Policy Analysis in France 9781447324232

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INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF POLICY ANALYSIS SERIES EDITORS: IRIS GEVA-MAY & MICHAEL HOWLETT

POLICY ANALYSIS IN

France

Edited by Charlotte Halpern, Patrick Hassenteufel and Philippe Zittoun

POLICY ANALYSIS IN FRANCE

International Library of Policy Analysis Series editors: Iris Geva-May and Michael Howlett, Simon Fraser University, Canada This major new series brings together for the first time a detailed examination of the theory and practice of policy analysis systems at different levels of government and by non-governmental actors in a specific country. It therefore provides a key addition to research and teaching in comparative policy analysis and policy studies more generally.  Each volume includes a history of the country’s policy analysis which offers a broad comparative overview with other countries as well as the country in question. In doing so, the books in the series provide the data and empirical case studies essential for instruction and for further research in the area. They also include expert analysis of different approaches to policy analysis and an assessment of their evolution and operation. Early volumes in the series will cover the following countries: Australia • Brazil • China • Czech Republic • France • Germany • India • Israel • Netherlands • New Zealand • Norway • Russia • South Africa • Taiwan • UK • USA and will build into an essential library of key reference works. The series will be of interest to academics and students in public policy, public administration and management, comparative politics and government, public organisations and individual policy areas. It will also interest people working in the countries in question and internationally. In association with the ICPA-Forum and Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. See more at http://goo.gl/raJUX

POLICY ANALYSIS IN FRANCE Edited by Charlotte Halpern, Patrick Hassenteufel and Philippe Zittoun

International Library of Policy Analysis, Vol 11

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

Policy Press North America office: University of Bristol Policy Press 1-9 Old Park Hill c/o The University of Chicago Press Bristol BS2 8BB 1427 East 60th Street UK Chicago, IL 60637, USA +44 (0)117 954 5940 t: +1 773 702 7700 [email protected] f: +1 773 702 9756 www.policypress.co.uk [email protected] www.press.uchicago.edu © Policy Press 2018 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested. ISBN 978-1-4473-2421-8 hardcover ISBN 978-1-4473-4739-2 ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-4740-8 Mobi ISBN 978-1-4473-2423-2 ePdf The right of Charlotte Halpern, Patrick Hassenteufel and Philippe Zittoun to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 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, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Qube Design Associates, Bristol Front cover: image kindly supplied by istock Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Policy Press uses environmentally responsible print partners

Contents Notes on contributors vii Editors’ introduction to the series xiii one Policy analysis in France: introduction 1 Charlotte Halpern, Patrick Hassenteufel and Philippe Zittoun Part One: The styles and methods of public policy analysis two

three four five

On the path to public policy analysis: 31 an ‘administrative science’ between reform and academy Renaud Payre and Gilles Pollet The emergence of modern policy analysis in France 47 Fabrice Hamelin Recent developments within French policy studies 63 Jacques de Maillard and Andy Smith Methods of French policy studies 79 Claire Dupuy and Philippe Zittoun

Part Two: Policy analysis by governments six seven eight

Civil servants and policy analysis in central government 101 Emilie Biland and Natacha Gally Policy analysis in French local government 119 Alain Faure and Emmanuel Négrier Beyond weakness: policy analysis in the French parliament 137 Olivier Rozenberg and Yves Surel

Part Three: Committees, public inquiries, and consultants nine ten

Public inquiries, committees 157 Cécile Blatrix and Guillaume Gourgues Management consultants as policy actors 175 Julie Gervais and Frédéric Pierru

Part Four: Parties, interest groups, research institutes and think tanks eleven twelve

The field of state expertise 191 Mathieu Hauchecorne and Etienne Penissat Political parties and think tanks: policy analysis oriented toward 209 office-seeking Camilo Argibay, Rafaël Cos and Anne-Cécile Douillet

v

Policy analysis in France thirteen Economic interest groups and policy analysis in France 225 Guillaume Courty and Marc Milet fourteen NGOs, civil society and policy analysis: from mutual disinterest 243 to reciprocal investment Laurie Boussaguet and Charlotte Halpern fifteen Trade union expertise in public policy 261 Sophie Béroud and Jean-Marie Pernot Part Five: Academic policy analysis sixteen

Economics and policy analysis: ‘from state to market’? 279 Daniel Benamouzig and Frédéric Lebaron seventeen The academic world of French policy studies: training, 295 teaching and researching Patrick Hassenteufel and Patrick Le Galès eighteen Public policy analysis in France: from public action to political power 313 Patrice Duran Index 333

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Notes on contributors Camilo Argibay holds a PhD in political science from the University of Lyon. His doctoral research focused on students’ activism and he is now working on the role of think tanks in the French political system. Daniel Benamouzig is a research professor in sociology at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Sciences Po, Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (CSO). He is also Director of the Institute of Public Health of the National Alliance for Research in Biomedicine and Health (AVIESAN) and Chair of the Committee for Social Science in the Higher Authority for Health (Haute Autorité de Santé). His has authored many publications about public health, economic policy and institutional governance, and his research contributes to economic sociology and political sociology of healthcare. Sophie Béroud is an associate professor in political science at the University of Lyon 2 and member of Triangle Centre for research (UMR 5206, ENS-LSH, IEP, Lyon 2). Her work focuses on the current transformations of French and Spanish trade unionism. Among her latest publications: ‘Economic crisis and social protest in Spain: Labor unions and social movements at odds’, Critique internationale, 65, 2014, pp. 27–42; ‘The organization of the unemployed in Spain: Local and fragmented dynamics’ in Didier Chabanet and Jean Faniel (eds) The mobilization of the unemployed in Europe: From acquiescence to protest? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 155–74). Emilie Biland is an associate professor of political science at the University of Rennes 2 (France) and a research fellow at ARENES (UMR 6051). Her research focuses on the part played by law and courts in public policy in a comparative perspective. Cécile Blatrix is a professor of political science at AgroParisTech, Paris. Her works focuses on public participation. Laurie Boussaguet is full professor of political science at the University of Rouen and visiting fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (European University Institute, Florence, Italy). Her research focuses on policy analysis, symbolic policies, transnational convergence, European governance and participatory democracy in the EU. She is the author and editor of many books and peer-reviewed articles about public policies and policy studies. Her latest publication, ‘The politics of symbols’, was published in Parliamentary Affairs (2017). Rafaël Cos is a PhD student in political science at Lille University, member of the Lille Centre for European Research on Administration, Politics and Society vii

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(CERAPS). His research deals with the programmatic work within the French Socialist Party. Guillaume Courty is a professor of political science at Lille University, Centre for European Research on Administration, Politics and Society (CERAPS). His research focuses on the lobbyist’s profession and the transport sector. Anne-Cécile Douillet is professor of political science at Lille University, member of the Lille Centre for European Research on Administration, Politics and Society (CERAPS). She is a specialist in policy process analysis and local government, her works dealing mainly with local development policies and public security policies. She recently published, with Rémi Lefebvre, Sociologie politique du pouvoir local (Armand Colin, 2017). Claire Dupuy is associate professor of political science at Sciences Po Grenoble – Pacte (France). She specialises in comparative public policy with a focus on state transformations and regionalisation processes in western Europe. She is also interested in policy feedbacks and the ways in which policy changes have an impact on citizens’ (dis)affection toward politics. Empirically, she conducts research on education and social policy in France, Germany and Belgium. Patrice Duran is a professor at École Normale Supérieur (ENS) de Paris Saclay and member of the Institut des Sciences sociales du Politique (ISP), ENS Paris Saclay/CNRS. He is also President of the Conseil National de l’Information Statistique (CNIS). His main fields of research are political sociology, sociological theory, state analysis, comparative analysis, territorial governance, sociology of law and evaluation of public policies. Alain Faure is National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) senior researcher at PACTE, University of Grenoble Alpes. His last fields of research concern the socialisation of local elected representatives in a comparative perspective (France, Canada, Italy, Japan). He published in 2016 Des élus sur le divan (Presses universitaires de Grenoble) and co-edited in 2017 with E. Négrier La politique à l’épreuve des émotions (Presses universitaires de Rennes). Natacha Gally is an associate professor of political science at Université Paris IIPanthéon Assas and a research fellow at the Center for the Studies and Research of Administrative and Political Sciences (CERSA–CNRS) (UMR 7106). Her research deals with the transformations of the state with a specific interest in senior civil service reforms and administrative labour markets in a comparative perspective. Julie Gervais is an associate professor in political sociology at Sorbonne University. She works on the political sociology of the state, elites and public policy-making. viii

Notes on contributors

She addresses topics including French high civil servants (training, careers, revolving-door phenomena), public sector consultants and the managerialisation of the state, lobbyists on campaign trails and the question of influence. Her current research project is on corporate political influence orchestrated by the direct mobilisation of popular participation. Guillaume Gourgues is associate professor in political science (University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté, France). His work focuses on public participation and industrial democracy through a multilevel sociological approach. He notably published ‘Studying regions as spaces for democracy: A political sociological approach’ (Regional and Federal Studies, 20(3), 2010) and Les politiques de démocratie participative (Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2013). Charlotte Halpern is an associate research professor in political science at Sciences Po, Centre d’études européennes et de politique comparée (CEE) CNRS, in Paris, France. She specialises in comparative policy studies, urban studies and EU governance. Among her latest publications, she has recently co-edited two special issues: (with P. Graziano) ‘EU governance in times of crisis: Inclusiveness and effectiveness beyond the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ law divide’, Comparative European Politics, 14(1), 2016; (with C. Belot and L. Boussaguet), ‘Gouverner (avec) l’opinion publique européenne’, Politique européenne, 54(4), 2016. Fabrice Hamelin is associate professor in political science at Université ParisEst Créteil, LIPHA (EA 7373) where he teaches policy analysis and governance studies. In his research, he focuses on the comparative analysis of transport security and safety policy-making, with some recent work on tools of government and policy design in mobility and transport, as well as the history of applied transport research in Europe. Patrick Hassenteufel is a professor of political science at the University of Versailles and Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, member of the Printemps (CNRS research centre). He has authored many publications about comparative health policy, the transformations of European welfare states and sociological actor-centred policy analysis (among them a handbook on policy analysis: Sociologie politique, l’action publique, Armand Colin, 2008 [2nd edn, 2011]). He is the coeditor in chief of Gouvernement et action publique. Mathieu Hauchecorne is an assistant professor in political science at Paris 8 University and a member of the CRESPPA-LabToP. His research interests centre on the sociology of intellectuals and expertise, intellectual history, and the analysis of policy transfers and the circulation of ideas. His research on the French reception of Rawls and US theories of justice has led to several articles in academic journals and a book is forthcoming with CNRS éditions.

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Frédéric Lebaron is professor at École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, where he heads the department of social sciences. He also teaches at Sciences PoSaint-Germain-en-Laye. He is a member of two research groups: Institutions Dynamiques Historiques des Economies et des Sociétés and Laboratoire Printemps. He has co-edited (with B. Le Roux) La méthodologie de Pierre Bourdieu en action (Dunod, 2015), and, with M. Grenfell, Bourdieu and Data Analysis (Peter Lang, 2014). Patrick Le Galès is CNRS research professor in politics and sociology at Sciences Po, Centre d’études européennes et de politique comparée (CEE), CNRS. He is also the Dean of Sciences Po Urban School. His recent publications include Reconfiguring European states in crisis, with D. King (Oxford University Press, 2017), Globalising minds, roots in the city, European urban middle classes (with A. Andreotti, J. Moreno Fuentes) (Wiley, 2015), What is governed in Mexico City? (forthcoming, 2018). Jacques de Maillard is professor of political science at the University of VersaillesSaint-Quentin, deputy-director of the Cesdip. His interests lie in the questions of local governance of security, the comparative study of policing in Western countries and theories of public policy analysis. He has recently published (with S. Savage), ‘Policing as a performing art? The contradictory nature of contemporary police performance management’, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2017, pp. 1-13 (online version), and with S. Roché, ‘Studying policing comparatively: obstacles, preliminary results and promises’, Policing & Society, 2016, pp. 1-13. Marc Milet is assistant professor in political science at University Paris Panthéon Assas, and a member of the Center for the Studies and Research of Administrative and Political Sciences (CERSA – CNRS). His research focuses on legislative studies and on small business interest groups in France and within the European Union, which is the topic of his forthcoming book: Théorie critique du lobbying: L’UEAPME et la revendication européenne des petites et moyennes entreprises (Paris: Logiques politiques, L’Harmattan). Emmanuel Négrier is CNRS senior researcher at the South European Centre for Political Studies (CEPEL), University of Montpellier. His main fields of research are territorial reforms, comparative politics and policies, cultural policy and political behaviour. He recently published, together with Alain Faure, La politique à l’épreuve des émotions (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017). Renaud Payre is professor of political science at the Université de Lyon, Sciences Po Lyon, Laboratoire Triangle and director of Sciences Po Lyon since 2016. He is a specialist of the socio-historical approach in public policy analysis. He recently published, with Alistair Cole, Cities as political object: Historical evolution, analytical categorisations and institutional challenges of metropolitanisation (Edward Elgar, 2016). x

Notes on contributors

Etienne Penissat is research fellow at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and member of the Centre for European Research on Administration, Politics and Society (CERAPS), Lille University. His research interests focus on the expertise, production and use of statistics in public policy. He has published on the transformations of these intellectual productions at the Ministry of Labour since 1945. Jean-Marie Pernot is senior researcher and political scientist at Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES) and Centre d’Histoire Sociale du XX° siècle. He also teaches at the university of Lyon 2 and at the CELSA (Paris 4- Sorbonne). His main research domains are the trade unions and social movements in historical and international perspectives. Among his most recent publications is ‘France’s trade unions in the aftermath of the crisis’, in S. Lehndorff, H. Dribbusch and T. Schulten (eds) Rough waters: European trade unions in a time of crises (European Trade Union Institute, 2017). Frédéric Pierru holds a PhD in political science and is sociologist and a CNRS Research Fellow, affiliated with the Centre for European Research on Administration, Politics and Society (CERAPS) (UMR 8026). At the crossroads of sociology of the state, public action and the medical field, his works and articles, written alone and in collaboration with others, deal with the processes of reform of healthcare systems, the restructurings of the French health administration (health protection and epidemiological supervision) as well as the transformations of hospital medicine and medical mobilisations under the effect of managerial actors, logics and instruments. Gilles Pollet is a professor of political science at the University of Lyon/Sciences Po Lyon/UMR Triangle and Director of the Institut des Sciences de l’Homme (ISH). He is working on public policy analysis in socio-historical perspectives, especially on the development and transformations of welfare states and local governments, and also on ‘sciences de gouvernement’. His publications include Socio-histoire de l’action publique (La Découverte, 2013), with Renaud Payre. Olivier Rozenberg is an associate professor of political science in Sciences Po, at the Centre d’études européennes et de politique comparée (CEE), CNRS, Paris, France. He specialises in EU politics and legislative studies. He has co-edited volumes on parliamentary roles (Routledge, 2012), questions (Routledge, 2012) and on national parliaments in the EU (Palgrave, 2015). Andy Smith is research professor at the Centre Emile Durkheim, University of Bordeaux. A specialist of political economy, his latest book is The politics of economic activity (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is currently studying the arms industry in France and the UK.

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Yves Surel is professor of political science at the University Paris 2 (PanthéonAssas). His research focuses on policy analysis and comparative politics. He recently published La science politique et ses méthodes (Armand Colin, 2015). He has coedited, with Jacques de Maillard, Les politiques publiques sous Sarkozy (Presses de Sciences Po, 2012), and with Yves Mény, Democracies and the populist challenge (Palgrave, 2002). Philippe Zittoun is research professor of political science at the LAETENTPE University of Lyon, General Secretary of the International Public Policy Association and Chair of the Research Committee ‘Public Policy and Administration’ of IPSA. His research is about the policy process, its political dimension and the role of meaning inside. His most recent books are: Contemporary Approaches to Public Policy, edited with B. Guy Peters (Palgrave, 2016), and The Political Process of Policymaking (Palgrave, 2014). He is on the editorial board of the Policy Studies Journal, Critical Policy Studies, Journal of Policy Research, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis and Policy and Society and he is coordinator of the International Conference on Public Policy.

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Editors’ introduction to the series Professor Iris Geva-May and Professor Michael Howlett, ILPA series editors Policy analysis is a relatively new area of social scientific inquiry, owing its origins to developments in the US in the early 1960s. Its main rationale is systematic, evidence-based, transparent, efficient, and implementable policy-making. This component of policy-making is deemed key in democratic structures allowing for accountable public policies. From the US, policy analysis has spread to other countries, notably in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s and in Asia in the 1990s and 2000s. It has taken, respectively one to two more decades for programmes of public policy to be established in these regions preparing cadres for policy analysis as a profession. However, this movement has been accompanied by variations in the kinds of analysis undertaken as US-inspired analytical and evaluative techniques have been adapted to local traditions and circumstances, and new techniques shaped in these settings. In the late 1990s this led to the development of the field of comparative policy analysis, pioneered by Iris Geva-May, who initiated and founded the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, and whose mission has been advanced with the support of editorial board members such as Laurence E. Lynn Jr., first coeditor, Peter deLeon, Duncan McRae, David Weimer, Beryl Radin, Frans van Nispen, Yukio Adachi, Claudia Scott, Allan Maslove and others in the US and elsewhere. While current studies have underlined differences and similarities in national approaches to policy analysis, the different national regimes which have developed over the past two to three decades have not been thoroughly explored and systematically evaluated in their entirety, examining both sub-national and non-executive governmental organisations as well as the non-governmental sector; nor have these prior studies allowed for either a longitudinal or a latitudinal comparison of similar policy analysis perceptions, applications, and themes across countries and time periods. The International Library for Policy Analysis (ILPA) series fills this gap in the literature and empirics of the subject. It features edited volumes created by experts in each country, which inventory and analyse their respective policy analysis systems. To a certain extent the series replicates the template of Policy Analysis in Canada edited by Dobuzinskis, Howlett and Laycock (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007). Each ILPA volume surveys the state of the art of policy analysis in governmental and non-governmental organisations in each country using the common template derived from the Canadian collection in order to provide for each volume in the series comparability in terms of coverage and approach. Each volume addresses questions such as: What do policy analysts do? What techniques and approaches do they use? What is their influence on policy-making in that country? Is there a policy analysis deficit? What norms and values guide xiii

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the work done by policy analysts working in different institutional settings? Contributors focus on the sociology of policy analysis, demonstrating how analysts working in different organisations tend to have different interests and to utilise different techniques. The central theme of each volume includes historical works on the origins of policy analysis in the jurisdiction concerned, and then proceeds to investigate the nature and types, and quality, of policy analysis conducted by governments (including different levels and orders of government). It then moves on to examine the nature and kinds of policy analytical work and practices found in non-governmental actors such as think tanks, interest groups, business, labour, media, political parties, non-profits and others. Each volume in the series aims to compare and analyse the significance of the different styles and approaches found in each country and organisation studied, and to understand the impact these differences have on the policy process. Together, the volumes included in the ILPA series serve to provide the basic data and empirical case studies required for an international dialogue in the area of policy analysis, and an eye-opener on the nuances of policy analysis applications and implications in national and international jurisdictions. Each volume in the series is leading edge and has the promise to dominate its field and the textbook market for policy analysis in the country concerned, as well as being of broad comparative interest to markets in other countries. The ILPA is published in association with the International Comparative Policy Analysis Forum, and the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, whose mission is to advance international comparative policy analytic studies. The editors of each volume are leading members of this network and are the best-known scholars in each respective country, as are the authors contributing to each volume in their particular domain. The book series as a whole provides learning insights for instruction and for further research in the area and constitutes a major addition to research and pedagogy in the field of comparative policy analysis and policy studies in general. We welcome to the ILPA series Volume 11, Policy Analysis in France, edited by Charlotte Halpern, Patrick Hassenteufel and Philippe Zittoun, and thank the editors and the authors for their outstanding contribution to this important encyclopedic database. Iris Geva-May Professor of Policy Studies, Baruch College at the City University of New York, Professor Emerita Simon Fraser University; Founding President and Editor-in-chief, International Comparative PolicyForum and Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis Michael Howlett Burnaby Mountain Professor, Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, and Yong Pung How Chair Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore xiv

ONE

Policy analysis in France: introduction Charlotte Halpern, Patrick Hassenteufel and Philippe Zittoun

Introduction This book lays the foundation for a more systematic understanding of policy analysis in France.1 In the French context, understanding ways in which knowledge of and for policies is produced within and outside the state raises two issues that we collectively address in this volume: explaining the process by which studies for policy process have been strictly separated from the study of policy process and providing some explanation as to why this fundamental distinction still holds – even though it was regularly challenged by successive generations of scholars and practitioners. We argue that in the French context, this remaining divide results from the specificity of the politico-bureaucratic system, the structuring of the academic sphere as well as the functioning of the policy-making process. One of the main difficulties was to define what kind of knowledge can be considered as ‘policy analysis’ and what cannot (Hassenteufel and Zittoun, 2017). In the French context, civil servants were the first to develop policy analysis as an autonomous field of expertise within the state apparatus. From the eighteenth century onwards, several ‘Grand Corps’ contributed to mapping out the extent of the state’s intervention in various policy areas as well as providing some suggestions on how it could be enhanced. One of the most internationally-known examples is the comparative study done by Tocqueville on prison policies in France and the United States in 1833 (De Beaumont and De Tocqueville, 1845). Since this period and until the 1980s, policy analysis was mainly developed as practitioner’s know-how within the state, that is, as studies for policies, and only drew on academic expertise on rare occasions. It was only much later on, during the 1970s and 1980s, that policy studies emerged as an academic field within political science and administration studies (Leca and Muller, 2008). They favoured the development of a comprehensive knowledge that would enable them to grasp the policy process and the role of bureaucratic elites in producing policy studies for the policy process (Zittoun and Demongeot, 2010). This historically-situated process explains why and how ‘policy studies’ is now understood in France – and in most public policy textbooks – as an academic field and not as applied research. Together with other books published in the series on ‘policy analysis’, this volume brings together a detailed examination of the theory and practice of 1

Policy analysis in France

policy analysis systems in the French context. It considers policy studies as a field of both academic research – across various disciplines (political science, sociology, public law, management and economics) – and practitioners’ knowledge – in a large number of organisations in the politico-administrative system, across society and across levels of governance (parliament, bureaucracies, trade unions, political parties, think tanks etc). In doing so, it raises the following questions: how is it produced? By whom is it produced and in what format? Is it considered as a strategic policy resource, and if so, what uses of policy analysis have developed over time? At what stages of the policy process is it primarily used? Is it preferably in order to provide policymakers with knowledge and evidence, during implementation or as a way to evaluate existing policies? To what extent do fields of academic research and practitioners’ knowledge overlap or compete with one another? These questions confirm the need to consider these forms of expertise for and about policy-making in their diversity. This book critically addresses the process by which studies for policy process have been strictly separated from the study of policy process in the French context. In order to do so, it brings together scholars who are widely recognised as major contributors to this academic field both in France and beyond. Similar to other volumes in this series, this book is divided into five sections and 18 chapters, which all address the on-going tension between the study of and for policy in various organisations (think tanks, political parties, interest groups etc) and arenas (parliament, local government etc).2 Yet, they also show that continued exchanges and relations have ensured the mutual enrichment between both spheres in the production of knowledge on the policy process. Through the focus on policy studies, this volume demonstrates why and how the fundamental distinction between knowledge for and of policy process still holds in the French context, even though it was regularly challenged by successive generations of scholars and practitioners. It contributes to comparative studies about policy analysis, by providing an understanding of what it means, how it is used and how it is studied in the French context. It also contributes to international debates among academics and practitioners about policy analysis. This introductory chapter begins with a brief overview of what policy studies means and how it is studied in the French context. Then the bulk of the introduction highlights and provides some explanation for the enduring gap between academic knowledge and policy practices, which characterises policy analysis in the French context.3 Last but not least, we discuss the added value of policy studies for understanding state restructuring and policy developments in France. In the remaining and fourth section, we introduce the book outline in mor detail.

