. Some have attempted to counter the functionalist bias of the approach by positing open rather than closed systems, with multilayered reference frames and relatively autonomous components (Becker, 2009), different patterns of interdependence in different subsystems (Deeg, 2005), or differing systemic patterns of consolidation or specialization (Fioretos, 2011). Hall (2007: 80) himself has redefined VOC as “institutional ecologies built up gradually over time.” Other scholars have sought to inject more dynamism into the explanation by positing incremental change in the institutional components of loosely connected, historically evolving varieties of capitalism (leaving open however many there might be). These change at different rates in different ways through different processes, whether through layering on of new elements, conversion through reinterpretation, drift, or even exhaustion (Streeck and Thelen, 2005). Such second-​wave scholars have also sought to reintroduce agents of change to make up for their absence, by identifying different categories of actors, from “insurrectionaries” through to “parasites” (Mahoney and Thelen, 2009). Notably, in all such approaches, the binary nature of VOC is challenged, as open systems or incremental evolution create hybrids, or point to the disaggregation of both varieties of capitalism. Many recent studies focus on hybridization of CMEs in particular, including of Sweden and Germany (see e.g. Jackson and Schnyder, 2013), or have gone back to considering nationally specific varieties of capitalism that follow evolutionary trajectories of change (Steinmo, 2010). Many of these alternative analyses of the varieties of capitalism use the same historical and rational-​ choice institutionalist explanatory frameworks of the binary VOC approach, with a split between those innovating on the historical institutionalist side through incremental (Streeck and Thelen, 2005)  or evolutionary (Steinmo, 2010)  approaches, and those on the rationalist plus historical institutionalist side through “modified historical institutionalism” (Fioretos, 2011). Increasing numbers of scholars, however, have instead moved to sociological and discursive institutionalist frameworks by emphasizing sociological institutionalist concerns with the role of cultural norms and societal mechanisms (Fligstein, 2001; Campbell, 2004) or discursive institutionalist considerations of the role of the substantive content of ideas and the discursive processes of interaction that enable agents to reconceptualize interests, reshape institutions, and reframe culture (Schmidt, 2002: Chs 5 and 6; 2008; 2009; Blyth, 2002; Campbell and Pederson, 2001; Hay, 2006).

The Importance of Policy, Polity, and Politics Many scholars have also gone beyond the categorization of capitalism solely along the line of political economic institutions to show that policies, polities (i.e. political

 

614   Vivien A. Schmidt institutions), and politics matter. And when these are taken into consideration, the division of the varieties of capitalism into one, two, three, or more political economic types tends to break down even further. The actual policies of countries do not always fit what the VOC literature might predict. LMEs’ “liberal” states may be more interventionist than expected, as in the UK with its “steering state” (Moran, 2003), or Ireland with its institutionalization of social pacts in the late 1980s. CMEs’ “enabling” states may institute policies that diminish coordinative ability, as in German capital gains tax reform in the early 2000s, which reduced structural incentives for business–​bank networks. And SMEs’ “influencing” states may actually promote more non-​state coordination between business and labor, as in the social pacts of Southern European countries. Moreover, although one can certainly argue that all countries have moved along a continuum from faire (“do”) to laissez-​faire (“let do”) as a result of neo-liberal reforms, policy change even in the most liberal of LMEs has not produced laissez-​faire but rather faire faire (“have do”), by having market actors perform functions that the state generally did in the past, while even the most interventionist of SMEs has on occasion gone from faire (“do”) not only to faire faire (“have do”) but also to faire avec (“do with”), the corporatist pattern typical of CMEs (Schmidt, 2009). In an LME like the US, for example, deregulation meant faire faire, as the federal government specified the guidelines that corporate actors would have to follow in carrying out their programs or the courts would have to follow in resolving disputes about those guidelines (Dobbin, 2002). In SMEs like Italy and Spain, labor market reform was successfully engaged in the 1990s through faire avec, via social pacts (Royo, 2008; Della Sala, 2004). Subsequent to the eurozone crisis, however, social pacts have largely died, as in Ireland (Regan, 2012), or have lost their meaning when all labor unions can do is accept massive reductions in wages and loss of job protection (Armingeon and Baccaro, 2013) Differences in political institutions help explain why policies may differ even among countries clustered within a single variety of capitalism. This depends in large part on where countries sit on a continuum between “simple” polities, in which governing activity is channeled through a single authority (via unitary states, majoritarian representation systems, or statist policymaking processes), and compound polities, in which governing activity is dispersed through multiple authorities (via federal or regionalized states, proportional representation systems, or corporatist or pluralist policymaking—​ Schmidt, 2009). For example, despite both being classified as LMEs in the VOC literature, the compound US has consistently been less able to impose radical reform than the simple UK, largely because of its institutional complexity. This was most in evidence in the 1980s, with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s much more radical reforms by comparison with those of American President Ronald Reagan, despite similar electoral programs (Steinmo, 1994; King and Wood, 1999). In the 1990s, moreover, it was not only the unitary nature of the British state that enabled Prime Minister Tony Blair to impose, for example, his “New Deal” for youth employment, by contrast with President Bill Clinton’s failure to negotiate more ambitious federal training and employment programs. It was also the organization of US industry, given the strength of the vehemently opposed small business lobby, which was better organized in Washington

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    615 than the pro-​reform large-​scale employers, which lacked a single peak association (Martin, 2000), let alone privileged access to government policymaking in coordination with unions, as in Germany. This also points to the fact that pluralist versus corporatist arrangements are as much a factor of differentiation for compound polities like the US and Germany as federal arrangements. Politics also matters, in particular when explaining institutional change. For some VOC scholars, politics is exclusively a question of rationalist interests, and plays itself out in the interest-​driven competition among political coalitions of the policy or political arena. These rationalist studies generate predictions, for example, about corporate governance policy and regulation on the basis of differing combinations of alliances among economic interest groups consisting of owners, managers, and workers (Gourevitch and Shinn, 2005), or about the distributional effects of socio-economic policies produced by political coalitions formed under different formal electoral systems acting as incentive structures: less egalitarian in majoritarian systems, more egalitarian in proportional ones (Iversen and Soskice, 2006). But although this rationalist political coalition literature is a step forward by comparison with the more equilibrium-​focused or path-​ dependent apolitical studies of earlier VOC, it still has difficulties explaining how new political coalitions are constructed and changed, let alone how the institutions in which they operate were created and reformed. Other scholars take up the challenge of explaining institutional change by examining politics through the lens of the ideas and discourse that help alter perceptions of interests, build political coalitions, persuade policymakers of the need to construct new programs via a “coordinative” policy discourse, and convince publics of the necessity and appropriateness of such programs through a “communicative” political discourse. (Schmidt, 2002: Chs 5 and 6; 2008; 2009; Blyth, 2002; Campbell, 2004; Hay, 2006). Such politics may explain change through the foundational economic ideas that may change at moments of “great transformation”—​as in the “dis-​embedding” of liberalism in the US and Sweden beginning in the 1970s (Blyth, 2002). They may explain change through the appearance of a new ideational “paradigm,” as in the case of Thatcher’s switch to monetarism in the UK (Hall, 1993). They may also explain change through political leaders’ communicative discourse about the economic imperatives of globalization, whether in efforts to legitimate neo-liberal policies in individual countries, such as the UK (Hay and Rosamond, 2002; Hay and Smith, 2013) or in the EU more generally during the economic crisis (Blyth 2013; Schmidt and Thatcher, 2013). The focus on ideas and discourse may additionally help explain institutional continuities as well as misperceptions of reality. In the US, for example, scholars point to how what people take for reality may really be ideology, including taking the US for a liberal market economy when in some sectors at least it is actually a lot more coordinated and state influenced. Block (2008) makes this case with regard to the technological policy arena in the US, which he argues is managed not by the market but by a “developmental network state,” which has provided massive amounts of financing and coordination support to business technology initiatives from the 1980s forward. This reality, however, has been “hidden in plain view,” because it contradicts the market fundamentalist political ideology that

 

616   Vivien A. Schmidt pervades republican partisan politics, in which the communicative discourse presents the government as the problem, not the solution, at the same time as the discourse has served business interests by enabling them to resist being taxed on their profits. For the European Union, too, during the sovereign debt crisis beginning in 2010, the problems involve not only economics and market pressures but also mistaken ideas about the causes of the crisis and how to respond. These include the (mis)framing of the crisis as one of public debt, which was inappropriately generalized from the case of Greece (de Grauwe and Ji, 2012; Blyth, 2013); the (mis)diagnosis of the problem as behavioral—​resulting from member states’ failure to follow the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact—​rather than as structural—​resulting from the way in which the euro led to increasing divergence in member-​state economies rather than convergence (Enderlein et al., 2012; Scharpf, 2012); the lack of adequate solutions, such as Eurobonds, fiscal union, and/​ or macroeconomic stabilizers (e.g., a Europe-​wide unemployment fund) (Schelkle, 2014; Claessens et al., 2012; Enderlein et al., 2013); and the chosen remedies, centered on procyclical policies of “sound” money, budgetary austerity, and “structural reform,” instead of countercyclical policies that could have generated growth through macroeconomic stimulus, industrial investment, and socio-economic support (Scharpf, 2012; 2013; Enderlein et al., 2013). All of this suggests problems with the underlying ideas for crisis solution that combined an ordo-​liberal philosophy focused on the need to impose austerity in order to ensure stable money and sound finance via rules-​based governance with a neo-​liberal philosophy focused on “structural reform” of labor markets and welfare states as the answer to problems of growth (Blyth, 2013; Gamble, 2013; Schmidt and Thatcher, 2013).

France’s Variety of Capitalism in Perspective So where is France in the perspective of the varieties of capitalism? Having been at the center of the post-​war model, it disappeared almost entirely from view—​condemned in the 1990s because it failed to meet neo-​liberal convergence ideals, and in the 2000s because it fell between the two ideal-​typical varieties of capitalism. Being left out of the mainstream scholarship, however, did not stop critics of that mainstream, including scholars of France and scholars in France, from continuing to generate innovative scholarship on the topic that fed into the mainstream over time, helping to transform it.

The Rise and Fall of France’s Distinctive Dirigiste Model of Capitalism In the post-​war period, France’s dirigiste, or interventionist, state ensured its pride of place as a distinctive model for state-​led economic development; Shonfield (1965), for

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    617 example, admiringly described France’s “statism” in contrast to Britain’s “liberalism” and Germany’s “corporatism.” The French state promoted economic growth by acting in loco mercatis where it deemed necessary, by taking the place of the markets through nationalized industries, by orienting the markets through planning and industrial policies, or by replacing the markets with regard to wage-​coordinating mechanisms, (Schmidt, 2002, Ch. 3; see also Hayward, 1973; Kuisel, 1981). But while public communication touted the dirigiste French state’s strong centralized coordination, scholars showed it to be deeply fragmented in practice, ensuring frequent capture by business interests (Hayward, 1973: 180–​7, 213–​26; Schmidt, 1996; Clift, 2009), and a pattern of business–​government relations characterized by accommodation and co-​optation, with only occasional confrontation (see Schmidt, 1996). But that was prior to the crisis that began in the 1970s. This was when the dirigiste model could no longer deliver either in terms of macroeconomic steering or industrial policy. The turn to monetarism appeared increasingly inevitable in an environment of rising real interest rates, the growing costs of public debt, and the creation of the European Monetary System (EMS) in 1979 (Loriaux, 1991; Howarth, 2001). The need to restructure industry was also increasingly apparent, as the country’s “national champions” had in many cases become “lame ducks” (Berger, 1981; Cohen and Bauer, 1985). Moreover, industrial relations, already dismal given highly adversarial management–​ labor relations and large numbers of days lost to strikes, were only getting worse. But unlike in Italy, where the state was generally unsuccessful in imposing agreements, the interventionist state in France organized wage bargaining and even imposed wage settlements when business and labor were unable to reach agreement (Howell, 1992). That said, French state-​led bargains were never as successful, or as cost-​effective, as in Germany’s corporatist coordinated bargaining between labor and management. And in order to keep labor quiet while helping business grow, the dirigiste state continued to expand the welfare state at an even greater rate (Palier, 2002). Things began to change dramatically in the 1980s. 1981 represented the last gasp of the post-​war model, with a short period of heightened dirigisme under the newly elected Socialist government characterized by renewed neo-​Keynesian expansionary macroeconomic policy along with massive nationalization and industrial restructuring plus a more generous welfare state. By 1983, however, faced with double-​digit inflation and the prospect of having to exit the European Monetary System, President Mitterrand set the new liberalizing direction of policy with the great U-​turn to monetarist budgetary austerity, which was followed under successive governments of the Right and Left by liberalization of the markets, privatization of public enterprises, deregulation of business, decentralization of labor markets, and rationalization of the welfare state. But rather than a neo-​liberal discourse to legitimate these policies, leaders on the Right as much as the Left spoke of “modernization,” and the benefits of using Europeanization as a shield against globalization (Schmidt, 1996; 2002; 2013). In the European Union, moreover, although French governments could claim leadership in the 1980s due to their country being a principal architect (with Germany) of the Single Market and the Single Currency, by the mid-1990s the country found

 

618   Vivien A. Schmidt itself increasingly forced to follow. This is when the EU sought to deepen integration by deregulation in the network industries—​telecommunications, electricity, and energy sectors—​which encroached on areas closer to the normative ideals of the state-​influenced model and the state’s cherished post-​war role as the sole provider of services publics (Thatcher, 1999; Eising and Jabko, 2001). In the 1990s, scholars of France took note of how the French state engineered its dirigisteend to dirigisme (Schmidt, 1996), with its transition to a “post-​dirigiste state” (Levy, 1999). Moreover, scholars in France, even before, had been charting changes in the state and its action. This was particularly the case of the référentiel school of public policy, which was concerned with explaining the transformation of the “state in action” through policy actors’ “frames of reference” (Jobert and Muller, 1987) in different policy sectors (Muller, 1985), and later also focused in more closely on the neo-​liberal turn (Jobert and Théret, 1994). In a different tradition, French political economists of the “regulation” school begun in the 1970s such as Robert Boyer, Alain Lipietz, Michel Aglietta, and others examined capitalist economies and processes of capitalist accumulation and regulation not only in terms of government policy and regulation of the economy but also as a function of social and institutional systems (Boyer and Saillard, 2002). They also contributed to the international and comparative political economy debates in the 1990s on capitalist diversity (e.g. Boyer and Drache, 1996) and in the 2000s on the many varieties of capitalism, beyond dualist ideal types (Boyer, 2004; Amable, 2003). Notably, a French businessman, Michel Albert (whose career began as a high-​flying civil servant, graduate of Sciences Po and the ENA), anticipated the VOC debate when he described the quandary for France in Capitalism against Capitalism (Albert, 1993) because it remained between the Rhineland capitalism of Germany and the liberal capitalism of the UK. But while, for scholars of France and in France, how to explain France’s transformation became the primary question, for scholars of capitalism more generally, it largely spelled the demise of France as a model to be discussed. By the 1990s, France essentially disappears from the IPE (international political economy) literature, in particular for those who bemoaned the convergence with neo-​liberalism and the seeming demise of the nation state—​including a former scholar of France (Cerny, 1994). Moreover, the same thing happened in the early 2000s, when France was given no place in the binary division of capitalist varieties, again by a former scholar of France (Hall, 1986). The country was ignored, cast as an outlier, or lumped together with Italy and Spain as one of the MMEs, notable as mentioned for their contradictions, misfits, and perverse spillovers. France has also been seen to converge with liberal market economies (Culpepper, 2005; Hall, 2006).

France as a Distinctive Variety of Capitalism? There has, however, always been a counter-​current to such views, both in comparative political economy, as discussed earlier, and the French-​focused literature. From the very beginning, many of the critics of VOC, not surprisingly perhaps, were themselves scholars of or in France. These scholars have elaborated more extensive responses to the VOC

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    619 dualism, in particular to demonstrate that France continues to have a place in the pantheon of distinctive “capitalisms,” whether as part of three varieties of capitalism, four, or more. France has been described as having moved from “state-​led” capitalism in the post-​ war period to “state-​enhanced” capitalism (Schmidt, 2002) today. As such, it has also been seen to constitute a third variety of capitalism, as an SME that has much in common with Southern European countries like Italy, Spain, and Portugal as well as developmental states like South Korea, Taiwan, and even Japan (Schmidt, 2002; 2009). France has similarly been discussed as having a distinctive kind of “entrepreneurial state,” similar to that of S. Korea or Japan (Thiberghien, 2007). Members of the “regulation school,” moreover, have identified France as a distinctive model within more varieties of capitalism: as “state-​driven” capitalism, the third of four varieties (Boyer, 2004, Ch. 2); or one of five varieties, paired with Germany in an empirical typology developed inductively (Amable, 2003). Further, by the late 2000s, a second wave VOC scholars also identified France as having its own model of “centralized market economy” (Fioretos, 2011). By the mid- to late-2000s, this second wave of VOC scholars seemed to have accepted the arguments of VOC’s “French” critics, and highlighted the continued existence of alternative models of capitalism, including one in which the state plays a crucial role (see Deeg and Jackson, 2007). By this time, moreover, the lines between comparative VOC and French scholars had got fuzzyier, as French scholars began including insights from the second wave into their own work on France and simultaneously also influenced that second wave (see e.g. Palier, 2005; 2012). Scholars of and in France had tended to be more concerned with how to explain change than the mainstream literature, for the very good reason that France had been undergoing major transformation all along. This—​together with the influence of the référentiel school—​may help explain why political economists concerned with France have also been more open to theorizing change (and continuity) in terms of ideas and discourse in institutional and historical context (e.g. Schmidt, 2002; O’Sullivan, 2007; Clift, 2009). But what, then, makes France distinctive in its variety of capitalism? The distinctiveness can be best illustrated by contrasting France as an SME with Britain as an LME and Germany as a CME in terms of the nature and interrelationships of business, labor, and most notably the state. We leave aside for the moment the criticisms of VOC discussed earlier, and provide a stylized comparison of the three as distinct capitalisms, following the lines of VOC’s original analysis. In an LME like Britain, the state is “liberal” because it takes an arm’s-​length approach to business and labor, limiting its role to setting rules and settling conflicts, often leaving the administration of the rules to self-​regulating bodies or to regulatory agencies, and generally acting as an agent of market preservation. Here, adjustment is driven by the financial markets and led by autonomous firms acting on their own, with comparatively little input—​whether positive or negative—​from the state or labor. In a CME like Germany, the state is “enabling” because it takes action not just to arbitrate among

 

620   Vivien A. Schmidt economic actors but rather to facilitate their activities, often leaving the rules to be jointly administered by them, while acting as an equal (or bystander) with management and unions in labor regulation and wage bargaining, and generally acting to protect the production system’s non-​market coordinating institutions. Adjustment here is led by firms and jointly negotiated cooperatively between business, labor, and the state (Hall and Soskice, 2001; Wood, 2001—​see discussion in Schmidt, 2002; 2009). In an SME like France, by contrast, the state is “influencing” because it tends to intervene where it sees fit. State action may play an “enhancing” or a “hindering” role for business and labor activity depending upon whether public intervention has a positive or negative impact on economic actors’ interactions and productive capabilities. Although adjustment is firm-​led in those domains where business now exercises autonomy—​in business strategy, investment, production, and wage-​bargaining—​it is state-​driven in those domains where neither business nor labor can exercise leadership—​in labor rules, pension systems, and the like—​or where the state sees a need to reshape the general economic environment to promote competitiveness (Schmidt, 1996; 2002; 2009; see also Levy, 1999). State-​influenced market economies like that of France, in brief, have a more influential state and a more state-​driven or hierarchical logic of interaction between firms, labor, and the state than exists in financial-​market-​driven, liberal market economies like that of Britain or the non-​market-​managed, coordinated market economies like that of Germany (Schmidt, 2002: Chs 3 and 4; 2009). In SMEs, although the state now also seeks to create and preserve market institutions, much as in liberal market economies, this does not stop it from continuing to intervene strategically where it sees the need, mainly to protect business or labor from the worst effects of the markets—​whether this means bailing out firms in difficulty; “moralizing” highly decentralized labor markets to protect workers, as in France (Howell, 2009); or engineering corporatist agreements in wage-​bargaining and pension reform, as in Italy and Spain (Molina and Rhodes, 2007). Today, firms in SMEs are, however, much more autonomous than in the past, as business has been privatized and deregulated, and as it has increasingly turned to the financial markets for capital. But this has not automatically made the financial markets the drivers of corporate strategy. CEOs remain much more autonomous than in both LMEs (because their more concentrated family​or share ​ownership reduces takeover risks) and in CMEs (because they are less constrained by boards of directors, networked relationships, or employees). They even remain more autonomous than CEOs in the SMEs of the past, because of the retreat of the state. All of this, added to an employment system that sits somewhere between CMEs and LMEs in terms of worker pay, job protections, skills, training, and wage-​bargaining systems, places SMEs ahead of CMEs but behind LMEs on radical innovation, and ahead of LMEs but behind CMEs on incremental innovation (Schmidt, 2002; 2009).

Policy, Polity, and Politics in France’s SME Defining France as a distinctive variety of capitalism helps identify its differences from the two preferred varieties in the VOC literature, and returns it to its rightful place as a

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    621 distinctive model of political economy. But this exercise also leaves it open to the same problems as VOC more generally, that its description as a distinctive French variety using a combination of historical and rational-​choice institutionalist analysis makes it overly deterministic and static. Moreover, it risks over-​determining a particular role for the state in a manner similar to our earlier discussion of the problems of LMEs and CMEs in terms of policy, polity, and politics. With regard to state action in the policy realm, just as the liberal state of LMEs may appear more interventionist than VOC theory allows, and the enabling state of CMEs destructive of the very relationships it is purported to enable, so the interventionist state of SMEs may choose not to intervene. For example, it may step back from direct intervention in labor market relations to allow the social partners to coordinate their interactions in a manner similar to CMEs, as with faire avec. This was the case with the 35-​hour work week in France, in which the state under a Socialist government in the late 1990s and early 2000s set the general framework within which business and labor were to negotiate the particulars of the policy for their workplaces, then left them free to do so, which led to a massive shift in work rules, largely to the benefit of business. Similarly, moreover, differences in political institutional arrangements between simple and compound polities generally help explain differences among SMEs in their capacity to reform, just as they did above for LMEs and CMEs. Interestingly, however, despite the fact that France’s SME, in contrast with the compound polities of Italy and Spain, is a simple polity with a state strongly able to impose rules, where reform needs to be negotiated, we are not always able to predict outcomes of reform projects. In France, while the centralization of political power, together with the fragmentation of economic actors, enabled governments between the mid-1980s and the mid-2000s to impose privatization, liberalization, and deregulation of business as well as to radically decentralize wage-​bargaining, as noted above, it did little to facilitate pension reform. Right-​wing governments failed time and again to impose public pension rationalization in the face of massive protests, while socialist governments didn’t even try (Schmidt, 2002; 2006; Levy et al., 2006). This said, incremental reforms did proceed through negotiation with the social partners (Palier, 2006). By contrast, despite the compound nature of the Italian and Spanish SMEs—​riven by territorial cleavages, public/​private cleavages related to the history of nationalized enterprises, and cleavages across industrial sectors and between bigger and smaller firms, not to mention the greater organization and political strength of labor than in France—​both countries were able to negotiate significant labor market and pension reforms successfully, although Italy had greater problems doing so than Spain (see Molina and Rhodes, 2007; Ferrera and Gualmini, 2004; Locke and Baccaro, 1999). Naturally, politics also matters for SMEs as much as for LMEs and CMEs, in particular in terms of the ideas and discursive interactions of political elites, business and labor leaders, social movements, and the public more generally that helps explain the dynamics of change. For France in particular, some scholars have identified the “ideational legacies” that shape the ways in which actors defined and remade markets (Clift, 2009) and in which they have been engaged in “acting out change” against a background of national traditions of economic thought, shaped by state traditions and decades of lived

 

622   Vivien A. Schmidt economic practice (O’Sullivan, 2007). Others have explained change through French policymakers’ actions, which, absent any overarching set of ideas, nonetheless produced an incremental layering of policy upon policy that, over time, constituted the equivalent of a paradigm shift in welfare provision (Palier, 2005). Yet others have also noted France’s resistance to neo-​liberal ideas, at least in the discourse, as governing elites liberalized less as a matter of neo-​liberal ideological conviction (arguably with the exception of the brief mid-​1980s interlude under Prime Minister Jacques Chirac) than of pragmatic necessity in response to international economic pressures and European political constraints (Schmidt, 2002; 2012; Gualmini and Schmidt, 2013; Vail, 2010). As part of this, French elites of Right and Left along with the media consistently articulated an anti-​globalization discourse (Meunier and Gordon, 2001), while the French public was consistently the most negative in comparative surveys of all Europeans when it came to globalization and its impact on growth, employment, jobs, and their own lives (see, e.g., Eurobarometer, 2003). It is notable that in the presidential elections of 2007, both presidential contenders made clear in their campaigns that globalization was a problem, with Segolène Royale’s communicative discourse promising to “protect” the French “against globalization” while Nicolas Sarkozy’s discourse pledged to “protect” the French “in globalization” (Schmidt, 2007). The problem for France is that it has engaged in major reform efforts without having succeeded in legitimating them sufficiently or satisfactorily through a communicative discourse with the French public. The best illustration of this is successive French governments’ difficulties in reforming labor markets and the welfare state. For the 1993 reform of private pensions, the Balladur government was able to reform not only because of the inability of private sector workers to organize effective protests but also because the government engaged in a coordinative discourse with the social partners, proposing reforms that balanced positive and negative benefits (Palier, 2006). By contrast, the 1995 attempt by Prime Minister Alain Juppé to impose reform of public pensions and of the “special regime” of the railroad workers was met by major protest, as the highly unionized public sector, supported by the sympathetic public, paralyzed France for over three weeks. Here, the problem was not only entrenched interests but also that Juppé engaged in almost no legitimizing discourse at all, whether communication to the public or coordination with the social partners (Schmidt, 2007). It was to be another eight years before governments broached public sector pension reform—​which finally worked when the Raffarin government in 2003 engaged in an extensive coordinative discourse, again balancing positive and negative benefits (Palier, 2006). And it was to be twelve years before the special regimes were reformed. President Sarkozy’s success with the 2007 reform initiative on the special pension regimes can be explained in large part by his ability to reframe the issue in a communicative discourse that resonated with the concept of equality central to the French republican tradition, arguing that equality of treatment demanded that railroad workers retire like everyone else after 40 years of employment (rather than at age fifty for railroad conductors) (Schmidt, 2009). But this was a relatively minor reform, compared to the need to transform the labor markets in ways that would help reduce France’s high levels of unemployment and combat the

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    623 increasing dualization of the workforce that left so many workers (especially the young and minorities) on temporary and part-​time contracts with few or no benefits. This had to wait until the presidency of François Hollande, whose communicative discourse has failed to legitimate the ongoing efforts of his prime minister, and whose popularity ratings have consistently been lower than those of any previous President of the Republic.

France’s Distinct Model of Capitalism Today France’s political ideas and discursive interactions, combined with its ideational legacies and economic practices, help explain why the country was able to go through a long period of liberalization and retreat of the state—​at critical junctures and incrementally—​ but not converge with the liberal model of LME, let alone CME. It is not just that the post-​war French SME distinguished itself from post-​war LMEs and CMEs by its very different stewardship of the economy through institutions of planning, industrial policy, and public enterprise, or that these constituted historical institutional legacies that left their traces even as the state liberalized from the 1980s on. It is also that the national traditions of economic thought that influence countries’ ideas of how to make and remake the markets—​even in the face of a seemingly common set of neo-​liberal ideas—​are very different. In the post-​war period, such deep philosophical ideas or evolving worldviews of France’s policy economy were most clearly seen in the contrasts between France’s dirigiste ideas about the “state-​led” market economy and the UK’s neo-​liberal ideas about the “free market” economy or Germany’s ordo-​liberal ideas about the “social market” economy (Clift, 2012b; see also Schmidt, 2002: Ch. 4). But even in the liberalizing period beginning in the 1980s, France continued to differ, despite the fact that non-​liberal technocratic elites were replaced by moderately neo-​liberal political elites who pragmatically adopted and adapted neo-​liberal ideas to their own uses while employing a discourse of “modernization” (Schmidt, 1996; Thiberghien, 2007; Gualmini and Schmidt, 2013). In making markets, the French were less focused on the level playing field prized by the British and Germans, more at ease with dominant market positions for their firms, and more open to state intervention to promote such market dominance, including the presence of elitist oligarchic networks spanning the public and private sectors (Clift, 2012a). With regard to labor, moreover, the French sought to reshape labor markets in two seemingly contradictory ways—​via the greater labor market flexibility typical of LMEs and the greater concertation between workers and management of CMEs—​and did not really succeed in either, but did ensure a continuing involvement of the state (Howell, 2009). The result of all these liberalizing reforms is that France has transformed its political economy even as it retains its distinctiveness. As the state has reduced the scope of its interventions, it has moved from a post-​war dirigiste style of economic management to post-​dirigisme (Levy, 1999; see also Cole, 2008; Clift, 2009; Howell, 2009). Business has become autonomous while the French state no longer has the means to influence

 

624   Vivien A. Schmidt the direction of the French corporate economy directly or systematically (O’Sullivan, 2007: 432; see also Schmidt, 2002; 2003). Nonetheless, the French state continues to intercede where it considers the interests of the national economy and/​or the polity to be at stake. Moreover, the deep interpenetration of public and private political economic elites, grounded in informal networks based on corporate elites’ state-​related education and experience (Suleiman, 1974; Bourdieu, 1989), makes for a different kind of market competition among big firms to that seen in LMEs or CMEs (Jabko and Massoc, 2012). In industrial relations, too, the state has engineered its own retreat. But here, the essential paradox is that even as the state has given up on organizing management–​labor relations, its involvement is even more necessary for purposes of coordination, to make up for the weakness of business organizations and the near disappearance of labor unions (Howell, 2009). In the welfare arena, by contrast, the state became increasingly active as the “social anesthesia state” (Levy, 2008), constructed in order to ensure acceptance of its reforms in other areas—​and has had great difficulty reversing this. Notably, the European Union has also been a major force behind France’s liberalizing transformation, while at the same time it has no doubt held in check some of the country’s most egregious forms of “economic patriotism” (Clift and Woll, 2009). France has in effect weathered the different phases of neo-​liberal reform without giving up on a central role for the state, going from the conservative “rolling-​back” of the state to free up the markets beginning in the 1980s to the social-​democratic “rolling-​out” of the state to make markets freer still beginning in the late 1990s, and then on to the “ramping-​up” of the state, first through nationally pushed neo-​Keynesian stimulus in the first phases of the economic crisis, then EU-​and German-​led ordo-​liberal austerity with the sovereign debt crisis (Schmidt and Woll, 2013).

The Research Agenda Ahead So where does France now fit comparatively in terms of its form of capitalism? As we have seen, for a time the country disappeared almost completely from mainstream scholarly interest—​cast as an outlier both for those who saw convergence along US or UK lines to a single neo-​liberal model as well as for those who saw a binary split between LMEs like the US and the UK and CMEs like Germany. But as we have also seen, a number of comparative political economists in addition to French scholars continued to see France as part of a distinctive variety of capitalism that followed on from the statism of the past. Within the terms of VOC, what distinguishes France’s market economy from the UK’s financial market-​driven model and Germany’s managed market model is the hierarchical nature of both its state and its firm and labor relations. But in order to be able to explain the transformation of France’s capitalist model from the post-​war period to today, in addition to political economic institutions we need to taken into account the policies, the political institutions, and the politics not only of strategic interests but also of ideas and discursive interactions between French elites and citizens.

