Abstract: Abstract A widespread assumption is that national political parties use candidate selection for European elections to promote unexperienced politicians or to offer a luxury retirement home to senior national figureheads. Yet, if much criticism is addressed to the outcomes of the parties’ selection procedures, the actual processes that lead to such outcomes are under remarkably little scrutiny. This article traces the candidate recruitment process that took place in the French party Europe Ecology—The Greens ahead of the 2014 European elections. It investigates how the greens have juggled between their participatory ideals and short-term campaign imperatives. Results show that different combinations of logics have prevailed at different times in the process of nomination. Although the party elite carefully designed a process to maximise its goals, developments ultimately escaped its control. PubDate: 2021-03-01
Abstract: Abstract What processes account for the deadlock in a given policy' While causes and mechanisms of policy change have been extensively researched, this paper sheds light on how formal institutional change can lead to policy deadlock. This paper examines two cases that demonstrate the absence of progress on integration policy during Sarkozy’s time in office (as a Minister of the Interior and as a president). Drawing on elite interviews, the paper points out how institutional change can lead to departmental competition within new or combined structures, leading to policy deadlock, as new layered actors do not always have the capacity to push old ones out, resulting in further institutional change. PubDate: 2021-03-01
Abstract: Abstract National identity claims have taken a growing importance in the French political landscape these last decades. While representations of French national identity have long been scrutinised from an elite perspective, much less is known about “What is it to be French'” from a citizen’s perspective. This article aims at filling this gap. Using the European Values Study data, from 1981 to 2018, it first offers a general measure of change in French people national claims during that period. Building on a classification, it then proposes to disentangle five different types of French nationalism. Finally, the article tests the explanatory power of these types of nationalism on support for attitudes and a few policy preferences which involve representations of the in-group and the out-group such as immigration and solidarity policies. PubDate: 2021-02-13
Abstract: Abstract Based on the latest European Values Study released in 2018, this study investigates the characteristics that French citizens ascribe to democracies to be essential. So far, little is known about democratic notions in a comparative perspective and even less about their origins and political consequences. To fill this research gap, this study adopts an exploratory research design where notions of democracy are, at first, inspected as dependent variables and, subsequently, scrutinized as determinants of political attitudes and participation. The empirical evidence reveals the deviating effects that different types of democratic notions exert on political attitudes and action and underscores the impact of personality traits and political ideology. PubDate: 2021-01-13
Abstract: Abstract Recent studies have acknowledged the heterogeneity in the way citizens make sense of their economic and cultural beliefs, thus calling to question the conventional assumption that political views are organized along a single liberal-conservative dimension and connected accordingly with left–right identifications. Our article contributes to this stream of research. Primarily highlighting the influence of political sophistication on attitude consistency, we show that only the most interested in politics associate their economic and cultural attitudes in accordance with the liberal-conservative continuum and are able to combine them in a coherent fashion with their ideological identifications. In contrast, large segments of the French public do not respond to the dominant framing of the political debate. PubDate: 2021-01-12
Abstract: Abstract It has long been recognized that changes in public policy governance have an impact on how state and civil society actors interact. The effects that such changes in governance have on contentious politics, however, are not as well understood. Looking at university reforms undertaken in France between 2005 and 2016, following the Bologna process, we show that the organization of student political representation, both within universities and at the national level, strongly influences the type of actors that mobilize, as well as the tactics, claims, and strategies that inform contentious politics. France’s postsecondary education system has experienced substantial changes following successive reforms passed in 2002, 2007, and 2013. These have led to major changes in the configuration of university governance, including a decentralization of power from the central state to local universities, accompanied by the centralization of power in the hands of new administrative bodies, particularly university presidents. We argue that these changes have not only had direct effects on student representation within university and state bodies but have also shaped student movements and the organization of protest. More precisely, they have limited student organizations’ ability to defend the interests of their members at the national level and have contributed to making autonomous, non-affiliated, local student protest more visible, thereby shifting the location of conflict from the national to the local level. PubDate: 2021-01-12