2

Introduction

Policy analysis: what it means and how it is studied in the French context The notions of policy analysis (in French ‘analyse des politiques publiques’) in France are ambiguous, which causes difficulties when attempting to define what policy analysis is and what it is not. This ambiguity is related to the discipline’s early developments. In the French context, the invention of policy studies in the academic sphere resulted from the transfer of a series of concepts, ideas and models that were originally developed in the United States in order to study the policy process. It was, however, called ‘policy analysis’. Policy analysis: what it means in the French context As a concept, policy analysis has already been the topic of heated scholarly debates in the United States in reference to knowledge about problem-solving – or the problem-solving approach – and those practices aiming at producing knowledge for policy-making (Bardach, 2012). Policy analysis should therefore not be confused with the notion of policy process studies, which holds a more distanced and comprehensive perspective on the policy process (Zittoun and Peters, 2016). Nevertheless, the definition of policy analysis remains vaguely defined according to Wildavsky, and he repeatedly challenged the epistemological status of policy analysis as a science and an academic field, as opposed to a practical and applied field of knowledge. In this understanding, policy analysis is not considered a science but, rather, an art and a craft because ‘without art, analysis is doomed to repetition; without craft, analysis is unpersuasive’ (Wildavsky, 1987, 389), thus making it impossible for policy analysis to be monopolised by academics (Majone, 1992). Even though French scholars used the term ‘policy analysis’ when referring to a new academic field in the 1970s, they were primarily inspired by scholarly work in the United States which was undoubtedly rooted in policy process studies. There, it was developed from the 1970s onwards as a field of academic research in political science in which the stated aim was to understand and explain the functioning of the policy process (Jones, 1970; Lindblom and Woodhouse, 1992; Anderson, 1979). Interestingly, the authors to which French scholars mostly referred to in order to develop their own understanding of ‘Analyse des Politiques Publiques’ are Jones and Lindblom. Yet the former argues against using the concept of policy analysis and against creating too great a distance from it when studying the policy process, whereas the latter’s well-known incrementalist model was initially misunderstood by French scholars, since it was intended precisely as an analytical and a normative model for solving policy problems. Nevertheless, the very use of the notion of ‘policy’ as the uncontested way to designate the object of policy studies – as has been the case in the United States since 1945 – is also controversial in France. The notion of ‘policy’ was first translated by Raymond Aron as ‘la politique’4 (Lasswell et al, 1951), which in 3

Policy analysis in France

French refers without distinction to policy, politics and polity (Lasswell, 1951). Although Lasswell argued that ‘the word “policy” is commonly used to designate the most important choices…[It] is free of many of the undesirable connotations clustered about the word political which is often believed to imply “partisanship” or “corruption”’ (Lasswell, 1951, 2), this was lost in translation. A few decades later, when policy studies emerged as an academic discipline in France during the 1980s, ‘policy’ was translated and discussed as ‘politiques publiques’ (that is, ‘public policy’),5 due to its importers’ interest in the understanding of the functioning of the state and its interventions. Even though the term would appear to be a literal translation from English, the French appellation implies that policies are confined to the public domain. In this volume, and in order to avoid any confusion, we will use, on the one hand, ‘policy studies’ in order to refer to the knowledge about public policy, which includes ‘policy analysis’ as a knowledge for policy and is mainly produced, in the French context, by practitioners. On the other hand, ‘policy process studies’ will be used to refer to the knowledge on the policy process which is mainly produced in the academic sphere. The invention of policy process studies in the French context The emergence of policy studies is closely related to shortcomings of administrative sciences some 100 years after its creation, in terms of both its institutionalisation as an academic discipline and as an autonomous field of policy knowledge. In Chapter Two, Renaud Payre and Gilles Pollet highlight the dominant role of law studies and practitioners, in contrast to the study of administration, which was considered an ‘art’, that is, a body of know-how and techniques used in the training of civil servants. By contrast, during the 1970s, policy studies strategically developed outside universities, in research and training institutions such as National Centre for Scientific Research (Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS]) research centres and the Instituts d’Etudes Politiques in Paris and Grenoble. This was considered a way to gain some autonomy vis-à-vis Administrative Law. Drawing on transnational – mainly transatlantic – exchanges for some of them, and coming from different academic backgrounds, for example, sociology (Michel Crozier, Jean-Claude Thoenig, Jean-Gustave Padioleau) and political science (Yves Mény, Yves Barel, Jean Leca, Lucien Nizard), these scholars shared a common interest in policy studies as an academic field of expertise dedicated to the study of the state apparatus and its policies (Jobert and Muller, 1987; Dupuy and Thoenig, 1983; Crozier and Friedberg, 1977; Crozier and Thoenig, 1975; Padioleau, 1982). As any process of diffusion and transfer, this import process was not agentless and led to the careful selection of some concepts and methods. Through the import of concepts such as bureaucratic dysfunction, bounded rationality, trial and error and incrementalism, they critically addressed the role of the state and sought to increase their understanding of the policy process. Concomitantly 4

Introduction

to this selective import process, they sought to create new concepts in order to develop an approach mainly influenced by a sociological perspective on the state, the bureaucracy and the policy process, as well as to explore the governing of French society. In doing so, they distinguished themselves from, on the one hand, practitioners and policy practice, and on the other hand, from a Marxist tradition of analysing the role of the state (Leca and Muller, 2008). In these early days, ‘politique publique’ was understood as an abstract concept, whereas identifying the policy process’ main features was best achieved through a thorough empirical analysis as opposed to theory building. This was considered a prerequisite to disentangling the bundle of multiple policy decisions, budgets and regulations. This fuzzy and elusive enough notion – developed by Jean-Claude Thoenig – nevertheless successfully gathered under the same label a large variety of existing approaches and methods (Grawitz et al, 1985; Jobert and Muller, 1987) and ‘l’analyse des politiques publiques’ was acknowledged as a common banner for everything related to policy studies, including policy analysis, policy process studies, policy design, public problem and policy outcome studies. It should be noted that, in these early days, these scholars were particularly anxious to explore the policy process through its various stages, with a clear focus on the role of actors and very few references to scholarly work produced in the US.6 In early textbooks (Mény and Thœnig, 1989; Muller and Surel, 2000), policy analysis refers exclusively to an academic subfield of political science on policy process. As such, it unequivocally rejects any problem-solving orientation and seeks to understand and explain the policy process. A few years later, Bruno Jobert and Pierre Muller completed this definition in their seminal analysis of The state in action (1987) by highlighting the importance of representations and society visions to the definition of public policy. They argued that governments shape and transform existing social, political and economic structures as well as specific policy fields by strategically using norms and ideas. From then on, what was later addressed as the ‘French school of public policy process studies’ investigated ‘the social image, the representation of the system on which they [governmental actors] want to act’ (Muller, 2015), alongside policy decisions, budget and regulations. This understanding remained dominant in academic debates until the 1990s. The institutionalisation of policy studies as part of political science The notion of ‘public policy’ and the French concept of ‘policy analysis’, as defined during these early years in the academic sphere, were challenged by successive generations of scholars through the import of concepts and methods from other countries or research traditions. The largest share of critics argued that the term ‘politiques publiques’ induced strong bias during empirical observation by pre-supposing the existence of a coherent sets of norms, tools and beliefs, by an overly state-centred approach that underestimated other levels of government as well as non-state actors, and by its blindness to the political dimensions of policymaking (that is the politics) (Gaudin, 2007; Leca et al, 2003). A new generation 5

Policy analysis in France

of scholarly work highlighted the limits of approaches that overestimated the robustness of national policy models (Jobert, 1994; Wright and Cassese, 1996) and favoured the development of comparative policy research on policy-making in European Member states and as part of the European integration process. Other critics challenged this overly agency-driven approach to policy-making, and drew on other social sciences traditions in order to develop alternative approaches to policy studies, such as pragmatist and critical approaches to policy studies (Laborier and Trom, 2003; Callon et al, 2013). These were particularly useful in order to understand the changes underway at the public sphere’s margins and in relationship with social innovations, conflicts and policy outsiders. Last but not least, gender policy studies at an international level and in France highlighted the benefits to be expected – methodologically, empirically and theoretically – from applying a gender perspective to policy studies (Mazur and Revillard, 2016) and more specifically, to the French concept of ‘policy analysis’ (Boussaguet and Jacquot, 2009; Engeli and Perrier, 2015). By focusing on the role of women in policy-making and policy studies, gender policy studies highlighted the distinctive features of gender discriminations, alongside social and racial discriminations, in recruitment processes in the political, the administrative and the academic spheres (Achin and Bereni, 2013). Similar to the study of environmental policies, the work done on gender equality policies challenged classic models about the functioning of the state and policy-making in France, and led to alternative conceptual and analytic frameworks that allowed the exploration of original forms of policy-making, the growing interplay between state and non-state actors, and innovative forms of policy instrumentation such as mainstreaming (Halpern and Jacquot, 2015). Together, these criticisms highlighted competing transformative dynamics and demonstrated the limited explanatory power of the ‘French model of public policy’ (Boussaguet et al, 2015). A clear shift towards a more sociological approach was thereafter initiated, which implied the reference to the notion of ‘action publique’ (literally, public action) (Commaille, 2014), that was considered more neutral than that of ‘politiques publiques’ and enabled more emphasis to be put on actors, institutions and dynamics both within and outside the state and public organisations. A large consensus emerged in the 2000s among French scholars to use the term ‘sociology of public action’ in order to label this academic field and to reaffirm the specificity of the French perspective on policy studies: a sociological perspective and a focus on public interventions (Boussaguet and Jacquot, 2010; Boussaguet et al, 2015; see also Patrice Duran in Chapter Eighteen). This shift was later confirmed in textbooks (Hassenteufel, 2011; Lascoumes et al, 2007) and over the recent period, it has become commonly accepted that the study of policy seeks, in a sociological perspective, to analyse the role of the state and its restructuring, processes of government and governance, state–society relationships and policies as both a process and an outcome by focusing on policymakers, their practices, ideas and discourses, how they engage in sustained relationships with a large variety of market and society actors, and the concrete devices they use 6

Introduction

in order to make policy objectives operational (Commaille and Jobert, 1999; Commaille, 2014). As a result, scholarly debates about policy studies in France have been influenced since the 1980s onwards by, on the one hand, the above-mentioned specificity and on the other hand, by successive imports of research and concepts that were developed elsewhere, such as Charles Jones and Charles Lindblom during the 1980s (Thoenig, 1985; Mény and, Thoenig, 1989), John Kingdon, Hugh Heclo, Jeremy Richardson, Vincent Wright, Bob Jessop and Renate Mayntz during the 1990s (Kingdon 2010; Jordan and Richardson, 1983; Heclo, 1974; Wright, 1979; Jessop, 1996; Mayntz, 1975), Peter Hall, Frank Baumgartner, Paul Pierson, Paul Sabatier, Claudio Radaelli or Vivien Schmidt during the 2000s7 (Hall and Taylor, 1996; Jones and Baumgartner, 2005; Pierson, 2004; Sabatier, 1998; Radaelli and Schmidt, 2015). Nevertheless, the contribution of French scholars to international debates on public policy remained limited as shown by the small number of references to French scholarly work in English textbooks, apart from European studies (Saurugger, 2010).8 A first turn was identified in the mid-2000s with the edited volume on policy instruments by Lascoumes and Le Galès (2004; 2007; see also Halpern et al, 2014), which went beyond the import of the policy tools’ approach that had been developed by Christopher Hood and developed an original contribution to international debates on public policy in both French and English (Margetts and Hood, 2016). Recently, the pragmatist approach to policy making that was developed by Zittoun (Zittoun, 2014) in both French and English also contributed to international debates on interpretative public policy analysis beyond the work by Fischer and Forrester (Fischer and Gottweis, 2012). As underlined by Jacques de Maillard and Andy Smith in Chapter Four, three fundamental debates have structured and cleaved French policy studies throughout the past three decades. The first concerns the role of ‘ideas’ in public policies, the second the relationship between institutions and actors, while the third is centred upon the role of the state and politics itself within policy-making, implementation and evaluation. These controversies arose concomitantly to the institutionalisation of the discipline as a field of scholarly work in its own right, and shaped the demarcation of its boundaries in three different ways (see Chapter Seventeen by Patrick Hassenteufel and Patrick Le Galès). The first way was by engaging in theory building and seeking for its full integration in the political science academic community, this led to excluding policy studies produced outside academia such as policy evaluation, policy analysis, policy design, policy management. The second way was through the streamlining of teaching content as well as research design and methodologies used to study the policy process. French policy studies, however, only selectively engaged with international debates and controversies, although a greater cross-fertilisation between endogenous and exogenous perspectives emerged in the late 1990s, alongside a greater willingness to actively engage in international scientific fora. Over time this resulted in the

7

Policy analysis in France

development of a number of policy studies subfields,9 which together, contribute to shedding new light on policy analysis and studies in the French context. This rapid overview helps us to understand the historically-situated process by which the notion of ‘policy analysis’ was gradually replaced by that of ‘(political) sociology of public action’, and why it is now understood in France as an academic field of research and not as a practitioner’s field of knowledge. It also highlights on the one hand, the lack of a problem-solving orientation of policy analysis in the academic field, and on the other hand, why knowledge about policy analysis in the policy process is being little addressed in scholarly work.

Policy analysis in France: an enduring disconnect between academic and practitioners’ knowledge The lack of a single, unified understanding, in the French context and beyond the academic sphere, of what ‘policy analysis’ means and of ways to analyse it, constituted both a semantic and an analytical challenge for the contributors to this volume. Indeed, this had long-term consequences over the research focus and availability of scholarly work about policy analysis. Any attempt to understand the theory and practice of policy analysis requires a thorough exploration of the distinction usually made in French academic and practitioner debates between policy process studies and policy analysis. Rather than ignoring this challenge, we deliberately considered it as a common starting point for questioning the specificity of policy analysis in the French context, as well as an opportunity to contribute to French and international debates among academics and practitioners. In this section, we discuss the extent to which these semantic ambiguities shaped the development of policy analysis in the French context in both academic research and practitioners’ knowledge up to the present. Looking for the forgotten problem-solving orientation To begin with, we found that there were no notions or concepts available in French in order to address problem-solving orientations. The process by which concepts and ideas about policy analysis had been imported from the US and hybridised with existing scholarly work in political science was largely dominated by a sociological perspective (Chapter Four). Paradoxically, although academic debates considered Charles Jones’ book An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy a critical milestone in the French context, they ignored Jones’ call to shift from a problem-solving orientation towards that of policy process studies (Jones, 1970). In the case of public policy analysis, its early developments were dominated by a strong sociological influence, and the work already underway in the 1970s as part of the sociology of organisations and bureaucratic elites (Leca and Muller, 2008). This led on the one hand to developing a comprehensive perspective on policy processes, and on the other hand, to rejecting the problem-solving dimension of policy analysis as being normative, marginalising the rational choice perspective 8

Introduction

and favouring qualitative sociological methods as argued by Claire Dupuy and Philippe Zittoun in Chapter Five. Although the problem-solving orientation repeatedly resurfaced during the early stages of policy studies, it was systematically delegitimised by political scientists (Muller, 2015) and considered irreconcilable with the subdiscipline’s strive for being formally acknowledged by political science and sociology (Chapter Seventeen). The institutionalisation of policy studies was strongly linked to the scholars’ ability to demonstrate their legitimacy as academics by rejecting any policy analysis perspective (see above). These early developments account for today’s weak relationships between academics and practitioners. They also laid the groundwork for economists investing this area of work (Chapter Sixteen). Accounting for weak relationships between academics and practitioners Unlike the situation observed in other countries, where such a relationship between academics and practitioners would primarily derive from teaching and training activities, the training of higher civil servants – and French elites in general – is mainly organised outside universities, in the so-called Grandes Écoles, which constitutes an education system of its own.10 In these schools, in which both a generalist and a specialised knowledge is provided to the students who successfully pass the entrance examination,11 a vast share of the courses are given by alumni and rarely entail any research perspective. In the case of ENA – the National School of Administration – the overrepresentation of public law and general knowledge in the curriculum was progressively replaced, from the 1950s onwards, by economics and a more specialised and case-oriented teaching (Biland and Kolopp, 2013, 241–3). The content of entrance examinations followed a similar path, and was progressively re-oriented towards policy problems and technical case studies (Mangenot, 1999). At the same time, leading figures teaching economics in a problem-solving and a ‘modernising’ perspective emerged within the General Commission for Planning and Programming (Commissariat général du Plan [CGP]) and the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques [INSEE]), and were soon considered major figures of the school (Kolopp, op cit). Mirroring the growing divide between Grandes Écoles and the universities, the number of academics involved in the formers’ administrative boards decreased steadily, while a quasipermanent educational team – mainly composed of civil servants – emerged around the board (Biland and Kolopp, 2013). Today’s weak relationships between academics and practitioners are also explained in relation to the academics’ low contributions to policy developments on issues of interest for the government and parliament. Unlike the situation observed in other countries, where researchers are often engaged in the politicoadministrative system in order to produce commissioned work or to be consulted on specific policy issues, this is seldom the case in the French context (Chapter Eleven). When there is a need to address policy issues and mobilise expert 9

Policy analysis in France

knowledge, the French bureaucracy usually tends to seek for policy analysis outside academia and relies mostly on senior civil servants coming from the same state elite network (Grands Corps), and as of late, on consultancy firms (Chapter Ten). Interestingly, authors in this volume argue that parliament, party leadership and a vast majority of local governments also rely upon within-state sources of expertise and less so on academia. In this context, whether a cause or a consequence of the historic divide between academics and practitioners, the work done by French researchers rarely entails a problem-solving orientation that would facilitate their contribution to political debates. The meaning and practices of policy analysis in the French context These past and recent evolutions are essential in order to fully grasp the meaning and practices of policy analysis in the French context. Together, they account for the development of two different dynamics in relationship with policy analysis, which increasingly differ from one another and refer to highly differentiated professional spheres: one within the academic field that primarily focuses on policy process studies and rejects the idea of producing knowledge for policy practice, and the other, which is developed by practitioners without reference to academia rules and according to poorly defined methodologies. As a result, and apart from gender policy analysis that seeks to systematically analyse policy processes in a gender perspective,12 policy analysis remains both underdeveloped as an output of academic research and understudied as an object of research. While research on the role of actors in the policy process can easily be found across scholarly research, there is little knowledge about policy analysis, how it is produced and used during the policy process, and indeed, when embarking on this book project, we found little systematic and up-to-date knowledge of how and by whom policy analysis is produced outside the state, thereby requiring, in the case of most chapters, the collection of new empirical evidence in order to answer the question put to them as part of this volume.13 This constituted the second major difficulty that we encountered in preparing this volume. Following a North American perspective on policy analysis, each volume in this series had to follow a similar outline in order to facilitate later comparative work but proved complicated to follow in the case of this volume. Indeed, how does one write a chapter on policy analysis in bureaucracies, parliament, political parties and NGOs in the absence of any systematic empirical data and little information provided in the reports produced by practitioners and the little research that address this issue? Acknowledging this challenge, most authors considered this book as an opportunity to develop a new perspective on the understanding of policy analysis in France, and in some cases, it also opened fruitful perspectives for future research.14 As a result, every chapter in this volume includes, on the one hand, an overview of how policy studies account for the production and uses of policy analysis in a given organisation, and on the other hand, they attempt to give a comprehensive 10

Introduction

view of policy analysis as produced and used by practitioners within and outside the policy process. Interestingly, when considered as a policy resource likely to be mobilised in the policy process in combination or in competition with others, policy analysis offers a unique opportunity to assess and question the functioning of policy-making in the French context as well as evolving state–society relationships. This is developed in more detail in the following section.