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    625

The French State as a “State of Mind” more than the “State in Action”? France has changed dramatically since the early days of its post-​war state-​led capitalism. The country’s approach to economic management has been transformed, most of its economic policies replaced, and its cradle-​to-​grave social security system has been under siege. And yet, for all this, the French state has been durable—​but arguably more as a state of mind rather than the state in action. No other Western country, to my knowledge, has such an idealized view of the state qua state, disconnected from what it actually does. It remains, for the French, largely as Georges Burdeau (1970: 14) described it, as an idea that, unlike a concept that systematizes a number of facts about reality, is itself “all the reality that it expresses because this reality resides entirely in the spirit of the men who conceive it.” That said, France has been experiencing an increasing disconnection between peoples’ ideas of the state—​ about the central role of the state to provide a certain kind of economic and social policy—​and what the state actually does or can do. I would argue that “la crise”—​a topic the French have discussed non-​stop since the 1970slet alone during the current economic crisis—​has not only been economic. It has also been about the politics of ideas and discourse, in the sense that the public has not become reconciled to the kinds of policies that the state has implemented, in part because political elites have themselves not been telling the truth about them. Ever since the great U-​turn in macroeconomic policy, the Left as well as the Right have had a discourse about how neither the various neo-​liberal economic reforms nor France’s membership in the European Union would affect solidarité sociale, despite that fact that everyone knew that it would, and it did (Schmidt, 2002). The crisis of French politics is evidenced by the constant turnover in legislatures since the 1980s, the single-​term presidency of Sarkozy that ended in 2012, growing public dissatisfaction with those governing, and the rise of the extreme Right (Amable et al., 2012). What this means is that France’s post-​war state ideal lives on in peoples’ minds, as the most legitimate way of governing the political economy and therefore the measure of what any government actually does, which necessarily falls short. No wonder the French public always complains, and nothing is ever enough. France’s old state is missing in action, but no new idea of the state and its action has replaced it (Schmidt, 2012). The French public needs to become reconciled with the changes in the nature of the state and its action, and they need to begin to understand and accept its limits within the context of continuing Europeanization and globalization. But for this, French political elites themselves need to begin to communicate truthfully about these changes in ways that help reconcile the French public to the fact that the French state is no longer what it was. Until French leaders also come up with a new idea of the state and its action, France itself is likely to flounder, losing its long-​privileged place in Europe both economically and politically, even as the French public continues to fall out of love with Europe, which it increasingly tends to blame for the changes in France.

 

626   Vivien A. Schmidt The big questions for the future research agenda are mainly about France in Europe and the world. The study of France can no longer be exclusively concerned with France, even when considering the country as a distinct kind of capitalism. Globalization and Europeanization are now present within French capitalism. This is clear from the ways in which, for example, different sectors of industry have been evolving. The organization, strategies, and competitiveness of French multinationals are understandable only in the context of the global and European political economy. The evolution of French financial markets can be explained only in the context of the internationalization and Europeanization of finance. Moreover, the ways in which international financial markets perceive French competitiveness have a tremendous impact not just on foreign investment but also on the country’s ability to refinance its debt—​in particular if and when the ratings agencies downgrade French debt. And this in turn affects the markets,’ and especially the EU’s perceptions of France’s continued need to reform its labor markets and welfare state.

The Challenges of European Integration European integration has arguably represented the greatest element of change in France’s political economic trajectory. From being a leader building the EU, in particular as political leader of the Franco-​German pairing in the 1980s and 1990s, France has increasingly become a follower, in particular during the eurozone crisis. Germany’s bargaining power in the eurozone crisis, as the strongest state economically, has also translated into political dominance. German ideas of the “stability culture” have been embedded in the rules of eurozone governance (Howarth and Rommerskirchen, 2013) and its ordo-​liberal ideas in the “Brussels–​Frankfurt consensus on austerity and structural reform” (Jones, 2015). These have been reinforced in “pact” after “pack,” from the original Stability and Growth Pact to the ever more restrictive rules and stringent numbers of the legislative packages and treaties, including the Six-​Pack, the Two-​Pack, and the Fiscal Compact. As the “reluctant hegemon” (Bulmer and Paterson, 2013), Germany has led through its delays and refusals; by demurring on the bail-​out of Greece until it was almost too late—​ignoring French pleas; by refusing any overall solutions to the crisis that would have entailed fiscal solidarity, such as the creation of mutualized debt via “Eurobonds;” and by imposing its own agenda of “governing by the rules and ruling by the numbers” on the entire eurozone, including France (Schmidt, 2015). As a result, the French did finally get the gouvernement économique that they had pushed for ever since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, but it contained German rather than French ideas about how to govern the economy (Jabko, 2015). While the French had argued for “solidarity” in view of the crisis, the Germans insisted on “stability,” and stability won out. President Sarkozy, who had promoted a neo-​Keynesian stimulus in 2008–​9, switched in May 2010 to Chancellor Merkel’s agenda following the Greek bailout, and to Merkel’s discourse as he slowly abandoned “solidarity” in favor of “stability” over the course of the next two years (Crespy and Schmidt, 2014). Sarkozy himself

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    627 turned out to have been perfectly willing to agree to a quid pro quo in which a rescue plan would be accompanied by an austerity program, including the “golden rule” of balanced budgets. This was more in line with the preferences of his own center-​right constituency, while it served to embarrass the opposition Socialists. But once the Socialists came to power, President Hollande also toed the line—​insisting that France needed to regain economic credibility before it could be credible in pushing for any change in rules. The irony, of course, is that in following such policies, France cannot gain the credibility it would need to push for changes in the rules. This is because the rules haven’t worked for France, which has had to ask for derogation after derogation of the deficit rules. But those rules have also not worked for the eurozone as a whole, as evidenced by the European economy’s slow growth, with threats of deflation. Eurozone austerity hawks who claimed that this alone could produce growth through “expansionary contraction” seem to have forgotten the very basic neo-​Keynesian lesson—​that tightening one’s belt in a recession can only make matters worse (Blyth, 2013). The problem for the eurozone economy begins with the very structure of the euro, which has produced increased divergence among member ​states’ economies rather than the expected convergence. The eurozone is a non-​optimal currency area that appears to work well for the export-​led, surplus-​producing model of growth and competitiveness of member states in Northern Europe, but not for member states in the periphery, mainly in Southern Europe (Scharpf, 2012; 2014; Hall, 2012). These countries have traditionally flourished via a domestic-​spending, deficit-​producing model of growth that requires periodic currency devaluation to right the balance; and demands, therefore, control of its own currency. Without the ability to devalue because of the euro or to run deficits because of the stability rules, Southern European member states may have no alternative but to enter into a never-​ending downward spiral of wage repression accompanied in the end by the suppression of social and political democracy (Scharpf, 2013; 2014). France is not a Southern European country, yet, even if it has a family resemblance as an SME. But France’s economic woes, its continued deficits, along with a state deprived of its traditional tools to influence the economy, make the country more likely to move south rather than north, assuming that its economy continues to lose speed and that nothing is done to change the rules of the eurozone. The state’s difficulties negotiating reform with French labor only adds to the country’s problems, as does the political instability that comes with citizens’ increasing disillusionment with mainstream party politics on both the Right and the Left, and with the EU. We should not forget that the greatest interest in the EP elections came from the political extremes, whose voters turned out in much greater numbers than those of mainstream parties, helping to make Marine Le Pen’s Euroskeptic National Front the party with the largest number of votes in France. The one ray of hope is that the eurozone’s rules-​based, numbers-​focused governance has been softening. EU institutional actors since 2012 have been slowly but surely reinterpreting the rules “by stealth,” that is, by increasing the flexibility in their interpretations of the rules without admitting this in their discourse (Schmidt, 2015). Although

 

628   Vivien A. Schmidt claiming harsh austerity while practicing flexibility is problematic with regard to political legitimacy, it at least ensures better results. France itself has been the beneficiary of successive derogations in the rules related to the excessive deficit procedure, and was twice given two-​year delays to meet targets. Moreover, by late 2014, EU institutional actors had abandoned the push for austerity altogether in the face of the dangers of deflation, and instead focused on “structural reform,” by this time defined more loosely as any of a wide range of reforms that promote growth. French leaders have been using the EU’s pressure here to legitimate their own push for rather modest reforms of the labor markets, among other things.

Conclusion For scholars of France, the major challenge is to be able to complete a research agenda that combines the insights about France’s continued “exceptionalism” and why it retains its own distinct model of capitalism with the recognition that it operates in an increasingly globalized and Europeanized political economy. As a result, France’s national divergences can be only one aspect of scholars’ research agenda. The other is to elaborate how France has become a global player; how its different sectors of industry are integrating into a larger European market and globalized economy, how its labor markets and welfare states are modernizing in ways that can be compared as well as contrasted with those of other member states, and how its politics has become increasingly enmeshed with that of the European Union. Notably, this kind of agenda should not just be for scholars of France. Scholars of political economy more generally need to move beyond the increasingly false dichotomy between international political economy and comparative political economy in order to see the increasingly intricate interrelationships between the two. They also need to continue to add to their considerations of national political economies the roles of policy, polity, and politics. The study of political economy has already been enriched by a greater pluralism in neo-​institutionalist explanations of political economic realities. The next challenge is to bring these back together again—​with the study of rationalist incentive structures, historical path dependencies, sociological cultural frames, and ideational and discursive dynamics each informing in its different way research on the increasing complexities of capitalism within and beyond country borders, in a globalized and Europeanized context.

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Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    631 Fioretos, O. (2011). Creative Reconstructions:  Multilateralism and European Varieties of Capitalism after 1950. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Fligstein, N. (2001). The Architecture of Markets:  An Economic Sociology of Twenty-​First-​ Century Capitalist Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gamble, A. (2013). “Neo-​Liberalism and Fiscal Conservatism,” in Schmidt, V. A. and Thatcher, M. (eds) Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 53–​77. Gourevitch, P. and Shinn, J. (2005). Political Power and Corporate Control: The New Global Politics of Corporate Governance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gualmini, E. and Schmidt, V. A. (2013). “State Transformation in Italy and France: Technocratic versus Political Leadership on the Road from Non-​ liberalism to Neo-​ liberalism,” in Schmidt, V. A. and Thatcher, M. (eds) Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 346–​74. Hall, P. A. (1986). Governing the Economy:  The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France. New York: Oxford University Press. Hall, P. A. (2007). “The Evolution of Varieties of Capitalism in Europe,” in Hancké, B. et al. (eds) Beyond Varieties of Capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 39–​85. Hall, P. A. (2012). “The Economics and Politics of the Euro Crisis,” German Politics 21(4): 355–​7 1. Hall, P. and Soskice, D. (2001). Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hall, P. and Gingerich, D. (2004). “Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementari­ ties in the Macroeconomy.” Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Discussion Paper 04/​5. Hall, P. (1993). “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policy-​ Making in Britain,” Comparative Politics 25: 275–​96. Hancké, B., Rhodes, M., and Thatcher, M. (2007). “Introduction,” in Hancké, B., Rhodes, M., and Thatcher, M. (eds) Beyond Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 3–​38. Hassel, A. (2014). “The Paradox of Liberalization—​Understanding Dualism and the Recovery of the German Political Economy,” British Journal of Industrial Relations 52: 57–​81. Hay, C. and Rosamond, B. (2002). “Globalisation, European Integration and the Discursive Construction of Economic Imperatives,” Journal of European Public Policy 9(2): 147–​67. Hay, C. (2006). “Constructivist Institutionalism,” in Rhodes, R. A.  W., Binder, S. A., and Rockman, B. A. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions. Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 56–​75. Hay, C. and Smith, N. (2013). “The Resilience of Anglo-​liberalism in the Absence of Growth: The UK and Irish cases,” in Schmidt, V. A. and Thatcher, M. (eds) Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 289–​313. Hayward, J. (1973). The One and Indivisible French Republic. New York: Norton. Hollingsworth, J. R., Schmitter, P., and Streeck, W. (1994). Governing Capitalist Economies. New York: Oxford University Press. Howarth, D. (2001). “The French State in the Euro Zone: ‘Modernization’ and Legitimizing Dirigisme in the ‘Semi-​Sovereignty’ Game,” in Dyson, K. (ed.) The European State in the Euro-​Zone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 145–​73. Howarth, D. and Rommerskirchen, C. (2013). “A Panacea for all Times? The German Stability Culture as Strategic Political Resource,” West European Politics 36(4): 750–​70. Howell, C. (1992). Regulating Labor:  The State and Industrial Relations Reform in Postwar France. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

 

632   Vivien A. Schmidt Howell, C. (2009). “The Transformation of French Industrial Relations: Labor Representation and the State in a Post-​Dirigiste Era,” Politics & Society 37(2): 229–​56. Iversen, T. and D. Soskice (2006). “Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions: Why Some Democracies Redistribute More than Others,” American Political Science Review 100: 165–​81. Jabko, N. (2015). “The Elusive Economic Governance and the Forgotten Fiscal Union,” in Matthijs, M. and Blyth, M. (eds) The Future of the Euro. New York: Oxford University Press, 70–​90. Jabko, N. and Massoc, E. (2012). “French Capitalism under Stress:  How Nicolas Sarkozy Rescued the Banks,” Review of International Political Economy 19(4): 562–​85. Jobert, B. and Muller, P. (1987) L’État en action, politiques publiques et corporatisme. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, Recherches Politiques. Jobert, B. and Théret, B. (1994). “France: La Consécration Républicaine du Néo-​libéralisme,” in Jobert, B. (ed.) Le Tournant Néo-​Libéral en Europe. Paris: L’Harmattan, 21–​87. Jones, E. (2015). “Forgotten Financial Union: How You Can Have a Euro Crisis without a Euro,” in Matthijs, M. and Blyth, M. (eds) The Future of the Euro. New York: Oxford University Press, 44–​70. Katzenstein, P. (ed.) (1978). Between Power and Plenty: Foreign Economic Policy of Advanced Industrial States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Kinderman, D. (2014). “Challenging Varieties of Capitalism’s Account of Business Interests: The New Social Market Initiative and German Employers’ Quest for Liberalization, 2000–​ 2014.” Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne MPIfG Discussion Paper 14/​ 16 (October 2014). Available at: (accessed May 11, 2016). King, D. and Wood, S. (1999). “The Political Economy of Neoliberalism: Britain and the United States in the l980s,” in Kitschelt, H. et  al. (eds) Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 371–​97. Kristensen, P. H. (2015). “Fighting the Financial Crisis: The Social Construction and De-​construction of the Financial Crisis in Denmark,” in Morgan, G., Hirsch, P., and Quack, S. (eds) Elites on Trial Research in the Sociology of Organisations, Vol. 43. Bradford: Emerald Publishing, 371–​99. Kuisel, R. (1981). Capitalism and the State in Modern France. New  York:  Cambridge University Press. Leibfried, S, and Zürn, M. (2005). Transformations of the State? Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Levy, J. (1999). Tocqueville’s Revenge: Dilemmas of Institutional Reform in Post-​Dirigiste France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levy, J. (2008). “From the Dirigiste State to the Social Anesthesia State:  French Economic Policy in the Longue Durée,” Modern and Contemporary France 16(4): 417–​35. Levy, J., Miura, M., and Park, G. (2006). “Exiting Etatisme?: New Directions in State Policy in France and Japan,” in Levy, J. (ed.) The State after Statism. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 93–​138. Locke, R. and Baccaro, L. (1999). “The Resurgence of Italian Unions?” in Martin, A. and Ross, G. (eds) The Brave New World of European Labor. New York: Berghahn, 217–​69. Loriaux, M. (1991). France after Hegemony:  International Change and Financial Reform. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Mahoney, J. and Thelen, K. (2009). Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

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634   Vivien A. Schmidt Schmidt, V. A. (1995). “The New World Order, Incorporated: The Rise of Business and the Decline of the Nation-​State,” Daedalus 124(2): 75–​106. Schmidt, V. A. (1996). From State to Market? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmidt, V. A. (2002). The Futures of European Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schmidt, V. A. (2007). “Trapped by Their Ideas:  French Élites’ Discourses of European Integration and Globalization,” Journal of European Public Policy 14(7): 992–​1009. Schmidt, V. A. (2009). “Putting the Political Back into Political Economy by Bringing the State Back Yet Again,” World Politics 61(3): 516–​48. Schmidt, V. A. (2012). “France’s Postwar Model from the State in Action to a State of Mind,” French Politics 10(2): 196–​208. Schmidt, V. A. (2013). “The Europeanization of National Economies,” in Bulmer, S. and Lequesne, C. (eds) Member States and the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 408–​31. Schmidt, V. A. (2015). “Forgotten Democratic Legitimacy: ‘Governing by the Rules’ and ‘Ruling by the Numbers’,” in Matthijs, M. and Blyth, M. The Future of the Euro. New York: Oxford University Press, 90–​117. Schmidt, V. A. and Thatcher, M. (2013). “Theorizing Ideational Continuity: The Resilience of Neo-​Liberal Ideas in Europe,” in Schmidt, V. A. and Thatcher, M. (eds) Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–​53. Schmidt, V. A. and Woll, C. (2013). “The State: The Bête Noire of Neo-​liberalism or its Greatest Conquest?” in Schmidt, V. A. and Thatcher, M. (eds) Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 112–​45. Schnyder, G. and Jackson, G. (2013). “Germany and Sweden in the Crisis: Re-​coordination or Resilient Liberalism?” in Schmidt, V. A. and Thatcher, M. (eds) Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 313–​46. Shonfield, A. (1965). Modern Capitalism: The Changing Balance of Public and Private Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steinmo, S. (1994). “American Exceptionalism Reconsidered:  Culture or Institutions?” in Dodd, L. C. and Jillson, C. (eds) The Dynamics of American Politics:  Approaches and Interpretations. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 106–​31. Steinmo, S. (2010). The Evolution of Modern States:  Sweden, Japan, and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strange, Su. (1996). The Retreat of the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Streeck, W. and Thelen, K. (2005) “Introduction,” in Streeck, W. and Thelen, K. (eds) Beyond Continuity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–​40. Suleiman, E. (1974). Politics, Power, and Bureaucracy in France:  The Administrative Elite. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Taylor, M. Z. (2004). “Empirical Evidence against Varieties of Capitalism’s Theory of Technological Innovation,” International Organization 58(3): 601–​31. Thatcher, M. (1999). Politics of Telecommunications. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thelen, K. (2014). Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Thiberghien, Y. (2007). Entrepreneurial States:  Reforming Corporate Governance in France, Japan, and Korea. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Vail, M. (2010). Recasting Welfare Capitalism: Economic Adjustment in Contemporary France and Germany. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

 

Varieties of Capitalism: A Distinctly French Model?    635 Weiss, L. (2003). “Guiding Globalization in East Asia:  New Roles for Old Developmental States,” in Weiss, L. (ed.) States in the Global Economy: Bringing Domestic Institutions Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 245–​7 1. Whitley, R. (2005). “How National are Business Systems?” in Morgan, G., Whitley, R., and Moen, E. (eds) Changing Capitalisms? New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 190–​231. Woo-​Cumings, M. (ed.) (1999). The Developmental State. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wood, S. (2001). “Business, Government, and Patterns of Labor Market Policy in Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany,” in Hall, P. A. and Soskice, D. (eds) Varieties of Capitalism:  The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 247–​74. Zysman, J. (1983). Governments, Markets, and Growth: Finance and the Politics of Industrial Change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

 

Chapter 28

Defense a nd Secu rit y P ol i c y beyond French exceptionalism Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand

The gap between French and international political science is, perhaps, nowhere wider than in strategic studies. While this subfield enjoys considerable academic prestige in the United States, the United Kingdom, or even in Scandinavia, it is, barring a few exceptions such as Pierre Hassner who had a successful career at Sciences Po Paris, often confined to the realm of think tanks and policy commentary in France. The aim of this chapter is not to criticize, justify, or analyze this perceived gap, which, to be fair, has narrowed in recent years. Rather, we use it as an angle to examine, in a comparative perspective, both what the international literature can tell us about French security and defense policy, and also what the French case teaches us about this literature. To do so, we proceed in three steps. First we review the international relations and comparative politics literature on security and defense policy outside France, paying special attention to dominant theoretical debates in strategic studies. Second, we look at the way in which French scholars, by which we mean experts working on France but not necessarily working in France or holding a French passport, have analyzed security and defense policy. Third, we try to bring together the main elements of an integrated research agenda on French security and defense policy.

A Review of Security and Defense Studies Security studies have changed a great deal over the last 30 years, moving beyond war and deterrence to encompass new objects such as the environment, culture, and human

 

Defense and Security Policy: Beyond French Exceptionalism    637 rights. This section, however, focuses on the traditional, military dimension of security. Specifically, we define security and defense policy as the use of military means by the state to achieve strategic objectives. The post-​Second World War era was characterized by the rise of realism in international relations. Scholarship that emphasized anarchy in the international system and the predominant role of power replaced the peace-​oriented liberal approaches of the interwar period. This paradigm shift had a major impact on the analysis of war. While liberal thinkers were trying to identify the causes of war as a means to prevent it, realists saw it as unavoidable that states would fight each other to maximize their interests. For Raymond Aron (1962), one of the few Frenchmen who contributed to this literature, international relations unfold “in the shadow of war;” the likelihood that war will occur is determined by the world’s power structure. The realist school offered a simplified picture of the international political context that helped people think about nuclear strategy. Following Bernard Brodie’s call to break with historical analysis, security studies welcomed political scientists, but also mathematicians, physicists, and economists who wanted to establish scientific foundations for nuclear policy (Brodie, 1949). The concepts of anti-​force strategy, first-​and second-​strike capability, strategic vulnerability, nuclear escalation, and limited nuclear war were elaborated in this Cold War context. These insights in turn nourished the debate on arms control and disarmament (Brennan, 1961). While it dominated the field, the realist assumption that security and defense policy is inherently rational was also contested. Sociologists were the first to question rationalism in strategic affairs. The publication of C. W. Mills’ Power Elite (1956) underlined the rise of a military elite in American society. Mills argued that US armaments policy and animosity toward the Soviet Union were explained by this elite’s influence on public opinion and the US government. At about the same time, international events gave credibility to Harold Lasswell’s description of the close relationship between armed forces and politicians in the “garrison state” (1941). This provided the backdrop against which the debate between Samuel Huntington (1957) and Morris Janowitz (1960) launched military sociology as a discipline. While Huntington believed that armed forces had a distinct culture that explained their efficiency and should remain as autonomous as possible from political authority, Janowitz thought that soldiering was becoming a profession like any other, and thus that the military was an integral part of the civilian state and of a democratic society. Regardless, the weight of the armaments industry and relations between the military, industrialists, and politicians supported President Eisenhower’s fear of a military–​industrial complex that would exert undue influence on US foreign policy. While the scientific value of this concept was criticized (Sarkesian, 1972), it led to productive scholarship on the US’s defense economy, the role of the military establishment in society, the growth of a civilian bureaucracy inside the Pentagon, and business influence on US foreign and defense policy. A major break occurred with the development of foreign policy analysis (Snyder et al., 1954; 1962). In spite of the variety of approaches and methodologies used, the authors who belong to this field of inquiry shared a common interest in the modes of production of foreign, security, and defense policies rather than in their causes or consequences. They

 

638    Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand emphasized the decision-​making process and the variables that influence it. From the 1950s on, this approach showed the impact on decision-​making of factors such as leadership skills, bureaucratic and organizational dynamics, and socio-​psychological phenomena like “groupthink” (Huntington, 1960; Hilsman, 1967; Schilling et al., 1962). But the most influential contribution was perhaps Graham Allison’s (1971) study of the Cuban missile crisis. Allison’s theorizing made him famous beyond international relations and security studies. His bureaucratic politics model, which combined rational decision-​ making, turf wars, and organizational dynamics, inspired several authors to analyze security and defense policy, notably armaments programs (Armacost, 1969; Art, 1968; Ball, 1980; Beard, 1976; Coulam, 1977; Greenwood, 1975; Sapolsky, 1972; Tammen, 1973). It was also used to study alliance formation and international negotiations (Halperin, 1975). From the end of the 1970s on, however, the bureaucratic politics paradigm started to wane. Scholars questioned the focus on turf wars and began to argue that security and defense policymaking included important actors beyond the government machinery. Holland and Hoover (1985), for instance, showed that bureaucratic politics was effective at explaining the MX missile program’s minutiae (design, research and development), but not the big decisions of acquiring and deploying the weapon. They looked at how such programs were politicized through the role of Congress, interest groups, and public opinion. Evangelista’s (1988) book on the arms race between the US and the Soviet Union also emphasized the impact of political systems writ large. In addition, the bureaucratic politics paradigm was criticized for its pretension to universalize on the basis of a case study and for its neglect of history. These criticisms led to a new generation of comparative work, either at the domestic level (e.g. between different armaments programs, cf. Farrell, 1997) or at the international level. In parallel, new research objects were investigated. A new generation of scholars rose to prominence with comparative historical studies of military doctrine. Snyder (1984) showed how the connection between armed forces’ doctrines and organizational features explained the conduct of the First World War. Comparing France, the UK, and Germany in the interwar period, Posen (1984) studied the domestic factors that explain the development of a defensive, offensive, or deterrence doctrine. This literature looked at how institutional, political, technological, and cultural factors could explain stability and change in military organizations (Kier, 1997; Zisk, 1993; Avant, 1994; Rosen, 1991). There was renewed interest in civil–​military relations and their impact on defense policy (Desch, 1999; Feaver, 1992; Kohn, 1994; 2002; Snider and Carlton-Carew, 1995). First centered on the US case, this research was increasingly conducted in a comparative setting, especially with European countries (Forster, 2006) and including the role of parliamentary control (Rozenberg et al., 2011). Several new themes arose with the end of the Cold War. With the irruption of infra-​ state conflicts (Mary Kaldor’s so-​called new wars), critical theorists and a good number of traditional scholars began to argue that security was a great deal more complex than hitherto envisaged. New threats—​or newly securitized objects—​appeared on the security and defense agenda, such as drug trafficking, organized crime, ethnic violence, economic intelligence, or financial transactions. In a seminal book, Buzan et al. (1998) suggested that security has a societal, political, economic, and environmental

 

Defense and Security Policy: Beyond French Exceptionalism    639 dimension in addition to its military one. Terrorism, which tended to be left to internal security, was also increasingly treated as a matter of military policy (Falkenrath, 1998; Orme, 1998; Posen, 1996). It was around that time that several authors began to argue that the state was losing its monopoly on the use of force. This led to three developments that live to this day in the literature. First, more attention is now paid to complex multinational peace operations, since the UN expanded its peacekeeping activity significantly, the NATO military alliance transformed itself into a provider of peace operations, and the European Union now fashions itself as a global security actor (Rynning, 2012; Mérand, 2008). Second, the dichotomy between internal and external security has become less relevant (van Creveld, 1991; Holsti, 1996). It is worth noting that a number of Francophone scholars made their mark by emphasizing how politicians, bureaucrats, and academics partake in the social construction of threats (Bigo, 1995; Wasinski, 2010). Finally, scholars have become more interested in the dynamics and consequences of governments contracting out a growing number of security functions to private military companies (Singer, 2007; Avant, 2005). A last post–​Cold War theme that still runs today pertains to the impact of new information and communication technology on the conduct of war and defense policy. The so-​called revolution in military affairs has sparked an enduring debate about whether technology drives war, or the other way around (Krepinevich, 2002). This literature looks at the factors that facilitate technological innovation (Hone et al., 1999; 2011; Murray and Millett, 1996; Knox and Murray, 2001; Mahnken, 2002) and at the implementation of new technology in armed forces (Adamsky, 2010; Terriff et al., 2010). This has led to renewed interest in the organizational, political, and cultural determinants of defense policy, especially in the US but also in the British context (Lacquement, 2003; Sapolsky et al., 2009; Farrell and Terriff, 2002; Farrell, 2006).

Defense and Security Policy in France: An Assessment In contrast to US and British developments, French scholarship on security and defense policy has been characterized by three main trends: the legacy of Charles de Gaulle’s vision and policies, a strongly policy-​oriented production often originating from think tanks, and the influence of sociological approaches in French political science more generally. These three trends have given the impression that the Fifth Republic’s security and defense was unique among Western democracies.

De Gaulle’s Legacy The first years of the Fifth Republic and President Charles de Gaulle’s international activism have strongly influenced scholarship on French security and defense policy

 

640    Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand (Gordon, 1993). The acquisition of nuclear weapons stimulated the development of a new school of strategic thinking around senior military officers such as Pierre Marie Gallois (1911–​2010) and Lucien Poirier (1918–​2013), as well as an early generation of political scientists who took the nuclear challenge as their starting point. This influence is apparent in the first systematic study of French defense policy, by Bernard Chantebout (1967). While adopting a classic institutionalist approach focused on organizations, Chantebout justified the president’s domaine réservé by the requirements of nuclear war, divisions within public opinion vis-​à-​vis the USSR, and the civilian control of armed forces. In line with the study of French politics as it evolved from the 1970s on, subsequent work on domaine réservé did not adopt the same hagiographic tone and tried instead to flesh out its logic. Through a comparison with the US National Security Council, Samy Cohen (1980) questioned the influence of the presidential staff. The Fifth Republic, according to Cohen, created an “unequal diarchy,” whereby the president uses his prime minister as cover when he gets into trouble. Cohen also identified the weaknesses of a decision-​making system in which the Elysée Palace is at the core but lacks the expertise and information necessary to deal with complex files. He further demonstrated that the president’s primacy in defense policy results not literally from the Constitution of the Fifth Republic but from a political compromise reached in 1958, when de Gaulle came to power (Cohen 1986). Other authors have argued that the Socialist Party’s strategy to conquer power in the 1980s explains the political consensus that consolidated around nuclear deterrence and NATO non-​integration (Howorth and Chilton, 1984; Dobry, 1986). Analyzing the reasons behind France’s withdrawal from the integrated command in 1966, Frédéric Bozo (1991) has shown that the French position during the Fourth and Fifth Republics was to keep the German military down; a hope that did not materialize under NATO. Bozo also argues that, beneath de Gaulle’s grandiose rhetoric, the decision to withdraw was a pragmatic one since it quickly led to a new organization of the France–​NATO relationship that answered both France’s capabilities and Allied expectations. The specificities of the Fifth Republic’s armaments policy have also received considerable scholarly attention. In the first exhaustive analysis of this topic, Kolodziej (1987) documented the double strategy that underpins this policy. While security concerns explain the reconstruction of a national armaments industry during the Fourth Republic and the beginnings of the Fifth, economic considerations, in particular exports, dominated the following years. Historians have worked on the creation of the Délégation ministérielle pour l’armement (DMA) in 1961—​which became the Délégation générale in 1977 and then the Direction générale de l’armement (DGA)—​and the important role of “armaments engineers” in the development of France’s nuclear weapon and the organization of its defense industry (Vaïsse, 2002; Pestre, 2005). Collusion between the military staff, the defense industry, and DGA engineers to keep military spending high and ensure an equitable distribution of resources among the three armed services has been portrayed as the main obstacle to the president’s ability to impose his views on defense policy (Menon, 1994). However, invoking the “preeminence of presidential power,” Howorth (1992) brings nuances to these observations. In his study of defense

 

Defense and Security Policy: Beyond French Exceptionalism    641 policymaking, Samy Cohen (1994) indeed talks of a “defeat of the generals” against political authorities under the Fifth Republic. Cohen only makes an exception for conventional armaments, where industrial, administrative, and military actors continue to shape the agenda in the absence of a strong interest on the part of the president.