Abstract: Abstract The search for a universally acceptable definition of corruption has been a central element of scholarship on corruption over the last decades, without it ever reaching a consensus in academic circles. Moreover, it is far from certain that citizens share the same understanding of what should be labelled as ‘corruption’ across time, space and social groups. This article traces the journey from the classical conception of corruption, centred around the notions of morals and decay, to the modern understanding of the term focussing on individual actions and practices. It provides an overview of the scholarly struggle over meaning-making and shows how the definition of corruption as the ‘abuse of public/entrusted power for private gain’ became dominant, as corruption was constructed as a global problem by international organizations. Lastly, it advocates for bringing back a more constructivist perspective on the study of corruption which takes the ambiguity and political dimensions of corruption seriously. The article suggests new avenues of research to understand corruption in the changing context of the twenty-first century. PubDate: 2021-01-12
Abstract: Abstract Scholars have long investigated connections between types of knowledge use and types of policy subsystem. Yet, most of them focus on the learning function of expert information. The legitimizing function of knowledge—when expertise serves as a substitute for decision (Boswell in J Eur Public Policy 15(4):471–488, 2008)—has attracted less attention. An empirically validated explanation of this function is still missing. This article tests existing hypotheses regarding which features of the subsystem are conducive to the legitimizing function. The demonstration rests upon a case study: France’s Ministry of Agriculture’s commissioning of INRA to carry out a systematic literature review on pain in farm animals. Two types of factors are involved in the legitimizing function of knowledge: environmental mechanisms (an adversarial policy subsystem, concentration of policy authority) and relational mechanisms (coalitions displaying epistemic uncertainty and exerting pressures on the source of policy authority, a policy broker mitigating the conflict between the two coalitions). PubDate: 2021-01-06
Abstract: Abstract Ever since they have existed, studies have shown a link between religious affiliation and political behavior. However, the basis for this link is a social science blind spot. This article will therefore focus on the relationships between four poles: religious affiliation, political, moral, and economic attitudes. According to the EVS data, Catholics, Muslims, and the “no religion” group continue to express very different political attitudes in France today. These differences are not reducible to the peculiarities of the social affiliations of their members, nor to their possible migratory origin. And the opposing political attitudes of Catholics and the “no religion” turn out to be only partly due to the cultural attitudes associated with them, in the economic sphere and even more so in the moral sphere. PubDate: 2021-01-06
Abstract: Abstract Many analysts are very pessimistic about French society, which is becoming increasingly individualistic, with everyone acting according to their own interests. In fact, individualism is very often confused with individualisation, i.e. the desire for autonomy in the conduct of one’s life. These two attitudes are in fact quite opposite. Contrary to popular belief, individualism has been on the decline in France for the past 10 years, while individualisation is progressing very strongly. And above all, the more individualised you are, the less individualistic you are. The autonomy of the individual goes hand in hand with a stronger altruism. These attitudes are strongly linked to trust in others, left–right orientation, egalitarian values between men and women, politicisation and religiosity. PubDate: 2021-01-05
Abstract: Abstract Public “common sense” should be conceptualized as an important force structuring the politics of belonging. Homing in on the embodied and sensory aspects of common, taken-for-granted knowledge and the habits of perception that inform it, this article demonstrates how culturally entrained listening practices structure rights to the city and the exercise of citizenship. By tuning into the significance of ambient religious sound, it offers an empirical, ethnographic investigation into how common sense, in dialogue with constitutional and municipal law, shapes practices of citizenship and participation in French public space. The article argues that common sense deriving from perception and interpretation of public sound among majority French represents a stubborn obstacle to French Muslims’ exercise of full citizenship; indeed, it enacts a kind of violence that locks French Muslims out of agentive citizenry, rendering them objects to be muted at will, not fellow citizens to be heard. PubDate: 2020-11-03