The added value of policy analysis for understanding state restructuring and policy developments in France In this section, the emergence and strengthening of an autonomous field of state expertise is explained in relationship with the role of state elites’ networks, the centralisation of policy knowledge production and practices within the state apparatus, and the limited attention given to policy analysis as part of non-state and non-executive organisations’ strategies to increase their political capacity. A long tradition of policy analysis inside the closed French bureaucratic system Policy analysis, as an autonomous field of knowledge and expertise within the state apparatus, developed from the eighteenth century onwards and, together with other government tools and practices (Eymeri 2001; Foucault, 1978), it contributed to the formation of the modern state and to making society ‘legible’ (Scott, 1998). The development of ‘governing knowledge’ is considered critical in the strengthening of the central state before and after the French Revolution, as pinpointed by Tocqueville in the Old Regime and the Revolution (1856), and strongly related to the position enjoyed thereafter by state elites in the state apparatus and policy-making. In Chapter Six, Emilie Biland and Natacha Gally argue that the development of state elites’ networks – or Grands Corps that result either from a generalist, administrative or from a specialised training in above-mentioned Grandes Écoles as opposed to universities – constitutes an enduring mechanism of selection and reproduction of senior civil servants. As such, it is an essential component of the bureaucratic system’s stability over time and despite the changes brought on by successive political regimes. Monopolising top positions within and outside the state apparatus, including public- and private-owned enterprises, state agencies, and research and innovation centres, these elite networks long had a monopoly on the production and the selection of legitimate policy analysis across policy areas. Considered one of the most visible dimensions of the socalled ‘French model of public policy’ in the context of the Fifth Republic (Muller, 2015), it contributed to the state centrality and to ensure a strong level of autonomy in the choice and selection of policy priorities and solutions. To be sure, such degrees of coherence should not be overestimated and this monopoly was not exercised equivalently according to the Grands Corps themselves, to policy areas and across society.15 This nevertheless holds several consequences for the format, content and practices of policy analysis among practitioners. 11

Policy analysis in France

Despite the Grand Corps’ effective weakening as a result of decentralisation, privatisation and internationalisation dynamics in policy-making, most chapters in this volume confirm the weakness of policy analysis outside the central state apparatus – mainly central administrations – and state elites’ networks (see Chapter Seven and beyond). In contrast with other countries, powerful ministerial cabinets mainly staffed with higher civil servants are considered a specific feature of the Fifth Republic’s politico-administrative system. Strategically positioned at the intersection between policy-making and political action, they provide politicians with policy knowledge emanating from departments, and conversely, they adapt policy tools to the timing and constraints of political action (Eymeri, 2001; 2003). Also, the role played by these state elites’ networks partly accounts for policy domains developing in silo and according to logics of their own, as well as for some major differences between the form and content of policy analysis depending on the Grand Corps and their respective power within the bureaucratic system. Each central administration – or Ministry – generally have their own inspectorate,16 in which senior civil servants can, at an advanced career stage, potentially be asked to produce policy analysis on relevant policy issues on an individual basis – most often a report – or as part of an ad hoc commission (see Chapter Eleven). In addition, the enduring divide between the University and the Grandes Écoles systems further increased each Grands Corps’ autonomy in the selection, training and career evolutions of their members (see above). Insofar as every member of a Grands Corps, and more generally, every higher civil servant can rely upon her or his career and professional experience in order to produce legitimate policy analysis, there is no single understanding among practitioners of what policy analysis means. Unlike policy analysis in other national administrative traditions or as produced in the private sector (for example, consultancy firm) (see Chapter Ten), this critical policy resource is thereby characterised, in the French context, by a lack of homogeneity and its overall weakness in terms of both design and methodology. As a result, many authors in this volume struggled to identify or produce a general and systematic overview of policy analysis as produced by practitioners, and when considering the practices of producing and assessing policy analysis, they were confronted with a general lack of clarity and debate regarding the design and methods used as part of their inquiries (see Chapter Five). In addition to the robustness of state elites’ networks, the dominant role of the executive branch constitutes a second historically embedded characteristic of governing practices and state–society relationships in France. The emergence and strengthening of an autonomous field of state expertise Unlike other countries where policy knowledge primarily comes from academia or think tanks, central administration – and the core executive branch – is regarded historically as a privileged site for the production of knowledge pertaining to the state and its interventions. Yet as discussed by Mathieu Hauchecorne and 12

Introduction

Etienne Penissat in Chapter Eleven, it was only during the post-war period that a differentiated field of state expertise emerged in relationship with highly differentiated reform agendas that nevertheless shared this common interest in modernising social, economic and politico-administrative structures. This centrality was durably reasserted – and strengthened following the introduction of a semi-presidential Regime – the Fifth Republic – in 1958, thereafter leading to the concentration of policy analysis inside the state apparatus despite subsequent attempts to develop alternative sources of power. The enduring and dominant role of the core executive branch in producing policy analysis and hierarchising policy priorities during the policy process manifests itself in different ways. As part of the modernist agenda to profoundly transform social, economic and political structures, several attempts were made to break with traditional bureaucratic hierarchies and career paths and to encourage the diffusion of modernist ideas, practices and methods in the state apparatus (Cohen, 1998). Alongside the development of planning and programming activities, administrative task forces (administrations de mission) with extensive powers were introduced and staffed with civil servants on secondment or non-civil servants on fixedterm contracts. Among them, the General Commission for Planning (CGP) was created in 1946 and rapidly endorsed a modernising role, by spreading out macro-economic theories and defending a strong-willed conception of economic policy and state intervention (Hayward and Watson, 1975). Reporting directly to the Prime Minister, the CGP played a critical role in the development of policy analysis across policy fields, and developed into a consultative arena in which a large number of state and non-state organisations jointly developed fiveyear plans that were submitted for approval by Parliament and enjoyed formal legal force. Following De Gaulle’s return to power in 1958 and in a context of economic growth, the role of CGP rapidly extended from those policy fields considered strategic in the post-war reconstruction context (for example, charcoal, electricity, agricultural machinery, transport infrastructures) towards modernising the economy and society as a whole. Alongside administrative task forces, departments within central administration also developed their own policy knowledge – statistical data, performance indicators, monitoring tools, and so on – either through the work done by inspection bodies17 – both departmental and cross-departmental – or by encouraging the creation of directorates dedicated to strategic policy planning. Among them, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), that was created in 1946 as a general directorate of the Finance Department, rapidly developed into a semi-autonomous knowledge-based organisation. While it does not directly contribute to policy-making, the INSEE has long been considered a key producer of statistical data on the French society, and plays a critical role in shaping the categories through which public policies are formulated and implemented (Desrosières, 1993). Ministerial Statistical Services (MSS) also engage in the publication of sectorial knowledge likely to be mobilised in policy formulation.18 The Finance Department’s powerful Division for Economic 13

Policy analysis in France

and Financial Studies (Service des études économiques et financières) offers another example of institutionalised sources of departmental policy knowledge. Created in 1947 within the Treasury Directorate, it gained additional autonomy in 1965 when it developed into the Prospective Directorate (1965) and as such, a source of reflexive knowledge over bureaucratic practices – including the selection of cost and productivity indicators in the context of the Planning-ProgrammingBudgeting System programme (Bezes, 2009, 68–71). Moreover, a myriad of research and expert institutes affiliated with ministries and the Prime Minister’s office also contribute to the production of statistical knowledge, policy analysis, studies and reports that are likely to shape the substance and format of public policies. Together, they constitute a prime source of bureaucratic knowledge and policy recommendations intended to guide and evaluate state intervention. As a result, and in the French context, a vast share of practitioners’ knowledge for and about policy-making – which would be considered the equivalent of ‘policy analysis’ in the United States – is produced in these organisations. Despite repeated political attempts to foster alternative sources of policy analysis through the creation and restructuring of bodies, councils and task forces that would cut across bureaucratic boundaries and hierarchies, state expertise enjoys a certain degree of autonomy. This has several consequences for the understanding of the politics of policy analysis in the French context. First, this explains why, on the one hand, the self-commissioning of administrative reports and studies is considered common practice, while on the other hand, politicians rely upon extensive cabinets in which political advisers must deal – somewhat uneasily – with higher civil servants in order to rely upon alternative sources of knowledge. Second, considering these research and expert institutes’ activities and production as mere policy knowledge would be a mistake. Insofar as they are fully integrated to the production of state knowledge about the state and specific policy areas, their activities and research outputs meet the state needs and are shaped by within-state logics. Yet by mixing empirical description, scientific objectives and political recommendations, they are fully integrated to the state intervening processes which they are intended to analyse. As such, they are considered a preferred source of analysis for scholars seeking to understand the intellectual or symbolic frameworks of state intervention (Rhodes, 2011). Third, the development of a field of state expertise played a critical role in the history of French social and economic sciences, as it contributed to their continued strengthening. In that it was not the output of imported academic knowledge, state expertise in this field led to the emergence a new body of knowledge,19 that was indexed on public policy imperatives at first and subsequently gained academic recognition as convincingly argued by Daniel Benamouzig and Frédéric Lebaron in Chapter Sixteen. This relationship only reversed in recent years, with state expertise not being considered a place of scientific innovation whereas both economics and the social sciences have become institutionalised as scientific disciplines in their own right in universities and research centres. During the postwar period, economists actively engaged, within the state, in the production and 14

Introduction

analysis of public accounts, economic modelling and forecast. The creation and rapid development of new institutes and administrative departments within the ministry of Finance (Prospective Directorate, INSEE, and so on) justified the need to develop specific training programmes within existing or new Grandes Écoles, first the École polytechique, that trains civilian engineers and scientists, as well as army officers, and second, the National School for Statistics and Economic Studies (École nationale de la statistique et des études économiques [ENSAE]). At the same time, economic departments inside universities gained additional salience and grew more autonomous from law departments, thus opening new opportunities for engaging in international research activities while at the same time maintaining a certain level in mathematics and statistics. This allowed on the one hand publishing in peer-reviewed journals and, on the other hand, developing strong links with the tradition of engineers-economists as taught in the Grandes Écoles – although the convergence only occurred in the 1980s and 1990s under the impulse of a few academics20 and bureaucrats, such as Henry Guitton. Yet these developments also induced a clear shift towards mainstream economics inside universities and the CNRS, to the detriment of critical and heterodox conceptions, as well as the political economy tradition close to the social sciences, which still remains today, although now at the fringes of the discipline. This academic discipline’s internationalisation and institutionalisation also induced some changes in the work achieved by practitioners within the state apparatus in producing policy knowledge. Academic work was more frequently referred to in the sphere of public decision-making with some impact on public policies themselves that is, on the one hand, the growing role of economic experts in budgetary, monetary and economic performance policies, and on the other hand, the increasing use of economic references in specific policy fields such as public health. In the following section, we discuss the extent to which the focus on policy analysis sheds new light on current restructuring dynamics in policy-making and the state functioning.

Understanding changes in the politics and practices of policy analysis in the French context In line with recent academic work on the French state (Culpepper et al, 2006; Hayward, 2007) and policy developments in France (Borraz and Guiraudon, 2008; 2011; Cole et al, 2013; Hassenteufel, Saurugger, forthcoming; Elgie et al, 2016) that emphasised the complex interplay between change and continuity, we found that the production of policy analysis is still primarily achieved within state organisations and by state elites. Historical developments of policy analysis – the way it was produced, where it was located, and whether and by whom it was strategically used – matter and help understanding the state’s continued centrality in this process. Nevertheless, the politics of policy analysis, as well as the power relations it entails, underwent some changes according to the strategic role devoted to policy analysis as part of non-state and non-executive organisations’ 15

Policy analysis in France

strategies to increase their political capacity. Chapters in this volume discuss the extent to which such transformations have taken place and account for resistances and restructuring processes in the production and uses of policy knowledge both within and outside the state. The restructuring of the field of state expertise Within the Executive branch, state elites and organisations resisted – with unequal success – to repeated attempts to reduce their dominance by encouraging two major developments that are not specific to the French context (Chapter Six). First, the increasing influence of ‘numbers’ (quantitative analysis, statistics, and nowadays, big data) compared to more traditional literary or legal skills. Second, this was also achieved by shifting policy expertise downstream of the policy process, as top civil servants are increasingly engaged in policy evaluation and performance measurement. The ability of bureaucrats to master these forms of policy knowledge conditions their ability to resist increased attempts by consultants, private-sector experts and members of interest groups to challenge their leadership and emerge as alternative and legitimate sources of knowledge on and for policies.In addition, research services affiliated with the Prime Minister, including post-war planning and programming committees, were profoundly transformed from 1995 onwards. Some organisations were dismantled or transformed, while new ones were created on a somewhat different format.21 In most cases, the general trend shows the growing use of more diversified sources of policy knowledge, as exemplified in the case of the Economic Analysis Council (Conseil d’Analyse d’Economique). Mainly composed of university-based economists, its creation ended the monopoly previously held over economic expertise by higher civil servants. Beyond this specific example, the restructuring of state expertise is increasingly shaped by institutionalising fields of academic knowledge in economics and social sciences in the university system (Chapter Seventeen). This also contributes to redefining power relations between higher civil servants and academics. The transformations taking place within the field of state expertise also modify the role of ad hoc commissions, to which the French government may resort to from time to time, and the reports that they produce. The Prime Minister, sometimes in cooperation with the President or a Minister, may indeed prefer to resort to ad hoc commissions, which are considered more flexible than aforementioned research organisations and committees. Members’ selection offers more room for manoeuvre and shows the tendency to draw on diversified sources of policy knowledge, including academics. Insofar as their missions are closely related to governmental strategies, these organisations have a greater capacity to produce a more politicised analysis in their reports and practical recommendations.22

16

Introduction

Unequal policy knowledge capacity outside the politico-administrative system Yet other organisations across levels of government and the public, the private and the voluntary sectors, have developed their own capacity for analysing policy processes. Whether political institutions (the Legislative branch, subnational levels of government) or non-state organisations (consultants, think tanks, interest groups, NGO’s, academics), policy analysis is not mobilised in a straightforward way (Chapters Seven to Fifteen).23 As discussed in the following paragraphs, this is not only explained by state organisations and elites resisting the development of alternative sources of policy knowledge but also due to the limited interest in developing policy analysis resources as part of non-state and non-executive organisations’ strategies to increase their political capacity. Despite successive waves of decentralisation from 1982 onwards, subnational levels of governments have unevenly prioritised the need to develop their own capacity for producing and evaluating public policies, as argued in Chapter Seven by Alain Faure and Emmanuel Négrier (see also Loughlin, 2007; Galès, 2011; Pasquier 2012; Pasquier et al, 2011). Most levels of government have gained considerable powers together with the financial and administrative means to endorse them. In addition, restructuring forms of local political leadership also show the ability of local authorities and politicians to develop alternative political resources in order to expand their political capacity vis-à-vis the French state (Pinson, 2009). Yet when considering policy analysis itself, only a limited number of large cities, together with some regions and counties have systematically developed their own capacity for policy knowledge in close partnership with consultancy agencies, mixed economy systems and European and International organisations (Cadiou, 2005). A vast majority of subnational authorities still rely heavily on the central administration’s expertise al administrationonal authorities still or policy knowledge in close partnership with consultancy interventionism in shaping policy developments at subnational levels of government is less related to its own representatives and resources, including in terms of policy knowledge, but rather to the diffusion of standards, best practices and ideas that allow some level of territorial differentiation in combination with standardisation processes (Douillet et al, 2012). In the case of parliament, power asymmetry between the executive and the legislative branches partly account for the limited development of policy analysis, and several explanations are brought forward. As shown in Chapter Eight by Olivier Rozenberg and Yves Surel, the French parliament is counted among the weakest legislative institutions across western democracies when it comes to assessing its role in the decision-making process. Moreover, not only are there limited incentives for developing policy knowledge resources within the parliament, but considering the limited MPs’ ability to influence policy-making, they are less induced to specialise in specific policy issues and to develop policy knowledge across policy domains.24 As a result, parliamentary debates tend to be more political than technical, and rarely draw on the parliament’s own policy 17

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knowledge resources. Despite several attempts to non-legislative activities, including policy evaluation, the Constitutional Council systematically maintained a restrictive approach of parliament’s activities in its ruling. To the exception of the work achieved under the leadership of the national Assembly’s Commission for the Assessment and Monitoring of Public Policies, which was created in 2009, the greater part of policy evaluation activities remains thereafter undertaken within government bureaucracy.25 The lack of incentives for developing policy analysis resources is further exacerbated in the case of non-state actors, and sometimes explained by high levels of interrelationships with higher civil servants. In Chapter Twelve, Camilo Argibay, Rafaël Cos and Anne-Cécile Douillet highlight the paradox between, on the one hand, the institutionalisation since the 1970s onwards of party-based policy analysis resources, but on the other hand, their structurally unstable and fragile positions – mostly due to within-party competition. Moreover, they enjoy little autonomy from central administration, as party leadership favours contributions from senior civil servants with whom they often share similar training. Often serving in the most prestigious departments, they supply party leadership with policy briefs and directly applicable recommendations. This confirms strong levels of mutual acquaintanceship between governing parties and state organisations. In a similar vein, Julie Gervais and Frédéric Pierru (Chapter Ten) argue that many consultants and higher civil servants share common interests and values, and follow similar careers paths. Up until the 1990s, policy knowledge focusing on modernising public services and the state was jointly produced by higher civil servants, political elites, some business leaders, alongside a few carefully selected academics, intellectuals, journalists and union leaders gathered in closed clubs. Following the diffusion of new public management (NPM) ideas and practices across continental Europe, the influence of big international consultancy firms – mostly Anglo-American – grew rapidly as a vast share of publically-owned enterprises underwent privatisation reforms. Contacts with senior civil servants intensified (Bezes, 2012) through these consultancy firms’ increased interest in government activities, and their ability to attract higher civil servants and graduates from the Grandes Écoles. A hybrid type of elite emerged and thereafter actively engaged in the diffusion of NPM ideas in the French state. In the case of think tanks, however, also discussed in Chapter Twelve, and by contrast with their British or American counterparts, these organisations enjoy limited financial and human resources. Even though they actively engage in the production and diffusion of policy knowledge and ideas, their political role is considerably less institutionalised (Medvetz, 2012). Another explanation for remaining asymmetries between state and non-state actors in controlling policy knowledge resources lies in the strength of the belief – inherited from the French Revolution – that the state best embodies and guarantees the general interest. Historically, this long constituted a major obstacle to the development of civil society organisations, including non-governmental organisations, economic interest groups and to a lesser extent trade unions, and 18

Introduction

often justified their limited interest in developing policy knowledge resources as opposed to other, more effective, influence strategies. By focusing on the production of policy knowledge, contributors to this volume, to a degree, confirm that such an analysis holds true up until the 1990s for these various groups, but show how, over the recent period, they increasingly engage in such activities with a limited impact on policy formulation as opposed to policy implementation. In the case of business organisations, Guillaume Courty and Marc Milet, in Chapter Thirteen, show how successive governments entrusted these groups with the role of information and socio-economic data providers. They actively engaged in the development of statistics – even though state agents successfully claimed and monopolised this policy resource since the post-war period – and fully committed to transmitting information and figures that civil servants became accustomed to receiving from them. As of late, liberalisation policies, state reforms and the formalisation of lobbying activities, somewhat transformed relationships between business organisations and government organisations. To begin with, a large number of the consultative arenas that dated back to the post-war era were dismantled or restructured, while at the same time, the government’s dependency on business organisations’ data and policy knowledge decreased. In addition, business organisations now increasingly rely on outsourcing, mainly to consultancy firms, for the production of quantitative data through surveys, but when interacting with public authorities (for example, working groups or parliamentary hearings), their representatives still favour policy resources produced internally. Similarly, Sophie Béroud and Jean-Marie Pernot in Chapter Fifteen account for the various ways in which trade unions selectively developed policy knowledge resources and made continued efforts to analyse their socio-economic environment – even on a small-scale and ad hoc basis. Together with employers’ organisations, trade unions jointly managed whole segments of the welfare state (for example, health insurance, retirement pensions, unemployment insurance and job training), thereafter developing considerable policy knowledge in these areas despite the state retaining the final say in defining policy orientations. Nevertheless, their influence on policy-making has been strongest during exceptional times, such as during the Second World War, or May 1968 events, which confirms their successful ability to establish a favourable balance of power by drawing on protest rather than mobilising policy knowledge during consultation and negotiation arenas. Since the 2000s, however, new forms of social dialogue between employers and trade unions have been introduced with the support of the state, thus leading these organisations to increasingly consider the production of policy knowledge resources as critical in their attempts to influence the formulation of labour policies. In the case of non-governmental (NGOs) and civil-society organisations (CSOs), Laurie Boussaguet and Charlotte Halpern (Chapter Fourteen) argue that both groups have increased their policy knowledge resources and increasingly consider it as a strategic action repertoire. Notwithstanding some variations, these 19

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groups were categorised – and to some extent still are – as policy outsiders and remained largely secluded from policy formulation or in some cases, selectively included at policy implementation stages. As a result, they had little incentive to include policy knowledge resources in developing their own strategies unless it contributed to establishing a favourable balance of power during protest cycles and as part of court appeals, or to access public funding and subsidies. Recent evolutions show, however, that CSOs and NGOs across policy fields and levels of government cannot be considered any more as mere service providers or protesters, as they increasingly engage in the production of policy knowledge and seek for formal recognition as policy stakeholders. Meanwhile, state organisations and elites increased their capacity to internalise civil society organisations’ policy knowledge in the policy process. In Chapter Nine, Cécile Blatrix and Guillaume Gourgues further discuss the added value of public participation devices to the development of alternative policy knowledge resources. Similar to other cases considered in this book series, participatory devices were introduced in a variety of formats (public inquiries, users’ committees, public hearings, consensus conferences, participatory budgeting, and so on) since the 1990s onwards. While they seldom led to the production of alternative policy knowledge resources, these devices made it possible for decision-makers in the political or administrative spheres to selectively enrol knowledge, opinions and actors from outside the state apparatus, thus in some cases contributing to the cognitive reframing of specific issues. Under such conditions, dominant policy frames were adapted and, more rarely, gave rise to new forms of policy knowledge. Participatory devices also helped making certain areas of knowledge and dimensions of a given policy issue visible which had been hitherto hardly discernible. From time to time, they play a role in the adaptation, circulation and exchange of knowledge produced by a vast share of actors, including interest groups, local residents and professional experts. Together, chapters in this volume shed new light on policy analysis in the French context – how and by whom it is produced, its contents, forms and uses, as well as its long-term impact on state–society relationships and policy dynamics. It provides some explanation for the enduring gap between knowledge for and of policies, and as such, an opportunity to question the added value of policy analysis as an object of study and a government practice.