The Emergence of Economists and Think Tanks The 1990s coincided with a shift toward more policy-​oriented approaches. With the end of the Cold War, and as France remained for a while the only country that did not significantly reduce its military effort, most research focused on defense transformation. Economists stressed a number of challenges faced by an industry bedeviled by spiraling costs and declining exports, which led to the restructuring of defense firms (Dumez and Jeunemaître, 1999). The effects of DGA reforms conducted from the early 1990s on the regulation of the defense industry were also analyzed (Danet, 1997). The DGA came to be seen as the linchpin of an armaments “meso-​system,” which, economists Chesnais and Serfati (1992) argued, was detrimental for the French economy, both in terms of costs and in terms of strategy. Hébert (1998) argued that the dismantling of centrally administered management, developed after 1945, and the end of strategic independence, initiated by de Gaulle in 1958, were unavoidable. Another economist, Elie Cohen (1996), lamented the situation created by the inability of successive governments to prioritize armaments programs at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. During these years, a great deal of security and defense policy studies were conducted by think tanks, such as the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique. Established by former minister Pierre Joxe in 1992, it brought together some of the most influential experts on the topic, such as François Heisbourg and Camille Grand. In 1991, the left-​leaning Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS) was founded by Pascal Boniface. The older Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI) also developed a significant security and defense agenda. Very active in the media, organizing workshops and conferences, publishing their own journals (Revue internationale et stratégique; Politique étrangère …), these think tanks receive some private support but are mainly funded by the government and maintain close links with the Ministry of Defense’s Delegation for Strategic Affairs (created in 1992). Often well documented and influential, their intellectual production tends to reflect the government’s priorities. In contrast to the UK, there have been very few connections between think tank analysts and university-​based academics.

The Influence of Sociology A third trend in French security and defense studies is the influence of sociological approaches. While military and political sociologists have often obtained government contracts, notably through the Center for Social Studies in Defense and its successor,

 

642    Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand the Institut de recherche stratégiques de l’école militaire (IRSEM), they have shied away from normative policy work. For example, political scientists have analyzed the impact of neo-​liberal ideas on DGA reforms. Genieys and Michel showed how the formation of a “project elite” made up of military officers, engineers, and senior civil servants helped save the Leclerc tank program threatened by changes in the international environment and new policy orientations (Genieys and Michel, 2006; Genieys, 2004). Conversely, Joana and Smith (2006) underlined the importance of a new “commercial strategy” in arms procurement in the development of the A400M strategic aircraft program. Defense transformation in the 1990s meant the transformation of the armed forces themselves. Despite the failings of the French armed forces during the first Gulf War, continuity with the mass conscript army model prevailed until 1995. Louis Gautier (1999) showed how François Mitterrand prevented radical changes, both for political reasons (the levée en masse was invented during the French Revolution) and because he wanted to preserve a sort of “defense consensus” between the Left and the Right. During the first half of the 1990s, French forces retained a mixed format in which some units were professionalized (especially around the Rapid Action Force created in 1984) alongside units that relied on conscripts. By 1995, the proportion of conscripts had fallen below 50 percent, a similar proportion to that in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands (Haltiner, 1998). It was only under Jacques Chirac’s first mandate in 1996 that the decision was taken to “professionalize” French armed forces; that is, to end conscription. For military sociologists, this decision was in line with the challenge faced by mass armies in Western countries since the 1970s (Moskos et al., 2000; Boëne, 1998). For realists, the reform was simply an adaptation to changes in the international context (Campbell, 1996; McKenna, 1997; Gregory, 2000). In this view, political leaders used France’s failings during the Gulf War to overcome the organizational culture of the armed forces (Rynning, 2001; 2002). Using a decision-​making approach, Bastien Irondelle (2011) showed that Chirac played a key, personal role in the professionalization of the armed forces. Despite the organizational routines and bureaucratic turf wars that supported the status quo, the president’s leadership allowed him at several stages of the decision-​making process to impose the content and sequence of the reform. Irondelle’s approach highlights that on one hand the 1996 reform broke with earlier attempts at moving toward a “mixed” army model, while on the other hand it was relatively independent from changes in the international strategic context. In any event, the 1996 reform had a significant impact on French interpretations of their armed forces. Comparing the British and French cases, Genieys et al. (2000) stressed that new personnel management practices have redefined the “military condition,” signaling a strong shift from the 1960s (see also Joana, 2002; 2004). Completed in 2001 when the last conscript left the forces, the 1996 reform led to a number of changes in the military institution. Bernard Boëne (2003) observed that France followed a trajectory not unlike that of other Western countries that professionalized their armies: decrease in manpower, growing number of women, increase of the proportion of officers versus privates and NCOs, and a certain hardening of military identity due to

 

Defense and Security Policy: Beyond French Exceptionalism    643 narrowed recruitment and the multiplication of overseas operations. Jabukowski (2007) also argues that professionalization has transformed authority relations, with less hierarchical and more participative command practices. Finally, political scientists have shown that, in spite of official willingness to incorporate second-​generation immigrant youth in the forces, the feeling of discrimination remains strong (Bertossi and Withol de Wenden, 2007).

What about Strategy? As we noted in this chapter’s opening, international relations and strategic studies have not played a major role among French security and defense policy scholars. One of the main sources of academic work remains the small Institut de stratégie comparée, established by Hervé Coutau-​Bégarie and counting historian Georges-​Henri Sotou and General Lucien Poirier among its members. The ISC edits a journal, Stratégique, and a book series. It focuses on history and has loose connections with universities. While the history of international relations is an important field in France, strategic studies remain marginal in universities and the grandes écoles (Chillaud, 2009). The terms “balance of power,” “power transition,” and “revisionism” are frowned upon in political science, and realism, constructivism, and liberalism have only recently entered the vocabulary of IR scholars. As a result, there is little mainstream academic work done on the impact of geopolitics, regional crises, or globalization on France’s security and defense policy per se, However, there is quite a bit of focus on security and defense actors. The internationalization of French armed forces, for example, has led to some comparative work (Joana, 2012). Like other Western “post-​modern” armies (Moskos et al., 2000), French forces have invested heavily in their projection capabilities since the 1990s. This has led to changes in the nature and an intensification of their involvement in overseas operations. As the 2003 Iraq war suggests, the French government seems particularly concerned with the international legitimacy and the Europeanization of these operations (Boniface, 2008). The main theaters of operations of the last decade are found in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Côte d’Ivoire, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, and Central Africa. This interventionist policy was buttressed by the presence of “pre-​positioned forces” in Africa and the Indian Ocean, which have been in place since decolonization. Interestingly, the stress on a tradition of civil–​military cooperation and counter-​insurgency has led to a rediscovery of know-​how and symbols from the colonial era (Olsson, 2007). A number of exactions committed by the French military have also led, since the 2000s, to the top-​down implementation of ethical concerns (Irondelle, 2008). Due to the high importance given by the French government to “European defense” (Buffotot, 2005a; 2005b), most comparative work on French defense policy concerns the development of a European security and defense policy. Economists started their work early by focusing on opportunities and challenges of European cooperation for the French armaments industry. Claude Serfati (1992) argued that Europeanization would

 

644    Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand constitute a major challenge for state-​owned or -​supported firms that flourished under de Gaulle’s strategic independence posture. He observed that their fragmented business lines—​a result of the DGA’s policy to satisfy the armed forces’ needs—​were not adapted to American, British, and German competition in world markets. Economists paid a great deal of attention to the restructuring of these firms through domestic and international mergers and acquisitions (Hébert, 1999). They also analyzed the renewal of cooperation programs after the 1980s (Hébert and Hamiot, 2004). The support given by successive governments to European defense from the 1990s on is often presented as a way of compensating for France’s diminishing influence, especially in the context of EU and NATO enlargement (Menon, 2000). This interpretation has been put forward to explain the EU’s military operations in France’s traditional area of influence (Gegout, 2005). Several authors, however, question this interpretation. Mérand (2008) and Krotz (2011) argue that France does not have a simple instrumentalist policy vis-​à-​vis European defense. They argue that while this strategy may explain French policy up to the end of the Cold War, things have changed. The redefinition of security challenges, the beginnings of conventional armed forces integration, the relaunch of armaments cooperation, and the multiplication of multinational overseas operations substantiate the notion of a Europeanization of French defense policy. France’s reintegration into NATO’s military command in 2009 does not seem to have significantly altered French discourse on European cooperation (Irondelle and Mérand, 2011). Recent analyses of the debates surrounding the 2003–​8 military programming law have strengthened this interpretation (Sheppard, 2011). Drawing from political sociology, a number of scholars have shown that the Europeanization of French defense policy went hand in hand with the international socialization of defense policy actors. Niagalé Bagayoko (2006) has argued that French military officers who work in the field of Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) or in the Europe desk at the defense ministry were subject to a process of “Brusselization” which led them to adopt new beliefs. This international socialization is not limited to the EU. To describe the effects of participating in multinational operations on the military’s perceptions and practices, Irondelle (2003) for example spoke of “Europeanization without the European Union.” In the footsteps of CSDP (Buchet de Neuilly, 2005; Mérand, 2008), the rapprochement between France and the United Kingdom (illustrated by the Lancaster House Treaty in 2010) underlines the importance of inter-​organizational dynamics (Pannier, 2013). Yet studies also show that Europeanization remains limited. Even when engaged in moving EU files forward, policy actors retain their national allegiances (Mérand et al., 2011). Through a comparison of French armaments cooperation with Germany and the UK, Mawdsley (2000) showed that, despite the fact that they face common pressures toward convergence, armaments policies remain strongly national in character. Catherine Hoeffler (2011) has further shown that the liberalization of armaments policies did not prevent the development of national industrial ambitions and even intra-​EU protectionism. In her analysis, the DGA has used Europeanization largely as a veil to pursue its own industrial aims.

 

Defense and Security Policy: Beyond French Exceptionalism    645

A Research Agenda By way of conclusion, we delineate the contours of three research agendas that build on the French academic community’s strengths while addressing new research questions. First, it would be worth expanding the sociology of security and defense policy actors and institutions. The sociology of elites is considered by some to be the forte of French political science, and yet, with the exception of Genieys’ work, it has rarely been applied to military elites. While a significant amount of scholarship was produced in the field of military sociology from the 1970s to the 1990s (Boëne, 1990), most of the work that deals specifically with military elites still adopts a historical focus on “great men” or the attitude of the officer corps vis-​à-​vis domestic and international conflicts (Cailleteau, 2010; Cailleteau and Pellan, 2013; Paxton, 2004). There is little sociological work on the chiefs of staff and their professional trajectories, worldviews, and strategies of influence. Recent work on the socialization of Saint-​Cyr cadets (Weber, 2012) has documented the formative years of these elites but says little about their social background and where they end up. Closer to policy circles, the preparation of military programming laws or the drafting of White Papers on Security and Defense provides empirical material to analyze strategies of influence, conflicts of vision, and turf wars. Finally, it would be interesting to analyze the impact of the significant reforms that the military institution has gone though since the 1990s and the growth of the operational tempo in the military hierarchy. In a similar vein, scholars’ fascination with de Gaulle has led them to emphasize the role of the executive branch in security and defense policy. We have, by contrast, little data on the role of parliament and political parties. Comparative studies with the French case have focused on institutional aspects, in particular with regard to the use of force (Wagner, 2006). Recent French work has also highlighted the role of the defense parliamentary committee (Rozenberg et al., 2011). This should lay the groundwork for a more systematic analysis of parliamentary control of the armed forces and the contribution of MPs to defense policymaking. Other actors that have not received a great deal of scholarly attention include interest groups (especially industrial ones), think tanks, the defense minister and senior civil servants in the ministry, and political parties. The role played by senior civil servants in the Ministry of Defense’s Delegation for Strategic Affairs in defining France’s position on cluster munitions has already been studied (Dufournet, 2011), but other cases should be explored. The same gaps are found when it comes to intelligence actors. While this topic has been carefully researched in the Anglo-​American literature, in France it only became a legitimate object of inquiry in the 1990s. This lack of interest has been attributed to a “culture of intelligence” (Porch, 1997; Dénécé and Arboit, 2009). Some normative work has been done on the relationship between raison d’État and democracy, or, in a historical perspective, on the genesis of the “secret state” and the intelligence community between the nineteenth and the outset of the twentieth centuries (Laurent, 2009; Chopin, 2005; Chopin et al., 2011). The

 

646    Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand successive reforms applied to the defense ministry in 2005, 2009, and 2013 also provide material to help get a better grasp on who makes French security and defense policy. A second theme that has not been explored, and of which France is an intriguing case, is the articulation between defense policy and war. This requires more thorough engagement with contemporary security studies, which have gone a long way from traditional strategic studies by encompassing culture, practices, international institutions, and domestic politics. Different authors have identified the limits of this social compact (Shaw, 2005; Stavrianakis and Selby, 2012). Arguing that the nature of contemporary conflicts challenges the Western “way of war,” some IR scholars have proposed opening up “war’s black box” (Gartner, 1998) to better understand how security and defense policy scholars can factor the preparation for and conduct of war into their analyses. They look at the relationship between war and democracy or war and elections (Kier and Krebs, 2010). Historians and sociologists have also looked at “war from below,” that is, the relationship between the conditions of combat and decision-​making at the state level (Keegan, 1976; Audoin-​Rouzeau, 2008). Interesting work has also been done on military innovation to produce new military capabilities, to modernize organizations, or to change strategies (Grissom, 2006). And Anthony King (2011; 2013) has looked at doctrinal and organizational change through the lens of joint operations in Afghanistan. With the exception of Pascal Vennesson et al. (2011), these fundamental topics are still barely addressed by French scholars. The involvement of Western countries in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has sparked a literature on military adaptation, which stresses the importance of organizational learning (Murray, 2011; Farrell et al., 2013). Policy analysis could provide a useful complement to this literature by showing the political consequences of military adaptation, in terms of policy and policy instruments. In addition to new defense procurement practices in the form of “operational emergency purchases” (achats en urgence opérationnelle), the multiplication of military operations since the end of the Cold War has launched a debate on funding mechanisms. These are potentially fruitful domains to explore how “war makes the state” in the twenty-​first century. A last theme, deriving from comparative politics, concerns the reaction of the French “strong state” (Badie and Birnbaum, 1979) to the transformations of high politics. The sovereign state has been profoundly affected by the evolution of the role of the military institution in modern societies (Irondelle, 2008). This evolution, which includes the privatization of defense functions, the civilianization of the military, and growing international cooperation, can be characterized as the convergence toward a “new compact” of liberal militarism (Joana and Mérand, 2013). France has been particularly affected by these changes because of the idiosyncrasies of its military—​the role of nuclear deterrence, its continued military presence in Africa, its quest for international rank, its seat at the UN Security Council, its support for European Defense and also its special place in NATO’s military command until 2008. Recent efforts at framing French private military companies as a major strategic stake for the country—​through the adoption of a law that gives room to such firms in the area of maritime security—​after two decades of strong reticence on the part of the defense ministry to outsource its services, constitute a

 

Defense and Security Policy: Beyond French Exceptionalism    647 puzzle. The originality of this law-​based regulation, whereas Anglo-​Saxon countries rely on contracts between the government and private firms, begs for an explanation. Last, a comparison of different privatization initiatives in the defense sector and other policy domains where the role of the state is particularly strong, such as welfare, would shed light on the specific logic of security and defense policy.

Conclusion: Closing the Gap As has been argued in this chapter, the development of security and defense policy studies in France has not been insignificant, but it has been slower and more limited than in the US or the UK. On one hand, the Fifth Republic casts a long shadow on intellectual debates, which have a tendency to treat Gaullism as a unique set of institutions, policies, and worldviews. On the other, French political science is influenced by a sociological tradition which treats security and defense at best as something to study as an ordinary social fact, and at worse as something suspicious and not worth studying at all. Due to the reticence of academics vis-​à-​vis strategic studies and the dependence of think tanks on government support, the cleavage between academic and policy-​oriented scholars remains deep. Although the lack of comparative work is not unique to the French case, the paucity of academic strategic studies in particular is striking. The objective in this chapter was not to identity the causes of French exceptionalism but to build bridges between French and international political sciences through three concrete research agendas: the sociology of actors and institutions, engagement with contemporary security studies, and the deepening of comparative work.

Acknowledgment Bastien Irondelle, France’s foremost expert on defense policy, was commissioned by the editors to write this chapter. But he became seriously ill and asked the two co-​authors to help him finish it. Bastien left us on September 27, 2013. Two weeks before his untimely death, he was sharing his last draft with Jean Joana and Frédéric Mérand, who completed a manuscript that was largely his own.

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648    Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand Armacost, M. (1969). The Politics of Weapons Innovation. The Thor-​Jupiter Controversy. New York: Columbia University Press. Aron, R. (1962). Paix et guerre entre les nations. Paris: Calmann-​Lévy. Art, R. T. (1968). The FTX Decision: McNamara and the Military. Boston: Little, Brown. Audoin-​Rouzeau, S. (2008). Combattre. Une anthropologie historique de la guerre moderne (XIX°–​XX° siècle). Paris: Seuil. Avant, D. (1994). Political Institutions and Military Change. Lessons from Peripheral Wars. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Avant, D. (2005). The Market for Force:  the Consequences of Privatizing Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Badie, B. and Birnbaum, P. (1979). Sociologie de l’Etat. Paris: Grasset. Ball, D. (1980). Politics and Force Levels. The Strategic Missile Program of the Kennedy Administration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Beard, E. (1976). Developing the ICBM: A Study in Bureaucratic Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Bertossi, C. and Withol de Wenden, C. (2007). Les couleurs du drapeau. L’armée française face aux discriminations. Paris: Laffont. Bigo, D. (1995). “Grands débats dans un petit monde. Les débats en relations internationales et leur lien avec le monde de la sécurité,” Cultures et conflits 19–​20, Fall: 7–​48. Boëne, B. (1990). “How Unique Should the Military Be?” Archives européennes de sociologie 31(1): 3–​59. Boëne, B. (1998). “Métier, profession, professionnalisme,” in Boëne B. and Dandeker, C. (eds) Les armées en Europe. Paris: La Découverte, 171–​95. Boëne, B. (2003). “La professionnalisation des armées: contexte et raisons, impact fonctionnel et sociopolitique,” Revue française de sociologie 44(4): 647–​93. Boniface, P. (2008). “Les opérations militaires extérieures,” Pouvoirs 125: 55–​67. Bozo, F. (1991). La France et l’OTAN. De la guerre froide au nouvel ordre européen. Paris: Masson. Brennan, D. (1961). Arms Control, Disarmament and National Security. New York: Braziller. Brodie, B. (1949). “Strategy as a Science,” World Politics 1(4): 467–​88. Buchet de Neuilly, Y. (2005). L’Europe de la politique étrangère. Paris: Economica. Buffotot, P. (2005a). Europe des armées ou Europe désarmée? Paris: Michalon. Buffotot, P. (2005b). La defense en Europe. Avancées et limites. Paris:  La documentation française. Buzan, B., Weaver, O., and De Wilde, J. (1998). Security:  A  New Framework for Analysis. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Cailleteau, F. (2010). Les généraux français au XX° siècle. Paris: Economica. Cailleteau, F. and Pellan, A. (2013). Les officiers français dans l’entre-​deux-​guerres. Une génération dans la tourmente. Paris: Economica. Campbell, E. (1996). France’s Defence Reforms: The Challenge of Empiricism. Centre for Defence Studies, London Defence Studies 36. Chantebout, B. (1967). L’organisation générale de la défense nationale en France depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Paris: LGDJ. Chesnais, F. and Serfati, C. (1992). L’armement en France. Genèse, ampleur et coût d’une industrie. Paris: Nathan. Chillaud, M. (2009). “International Relations in France:  The ‘Usual Suspects’ in a French Scientific Field of Study?” European Political Science 8: 239–​53.

 

Defense and Security Policy: Beyond French Exceptionalism    649 Chopin, O. (2005). “La Raison d’Etat et la démocratie. Pratiques et concepts.” Doctoral dissertation, EHESS, Paris. Chopin, O., Malissard, A., and Irondelle, B. (2011). “Etudier le renseignement, état de l’art et perspectives de recherche.” Études de l’IRSEM 9. Cohen, E. (1996). La tentation hexagonale. La souveraineté à l’épreuve de la mondialisation. Paris: Fayard. Cohen S. (1980). Les conseillers du Président. De Charles de Gaulle à Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Cohen, S. (1986). La monarchie nucléaire. Les coulisses de la politique étrangère sous la Ve République. Paris: Hachette. Cohen, S. (1994). La défaite des généraux. Le pouvoir politique et l’armée sous la V° République. Paris: Fayard. Coulam, R. (1977). Illusions of Choice:  The F-​111 and the Problems of Weapons Acquisition Reform. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Danet, D. (1997). “La production d’armement: éléments d’économie institutionnelle,” Revue française d’economie 12(3): 121–​65. Dénécé, E. and Arboit, G. (2009). Les études du renseignement en France. Centre Français de Recherche sur le Renseignement. Rapport de recherche n° 8, Paris. Desch, M. C. (1999). Civilian Control of the Military. The Changing Security Environment. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Dobry, M. (1986). “Le jeu du consensus,” Pouvoirs 38: 47–​66. Dufournet, H. (2011). “Gouverner sans choisir. Entre contrainte morale et réalisme politique: l’engagement français dans le processus d’interdiction des armes à sous-​munitions.” Doctoral dissertation, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris. Dumez, H. and Jeunemaître, A. (1999). “Le cadre institutionnel de la restructurations des industries d’armement. Une comparaison Etats-​Unis/​Europe,” Gérer et comprendre 57: 13–​22. Evangelista, M. (1988). Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Falkenrath, R. (ed.) (1998). America’s Achilles’ Heel. Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press. Farrell, T. (1997). Weapons without a Cause: The Politics of Weapons Acquisition in the United States. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Farrell, T. (2006). The Norms of War. Cultural Belief and Modern Conflict. New Delhi: Viva Books. Farrell, T., Osinga, F., and Russel, J. A. (eds) (2013). Military Adaptation in Afghanistan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Farrell, T. and Terriff, T. (eds) (2002). The Sources of Military Change. Culture, Politics, Technology. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Feaver, P. D. (1992). Guarding the Guardians. Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Forster, A. (2006). Armed Forces and Society in Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Gartner S. S. (1998). “Opening the Black Box of War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42(3): 252–​8. Gautier, L. (1999). Mitterrand et son armée, 1990–​1995. Paris: Grasset. Gegout, C. (2005). “Causes and Consequences of the EU’s Military Intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A Realist Explanation,” European Foreign Affairs Review 10: 427–​43.

 

650    Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand Genieys, W. (ed.) (2004). Le choix des armes. Théories, acteurs et politiques. Paris:  CNRS éditions. Genieys, W., Joana, J., and Smith, A. (2000). Professionnalisation et condition militaire: une Comparaison France/​Grande-​Bretagne. Paris: Les documents du C2SD. Genieys, W. and Michel, L. (2006). “Au-​delà du complexe militaro-​industriel. Le rôle d’une élite sectorielle dans le programme du char Leclerc,” Revue française de sociologie 47(1): 117–​42. Gordon, P. H. (1993). A Certain Idea of France:  French Security Policy and Gaullist Legacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Greenwood, T. (1975). Making the MIRV:  A  Study of Defence Decision Making. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Gregory, S. (2000). French Defence Policy into the 21st Century. London: Macmillan. Grissom, A. (2006). “The Future of Military Innovation Studies,” Journal of Strategic Studies 29(5): 905–​34. Halperin, M. (1975). National Security Policy-​Making. Analyses, Cases and Proposals. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Haltiner, K. W. (1998). “Le déclin final des armées de masse,” in Boëne, B. and Dandeker, C. (eds) Les armées en Europe. Paris: La Découverte, 139–​59. Hébert, J.-​P. (1998). Les exportations d’armement. A  quel prix? Paris:  La documentation française. Hébert, J. P. (1999). Naissance de l’Europe de l’armement. Paris: Cirpes. Hébert, J.-​P. and Hamiot, J. (2004). Histoire de la coopération européenne dans l’armement. Paris, CNRS Editions. Hilsman, R. (1967). To Move a Nation. New York: Doubleday. Hoeffler, C. (2011). “Les politiques d’armement en Europe: l’Adieu aux armes de l’Etat nation? Une comparaison entre l’Allemagne, la France, le Royaume Uni et l’Union Européenne de 1976 à 2010,” Doctoral dissertation, Sciences Po, Paris. Holland, L. H. and Hoover R. A. (1985). The MX Decision. A New Direction in the US Weapons Procurement Policy? Boulder: Westview. Holsti, K. (1996). The State, War and the State of War. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hone, T. C., Friedman, N., and Mandeles, M. D. (1999). American and British Aircraft Development, 1919–​1941. Newport, RI: Naval Institute Press. Hone, T. C., Friedman, N., and Mandeles, M. D. (2011). Innovation in Carrier Aviation. Newport, RI: Naval War College Press. Howorth, J. (1992). “The President’s Special Role in Foreign and Defence Policy,” in Hayward, J. (ed.) De Gaulle to Mitterrand. Presidential Power in France. New York: New York University Press, 150–​89. Howorth, J. and Chilton, P. (eds) (1984). Defence and Dissent in Contemporary France. London: Croom Helm. Huntington, S. P. (1957). The Soldier and the State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Huntington, S. P. (1960). “Strategic Planning and the Political Process,” Foreign Affairs 38: 285–​99. Irondelle, B. (2003). “Europeanization without the European Union? French Military Reforms 1991–​1996,” Journal of European Public Policy 10(2): 208–​26. Irondelle, B. (2008). “L’armée française et l’éthique dans les conflits de post-​guerre froide,” Critique Internationale 41: 119–​36. Irondelle, B. (2011). La réforme des armées en France. Sociologie de la décision. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

 

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652    Bastien Irondelle, Jean Joana, and Frédéric Mérand Menon, A. (1994). “Continuing Politics by Other Means:  Defence Policy under the French Fifth Republic,” West European Politics 17(4): 74–​96. Menon, A. (2000). France, NATO and the Limits of Independence. London: Macmillan. Mérand, F. (2008). European Defence Policy:  Beyond the Nation State. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Mérand, F., Hofmann, S., and Irondelle, B. (2011). “Governance and State Power: A Network Analysis of European Security.” Journal of Common Market Studies 49(1): 121–​47. Mills C. W. (1956). The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press. Moskos, C. C., Williams, J. A., and Segal, D. R. (eds) (2000). The Postmodern Military. Armed Forces After the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press. Murray, W. (2011). Military Adaptation in War. With Fear of Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murray, W. and Millett, A. R. (eds) (1996). Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olsson, C. (2007). “Guerre totale et/​ou force minimale? Histoire et paradoxes des ‘coeurs et des esprits’,” Cultures et Conflits 67: 35–​62. Orme, J. (1998). “The Utility of Force in a World of Scarcity,” International Security 22: 138–​67. Pannier, A. (2013). “Understanding the Working of Interstate Cooperation in Defence:  An Exploration into Franco-​British Cooperation after the Signing of the Lancaster House Treaty,” European Security 22(4): 540–​58. Paxton, R. O. (2004). L’armée de Vichy. Le corps des officiers français, 1940–​1944. Paris: Tallandier. Pestre, D. (ed.) (2005). Deux siècles d’histoire de l’armement en France. De Gribeauval à la force de frappe. Paris: CNRS Editions. Porch, D. (1997). The French Secret Services. New York: Oxford University Press. Posen, B. (1984). The Source of Military Doctrine. France, Britain and Germany between the World Wars. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Posen, B. (1996). “Military Responses to Refugee Disasters,” International Security 21: 72–​111. Rosen, S. P. (1991). Winning the Next War. Innovation and the Modern Military. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Rozenberg, O., Chopin, O., Hoeffler, C., Irondelle, B., and Joana, J. (2011). “Not Only a Battleground. Parliamentary Oral Questions about Defence Policies in Four Western Democracies,” Journal of Legislative Studies 17(3): 340–​53. Rynning, S. (2001). “Shaping Military Doctrine in France. Decision-​ makers Between International Power and Domestic Interests,” Security Studies 11(2): 85–​116. Rynning, S. (2002). Changing Military Doctrine: Presidents and Military Power in Fifth Republic France, 1958–​2000. New York: Praeger. Rynning, S. (2012). NATO in Afghanistan:  The Liberal Disconnect. Stanford:  Stanford University Press. Sapolsky, H. M. (1972). The Polaris System Development: Bureaucratic and Programmatic Succes in Government. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sapolsky, H. M., Freidman, B. H., and Rittenhouse Green, B. (eds) (2009). US Military Innovation Since the Cold War. London: Routledge. Sarkesian, S. (1972). The Military Industrial Complex:  A  Reassessment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schilling, W. R., Hammond, P. Y., and Snyder, G. H. (1962). Strategy Politics and Defense Budgets. New York: Columbia University Press.

 

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Chapter 29

F rench Aid T h rou g h the C om pa rat i v e L o oking  G l as s a representative, deviant, or agenda-​setting case? Gordon D. Cumming

To its supporters, foreign aid or overseas development assistance (ODA) is an “international public good” (Harrigan and Wang, 2011: 1285), a “moral practice,” and “a contemporary form of beneficence” (Hattori, 2003: 229). To its critics, it is a “transfer of capital” that is surplus to demand in developed countries (CEDETIM, 1980: 124–​5), a form of “latter-​day imperialism” (Browne, 2006: 11), and a “dole” that is harmful to developing countries (Bauer, 1984). Just as there are debates over the value of aid, so there are divergent views on its nature, delivery mechanisms, effectiveness, drivers, and purpose. These questions have long been at the heart of the literature, not least the comparative writings, on “Western” or, as it now called, “Northern” ODA.1 Such studies have frequently included French aid within their comparative framework. This is hardly surprising given that France has consistently been one of the world’s top four donors, home to the “donor club”—​ the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—​and host to a sizeable development studies industry. What is, however, surprising is just how mixed and fragmented a picture this literature has painted of French aid. Qualitative, particularly small-​n, comparisons have portrayed French ODA as a “deviant case,” that is, an “exception to the norm” (Hague et al., 2004: 81), and out of line with wider donor trends.2 By contrast, quantitative, especially large-​n, comparisons, have viewed French development assistance as more of a “representative” case, that is, broadly “typical of the category” (ibid.).3 Significantly, both sets of writings have ruled out any possibility that French aid might be a “prototypical” or “agenda-​setting” case, that is to say, one that lays down innovative ideas and practices that might subsequently be “expected to be typical” (ibid.) and that might lay the groundwork both for future donor practice and for future comparative research on ODA.

 

French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass    655 So where does the truth lie? Is French development assistance primarily a representative, deviant, or agenda-​setting case? This question was touched upon indirectly by the Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique pour l’Étude de la Mondialisation et du Développement (GEMDEV), a network of French economists, as part of a four-​year program focusing on French-​language research on overseas development (Vernières, 1991). But the issue has not been directly addressed in any of the more recent aid writings. It is significant nonetheless as it affects France’s own image as a donor as well as wider perceptions of French ODA. In challenging the conventional wisdom that French assistance must be either “deviant” or “representative,” this chapter paves the way for more serious consideration to be given to innovative ideas and practices generated within French development circles. The need for fresh thinking of this kind is all the more acute against the backdrop of the longest global financial crisis since the 1930s and the continuing failure of so many existing approaches to international development. In order to provide an understanding of the broader context in which French aid operates, this chapter begins by highlighting some of the key issues raised in the wider comparative writings on Northern development assistance. Next, it homes in on French ODA itself and shows how the comparative literature portrays France as either a deviant or representative case. Drawing upon interviews with fifteen aid scholars and practitioners, it then seeks to provide a more rounded picture of French assistance by highlighting its agenda-​setting dimension, that is, its capacity to offer fresh insights both to development practitioners and to comparativists undertaking scholarship on aid. Finally, this study approaches its end by making sense of “conflicting” views of the French case, and a brief conclusion finishes the chapter. Before proceeding, though, it is worth sharpening the focus of this research. First, the emphasis is on overseas aid rather than on the broader concept of international development. The latter term is harder to pin down, encompassing, among other things, rural, urban, sustainable, human-​centered, gender-​based, and participatory development. Second, the focus is on ODA as defined by the OECD; that is, as concessional government loans and grants to developing countries with economic development as their main objective.4 This rules out Soviet ‘aid’ during the Cold War and more recent “overseas assistance” to the former Eastern Bloc, as well as military, colonial, and much South–​South “cooperation.” Other forms of support, such as humanitarian and food aid, will also not be considered here as they are driven by a different logic and timescale. Third, a distinction is drawn between qualitative, small-​n, case-​oriented and quantitative, large-​n, variable-​led comparisons. It should be noted, however, that given the limited number of DAC donors (currently 27 in total, including the European Union), the term “large-​n” can only be used loosely to refer to comparisons involving multiple donors, even if the statistical methods employed do clearly identify such studies as variable oriented. Fourth, it is recognized that just as no donor program can ever be “deviant” or “representative” across the board, so too the prototypical nature of any donor idea and its potential benefit to development can often only be evaluated over the long term. Finally, while it is argued here that the comparative literature presents a fragmented picture of French aid, it is also readily acknowledged that the explanation for this lies

 

656   Gordon D. Cumming largely in the methodological challenges which comparativists face. The first such challenge is to reconcile the results of variable-​oriented studies, which tend toward over-​ generalization, struggle to generate new hypotheses, and ignore tricky issues such as the “opportunity cost” of spending on aid rather than other priorities, with the findings of qualitative, small-​n, analyses, which typically suffer from insufficient generalization, are overly descriptive, and attach too much importance to the hypothesis-​confirming or -​ infirming nature of a single case. Another methodological challenge is to ensure comparison of “like” with “like.” This can be difficult in the aid context, where France’s priority (francophone African) recipients tend to be poorer than, say, many of Britain’s key beneficiaries in (anglophone) Africa, and where it is hard to find cases where two donors are of equal size and importance in the same sectors of a recipient country. A final methodological challenge involves overcoming the “Galton problem.” This points to the impossibility of controlling for the effects of cultural diffusion (all OECD donors have inevitably been influenced by globalization). It also highlights the difficulties associated with comparing cases over protracted time periods (a comparison with, say, UK development assistance would look radically different depending on whether it was conducted before or after the creation of the Department for International Development (DFID) in 1997).