Abstract: This introduction to the special issue on case study research, which showcases cutting edge research by emerging scholars on France, describes the connection between these articles and current developments in political science methodology. SI contributors situate their analyses in thick description of France itself, demonstrating how modernity, rationality, common sense, citizenship, and democracy are inherently abstract concepts that only take on political meaning and significance within a specific national context. Simultaneously, these essays flesh out mid-level theories that are more amenable to cross-national generalization without losing rigor in the process, contributing to broader political science literature on experience versus reason, the European and Christian roots of secularism and how this contributes to contemporary discrimination, welfare state development, and political lawyering and the judicialization of politics. PubDate: 2020-10-20
Abstract: Abstract This article develops a framework to explain ideological diversity within political parties in parliamentary democracies from the positions of individual legislators. First, I review the different theories explaining the variation of ideological diversity within political parties in the field of party politics and legislative studies. Then, I propose to model the relations between legislators, their party and their constituents as a competitive delegation process building on the principal-agent theory. I draw on the literature on the distribution of power within political parties to argue that intra-party ideological diversity can best be explained by vertical bargains taking place between the different territorial layers of political parties. PubDate: 2020-10-15
Abstract: Abstract In the field of comparative politics, France is often taken to exemplify the resilience of the centralized modern state. Stanley Hoffmann popularized this thesis by highlighting the French state’s “obstinacy” despite post-war reform efforts. This article revisits Hoffmann’s obstinate state thesis by tracing how lawyers and judges shaped French political development. I demonstrate that continuity in French officials’ claims to centralized power belie a deeper story of how legal actors catalyze institutional change in unlikely places: in civil law countries without a history of judicial review, in authoritarian regimes without regard for judicial independence, and in seemingly monolithic states without much room for democratic self-governance. These findings compel a comparative research agenda placing lawyers and judges at the center of the study of political development. PubDate: 2020-10-15
Abstract: Abstract The logic of French mental health policy—which already stands out against that of other countries—also appears at odds with the usual logic of French social policy. “La sectorisation psychiatrique” rejected the liberalism prominent in the rest of the health system, adopted Beveridgean principles decades in advance of other policy areas, and began to centralize precisely during the period of déconcentration. This article explains these puzzles by pointing to the role of public sector trade unions. Archival sources document how the historical advocacy of unions representing public psychiatric workers shaped public policy in mental health. Examining their political activity can revise standard interpretations of the French welfare state and illuminate a generalizable theoretical relationship for comparative analysis. PubDate: 2020-10-12
Abstract: Abstract The tropes of restraint and remediation that accompany the reform of public services and public administrations often locate in efficient costing the key to the state’s economic fitness. Knowledge of costs does not feature in such reforms solely as information conducive to the strengthening of budgetary reform. It is also knowledge that needs to be practised and exercised in order to achieve a virtuous modification of the conduct of the state. The case of public hospitals and universities in France illustrates how knowledge of costs is made sense of by state practitioners as a behavioural lever. A Foucauldian angle on the narratives and policies that inform such exercising of knowledge of costs reveals the contours of a new paradigm of the state’s self-care. PubDate: 2020-09-10
Abstract: Abstract This article studies the polarizing role Henri Bergson played in twentieth-century political theory in France and beyond. A controversial and charismatic philosopher, Bergson’s thought traveled a notoriously convoluted itinerary. Though his critiques of scientific positivism before the First World War endeared him to Catholic intellectuals, sectors of the French left were his most committed interpreters, a fact that mystified and enraged his contemporaries. Tracing the assorted ways the left took up Bergson—from syndicalism to négritude—brings into focus the left’s historically bipolar relationship to scientific progress and its promise of emancipation. It also underscores something fundamental about the history of the twentieth-century left: It maintained an ideologically unpredictable yet indispensable concern for “lived experience.” PubDate: 2020-09-08
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