Book outline The book is divided into five sections and 18 chapters. The first part of the book focuses on the styles and methods of public policy analysis. The first three chapters provide a history of the development of policy analysis in France. Three distinct periods are examined: first, the prehistory from the nineteenth century until the 1970s; second, the invention of policy analysis in the 1970s and 1980s; and, third, the controversies and debates that have shaped policy analysis over the

20

Introduction

past 15 years. A fourth chapter completes this history by focusing on the various methods and research designs that are used in this academic field. The second part of the book examines policy analysis in government or, in other words, the study for policy and production of knowledge meant as a way to improve policy-making and outcomes. It is divided into three chapters, each of them highlighting the importance of knowledge production for policy within the state apparatus, local governments, and the parliament. This second part pays particular attention to the historical and current role played by civil servants and more specifically the ‘Grands Corps’ in this process. In all three institutional arenas, this specific group of elites has enjoyed differentiated degrees of autonomy in producing knowledge and expertise, as well as in influencing rulemaking. Part Three of the volume includes chapters that consider the role of committees, public inquiries, and consultants in the public policy process. In other words, this third part focuses on specific arenas of political participation that were artificially created by the state in order to consult and include organised civil society organisations either on a permanent or an ad hoc basis. While the French political system is unquestionably characterised by the leading role played by civil servants within policy-making, the development of committees and public inquiries, together with the continued presence of consultants and councillors, also constitutes another feature of policy-making and knowledge production in policy processes in the French context. These chapters discuss the extent to which these groups and individuals have come to exert a growing influence in recent years. Part Four focuses on the study for policy and knowledge production within political parties, think-tanks and interest groups. In many ways, the French state remains characterised by a weaker tradition than that of negotiation in Germany and that of pluralism of influence (for example, think tanks and interest groups) in the United States. These three chapters suggest exploring the French specificity by highlighting the large array of action repertoires and influence strategies that are used by political parties and interest groups in order to influence policy-making. Although knowledge production for policy remains underdeveloped vis-à-vis the situation observed in other western democracies, it has played a growing role over the past 15 years both due to internal factors as well as the state’s initiative. Part Five of the book critically assesses the place of policy analysis within the academic world. It is divided into three different chapters. The first chapter shows how economists and their specific understanding of policy analysis have come to occupy the vacuum lying between the study of policy and the study for policy. The two remaining chapters critically reflect on current relationships between the public policy academic community and places of knowledge production for policy within the state. This helps to explain why the distinction between policy analysis and policy studies still holds.

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Notes 1

2

3

4 5

6

7

8 9

10 11

12

13

14

22

We are grateful to Iris Geva-May and Michael Howlett, the editors of the International Library of Policy Analysis, for their support throughout the preparation of the volume and for that of Monica Steffen in launching the project. Additional cross-cutting perspectives, such as enduring socio-spatial inequalities in the recruitment of French elites or a gender perspective on the study for and of policy, have been systematically included in all chapters where appropriate. We had two opportunities to meet as a group during the preparation of the book. First at a workshop hosted by the Centre d’études européennes at Sciences Po, in Paris in April 2015 and second, at a panel during the ICPP Conference in Milan in July 2015. In the first translation of Lasswell, Aron and Lerner’s book, The Policy Sciences in the United States, translated as Les sciences de la politique aux Etats-Unis. It should be noted that politics, policy and polity are commonly referred to, in French, by using the word ‘policy’. Moreover, by adding the word ‘publique’, policies are implicitly considered public. Two founding moments that both took place in the early 1980s were particularly critical: first, the organisation of a dedicated round table as part of the first national congress of the French political science association (AFSP) in 1981, and second, the introduction of a dedicated volume in the First French Political Science Treaty (Thoenig, 1985). See also the recently published Oxford Handbook of French Politics which discusses the specificity of policy developments in the French context as well as the specific contribution of policy studies as developed in France (Elgie et al, 2016). Even though it provides a comparative connection, the contribution of French gender policy studies also remains distinct (Mazur and Revillard, 2016). Similar to the situation observed at the international level, gender policy studies is particularly representative of this recent development, with two reference books having been produced (Jacquot and Mazur, 2004; Achin and Bereni, 2013) together with a number of published pieces on gender policy studies in France and in a comparative perspective (Mazur and Revillard, 2016). Albeit with some minor differences, this has been the case since the late nineteenth century. Barriers explanatory of unequal access for specific social groups and women to the Grandes Écoles and to top positions in the administrative and the political spheres are discussed in a number of chapters in the book. For example, gender policy studies identified the barriers faced in promoting a feminist critical analysis of policy issues or in breaking the glass ceiling in order to access policy-making in so called ‘sovereign’ policy domains as opposed to social and health policies (Revillard, 2009, 44). See also Chapter Six by Biland and Gally in this volume. This refers to the policy practitioner role within the women’s policy agencies since the 1960s and their links to the field of ‘women’s advocacy’ (Bereni, 2009) in the French context. Beyond women’s representation, the creation of specialised observatories contributed to the production of information and policy recommendations about cross-sectional or emerging issues (parity, ethnic discriminations, and so on) in support of new policy areas or measures. It should be noted that a strong research tradition developed, both in political science and sociology, in line with Foucault’s work on practices of governmentality (Foucault, 1978) in order to account for such early developments. See in particular the work done on cameral sciences (Laborier et al, 2011) and sciences of government (savoirs de gouvernement) (Ihl et al, 2003; Kaluszynski and Payre, 2013) in a historical perspective. Yet it is only in the recent period, with the work initiated by Lascoumes on policy instrumentation (Lascoumes, 2003; Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2004), that its implication for policy process studies were highlighted (Halpern et al, 2014). Based on the perspective structuring of this book the three editors organised a panel on this topic at the 2017 Congress of the French Political Science Association.

Introduction 15

16 17 18

19

20 21

22

23 24

25

For example, it is impossible to understand past and recent developments across policy areas such as energy, transport, telecommunications and industry without taking into account the central role played by two Grands Corps – École des Mines and École des Ponts and Chaussées – both within and outside the state apparatus, including public and private owned enterprises, and in specialised state agencies that were created at the local level in order to run strategic services (for example water, health, or housing). Similarly, state elites who were trained as generalists (Inspection des finances, Conseil d’Etat, Cour des comptes, and so on) hold similar positions in the state apparatus, administrative and fiscal jurisdictions, and, at subnational levels of government, as the state’s representatives (Préfets). Those who do not, such as environmental affairs, usually count among the weakest in the state apparatus (Lascoumes, 2012). In the case of classified installations inspectorates, see Bonnaud (2005). Among them, the Directorate for research, studies and statistics (DARES) at the Department of Work and Employment, and the Directorate for research, studies, evaluation and statistics (DREES) at the Department of Social Affairs. This was particularly the case in economics, thus justifying the choice made by this volume’s editors to depart from the series’ recommended outline in order to devote a specific chapter to this issue. Within the French Association of Economics and following the arrival of a new generation of academics in major universities like the Sorbonne (Paris-1) or Nanterre. Among others, the Economic Analysis Council (Conseil d’Analyse Economique) in 1997, the Pension Orientation Council (Conseil d’Orientation des Retraites) in 2000, and the Employment Orientation Council (Conseil d’Orientation pour l’Emploi) in 2005. See the example of the Commission on the Measure of Economic and Social Performance, created in 2008 on the initiative of President Sarkozy. It was chaired by three economists (JeanPaul Fitoussi, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz) and composed entirely of academics. In all these chapters, where appropriate, some attention was given to above-mentioned crosscutting perspectives to the study for and of policy. This is all the truer that parliament only has a limited number of standing committees, namely eight in the National Assembly since 2009 for 577 MPs. By contrast, the US Senate has 16 standing committees and 88 committees for 100 senators. In contrast with the way the US Congress maintains political control over the Executive branch by mobilising policy analysis resources with the support from independent agencies such as the Government Accountability Office.

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Hayward, J., Watson, M. (eds) (1975) Planning, politics and public policy: The British, French and Italian experience, London: Cambridge University Press. Heclo, H. (1974) The Private Government of Public Money: Community and Policy inside British Politics, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Ihl, O., Kaluszynski, M., Pollet, G. (eds) (2003) Les sciences de gouvernement, Paris: Economica. Jacquot, S., Mazur, A. (2004) ‘Politiques publiques et genre’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Dictionnaire des politiques publiques, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po (4th edn), 2010, pp. 460–9. Jessop, B. (1996) ‘Post-Fordism and the state’, in B. Greve (ed) Comparative Welfare Systems, pp. 165–83, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Jobert, B. (1994) Le tournant néo-libéral en Europe: idées et recettes dans les pratiques gouvernementales. Logiques politiques 21, Paris: l’Harmattan. Jobert, B., Muller, P. (1987) L’Etat en action: Politiques publiques et corporatismes, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Jones, B.D., Baumgartner, F.R. (2005) The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems (new edn) Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jones, C.O. (1970) An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Jordan, A.G., Richardson, J.J. (1983) ‘Policy communities: The British and European policy style’, Policy Studies Journal 11(4), 603–15. Kaluszynski, M., Payre, R. (eds) (2013) Savoirs de gouvernement: circulation(s), traduction(s), réception(s), Paris: Economica. Kingdon, J.W. (2010) Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (2nd edn), London: Longman. Kolopp, S. (2013) ‘De la modernisation à la raison économique: La formation en économie à l’ENA et les déplacements des lieux communs de l’action publique (1945–1984)’, Genèses 93(4), 53–75. Laborier, P., Trom, D. (2003) Historicités de l’action publique: [actes du colloque, Amiens, 12–13 octobre 2000], Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Laborier P., Audren F., Napoli P. and Vogel J. (dir) (2011) Les Sciences camérales, activités pratiques et histoire des dispositifs publics, Paris: PUF & CURAPP. Lascoumes, P. (2003) ‘Gouverner par les instruments, ou comment s’instrumente l’action publique?’, in J. Lagroye, La Politisation, Paris: Belin. Lascoumes, P. (2012) Action publique et environnement, Paris: PUF. Lascoumes, P., Le Galès, P. (eds) (2004) Gouverner par les instruments, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Lascoumes, P., Le Galès, P. (2011) Sociologie de l’action publique, Paris: Armand Colin, 2nd edn. Lasswell, H.D. (1951) The Policy Sciences: Recent Developments in Scope and Method, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Lasswell, H.D., Aron, R., Lerner, D. (1951) Les ‘Sciences de la politique’ aux Etats-Unis, Cahiers de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques 19. Paris: Armand Colin. 26

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Le Galès, P. (2011) Le retour des villes européennes: Sociétés urbaines, mondialisation, gouvernement et gouvernance (2nd edn), Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Leca, J., Muller, P. (2008) ‘Y a-t-il une approche française des politiques publiques? Retour sur les conditions de l’introduction de l’analyse des politiques publiques en France’, in P. Warin, O. Giraud (eds) Politiques publiques et démocratie, pp. 35–72, Paris: La Découverte. Leca, J., Favre, P., Hayward, J.E.S., Schemeil, Y. (2003) Être gouverné: études en l’honneur de Jean Leca, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Lindblom, C.E., Woodhouse, E.J. (1992) The Policy Making Process (3rd edn), London: Pearson. Loughlin, J. (2007) Subnational Government: The French experience, Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Maillard, J. de, Kuebler, D. (2009) Analyser les politiques publiques, Fontaine: Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2014. Majone, G. (1992) Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in the Policy Process, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mangenot, M. (1999) ‘‘‘L’entrée en technocratie.” Le concours de l’ENA et les transformations du modèle du haut fonctionnaire’, in D. Dulong, V. Dubois (eds) La question technocratique. De l’invention d’une figure aux transformations de l’action publique, pp. 93-107, Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg. Margetts, H., Hood, C. (2016) ‘Tools approaches’, in Contemporary Approaches to Public Policy, pp.133–54, New York: Springer. Mayntz, R. (1975) Policy-making in the German Federal Bureaucracy, Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier. Mazur, A., Revillard, A. (2016) ‘Gender policy studies: Distinct, but making the comparative connection’, in R. Elgie, E. Grossman, A. Mazur (eds) The Oxford Handbook of French Politics, pp. 556–82, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Medvetz, T. (2012) Think Tanks in America, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mény, T. (1989) Les politiques publiques, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Mény, Y., Thœnig, J.-C. (1989) Politiques publiques, Thémis, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Muller, P. (2015) Politiques publiques, 11th edn, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Muller, P., Surel, Y. (2000) L’Analyse des politiques publiques, Paris: Montchrestien, Padioleau, J.-G. (1982) L’État au concret, Sociologies 20, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Pasquier, R. (2012) Le pouvoir régional: Mobilisations, décentralisation et gouvernance en France, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Pasquier, R., Guigner, S., Cole, A. (2011) Dictionnaire des politiques territoriales, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Pierson, P. (2004) Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pinson, G. (2009) Gouverner la ville par projet: Urbanisme et gouvernance des villes européennes, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. 27

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Radaelli, C.M., Schmidt, V. (2015) Policy Change and Discourse in Europe, Abingdon: Routledge. Revillard, A. (2009) ‘Le comité du travail féminin et la genèse d’une politique d’égalité professionnelle en France (1965–1983)’, Revue Française de Science Politique 59(2), 279–300. Rhodes, R.A.W. (2011) Everyday life in British government, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sabatier, P.A. (1998) Theories of the Policy Process, Boulder, CO: Westview Press Inc. Saurugger, S. (2010) Théories et concepts de l’intégration européenne, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Scott, J. (1998) Seeing like a State, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Thoenig, J.-C. (1985) ‘L’analyse des politiques publiques’, in M. Grawitz, J. Leca (eds) Traité de science politique, vol 4, pp. 1–60, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Tocqueville, A. (1856) Old Regime and the Revolution, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1998-2001. Wildavsky, A. (1987) Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis, Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Wright, V. (1979) Conflict and Consensus in France, London: F. Cass. Wright, V., Cassese, S. (1996) La recomposition de l’État en Europe, Collection Recherches, Paris: Éd. la Découverte. Zittoun, P. (2014) The Political Process of Policymaking: A Pragmatic Approach to Public Policy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Zittoun, P., Demongeot, B. (2010)  ‘Debates in French policy studies: From cognitive to discursive approaches’, Critical policy studies 3(3–4), 391–406. Zittoun, P., Peters, B.G. (2016) Contemporary Approaches to Public Policy: Theories, Controversies and Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Part One The styles and methods of public policy analysis

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TWO

On the path to public policy analysis: an ‘administrative science’ between reform and academy Renaud Payre and Gilles Pollet

The simple question to which this first ‘sociohistorical’ chapter wishes to respond is the following: what types of studies, writings and reflections existed on the theme of public administrations and their policies even before the institutionalisation of public policy analysis per se in France? And how did this corpus of understandings and questioning, of knowledge and know-how, influence the constitution of this academic speciality, or indeed not? In other terms, in this chapter we would like to examine the sociogenesis of an academic discipline by illustrating the filiations, borrowings, hybridisations and co-constructions which contributed to the public policy analysis1 ‘à la française’ of current times. Our hypothesis is that, in the French case, public policy analysis, primarily inspired by North America, also developed in response to the relative failure of ‘administrative science’ to be institutionalised, and from the science’s foundations and eventual prolongations. Indeed, in France, public policy analysis took over from an ‘administrative science’ which tried to develop over almost a century but which, unlike in the United States, was never fully institutionalised and professionalised. This occurred for two main reasons. First, due to the weight of law in the training of French elites, this administrative science constantly tended to fall under the specialty of the administrative law taught in the Facultés.2 It was also the result of the fundamental role played by some senior civil servants, jurists by training and legal practitioners – notably state councillors – in the determination of jurisprudence and a form of litigation science, as well as reflections and policies pertaining to the reform, modernisation and operation of the state and public administrations. These senior civil servants considered themselves to be the only legitimate actors operating in this domain, although they were also state actors and could thus be referred to as both ‘judge and jury’ of politico-administrative action. It is necessary to make a specific inventory of what this ‘administrative science’ bequeathed to public policy analysis in France, as this historical episode constitutes an essential element to understanding the sociogenesis of French public policy analysis. At the origin of the public policy analysis which would develop in France from the 1970s and 1980s onwards, particularly within political science as an intersection for academic disciplines, we indeed find, in addition to and next to a great number of Anglo-Saxon and especially North-American contributions (Mény and Thoenig, 1989), an entire series of empirical and theoretical research 31

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and forms of problematisations linked to the (effective) operation of public administrations (developed in Michel Crozier’s Centre for the Sociology of Organisations (Centre de Sociologie des Organisations [CSO]). This initial observation leads us back to the history of a science of public policy even before its academic institutionalisation. The approach which aims to reconstitute a non-disciplinary history of these disciplines is already well-known (Burrow et al, 1983; Ross, 1991). These works instead impel us to propose a non-retrospective socio-history of the knowledge enterprises of politico-administrative action and their link to the activities of administrative and political practitioners. From this angle, attention can be drawn to fragile scientific projects, diverse intellectual enterprises and their competitive effects, distinguishing the consolidation of certain of them and the possible eviction of others. Starting from this basis, we will equally take into account the academic disciplines, as well as the projects or even the simple claims, of an administrative science. Our intention is not to reread the past in the light of current times, nor to control the memory of the discipline in order to decide the future or to finally determine some effects of its institutionalisation. Such a history was already produced just after the Second World War (Langrod, 1966; Prélot, 1961) and sought a genesis for the discipline by evoking the ‘science of the police’ from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, developed by German Kameralists and by several great French forerunners – like Nicolas de La Mare in his work Police Treaty (Traité de la Police). But, above all, this particular account dwelt on the nineteenth century in order to put forward a real pantheon of founding fathers of this science: for example, Tocqueville in France, von Stein in Germany, Wilson in America. Its chief aim was to convince us that the discipline truly existed. The approach which we would like to establish is different. It instead proposes a new reading of the collection of documents and discourses related to the administration, its reform and its possible rationalisation and modernisation, through the tenuous assertion of a genuine ‘administrative science’ which, in fact, would never be truly legitimised and institutionalised – at least not before the 1940s. This approach involves an examination of the different settings of text production and the configurations of actors and institutions which then backed and diffused these texts. Ultimately, ‘administrative science’ will be addressed here as a vast reformative movement which attempted to institutionalise itself, in particular at an academic level, and within which the French actors were connected to a group of networks which appeared, from the twentieth century onwards, to be largely internationalised, even transnational, and, more specifically, transatlantic. For more than a century, ‘administrative science’ constructed itself as a national and transnational cause with, in the French case, the domination of jurists and state Councillors limiting its institutionalisation as a practical science. At an academic level, the turning point of the 1940s, and most importantly post-Second World War, was marked by a new context, more favourable to an administrative science which was seen as a politico-administrative reform science, but which would still only have rare openings into the academic and scientific sphere. This incomplete 32

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academic institutionalisation, particularly through the critical debates which it provoked, could appear as the premises and the ground for both the future development of a new specialty, largely inspired by North-American writers, and the complex debates between supporters of a science of government and Public Administration studies: public policy analysis.