Comparative Perspectives on Northern Aid In order to understand the international context in which French ODA operates, it is worth setting out briefly some of the key issues raised by the wider comparative literature. To begin with comparative writings on the nature of Northern aid, most of these are qualitative and largely descriptive. Sometimes the comparison is detailed, either because the same author has engaged in the “safari approach,” applying the same research design to all the countries under examination (Lancaster, 1999) or because the focus is on a specific type of assistance (e.g. aid for non-​governmental organizations, Smillie et al., 1999). In other cases, the comparison is confined to the introduction or conclusion of edited books containing chapters by country aid specialists. These explore, for example, donor responses to the end of the Cold War (Hewitt, 1994), 9/​11 (Woods, 2005), or the Arab Spring (Mustapha, 2012). Other comparative studies home in on the implementation of international development strategies, with Brown (2005) showing how donors have failed to live up to their rhetoric on “good governance,” and with Crawford (2000) demonstrating how the European Commission and bilateral aid agencies in the US, UK, and Sweden all understood this concept differently. A related set of comparative studies focuses on ODA delivery mechanisms and processes. Some cover a large sample of administrative structures within different OECD donor countries (Cunningham, 1974; Chang et al., 1999), while others involve a small-​n comparison of what Giovanni Sartori would call “most similar” cases (such as the US and Canada: see

 

French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass    657 Ingram, 1970) or “most dissimilar” cases (such as the aid agencies of the US, China, and Sweden: see Hyden and Mukandala, 1999). Others still explore the role of bureaucratic inertia in the ODA allocation process (Feeny and Gillivray, 2008) or use index rankings to expose different levels of transparency in donor processes (Ghosh and Karash, 2011). On the question of Northern aid effectiveness, the comparative writings here have grown exponentially since Cassen’s seminal 1986 study, Does Aid Work?. Some analyses rely on qualitative assessments of development programs (German and Randel, 1995), while others synthesize the findings of official program and project evaluations (Lancaster, 1999). Others rely on case studies, with the focus sometimes on multiple recipients (Fayissa and El-​Kaissy, 1999) and sometimes on a single recipient with multiple donors (Naresh, 2005). Taken together, this literature presents a fragmented picture. To illustrate, some comparativists contend that aid can hurt growth (Economides et al., 2008) and does not work (Bobba and Powell, 2007), while others argue that it has a net positive impact (Headey, 2008) and is effective, albeit only in the poorest countries (Mosley, 1980) or as long as the assistance is concentrated (Kimura et al., 2012) or better targeted (Burnside and Dollar, 2000). Similarly, some suggest that ODA has a slight positive impact on democracy (Goldsmith, 2001)  and on reducing authoritarianism (Wright, 2009), while others argue that political aid conditionality (the linking of assistance to political reform) is actually harmful to democracy (Grosh and Orvis, 1997). As to the drivers behind aid, here most comparative writings fit into the dominant realist paradigm, whereby ODA is one of the “weapons in the armory of the nation” (Morgenthau, 1962: 309) and is driven by a state’s strategic and economic interests. In this context, the literature shows how Northern bilateral assistance, with the possible exception of ODA from Nordic states and small donors such as Belgium, Finland, and Switzerland (McGillivray, 1989; Berthelemy, 2005), is more self-​interested and less focused on recipient need than multilateral assistance (Maizels and Nissanke, 1984). Small-​n comparisons use the comparative method (Schraeder et al., 1998) and typologies of aid motives correlated with indicators of behavior (Breuning, 1995)  to show that donors have different priorities, be they strategic (the US), trade-​related (Japan), or humanitarian (Sweden). Larger-​n comparisons rely more on statistical methods, including Boolean techniques and Tobit and Probit models, to demonstrate how most Northern donors are driven by self-​interest, whether in the form of strategic votes in the UN (Wittkopf, 1973), the prestige associated with primary donor status (Lebovic, 2005), or trade concerns (Lloyd et al., 2000). Other variable-​oriented analyses and indeed statistically informed qualitative studies are situated more comfortably within the idealist paradigm, which advances “a vision that is more positive regarding the motivations of […] state actors” (Schraeder et al., 1998). These comparatve studies link aid to more altruistic factors, such as human rights concerns (Neumayer, 2003), the size of donor welfare states (Thérien and Noel, 2000), and the “moral vision” of donors (Lumsdaine, 1993). Turning finally to scholarship on the purpose of Northern aid, this topic is less of a priority for comparativists than it is for aid theorists, who seek to posit broad, even universal, truths about the role of ODA. On the Left, “institutional pessimists” (Lappe et al., 1980) see development assistance as reinforcing corrupt regimes and shoring up

 

658   Gordon D. Cumming the capitalist system, while structural theorists (Carty and Smith, 1981), like the neo-​ Marxist writers on whom they draw (Paul Baran and André-​Gunder Frank), view economic assistance as reinforcing structural dependency and a process of “underdevelopment.” Others, such as Escobar (1995), sometimes known as “deconstructionists,” reject Western conceptions of “development” and adopt a “post-​developmental” position, advocating the dissolution of aid planning architectures. On the radical Right, theorists are also critical of ODA, which they claim is harmful to development since it distorts market forces, discourages saving and self-​reliance (Bauer, 1984), leads to wasteful projects, and strengthens “big government” (Krauss, 1997). They advocate foreign direct investment and market forces as “the only effective route to development” (Friedman, 1958: 72). This thinking has recently been boosted by the best-​selling work of William Easterly (White Man’s Burden, 2006) which accuses the aid industry of relying on inefficient state-​led development plans, and Dambisa Moyo (Dead Aid, 2008) which calls for an end to the “aid-​based development model.” While Left and Right are locked in a “normative clash” over the purpose of ODA, mainstream development economists are engaged in more “complex” disagreements, often contingent on econometric analysis, over what aid should be for (Gulrajani, 2011: 203). The focus of most economists was initially on assistance as a means of plugging resource gaps and serving as a catalyst for economic growth (Harrod, 1939; Domar, 1946; Rostow, 1960). By the mid-1970s, the basic needs revisionist school, associated with former World Bank President Robert McNamara, recognized that growth was not trickling down to the poorest and advocated “redistribution with growth.” In the early 1980s, “a neoclassical revolution” (Toye, 1987) occurred, as the World Bank (1981), with backing from new-​Right theorists (Lal, 1983), argued that the role of development assistance should be to cushion the negative short-​term effects of structural adjustment. Recognizing the mixed results of this economic liberalization strategy, the Bank, in its 1989 report Sub-​Saharan Africa: from Crisis to Sustainable Growth, then claimed that adjustment was not working because of problems of governance in recipient countries. Subsequently, in 1996, the OECD’s report Shaping the 21st Century introduced a “more social view” (Thérien, 2002: 457), recommending that poverty reduction should be the overarching goal of aid. This new orthodoxy was subsequently enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs (2000–​15) but is itself faced criticism, not least from rightist scholars such as Easterly (2006), who oppose a “big push” on ODA to lift developing countries out of poverty.

Comparative Perspectives on French Aid Having sketched out the broad contours of the literature on Northern development assistance, it is time to ask how the French case fits into this comparative aid landscape. It will be demonstrated in what follows that qualitative comparisons tend to portray

 

French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass    659 French ODA as sui generis, while variable-​oriented comparisons start with the assumption or end with the finding that France’s aid is “representative,” albeit with a few quirks. To begin with the comparative literature on the nature of French aid, here qualitative, particularly small-​ n, studies emphasize deviance. Thus, Cumming (2001) stresses France’s exceptional focus on bilateral assistance to francophone Africa, while Schraeder et al. (1998: 565) highlight France’s unique emphasis on the “cultural imperative,” and Imbeau (1981) underscores the sheer size of French ODA, particularly during the Cold War years. Others, such as Browne (2006: 183), compare the quality of French aid with that of other OECD donors, pointing to France’s very low levels of concessionality (the grant element of ODA) and extremely high levels of tying (the linking of aid to donor exports). More recent qualitative studies, particularly those focusing on long-​run trends, accept that French development assistance is heavily marked by trade and political interests but find that it is gradually aligning to wider donor norms in terms both of aid quality (Lumsdaine, 1993: 79 and 93) and quantity (ONE, various years). This latter finding is supported by variable-​led research, which often concludes that French development assistance is a typical case. In this context, Rao (1997), using a ranking system combining generosity and fairness, finds French ODA to be just below average (ranking France 12th out of 17 donors analyzed) over the period 1980–​92. Similarly Knack et al. (2011), using an index based on selectivity for the year 2007, rate France 25th out of 38 bilateral and multilateral donors in terms of aid quality. This latter ranking is broadly consistent with that of Roodman (2006; 2009), which is 21st out of 36. The comparative literature portrays a more unified picture of French aid delivery mechanisms and processes. These are generally deemed to be “deviant,” with studies stressing the extreme complexity and opacity of French structures (Cunningham, 1974: 170). Kilby (2011) even found that France was the most fragmented donor, with double the average number of agencies involved in ODA; 16 in total back in 1973. The singularity of France’s overseas development administration continues to be remarked upon by more recent comparative studies but is deemed to be less pronounced than previously imagined, particularly after the structural reforms by French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the late 1990s (van Belle et al., 2004). As regards aid effectiveness, here the bulk of the literature is not comparative or concerned with disaggregating the impact of different donors but is instead focused on what “works” and does not in terms of development. There are nonetheless comparative evaluations of effectiveness, and these tend to single out French ODA for criticism. Thus, Cox et al. (1997: 15), in a study of the management systems of six European donors, found that France was “the most fragmented model and a priori the least appropriate for consistent and economic aid operations,” with considerable aid dispersion having “a negative impact on growth.” Similarly Lancaster (1999: 132), drawing on official donor-​ evaluation reports, concluded that “French aid is one of the least effective in promoting development in Africa,” and attributed this to the fact that: In contrast to the aid of other donors, the French program has never had a development doctrine to guide it. There is no general framework to provide a strategic focus for French aid, no means of prioritizing the activities funded in the name of

 

660   Gordon D. Cumming development, and no basis for holding aid agencies broadly accountable for their activities. (Lancaster, 1999: 130)

French parliamentary reports are equally unflattering, and draw largely descriptive comparisons with other development programs to drive home recommendations to improve French aid effectiveness (Barrau, 2001: 32–​3). Regular OECD peer reviews of French development assistance, which are prepared by fellow donor countries, have also been persistently critical. Variable-​oriented comparative analyses have given French aid a “C minus” for effectiveness but have not found it to be a deviant case. As noted above, Knack et al. (2011), drawing on the criteria defined by the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (selectivity, alignment, harmonization, and specialization), rank France 25th out of 38 donors. In so doing, they place it ahead of seven other bilateral donors (Japan, Spain, Italy, the US, Canada, Austria, and Greece).5 Easterly and Williamson (2011) reach similar conclusions when, with reference to best practice criteria (transparency, specialization, selectivity, aid channels, and overhead costs), they rank France 26th out of 39 donors, ahead of eight other bilateral donors (the US, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Finland, Belgium, and Greece). As to the drivers behind French aid, these are found by most qualitative, small-​n comparisons to be unusual, even exceptional. Thus, Schraeder (1995: 542) singles out “cultural nationalism” as the key driving force, while Lancaster (1999: 126) highlights the extraordinary influence of personal friendships (cousinage et copinage), and Lloyd et al. (2000) emphasize the importance of trade concerns in determining French aid policy. These findings are attenuated by largely qualitative studies that draw on statistical techniques. Thus, McKinlay (1979), using regression analysis to compare three leading donor programs (the UK, the US, and France), contends that all three were “marked by foreign policy considerations,” with French aid being less security-​focused and less global than British and American ODA. Schraeder et al. (1998: 320–​1), also drawing on regression techniques, find that French development assistance, although exceptionally focused on culture and remarkably indifferent to the ideological hue of recipient governments, has elements in common with US, Swedish, and Japanese aid (e.g. a post-​ Cold War emphasis on trade and a rather limited focus on humanitarian need). Variable-​oriented analyses go further and portray the French case as broadly representative, if at the more selfish end of the donor spectrum. These studies do recognize the importance of specificities, such as historical ties, but take the view that such factors apply broadly, if not equally, to other former colonizing powers (Lebovic, 2005: 123; Wittkopf, 1973:  887). Some even point out that proximity need not be historical but may be geographic or ideological, as Japan prioritizes its near neighbors while the US gives more aid to capitalist democracies (Clist, 2011: 1728). Other scholars also downplay the uniqueness of French motives. Thus, French aid is found to be driven more than most—​though by no means all—​donor programs by concerns over bilateral trade (Dollar and Levin, 2006: 2044), domestic immigration, and the desire to secure primary

 

French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass    661 donor status (Lebovic, 2005: 125). In a similar vein, Berthélemey (2005: 17) shortlists France—​alongside Australia, Italy, and the UK—​as one of a cluster of egotistical donors with a “trade sensitivity parameter [that is] significantly higher than other donors.” Likewise, Harrigan and Wang (2011: 1291) contend that while France, much like other major donors (the US, Canada, Italy, Japan, and the UK), attaches little priority to recipient need and a good policy environment, it is not the most selfish donor—​an honor reserved for the United States (Harrigan and Wang, 2011: 1291). Turning finally to the purpose of French ODA, this question is less the preserve of comparative scholars than of theorists and development economists. It is nonetheless possible to infer something from these writings about the role of French aid, or at least the way it is perceived. Thus, for example, the fact that so many Marxist writers (Jalée, 1965; Dumont, 1966; CEDETIM, 1980) have homed in on France’s assistance prograe as a classic example of “Western imperialism” does certainly raise doubts about the developmental focus of French aid. Conversely, the fact that the radical Right’s critique of development assistance has enjoyed so little traction in France could suggest that ODA is largely viewed by French scholars and practitioners as a bulwark against unbridled capitalism and an extension of France’s dirigiste approach to its own economic development. As to the writings of mainstream development economists, these are often thought to have had little or no impact on French aid thinking and practice. According to Naudet (1997: 177), the “priorities of French aid have been somewhat removed from the constantly changing international priorities. These are sometimes considered as ‘fashions’ which are likely to alter or disappear as new ideas emerge.” In reality, however, these international development strategies have, over the long run, helped to frame French development mindsets and practice. To illustrate, French policymakers gradually took on board new thinking on basic needs and increased the focus on poverty-​reducing ODA in the late 1970s (Arnold, 1979: 55). Similarly, France eventually subscribed to key elements of structural adjustment, despite harboring reservations over aid conditionality and the drive toward privatization (Wilson, 1993). Subsequently too, while French policymakers were initially reluctant to implement good governance, preferring stability over democracy promotion (Olsen, 1998) and according less importance to civil liberties than other donors (Pellicer and Wegner, 2009),6 they have since changed tack and embraced “democratic governance” (as discussed later). A similar picture emerges on poverty reduction. Thus, while France, like the United States, traditionally displayed “low poverty sensitivity” in its ODA allocation (Clist, 2011: 1728), the evidence suggests that French policymakers are increasingly taking “various specific indicators of need into account when allocating aid” (Thiele et al., 2007: 622). Overall, the comparative literature does not provide a unified picture of French aid. Yet while these writings may overemphasize deviance or “representativeness,” they are nonetheless invaluable for the light they shed on core features of French ODA. Thus, for example, qualitative comparisons are particularly good at capturing the specificities that have marked French aid over much of the postcolonial era. These include the sheer size of France’s development program, particularly over the Cold War years when French spending on ODA, at times, exceeded the UN aid target of 0.7 percent of a donor’s Gross

 

662   Gordon D. Cumming National Product (OECD, 2004: 80).7 Other distinctive features of French aid have included its heavy concentration on Africa (France was the largest single donor to that continent for much of the 1990s: see Lancaster, 1999: 114); its strong emphasis on cultural rayonnement (reach) and the promotion of the French language (Chipman, 1989); its ineffectiveness (Brunel, 1993); its complex delivery mechanisms (Hayter, 1966); its neglect of NGO channels (Smillie et al., 1999); and its neo-​colonialism, as seen in the large number of technical/​military assistants and the workings of the Franc Zone—​a currency support mechanism involving 14 African states (Chipman, 1989). While the above specificities are rarely seized upon by variable-​oriented comparisons, these latter studies, with their stress on “representativeness,” have captured something of the “mainstreaming” process that has marked French ODA since Jospin’s aid reforms of the late 1990s (OECD, 2004; 2013). Examples of this mainstreaming include a steady shrinking of the French ODA budget, which—​even after the inclusion of dubious expenditures, such as refugee costs—​is actually moving away from the UN’s 0.7 percent target; a drastic reduction in the number of technical assistants (mainly French teachers), from 20,000 at the start of the 1990s to 2,200 twenty years later (OECD, 2013: 15); the introduction of a “progressive culture” of evaluation (OECD, 2004: 63); and the normalization of France’s aid structures, with the merging of its Cooperation Ministry (widely viewed as the Ministry for francophone black Africa) into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).

Challenging Comparative Perspectives: France as an Agenda-​Setting Donor The above analysis has shown how the comparative literature has helped to frame wider perceptions of French development assistance by portraying it as deviant in some respects and representative in others. Virtually no consideration is given to the possibility that French aid might actually be, or have the potential to become, a prototypical or agenda-​setting case, putting forward innovative practices and ideas that might serve as a template for other donors or lay the groundwork for future comparative research on aid. Are there any grounds for making such a claim? On the face of it, the answer might appear to be no. There are, of course, reasons why comparativists have failed to pick up on ideas arising out of French development circles. These include the fact that French scholarship on ODA has often been parochial, written in French, and over-​reliant on French sources and national statistics, all of which make comparison harder. There are, moreover, widely held assumptions, some of which are overstated, about French ODA and its presumed ineffectiveness, its overemphasis on culture and trade, and its association with neocolonialism. There have also been doubts about the quality of French ideas, even if these reservations are mainly harbored in more liberal donor organizations such

 

French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass    663 as the World Bank and Department for International Development (interview with DFID official, November 2011). There is clearly some truth in all these observations. However, by adopting an “inside-​ out” perspective, that is, reversing the camera lens and zooming in on the “impact” of French aid thinking and practice, it will be demonstrated here French development assistance does indeed have prototypical elements in terms of its composition, structure, effectiveness drivers, and purposes. It will, moreover, be suggested, in this section and the next, that these features could serve as a model for fellow donors as well as laying the groundwork for a comparative research agenda. To begin with the definition and nature of aid, here French scholars and practitioners have certainly pushed the boundaries on what donors should and should not count as ODA. In this context, former French aid practitioners Severino and Ray (2012), building on the work of Kaul et al. (1999) and of the United Nations Development Programme, have pressed for development assistance to be reconceptualized and replaced by the concept of “global public goods.” They have argued, with some success, that ODA volumes should be recalculated by development practitioners to take better account of the real costs and benefits of providing access to such public goods.8 At the same time, French scholars, notably Paris-​based economists in the network GEMDEV, have been at the forefront of thinking that challenges, or sits uncomfortably alongside, neo-​liberal donor conceptions of aid, including food sovereignty, food security, and fair trade (interview with Philippe Hugon, Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques, May 2012). French scholars and practitioners, often coming together in government advisory bodies like the Haut Conseil de la Coopération Internationale (HCCI), have, moreover, been proactive in putting forward to alternatives to ODA in the form of “innovative financing” schemes, some of which have won support from fellow donors and many of which are paid for by taxing market-​led activities. The financial transaction tax, which ten EU states have promised to introduce by 2016 (Guardian, 2014), and UNITAID, France’s “solidarity” tax on flights, are illustrative in this regard. Turning to aid-​delivery mechanisms, here the complexity of French structures has inevitably limited the scope of French scholars and practitioners to lay down homegrown recommendations for the wider donor community. This has not, however, prevented French economists, such as Jean-​Michel Severino and Olivier Ray (2012: 133–​8), from arguing for a move toward global aid governance structures, greater harmonization between donors, and common norms for counting and assessing ODA. More concretely, the rise to prominence, over the last decade, of the Agence française de développement (AFD) has created space for France to play more of a pioneering role on development matters. In a context where the OECD now talks openly of the nascent transition toward private sector developing financing (Chang et al., 1999: 97), the AFD, as an aid agency with considerable autonomy to raise money on the open market and with no direct equivalent among “Western” donor agencies (Cambon and Vantomme, 2011: 32), is uniquely well placed to shape donor thinking in the post-​MDG era. The AFD “combines the role of banker, development agency, consultancy and technical assistant,” as well as disposing of a “vast range of instruments” and turning an annual

 

664   Gordon D. Cumming profit of 200 million euros a year (Cambon and Vantomme, 2011: 36). It is hardly surprising therefore that the AFD has laid down a template for best practice in a number of areas, not least partnerships (with other bilateral agencies, local governments, and NGOs) and private sector development (interview with François Pacquement, AFD, May 2012). Nor is it surprising that that the AFD’s “business model” is now of interest to other cash-​strapped donors: a 2014 visit to Paris by ten British MPs was in fact specifically designed to explore ways of replicating the AFD institutional format (interview in Paris, May 2014). Looking at ODA effectiveness, this is another area where French thinking and practice are generally assumed to have had little impact on wider donor orthodoxies. Conventional wisdom has, however, been challenged since the AFD assumed responsibility for most French aid in the early 2000s. Since then, France has had scope to provide leadership through, for example, its development of innovative instruments and its progressive evaluation techniques. An example of the former is the Carbon Emissions Estimator Tool, which was conceived by the AFD in the mid-2000s, placed on its website and then adopted by the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, which subsequently “completely changed its procedures for measuring tons of carbon emitted” (interview with AFD, December 2014). As regards France’s new evaluation procedures, these include costly, experimental, cutting-​edge impact assessments, whose findings are hard to contest empirically (interview with AFD, December 2014). As a complement to these rigorous studies, France has also sought to make evaluations more holistic via the creation of the Fonds pour la promotion des Etudes préalables, des Etudes transversales et des Evaluations (F3E) in 1994. Funded by the French government and NGOs, this unit not only encourages innovative practices such as self-​evaluations, co-​evaluations, and quality-​enhancing monitoring procedures but also undertakes evaluations that factor in non-​measurable criteria (such as feelings of well-​being, empowerment, or solidarity between peoples) when assessing projects that traditional impact assessments might deem to be failures. While such “soft” variables are unlikely to gain much traction with technocratically minded donors, they do provide a new way of framing aid which could be important in helping to maintain public support, in foregrounding the Southern perspective on development programs, and in persuading the OECD and emerging donors to be more transparent about ODA evaluations. As regards drivers, this is not an area that lends itself to a prototypical role being assumed by any donor, let alone one the size of France. Even so, France does provide a model of sorts through its explicit championing of its own interests. Though over half of DAC donors do openly acknowledge that aid is “a fundamental part of foreign relations” (OECD, 2009: 17), France has arguably been the most outspoken, consistently spelling out French interests in Ministerial statements (see e.g. Fabius, 2012) and even undertaking evaluations of the impact of aid on the French economy (e.g. Berthelot and Bandt, 1982). In so doing, France does not portray itself as a “star pupil” of the OECD but does provide a useful bridge to non-​DAC donors, which currently view the DAC as a “gentleman’s club” and have little interest in embracing OECD norms. Turning finally

 

French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass    665 to France’s contribution to international debates on the purpose of development assistance, this has typically been thought of as negligible. Indeed, according to Lancaster (1999: 123): The contribution of France to the broader discussion on development in Africa appears to have been limited. There were few significant studies or reports by French development experts on Africa on development that broke new ground or had a significant influence on major aid donors or on African governments, and French experts played a relatively small role in debates on structural adjustment, democratization, or capacity building among aid agencies and their African counterparts.

In reality, however, French writings have for years informed the evolution of these strategies. To illustrate, in the 1970s, France strengthened the case for redistribution with growth by mastering the “discourse on interdependence” and becoming the leading Western proponent of a new international economic order (Arnold, 1979: 53). Subsequently, France’s expertise, linked to its sectoral lending within the Franc Zone, did have some “modest” impact on structural adjustment (Wilson, 1993: 336), while French scholarship, not least the work of Duruflé (1988), offered “a note of realism” at a time when many analysts were overly optimistic about economic liberalization strategies (Chabal, 1991: 297). As to France’s contribution to wider thinking on good governance, this was initially minuscule. However, with support from the French Foreign Ministry, scholars such as Bellina et al. (2009) have put forward their own vision of “democratic governance,” which calls for managerial approaches to be replaced by integrated strategies that consider diverse levels of governance and stress dialogue, pragmatism, and local capacity-​building. A similar picture emerges on poverty reduction, where French scholars and practitioners initially went along with this strategy, despite believing that poverty reduction was really a political rather than a technical issue. More recently, however, French analysts have begun pushing for poverty to be seen as the result of market imperfections (Freud, 2010; Severino and Ray, 2012). Consequently, they argue, remedies should be envisaged to fight these dysfunctions by removing export subsiidies in rich countries, introducing more environmental and social codes, and prioritizing access to global public goods (such as international health, food security, and environmental protection), the delivery of which cannot be entrusted to market-​led mechanisms (Freud, 2010).

Setting a Comparative Research Agenda The above analysis has suggested that, contrary to conventional thinking in the comparative literature, French ODA does have prototypical features which could be followed by other donors and practitioners. Given the emergence of these pioneering

 

666   Gordon D. Cumming characteristics, it seems reasonable to go further and assume that the French case could also lay down an agenda for future comparative research. Such an agenda would involve a series of questions about the different types of donor cases (representative, deviant, and prototypical) and their wider implications for international development. The first such question which comparative scholars could usefully tackle would relate to the significance of the trend toward “mainstreaming” and hence greater “representativeness” across the donor community. Given that French ODA is moving in line with international trends, are we heading toward a more homogeneous donor community, at least in the case of OECD states? Or is this harmonization superficial, barely concealing cleavages between “Nordic Plus” countries, which are deeply attached to the 0.7 percent aid target, and many other DAC donors, which are not? In either case, how do non-​DAC donors fit into this picture? Given that they do not feel bound by OECD norms and have their own approach to international development, could they now turn the tables on the DAC and begin shaping Northern donor practices? Needless to say, none of these questions have been adequately addressed in the comparative writings, which have grouped together OECD donors and deemed them to be engaging in broadly similar activity sets (OECD, various years; Lancaster, 1999), whilst studies of emerging donors have considered these actors to be following a different model with little obvious overlap with the OECD (Sörensen, 2011). The second, closely related question concerns the extent and significance of “deviant” donor behavior. Given that French ODA has retained deviant features, is it not reasonable to assume that there are other outlier cases among OECD donors? This is a question that sometimes raises its head in relation to Japanese and American aid (Thernstrom, 2005; Lancaster, 2008) but the implications of outlier cases are never fully explored. Is such deviance problematic from the point of view of other donors (particularly where common positions are undermined) and recipients (whose absorptive capacity is stretched further), or might it be beneficial for the former (by ensuring aid diversity) and the latter (by allowing greater scope for negotiation)? Clearly, the fact that most South–​South cooperation does not conform to OECD “rules” yet is welcomed by developing countries does suggest that deviance in itself need not be a problem (Sörensen, 2011). This is an important question that comparative scholars will have to tackle if they are to understand the increasing complexity of donor interactions. A third question worthy of further research is: How does a donor become an agenda-​ setting case? This issue is not raised in the many OECD peer reviews, European development reports, and parliamentary studies that single out particular donors and approaches as examples of best practice. The need for clarity on this issue has nonetheless increased over recent years as the OECD’s high-​level effectiveness forums and the EU’s strategy of policy coherence for development (as from 2005) and its practice of joint programming (as from 2010) have required donors to agree among themselves who should take the lead in particular sectors within aid recipient countries. In order to respond to this question and establish how donors can become prototypical or agenda-​ setting cases, comparative scholars should focus on the three “C”s, namely context, champions, and concepts.

 

French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass    667 On the contextual front, there often has to be a landmark event within the international political economy that creates an opportunity for a new idea or actor to gain ground. As of December 2015, the MDGs have run their course. Considerable thought has already been given to the achievements and failures of the MDGs, with much of the debate revolving around the question of whether to retain the same goals and “finish the job” of ending extreme poverty or to adopt an even more ambitious paradigm that focuses on more coordinated responses to transnational challenges. In March 2013, the UN launched the largest consultation program in its history to gauge opinion on a new, universal set of targets, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted by the UN in September 2015 and became effective in January 2016. This consultation process included representatives from 70 countries and offered a watershed moment when French ideas and practices on, for example “beyond-​aid financing,” could come to the fore. As to the second “C,” champions, these could be located within the non-​state sector or within government. Reference has already been made to the AFD’s new leadership potential and the efforts of GEMDEV to promote global public goods. Other prestigious research groupings, such as the Center for International Studies and Research (CERI) and the Institut de recherche stratégique de l’école militaire (IRSEM), are also currently championing a return to foreign policy analysis as part of a major research project whose findings should inform and promote future comparative studies of Northern aid policymaking processes. As regards “concepts,” it is self-​evident that to be prototypical, a donor’s program must have features that others will want to copy or learn from. Some French ideas and practices are unlikely to enjoy wider uptake, particularly where they undermine moves toward greater technical rigor (e.g. softer forms of aid evaluation) or demand an overhaul of the entire ODA architecture (e.g. some of the more radical interpretations of “global public goods:” see Gabas and Hugon, 2001). Others simply sit uncomfortably with the neo-liberal view of development assistance held by the World Bank and liberal donors (e.g. the financial transactions tax). The schemes that are more likely to gain traction are those that remain within the free market framework (e.g. AFD private sector development work), that offer new or better ways of freeing up resources (e.g. some innovative financing schemes), or that bring less-​established donors into the fold (e.g. the AFD’s eclectic approach to donor partnerships). Turning to our final question, this asks about how comparative scholars might go about studying a prototypical case and which questions they might usefully pose. There are of course few donors who would openly label themselves as prototypical, and fewer still who would admit that they were following the practices of that said donor. In order therefore to provide a tentative response to this final question, the focus here will again be on the French case, which was found to have prototypical features in terms of its nature, structure, effectiveness, drivers, and purpose. As noted earlier, France has challenged traditional conceptions of the nature of ODA. In so doing, it has laid the groundwork for future scholarship research on the fitness for purpose of aid for the enormous challenges facing the developing world, the arbitrariness of the UN’s 0.7 percent target, and the urgency of tapping into “alternative” revenue

 

668   Gordon D. Cumming streams from non-​state sources. At the same time, France has opened the door to comparative research on different donor responses to the post-​MDG agenda as well as to more specific comparisons between donors, such as France, which believe that “globalisation should give something back” (interview with MFA, December 2014) and more neo-​liberal donors, such as the UK, which are reluctant to interfere with market forces. On the structural front, France’s potential for leadership is linked to the rise of the AFD. Yet this French institutional model has so far attracted little scholarly attention. Comparative scholars could usefully compare the appropriateness, effectiveness, and flexibility of AFD structures with those of other donors who are also active in least developed countries, low-​income states, and emerging economies. Comparativists could, moreover, drill down into the question of how far donor “development banks” such as the AFD, Germany’s KfW, and Japan’s International Cooperation Agency should be allowed to move away from a needs-​based approach focusing on the poorest countries and concentrate their energies on more commercially viable emerging markets. Equally, comparative scholarship is needed in order to explain the simultaneous rise of two major development agencies with quite different priorities, namely the UK’s DFID with its overriding focus on poverty reduction, and the AFD, with its strong emphasis on private sector investment. One of the key French contributions to the debate on aid effectiveness has been the introduction of more holistic evaluations. As such, the French case clears the way for much-​needed comparative research on the merits of “soft” versus “hard” evaluations. This scholarship could equally be narrowed down, with the focus squarely on a comparative analysis of impact assessments across different sectors and ODA recipients. Such a project would shed invaluable light on the question of which forms of aid work in a sustainable fashion and which end up either displacing poverty or making matters worse for indigenous populations. Arguably France has less of a claim to being prototypical in terms of the drivers behind and purpose of ODA. Yet, even here, France has, in remaining so focused on la raison d’Etat (the national interest), paved the way for more honest comparative assessments of the degree of self-​interest driving OECD and emerging donor programs. This research could in turn be broadened out to consider how far clientelistic, affective, even “irrational” motives underpin the donor programs of OECD and non-​OECD donors. Turning finally to the purpose of aid, it may never be possible to assess with any degree of certainty how much influence French thinking and practice have have had on international development strategies. Even so, this question could form the basis of a valuable research project, which could in turn be broadened out into a comparative study of the role and strategies of different donors (multilateral, bilateral, private, DAC, and non-​ DAC) in the formulation, revision, or deconstruction or these development “orthodoxies.” This analysis might identify the interests of neo-liberal organizations, such as the World Bank, which “write documents specifying what ‘good aid’ should look like” (interview with MFA, 2014). In so doing, it might be possible to mount a more meaningful challenge to the neo-​liberal paradigm, the so-​called Washington Consensus, that has prevailed in Northern donor circles for over three decades.

 

French Aid Through the Comparative Looking Glass    669

Conclusion This chapter began by noting how the comparative literature has shed valuable light on key aspects of, and debates on, Northern aid. It then showed how these writings have presented a fragmented picture of French ODA, with qualitative comparisons pointing to deviance and variable-​oriented analyses suggesting that France is a broadly representative case. Both types of study have captured important features of French ODA, notably its distinctiveness in the early postcolonial decades and, to a lesser extent, its mainstreaming since the late 1990s. Both sets of analyses have also helped to shape France’s image as a donor, ruling out in the process any suggestion that French ODA might in fact be a prototypical or agenda-​setting case. However, as this chapter has shown, there is evidence to suggest not only that the French case has the potential to provide a template for other development practitioners but also that it has the capacity to lay the groundwork for a wider comparative research agenda. The above observations bring us back to our original question: is French aid a deviant, representative, or agenda-​setting case? A few conclusions can be drawn here. First, French ODA does include features that are consistent with representative, deviant, and prototypical cases. Second, there has been a shift from deviance to “representativeness” in the case of French development assistance, which now looks quite average in terms of its size and composition. Third, France has not shaken off its deviance altogether and is unlikely to do so as long as cousinage et copinage (Lancaster, 1999: 126) continue to mark decision-​making and as long as France’s overall aid apparatus remains so complex (the current administration under President François Hollande quickly sidelined the idea of introducing a streamlined DFID-​style structure; interview with MFA, May 2012). Finally, while France has long struggled to impose itself as a prototypical donor, it is now, thanks to the rise of the AFD and this agency’s ambition to become a “global reference point” for fellow donors (AFD, 2002: 6), better placed to set out fresh ideas and practices. It remains to be seen how useful these innovative French approaches may be, but they do deserve closer scrutiny from donors and scholars alike. While they can and must be challenged, they cannot simply be ignored at a time when the MDGs have given way to the SDGs and a renewed effort is required to help lift “a substantial amount of the world” out of “extreme poverty” (Easterly and Williamson, 2011: 1930).

Notes 1. During the Cold War, analysts referred to the “North” in set expressions, such as the “North–​South dialogue,” “debate,” and “divide.” Since the end of East–​West hostilities, the term “North” has replaced “West” and refers to all industrialized donor democracies in the OECD. 2. Qualitative studies typically involve empirically based subjective judgments, focus on a handful of cases (small n), provide thick description, and use theory to help identify causal factors generating new hypotheses or theories.

 

670   Gordon D. Cumming 3. Quantitative analyses are variable-​led, use statistical techniques such as correlations and regression analysis, cover a sizeable sample of cases (large n), and often test hypotheses derived from general theories. 4. Although “ODA” is sometimes used as a synonym for “foreign aid,” it has a more precise meaning, referring only to developmental resource flows with a grant element of at least 25 percent. The acronym was first adopted by the OECD in 1969. 5. For a review of donor rankings, see Knack et al. (2011: 1907). 6. Neumayer (2003: 662), however, notes that while French aid is rarely linked to civil liberties, it does promote “personal integrity rights” (that is, the right to life and to freedom from torture). 7. French aid statistics in the 1960s were inflated by commercial flows and, in the 1970s, continued to include financial support to the Départements et Territoires d’Outre-​Mer (DOM-​TOM), even though the latter were, and remain, formally part of the French republic. 8. French thinking is believed to have informed the DAC’s decision, at its December 2014 high-​level meeting, to design a more expansive measurement for aid, known provisionally as “Total Official Support for Sustainable Development” (Devex, 2014; interview with AFD, January 2015).

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672   Gordon D. Cumming Harrod, R. F. (1939). “An Essay in Dynamic Theory,” The Economic Journal 49(193): 14–​33. Hattori, T. (2003). “The Moral Politics of Foreign Aid,” Review of International Studies 29(2): 229–​47. Hayter, T. (1966). French Aid. London: Overseas Development Institute. Headey, D. (2008). “Geopolitics and the Effect of Foreign Aid,” Journal of International Development 20(2): 161–​80. Hewitt, A. (ed.) (1994). Crisis or Transition in Foreign Aid? London: ODI. Hyden, G. and Mukandala, R. (eds) (2000). Agencies in Foreign Aid. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Imbeau, L. M. (1988). “Aid and Ideological Motives,” European Journal of Political Research 16(1): 3–​28. Ingram, D. (1970). A Comparison of Foreign Aid Objectives, Thesis, no. 4814, MacMaster University. Available at: (accessed May 16, 2016). Jalée, P. (1965). Le pillage du tiers monde. Paris: Maspéro. Kaul, I., Grunberg, I., and Stern, M. (eds) (1999). Global Public Goods. New  York:  Oxford University Press. Kilby, C. (2011). “What Determines the Size of Aid Projects?” World Development 39(11): 1981–​94. Kimura, H., Mori, Y., and Sawada, Y. (2012). “Aid Proliferation and Economic Growth,” World Development 40(1): 1–​10. Knack, S., Rogers, F. H., and Eubank, N. (2011). “Aid Quality and Donor Rankings,” World Development 39(11): 1907–​17. Krauss, M. (1997). How Nations Grow Rich. New York: Oxford University Press. Lal, D. (1983). The Poverty of Development Economics. London: Institute of Economic Affairs. Lancaster, C. (1999). Aid to Africa: So Much to Do. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Lancaster, C. (2008). George Bush’s Foreign Aid. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development. Lappe, F. M., Collins, J., and Kinley, D. (1980). Aid as Obstacle. San Francisco: IFDP. Lebovic, J. H. (2005). “Donor Positioning:  Development Assistance from the US, Japan, France, Germany, and Britain,” Political Research Quarterly 58(1): 119–​26. Lloyd, T., McGillivray, M., Morrissey, O., and Osei, R. (2000). “Does Aid Create Trade?” European Journal of Development Research 12(1): 107–​23. Lumsdaine, D. (1993). Moral Vision. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McGillivray, M. (1989). “The Allocation of Aid,” World Development 17(4): 561–​8. McKinlay, R. D. (1979). “The Aid Relationship: A Foreign Policy Model,” Comparative Political Studies 11(4): 411–​64. Maizels, A. and Nissanke, N. (1984). “Motivations for Aid to Developing Countries,” World Development 12(9): 879–​900. Monaghan, A. (2014). “George Osborne bristles as EU moves closer to financial transaction tax.” The Guardian, May 6. Morgenthau, H. (1962). “A Political Theory of Foreign Aid,” American Political Science Review 56(2): 301–​9. Mosley, P. (1980). “Aid, Savings and Growth Revisited,” Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 42(2): 79–​95. Mustapha, Y. (2012). “Donors’ Responses to Arab Uprisings,” IDS Bulletin 43(1): 99–​109. Naresh, S. (2005). “External Aid to India,” IDS Bulletin 36(3): 55–​60.

 

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C ON C LU SION

 

 

Chapter 30

Toward a C ompa rat i v e P olitics of Fra nc e Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur

We began this Handbook by noting the turbulent nature of French political life. We wanted to explore how scholars have tried to make sense of the shocks and upheavals that France has experienced over the years, particularly during the Fifth Republic since 1958. How has France been studied? What paradigms have emerged and how have they changed over time? We also wanted to place these questions in a comparative perspective. In what ways have scholars of France learned from their colleagues elsewhere? To what extent have students of French political life shaped the international research agenda? Have there been separate and parallel scholarly developments in France relative to elsewhere, or has there been a cross-​national dialogue? In this Conclusion we reflect on how scholars have addressed these questions and the observations they have made about them. What has been the object of study? What aspects of the world have scholars of France focused on? What has been the unit of analysis? Has the ontological focus of the study of French politics changed over time? How does it compare with the equivalent focus elsewhere? From an epistemological perspective, what do we know about French political life, or, rather, what do scholars think we can know about French politics? Can we identify general laws of political life that apply equally to France as elsewhere? By contrast, is France so different that we have to place the study of French political life in its specific historical, social, and cultural context, identifying a specific French perspective to more general trends? Can we know even that much about France in general? Is France such a diverse place that we can expect to draw only very local and contingent conclusions, perhaps even highly subjective, observer-​ dependent interpretations? From a methodological perspective, how has France been studied? What has been the relative weight of deductive versus inductive methods? Have scholars studied France as a case on its own, or as one case amongst at least one other and perhaps many others in a comparative study? Whether the focus is comparative or purely French, have scholars preferred quantitative or qualitative methods, or

 

678    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur a mix of both? What particular methods have been used? Has there been a tendency toward survey research, elite interviewing, participant observation, and so on? In these terms, we wish to sketch at least a basic map of the study of French politics as it has appeared in this Handbook. In addition, we wish to relate the scholarship on France to more practical issues. Throughout this Handbook we have asked scholars not merely to report on how France has been studied, but also to identify the most important political and policy developments in the various areas under consideration. In this Conclusion we wish to return at least briefly to this theme. How has France changed over time and how has scholarship reacted to these changes? Moreover, given that we are in a period of profound economic, social, and international turbulence, where does France stand now in relation to other countries, and how do we expect future scholarship to take account of current challenges? There are three sections to this Conclusion. The first reviews the general trends in the study of French politics from a comparative perspective, revisiting the outside-​in, inside-​out themes that we introduced in Chapter 1. The second section focuses on the individual chapters in more detail and puts forth a classification of chapters in terms of what they tell us about the study of French politics. What, if any, is the evidence of international scholarly convergence across the different subject areas? Is France studied in the same way as any other country, or is the scholarly tradition among scholars of France very different? Is there a high level of scholarly convergence in some areas, but only a very low level in others? In the third section, we try to explore potential explanations for diverging trends. What about the relative strength of a given subdiscipline in France? What about real-​world changes? We conclude by exploring some assumptions about the future of the study of French politics.

The Development of the Study of French Politics in Comparative Perspective In Chapter 1 we introduced the idea of thinking about the study of French politics from both an inside-​out and an outside-​in perspective. We think of the former as the extent to which the academic study of French political life has shaped developments within the discipline of political science elsewhere, and the latter as the extent to which the academic study of French political life has been shaped by developments within the discipline of political science outside France. In this section, we chart the development of the study of French politics from these perspectives. Reflecting on what we have learned from the various chapters in the Handbook, we identify four periods in the study of French political life. This schema is deliberately broad. We do not wish to imply that it fits every subject area, or that the time periods are rigidly fixed. Certainly, we do not

 

Toward a Comparative Politics of France    679 suggest that the authors of the Handbook chapters would necessarily agree with this characterization. We think, though, that it can provide an interesting and deliberately provocative summary of how the study of French politics has developed over time.

The Height of the Inside-​Out Perspective: Late Nineteenth Century to the 1960s The first period runs from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s. It captures the beginning of politics as an object of professional study through to political developments associated with the onset of the Fifth Republic. This is the period when the inside-​out perspective was strongest. During this time a small number of French scholars developed paradigms that were highly influential outside France. This is most notably the case for Émile Durkheim in the late nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century and the study of sociology. It is also the case for Maurice Duverger in the 1950s and 1960s and the study of political parties, electoral systems, and party systems. Indeed, Duverger’s influence is greater still. It is worth remembering that, immediately following the end of the Second World War, Duverger, along with a number of French colleagues, was instrumental in setting up the International Political Science Association/​Association Internationale de Science Politique (IPSA/​AISP). At this point, then, French scholars were at the forefront of international scholarly developments. Indeed, testimony to the founding French influence on the IPSA/​AISP is that it still has a bilingual policy with French and English as the two official working languages of the organization. Apart from Durkheim and Duverger, we can point to others whose influence was also strongly felt outside France. They include Léon Duguit and the study of public law in the early part of the twentieth century; André Siegfried and the study of electoral geography especially in the 1920s and 1930s; and Raymond Aron and his impact on the study of international relations in the 1950s. In short, at a time when the study of politics, society, and the law was in its infancy, French scholars were able to shape general thinking, including comparative theory-​building, on all of these topics.

French Exceptionalism Goes International: 1960s–​1980s The second period runs from the 1960s through to the 1980s. This was a time when there was the potential for the outside-​in perspective to take hold, but it failed to do so, leaving France to be studied as a special case. In this period, the study of France was internationalized. France was on the curriculum in many universities outside the country, notably in the USA and the UK. In the end, though, what emerged in these areas was the paradigm of French exceptionalism. Stanley Hoffmann’s work perhaps best sums up this development. The idea of French exceptionalism was highly damaging for comparative theory-​building. It encouraged scholars interested in France to focus on France separately from other countries. It also encouraged comparativists to ignore France,

 

680    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur because they were being told that it was different and, by extension, incommensurable. For example, it is noticeable, as Mayer and Tiberj remind us in their chapter, that France was not included in Almond and Verba’s classic study of the civic culture. It is perhaps no coincidence that the beginning of this second period coincides with the time when the Gaullist control over the Fifth Republic was at its strongest. French greatness, France’s special role in world affairs, France’s cultural distinctiveness, and equivalent themes were a common part of political discourse at the time. Scholarship on France was perhaps shaped, wittingly or unwittingly, by this rhetoric. In France, this period also marked a key turning point in the development of the discipline. In 1971 there was the first “concours d’agrégation” for politics. This is the professional exam that allows entry to the professorial corps of university professors. From this point on, scholars in France studying politics had an incentive to follow the curriculum necessary for obtaining the agrégation. Interestingly, even though Duverger was one of the people most closely involved with setting up the exam, the curriculum tended to downplay comparative politics.1 Instead, it helped to reinforce the strength of political sociology in France. Indeed, a number of authors in this volume have stressed the importance of this tradition in the development of scholarship in their area. We can see that this is not a coincidence. For various reasons, then, the second period was marked by a certain retrenchment. France was widely studied outside the country, but it tended to be studied as a special case. In France the study of French political life was professionalized, but in a way that did not necessarily encourage scholars to adopt an outside-​in perspective.

Inside-​In!: French Approaches Resist American Domination in the 1980s–​1990s The third period covers the 1980s and 1990s. Rather than outside-​in or inside-​out, we might think of this period as “inside-​in!” This period is marked by major policy developments both within France and across Europe, as well as profound changes within the international political science scholarly community. Within France, the election of President Mitterrand brought about an immediate wave of policy reforms, including decentralization and media pluralism. This period also saw ongoing economic difficulties that questioned received wisdoms about social and economic policy, leading to changes in the role of the state generally. There were also major changes to the party system. More broadly, the process of Europeanization moved on apace at this time, generating new dynamics that affected France in many ways. French politics had clearly changed. Unsurprisingly, scholars wanted to study these developments and in detail. The result, though, was a certain academic retrenchment with the focus turning inward on France and to the study of the transformations that the country was undergoing. More broadly, political science was changing. In the US, the driver of international scholarship in the discipline, there was a rational choice revolution. This is a

 

Toward a Comparative Politics of France    681 deductive paradigm based on certain assumptions that can be perceived to be individualistic. Empirically, it tends to be associated with quantitative methods. It was also often expressed through a focus on institutions and the effect of variation in institutional features on various outcomes. In France, to the extent that it was acknowledged, this revolution was met with skepticism and sometimes outright hostility. There was a fear in some quarters that methods were being imposed on the discipline.2 There was a more general belief that this way of doing political science did not suit the French tradition, which was strongly influenced by the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and which rejected the study of institutions that were seen as belonging to the domain of constitutional or public law. The result was a growing gap between the study of politics in France and developments in political science elsewhere, particularly the US.

The “French Touch” Contributes to Comparative Theory-​Building in the 2000s The fourth period goes from the 2000s to the present. This is a messier period. There has certainly been an opening up of the study of French politics. This is particularly noticeable at the European level. French scholars now regularly collaborate in broad research projects with colleagues elsewhere. This is a clear result of Europeanization, though there has also been more collaboration with US colleagues. This is also a result of professional developments, such as the openness of the Association française de science politique to work with the American Political Science Association and vice versa. In addition, we should not forget the importance of the increasing trend toward the international ranking of universities by organizations such as The Times Higher Education or the QS World University Rankings. French universities want to improve their place in these rankings. One consequence is that they have rewarded journal publications in English more than was previously the case, sometimes covering the cost of translation from the original French. Finally, English-​language skills have also increased almost beyond measure over time. This point applies to francophone scholars, but also to scholars throughout Europe, where English has become the working language of academia, facilitating cross-​national collaboration. In this context, the outside-​in perspective has become more pronounced. Scholars of France are now more familiar with comparative scholarship and have found fruitful ways of incorporating it into their research. There has also been a revival of the inside-​out perspective. The French focus on political sociology and micro-​level studies, including policy studies, has resonated elsewhere, particularly in Europe. There is also a middle-​range position where the study of particular areas is considered to have a “French touch.” What this usually means is that scholars are aware of international academic developments, but they are also aware of the specific French context in which those developments have occurred, with scholarship reflecting the mix of these two traditions.

 

682    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur We stressed that this was a broad-​brush way of trying to capture scholarly developments in the study of French politics. The periodization can be questioned, and the characterization of the developments can be contested. There are, for example, some very clear exceptions. As Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck show us in their chapter, the study of French voting behavior has long been internationalized, with the outside-​in perspective being dominant for long periods. By contrast, Mayer and Tiberj also show us that the study of political culture still has a very strong inside-​in focus. Nonetheless, we do think that this periodization captures some general trends that we have picked up in our reading of the contributions to this Handbook. In the next section, we drill down into the specific chapters, identifying existing levels of convergence and divergence between scholarship on France and broader academic trends in the international arena.

Toward International Convergence? Measuring Convergence In this section we turn to assessing the degree to which the study of French politics as outlined by our contributors has been integrated with international work. We present and apply here a measurement of international convergence to identify the degree to which French scholars and research on France have influenced the international/​comparative scholarly agenda outside France (inside-​out) on one hand, and the degree to which work on France has been influenced by the international/​comparative research agenda outside France (outside-​in) on the other. Ultimately our question is to identify whether there has been a “meeting in the middle” (Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck in this volume), or convergence of French and international research so that French and comparative scholarship have a shared analytical agenda which advances in a more systematic manner theory-​building and the accumulation of knowledge both in particular substantive areas and in a larger comparative perspective. Thus, integration and convergence do not mean that comparative and international approaches dominate and take over French analysis or that French approaches dictate the analytical parameters for comparative work. Rather, convergence here is about whether French-​focused approaches to doing research—​what many in this volume have called the “French touch”3—​and the findings and foci that come out of those approaches have been incorporated into comparative theory-​building efforts, and whether comparative approaches, theory, and findings have penetrated and been embraced in research agendas and scholarly work on France. A  further part of this integration is whether the French case itself has gone beyond being identified in exceptional terms, defined always as a deviant case or an outlier and, hence, not taken into consideration in comparative theory-​building, or whether more general comparative and international theories have been adapted to explain and account for the dynamics and determinants of the French case. Thus, convergence has the potential for more

 

Toward a Comparative Politics of France    683 valid and reliable theories and better science more generally; a tenet that is espoused by many of our contributors to this volume, though admittedly not all. As we have already asserted above, the years since the millennium have been marked by an increased integration between French and international theory-​building and research communities and the rich, qualitative, actor-​oriented, micro-​level research on France being present in international and comparative research methodologies and being used to test and advance theories, often with the presence of French researchers in large-​scale projects. The question we assess systematically here is the degree to which this has occurred in the 25 areas in Parts II–​VI of this Handbook, from the early 2000s to the present. We develop a composite measure of convergence based on coding both inside-​out and outside-​in developments in each area of study.

Three Profiles of Convergence Our assessment of these 25 areas identifies three patterns or profiles of integration. We call the first category “toward convergence,” because international and French research communities are not completely in sync; however, there has been a marked increase since the early 2000s in the presence of shared research agendas and common concepts, with the “French touch” being exported and used to move theory-​building and knowledge accumulation forward whether it be through adopting French methodologies or employing French findings. In these cases, France has become “just another case” to be used in comparative analysis, and theories are able to cover the French case. Scholars based in France in these areas work on an equal footing with researchers from outside France to design research projects and move research agendas forward. We estimate that a certain level of convergence has been achieved in six out of our 25 areas, or 24 percent of the cases (see Table 30.1). In the second category we identify a slightly lower number of areas that have achieved “Asymmetric Convergence” (See Table 30.2)—​five chapters, or 20 percent of the total. In this second category, French work has brought in international work and has been in dialogue with it, but the international and comparative scholarship has not been very

Table 30.1  Toward convergence Elections and Voting—​Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck (OF) European Integration Policy—​Parsons (OF) Europeanization of Public Policy—​Saurugger (F) Gender Policy—​Mazur and Revillard (B) Regional and Local Government—​Pasquier (F) Varieties of Capitalism—​Schmidt (OF) Key: Institutional base of the author(s): F = France, OF = Outside France, B = Both.

 

684    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur Table 30.2 Asymmetric convergence Economic Policy—​Clift (OF) Environmental and Energy Policy—​Halpern (F) Identity—​Kastoryano and Escafré-​Dublet (F) Political Communication—​Gerstlé (F) Women’s Movements and Feminism—​Bereni (F) Key: Institutional base of the author(s): F = France, OF = Outside France, B = Both

responsive to French analyses. Here, the French case is often covered in comparative studies without any “French touch” approach, or French scholars participate in large-​ scale comparative projects designed by scholars outside France without any reference to French work in that area. The third category shows that convergence and integration has been limited in over half of the areas of study covered in the Handbook—​14 out of 25 areas (See Table 30.3). Here, divergence between international/​comparative research agendas and French touch approaches seems to be the norm. In nine of the 25 areas, there is a clear “gap” between international/​comparative analysis and scholarship on France where few approaches, concepts, or methods are shared and where the French case, when it is covered, is neither the main focus of scholars working on France nor is brought centrally into comparative theory-​building. In five areas, the gap is very wide, with very little overlap or integration. In the cases of the study of Political Culture and National Identity core concepts in the field at the international level do not resonate with French

Table 30.3 Divergence Low divergence

High divergence

Constitutional Politics—​Brouard (F) Executive Politics—​Elgie and Grossman (B) International Aid and Development—​Cumming (OF) Globalization—​Goyer and Glatzer (OF) Interest Groups—​McCauley (OF) Legislative Politics—​Costa (F) Multi-​Level Governance—​Pinson (F) Representation—​Sauger (F) Social Movements—​Fillieule (OF)

National Identity—​Duschesne (F) Parties and Party Systems—​Haegel (F)* Political Culture—​Mayer and Tiberj (F) Public Administation—​Bezes (F) Security Policy—​Irondelle, Joana, and Mérand (B)

Key: Institutional base of the author(s): F = France, OF = Outside France, B = Both * = highest level of divergence

 

Toward a Comparative Politics of France    685 analysts—​what Duchesne calls a “blind spot.” Haegel argues that the gap between the international and French research communities and scholarly agendas on political parties and political party systems has actually widened in recent years; a development that is not found in any other area covered in this volume.

Explaining Patterns of Convergence and Divergence So what accounts for this variation in convergence or divergence of work on and in France with the rest of the field? As the first section of this chapter asserted, there is a certain level of integration across all areas covered in this book. Even in the cases of high divergence, there have been, since the 2000s, some interchange and dialogue and in nearly half of the cases quite high levels of integration. While divergence between French and international approaches may still be the norm and while a critical mass of areas is still quite resistant, the study of French politics has come a long way over the last 20 years, reflecting the processes of internationalization and globalization that have been changing research agendas and scholarly approaches both inside and outside France. France has become less of an outlier in theory-​building and French approaches have been taken on board in international theory-​construction efforts, although in only a fifth of the areas covered in this volume in a serious way. In terms of the different substantive areas covered in this book, there is some variation in integration. While all but one of the chapters on institutions (Part III) have a divergent pattern, the chapters on the areas of study on parties, elections, and voters (Part IV) are distributed across all three types of integration. The study of civil society does not produce any convergent areas (Part V); there are two chapters that fall in the asymmetric group and two in the divergent group. The political economy and public policy areas of study are also distributed across all three profiles (Part VI). Area of study, thus, does not appear to be the most important factor in understanding integration.

Factors of Variation It is important to note that no single factor explains the success or failure of integration; thus understanding how to close the gap and promote better dialogue between the international and French research communities must be considered within the context of each research arena. We consider that there are different mechanisms at work. Divergence and convergence, the integration of French research in international comparative research agendas, the relative importance of outside-​in and inside-​out dynamics: all of this, we argue, depends on a distinct series of factors.

 

686    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur First, the historical development of a particular subdiscipline is particularly important. If there is a strong scholarly tradition in a particular area, this area is likely to have developed its own concepts, methods, and narratives. This should make it more resistant to outside-​in dynamics. In this case, integration is only likely if the field has managed to significantly influence the field outside France (i.e. there has been an inside-​out tendency). If, however, at the same time this particular field has strongly developed elsewhere and has concentrated on different exchanges, we may simply witness co​existence with little exchange or mutual knowledge. A potential indicator of the development of a given field is simply the scale of the research community in this area. In a nutshell, the history of the subfield may be an important determinant of the degree of integration. Following this logic, we should expect more outside-​in influence in newer or smaller fields, but this will require the members of these subfields to have the will and the capacity to dialogue with approaches developed elsewhere. A study on the publication strategies of French political scientists (Grossman, 2010) has shown that subfields strongly diverge on this dimension, largely due to the degree of internationalization of individual researchers in a field. It is true that individual researchers may play an important role as translators or facilitators of contacts between different areas of the world. François Dosse (1995) has described a similar mechanism in other areas of the French social sciences. If researchers have spent time abroad, visiting or earning degrees, this is likely to create bridges between the two different locations that facilitate integration. A related factor and one not to be underestimated is the degree to which the field at the international level has been dominated by American behaviorialism, quantitative methods, and rational choice. Where this is the case, it is difficult for advocates of the French touch to make a difference, while it also makes non-​French scholars, at least those scholars based in the US, more critical of the French approach. Finally, there may be a generational issue: as the world grows more integrated, so does the world of the social and political sciences. Younger generations are more open to integration, even if there are also many exceptions. A second major group of factors relates to the reality of the objects of study with which a given subfield is confronted. For a long time, the “exceptionalist” assumption dominated research agendas both in and on France, as we have seen in the first section. The main underlying reason was the perceived or real difference between France and other countries in Europe or elsewhere. It may also be related to a certain number of research traditions that were particularly reticent to comparative research, which would add to the historical argument developed above. Over and above researcher strategies or agendas, the real world has certainly dealt a blow to French “exceptionalism.” France has opened up to globalization, as Goyer and Glatzer’s chapter amply illustrates. As France has become less exceptional, research agendas have moved more readily to explore similar phenomena in neighboring countries and to benefit from the experience of studies elsewhere. Again, it is often an individual researcher’s outlook which is important here. Individuals who have studied abroad, traveled, etc. are more likely to build bridges to the rest of the world.