‘Administrative science’ as a national and transnational cause (1830–1930) In many ways, ‘administrative science’ constitutes one of the essential matrixes of modern public policy analysis. If one wishes to grasp the complexity of its development, it is necessary to think outside uniquely academic spheres and to seriously consider the collection of discourse and actions related to the administration and its possible rationalisation. In France, from the 1830s, a milieu dedicated to the production of knowledge specific to the administration appeared. Its institutionalisation, throughout the nineteenth century, occurred via the publication of reviews and dictionaries, and through the organisation of teachings, training schools and the activities of diverse learned societies. It also progressed, at the beginning of the twentieth century, by virtue of the circulation of numerous actors and ideas linked to the construction of a transnational space of international congresses, in which the weight of American reformers – disciples of a science of public administration – would become increasingly important. This milieu of reform was initially structured around editorial spaces. Thus, in the 1830s, the first reviews pertaining to administrative duties were published. This was the case of the Legislation and Jurisprudence Review (Revue de législation et de Jurisprudence), founded in 1834 by the jurist, economist and politician Louis Wolowski (1810–76). This review clearly supported the preparatory education projects for the Civil Service. In 1839, the Administration Review (Revue administrative) was also created. It would be carried on in 1846 by law professor and State Councillor Alfred Blanche (1816-1893) and the publisher Paul Dupont (1796-1879), until 1849, when these two authors published the General Administration Dictionary (Dictionnaire général d’administration). Three decades later, in 1878, the statistician and economist Maurice Block (1816-1901) founded the General Administration Review (Revue générale d’administration), which was published until 1929 and marked the establishment of the enterprise of this administrative milieu (Payre, 2013). After a year in operation, even before the regime became a republic, the review was entrusted to the civil servants from the Ministry of the Interior’s very first departmental division office. The mission assigned to this review was thus: ‘to educate, to control, to critique, to indicate progress to be made, reforms to be accomplished’. The reviews often accompanied other publications of breadth, such as dictionaries. In addition to the dictionary edited by Blanche and Dupont in 1849, we cite in particular that of Block, published in 1856. The objective of Blanche’s dictionary was clearly expounded in its manifesto: ‘to offer administrators special, specific, and technical 33

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notions, as they have the right to demand them; to speak without dryness to the people of the world of things which are far from being incompatible with a form of charm and interest, to tirelessly initiate them into a new science for them and to inspire their desire to explore it further’. Projects for a school of administration also constituted one of the major tangible objectives of this milieu. The history of a national school of administration is one of aborted projects (from Condorcet to Victor Duruy, via Portalis). Nevertheless, under the July Monarchy (1830–48), the project was on the verge of materialising. In 1840, under the auspices of Public Education Minister Victor Cousin (1792–1867), a study was conducted on administrative teachings in Germany. In 1843, the jurist Edouard Laboulaye (1811–83) published a summary of the study in the Revue de législation et de Jurisprudence and the report was then carried on by Hippolyte Carnot, Public Education Minister (1848). However, the project concerning the creation of a special school of administration had not yet been presented to the Chambers when the Revolution broke out in 1848. All the same, we can point to the existence of diverse teachings, for example at the Egyptian school located in Paris (École egyptienne de Paris), at which the State Councillor and politician Sébastien Joseph Boulatignier (1805–95) had already created administrative law classes. Several years later, the State Councillor Léon Aucoc (1828–1910) would make these classes the matrix of the school of administration. In fact, in 1848, the government decreed that ‘an administrative school destined to recruit for the diverse administration branches, until present devoid of preparatory schools, will be established along the same basis as that of the École polytechnique [Polytechnic School]’. However, this school would only host two student cohorts and would close the following year. Nonetheless, a proportion of the students would seek to obtain the reopening of a similar training institution. In this respect, until 1848, the Association of former students of the school (Association des anciens élèves de l’École), would play an extremely important role. On the other hand, having opened its doors in 1872, the Independent School of Political Sciences (École Libre des Sciences Politiques) – referred to by Emile Boutmy as the State Sciences University (Université des sciences d’État) – was, for a long time, regarded as a competitor for the eventual national school of administration. In 1877, Hippolyte Carnot submitted a new proposition for the creation of a national school of administration to the Senate, even though the Independent School of Political Sciences had opened five years previously. The failure of this proposition marked the rapprochement between the financial support for a national school of administration and the Saint Guillaume Street School (École de la rue Saint Guillaume).3 In conjunction with the reviews, dictionaries and schools, the learned societies (the Political Economy Society (Société d’économie politique), the Statistics Society of Paris (Société de statistique de Paris), the Society of Comparative Legislation (Société de législation comparée), the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry (Société d’encouragement de l’Industrie nationale), among others) also contributed to the production of administrative knowledge. The Société de statistique de Paris 34

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(closely linked to the Economists’ Journal [Journal des Économistes]) was of particular importance. At its very origin, it was the extension of the network of liberal economists, brought together since 1842 in the Société d’économie politique. At the request of Michel Chevallier (1806–79), a graduate of the École polytechnique, a mining engineer, and also the Chairman of Political Economy at the French College University (Collège de France), the main members of the Société de statistique came to constitute the core of the new society. Among the most active, some had directly participated in the French General Statistics Society (Statistique Générale de France), notably Alfred Legoyt (1812–85) and Maurice Block. Yet, looking beyond these learned societies, the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques) was also an institution producing administrative knowledge, especially its political economy division – open to current or former civil servants. In connection with these societies, the science of administration – not yet named ‘administrative science’ – was produced in international congresses, first and foremost featuring congresses on statistics, in which the actors producing administrative knowledge were invested, and from which they developed an understanding of foreign works. It was precisely this transnational space which transformed itself in the early years of the twentieth century. One congress in particular draws our attention: the first international conference for administrative sciences, which was held in Brussels in 1910 and was aimed at both ‘savants’ and ‘men of action’. The objective of the congress was to discuss the forms and methods of government – central and local – as well as the relationships established between the different administrative authorities. In Brussels, the Belgian President and politician Georges Cooreman (1852–1926) already sought to define the subject matter of the congress. According to him, ‘administrative science’ would first espouse an understanding of law, but it would not be limited to this knowledge and should also constitute a ‘technical science connected to different branches of the administration: financial, economic, social, health, commercial, design, etc.’ Furthermore, it would be a ‘government science’, developing ‘an understanding of social facts, a perfect knowledge of the mentality of individuals, a fair appreciation of their conception of discipline and order, a faithful assessment of their powers and also of their taxable resources’. Therefore, above all, ‘administrative science’ would be a practical science oriented towards the improvement of administrative methods and composed of a range of pre-existing knowledge. But the Permanent Commission for International Administrative Sciences Congresses (Commission permanente des Congrès internationaux des sciences administratives) was interrupted during the First World War and the first post-war congress took place in Brussels in 1923, then in Paris in 1927. They were still debating over municipal administration, in the fourth international congress in Madrid in 1930. It was during this last congress that the (Commission permanente transformed itself into the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (Institut international des sciences administratives) (Payre, 2011).

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Who were the French delegates at these congresses? We can essentially identify some of the State Councillors and the law professors, in particular from the Law Faculty (Faculté de droit de Paris).4 To begin with, Henry Berthélemy (1857–1943), the then Dean of the Law Faculty, was also the Vice-President of the Commission permanente until 1930. He was replaced by Joseph Barthélemy (1874–1945), who had tenure as a professor at the Law Faculty from 1918. Furthermore, during the international congress in Paris in 1927, the organisation of the event was partially ensured by the Law Faculty. During the 1930s, the position of Secretary for the French branch of the International Institute returned to an ‘activist’ for administrative science and State Councillor: Henry Puget (1894–1966). After the Second World War, Puget joined the Board of Directors of the International Institute and presided over the commission of scientific works. Even without listing other politicians and town planning specialists, this portrait of the French delegates from the International Institute of Administrative Sciences indicates the porosity between administrative law and the young administrative science, which clearly appeared to be a French, and partially European, specialty. The frontier with legal science, still poorly defined in the interwar period, unveiled an administrative science of which the practical objectives still often amounted solely to administrative law. During the 1930s, the architects of this administrative science, conceived in essentially European congresses, came into contact with the American reformers, the original professionals of a science of public administration which had developed and institutionalised at the same time on the other side of the Atlantic. This ‘science’ of public administration, which had staked its claim in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, had not solely developed in the universities. A large progressive reform movement also contributed to its formation, in particular though the founding of municipal research offices (the first in New York in 1907), then an Institute of Public Administration (1918), a governmental research association (1924) and even a Public Administration Clearing House, created in 1932 in Chicago and which, seven years later, would house the American Society of Public Administration. In contrast, the American delegates of international congresses then discovered, in the middle of the 1930s, a European administrative science, fundamentally created by administrative law professors and very far from the practical aims of its homologue across the Atlantic. They were, moreover, struck by the limited influence of the International Institute. Voyages, and more informal exchanges outside meetings, contributed to persuade the European officials of the pertinence of the Americans’ criticisms. It was necessary, in fact, to professionalise the international meetings of administrative sciences and to unify the work methods. It was this encounter with the American science of public administration – largely developed outside the legal sphere and with an even stronger anti-legal orientation – which then created a frontier between administrative law and administrative science, which had been unstable up until this point.

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The Americans’ participation in the Institut grew throughout the 1930s. Criticising the weight of administrative law in the congresses’ work, the Americans tended to diminish its importance in favour of questions related to the concrete administration: budgetary practices, the rationalisation of structures and methods, questions related to organisation and decision-making, and so on. The academic Rowland Egger (1899–1980), future co-author of the famous work The President and Congress (1963), only needed to participate in the regional congress of administrative sciences, held in Brussels in June 1935, to understand the use of the term ‘administrative sciences’ in continental Europe and, in particular, France. The work sessions in which he participated persuaded him that the Institute, in his eyes, was too preoccupied with minor legal problems, administrative theory, even documentary issues. The research was not sufficiently oriented towards administrative practice. As the task of the American architects of the science of public administration was, above all, to conduct studies for the purposes of practical research, Egger was convinced of the necessity to strengthen the British and American presence within the Institute’s Board of Directors. The American equivalents, members of the Public Administration Clearing House, also wished to place new men at the head of common services such as the International Union of Cities (Union internationale des villes) and the International Institute of Administrative Sciences. They invited several young British, Belgian and Dutch academics to Chicago so that they could observe the work being accomplished in the Public Administration Clearing House and take inspiration from tried and tested methods from the other side of the Atlantic. For more than four decades, in the United States, the science of public administration was the subject of a both political and scientific quest which, above all, sought to make administrative work effective. This concept of effectiveness, like the notion of separation of the administration and politics (Wilson, 1887; Goodnow, 1900), was at the very basis of administrative theory. The act of administration appeared to be positive and free from value judgements. As for the administration itself, it had to be rational in order to be a subject of science and to enable the legitimisation of ‘administrative science’, called for by all but with different conceptions and in very different contexts. Nevertheless, this science of public administration was part of a larger reflection pertaining to general administration issues, according to the French mining engineer Henri Fayol (1841–1925). His 1916 work, General and Industrial Administration (Administration industrielle et générale), somewhat forgotten in France, was reread and commentated during the 1930s and 1940s by eminent Anglo-Saxon public administration specialists. In this respect, we must cite the Briton and business consultant Lyndall Urwick (1891–1983), who directed the Management Institute (Institut de management) in Geneva from 1928, and also the American ‘senior civil servant’, Luther Gullick (1892–1993), an advisor to President Roosevelt and President of the Institute of Public Administration, with whom Urwick would create the well-known Administrative Science Quarterly in 1956.

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Paradoxically, it is therefore from the United States, and Anglo-Saxon social scientists and practitioners, that Fayolism and studies into general administration, in particular public administration, were regenerated and diffused during the interwar period. We then saw the establishment, in transnational spaces, of a battle of influence between social and political scientists and Anglo-Saxon reformers – especially those of American nationality – on one side, and European jurists and senior civil servants – largely of French nationality – on the other. The European actors, dominant within their national scene and convinced of their legal legitimacy, had to deal with the practitioners and analysts of administration and public policy who were in the process, with other researchers and actors – of whom some were very critical in this regard – of creating the basis of policy analysis, including the dimension of its academic discipline.

The uncompleted institutionalisation of ‘administrative science’ and the foundations of public policy analysis (1930s and 1940s) In the French case, ‘administrative science’, which involved a science of, and for, public policy, experienced a particularly academic, stymied, and eventually, for the most part, uncompleted, institutionalisation which would, all the same, constitute one of the grounds on which public policy analysis ‘à la française’ would develop, on the fringes of the universities. In France, ‘administrative science’, especially its academic dimension, would indeed be influenced and partially contested by the diverse reform projects of the state and the Civil Service, which emerged in the interwar period and lasted until Maréchal Pétain’s Vichy regime during the German occupation (1940–44). The willingness for rationalism and modernism was thus particularly manifested in a constellation of ‘elite technicians’, which we can divide into two main groups of actors. On one hand, there were the private sector engineers and employers, as well as state engineers, who placed the economic dimension, as well as quantifiable, rational and, according to them, truly ‘scientific’ data, at the heart of their reflections. Tainted by Fayolism, economic and administrative expertise could only satisfy a form of ‘administrative science’ which, according to them, would neglect the private sector and could be associated with a politicoadministrative system founded on the political parties and a parliamentarianism which they frequently denounced. This may have led some of these actors to advocate for technical reforms, often anti-liberal and sometimes even authoritative, which may have prefigured the Vichy regime, illustrated by certain propositions of ‘French Re-establishment’ proposals (‘Redressement français’), created in 1925, and even the group X-Crise in the 1930s. On the other hand, for the state’s elite administrative corps, notably some members of the State Council and public law academics, it was conceivable to imagine a technical reform of the state, remaining for the most part compatible with the values of the liberal and representative democracy. In this context, as an academic specialty and practical know-how, ‘administrative science’ represented a path to a possible institutional and technical 38

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reform of the state, retaining the form of a parliamentary regime but reshaping it (Brun, 1985; Pollet, 1999). In French universities, however, in the last decades of the nineteenth century, administrative law imposed itself as the primary science of public administration. It had notably benefited from the dynamic triggered by the creation of a competitive Civil Service exam specific to public law in 1895 and by the concomitant development of constitutional and administrative law teachings in the Facultés. Nevertheless, as we have seen, an administrative science, in addition to its specific knowledge and know-how, had been developed in other spheres. Civil servants, practitioners, ‘technicians’ and senior civil servants took the initiative to develop – often outside universities, in specialised periodicals, congresses or associations – an ‘administrative science’ based on different disciplines. We have also examined the very extent to which the practices of a North-American science of Public Administration played a leading role, as a unifying force or counter-model, in all of these practical experiments and intellectual exchanges. It was through these men and these examples that the idea of a practical science of administration, often described as a technical science, was established. In France, the theoretical, then practical, construction of the legal State (Carré de Malberg, 1920) further reinforced the place of both public and administrative law in the hierarchy of legal disciplines (Chevallier, 1992). At the end of the 1930s, it seemed recognised that ‘administrative science had taken on a very technical character and the administrative career demanded…numerous and important legal, economic or social knowledges’. These remarks can be found in the explanatory statement for the draft bill which the French government submitted to the Chamber of Deputies on 1 August 1936; a draft bill authorising the creation of a national school of administration. ‘Administrative science’, seeking scientific legitimacy, wished to rationalise its subject matter. Nonetheless, very quickly, the division between administration and politics was judged obsolete by certain researchers specialised in administrative studies. This tended to be affirmed in the 1940s, particularly after the Second World War, against the backdrop of the general reform of the state, the Civil Service and the training of elites, in which ‘political and administrative sciences’ would play an essential role (Langrod, 1956–57). In the dynamic interplay unleashed by the numerous debates and propositions during the interwar period, several reform projects for the state and the Civil Service were developed by the Vichy regime, by the National Council for Resistance (Conseil National de la Résistance), and even by the Grands Corps5 themselves, notably the State Council (Baruch, 1997). This saw the opposition, and coexistence, of technical and technocratic conceptions of public policy, modernist and democratic desires, and elitist and corporative notions. Although proposed solutions could be radically different, all those involved seemed to agree on the triple assessment of the ill-adapted training of civil servants, the undemocratic recruitment system and the suboptimal operation of the politico-administrative apparatus. In the context of the Liberation of Paris and the reconstruction of the nation, ‘administrative science’, often encompassed 39

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by the notion of ‘administrative and political sciences’ or even ‘political sciences’, finally believed that it had found a favourable ground for development. Directly after the Second World War, the academic institutionalisation of the science of administration was effectively taking place. In France, as it was at an international level, government sciences became the prerogative of the higher education and research sector, integrated into universities and, in the French example, more directly into the Grandes Écoles,6 the research organisations (the National Centre for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique [CNRS]) was created by decree in 1939), and even into emerging international academic associations. In 1945, the teaching of ‘political sciences’ was diffused throughout the French territory. The government directly participated in the implementation of the teaching of administrative and political subjects. At the end of the 1940s, the International Political Science Association (AISP) came into existence in conjunction with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – the international organisation which had previously conducted a study into research, the method and teaching of subjects relative to politics. In newly liberated France, the reform of the state, the selection of senior civil servants and the restructuring of the higher education system, tended to consolidate ‘administrative science’ at an academic level. The entire training programme for elites was then reconsidered in order to break with a system which would have led to defeat through its collaboration with the Vichy regime. Characterised by a certain cultural and historical defiance vis-à-vis the universities, and approving the typically French model of the Grandes Écoles, in 1945 the provisional government, presided over by General de Gaulle, created the National School of Administration (École nationale d’administration [ENA]) by law. This school was intended to form the new, national and multidisciplinary administrative elites, and it was hoped above all that it would be independent of territorial and sectorial issues. The aim was to break with forms of populism, localism and corporatism, which were considered to have represented the negative side of the exiting Third Republic. Through this general reform to the training of the Nation’s elites, in particular the state’s Senior Civil Service, the restructuring of ‘political science’ teaching and research enabled administrative science to find its own space and a definite, although fragile, academic legitimacy. It was within the Grandes Écoles rather than at the universities that this scientific, technical and managerial aggiornamento would occur. The École Libre des sciences politiques was thus dissolved and became, in 1945, a public establishment of higher learning and research, under the denomination of the Institutes of Political Studies (Institut d’Études Politiques [IEP]) of the university of Paris. A National Foundation for Political Sciences (Fondation nationale des sciences politiques [FNSP]) of private law was also put in place with the goal to ‘foster the progress and diffusion, in France, in the Empire and abroad, of political, economic and social sciences’ (Article 1 of ruling 45-2284, 9 October 1945). The FNSP presided over the creation of diverse ‘administrative science’ research centres in Paris, then regionally, once again at the intellectual and physical margins of the universities. 40

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The Administrative Research Centre (Centre de Recherches Administratives [CRA]) was thus developed from 1946, directed by the State Councillor and Paris IEP professor of law, Henry Puget. The latter tried to establish a link between the diverse institutions which came into existence during the interwar period: the Centre for Administrative Research (Institut de droit compare) from the Law Faculty, the Institute for Comparative Law (Institut des techniques de l’administration publique) (Bergeron, 1969; Weexsteen, 1999), as well as foreign and international institutions such as the International Institute of Administrative Sciences and its national branch, the French Institute of Administrative Sciences (Institut Français des Sciences Administratives), of which he would be the General Secretary for more than 30 years. The CRA was oriented both ‘towards the development of scientific knowledge and towards the improvement of methods and practices’ (Puget, 1950). Luc Rouban revealed that the CRA had obtained the heritage of the Centre for the Study of Administrative Issues (Centre d’étude des problèmes administratifs), housed by the Alex Carrel Foundation (Fondation Alexis Carrel) during the Vichy regime (Rouban, 2005). At the end of November 1946, a development committee was created to ‘orient the CRA’s work, including René Cassin, Vice-President of the State Council, André Siegfried, President of the FNSP, the Director of the ENA, the Director of the IEP, the Director of the Civil Service, the Director of the Budget, the Secretary-General of the National Federation of Civil Servants (Fédération nationale des fonctionnaires) (the Leap), the President of the Union of Cities and Local Powers (Union des villes et pouvoirs locaux) (Marrane), Marcel Waline and Baumgartner, President of the Crédit national.7 A new stage in administrative research has thus begun’ (Rouban, 2005, 141). In September 1947, the Nation’s official journal also made public the creation of the Institute of Public Administration Techniques (Institut des Techniques de l’Administration Publique [ITAP]), of which the project dated back to 1935, the year during which the National Council for French Organisation (Conseil national de l’organisation française), chaired by Henry Puget, decided to found a permanent division of public administrations. Furthermore, new specialised periodicals would also come into being, such as the Revue administrative, founded in 1948. That same year (1948), after Paris and Strasbourg three years earlier, additional Instituts d’Études Politiques were created in the provinces: Bordeaux, Grenoble, Lyon and Toulouse, then Aix-en-Province in 1956. This last Institut was preceded, in 1951, by the establishment of a centre for political and administrative studies, at the instigation of the Professor of Public Law Paul de Geouffre de La Pradelle (1902–93). It was even envisaged, at one time, to name the Instituts d’études politiques ‘administrative science institutes’. The ruling of 1945 also mentioned, for that matter, that the ‘institutes have the mission to provide students, whether or not they are designed for the Civil Service, with general political or administrative culture. They will do this in a spirit of independence and impartiality which are characteristic of the universities’. Indeed, in all of the IEPs, which opted for a multidisciplinary cursus in human and social sciences, from the very beginning we find teachings most often grouped under the term ‘administrative and political 41