 

Toward a Comparative Politics of France    687

Explaining Difference Looking specifically at the convergence cases, we observe that when research communities are Europeanized—​that is when there is a focus on processes of Europeanization—​ there are always higher levels of integration. As the chapters by Parsons, Saurugger, and Schmidt show, when Europe is brought into the mix, we always find higher levels of convergence. It is thus the reality of European integration that has spurred the integration of research in those areas, at least to some extent. This may also be true for regional and local government as Pasquier’s chapter shows, and also gender-​related policies as shown by Mazur and Revillard. But, clearly, elements specific to the subdiscipline play an important role in those areas too. In the first case, research on regional and local governance is strongly embedded in international research agendas and concentrates on the study of transnational processes, especially in the EU. It is thus no surprise that those resorting to this notion more often than not have a “bridging” background with substantial experience abroad and close links to international research communities. This story is confirmed by Mazur and Revillard on gender-​related policies, who have both spent substantial amounts of time working both inside and outside France. In this burgeoning field, recent generations of scholars have clearly relied on international communities to better establish their object of study in France. The strong convergence in the chapter by Schmidt is essentially due to the fact that political economy remains extremely marginal in France, and that, as a consequence, the field is dominated by scholars based outside France. Thus, there is both little inside-​ out or outside-​in interaction going on here. The few people working in this area in France mainly publish in English and are part of international research communities. The case of elections, discussed by Nadeau and Lewis-​Beck, stands out a little in that it has long been a field that was strongly represented in France, with an established local research tradition, but also permanent exchanges with the rest of the world. Of all the chapters in this category, it is probably the one with the longest record of both inside-​out and outside-​in dynamics. To a lesser extent, this is true for the fields of Europeanization and multi-​level governance, two much “younger” fields. In the second category, “asymmetric convergence,” like in the first, we find no stable pattern regarding either the history of the subdisciplines and/​or of their objects of study. Economic policy has clearly become more integrated as a consequence of globalization. Energy and environmental issues have come to be increasingly recognized as issues that can only be dealt with efficiently in the international arena. But this is certainly not true of the three other fields, which are mainly structured at the national level. In those areas, discipline-​specific developments are certainly more important. None of these areas can be considered “central” in the sense of a place at the center of the discipline. Relative marginality with regard to the central field of political sociology, combined with numerical weakness, certainly limits the capacity of a given subfield to develop a fruitful dialogue with international research communities. “Asymmetric integration” may mean that there is a distinct French research tradition in those areas that

 

688    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur try to dialogue with research communities abroad but—​at least—​partially fails to do so. The chapter on identity by Kastoryano and Escafré-​Dublet is certainly a good example of this, probably also featuring a low level of integration of the field as such. As far as the chapters on economic policy (Clift), political communication (Gerstlé), and energy and environmental policy (Halpern) are concerned, these are all fields that remain numerically weak in France and where no long-​standing French tradition exists. This is maybe less true for economic policy in general, but is certainly true for economic policy from a political-​economy perspective. The problems that are dealt with in works on France may be specific, but there is no specifically French approach. Yet, those are areas where a strong public demand for “expert” input exists, in line with a more applied policymaking agenda in France. This may explain, to an extent, why small research communities exist in France on those issues that are only weakly connected to international research agendas. Things are a little different for women’s movements (Bereni) and identity (Kastoryano and Escafré-​Dublet). While both objects have existed for some time, both areas of study have benefitted from specific dynamics either in research or real-​world changes that have largely reconfigured the field. Dialogue exists in all of these fields, but sometimes suffers from differences in approaches or theory-​formulation. Finally, by far the largest number of chapters conclude that there is soft or strong divergence between studies in and on France and the international research agendas. Fundamentally, this demonstrates the extent to which French political science continues to stay outside international research agendas and is, thus, poorly connected to research elsewhere. As Section 1 showed, there was a time when the study of French politics successfully influenced research agendas abroad. This is certainly a lot less the case today. Overall, there are several main reasons for divergence, but there is certainly a greater stress here on the autonomy of French research agendas, sometimes despite objectively converging research objects. The two exceptions are perhaps the chapters on international aid and development (Cumming) and security policy (Irondelle, Joana, and Mérand). Both chapters clearly show that policymaking and decisions in those areas continue to present very distinctive features in France compared to other countries. To a lesser extent this may also apply to French interest groups (McCauley), given the historical hostility toward interest groups in French politics. French exceptionalism appears to have receded less in those areas than others. This probably explains the lack of integration in those specific areas. Too much emphasis on specificity makes comparison more difficult, and, yet, those are the areas where comparative work exists and is even common both in academia and in operational research. Indeed, all three of these chapters provide some evidence that changes may be occurring even in those areas. For all the other chapters mentioned in Table 30.3, distinctive research agendas are the main reason for divergence. Fillieule argues that there is a renewal in the work on social movements that has put the stress on rather different aspects and goals from mainstream US or British research in this area. By contrast, Elgie and Grossman argue that the relative weakness of the field in political science and the continuing influence of

 

Toward a Comparative Politics of France    689 public lawyers may explain this continuing difference. While the latter point can probably be applied to the study of institutions more generally—​see Costa on legislative politics or Brouard on constitutional politics—​this is certainly not true for most of the other chapters. In fact, many divergent areas represent relatively important areas in French political science. Distinctively French approaches and traditions continue to prevail in the study of parties (Haegel), values (Mayer and Tiberj), national identity (Duchesne), and public administration (Bezes). Those areas all feature rather large research communities in France. The central French-​language publications, such as the journals Politix or Revue française de science politique or the different book series at the Presses de Sciences Po, certainly focus on those issues in particular. Indeed, this is where a majority of dissertation projects emerge. Again, in all of those fields bridges exist—​individual researchers are part of international networks and even EU-​funded collaborative research frameworks—​but the level of divergence remains the largest. The persistence of distinctively national research agendas is natural and cannot only be perceived as a disadvantage. Political scientists, like other social scientists, have to serve the community they live in and respond to problems that are actually encountered in French politics. As the chapters by Kastoryano and Escafré-​Dublet on identity and by Bezes on public administration clearly show, those problems are mostly homegrown, despite European integration and economic or cultural globalization. This phenomenon is common to most countries with a non-​trivial academic community. The real difficulty or challenge, from that point of view, is to successfully combine the participation of academic scholars in national policy debates with a contribution to international research agendas. While there need not be an opposition between these two goals, it often turns out to be difficult to pursue both at the same time.

Conclusion Over the last two decades there has been an internationalization and particularly a Europeanization of French political life. In many of the chapters of this Handbook, we have heard talk of an equivalent internationalization and Europeanization of French political science. This is not to imply, though, that there is some teleological process at work; some one-​way process toward international or European convergence; some inevitable trend toward “modernization.” This point applies to political life generally. The chapters in this volume have shown that in some areas France has been particularly marked by international economic, social, and political developments, whereas in other areas a French exception or at least a French “touch” remains. This point also applies to the development of French political science. We have seen that in some areas of study there is now what amounts to an international community of scholars, notably in areas that focus on European issues. At the same time, though, we have also seen that over the last couple of decades the study of French political parties and institutions

 

690    Robert Elgie, Emiliano Grossman, and Amy G. Mazur broadly understood has become less integrated with the international/​comparative scholarly community, focusing more and more on homegrown methods and issues. In short, this Handbook has demonstrated that the study of politics is as contingent as the practice of politics. There are overarching trends that affect everyone, everywhere. Some of these trends are very powerful indeed. Yet however powerful they may be, they are filtered through historical and local conditions. They are also interpreted by individuals who have to make sense of them for themselves on the basis of their own personal experiences. In this context, we imposed a common schema on our contributors. This was a response to the nature of the exercise we were undertaking. We wanted to cover a wide range of topics, but we also needed to provide a coherent product. The outside-​ in/​inside-​out framework helped us to achieve that aim. At the same time, though, we did not impose a particular way of doing political science on our authors—​we did not impose a specific methodology. We wanted authors to speak for themselves within the common framework that we set out. This aim was motivated by more than the purely practical need to produce a cohesive volume. It was also a reflection of our broader academic philosophy. We are not ontological, epistemological, or methodological imperialists. For sure, we do believe that a completely inward-​looking scientific community with its own terminology, paradigms, and professional norms will be less rich for adopting such a position. Much will be missed. By the same token, we believe that an international/​comparative scholarly community which fails to pay attention to national and local contingencies will also be missing much of academic value. The challenge is to integrate both the outside-​in and inside-​out approaches, or at least perhaps to have them coexist peacefully within any given national scholarly community and indeed within the international scholarly community more generally. In a number of the areas covered in this volume, we have a sense that with regard to the study of France a position of integration or mutual coexistence has indeed been reached. In other areas, though, there is still a long way to go. Without wanting to homogenize the study of French political life—​and, indeed, starting from a position where we think that any such homogenization is unlikely to occur in any event—​we hope that we have set a research agenda for the study of French political life. Indeed, and without meaning to sound too grand, we think that this agenda has the potential to be applied more generally, too. In this Handbook we have tried to capture the state of the study of French politics. There is no doubt that if we had embarked upon an equivalent e­ xercise 20 years earlier, then we would have captured a very different picture of French political studies. What is more, we have no doubt that if this exercise were to be repeated in 20 years’ time, then there would great developments, too. We only hope that this Oxford Handbook of French Politics will have contributed to some of these developments, and in a positive way.

 

Toward a Comparative Politics of France    691

Notes 1. It is perhaps worth noting that Duverger’s participation in international scholarly political science conferences seems to have ended in the late 1960s. He was also the author of a textbook on political sociology. So, the particular disciplinary focus of the agrégation was perhaps not inconsistent with Duverger’s personal trajectory at that time and, needless to say, he was not the only figure involved in the process of professionalizing the discipline of political science in France. 2. In the US, political science departments were split apart as the rational choice revolution gained ground. In this sense, the fears in France of a paradigmatic takeover were grounded in a certain clearly observable US experience. 3. The “French touch” is typically associated with qualitative approaches that are more grounded in sociology, inspired by Pierre Bourdieu, where the objects of analyses are at the micro level, often with a detailed “ethnographic” focus on actors and often on discourse through for example “référentiels” (Muller, 1992). The French touch also tends to shun hypothesis testing and formalization of concepts and theory, associated with more anglo-​ american positivist approaches. For a discussion of the French touch in public policy analysis see Boussaguet, Jacquot, and Ravient (2015).

References Boussaguet, L., Jacquot, S., and Ravient, P. (eds) (2015). Une “French Touch” dans l’Analyse des Politiques Publiques. Paris: Presses de Science Politique. Dosse, F. (1995). L’empire du sens: l’humanisation des sciences humaines. Paris: La Découverte, 78–153. Grossman, E. (2010). “Les stratégies de publication des politistes français,” Revue française de science politique 60(3): 565–​85. Muller, P. (1992). “Entre le local et l’Europe. La crise du modèle français de politiques publiques,” Revue française de science politique 42(2): 275–​97.

 

 

Index

Note: tables, figures, and boxes are indicated by an italic t, f, and b following the page/​paragraph number. A400M strategic aircraft program  642 Aarlberg, T. 404 Aarts, K. 402 absolutism, and Louis XIV  47–​8 Académie des sciences morales et politiques  5 Achin, C.  473, 570 Achterberg, P.  341–​2 Act Up network  336 Action Catholique Générale Féminine (ACGF)  469–​70 actor-​network theory  545 and production of law  261 administrative law 54 Afghanistan war  646 Agence Française de Développement (AFD)  663–​4, 667, 668, 669 Agence Nationale de Recherche (ANR)  447 Agency for International Development  201 Aglietta, M. 618 Agrikoliansky, E. 336 Agulhon, M. 337 aid and overseas development assistance (ODA)  9, 654–​69 Agence Française de Développement (AFD)  663–​4, 667, 668, 669 agenda-​setting case  666–​7 “alternative” revenue streams  667–​8 Boolean technique  657 Carbon Emission Estimator Tool  664 “champions” research focus  667 comparative literature problems  655–​6 comparative perspectives on French ODA  658–​62 comparative perspectives on Northern aid  656–​8 comparative research agenda  665–​8 “concepts” research focus  667

contextual research focus  667 cultural diffusion problems  656 delivery mechanisms and processes  656–​7, 659, 663–​4 and “democratic governance”  661, 665 Development Assistance Committee  654, 664, 666, 668 “deviant” donor behaviour  666 drivers behind French  660 effectiveness of French  659–​60 evaluation procedures, France  664 F3E unit  664 France as an agenda-​setting donor  662–​5 French parliamentary reports  660 Galton problem  656 as “global public goods”  663, 667 idealist paradigms  657 innovative financing schemes  663 “institutional pessimists”  657–​8 “mainstreaming” process  662, 666 Northern aid effectiveness  657 Northern bilateral assistance, and self-​interest  657 “post-​development” position  658 poverty-​reduction and  661, 665 prototypical donors  655 purpose of French ODA  661 purpose of ODA  657–​8 qualitative and quantitative distinctions 655 radical right theorists  658 ranking systems of ODA  659, 660 “soft” vs. “hard” evaluations  668 and structural theorists  658 UN aid targets and France  661–​2 variable-​oriented comparative analyses of French  656, 660–​1

 

694   INDEX Air France  57 Albert, M. 618 Alford’s index  361 Algeria 91 Algerian Muslims, and citizenship  91 Algerian war  183 Allison, G. 638 Allocation parentale d’éducation (APE)  565 Allocation unique dégressive (AUD)  63 Almond, G.  332, 337, 680 Alsace regional councils  293 Althusser, L. 441 Amable, B. 520 American Revolution, and liberty of the individual 19 Amey, P. 403 Ancien Régime  33 ad hoc courts  29–​30 Anderson, B.  447, 484, 500 n.15 Antichan, S. 496 antiglobalization movement  155–​6, 447, 451, 622 anti-​nuclear movement  443, 541 Antoine, Serge  542 Argenson, Marquis d’  49 Aristotle 394 Armstrong, J. 94 Aron, R.  589, 591, 637 Association Internationale de Science Politique (AISP) 679 Association française de science politique (AFSP)  5, 206, 681 Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l’Action Citoyenne (ATTAC) 158, 336 Auclert, Hubertine  461 Aulard, Alphonse  17 Auriol, Vincent  239 n.7 austerity programs  616, 627 Autonomous State (El Estado de las Autonomias), Spain  285 Avanza, M. 494 Bachelot, C. 384 Badinter, R. 234 Bagayoko, N. 644 Bagehot, W.  178, 201 Balandier, G. 400

Balladur, Édouard  67, 402, 595 Balladur government  63, 622 Banaszak, L. A.  466, 471, 560 Bang, H. 338 banking system, French  159–​60, 160–​1 Banque de France  57, 160, 163, 520 Barker, Ernest  50 Barone, S. 291 Barre, Raymond  402 Bartels, L. 341 Barth, Fredrik  83 Barthes, R. 383 Basque language  293 Basque movement  293 Baumgartner, F.  188, 403, 425, 426 Bayart, J.-​F.  487, 496 Bayrou, François  357 BCG consultants  255 Beaman, J. 91 Becker, H. 332 Beckwith, K. 462 Bélanger, É. 365 Belgium, identity markers  286 Bellina, S. 665 Belot, C. 489 Benedict, R. 330 Benziane, S. 475 Bereni, L.  450, 568, 571, 573 Berger, P.  395, 452 Berger, S. 18 Berjaud, C. 401 Berlin Wall, fall of  595 Berrebi-​Hoffmann, I.  255 Berthélemey, J.-​C.  661 Berthélemy, Henry  52 Bertrand, R. 487 Besson, Eric  492 Bevir, M. 110 Bezes, P.  255, 257, 266 Biland, E. 261 Billig, M.  483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 496, 497, 498, 499 n.1 Billordo, L. L.  191 Binderkrantz, A. 419 Birnbaum, P.  243, 253, 254 Bismarckian social protection system, Germany 60, 61, 65 Blackstone, W. 200

 

INDEX   695 Blair, Tony  246, 614 Blanchard, S.  474, 571 Blau, P. M.  250 Blévis, L. 91 Block, F.  509, 615–​16 Blondiaux, L. 338 Blumer, H. 332 Blumler, J. G.  395, 396, 403 Bodin, J.  46–​7 Boëne, B. 642 Bois, P. 356 Bon, F. 383 bond market queue system in France  160 Boni, I. 474 Boniface, Pascal  641 Bonikowski, B. 486 Bonny, Y. 116 Boolean technique  657 Borraz, O.  113, 114–​15, 116 Börzel, T. 133 Bossuet, Bishop  48 Bouckaert, G. 247 Boudet, H. S.  449 Bourdieu, P.  85, 243, 259, 261, 323, 333, 385, 390, 400, 449, 467, 681, 691 n.3 administrative elites  254 habitus concept  334, 335–​6, 495 legacy  494–​5, 498–​9, 500, 589 and national identity  494–​5 representative and symbolic constructions  317, 323, 444, 494–​5 sociology of local spaces  115 Bourdon, J. 402 Bourgeois, Léon  25 Bouvet, L.  491, 500 n.10 Boyer, R. 618 Bozo, F. 640 Braconnier, C. 339 Brand, W. 441 Braud, P. 445 Breton language  293 Bretton Woods agreement  514, 527 post-​  518 “bricolage” concept  522 Brittany 112 regional governance  292 regional identities  294–​5 Brodie, B. 637

Brouard, S.  86, 233, 321, 340, 364, 544 Brown, S. 656 Browne, S. 659 Brubaker, R.  81, 83, 484–​5, 494, 495, 497, 498 Bruter, M. 486 Bryce, J.  374, 376, 378 Buchanan, J. 512 Burdeau, G.  54, 625 Bureaucratic Phenomenon, The (Crozier)  250–​1 Burke, E. 310 Burnham, P. 516 burqa and niqab, laws outlawing  26, 236, 475–​6 Buton, F. 262 Buzan, B.  638–​9 Cador, P. 572 Caillé A. 93 Calhoun, C.  484–​5, 489 Callon, M. 544 Camdessus, Michel  519–​20, 525 Camilleri, C. 85 Campbell, A.  350, 396 Campbell, J.  521–​2 Capdevielle, J. 364 Caramani, D. C.  376 Carbon Emissions Estimator Tool  664 Carcassonne, G. 234 Carey, J. M.  181, 315 Cartélec project  339 Cassen, R. 657 Castiglione, D.  14, 39 Catalonia separatism  287 Catholic Church  40, 46, 60 and women’s movements  469–​70 Catholic Church Schism (1309–​78)  46 Catholic schools, and republicanism  26 Catholicism, and laïcité  25–​7, 88 Cautrès, B. 589 Cayrol, R.  394, 399 census:  1990 89 1999 89 census categories:  and “former nationality”  89 identity  89–​90 and “immigrant identity”  89

 

696   INDEX Centre de recherches internationales (CERI) 667 Centre d’étude de la vie politique française (Cevipof) 488 surveys  357, 358–​9, 363, 449 Chabrol, C. 397 Chaffee, S. H.  395 Chantebout, B. 640 Chapman, B.  50–​1 Chardon, Henri  52 Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks (2015)  40 Charlot, M.  397–​8 Charpenel, M. 475 Charron, J. 403 Chateauraynaud, F. 405 Cheibub, J. A.  181, 182 Chérot, J.-​Y.  204 Chesnais, F. 641 Chevallier, J. 252 Chevènement Act (1999)  114 Chicago School  85, 395, 440 Chiche, J. 341 Chinese immigrant groups  93 Chirac, Jacques  40, 55, 61, 187, 190, 360, 387, 402, 492, 595, 596 and the professionalization of the armed forces 642 Chlarson, K. 365 Christensen, T. 247 Chroniques électorales (Electoral Chronicles) 399 Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration 492 citizenship:  and national identity  90–​1, 493–​4 and republicanism  24 Citizenship after the Nation State (CANS) project  294, 294t, 295 citoyens actifs/​citoyens passifs division  23 CITREP study  314 Civil Rights movement, US  84, 442 “civil society organization”  135 Claasen, R. L.  402 Clerical Agency, France  250 Clinton, Bill  246, 614 coordinated market economies (CMEs)  609, 611, 612, 614, 619, 620, 621 hybridization 613

cohabitation  183–​4, 188, 204, 316, 360 and economic voting  361 electoral reform to avoid  361–​2 Cohen, B.  514–​15 Cohen, E.  136, 339, 517, 641 Cohen, S.  640, 641 Cohen-​Tanugi, L.  422 Colbert, Jean-​Baptiste  48 Colbertism  4–​5, 57 Cole, A.  294, 432 colonialism, and juridical categorization of “race” 91 Commissions de développement économique régional (CODER, 1964)  288 Committee of the Regions (CoR), EU  104 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)  135, 592 Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), EU 644 Commune (1871)  310 Communist parties in Europe  379 Communist party, France see Parti communiste français (PCF) Comparative Agendas  206, 215 n.3 Comparative Candidate Survey  206, 215 n.3 Comparative Constitutions Project 227 comparative politics of France  10, 677–​90 1890s–​1960s  679 1960s–​1980s  679–​80 1980s–​2000s  680–​1 2000s–  681–​2 asymmetric convergence  683–​4, 684t convergence and divergence, explaining  685–​9 development of  678–​82 divergence  684–​5, 684t, 688–​9 Europeanization and convergence  681, 687 explaining difference in convergence/​ divergence  687–​9 factors of variation, convergence/​ divergence  685–​6 “inside-​out” approaches  678, 679, 680, 681, 682, 683, 685–​6, 687, 690 international scholarship, US  680–​1, 691 n.2 measuring convergence  682–​5 “outside-​in” approaches  678, 680, 685–​6, 687, 690 theory-​building convergence  682–​3, 685 towards convergence  683, 683t

 

INDEX   697 Comte, A. 333 “concours d’agrégation” for politics  680 Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT)  63, 69 Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT)  75, 63, 69, 424 Congleton, R. D.  221 Congressional Government (Wilson)  178–​9 conscription, ending in France  642–​3 Conseil d’Etat  30, 231, 252, 253 Conseil National du Patronat Français (CNPF) 590 Consortium for Comparative Legislative Studies 201 Constitutional Council  23, 30, 39, 54, 227–​32, 230f appointing members  232–​3 appointment of judges  224 comparisons with US Supreme Court  233 creation (1958)  220, 221 electoral periods  234 legal rigour and jurisprudence  234–​5 as the ‘peuple corse’  28–​9, 33 politicization of  232–​4 politicization of constitutional review  222, 223–​5 and the principle of Laïcité (2013)  26 principles with constitutional value 230 public trust in  238 and republicanism  37 as ‘third legislative chamber’  229–​30 vetoes  220, 221, 223, 224, 228–​30 veto politics and electoral theory  234 see also constitutional politics constitutional courts, European  222–​4 constitutional law (2003), France  290 constitutional politics  8, 220–​39 amending the Fifth Republic’s Constitution  187, 209, 213, 221–​2, 225–​7, 229, 239 n.2, 237–​8 appointment of judges  224 attitudinal models  224 auto limitation effect of vetoes  234 burqa laws  26, 236, 475–​6 concrete reviews and game theory literature  236–​7

cooperative appointments  224 decolonization and constitutional change 227 enlargement of the initial process of review (1974) 228 European democracies and constitutional courts  222–​4 EU integration and French constitutional review 227 frequency of review referrals  229f, 228–​9 judicial decision making  223–​5 judicialization patterns  236–​7 judicialization of politics  222–​3 judicialization of politics in France  227–​32, 228 Fog. 11.1, 230f legal approach model  225 legitimacy of constitutional review  237–​8 National Assembly Law Committee  231 opposition-​induced constructional politics 231 patterns of government control and constitutional amendments  235 politicization of constitutional review  222, 223–​5, 232–​5 professional appointments  224 representative appointments  224 research agenda  235–​8 rigidity 234 rigidity indicators  226 rigidity theories  224, 226 sovereignty of courts  223 strategic approach to decision making 234 strategic behaviour model  225 vetoes  220, 221, 223, 224, 228–​30 veto politics and electoral theory  234 see also Constitutional Council; Constitutions; Constitutions, Fifth Republic Constitutional Treaty referendum (2005)  598 Constitutions:  1791  30–​1, 220 1848 25, 31 1945 37 1946 229

 

698   INDEX Constitutions, Fifth Republic (1958)  15, 23, 30, 183, 187, 204, 214 article 6 55 article 16 183 article 38  187–​8 articles 89-​1  225 articles 89-​3  226 articles 89-​4  226 amendments  220, 225–​7 amendments (1962)  239 n.2 amendments and reform (2008)  187, 209, 213, 221–​2, 237–​8 reforms (1974)  220–​1 “vote bloqué” 187 contraception and abortion, legalization movements 470 Contribution Sociale Généralisée (CSG)  67, 69 Convention Against Discrimination at School (1980), UNESCO  35 Converse, P.  312, 329, 334, 350, 360, 396 Cooper, F.  81, 83, 494 corporate capitalism  608 Corsica regional councils  293 Costa, O.  321, 589 Cotteret, J.-​M.  398 Coty, René  239 n.7 Coulomb-​Gully, M.  399 Council of Europe Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (1992)  35 Council of State (1802)  51, 52 Cour de Cassation 231 Cour des Comptes 252, 256 Coutau-​Bégarie, H.  643 Cox, A. 659 Crawford, G. 656 Cresson, Edith  318 Crozier, M.  112–​13, 243, 244, 250–​1, 252, 377, 544, 589 Cuban missile crisis  638 Cumming, G. 659 Curran, J. 404 Czech Republic, decentralization reforms  285 Daalder, H. 379 Dakowska, D. 140 Daloz, J.-​P.  317 Dalton, R.  330, 430–​1

d’Arcy, F. 314 Dargent, C. 294 Darras, E. 404 Davidson, N. 88 Davies, J. 107 Davis, A. K.  395 de Beauvoir, S.  468, 475 de Gaulle, General Charles  3, 28, 31, 33, 38, 53–​4, 56, 183, 209, 227, 360, 361, 367, 398, 599, 645 defense and security legacy  639–​41 and the EEC  592–​3 de Gouges, O.  468 de la Serre, F.  589 Villepin, D. de  40, 188 Debré, Michel  29 Debré laws (1959)  26, 38 Decentralization Act (1982), France  285 decentralization policies and reforms (1980s)  113, 114, 134–​5, 249, 282–​3, 289–​90, 361 and governance  291–​3 and historical path dependency in France  288–​91, 290t interpretations (1982–​92)  288–​9 and territorial identities  293–​5, 294t Declaration of Human and Civil Rights (1789)  22, 23, 229 decolonization process  18 defense and security policy  9, 636–​47 bureaucratic politics paradigm  638 conscription, ending  642–​3 contemporary conflicts challenges to the Western “way of war”  646 contracting out of security functions  639 “culture of intelligence”  645–​6 de Gaulle’s legacy  639–​41 economists and think tank emergence in France 641, 644 “European defense”  643–​4 Europeanization of French defense policy 644 Fifth Republic’s armaments policy  640–​1 first Gulf War, and French failings  642 foreign policy analysis  637–​8 historical studies of military doctrine  638 internal and external security dichotomy 639

 

INDEX   699 interventionist policy  643 military sociology  637 multinational peace operations 639 new technology in armed forces  639 nuclear policy  637 parliamentary control of the armed forces 645 realist approaches  637, 642 research agenda  645–​7 role of the military institution in modern society  646–​7 sociologists and rationalism in strategic affairs 637 sociology influences  641–​3, 645 strategy  643–​4 studies review  636–​9 terrorism 639 Defferre reforms  32, 290 Dehousse, R. 589 Delage, P.  472, 572 Délégation ministérielle pour l’armement (DMA) 640 Deleuze, G. 7 Della Sudda, M.  469 Delors, Jacques  104, 106, 594, 595, 599 Déloye, Y.  493, 494, 496, 498 democracy:  and pluralism of interests  33–​4 and republicanism  40 and women’s representation  558 Denmark, varieties of capitalism  612 Denni, B. 333 Denters, B.  107, 108 departments  282, 289, 291 definition of  268 n.1 Derrida, J. 7 Detienne, M. 496 Deutsch, K. 283 Deutschmark 593 Development Assistance Committee (OECD)  654, 664, 666, 668 Dicey, A. V.  220 Dieckhoff, A.  485, 487 Direction générale de l’armement (DGA)  640, 641, 642, 644

dirigisme model  152 economic governance  510, 517, 518, 519, 520, 527 and liberalization  161–​3, 167 Dogan, M. 186 Dormagen, J. Y.  339 Dosquet, F. 399 Dosse, F. 686 Douillet, A.-​C.  291 “Douste Blazy reform” (health insurance, 2004) 68, 71 Downs, A.  245, 353, 377, 378 Draghi, Mario  526 Dreyfus Affair  469 Druckman, J. N.  402, 404 dual nationality  93 Dubois, V. 262 Duchesne, S.  338, 483, 493, 685 Dufoix, S. 93 Duguit, L.  52, 184, 679 Duhamel. O. 184 Dumez, H. 136 Dunezat, X. 450 Dupeux, G.  329, 334, 367 n.1 Dupont-​White, C.  51–​2 Duran, P.  113, 117 Durkheim, E.  5, 52, 82, 122, 184, 250, 330, 333, 334, 440, 679 Duverger, M.  183, 185–​6, 193, 357, 375, 376, 377, 379, 386, 388, 389, 390 n.3. 679, 680, 691 n.1 Duyvendak, J. W.  452 Dyson, K.  45, 510, 527 Dyson, S. B.  191 early retirement schemes (2000), France  70 Easterly, W.  658, 660 Easton, D. 334 eco-​citizenship  549 École libres des sciences politiques (ELSP)  5 Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA) 50, 253 Ecole Polytechnique 50 Ecology Ministry, France  541, 542 ecology movements  535, 541, 542 economic crises, transmission across borders 154

 

700   INDEX economic globalization, and the conception of space 286 economic policy  9, 509–​28 AAA bond rating  526 balance-​of-​payments problem  518 “bricolage” concept  522 capital controls  514 capital mobility hypothesis  514–​15, 516 crisis of 1983, responses to  519 depoliticization of (1990s)  516 dirigiste economic governance  510, 517, 518, 519, 520, 527 étatiste tradition  517 EU Economic Partnership Programs (EPPs) 525 EU Fiscal Compact  525, 526 EU Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) 523, 525 eurozone fiscal rectitude  525–​7 “freer markets, more rules” focus  515, 516 French policy  516–​21 French policy and post-​dirigisme  521–​7, 528 global financial crisis (GFC)  521, 526, 607 Guidance Law and Public Finance Control 524 institutions, interests and ideas  510–​16 international capital mobility  514–​16 Keynesian demand management  513, 514 liberalization and deregulation  515, 516 loi organique relative aux lois des finances (LOLF) 256, 524 Maastricht convergence criteria  63, 524 “Mitterrand Experiment”  518 neo-​liberalism shift  515–​16, 519–​20 ordo-​liberal ideological agenda  519, 524, 528 privatization program (mid 1980s)  520 policy ideas and policy paradigms  513–​14 public choice  512–​13, 516, 519, 523, 524 public policy instruments  519 redistributive policies  515 rules-​based competitive market order  523–​5, 528 state-​market relations  509–​10, 515–​16 “three ‘I’s”  510, 521 “time-​inconsistency” thesis  512 “translation” concept  522 Trente Glorieuses (1950–​1980)  517–​18

Edwards, G. C.  180, 404 egalitarianism 24 Eisenhower, Dwight D.  351, 637 Eisenstein, H.  465, 466 elections in France  349–​67 “anchor variables”  354–​5, 356, 358 candidates’ image  366 class vote in France  353, 357 ecological analysis  356–​7 economic voting  353–​4, 360 economic voting in France  361 election campaigns research in France  363 electoral behaviour studies in France  356–​66 electoral behaviour studies post-​1960  352–​6 electoral rules changes  361–​2 étoffe d’un président” 359 “funnel of causality”  351, 355 further research agenda in France  362–​6 ideological orientation  352–​3 ideological orientation in France  357, 358 ideology  364–​5 ideology in France  359 immigrants and their descendants’ electoral behaviour 364 immigration issues  360 “issue ownership”  354, 366 issue salience and vote choice  359 issues 367 issues in France  360 leader image  353, 354, 367 leader image in France  360 long-​term variables  350–​1, 353, 355, 396 long-​term variables research in France  357–​8, 363–​5 Michigan model of electoral behaviour  312, 349, 350–​6, 359, 358, 359, 365, 367, 398 models of voter behaviour  350–​6 municipal elections  362 party identification  364–​5 party identification as socio-​psychological variable 350 party identification in France  357, 359–​60 party identification in non-​US contexts  352–​3 “party-​centered era”/​”candidate-​centered era” move  353 “patrimony effect”  350, 358, 364

 

INDEX   701 perspectives of foreign political science on France  359–​60 political science perspectives on elections in France  356–​9 regional variables  363 short-​term factors/​variables  350, 351, 353, 358–​9, 396 short-​term variables research in France  361, 365–​6 spatial and geographical analysis  356 spatial theory of voting  353 turning points of French political life  361–​2 valence issues  353, 355–​6 valence issues in France  360, 366 Elgie, R. 257 Elias, N.  448, 493, 495, 497 elites  31, 32, 33, 38, 50, 186, 189, 428, 484, 522, 622, 623, 624, 645 administrative/​bureaucratic  163, 250, 253–4, 257–​9, 519 local/​regional  32, 291–​2 political  21–​2, 36, 186, 321, 429, 498, 513, 516, 612 Elkins, Z.  220, 222, 227 Ellul, J. 397 European Monetary Union (EMU)  595 énarques 186 Energy Transition round table  659 Engeli, I. 572 Engels, F. 440 English Constitution, The (Bagehot)  178 English-​language invasion  35 Entman, R. 402 Environment Ministry history committee  550 environmental and energy policy  9, 535–​50 actor-​centered approaches to public policy 545 administrative reforms in France  548 agenda for future research  547–​9 brief summary of the background context in France  541–​2 challenges for comparative research  536–​40 collective action and cooperation  539 comparative policy research  538 cross-​national and -​sectoral variations in policy  539–​40 cross-​sectoral comparative research  548

development of environmental mobilizations  536–​7 development of theoretical literature  538–​40 and eco-​citizenship  549 ecological modernization  537 Ecology Ministry, France  541, 542 environmental activism and political research  548–​9 environmental activists alliance with Socialist party in France  541 environmental protection legislation  541–​2 European Court of Human Justice  546–​7 European integration  546–​7 European Union comparative studies  546–​7 failed institutionalization  543–​6 France as deviant case  543 green issues and mainstreaming political parties 543 Green Party creation  541 institutionalization/​ de-​institutionalization  539 lobbying and consultation  543 management of ecological resources  537 nature conservation  537 and NGOs  542 non-​state actor role in policy developments 539 as outlier case in comparative political research  546–​7 as a policy area worthy of study  537–​8 public goods and natural resources 536–​7 research as an output of French environmentalism  542–​3 research in France  540–​7 sustainable consumption  549 sustainable development agenda  537 transnational policy dynamics  539 Environmental Ministry, France  547 Epstein, R.  292–​3 equality, and republicanism  20, 22, 23, 39–​40 see also gender equality Erikson, Erik  82–​3 Erikson, R. S.  403 Escafré-​Dublet, A.  90 Escobar, A, 658

 

702   INDEX Esping-​Anderson:  gender-​blind analysis  565 taxonomy of welfare states  559 Estates General  48, 49 État d’urgence 40 Ethnic Minority British Election Survey (EMBES) 340 ethnic/​racial minorities, and republicanism  24, 34–​5 Etien, R. 235 European Economic Community (EEC) 599 institutional reform and Mitterrand  595 negotiations 592 Eulau, H. 199 Euratom 591 EURelite  206, 215 n.3 Eurobarometer 329, 338 Eurobonds 165, 626 European Central Bank (ECB)  57, 523 quantitative easing  165 European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)  590–​1, 592 European Commission  104 and French pension reforms (2010/​2013) 73, 74 regional policy design  287 European Council, establishment of  54 European Court of Justice (ECJ)  133, 136 and EEP in France  546–​7 European Defense Community (EDC)  590–​1, 592 European Economic Community (EEC) treaty (1957) 590 European Framework programme  214 European integration and France  9, 523, 585–​602 comparative studies  588, 596–​7 construction phase (1945–​70)  590–​3 EEC institutional reform and Mitterrand 595 environmental and energy policy  546–​7 Europeanization phase (2000–​)  596–​9 evidence and arguments about the relationship  590–​9 extension phase (1970–​2000)  593–​6 France fit/​misfit theorems  588 French-​based perspectives  588–​90

and French electoral politics  598 French statist attitudes to Europeanization 597 “functional spillover” mechanisms  586, 587, 591 future research  600–​1 ideational arguments  594–​5, 601 institutionalist arguments  594–​5, 601 institutionalist theorizing  598–​9 intergovernmentalist arguments  593 IR-​focused scholarship  600–​1 liberal intergovernmentalism (LI)  587, 589, 591, 592, 599 and multi-​level governance theory  102 and national identity  488–​9 “neo-​functionalism”  586–​7, 589, 591, 592, 593, 594, 599 “political sociology” approach  589–​90 “political spillover” mechanisms  586–​7, 591 single currency and EMU debate  594, 595–​6 and territorial politics  287–​8 theoretical approaches  586–​6 theoretical impact and future potential of the French case  599–​601 see also Europeanization of public policy in France European Islam  94 European Monetary System (EMS)  160, 167, 518, 593, 594, 617 European Monetary Union (EMU)  57, 520 European Parliament  593 European regions identity scale  294t European Research Council  214 European Social Survey (ESS)  329, 332 European Stability Mechanism  165 European Union (EU)  55, 95 citizenship and identity  338 Economic Partnership Programs (EPPs)  525 enlargement 596 Fiscal Compact  525, 526 integration and EEP in France  546–​7 integration and French Constitutional review 227 Monetary Union  57, 520 and multi-​level governance studies  103–​10 multi-​level rule-​making  4 single market (1992)  63, 589, 594

 

INDEX   703 Single European Act (1968)  129, 134, 135, 136, 160, 523 sovereign debt crisis  4, 143, 156–​7, 158, 164–6, 616, 626 Stability and Growth Pact (SGP)  523, 525 Structural Funds policy  104, 111, 287 European Values Studies  329, 489 Europeanization of legislatures (OPAL project)  207, 215 n.4 Europeanization of public policy in France  8, 128–​45 actors “choosing” and “learning”  142 circular Europeanization definition  130–​1 cognitive usage  139–​40 compliance and non-​compliance with EU law  132–​3 conceptual framework  129–​33 downloading/​uploading definition  130 emancipation of French research  138–​9 European integration as a factor of domestic change  134–​7 European political agenda emergence  136 “Europeanization without Europe”  138 France as deviant case  129 forms of adaptation  131–​2 gender policies  138 immigration control  137 importing comparative research questions  137–​8 inertia and stalemate  133 infringement procedures, EU Commission 133 instruments of resistance  142–​4, 145 interest groups  137–​8 legitimization usage  140 longitudinal process-​tracing  139 “misfit”/​”mismatch” hypothesis  133 non-​compliance studies  133, 141 policy transfer  131, 140–​1 qualitative research methods  128 resistance to European public policy  141–​4 “sectorial corporatism”  135 strategic usage  139 usages concept  142 using European integration strategically  139–​40 Euroskepticism  132, 142, 144

Eurozone debt crisis  4, 143, 156–​7, 158, 616, 626 and the preferences of French policymakers  164–​6 Evangelista, M. 638 Evans, P. 509 Evian anti-​G8 protests (2003)  451 exchange rate mechanism (ERM), European 154 executive politics  8, 177–​93, 209 “behavioural” political science  185 coalition formation  181 coalitional presidentialism  182 “cohabitation” (1986)  183–​4 comparative studies  185, 188, 189, 192 “de-​election” rate  190–​1 economic voting  190 elite training and trajectories  186–​7 énarques 186 executive-​legislative relations studies  188–​9 in France  183–​8 future research  189–​92 general theories on the French case 189–​90 government collapse and survival  182 guillotine procedures  188 historical institutionalism  181 “new” institutionalism  179 “old” institutionalist tradition  178–​9 performative accounts of political leaders 192 political psychology approaches  180–​1, 191 political science in France  185 political sociology approaches  185, 189 presidential term reduction (2005)  184 president-​parliamentarism  181 psychobiographical accounts  180, 181 public law and “administrative science” approaches  184, 186, 189 “quality of democracy” studies  190 rational choice institutionalism  179–​80, 180, 181 semi-​presidentialism  181, 185, 315–​16, 212, 235 strategic analysis of institutions research  184–​5 studies outside France  178–​82, 192 Eymeri-​Douzans, J.-​M.  261

 

704   INDEX Falkner, G. 133 Faure, A.  291, 338 Faure, Maurice  592 Favoreu, L.  227, 235 Favre, P.  444, 447 Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d'Exploitants Agricoles (FNSEA)  424 feminist comparative policy (FCP)  556–​74, 575 n.1 democracy and women’s representation 558 emergence of approach and community (1980s to present)  557–​9, 558t equal employment legislation  566–​7, 571 EU model of work-​family reconciliation  565–​6 field of women’s advocacy  568, 571, 573 future directions  572–​4 gender-​based republican universalism  568–​9 gender-​based violence  571–​2 gendering welfare states  564–​5 historical studies  565 innovation in studying implementation and impact  569–​72 integrative feminist approach  557 international research networks  559 intersectionality concept  561, 573 new cross-​cutting themes  561–​2 new institutionalism  561–​2 policy formation  567–​9 policy outcome and impact  560 political representation  570–​1 problem definition focus  560 quota politics  561 research streams and cross-​cutting themes  559–​61 state feminism  465, 560–​1, 566–​7, 573 supra-​/​subnational levels  567 women’s movement, and policy 560, 561 women’s policy agencies (WPAs)  560–​1, 566, 573 women’s rights policy in France  566 work-​family reconciliation policies  565 see also gender policy studies; women’s movements FEMCIT 558t, 561

feminism see feminist comparative policy (FCP); gender policy studies; women’s movements Feminism and Institutionalism International Network (FIIN)  561–​2 “femocrats”  465–​6, 560 Ferry, Jules  88 Ferry laws (1881 and 1882)  35 field of women’s advocacy  568, 571, 573 Fifth Republic  3, 14, 30, 39, 54, 186, 187, 239 n.3 armaments policy  640–​1 and “cohabitation”  188 de Gaulle’s defense legacy  639–​41 and environmentalism  543 and the majoritarian logic  320 and public administration  254 rationalized parliamentarianism  312 two-​round elections  315 see also Constitutions, Fifth Republic (1958) Fillieule, O.  336, 444 Fillon government  293 Fillon Reform (2003)  74 financial market integration, and national governments 154, 157 Fitoussi, J.-​P.  520 Flahault, E. 472 Flanagan, S. 331 Fligstein, N. 452 Fondation pour la recherche stratégique think tank 641 Food Safety Agency (1999)  257 Force Ouvrière (FO)  63, 69, 75 foreign direct investment (FDI)  611 Foucault, M. 7 Fouilleux, E. 135 Fourth Republic  31 constitution 15 research into parliaments  203 structural instability  187, 334 Franc Zone, Africa  662, 665 France Nature Environnement | (FNE) 550 Franck, T. 341 Fraternity (Fraternité) and republicanism  25–​7 French National Election Study (1995)  363 French Regulation School, and regional governance 292

 

INDEX   705 French Revolution, and the establishment of the republic  22, 49–​50 Freud, S. 180 Friedberg, E.  377, 544 Friedman, G. 333 Friedrich, C. J.  201 Frognier, A. P.  488 FrontlineSMS 434 Front National (FN), National Front  16, 36–​7, 38, 82, 86, 320–​1, 341, 357, 380, 382, 383, 491, 492, 627 anti-​immigrant message  158–​9 and globalization  151, 155 and political elites  186 Gaillard, Félix  592 Galerand, E. 450 Gallagher, M. 315 Gallagher index  315 Gallois, Pierre Marie  640 Gallot, F. 474 Gally, N. 261 Galton problem  656 game theory literature  236–​7 Gans, Herbert  83 Garcia, G. 403 Garrett, G. 515 Gastil, J. 404 Gaullist party (UNR)  379 Gautier, Louis  642 Gaxie, D.  335–​6, 399, 402 gay marriage controversy 24, 389 Geertz, C. 332 Gellner, E.  483–​4 gender-​based violence  472, 571–​2 gender-​blind values  558 gender equality  235, 450 gap in political participation  341 hierarchy challenges  461, 463 mainstreaming 475 parity campaign (1990s)  467 parity law (2000)  210 quotas within political parties  467 see also women’s movements Gender Equality Policy in Practice Project (GEPP, 2013–​20)  572, 573

gender policy studies (GPS)  9, 138, 556–​74 context  562–​3, 564 equal employment  571 equal employment legislation  566–​7 EU model of work-​family reconciliation  565–​6 feminist policy formation  567–​9 “field of women’s advocacy”  571, 568, 573 French innovation in studying implementation and impact  569–​72 future directions  572–​4 “gender-​based republican universalism”  568–​9 gender-​based violence  571–​2 gendering welfare states  564–​6 historical studies  565 institutionalization 563 political representation  570–​1 social context  state feminism  566–​7 supra-​/​subnational levels  567 two-​country studies of equality policies  563 women’s rights policy in France  566 work-​family reconciliation policies  565 see also feminist comparative policy (FCP); women’s movements gender relations in political parties  382 gender studies and public administration  259–​60 Genieys, W.  642, 145 Georgakaki, D. 590 German Constitutional Court  225, 230 politicization of judges  233 German constitutional system  179 Germany, varieties of capitalism  615 Gerstlé, J. 403 Gervais, J.  255, 259, 261 Gibson, J. L.  238 Ginsburg, T.  220, 222, 227 Girard, A.  367 n.1 Girondins  27 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry  30, 54, 55, 239 n.7, 317, 398, 401 and the European project  593–​4 “glass ceilings”  260, 474 Glatzer, M. 686 global financial crisis (GFC)  521, 526, 607 transmission across borders  154

 

706   INDEX globalization  8, 151–​67 Americanization 158 balance-​of-​payment crisis in France  165 bond market queue system in France  160 compensation hypothesis  155 deregulation of capital control in France 160 dirigisme state model and liberalization  161–​3, 167 and the Eurozone debt crisis  156–​7, 158 financial  514–​16 financial market integration and national governments 154, 157 and France  157–​63, 166 France and the European project  160 French banking system  159–​60, 160–​1 French lesson  164–​6 gap between expectations and policy changes in France  161 “globaphobia” 156 gouvernance économique 165 Great Recession responses  157 hyperglobalists 153 industrial relations in France  163 institutional hybridization  162 interest rates in France  160 left-​wing critics  156 “la mondialisation”  158 monetary policies, and national governments 154 monetary policy and regulation of the financial system in France  159–​60, 160–​1, 162–​3 national anxieties about  158 open economy politics (OEP) approach, and the eurozone debt crisis  164–​6 overview  152–​7 patent and copyright violations  156 and political representation  313 poorer democracies  156 power of capital (money) over both labour (workers) and government 155 Les Républicains, and immigration issues 159 rigid labour markets  162 sceptical perspectives  153 social policy and the welfare state  154–​5

sovereignty loss perceptions  151, 155, 158, 166, 167 transformational perspectives  153–​4 transnational corporations  153 transnational organized criminal networks 153 varieties of capitalism perspective  162–​3, 164, 625–​6 wage stagnation  156 winners and losers  155, 157 Goffman, E.  332, 396 Goguel, F. 356 Goldsmith, M. 107 Goodin, R.  14, 16 Gore, Al 246 Gougou, F. 342 Gouldner, A. W.  250 Gournay, B. 252 Gournay, Vincent de  49 Governing the Economy (Hall)  511 Governments, Markets and Growth (Zysman) 511 Goyer, M. 686 Graber, Doris  396 Grand, Camille  641 Great Depression (1930s)  513 protectionist reactions  157 Great Recession (2008)  341, 342 and political representation  321–​2 responses 157 Greece, Euro crisis  143, 626 Green parties, France  382, 541, 544 Greenstein, F. 334 Greffet, F. 403 Grémion, P.  113, 251, 252, 255, 289 Grenelle round table meetings  549 gross domestic product (GDP)  73 1975–​95  62, 77 n.7 post 2008 crisis  71 Grossman, E.  427, 428, 589 group boundaries  84 Groupe d’etude et de recherche sur les mutations du militantisme (GERMM)  444–​5, 449 Group for the Sociology of Organizations  251 Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique pour l’Étude de la Mondialisation et du Développement (GEMDEV)  655, 663, 667 

 

INDEX   707 Grunberg, G.  335, 341 Guéant, Claude  88 Guinaudeau, I. 544 Guiraudon, V.  137, 589–​90 Guizot, F.  49, 51 Gulf War (first), and French failings  642 Gurr, T. 440 Gurvitch, G.  184, 333 Gusfield, J. 449 Haas, E.  586, 590, 591, 600 Habermas, J.  406, 419 Hafner-​Burton, E.  138 Halbwachs, M. 496 Hall, P.  511, 513, 518, 609, 613 Hall, S. 332 Haller, M. 485 Hallin, D. C.  403 Hamel, C. 490 Hansford, T. G.  225 Hardin, G. 536 Harguindefuy, J. 432 Harrigan, J. 661 Hassner, P. 636 Hastings, M.  381, 382 Hauriou, M.  5, 52, 184 Haut Conseil de la Coopération Internationale (HCCI) 663 Haut Conseil des Finances Publiques (HCFP) 525 Hayes, G. 429 Hayward, J.  18, 25, 39 Hazareesingh, S. 15 headscarf debate and protests  36, 87–​8, 475–​6 health care  64, 66, 77 n.2, 68, 71 cost containment policies (post 2004)  75 “payment-​for-​performance” system  75 health insurance, “Douste Blazy reform” (2004) 68, 71 Hébert, J.-​P.  641 Heisbourg, François  641 Heoffler, C. 644 Herbst, S. 402 Herman, E. 472 High Authority for Audio-​visual Communication 401

Higher Audiovisual Council  401 “High-​tech Colbertism”  55 Hindmoor, A. 512 Hitler, Adolf  179 Hix, S. 315 Hobbes, T.  46, 178 Hobsbawm, E.  83, 484, 486 Hoffmann, S.  18, 158, 484, 499 n.3, 589, 679 Hoggart, R. 332 Holland, L. H.  638 Hollande, François  32, 36, 40, 55, 73, 74, 75, 165, 255, 258, 317, 361, 623, 627 territorial reforms  290 Hollande-​Ayrault administration, and local business taxes  293 “hollowing out” of the state  109 Hönnige, C. 233 Hooghe, L.  287, 486 Hoover, R. A.  638 Howell, W. G.  404 Howorth, J. 640 Huber, J.  187–​8 Hug, S. 376 Hughes, E. 332 Hungary, constitutional reform  143 Huntington, S. 637 Hyman, H. 334 identity, culture and politics  8, 81–​96 “basic group identity”  83 census categories and identity  89–​90 constructivist analysis  83 essentialist analysis  83 formation  83–​4 globalization and transnational identities  92–​5 identity-​based mobilization  84–​5 “identity boundaries”  91 identity formation in France  85–​6 “identity politics”  81, 82, 84–​5 Islam and the identity of the “Other”  87–​9 national  90–​1 politics of difference  86 second-​generation immigrants  85–​6, 90–​1 and transnational identity  95 Imbeau, L. M.  659

 

708   INDEX immigrants:  and citizenship  35–​6 and cultural processes  85 Indian groups  93 Islam, and the identity of the “Other”  87–​9 and multiple identities  490 second-​generation  85–​6, 90–​1 and welfare benefits  39 immigration:  and census categories  89 controls 137 and electoral behaviour  360 and globalization issues and national identity  155–​6, 489–​90, 492 Independent Administrative Authorities (AAI) 257 Independent Republican party  593 Indian immigrant groups  93 Industrial Monopoly  250 National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) 340 infotainment  397, 403, 405 Inglehart, R.  330–​1, 335 INSEE (the Census office)  340 “inside out”/​“outside in” approaches defined  6–​7 Institut d’études politiques de Paris  5 Institut de recherches stratégiques de l’École militaire (IRSEM) 642, 667 Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS) 641 Institut de stratégie comparé 643 Institut Emilie du Châtelet  573 Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI) 641 Institute for Environment (IFEN)  542 institutional hybridization  167 Intendants/​prefects  50–​1 interest groups  9, 417–​34 alternative state-​centric models in France 526 and bottom-​up Europeanization  427–​8 corporatism in France  425 corporatist accounts  421, 422 “domination-​crisis” model  423 “endemic and open conflict” model  423 European-​level  428–​9, 430

Europeanization frameworks  137–​8, 420–​1 experience of individuals  431 French contribution of moving beyond state-​centric models  426–​8, 427t “group-​centric” approaches  428–​34 historical understandings in France  422–​3 “inside-​out” approaches  418, 427, 428–​30 insider/​outsider dichotomy  419, 421 interchangeability with “pressure groups”  419 Jacobin concepts  422, 423 mainstream state-​centric models, and France  424–​6 Marxist/​neo-​Marxist approach  423 “meso-​corporatist/​neo-​corporatism” viewpoint  421–​2 models of French exceptionalism  423–​4 models of interest group-​state interaction  421–​2 new group-​centric framework  432–​4, 433 Fog. 19.2 new social movements  419–​20 “occupational groups”  420 “outside-​in”  417, 421–​2 pluralism in France  424–​5 pluralist models  421, 422 “policy network theory”  426 political opportunity structures (POS)  419–​20 political sociology  427 “promotional” groups  420 “protest model”  426, 427 resource mobilization theory (RMT) 419–​20, 430, 431, 441 resources  430–​2 single-​issue groups  420 social movement theory  419–​20 and social movements  418–​19 social movements and interest group differentiation 419 state as multiple opportunities and constraints  428–​30, 429f student movement of 1968  420 umbrella organizations  431 “untidy reality” model  423, 432 inter-​governmentalist theories  104 International Monetary Fund (IMF)  157, 523 International Relations Theory  539

 

INDEX   709 International Social Science Program (ISSP) 329 Inter-​parliamentary Union  201 Iraq war  646 Irondelle, B.  138, 642, 644 Isaacs, Harold R.  83 Islam 82 headscarf debate and protests  36, 87–​8, 475–​6 and the identity of the “Other”  87–​9 laws outlawing burqa and niqab  26, 475–​6, 236 and politics in France  340 see also Muslim identity; Muslim women “Islamophobia” 340, 492 Jabukowski, S. 642 Jacobin dictatorship (1793–​4)  50 Jacobinism  288, 289, 422, 423 Jacobs, L. R.  404 Jacquemart, A.  469, 470–​1 Jacquot, S.  142, 427, 428, 590 Jaffrelot, C. 487 Jan, P.  234, 238 Janowitz, M. 637 Japan 167 economic policymaking and political economy 511 Jasper, J. 452 Jayet, C.  489, 498 Jefferson, Thomas  220 Jennings, K. 334 Jeunemaître, A. 136 Jews 24 Joana, J. 642 Jobert, B.  519, 544 Johnson, C. 511 Jones, B. D.  403 Jospin, Lionel  55, 66, 114, 316, 360, 402, 520, 598, 659, 662 Juppé, Alain  63, 622 “Juppé Plan” (1995)  68, 73–​4 Kaciaf, N. 403 Kastoryano, R. 94 Katz, R.  377, 387 Katzenstein, M. F.  465–​6, 471

Katzenstein, P.  514, 608 Kaul, I. 663 Kauppi, N. 590 Kavanagh, O. 403 Keating, M.  284–​5, 286 Kergoat, D. 450 Kerrouche, E. 321 Kettl, D. F.  247 Keynesian economic approaches  517, 519, 526 demand management  513, 514 use of social benefits  61–​2 Kickert, W. 247 Kilby, C. 659 King, A.  187, 646 Kirchheimer, O.  377, 379 Kitschelt, H.  159, 441 Klapper, J. T.  396 Knack, S.  659, 660 Knapp, A.  423–​4 Knill, C. 547 Kohl, Helmut  595, 596 Kohn, H. 484 Kolodziel, E. A.  640 Kolopp, S. 261 König, Thomas  133 Kriegel, A.  357, 382, 384 Kriesi, H. 429 Krotz, U. 644 Kuhn, R.  402–​3 Kydland, F. 512 La Goutte d’eau campaign  432, 435 n.3 La Sept  401 Labouret, S. 342 Labroussian paradigm  442 Lacroix, J. 15 Ladrech, R. 130 Lægreid, P. 247 Laferté, G. 494 Lagrange, H. 342 Lakatos, I. 405 Lancaster, C.  659–​60, 665 Lancelot, A. 333 Langrod, G. 252 language rights in France  432 languages, local, and republicanism  34–​5

 

710   INDEX Languedoc-​Roussillon regional governance 292 Laroque, Pierre  61 Lascoumes, P. 544 Laski, H.  50, 179 Lasswell, H.  330, 395, 637 Latour, B. 261 Lavabre, W.-​C.  382, 364 Lavau, G.  357, 385, 386 law and society movement, US  450 Lazarsfeld, P.  396, 405 Le Bon, G.  440 Le Bras, H.  90 Le Foulgoc, A.  403 Le Galès, P.  113, 114–​15, 116, 291, 292, 338–​9 Le Grignou, B.  401 Le Pen, Jean-​Marie  155, 320–​1, 402, 492 Le Pen, Marine  38, 159, 321, 380, 492, 627 Leclercq, C. 385 Le Lidec, P.  265 Legavre, J.-​B.  399–​400 legislative politics  198–​214 agenda for future study in France  8, 209–​13 anthropological studies  206 appraisal of studies in France  204–​6 “behaviourist” strand  200 “big data”  212 comparative studies  200–​1 constitutionalist approaches  200 constructivist approach  201 data collection and processing  202 databases of MPs profiles and activities  211–​12 Europeanization of legislatures  206 financial and budgetary aspects  212 French case in comparative research  206–​9, 208t fieldwork emphasis  207 functionalist approach  201 historical approach  200, 201, 205 institutional analyses  205 institutionalist approaches  200 methodological challenges  211–​12 minority representation  213 MPs as elitist class  210 MPs expertise and constituency work  210–​11

MPs turnover  210 national and “regional” MPs comparisons 213 neo-​institutionalist approach  201 old and new politics  212–​13 “open data”  212 “pragmatic revolt”  200 rational choice approach  201 “socio-​history” studies  205 sociological approaches  207 sociological studies of MPs  205 software solutions  212 structural weakness of parliament  211, 215 n.2 structuralist/​constructivist studies  204 studies in France  203–​9 study of  199–​203 subnational assemblies  213 summary of main research areas  203 Leifried, S. 296 Lemieux, C. 497 Lépinard, E.  475–​6, 568 Lequesne, C.  136–​7, 589 Leroux, P.  25, 403 Levi Strauss, C.  383 Levy, M. R.  396 Lewis, Oscar  342 Lewis-​Beck, M. S.  360, 363, 365, 682 lesbian, gay, bi-​sexual and transgender (LGBT) rights  573 liberal capitalism  608 liberal intergovernmentalism  587 liberal market economies (LMEs)  609, 611, 612, 614, 619, 620, 621 liberty and freedom, and republicanism  22–​5, 39, 40 Lieber, M. 572 Liebert, U. 138 “Life Story” survey  85 Ligue des Femmes Françaises 469 Lijphart, A. 221 Lilleker, D. G.  403 Lindbloom, C. E.  545–​6 Lipietz, A. 618 Lipset, S. M.  283, 375 Lipsky, M. 260 Lipstiz, K. 404

 

INDEX   711 Lisbon Treaty (2007)  144, 213, 597 Lloyd, T. 660 Locke, John  178 Loi organique relative aux lois de finances (“LOLF”, 2001)  256, 524 Loriaux, M. 517 Lorrain, D. 113 Loschak, D. 252 Louis Napoleon  51 Louis XIII  47 Louis XIV 50 and state-​building  47 Lovenduski, J. 572 Lowell, L. 200 Luckmann, T. 395 Lutz, D. S.  222 “Luxembourg Compromise”  599 Maarek, P. 399 Maastricht Treaty (1991)  104, 129, 134, 135, 136, 589, 593, 594, 626 convergence criteria  63, 524 ratification debate  595–​6 Machiavelli, Niccolò  178 MAGEEQ 558t, 561 Magnette, P. 15 Mainwaring, S. 181 Mair, P.  377, 387, 598 Mancini, P. 403 Mangenot, M. 261 Manin, B.  314, 323, 404 Mansbridge, J. J.  310 March, J. 588 Marchand, P. 397 Marche des Beurs, la 491 Marks, G.  104, 287, 486 Martigny, V.  492, 496 Martin, D. C.  487 Martin, S. 207 Martinez-​Gallardo, C.  187 Maruani, M. 450 Marx, K. 440 Masclet, C.  473–​4 Maslow, A. 331 Maternité heureuse 470 Mathieu, B. 235 Mathieu, C. 524

Matonti, F. 570 Maur, A. 84 Mauroy, Pierre  61 Mawdsley, J. 644 May 1968 protests  163, 314, 319, 335, 420, 441, 446, 468 Mayer, N.  444, 487–​8, 680, 682 Mazey, S. 138 Mazur, A.  467, 566, 567, 568, 572, 575 n.1 McAdam, D.  405, 441, 449, 452 McBride, D. 467 McCauley, D.  427, 428 McCombs, D. L.  396 McGann, A. J.  159 McKinly, R. D.  660 McKinsey consultants  255 McMenamin, I. 257 McNamara, Robert  658 McQuail, D. 396 Mead, M. 330 MEDEF employer’s interest group  425 Mediapart 492 Melton, J.  220, 222, 227 Melucci, A.  441, 443 Mény, Y.  135, 589 Mérand, F. 644 mercantilism  48–​9 Mercier, A. 394 Merkel, Angela  525, 626 Merton, R. K.  244, 375 Meuret-​Campfort, E.  474 Mexico, farmers/​factory workers, and globalization 156 Meynaud, J. 333 Michel, L. 642 Michelat, G.  333–​4, 488, 489 Michels, R.  374, 376, 378 Michigan model of electoral behaviour  349, 350–​6, 359, 358, 359, 365, 367, 398 Michigan school  312 Mill, J. S.  51 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)  658 Miller, W. E.  350, 396 Miller-​Stokes theory of congruence  319 Mills, C. W.  637 Ministry for Public Works (Sustainable Development since 2007)  259

 

712   INDEX Ministry of Defense’s Delegation for Strategic Affairs 645, 641 Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and Co-​development  491 Ministry of Women’s Rights  468, 566 minority representation in the legislature  213 Mischi, J. 383 Mitrany, D. 586 Mitterrand, François  31, 32, 165, 183, 290, 359, 360, 361, 398, 401, 402, 596, 642, 680 and Catholic schools  26, 38 and the European project  593, 594–​6, 599 new liberalizing policy  617, 680 and social conflicts  446, 468 “Mitterrand Experiment”  518 Modern Capitalism (Shonfield)  511 Mollet, Guy  592 “Monarchie de juillet”  183 monetary policy  617 and national governments  154 and regulation of the financial system in France  159–​60, 160–​1, 162–​3 see also European Monetary System (EMS); European Monetary Union (EMU) Monnet, Jean  55–​6, 586, 591 “Monnet method”  586 Montchrétien, Antoine de  48 Montesquieu  5, 27, 200 Moravcsik, A.  587, 590, 591, 592, 594–​5, 599, 600 Moreau, R. 398 Mossuz-​Lavau, J.  340, 457, 563 Mouvement de libération des femmes (MLF) 468, 470 Mouvement français pour le planning familial (MFPF) 470, 472 Moyo, D. 658 Muller, P.  134–​5, 136, 403, 544, 589 multiculturalism 24, 28 multi-​level governance  8, 102–​22 articulation between European, regional and urban studies  119–​20 central-​local relations, and local/​regional governance  112–​15 central state demise  113–​14 cities/​regions, and EU regional policies 112, 113

clarifying epistemological status of “governance”  118–​19 constructivist political sociology approach 111 contextualizing the EU effect  110–​12 criticisms of the framework  105–​6 decentralization reforms  113 definition 102 differentiation logics  120–​1 diversification and hybridization of governing practice  109 and EU policy  104–​6 EU political space, emergence of  104–​5 EU structural funds  111 erosion of national state sovereignty  105 in French political science  110–​17 future of the study in France  117–​21 gatekeeper roles  111 governance  116–​17 governance criticism  117 governance framework, and analysis of policymaking and coordination  108–​10 governance framework controversies  109–​10 “hollowing out” of the state  109 in international political science  103–​10 inter-​municipal cooperation  114 inter-​municipal revolution  114–​15 local democracy  108 local/​reginal governance, and the transformation of central-​local relations  106–​8 metropolitan authorities  114–​15 multijurisdictional character of public problems 109 neo-​functionalist arguments  104, 105 networks 109 policymaking and coordination  4, 108–​12 “notables” 113 polycentralism and pluralization  109 public-​private partnerships  107 regional and local actors, and the EU  105 urban politics studies  106–​7 Mundell-​Fleming model  154, 160, 167 municipal elections  362 murder of journalists (Paris, January 2015)  28 Muslim identity  94, 94, 96 mosques and republicanism  26

 