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sciences’, composed of classes on political and administrative institutions, on public and administrative law, on the Civil Service, and all from a French, but also comparative, perspective. For over 20 years, Henry Puget also gave a highlyreputed class at the Paris IEP, on foreign administrative and political institutions. On the university side, it was necessary to wait until 1954, and the reform of legal studies, for political science classes to be introduced into law faculties, among which we find several teachings on ‘administrative science’ (Sadran, no date, 131). The specialty, however, remained poorly defined and only slightly institutionalised at an academic level. In the middle of the 1950s, in an article entitled ‘Administrative Science or Administrative Sciences’ (‘Science administrative ou sciences administratives’), evoking a ‘administrative science’ more consolidated than that of the interwar period, Georges Langrod, a former lecturer in public administration and administrative law at the University of Warsaw and a researcher at the CNRS (from 1948), defined the discipline as follows: ‘The subject of administrative science covers administrative facts, that is to say, as much institutionalised adjustments as natural social phenomena, in direct relation to the existence and the operations of public administrations’ (Langrod, 1956–57). Furthermore, he wished to respond to the following question: ‘The public administration (its organisation and its activity), is it (or could it legitimately be) the subject of a science or only of an art?’ (Langrod, 1956–57). He thus defined administrative sciences as both a science and art, and as a group formed from all of the disciplines which study problems relative to administrative phenomena. In the work Mélanges Georges Langrod, Henry Bergeron, then an administrative practitioner and a civil servant for the city of Paris, again clarified the conception of ‘administrative science’ of his former professor. Starting with the notion of the administrative fact, it must, by explaining the data, ‘determine the routes of action, pre-empt the practice and render the results usable’ (Boulet, 1980, 77). In France in the 1940s and 1950s, therefore, a homology existed between the consolidation of ‘administrative science’ and the reputation of its subject matter. In fact, as ‘administrative science’ was becoming academically institutionalised, it also sought to legitimise concrete administrative policy. Those advocating for the recognition of this type of discipline also wished to convince others of the transformation of the public power’s policy and, above all, of the growing role that the administration had assumed in the management of people and matters. Imposing the notion of the existence of a science of administration supposed that the administration itself had become ‘a great technique, a science, or more precisely, a group of sciences’. Therefore, ‘administrative science’ claimed to be a group of techniques, knowledge and know-how, made available to elected officials as well as civil servants. It was not uniquely defined as a ‘science’, as a simple academic and university specialty, but also as an ‘art’ – understood to be a collection of know-how and techniques destined for civil servants. Here, the two dimensions – academic and applied, normative and prescriptive – were still strongly associated. Therefore, one of the principal objectives of these works and research, pragmatic or rather academic, was to assert itself by specialising and 42

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improving its subject matter. Nevertheless, this great aspiration to scientificism quickly became aware of its limits and ‘administrative science’ would never manage to exist as an autonomous specialty or discipline, nor be institutionalised from a corpus of understanding and from a system of consistent and well-known actors at an academic level. The double constraint of the law (especially administrative) as a dominant academic discipline and professional practice – as a ‘corps of rule and corps of professionals’, to employ Jacques Chevallier’s expression (Chevallier, 1993) – and the weight of the jurists and State Councillors as practitioners and producers of the same law, through jurisprudence and in particular the Council’s rulings, would finish by slowing, then making this ambitious project almost disappear. It would be carried on and reconfigured from the 1960s in another context and with other aspirations, in particular playing the role of an interface between law and social sciences (Chevallier, 1993). The evolutions of ‘administrative science’ in the French academic context are also illustrated by the awareness of international, and especially American, influences, as we have already noted. Indeed, in the United States, from the 1940s, a debate began on the scientism of a discipline centred on the study of public administration. This debate, essentially university-related, also concerned Europe, and a fortiori, France, as there was a greater number of international exchanges on the subject of political sciences after the Second World War. In 1948, during the first international meeting on the subject of political science at UNESCO, Charles Merriam evoked the ‘considerable progress’ demonstrated in the United States following ‘the abandonment of the study of forms and institutions in favour of organic processes of different behavior types’ (Merriam, 1950). The scientific character of this knowledge of administration was one of the main leading arguments in the indictment that advocates of behaviorism addressed at the realist approach. In the United States, as on the international scale, the 1940s marked the arrival of a historical moment in which it seemed possible to construct a normative ‘administrative science’ – in the sense of a science of public administration – largely situated outside the academic system (Lindblom, 1997). Therefore, Raymond Seidelman studied the interweaving of the reform projects and the first political science works in the United States at the turning point of the century. Through that which he names the ‘disenchantment of realists’, starting with the trajectories and works of certain academics such as Charles Merriam, he identified that at the end of the Progressive Era (corresponding with the end of the First World War), following the failure of reform enterprises, the ‘political scientists’ withdrew to the universities and sought to strengthen the ‘scientific’ foundations of political science. Their ‘scientism’ resided in the search for normative and prescriptive principles which aimed to explain and to transform the attitudes of citizens. Seidelman pondered over the disappearance of this type of conception of political science at the time of the Second World War. The behaviorists of the 1950s would then be the first to rank Merriam among the ‘primitive scientists’, or even the ‘utopian dreamers’ (Seidelman, 1985). As a reference, this ‘potential science’ 43

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adopted a clear distinction between administration and politics. The politics would be focused on opinion, while the administrative spirit would be characterised by both reason and technical aptitude. This supposed apoliticality was nonetheless markedly discussed in the United States in the 1940s. The science of public administration was brought into question by young arrivals to the academic scene, after having barely submitted their PhDs. The arguments in favour of a greater positivist repositioning then ultimately advocated professionalising the science of public administration at an academic level, to create an academic discipline out of this government science; a practical science of which the works were above all accomplished by engaged practitioners or reformers, as we have seen. To some extent, the United States succeeded in creating, during the interwar period, a science of public administration within the universities, whereas the French failed to institutionalise their ‘administrative science’, which ‘was reduced to the administrative law with which it was confused and in which it retired’ (Chevallier,1993, 16). The development and the academic institutionalisation, within French political science, of public policy analysis during the 1970s and 1980s would therefore mark both the completion and the closure of an ‘administrative science’ which never really succeeded in establishing itself at an academic level or in the politicoadministrative universe. Despite its unfulfilled institutionalisation, this ‘discipline’ nevertheless provided a number of intellectual frameworks, programmatic research, and concrete policies, pertaining to the government and modern public policy. By attempting to partially free itself from administrative law, from the constraints of the purely legal approach and the jurisprudence practices of the State Councillors, all while facilitating fruitful transnational and in particular transatlantic exchanges, this unrealised ‘administrative science’ constituted both a type of counter-model and also certain foundations of public policy analysis ‘à la française’, of which a specific inventory remains to be detailed. Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Public policy analysis here refers both to its academic research dimension (policy process studies) and its specialist dimension oriented towards concrete public policy (policy analysis). Prior to 1968, French universities were referred to as Facultés. The Saint Guillaume Street School was another name for the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. In the University of Paris (Université de Paris). Elite state bodies. Elite French higher education establishments. The Crédit National is France’s main national bank.

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References Baruch, M.-O. (1997) Servir l’Etat français: l’administration en France de 1940 à 1944, Paris: Fayard. Bergeron, G. (1969) Fonctionnement de l’État, Paris: Librairie Armand Colin. Blanche, A. (1849) Dictionnaire général d’administration, contenant la définition de tous les mots de la langue administrative, Paris: P Dupont. Block, M. (1856) Dictionnaire de l’administration française, Paris: Berger Levrault. Boulet, L. (ed) (1980) Science et action administratives, Paris: Editions d’Organisation. Brun, G. (1985) Technocrates et technocratie en France (1914–1945), Paris: Albatros. Burrow, J., Collini, S., Winch, D. (1983) That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-century Intellectual History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cahiers de la FNSP (1965a) ‘Administration traditionnelle et planification régionale’, 135, Paris: Armand Colin. Cahiers de la FNSP (1965b) ‘La planification comme processus de décision: Compte-rendu des travaux du Colloque de Grenoble’, 140, Paris: Armand Colin. Carré de Malberg, R. (1920) Contribution à la théorie générale de l’Etat, Paris: Sirey. Chevallier, J. (1992) L’Etat de droit, Paris: Montchrestien. Chevallier, J. (1993) ‘Le droit administratif entre science administrative et droit constitutionnel’, Le droit administratif en mutation, pp. 11–40, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Chevallier, J., Lochak, D. (1980) La science administrative, Paris: Collection ‘Que sais-je?’, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Dahl, R.A. (1947) ‘The science of public administration: Three problems’, Public Administration Review 7(1) (Winter), 1-11. Goodnow, F.J. (1900) Politics and Administration: A Study in Government, New York: Macmillan. Grunberg, G. (2004) ‘La recherche à Sciences Po’, La revue pour l’histoire du CNRS, 11, http://histoire-cnrs.revues.org/680 La Mare, N. de (1705-1738) Police Treaty (Traité de la police), Paris: J. et P. Cot, M. Brunet, J.-F. Hérissant (eds). Langrod, G. (1956–57) ‘Science administrative ou sciences administratives?’, Annales Universitatis Saraviensis 6, 92–125. Langrod, G. (1966) ‘La science administrative et sa place parmi les sciences voisines’, Traité de science administrative, pp. 92–123, Paris: Mouton. Lindblom, C.E. (1997) ‘Political Science in the 1940s and 1950s’, Daedelus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 126(1) (Winter), 225–52. Mény, Y., Thoenig, J.-C. (1989) Politiques publiques, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Merriam, C. (1950) ‘La science politique aux États-Unis’, UNESCO, La science politique contemporaine: Contribution à la recherche, la méthode et l’enseignement, Paris: UNESCO.

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Payre, R. (2011) ‘L’espace des circulations. Réseaux d’acteurs et fabrique transnationale des sciences administratives (années 1910–années 1950)’, in F. Audren, P. Laborier, P. Napoli, J. Vogel (eds) Les sciences camérales: activités pratiques et dispositifs publics, pp. 283–306, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Payre, R. (2013) ‘La compétence contre la politique: Milieu administratif et élaboration des savoirs légitimes de l’administration dans la France du second XIXe siècle’, in Y. Deloye, O. Ihl, A. Joignant (eds) Gouverner par la science: perspectives comparées, pp. 25–40, Fontaine: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. Pollet, G. (1999) ‘Technocratie et démocratie. Elites dirigeantes et réforme technicienne de l’Etat dans la France de l’entre-deux-guerres’, V. Dubois, D. Dulong (eds) La question technocratique: de l’invention d’une figure aux transformations de l’action publique, pp. 35–53, Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg. Prélot, M. (1961) La science politique, Paris: Collection ‘Que sais-je?’, Presses universitaires de France. Puget, H. (1950) ‘Le Centre de Recherches Administratives’, La Revue Administrative 13 (January–February), 107–10. Ross, D. (1991) The Origins of American Social Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rouban, L. (2005) ‘Réformer l’Etat: Henry Puget et la Fondation Alexis Carrel 1943–1946’, La Revue Administrative 344 (March), 127–42. Sadran, P. (no date) Public Administration Programmes in France, http://unpan1. un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/NISPAcee/UNPAN007872.pdf Seidelman, R. (1985) Disenchanted Realists: Political Science and the American Crisis, 1884–1984, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Waldo, D. (1948) The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration, New-York: The Ronald Press Company. Weexsteen, A. (1999) Le conseil aux entreprises (Texte imprimé): le rôle de Jean Milhaud (1989–1991) dans la CEGOS et l’ITAP, PhD thesis, Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Wilson, W. (1887) ‘Study of public administration’, Political Science Quarterly 2(2), 197–222.

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THREE

The emergence of modern policy analysis in France Fabrice Hamelin

Introduction This chapter focuses on policy process studies as they emerged and developed in France from the 1950s to the early 1980s. During this pivotal period, the conditions for their creation were favourable. Their establishment within academia became clearly visible in the late 1980s when the first French manual of public policy analysis was published by Mény and Thoenig (1989). The concluding remarks of a review of the manual published in the Revue française de science politique (Baudouin, 1990) asked the following question: ‘Ultimately, can one claim that a new discipline has emerged?’ The response to this question was provided following the review of the same manual in the Politiques et Management Public (PMP) journal that had been created a few years earlier: ‘Policy analysis has gained respectability. It has now become a Themis.’ Themis is a reference collection by French universities and its acceptance by French universities marked a major step forwards. Many other milestones were also achieved during this decade: the creation of the first French journal focusing on public policy (PMP) in 1983; the creation ex nihilo of a public policy laboratory by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (the Public Policy Analysis Group) in 1984; the publication of an entire volume of Political Science essays (Grawitz and Leca, 1985) focusing on the analysis of public policies; the aforementioned manual by Mény and Thoenig, and Pierre Muller’s (1990) Que-sais-je? which focused on the cognitive approach to public policy. These markers of institutionalisation reflected the beginning of the integration of policy process studies within French academic research, as an autonomous ‘branch’ of political sciences compared to other policy approaches developed in economic and legal disciplines. To better understand how the establishment of policy process studies within academic research has taken shape, it seems necessary to trace the institutionalisation trajectory. This trajectory developed within the academic world but also largely outside it, alongside it and in direct interaction with it. Indeed, the institutionalisation of specific academic knowledge centred around ‘policy process studies’ while ‘policy analysis’, that is, the knowledge produced and the methodological tools developed to collect and analyse this knowledge in order to respond to public issues, remained largely the product of state expertise. The traditional clout of central government in France and the influence acquired by 47

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the executive and its technocracy since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958 provide essential data for an understanding of how knowledge and the methods that focus on understanding and controlling public policy in France have developed. To better understand and present this unique development in which researchers and innovative high-ranking government officials interact, it appears necessary to outline the key phases. The first phase began in the 1950s and arose from planning and national accountability (Fourquet, 1980) as vectors of the rationalisation of public policy. This was further developed in the 1960s thanks to the transfer of debates and tools developed overseas, such as the rationalisation of budgetary choices (Rationalisation des choix budgétaires [RCB]) inspired by the American PPBS. It was not until the second phase, which commenced in the 1970s and was characterised by the crisis of the welfare state and the transfer of policy studies knowledge obtained by American universities, that expectations of the development and institutionalisation of public policy analysis in academic research began. For the actors behind this development, the first congress of the French Association of Political Science held in the autumn of 1981 marked a major milestone. The first roundtable on ‘public policy analysis’ was held and facilitated by those who are today key figures in the development of the sub-discipline (J. Leca, J.L. Quermonne, J.-C. Thoenig, among others) (Muller, 2008). This event marked the establishment of public policy analysis within political sciences.

The transfer of decision-making tools For two decades after the Second World War, social sciences were perceived as insignificant within French universities. In France, reflections revolving around public intervention were dominated by the action-oriented practices and discourses of state experts, rather than by the analysis of these interventions. Public policy analysis primarily sought the improvement of government policies through the development of tools to rationalise them. In the beginning was the Plan… In the decade following the end of the Second World War, rapid growth was observed in political-administrative thought within economic research departments working on the costs and benefits of public intervention. The studies undertaken sought to better understand economic developments and predict their evolution. Moreover, they aimed to organise, or better organise, the institutional and budgetary means at the service of collective decision-making. Consequently, expert knowledge oriented toward decision-support tools developed within the state apparatus and, specifically, within the three central institutions that played a key role in the attempts to reboot the economy and rebuild French society. Two institutions acquired the authority to act thanks to the massive economic support proposed at the time by the Marshall Plan. Incentives proposed included 48

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the State Planning Commission (CGP) and a department of the Ministry of Finance – the service of economic and financial studies (SEEF). Created in 1952 within the French treasury, SEEF was a national accountability department responsible for establishing the accounts and budgets of the nation. It was involved in developing the Plan and it undertakes economic forecasting. The action of these two institutions thus shaped the French economy, at least in part, as the United States chose to target the sections that received aid. However, according to high-ranking government officials in these two institutions, planning was at the origin of the reflection on the formulation of government policies and the social consequences of government intervention (Spenlehauer, 1998). There was a drastic change in the situation in 1953 when the funding granted by the Marshall Plan finally came to an end. One of the consequences was the development and sophistication of the national accounting system. In both the Ministry of Finance and the entourage of the Plan, an institutional concern was observed in relation to the implementation of economic calculations and cost–benefit analyses for public policy. This tropism was also observed within the Deposits and Consignments Fund (Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations [CDC]). This fund enjoyed the use of the savings of the general public and operated based on a public policy apprehension model that differed from the CGP model. Less concerned with coordinating state intervention in the various sectors, the CDC further embodied a highly interventionist state model, albeit one in which policies were independent of each other. It thus acted within the fields of housing, urban planning and even in highway construction. The model proposed by the CDC thus appears to be more in line with a growing economy compared to a global intervention expected to revive production. In 1965, the SEEF became a fully-fledged department: the forecasting department. The decree of 9 July 1965, confirmed that forecasting would hence be part of the traditional SEEF activities (participation in the preparation of national accounts, responsible for economic budgets, participation in the development of the Plan). The SEEF, however, was also given new responsibilities relative to economic analysis and in relation to what was being done abroad. With prospecting and analysis as its missions, the new department was responsible for improving economic decision-support tools. In particular, it sought to develop microeconomics and rationalise budgetary choices. RCB was clearly modelled on the American PPBS implemented by the Johnson administration. Following study visits to leading universities and tracking missions in the United States, high-ranking officials of the budget and forecasting departments set up a technological watch on PPBS at the Embassy of France in Washington (Spenlehauer, 1998). Returning missionaries were convinced that PPBS went beyond simply rationalising public spending. It could also be used as a tool to reform public decision-making in all policy areas. The same was true for another government technology in the United States, that is, the evaluation of public policy (Spenlehauer, 1998). The issue of the harmonisation of the 49

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economic and social modernisation of France affected the relationship between the Ministry of Finance and line ministries alone. It was required of the entire state apparatus and aimed to modernise public administration. Having given rise to several study trips and missions in which senior French officials visited the United States, the RCB thus became a major issue of the new expertise that took shape within the central apparatus of the state in the 1960s and 1970s. A sub-directorate of the RCB was thus created within the forecasting department of the Ministry of Finance in 1968. This movement occurred in parallel with the emergence of a new generation of young experts, economists and engineers of major state institutions, well versed in the use of mathematics and econometric tools (Benamouzig, 2005). The RCB sought to change the budget development rules by transforming input-based budgeting, renewed annually, into programme budgeting. However, its objective appeared much more limited than the US model as it focused on ad hoc studies rather than on system analyses. Expected to ‘rationalise’ policy decision-making by mathematically calculating the economic and social efficiency of the contemplated or driven policy, the RCB was extended to various ministries, notably social, such as the Health ministry in which the analysis of the perinatal period acted as a reference for many other administrations (Benamouzig, 2005). The same was observed in the transport sector where the RCB was experimented with in the field of road safety (Kletzlen, 2007, 139–46) as well as in the housing sector (Zittoun, 2001). Then came the renewal of the framework for action following the institutional innovations of the Fifth Republic The state apparatus in France became the main venue for the development of innovative tools for the management and analysis of public policy. It is necessary, however, to go beyond ministries’ research departments to fully understand this apparatus. A key factor in its development lay in the change of political regime in 1958. The Fifth Republic, in particular the election of the President of the Republic by direct universal suffrage in 1965, gave prominence to the executive. Planning was raised to the rank of ‘major government obligation’, and in 1961 the CGP began to report directly to the Prime Minister. In response, the Finance Minister, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, transformed the SEEF into a forecasting department. The longer ministerial mandates and the stability and expansion of their staff also meant that administrations and the manner in which they were managed also received more specific and sustained political attention. Although the example of the RCB study on the perinatal period was considered one of the most successful, it shows that the office of the Minister of Health did not limit itself to the logics of econometric rationalisation alone as it also freely used the results of the study to account for the different choices it made with regard to more traditional policy variables (Benamouzig, 2005). Thus developed, although decision-support tools explained decisions, they fell within a much broader set of decision-making factors. This explains why the 50

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operations undertaken by the RCB experienced a rapid decline in the 1970s. Among the various explanations, the isolation of this expertise in relation to the operational services of the administration must be noted. However, the RCB methods and econometric tools survived the decline by participating in administration at less strategic but more operational levels and engaging in more ad hoc initiatives. The political focus on expert analyses was also linked to the changes in French society during the period. As Jean-Claude Thoenig (2008) has stated, one of the first approaches resulted in the increase in the cognitive abilities of ministries. Turning once again to services and consultants, the state and its ministries equipped themselves with tools to better understand social change. The second approach called upon academics even though intellectual and financial ties already existed between planners and sociologists. A key example is provided by the authorities responsible for urban planning and development who, in the 1960s and 1970s, launched tenders focused on the social sciences. There was a more than fivefold increase in the funding for ‘urban research’ between 1969 and 1976. The programme managers in the relevant ministries thus established some form of complicity with a group of researchers whose emergence they fuelled, and who were largely dependent on them.From the mid-1960s, high-ranking planning officials considered that French planning could no longer rely on economics alone; it also needed sociologists. Sociologists were thus requested to help economists specialised in planning better understand the expectations of French society as well as the resistance to change. The objective of these modern senior officials trained in French Grandes Écoles (École Nationale d’Administration, École Polytechnique) was to reconcile economic development and the legitimate aspirations of the French in a changing society (Spenlehauer, 2004, 124). They sought to better understand and interpret the socio-economic environment of France, as well as its developments, in order to envisage the orientations and major collective choices of the nation. For example, the preparatory studies of the RCB relating to the perinatal period and to road safety were no longer exclusively inspired by economics; other social sciences were also integrated. Similarly, this was perceived in the orders placed for planning activities in the early 1970s. Although these concerns raise questions on the low impact of the planning apparatus on public policy, they were the result of the government’s will to understand and integrate new social and qualitative concerns revealed during the 1968 crisis (Jobert, 1995, 14). This awareness was boosted in the wake of the shock provoked by the events of May 1968 which made the need to better understand society and to increasingly rationalise the decision-making process all the more legitimate. To understand how French public policy analysis developed in the 1960s, one must thus take into account the state’s – and its high-ranking officials who spoke on its behalf – attempts to adapt to French society. Following the social and political shock provoked by the events of 1968 and even before the economic crises of the 1970s, the desire to understand a society in upheaval and re-examine state intervention were further 51

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objectives that drove research procured by government. Within a centralised yet deeply segmented French government, dedicated offices and research centres were created, giving rise to highly significant sectoral policy analyses (Le Galès, 2015). We can cite, for instance, the development of a Marxist-inspired critical analysis of urban policies that notably shifted the focus toward policies’ target populations. This desire also reflects research sponsors’ acceptance of a critical analysis of state action and their openness to new frames of reference, that is, those from the academic world and from abroad. This was undoubtedly one of the key contributions of the development of public policy analysis in academic research in the 1970s.