INDEX   713 Muslim women:  and French feminists  475 working-​class  561 MUTORG-​ADMI research program  265 Nadeau, R.  360, 682 Napoleon Bonaparte:  coup d’état (1799)  31, 49–​50 Concordat 26 state-​building  50–​1 Napoléon III 31 National Assembly Law Committee  231 National Committee for Communications and Freedoms (CNCL)  401 national economic planning  55–​6 National Front see Front National (FN) national identity in France  9, 483–​99 agenda for the development of everyday nationhood studies  496–​8 “banal nationalism” concept  486, 496, 497 challenges to laïcité 492 chauvinism/​patriotism distinction  486 citizenship and  493–​4 comparative surveys  489, 499 n.6 cultural vs. political understandings of nationhood  485–​6 do nations matter?  484–​5 ethnic/​civic dichotomy  485–​6 European integration and national identity  488–​9 explaining the blind spot of French social scientists  493–​6 French contributions to the study 487–​91 habitus concept  495 identity checklist  490 immigration issues  489–​90, 492 individual identity  493–​4, 495 language issues  494 multiple identities of immigrants  490 National Front and nationalism  491 nationalism vs. cosmopolitanism debate  484–​5 nations and national identity  483–​7 Peasants into Frenchmen 487 perpetuation  486–​7 political context of  491–​2 pride in being French  489, 500 n.7

quantitative/​qualitative research divide 490 self-​identification  494–​5 Western/​Eastern nationalism dichotomy 485 “what it means to be French” debate  492 nationalization of banking and industries  53–​4 NATO 639, 646 enlargement 644 France’s reintegration (2009)  644 French withdrawal from integrated command 640 nature conservation movement  541 Naudet, D. 661 Naudier, D. 473 Nazi occupation of France  37 Negretto, G.  221, 222 Négrier, E. 291 neo-​functionalism  104, 105, 586–​7 and European integration  586–​7, 589, 591, 592, 593, 594, 599 neo-​Keyensian economics  627 neo-​liberal ideology  246, 256, 513, 614, 622 economics  515–​16, 519–​20 model of convergence  607, 608 Neto, A. 182 Neustadt, R. 179 Neuwirth reform (1967)  470 Neveu, E.  394, 400, 403, 404, 450 New Caledonia  227 New Public Management (NPM)  57, 107, 118, 244–​6, 255–​9 New Zealand studies of administration reform 246, 247 non-​government organizations (NGOs)  environmental 542 resisting EU policy implementation  143 Niboyer, E. 468 Nimmo, D.  395, 396 Niskanen, W. A.  245, 512 Noelle-​Neuman, E.  405 Noiriel, G.  337, 443, 491, 493, 496 Nora, P.  17, 40, 487 Norris, P. 403 North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) 156 nuclear deterrents, independent  54

 

714   INDEX Oatley, T. 515 Obershall, A. 431 Oberti, M. 115 Observatoire interrégional du politique 488 Occitan language  293 Organization for Economic Co-​Operation and Development (OECD)  32, 245, 523, 527, 654, 663, 666 aid 668 and French FDO  664 South-​South cooperation  666 Offe, C. 441 Offerlé, M.  337, 445 Office de Radiodiffusion-​Télévision Française 401 Oil Shock (1973)  56 Olsen, J. 588 Olson, M.  431, 441 Olsonian paradigm  444 Ongaro, E. 247 Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC)  592 Orloff, A. S.  559 Ostrogorksi, M.  374, 376, 378 O’Sullivan, M. 522 “outside in”/​”inside out” approach defined  6–​7 Oxfam 434 Ozouf, Mona  40–​1 PADEMIA  206, 215 n.3 Page, E. 107 Palier, B.  138, 559, 589, 590 Panebianco, A.  377, 379, 381, 387 pantouflage 253, 517 Paoletti, M. 570 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) 660 parité laws (2000)  318, 340 policy evaluations  570 Parodi, J.-​L.  184–​5 Parrado, S. 266 Parsons, T. 330 Parti communiste français (PCF)  16, 75, 333–4, 381, 383, 384, 442 and party systems  382 republican values  18 parties and party systems  9, 373–​90

academic introspection  384 biographical data  384–​5 “catch-​all models”  376–​8 communist model  382 comparative literature on  374–​8 “electoral professional parties” and ideology  387–​8 entrepreneurial approaches to research  377–​8 ethnographical work  384 founding works on political parties  378–​9 French-​and English-​language literature gap 385 French party system as “deviant case”  379 French research on parties post-​1990s  380 future research in France  387–​9 and the gay marriage controversy  389 ideological radicalization, and the UMP  387–​8 institutionalization process and parties  380–​1 languages and ideologies  383 mapping major frameworks in France  385–​6, 386f microstoria paradigm  383, 388 model of party cartelization  387 organizational approaches to research  376–​7 organizational culture of the UMP  381 “organizational order” criticisms  381 party archives  384 party socialization  381–​2 prioritizing the local level, and qualitative fieldwork  383–​5 and rational choice theory  385 rational-​choice modelling approach 377, 378 Rokkanian framework  385 social rooting and an organization’s internal culture 381 socialist organizational culture  381 as socially embedded institutions  380–​3 “structure of abeyance” notion  382 theoretical frameworks  374–​6, 375f typological approaches to research  376–​7 PARTIREP  206, 215 n.3 Pasquier, R.  111, 112, 116, 120, 291 Passeron, J. C.  122

 

INDEX   715 patent and copyright violations, and globalization 156 Patterson, T. 396 Pavard, B.  469, 470 Paxton, R. 18 pay as you go (PAYG) system, France  70, 71 deficits following financial crisis  72 old-​age insurance  63 PCF see Parti communiste français (PCF) pension reforms, France:  2003 70 2010  72–​3, 74 pensions system for industrial workers and peasants (1910)  60 Pension Orientation Council (COR)  73 Percheron, A. 334 Perrier, G.  475, 571 Perrineau, P. 357 Persico, S.  544, 548 Pétain, Maréchal Philippe  17–​18, 35 Peters, B. G.  109 Pettet, P.  14, 15 ‘peuple corse’ and the Conseil Constitutionnel  28–​9, 33 Piaget, C. 334 Piar, C. 399 Pierce, R.  312, 313–​14, 318–​19, 323, 360 Pierre, J. 109 Pierson, P. 587 Pinay, Antoine  592 Pineau, Christian  592 Pinson, G.  113, 116 Pitkin, H. F.  308–​9, 558 Pitts, J. 329 Plato 178 Pocock, J. G. A.  14 Poirier, General Lucien  640, 643 Poland, decentralization reforms  285 political communication  394–​406 advisors in France  399–​400 agenda for future research  401–​6 agenda-​centered research  396 “aggregation” discourse  398 “Americanization” of the practice  401 and behavioural theorists  395 competitive, interactionism-​inspired conceptualization 406

confirmation discourse  398 constructivist conception of  395 “cultural studies” school  395–​6 dialogic conceptualization of  406 disjunction and conjunction effects  402 ecumenical conceptualization of  405–​6 electoral persuasion paradigm  400, 402, 406 French and American presidential elections (1988) 399 French media landscape  399, 400–​1 infotainment  397, 403, 405 instrumental conceptualization  405 instrumental dimensions  399 international institutionalization of  394–​7 and the internet  403–​4 intersection with collective and public action 405 lexical analysis of political speeches  398 narrative theory of information  396 new technologies of information  405 news broadcasting during campaigns in France 399 opinion polls  400 persuasion paradigm  404–​5 “protest frame”  403 “Public and General Interest Communication” 400 public opinion  400, 402 in relation to policymaking  403 scientific legitimacy in France  397–​401 selective exposure processes  396 social determination of electoral preferences 396 social groups and responses to persuasion 402 “uses and gratifications” model  396, 398 political culture studies  9, 329–​43 “civic culture” and its posterity  330 cultural distinction  335–​6 “cultural liberalism”  335 “cultural studies” and beyond  332 cultural voting in France  341 culture of poverty in France  342 “ethnic statistics”  340 European citizenship and identity  338 gender gap in political participation  341

 

716   INDEX political culture studies (Cont.) and gender studies in France  340–​1 “habitus” concept  335 Islam and  340 new “cultural” look at social movements in France  336–​7 and “new social movements”  336 new social stratification and new political structures in France  339 non-​participation  333 parochial culture  330 participant culture  330 participation in democracy in France  337–​8 “petit moyens”  339 political socialization, France  334–​5 post-​materialism, French version  335 post-​materialist approaches  330–​1 post-​materialist shortcomings  331–​2 post-​national citizens in France  338–​9 race, ethnicity and immigration in France 340 “semi-​citizen” concept  339 socio-​history of politics in France  337 “sociological intervention” method  336 subject culture  330 two antagonistic subcultures  333–​4 US political scene contrasted  334 political life in France, academic study of  5–​6 outside/​inside-​out approaches  6–​7 political representation  9, 307–​23 accountability 316 “accountability mechanism”  308, 311 after the Great Recession  321–​2 anticipatory representation  311 “authorization” mechanism  308 beyond elections and state  312–​13 cohabitation 316 cumul des mandats 318 “counter-​democracy” concept  321 “crisis of representation”  320–​1 delegate vs. trustee and models of representation  309–​11 descriptive representation  309 descriptive representation in France  317–​18 elections as “republican feasts”  316–​17 electoral dynamics  307–​8, 309 formalistic representation  309

formalistic representation in France  315–​16 French perspectives on political representation  313–​15 Gallagher index  315 gyroscopic representation  311 imperative mandate  310 institutional manipulation and representation 320 “intellectual history” of democracy  314 lines of enquiry  307 Miller-​Stokes theory of congruence  319 minority ethnic groups  318 norms and models  308–​13 political party representation  312 promissory representation  310–​11 public opinion and public policies relationship 319 semi-​presidential architecture  315–​16 substantive representation  309 substantive representation in France  318–​19 surrogate representation  311 as “symbolic coup”  314 symbolic representation  309 symbolic representation in France  316–​17 trust in political parties  317 two-​round elections  315 varieties of representation, Pitkin’s legacy  308–​9 women’s representation in political office 318 Politix journal  447 Polity IV index  315 Pollack, M. A.  138 Pollard, J. 116 Pollitt, C. 247 Pompidou, Georges  3, 54, 361, 593, 594 Popkin, S. L.  396 Portugal 143 Posen, B. 638 prefects 282 role reform  265 preference formation processes, and the eurozone debt crisis  164–​6 Prescott, E. 512 Presidential Power (Neustadt)  179 presidential term reduction (2005)  54–​5, 184 presidentialism and parliamentarism, merits of 179, 181

 

INDEX   717 Price, D. 179 Prior, M. 403 psychobiography 191 public administration challenges  8, 243–​67 administrative elites  253–​4 administrative law and science  252–​3 administrative reforms in Napoleonic states  266–​7 agencies and mergers  256–​7 “Anglo-​Saxon” reform model  246–​7 bureaucracies to new public management research  244–​6 bureaucracy/​democracy relations 249 “bureaucratic phenomenon’s” five dimensions  244–​5 bureaucratic rules  251 centralization and its mechanism as relational and cultural patterns  250–​1 community associations  264–​5 comparative research  247 cross-​country comparisons  247–​8 decentralization and privatization of administrative activities  249 “delegated governance”  264 division of administrative labour and agentification 248 economics of organization  245 établissements publics legal category  256–​7 exploring the global picture from a comparative perspective  266–​7 exploring new regulations within the system  264–​6 flexibilization of public functions  249 functional politicization  258 isolation of strata  251 legalized accountability  249 New Public Management (NPM) principles of organization  245 New Zealand studies of administration reforms 246, 247 non-​profit organizations  264–​5 NPM and neo-​liberal doctrine  246 pantouflage 253 performance-​management tools, uses and effects  248, 255–​6 politics of structural choices  245

professional, social, and gender dimensions  259–​60 programmatic elites, policy turns and corporatism  257–​9 public-​private partnerships  249, 264–​5 rediscovering administrative institutions  261–​2 re-​exploring the structuring institutions of public administration in a context of change  263–​4 reform policies and the changing state  255 relationship-​avoidance mechanism  251 socio-​history and the knowledge of government 262 Spanish administrative reforms compared  266–​7 street-​level bureaucrats in context  260–​1 studies on bureaucracy under reform  254–​9 “technical bureaucracies”  257 territorial dimensions  251–​2 transformation of national administrative models  246–​8 public choice school and approaches  245, 512–​13, 516, 519, 523, 524 public-​private sector partnership and collaboration  56, 107, 249, 264–​5 Puda, B. 381 Putnam, R. 330 Quéré, O. 261 Quermonne, J.-​L.  54, 135, 136, 186 QUING project  573 quinquennat (2002) five year Presidential term 204 quota politics  561 Rabier, M. 474 racism 86 Radaelli, C. 138 radical feminist groups, US  464–​5 Raffarian, Jean-​Pierre  290 Raffarin government  70, 622 Rao, J. M.  659 Rasch, B. E.  221 rational choice theory and approaches 201, 385 and parties and party systems  377, 378

 

718   INDEX rational choice institutionalism  179–​80, 180, 181 Ray, O. 663 Reagan, Ronald  614 RéATE (réforme de l’administration territoriale de l’Etat) 265 “Red Bonnets” movement  294, 295 referendum (1962)  183 regional and local government  8, 282–​300 Brittany and regional identities  294–​5 Brittany/​Languedoc-​Roussillon comparison 292 business rates and tax collection  293 communes 291 cross-​national systems of production  285–​6 decentralization and governance in France  289–​9, 291–​3 decentralization and historical path dependency in France  288–​91, 290t decentralization and territorial identities  293–​5, 294t decentralization reforms in France  289–​90 departments  268 n.1, 282, 289, 291 ethno-​regionalist political organization 298 European integration and territorial politics  287–​8 European regional development policies  287–​8 French Regulation School and regional governance 292 identity markers  286 institutional approach to regional and local government 288 institutional resilience hypothesis  289–​91 instrumentalism/​identity dichotomy  286 legal competencies debate  289 local government and local governance distinction 291 mayors of communes  289 mechanisms of institutionalization of sub-​ state spaces  297–​8 methodological nationalism  296 “new regionalism” approach  286 notables as territorial intermediaries  284 parameters of territorial power  298–​300, 299t

political decentralization (1980s/​1990s)  285 prefects as territorial intermediaries  284 regions 291 regional representation at the EU level  287 rescaling of governance  285–​8 and the Rokkanian paradigm  284 strategies of territorial management  284–​5 system of local administration (statute following 1789 Revolution)  289 territorial politics in comparison  283–​8 territory as object to territory as subject  295–​7, 296f urban governance theories and regulation 292 religious symbols in schools  26–​7, 36, 88 Renan, E. 487 Républicains, Les:  and globalization  158 immigration issues  159 republican “baptism”  37 republicanism  8, 13–​41 “affirmative action”  39 Anglo-​American  19–​20 Catholic schools  26 central government and local authorities  31 citoyens actifs/​citoyens passifs division  23 and constitutional law  37–​8 and democracy  40 department councils  32 encompassing ideology  21–​41 État d’urgence 40 ethnic/​racial minorities  24, 34–​5 Front National  36–​7, 38 future for  37–​41 headscarf debate and protests  36 immigrants and citizenship  35–​6 institutions  22–​7 Jacobin paradigm  27–​32 judges and the implementation of laws  29–​30 liberty and freedom  22–​5, 39, 40 and local languages  34–​5 Lois fondamentales de la République  23 monarchy and republic synthesis  29, 30–​1 morality principle  28 Muslims and mosques  26 and national mandates  28–​9 other European systems  21

 

INDEX   719 parliament’s sovereignty  28, 29–​30 ‘peuple corse’ and the Conseil Constitutionnel  28–​9, 33 pluralism of interests and democracy  33–​4 presidential executive power  30–​1, 31 prefect’s role  32 racial and ethnic definition of citizens  82 Républicanisme  14–​15 responsibility principle  28 secularism (Laïcité)  22, 25–​7, 36 senate establishment  28 social security benefits  25 and society  33–​7 and sovereignty  27 supremacy of the law  29–​30 trade unions  33, 34 transatlantic parallels  13–​14, 14, 15, 16–​21, 27–​8 welfare befits and immigrants  39 women and inequality  24 Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS)  558t, 560–​1, 566, 575 n.5 resource mobilization theory (RMT)  419–​20, 430, 431, 441 Ressler, R. 485 Revel, J. 383 Revenu de Solidarité Active (RSA)  66 Revillard, A. 471 Revolution (1848)  24, 25 Revue française de science politique 447 Revue française de sociologie 447 Revenu de Solidarité Active (RSA)  70 Revenu Minimum d’Insertion (RMI)  66, 69 Reynaud, Paul  592 Rhodes, R.  109, 110, 116 Ribert, E. 489 Richelieu, Cardinal  46, 47, 48 Riker, W. 182 RNGS network  Robespierre, Maximilien  21 Robinson, J. P.  396 Rocard, Michel  188, 290 Rocard memo (1988)  230 Rodgers, D. 14 Rokeach, M. 332 Rokkan, S.  284, 375, 376 Rokkanian framework  284, 385

Roodman, D, 659 Rootes, C. 427 Rosanvallon, P.  314, 321 Roudy, Yvette  566 Rousseau, J.-​J.  5, 27, 310, 422 Roy, J. 238 Royal, Ségolène  491, 622 Rozenberg, O.  597, 599 Rucht, D. 444 Ruitort, P.  399, 403 Runciman, D. 45 Saada, E. 91 Saalfeld, T. 207 Sade, Marquis de  17 Saint Simon, H. de  516 Saint-​Cyr cadets  645 Saint-​Just, Louis, Antoine de  22 Saint-​Martin, D.  255 Saleilles, Raymond  52 Sanders, K. 395 Sandholtz, W. 587 Sapiro, V.  450–​1, 453 n.11 Sarkozy, Nicolas  55, 72, 74, 165, 187, 188, 190, 221, 257, 258, 359, 381, 526, 625 constitutional reforms  23, 30, 204, 238 and Europeanization  626–​7 “General Review of Public Policies”  72, 255, 257 globalization 622 and national identity  491–​2, 496 territorial reforms  290, 293 and the UMP  387 Sartori, G.  375, 379, 656–​7 Saurugger, S.  111, 140, 427, 428, 589 Sawer, M.  465, 466 Sawicki, F. 343 Say, J.-​B.  516 Schain, M. 422 Schmidt, V. 521 Schnapper, D. 493 Schonfeld, W. 384 Schraeder, P. J.  659, 660 Schuman, Robert  590, 591 Schumpeter, J.  377–​8, 385 Schütz, A. 396 Schwartz, S.  331–​2

 

720   INDEX Schweisguth, E.  335, 341 Sciences Po Paris  444, 488 Scott, J. 445 Scottish nationalists  287 Second Empire, France  51 Secrétariat general du comité interministériel pour la cooperation internationale (SGCI) 135, 136 secularism (Laïcité)  22, 25–​7, 36, 82 and the headscarf debate  87–​8 Seiler, D-​L.  385 Selznick, P. 250 semi-​presidential regime  185, 212, 315 architecture and political representation  315–​16 institutions 235 Serfati, C.  641, 643–​4 Servent, P. 191 Severino, J.-​M.  663 “sexuated social relationships”/​“sexuated social movements”  450 Seymour-​Ure, C.  405 Shaping the 21st Century (OECD report, 1996) 658 Shaw, M. E.  396 Shonfield, A.  55, 511, 517, 608, 616–​17 Shugart, M. S.  181 Siegfried, A.  5, 356, 396, 679 Sieyès, Abbé  49, 50 Siméant, J. 343 Simon, H. A.  244, 250 Simon, M.  333–​4 Simon, P.  90, 490 Sineau, M.  340, 563 Single European Act (SEA, 1968)  129, 134, 135, 136, 160, 523, 593 Single Market, EU 1992  63, 589, 594 Sintomer, Y. 338 Skinner, D.  14, 19, 21 Smelser, N. 440 Smith, A.  106, 117, 589, 590, 642 Snyder, J. 638 social insurance system  60 social movement theory  441, 445, 477, 539 social movements in France  9, 439–​52 agenda for future research  448–​52 American theories  440–​1 antiglobalization movements research  451

collective action as politics by other means  440–​1 construction of groups/​construction of causes 449 contentious politics approach  448, 449 “demonstration democracy” archetype  439 entrepreneurial models  440 “European identity paradigm”  441 explanatory hypotheses, and research agendas  446–​8 first stage development history  442–​3 fourth stage development history  444–​6 gender and social mobilization  450 identity paradigm  443 institutional socialization  451 internationalization of research in France 447 mobilization theory  441 and the “narrowing of academic spaces” 447 “new poverty”/​”the working poor”  446 paradigm shifts and the “thrust of real history”  440–​2 “political process” model  441 research funding source in France  447 research methods compared with US  451–​2 second stage development history  443–​4 “sexuated social relationships”/​“sexuated social movements”  450 sociology of social movements  449–​51, 453 n.11 student movement (1968)  446–​7 substantialist approaches  443 third stage development history  444 Tourainian school  443, 452 n.3 working-​class activism  442–​3, 444 social networks (SN)  419–​20 social policy and the welfare state, and globalization  154–​5 social psychology (SP)  419–​20 social security benefits, and republicanism  25 Socialist Party (PS), French  159, 380, 381, 388 and globalization  158 and national identity  491 “sociological intervention” methods  336 sociology of organizations  288 Solidarity movement, Poland  443

 

INDEX   721 Sommier, I.  336, 446 SOS Loire Vivant  428 Soskice, D. 609 Sotou, G.-​H.  643 sovereign debt crisis, European  4, 143, 156–​7, 158, 164–​6, 616, 626 sovereignty concept  46–​7 debate  52–​3 and republicanism  27 sovereignty loss perceptions, and globalization  151, 155, 158, 166, 167 Soysal, Y. 338 Spain:  administrative reforms compared with French  266–​7 Constitution 28 identity markers  287 post-​Francoist democracy  284 Spriggs, J. F.  225 Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), EU  57, 165–6, 616, 626 “stagflation” 513 Staggenborg, S. 464 Standard and Poor, and France’s credit rating 72 state feminism  465, 573, 560–​1, 566–​7 state imperative  8, 44–​58 absolutism and Louis XIV  47–​8 citizenship 49 conceptual preliminaries  44–​7 Council of State (1902)  51 dual conception of  45–​6 economic protectionism  48 French Revolution  49–​50 “High-​tech Colbertism”  55 historical state-​building  47–​51 Intendants/​prefects’ role in state-​building  50–​1 mercantilism  48–​9 Napoleon and the  50–​1 national economic planning  55–​6 nationalization of banking and industries  53–​4 presidential executive power  53–​4 presidential term of office changes  54–​5 privatizations (1990s)  57 provision of public services  51–​8

public law/​administrative law  52 public-​private sector collaboration  56 sale of public offices  48 sovereignty concept  46–​7 and sovereignty debate  52–​3 Thatcherite UK/​Mitterrandian France compared  56–​7 warfare 48 welfare state institutionalization  53 State intervention  4 and the provision of public services  53 state-​influenced market economies (SMEs)  610, 614, 619, 620 Sterdyniak, H. 524 Stirbois, Jean-​Pierre  491 Stoetzel, J.  333, 367 n.1 Stoker, G. 108 Stokes, D. E.  350, 353, 396 Stone, C.  106–​7 Stone-​Sweet, A.  30, 223, 227, 587 Storper, M. 285 “strategic analysis of institutions” research  184–​5 Strauss, A. 332 Stroker, G. 110 Strøm, K.  182, 207 Structural Funds, EU  104, 111, 287 student movement (1968)  443 Sub-​Saharan Africa: from Crisis to Sustainable Growth (World Bank report, 1989) 658 Suleiman, E.  18, 50, 252, 253 Surel, Y.  138, 140, 590 sustainable consumption  549 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UN 667 Swanson, D. L.  395, 396 Syad, Abdelmalek  85 “symbolic interactionism” school  332 Szarka, J. 544 Taine, H. 440 Tarde, G. 440 Tarrow, S.  405, 419, 429 Tartakowsy, D. 336 Tate, C. N.  222 Taylor, V. 464 temperance movement, US.  463–​4

 

722   INDEX territorial mobilization (1960s/​1970s), Western Europe  284 “Territory Health Pact”  75 terrorism 639 TF1 401 Thatcher, Margaret  293, 614, 615 Thiebaut, C. 403 Thiesse, A.-​M.  490–​1, 496, 498 Third Republic  18, 31, 37 constitution 15 consolidation of French republicanism  17 research into parliaments  203 social and family policy  564–​5 Thœnig, J.-​C.  112–​13, 251, 252, 254 Thomas, J.-​P.  488, 489 Thompson, E. P.  332, 443 Thorez, Maurice  381 Throssell, K.  496–​7, 498 Tiberj, V.  86, 340, 342, 364, 490, 680, 682 Tilly, C.  48, 405, 431, 441, 445 Tocqueville, Alexis de  32, 38, 49 Toronto G20 (2010)  526 Touraine, A.  336, 441, 443 Tourainian school  443, 452 n.3 trade unionism in France  163, 425 and feminism  474–​5 and republicanism  33, 34 Trajectory and Origin survey (2008) 86 Transparency International  434 Trat, J. 450 Trente Glorieuses (1950–​1980)  128, 152, 159, 162, 167, 517–​18 Tribalat, M.  89–​90 Trichet, J.-​C.  57, 519–​20 Truman, D.  418, 419, 421, 434 Tsebelis, G. 232 Tullock, G.  245, 512 “Tupperware circles” study  473 Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques  49 Turkey, transnational participation  94–​5 United Kingdom (UK):  accession to the EU  593 aid program  656 and the formation of the EEC  592–​3 varieties of capitalism  614–​15 UMP party, France  38, 381, 387–​8

Union Nationale des Caisses d’Assurance Maladie (UNCAM)  75 United States of America (USA)  civil rights movement  84, 442 defense economy  637 “development network state”  615 free trade strategy  156 French political scene contrasted  334 insistence on German rearmament  591 law and society movement  450 legislative studies  199, 202 legislatures 202 political psychology studies  180–​1 presidential elections of 1952 and 1956  351 republicanism, and transatlantic parallels with France  13–​14, 14, 15, 16–​21, 27–​8 Supreme Court  224 Supreme Court, comparisons with Constitutional Council  233 urban political economy  116 varieties of capitalism  614 university fees  25 Urbinati, N. 312 Vallinder, T. 222 Valls, Manuel  40, 76 van der Waal, J.  341 Van Gelderen, M.  14, 21 Vanberg, G.  225, 233 Vaneuville, R. 261 varieties of capitalism  9, 606–​28 35-​hour work week, France  621 Asian 611 austerity imposition  616, 627 binary approach to  608–​10 “Brussels-​Frankfurt consensus on austerity and structural reform”  626 “capture-​oriented capitalism”  611 “competitiveness-​oriented capitalism”  611 coordinated market economies (CMEs)  609–​10 critics 611 deficit rules, EU  627, 628 dependent market economies (DMEs) 611 deregulation 614 “development network state” in the US  615–​16

 

INDEX   723 dirigiste model in France  607, 608, 617, 616–​18 Eastern European varieties  611 empirical applicability  612–​13 “equality-​oriented capitalism”  611 European integration challenges  626–​8 European 608 Europeanization  625–​6 eurozone crisis  626 eurozone economy and divergence  627 explaining variation and change over time  612–​13 foreign direct investment (FDI)  611 France as a “state of mind” more than the “state in action”  625–​6 France as a distinctive variety of capitalism  618–​20, 623–​4 and globalization  162–​3, 164, 625–​6 “ideational legacies” in France  621–​2 industrial relations in France  617 innovation identification  612 institutional change and continuities  615–​16 labor relations in Continental Europe  612 liberal market economies (LMEs)  609–​10 “liberal market economies”/​”coordinated market economies”  607, 608 “mixed market economies”  609 monetarism in France  617 neo-​liberal model of convergence  607, 608 neoliberal reforms  614 Northern Europe/​Southern Europe dichotomy 627 policy, polity and politics, and France’s SME  620–​3 policy, polity and politics importance  613–​16 public pension reform  621, 622 référentiel school of public policy  618, 619 “regulation” school  618, 619 research agenda ahead  624–​8 Scandinavian model of the CME  simple/​compound polities  614–​15 “stability culture”  626 state importance  610 “status-​oriented capitalism”  611 UK and Germany contrasted with France  619–​20

Vedel, T. 403 Vennesson, P. 646 Verba, S.  332, 337, 680 Vichy regime  14, 18, 53, 262 “Virginia School”  512, 523 Viroli, M. 14 von Stein, L.  440 Walker, J.  425, 426 Wang, C. 661 Ware, A. 386 warfare and state-​building  48 Warleigh, A. 427 Waters, M. C.  83–​4 Weber, M.  82, 83, 330, 385, 440, 444, 487 Weldon, L. 560 welfare system  60–​77 1970s–​1980s  8, 61–​4 2008 crisis and beyond  71–​6 1990s–​2000s transformation  64–​7 1 “active labour market policies”  70 changes in financing  66–​7 employment-​related contributions  67 financial rescue plan (1975–​95)  62 first attempts at retrenchment (1960s)  63–​4 health care  64, 66, 77 n.2, 68, 71 health care cost containment policies (post 2004) 75 and immigrants  39 “Juppé Plan” (1995)  68, 73–​4 negation of state reforms  73–​6 “new poverty”  65 new structures  70–​1 “payment-​for-​performance” system  75 pension reform under European scrutiny (post 2009)  72–​3 pension reforms (2003)  70 politics of institutional reform  67–​70 re-​insertion programme  65, 66 “responsibility pact”  75–​6 social exclusion and the creation of new benefits  65–​6 social treatment of unemployment strategy 62 state institutionalization of  53 “Territory Health Pact”  75 unemployment (post-​1970)  65

 

724   INDEX welfare system (Cont.) union opposition to 2010 pension reforms 74 Welsh nationalists  287 Wessels, Wolfgang  136 Whittier, N. 464 Wihtol de Wenden, C.  340 Wikimedia Foundation  434 Williams, R. 332 Williamson, C. R.  660 Wilson, F.  421, 424, 425, 426 Wilson, Woodrow  178–​9, 201 Wodak, R. 495 Woll, C.  142, 427, 428 women:  identity formation in France  85 and inequality  24 policy agendas  471 representation in political office  318 see also feminist comparative policy (FCP); gender policy studies (GPS); women’s movements women’s advocacy, field of  568, 571, 573 Women’s Liberation Movement  84 women’s movements  9, 461–​77, 575 n.4 Action catholique générale féminine (ACGF)  469–​70 analytical definitions  462–​4 challenging routinized definitions of political and disruptive action  464–​5, 466 challenging social movement theory  462–​6 comparative research  463, 464–​5, 472, 477 contraception and abortion, legalization movements 470 corporate world in France  474 distinguished from feminist movements 463 feminist ideas beyond feminist movements  473–​5 “femocrats”  465–​6 “field of women’s advocacy”  471–​2 forms of appropriation  474 French scholars and studies  467–​72, 468b gender consciousness  474 gender hierarchy challenges  461, 463 gender mainstreaming  475

gender parity reform  471–​2 “inside-​out” approaches  477 institutional embeddedness of feminist protest  471–​2 intersectional lens  475–​6 Ligue des Femmes Françaises 469 men’s participation in the French feminist movement  470–​1 movements and institutions, blurring the line between  465–​6 Muslim women and French feminists  475 opposition to religious oppression  476 politicization of women’s identity in historical perspective  469–​7 1 state feminism concept  465 temperance movement, US  463–​4 trade unions and feminism  474–​5 “Tupperware circles” study  473 US radical feminist groups  464–​5 women’s policy agenda  471 see also feminist comparative policy (FCP); gender policy studies (GPS) women’s suffrage in France (1944)  468 Wordfish 191 Wordscore 191 working accident insurance (1898)  60 World Bank (WB)  157, 663 and the Carbon Emissions Estimator Tool 664 and ODA  658 World Trade Organization (WTO), multilevel rule-​making  4 World Values Survey (1990–​2000) 329, 342 World Wildlife Fund (WWF)  434 Worms, J.-​P.  112–​13, 251, 252 Wrenski report (1987)  65 Wright, V.  18, 423–​4 WW2 defeat in 1940  17–​18 Yalof, D. 238 Ysmal, C. 398 Zaller, J. R.  402 Ziller, Jacques  136 Zürn, M. 296 Zysman, J.  511, 517, 608