Academic institutionalisation In the 1960s and 1970s, public policy studies emerged and developed in the academic setting. Although these studies were developed in various areas, they remained rare in France (Muller 2008). Consequently, the development of public policy analysis in academic research was often limited to the studies undertaken in two higher education institutions, one situated in Paris and the other in the provinces: the Centre for the Sociology of Organisations (Centre de Sociologie des Organisations [CSO]) and the Centre for the Analysis of Regional Administration (CERAT) in Grenoble. This tended to overshadow the studies conducted elsewhere (Le Galès, 2015) and influenced by other analytical trends – such as Foucault’s work for example – which could further develop the knowledge on specific sectoral policies (social, urban and legal policies in particular). As a result, the differences between these two main areas of knowledge production were accentuated and the diversity of the studies undertaken was overlooked. Moreover, the studies carried out abroad, for instance in the United States and in other parts of Europe, were underestimated. In the beginning was public procurement… Within universities, the first policy studies were conducted by economists and lawyers. Political science was perceived simply as a sub-discipline for publicists and constitutionalists. Until the early 1970s, public policy analysis was thus associated with ‘administrative sciences’ in law schools and with ‘political economy’ in the faculties of economics (see Gaudin, 2004). Moreover, the Institutes of Political Studies (Instituts d’Etudes Politiques [IEP]), which were an eclectic branch of universities, did not favour political sciences, despite the fact that this academic discipline was first structured around the IEP of Paris, the National Foundation of Political Science and the French Political Science Association. Research activities were focused on Paris, but they were primarily oriented toward the study of the political activities and behaviour (voting, political organisations, and so on). The encounter between the high-ranking officials responsible for planning, political science and, more broadly, French social sciences was not all smooth 52

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sailing during this period (Spenlehauer, 2004). There were, however, spaces and opportunities for exchange. The CGP and the Ministry of Finance initiated orders to assess how the Marshall Plan aid funds were being managed. Their objective was to analyse reconstruction and development policies. They also sought to develop descriptive models and policy analysis grids and, naturally, to examine the administration’s weak points (Gaudin, 2004). Informed senior officials also worked on building lasting ties between government and researchers, as we previously highlighted in the case of urban policies. In the late 1950s, discussions were held with a small group of academics, notably sociologists, with Michel Crozier as one of the participants (Gaudin, 2004). When Crozier returned from a research stay in Stanford, he created the CSO in 1961. The rationality of public decision-making was discussed and challenged because of its dysfunctions. The focus on government and on political elites was also crucial. The falsely centralised and highly fragmented state was simply perceived as a system of actors and actions. It was thus necessary to open the black box of the political-administrative apparatus in order to develop a strategic analysis of policy-making. This sociological approach expressed the loss of confidence in the ability of the state to solve economic and social problems. The main intellectual influence was methodological individualism which used a comprehensive approach to focus on actors and their impeded rationality (Ledoux and Pollard, 2015). This was illustrated by the use of monographic and qualitative approaches. The influence of CSO cannot be reduced to the reputation and the studies of Crozier alone. The studies undertaken by other researchers, from a different generation, including Jean-Claude Thoenig, Pierre Grémion and Jean-Pierre Worms, are also worth mentioning. This underscores the diversity of the professional trajectories pursued by those who were fortunate enough to pass through this laboratory. For instance, Thoenig left CSO in 1974 to join the Polytechnic of Lausanne, followed by the IEP of Bordeaux and, especially, Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD) in Fontainebleau. Drawing on the contributions of organisational sociology to understand public policy no longer sufficed. The turn toward other educational institutions indicated the shift from the internal analysis specific to CSO toward the analysis of ‘interactions’ and inter-organisational relationships around which Thoenig’s studies on the sociology of public policy focused (Le Galès, 2015). They also explained Crozier’s lack of interest in public policy analysis. However, Thoenig founded the Public Policy Analysis Group (Groupe d’Analyse des Politiques Publiques [GAPP]) in 1984, having left CSO over a decade earlier. Symbolically, the first French research centre dedicated to public policy analysis was created by the CNRS in Cachan, within the École Normale Supérieure. This was a bona fide department rather than a joint research unit. This marked the intellectual independence of public policy analysis and political science, as evidenced by the creation of Section 40 as one of the CNRS sections. The establishment of public policy analysis within the political sciences was even greater in CERAT. The research undertaken in CERAT under the direction of 53

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Lucien Nizard drew much more heavily on the studies by Marx and Durkheim (the social division of labour and political regulation). These studies expressly set themselves apart from the systemic approach used by the researchers trained at CSO, an approach considered inadequate from a political perspective. For instance, Jobert (1995) denounced ‘the recurrent denial of policies professed by researchers specialised in the sociology of organisations’. The researchers trained in CERAT in the 1970s were not ‘on the same wavelength’ as those trained at CSO. There were, therefore, genuine points of divergence between the two laboratories. The relationship between the state and society primarily drew on planning studies, as evidenced by the ‘Planning and Society’ conference held in Uriage in 1973 or, more broadly, by the studies undertaken by Nizard (1974) and by Jobert in his thesis on urban planning (Jobert, 1977). They were also based on sectoral policy analyses (agricultural sector, social sector, and so on) and the analysis of programmes (Airbus). The key objective was to analyse how the emergence of new policies was connected with wider global trends. Analysing planning validated the centrality of state actors (elected members, high-ranking officials and experts). However, this analysis also underscored the role played by interest groups in the implementation of public policies and revealed the inequalities that shaped the relationships between social groups. The study of planning made it possible to highlight how different sectors influenced public policies and to reflect on how these sectors and, more generally, French society, viewed themselves. Planning was perceived as a tool for disseminating a shared vision of the future of a society (state transformation and modernisation) as well as a means of reducing distortions between projects designed and driven by independent actors. The planning triangle that connected the state planning commission, the forecasting department of the Ministry of Finance and Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE) produced a worldview that revolved around modernisation (Payre and Pollet, 2013, 26). The researchers who conducted their PhD studies at CERAT in the 1970s thus distinguished themselves from structural Marxism by empirically challenging an overtly monolithic view of both social domination and the state. The studies undertaken paid special attention to the role of ideologies, professional groups, senior civil servants and neocorporatism (Jobert and Muller, 1987). The theoretical bricolage, facilitated by the analysis of the empirical phenomena observed, involved the introduction and the reformulation or distortion of traditional concepts, such as the concept of ideology. These ‘organic intellectuals’ expressed the worldview held by social groups. According to Thoenig (2008), while this reflected a holistic approach that might also be described as ‘hyperdeterministic’, it was also a top-down approach. These findings must be treated with caution, however, because they cannot be indiscriminately applied to all the studies conducted at CERAT, where several generations of researchers are still at work. Nevertheless, these critical issues were published in L’état en action in 1987. In 1995, however, Jobert rejected the accusations levelled against him with regard to transmitting, notably through the référentiel, a global and elitist 54

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vision of public policy. He argued that this approach, which was interactionist above all, had been misunderstood as the first synthesis report had undoubtedly presented public policy in far too schematic a manner. While this type of debate referred to different policy-making approaches and to the use of distinct theoretical tools, the studies carried out in the two laboratories nonetheless shared some similarities. They distanced themselves, on the one hand, from the legal concept of policy analysis and, on the other, from the dominant vision of the state as a bureaucratic machine in the service of society, or as an instrument that dominates society. In the studies undertaken at both CERAT and CSO, the state was initially presented as a relatively unstable assemblage of services and public policies with problematic rationality. Both laboratories underscored the contradictions between states’ various programmes and public policies, devoid of consistency, divided and segmented. Although these points of convergence resulted from different theoretical corpus, they were reinforced by the working relationships forged via the Délégation interministérielle à l’aménagement du territoire et à l’attractivité régionale (DATAR) and its ‘political foresight’ programme (Jobert, 1995, 15). Moreover, the research contexts of the two laboratories were quite similar as they were structured by the CNRS and the IEPs. Initially, those behind policy analysis sought to transform this analysis into a branch of political science receptive to other sub-disciplines within the political sciences. Public policy analysis, which drew on comprehensive and qualitative studies, was developed at the crossroads of sociology and administrative science studies. Field studies and sectoral policies were prioritised, as evidenced by the content of Volume 4 of the political science treatise (Grawitz, Leca, 1985) introduced by Thoenig (1985), and Padioleau’s Concrete State Structures (L’Etat au concret) (1982). They were also a priority in the theses undertaken in Grenoble and published in the early 1980s – Le Technocrate et le paysan (The technocrat and the peasant) was published in 1984 – which served as a foundation on which to shape the key concepts of the cognitive analysis of public policies. It must be noted that the focus on field studies arose from the fact that public orders were behind the cases analysed, thereby giving public policy analysis a strong applied dimension. Although methodological concerns were not at the centre of the studies undertaken, the practices analysed could be ‘diverted’ for purposes of scientific theorising. The desire to develop scientific theories gave the emerging subdiscipline autonomy and a scientific nature, as evidenced by Muller’s reflections around action ‘reference points’ and Thoenig’s reflections on ‘crossed regulation’. The objective of creating a ‘toolbox’ rather than a ‘how to’ manual to more effectively deconstruct public policy was to make public policy analysis independent. To this end, state and power theories were reintegrated into this analysis, to the benefit of policy specialists (Thoenig, 1996). French public policy analysis within the academic setting thus took shape in response to administration sciences acquired from public law. It was also influenced by concepts developed overseas, particularly those developed in North American universities. 55

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…then came the transfer of policy process studies This period was also marked by the internationalisation of policy process studies, a process in which French researchers were active participants. Under the direction of Crozier, the CSO largely contributed to the transfer of American reflections, through Crozier’s networks and studies, as well as his close ties with American research institutions and foundations which facilitated the transatlantic exchange. Among the transferred concepts were bureaucratic dysfunctionalism, bounded rationality, trial and error and bricolage, drawn from the studies of R. Merton, H. Simon and C. Lindblom. The objective was to question the content of public policy programmes, the underlying causes of the problems and the origins of proposed solutions. This, therefore, was an academic approach rather than a simple operations-oriented analysis. Import–export studies from the United States explain why public policy analysis emerged as a subversive discipline in which state action was criticised by the members of major public institutions. To better understand this influence, the studies by researchers who undertook policy analysis based on field studies and implementation must also be mentioned; these include the pioneering studies of Dahl, as well as the studies undertaken by Pressman and Wildavsky (1973) and Gusfield (1980). The academic venues in which these studies were conducted, such as the universities of Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell and Harvard, are also worth mentioning. Reference studies were first characterised by the development of sectoral analyses – the pioneering studies of Dahl (1961) and Pressman and Wildavsky (1973) – which explains why French studies focused on both decision-making processes and public policy implementation. For French researchers studying in the United States, these studies, unheard of in France, thus came as a surprise. Padioleau and Thoenig perfectly embodied the image of the 1970s ‘importing-traveller’. Others soon joined them, repeatedly making the transatlantic journey: including Y. Mény, J. Leca, J.L. Quermonne. Stays in American universities presented an opportunity to read what was being done in the country at the time; it was a time for discovery as well as for encounters and interpersonal exchanges. Beyond the transfer of concepts, researchers read and discussed with other researchers working in North American universities. Despite this North Atlantic flow, however, some theoretical approaches (rational choice, the instrumental vision of public policies around problem resolution) were not transferred to France. Naturally, not all scholars of this generation took part in this movement. Indeed, ‘importers’ able to read English were few in number. Moreover, the excessive emphasis of authors such as C. Jones suggests that the Anglo-Saxon field was poorly controlled. Gaudin (2004, 16) believes, however, that the development of French public policy analysis was not really under-developed compared to the United States, or possibly slightly under-developed, like all the other fields of political science. Others have supported this interpretation. Jobert, for instance, argues that real progress in French public policy analysis only occurred when

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French researchers began to participate in international debates and activities (interview held on 29 May 2015). The United States thus made important contributions to French public policy analysis. Other parts of Europe also influenced this policy, notably Germany and Britain. The import–export process was thus also European. With regard to the studies undertaken jointly with British (Hayward, 1974) and German (G. Lehmbruch) researchers, Jobert has given priority to the studies undertaken in Grenoble, notably those carried out in the context of comparative policy analysis. This view is shared by Thoenig, who mentions the influence of the studies of D. Ashford in Britain and R. Mayntz in Germany (interview held on 3 June 2015). Public policy analysis was also emerging elsewhere in Europe. Indeed, the stays in the United States did not mean that French and American researchers were exclusive partners. Other European researchers also participated in these transatlantic exchanges, including the aforementioned Renate Mayntz. French public policy analysis thus developed in a favourable context in which young researchers participated in transatlantic trips at a time when American policy analysts were turning away from systemic analyses and renewing the public policy analysis toolbox. These trips were made possible through scholarships – a post-doctoral fellowship from the Ford Foundation for Thoenig – which thus structured the studies carried out overseas and influenced the establishment of European public policy analysis. The founders of this academic discipline were well versed in international literature, and this explains why French research was not overtly singular. In 1990, referring to the manual by Mény and Thoenig, Gibert thus observed that ‘the authors are knowledgeable in international literature and this allows them to avoid all attempts to reinvent the world or propose a policy study à la française which is unnecessary’. However, this French policy process study, actively involved in a much wider transnational movement, was long overlooked in English public policy analysis journals (Thoenig, 1996). This reflected the infancy of the subdiscipline, the difficulties encountered by some researchers in mastering English, and the uncertain international recognition and singular orientation associated with the early studies written in French. This singular tradition is reflected, for instance, in the emphasis placed on the relationship between public policies and regions (local and European regions under construction), and more so in the development of cognitive approaches in public policy through the focus on controversial policies and on translation issues, as well as on the emphasis placed on contractual policies (Muller, 2008) and sectoral policies (social and urban policies in particular). The transatlantic travels opened up new research activities and also challenged, or at least made it possible for researchers to distance themselves from, the studies carried out in France, notably in law and administrative sciences. How, then, did French researchers nourished by American policy analysis studies and French intellectual traditions respond? French sociologists and political scientists have long studied public policy by analysing the state, administrative science and several 57

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public policies. What remains of these initial questions? The question is a tough one to answer, because no inventory of the contributions of studies inspired by the legal land administrative science fields exists (Payre and Pollet, 2013, 24). However, the renewal of studies on the state in action paradoxically led to the exclusive development of public policy analysis as a sub-discipline of political science, in contrast to the United States (Massardier, 2003, 15). The institutionalisation of French policy studies might also be explained by the traditional competition between interested academic disciplines. Economists, sociologists and political scientists have always competed with one another to analyse the bureaucratic phenomenon and certain public policies, such as urban policies. The focus on the constraints faced by politicians and, in particular, the role played by politics in the policy-making process (Muller, 1996, 98) is one of the issues that fall within this game of interdisciplinary distinction. However, in the late 1970s the establishment of policy studies within political science was not always straightforward. For instance, one criticism levelled against Mény and Thoenig’s manual was that it perceived economists as adversaries who needed to be excluded from the explanatory field. The most significant issue, however, was the gap in the political science in the French academic setting itself. Some of its members, who were the most legitimate at the time, discounted emerging studies on state action. ‘Traditional’ policy analysis was more interested in how policies influenced society and, thus, the state, and it focused on inputs (electoral attitudes and behaviour, political participation) rather than on outputs. ‘Election analysts’ thus dominated the academic scene. The same was observed in the historical sociology of the state, which disregarded public policies, such as the Sociologie de l’État by Pierre Birbaum and Bertrand Badie published in 1979. This phenomenon was further reinforced by the fact that practitioners, notably highranking officials, including those who taught at Sciences Po, remained insensitive to the studies undertaken by social scientists, even if there are a few exceptions (De Kervasdoué et al, 1976). The main interlocutors of public policy analysts were members of the community of political scientists, and the legitimacy of approaches was dependent on their scientific nature and on peer recognition. As a result, policymakers distanced themselves from practitioners and decision-makers, who were more interested in social debate and decision-support (Muller, 2008). Alongside the impact of academic competition thus lay the ignorance of social science studies among high-ranking officials who had remained more attentive to law and economics than to political science.

Conclusion It is possible to draw some important conclusions from the initial phase of the institutionalisation of public policy analysis in France. Lecturers and researchers were not alone in looking elsewhere – in the United states and in Europe – for concepts that nourished policy process studies. The impact of the missions undertaken by modern high-ranking officials, which led to the development 58

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of the RCB and the evaluation of public policies within the state apparatus and, therefore, at the margins of the university, must not be overlooked. The researchers and academics who also developed public policy analysis in France and contributed to its institutionalisation within the academic setting first attempted to make it a branch of the political sciences. Put differently, they attempted to make it a scientific (sub-)discipline in its own right, at the risk of isolating it from the shift toward the rationalisation of state action. This institutionalisation was thus shaped by multiple forces that influenced its development: political decentralisation, the questioning of the welfare state, and so on. The public finance crisis, decentralisation and European integration helped ‘loosen the state’s grip’ on society. These changes also gave way to newly emerging needs: decentralisation led to an influx of high-ranking officials into local authorities. The French civil service centre (CNFPT) responsible for training local government employees thus integrated the analytical contribution of social sciences to the management of public policy programmes into its training curriculum. This, however, was not the case in the state’s administrative apparatus (Thoenig, 2008). These different movements make it difficult to assign one particular meaning to the generated momentum. The image of organised anarchies is thus not a totally exaggerated explanation. However, French history allows us to underscore the significance of empirical sectoral analyses and the diversions used by researchers to achieve the generality needed to prove that the studies produced are of a scientific nature. It is therefore worth investigating whether the theoretical limits and weaknesses of these diversions, much like the divide that this momentum installed between the world of public managers and scientific knowledge, led to the collapse of public policy analysis à la française conducted within university settings in the 1990s (Hassenteufel and Smith, 2002). References Badie, B. and Birnbaum P. (1979) Sociologie de l’État, Paris: Grasset. Baudouin, J. (1990) ‘Mény Y., Thoenig J.C.: Politiques publiques’, Revue française de science politique 40(3), 394–7. Benamouzig, D. (2005) La santé au miroir de l’économie: Une histoire de l’économie de la santé, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Boussaguet, L., Jacquot, S., Ravinet, P. (eds) (2015) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Dahl, R. (1961) Who governs? Democracy and power in an American city, New Haven: Yale University Press. De Kervasdoué, J., Fabius, L., Mazodier, M., Doublet, F. (1976) La loi et le changement social: Un diagnostic. La loi du 16 juillet 1971 sur les fusions et regroupements de communes, in Revue française de sociologie 17(3), 423–50. Dubois, V. (2002) ‘Socio-histoire et usages sociaux de l’histoire dans l’analyse de l’action publique: Réflexions à partir de la politique culturelle en France’, dans Y. Déloye, B. Voutat (eds) Faire de la science politique, pp. 155-69, Paris: Belin.

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Dubois, V. (2009) ‘L’action publique’, in A. Cohen, B. Lacroix, Ph. Riutort (eds) Nouveau manuel de science politique, pp. 311–25, Paris: La Découverte. Dupuy, F., Thoenig, J.-C. (1983) Sociologie de l’administration française, Paris: Armand Colin. Dupuy, F., Thoenig, J.-C. (1985) L’administration en miettes, Paris: Fayard. Fontaine, J. (1996) ‘Public policy analysis in France: Transformation and theory’, Journal of European Public Policy 3(3), 481–98. Fourquet, F. (1980) Les comptes de la puissance: Histoire de la comptabilité nationale et du plan, Paris: Encres, Éditions Recherches. Gaudin, J.-P. (2004) L’action publique: Sociologie et politique, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po and Dalloz. Gibert, P. (1990) ‘Yves Meny et Jean Claude Thoenig: Politiques Publiques, Politiques et management public 8(1), 155–6. Grawitz, M., Leca, J. (eds) (1985) Traité de science politique, vol 4, ‘Les politiques publiques’, with a presentation by J.-C. Thoenig, ‘L’analyse des politiques publiques’, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Gusfield, J. (1980) The culture of public problems, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Hassenteufel, P., Smith, A. (2002) ‘Essoufflement ou second souffle? L’analyse des politiques publiques “à la française”’, Revue française de science politique, 52(1), 53–73. Hayward, J. (1974) ‘National aptitudes for planning in Britain, France and Italy’, Government and Opposition 9(4), 397–410. Hayward, J., Narkiewicz, O.A. (eds) (1978) Planning in Europe, New York: St Martin’s Press. Jobert, B. (1977) La planification urbaine: l’exemple de Stuttgart, Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble. Jobert, B. (1992) ‘Représentations sociales, controverses et débats dans la conduite des politiques publiques’, Revue française de science politique 42(2), 219–34. Jobert, B. (1995) ‘Rhétorique politique, controverses scientifiques et construction de normes institutionnelles: esquisse d’un parcours de recherche’, in A. Faure, G. Pollet, P. Warin (eds) La construction de sens dans les politiques publiques. Débats autour de la notion de référentiel, pp. 13–24, Logiques politiques, Paris: L’Harmattan. Jobert, B., Muller, P. (1987) L’État en action: Politiques publiques et corporatismes, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Kletzlen, A. (2007) De l’alcool à l’alcool au volant, Paris: Collection Logiques sociales, L’Harmattan. Kübler, D., Maillard, J. de (2009) Analyser les politiques publiques, Fontaine: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. Le Galès, P. (2015) ‘Les approches françaises des politiques publiques au temps de Pierre Muller. Complément d’enquête’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 185–201, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

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Leca, J., Muller, P. (2008) ‘Y a-t-il une approche française des politiques publiques? Retour sur les conditions de l’introduction de l’analyse des politiques publiques en France’, in O. Giraud, P. Warin (eds) Politiques publiques et democratie, Paris: La Découverte. Ledoux, C., Pollard, J. (2015) ‘L’héritage intellectuel de l’analyse des politiques publiques’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 203–20, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Massardier, G. (2003) Politiques et action publiques, Paris: Armand Colin. Mény, Y., Thoenig, J.-C. (1989) Politiques publiques, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Muller, P. (1984) Le technocrate et le paysan, Paris: Les éditions ouvrières. Muller, P. (1985) ‘Un schéma d’analyse des politiques sectorielles’, Revue française de science politique 35(2), 165–89. Muller, P. (1990) Que sais-je?, Paris: Collection, Presses universitaires de France. Muller P. (1996) ‘Cinq défis pour l’analyse des politiques publiques’, in P. Muller, J. Leca, G. Majone, J.C. Thoenig, P. Duran (eds) ‘Enjeux, controverses et tendances de l’analyse des politiques publiques’, Revue française de science politique, 46(1), pp. 96-102. Muller, P. (2008) ‘Analyse des politiques publiques et science politique en France: “Je t’aime, moi non plus”’, Politiques et management public 26(3), 51–6. Muller, P., Leca, J., Majone, G., Thoenig, J.-C., Duran, P. (1996) ‘Enjeux, controverses et tendances de l’analyse des politiques publiques’, in Revue française de science politique 46(1), 96–133. Nizard, L. (ed) (1974) Planification et Société, Fontaine: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. Padioleau, J.G. (1982) L’Etat au concret, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Payre, R., Pollet, G. (2013) Socio-histoire de l’action publique, Paris: La Découverte. Pressman, J.L., Wildavsky A. (1973) Implementation, Berkeley: University of California Press. Sfez, L. (1973) Critique de la décision, Paris: Presse de la FNSP. Spenlehauer, V. (1998) L’évaluation des politiques publiques, avatar de la planification, Grenoble: Humanities and Social Sciences, Université Pierre Mendès-France – Grenoble II. Spenlehauer, V. (1999) ‘Intelligence gouvernementale et sciences sociales’, Politix 12(48), 95–128. Spenlehauer, V. (2004) ‘Pour une déconstruction des légendes sur les rapports Etat-Sciences sociales’, in B. Zimmermann (ed) Les sciences sociales à l’épreuve de l’action: Le savant, le politique et l’Europe, pp. 119–44, Paris: Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. Thoenig, J.C. (1985) ‘“Présentation” and “L’analyse des politiques publiques”’, in M. Grawitz, J. Leca (eds) Traité de science politique. 4, Les politiques publiques, p.I-X and 1-60, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

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Thoenig, J.C. (1996) ‘La quête du deuxième souffle’ in P. Muller, J. Leca, G. Majone, J.C. Thoenig, P. Duran ‘Enjeux, controverses et tendances de l’analyse des politiques publiques’, Revue française de science politique, 46(1), pp. 102-107. Thoenig, J.-C. (2008) ‘Politiques publiques et cycles de vie: Le bébé et l’eau du bain’, Politiques et management public 26(3), 57–76. Zittoun, P. (2000) ‘Quand la permanence fait le changement: Coalitions et transformations de la politique du logement’, Politiques et management public 18(2),123–47. Zittoun, P. (2001) La politique du logement, 1981–1995: Transformations d’une politique publique controversée, Paris: L’Harmattan. Zittoun, P. (2013) La fabrique politique des politiques publiques: Une approche pragmatique de l’action publique, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Major textbooks in policy studies published during the 1980s in France Jobert, B., Muller, P. (1987) L’État en action, politiques publiques et corporatismes, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Mény, Y., Thoenig, J.-C. (1989) Politiques publiques, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, Themis. Muller, P. (1990) Les politiques publiques, Paris: Collection ‘Que sais-je?’, Presses universitaires de France. Padioleau, J.G. (1982) L’Etat au concret, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Thoenig, J.-C. (1985) ‘L’analyse des politiques publiques’, in M. Grawitz, J. Leca (eds) Traité de science politique, vol 4, pp. 1–60, ‘Les politiques publiques’, Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

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Recent developments within French policy studies Jacques de Maillard and Andy Smith

Introduction The previous chapter has just explained how policy studies emerged and developed in France in the 1970s and 1980s. This one picks up the baton to show how, from these humble but crucial beginnings, policy studies have since grown in France and become such an institutionalised and omnipresent part not only of sociology and political science, but also of expertise on public affairs. In so doing, two of its key features need highlighting from the outset. First, as a field policy studies in France has expanded partly because its proponents have consistently allied studies of ‘new’ political phenomena (for example, local and EU public policies) with the concerted development and discussion of concepts and analytical frameworks (for example, governance, networks, political leadership). It is to be noted that gender policy studies have contributed to renewing these perspectives by opening new fields of studies (both the gender of policies and the policies of gender) while at the same time discussing classical notions (for instance the ‘referential’, see below) and perspectives (for example, the study of street-level bureaucrats) (see the recent syntheses by Engeli and Perrier, 2015; Mazur and Revillard, 2016). Although of course present in other national fields, this linkage between empirics and theory is particularly strong in France. For these reasons, we have chosen to present what follows around three fundamental debates which, through developing in layers over the last 30 years, structure and divide the French policy studies of today. The first concerns the role of ‘ideas’ in public policies, the second the relationship between institutions and actors, while the third is centred upon the role of the state and politics itself within policy-making, implementation and evaluation. Second, this theoretical investment has gone hand in hand with an everincreasing engagement with research published in English. However, this involvement in international social science has nevertheless varied in intensity and intentionality over time. If, in the 1990s, this field of study was essentially autonomous from extra-national developments, by contrast the following decade was marked by importation and translation of approaches initiated elsewhere (Muller and Surel, 2000). Since the end of the 2000s, however, greater crossfertilisation between endogenous and exogenous perspectives has emerged,

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alongside a greater willingness to participate assertively and cumulatively in international scientific fora. Throughout what follows, we will not only show that the approaches which have dominated this field of study in France continue to differ from the worlds of policy studies in other countries. We will also demonstrate that a particularly strong connection between political science and sociology is the prime cause of this difference. As will be highlighted, the three recurrent debates dealt with here are all linked to the deep-seated reasons why academics in France generally refuse to engage in the ‘problem-solving oriented’ ‘policy analysis’ that is so common in most other countries. Indeed, overall, this chapter is as much about the building and evolution of two professions and professional identities – those of political scientists and sociologists – as it is about change in the theories, methods and practices of their respective members.

The impact of ideas upon public policies Generally speaking, French policy studies has been marked by a reluctance to adopt rational choice approaches which, in turn, has had the deep consequence of rendering the latter marginal in this country. Instead, analytical frameworks giving primacy to the role of ideas, norms and values have occupied a central role within the parts of academia interested in policy-making. More specifically, a group of researchers based in Grenoble during the 1980s prioritised the role played by ideas in public policies on policy studies’ agenda, a place from which it has incited sustained debate first over the 1990s then, more sporadically, ever since. L’Etat en action and the concept of ‘referential’ Through striving to collectively develop an all-encompassing reading of state action, these Grenoblois argued that representatives of the state neither simply responded to the demands of interest groups, nor worked consistently in favour of the ruling class. Instead, as Jobert and Muller in particular set out when combining insights from post-Marxism and organisational sociology (1987), a reasoning in three stages was deemed necessary. • Research needs to grasp the dominant systems of meaning which structure public policies through becoming their respective ‘referential’, a key term conceptualised as the codes and models of reference providing orientations, stability and legitimacy to policy-making actors (1987, 47).A referential never dominates a policy sector by chance, but rather because it is part of the strategic activity conducted by certain actors to become hegemonic. Labelled ‘mediators’ by Jobert and Muller, these actors not only participate actively in shaping the cognitive aspects of a referential, they also build an image and a role for themselves. In short, ideas are not free-floating, rather they are firmly

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attached to the positions and legitimacy developed by the actors who promote them (Radaelli, 2015, 222). • The connected concept of ‘global–sectorial relationship’ guides research to studying how the referential that dominates a sector is affected by that which over-arches policy-making in a polity at that point in time. The claim made here is that these all-encompassing interpretations of the social and political world have structuring impacts because they tend strongly to determine the scope of possibilities which sectorial mediators consider are open to them. Research conducted in this vein has had massive success in France, and this among young researchers in particular. Moreover, through giving rise to several collective reflexions (Faure et al, 1995; Boussaguet et al, 2015), it has participated strongly in the very institutionalisation of policy studies in this country that first occurred in the 1990s. In so doing, this approach has been successfully mobilised in analyses of policy changes, especially various ‘turns’ experienced by the French policy model (for example, a referential of modernisation led by the state in the 1960s, then the turn to neoliberalism in the 1980s).It is of course important not to disconnect this development from other similar ones that have occurred elsewhere in the world among social scientists specialised in public action. In the US and Britain concepts such as ‘paradigms’, ‘narratives’ or ‘traditions’ have also been used as a means of countering positivist approaches to public policy, and that of many rational choice theorists in particular (Muller and Surel, 2000). Indeed, many prominent foreign colleagues have praised the concept of referential for underlining how it links policy analysis to that of legitimacy, as well as the linkages between the macro and the meso it guides research to reveal (how a change in a specific sector is bound to a more macro change) (Hall, 2015). This said, within France itself ‘the referential approach’ initially inspired an essentially national debate that not only divided its proponents from both more interactionist organisational sociologists and more structuralist followers of Pierre Bourdieu, but also isolated the field as a whole from international debates. In doing so, this intranational debate also provoked a number of extensions and revisions (Boussaguet and Surel, 2015). Extensions: interactionist takes on the production of ideas A creator of the referential approach, Bruno Jobert, was one of the first to extend it by focusing more specifically upon the origins of ideas that become dominant and the range of actors who participate in this process. In particular, his conceptualisation of ‘forums’ as relatively autonomous spaces of thought and debate, enabled Jobert to analyse more precisely the shift within public action from a Keynesian global referential to one based on neoliberalism (1994). Rather than see this displacement as the result of work carried out by mediators, he instead highlighted a plurality of learning processes which occurred within scientific, expert, journalistic and political fora. Analyses of agricultural policy change 65

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(Fouilleux, 2003), or legislation to counter paedophilia (Boussaguet, 2008) have since tested and refined this claim. A second interactionist-inspired development of the referential approach has sought to reconcile it with analysis in terms of strategic action. Rather than opposing ideas and interests, this strand of research has picked up on Muller’s constructivist assertion that all interests flow from processes of decoding and recoding, and this in order to underline that the ideational dimension of public action is omnipresent within the powering that determines its outputs and outcomes. Consequently, researchers have stressed the strategic uses of ideas as a weapon within institutional games: for instance, the EU Commission has used neoliberal policy recipes in its negotiations with Member-states as a way of defending its own organisational interests (Crespy and Ravinet, 2014). Finally, a third interactionist extension of the referential approach has sought to meld research on ideas and on ‘communicational rationality’. From this angle, the ideas which affect public policy are seen as influencing not only how actors interpret the world, but also as structuring the discourses they use to change it by interacting with others. Here, discourse is not opposed to reality, it is seen as constitutive of the latter. Consequently, importance is given to both the practical knowledge (savoir faire) of actors, as well as to its ‘political’ dimension (that is, knowledge that is not solely scientific but refers to ‘the public good’, see Durnova and Zittoun, 2013; see also in English for a discussion of Risse’s deliberative logic of governance, Quantin and Smith, 2013). Revisions: ideas as the causes of policy change or reproduction What has provoked the most controversy within French policy studies, however, concerns the causal status accorded to ideas within policy-making. Here four differing positions have been put forward. The first is to address the question of causality with the empirical finding that, at least within contemporary pluralist democracies, the ideas that tend to ‘win’ in policy-making are those that are sufficiently flexible or ‘soft’ to enable actors to reach compromises or a consensus. More precisely, the success of soft ideas stems from them being sufficiently ambiguous to enable different, and sometimes contradictory, interpretations to be accepted by all concerned (Palier, 2003). For example, this claim has subsequently been made to explain the success of neoliberalism in so much of the world since the 1980s (Crespy and Ravinet, 2014), as well as the heterogeneity of its translations into practice at the national scale (Hassenteufel and de Maillard, 2013). A second approach to the causal role of ideas is to consider that those that come from ‘on high’ have to confront the practices of actors who actually implement policy on the ground. Implementation practices are thus seen as accompanied by their own sets of social representations which participate strongly in translating, and sometimes even countering, those which actors with the most formal authority (for example, ministers) attempt to impose upon them. More precisely, several 66

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studies have targeted new kinds of policies which do not set up objectives and allocate resources in a top down manner, but instead establish rules for interinstitutional negotiation around locally determined issues (see especially Duran and Thoenig, 1996; Gaudin, 2007). Meanwhile, some go a stage further to deny the causal influence of ideas upon policies and their implementation. Envisaging public action as intrinsically incoherent, ‘big ideas’ such as ‘partnership’ or ‘local development’ are instead seen as myths which do little to counter the orientations adopted by materially powerful actors (Desage and Godard, 2005). Finally, an approach centred upon policy instruments has sought to conciliate an emphasis upon ideas with another on practices (Halpern et al, 2014; in English, Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007). This has been done by underlining the importance within policy-making of choices made over tools for evaluation, indicators or incentives, for example, such authors have striven to pin down the influence of ideas within daily policy practice, rather than simply upon it. In short, as in other national communities of policy specialists, since the early 1990s the role of ideas has become an omnipresent part of French debates. However, because positivism is so weak in French social science and constructivism so strong, in France this debate has not been about whether ideas matter, but how they do. Together with a focus on institutionalising policy studies at home, as well as the self-perceived poor standards of English that prevailed at that time, this emphasis upon how ideas matter contributed strongly to French policy studies isolating itself from international debates throughout the 1990s.

Institutions and actors within policies Indeed, it is this question of how ideas matter within policy-making which eventually, over the course of the 2000s, led a large number of French policy studies specialists to engage in the new-institutionalism that had influenced and inspired so many of their colleagues in sociology and political science since the mid-1980s (Steinmo et al, 1992; Hall and Taylor, 1996). In many cases, historical institutionalism was imported unquestioningly as an analytical means of combining a focus on ‘ideas’ with another on stabilised rules and norms, but also as a vector for aligning French research with that carried out elsewhere (Palier and Surel, 2005; Palier, 2010). Meanwhile, other research has engaged more critically with this historical institutionalism by maintaining a more sociological approach to the actors who change or reproduce institutions (Jullien and Smith, 2012). Overall, if the importance of institutions within policy-making and the power of institutionalist analysis have ultimately come to be accepted virtually unanimously in France, nonetheless considerable debate remains over their relationship with actors.

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The (late) introduction of institution-inspired approaches In French social science, institutions – that is, stabilised rules, norms and expectations – have always been considered crucial. Consequently, many researchers in this country see much to agree with, but little that is new, in historical or sociological institutionalism. This is because behaviourism never took strong root in France where, instead, governmental rules, norms and actors remained at the core of most early French approaches to public policy (either in administrative sciences influenced by public law, or even within the sociology of organisations which has long highlighted the role of governmental rules and norms). This said, many French specialists of public policies have sought to contribute to the new institutionalist agenda by centring their work upon the question of when and how policies institutionalise (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2011). A first area of research invested in from this angle has been the economy. Using the concept of institutionalisation, certain researchers have sought to relaunch political economy by targeting the ‘political work’ conducted to stabilise or disrupt markets and the industries within which they operate. The premise here is that both markets and industries are structured by institutions defined, sociologically, as stabilised sets of rules, norms and conventions. Although these institutions are relatively stable, they are never totally at a point of equilibrium because they are constantly being worked upon politically. Conceptualised as differing combinations of problematisation (defining social situations as public problems), instrumentation (setting policy instruments) and legitimation (through discourse and other symbolic action), this work is political because it either mobilises values to change or reproduce institutions or, on the contrary, suppresses value-based action through technicisation (Jullien and Smith, 2014). The analysts of policy instruments mentioned above have also focused upon how their objects of study become, or fail to become, institutions in their own right. Indeed, such work sometimes dovetails with a separate stream of French research upon ‘knowledge in government’ which focuses upon how ‘cognitive models’ shape and stabilise practices within a range of national and local administrations (Bongrand et al, 2012). In line with dominant strands of sociological institutionalism, this approach questions how some frontiers (such as the one between political and administrative fields) have been institutionalised through the mobilisation of knowledge. Third, institutionalisation has also been used as a concept by French scholars seeking to understand European integration in general, and the autonomisation of certain European Union organisations in particular (for example, the Commission or the Court of Justice). Here emphasis placed upon the institutionalisation of sectors at the European scale has been particularly salutary for studying objects ranging from industries (Jullien and Smith, 2014) to public health (Guigner, 2012). Specifically, by focusing upon how and why sectors or policies institutionalise at the EU scale, this research has shown why improbable ‘candidates’ for EU government such as health contain increasing levels of EU government, but also 68

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why ‘usual suspects’ such as agriculture have actually experienced significant deinstitutionalisation at the EU scale in recent years. Neo-institutionalist approaches have been mobilised even more specifically to produce knowledge about the extent and scope of policy changes. Especially with regards to social policies, scholars have critically used neo-institutionalist concepts and studies to analyse the mechanisms of policy change (in particular those that underline the cumulative effect of successive small reforms: Streeck and Thelen, 2005). In so doing, they have highlighted various constraints on policy changes (notably due to path dependency processes), but also the reform trajectory of the French welfare state and, more generally, the politics of welfare reform in continental Europe (Palier, 2010). The overall claim made here is that changes of continental European welfare systems must not be analysed in isolation, but as a succession of reforms that have each opened up new opportunities for change. Linking institutions and actors Overall then, since the early 2000s, compatible neo-institutionalisms have certainly become part of the standard toolbox of French policy specialists. Nevertheless, both historical and sociological institutionalism continue to cause frictions within the French field of policy studies because many scholars in this country consider that these approaches do not take the role played by actors sufficiently into account. Indeed, it is not by chance that policy studies specialists in France tend strongly to see themselves as conducting ‘sociologies of public action’. Indeed, to quote one of its leading figures, Patrick Hassenteufel, the dominant definition of policy studies in France is one that considers that the collective construction of public action is the product of interactions that range from strongly to weakly structured, stable and coherent; superimpose several levels of government that are more or less institutionalised; needs grasping on the basis of the resources, representations and interests of the different actors involved, that is, by analysing their internal structuration through taking into account individual actors. (2011, 155) See also Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2011, 14–16, or Nay and Smith, 2002. Several examples of empirical research reflecting this perspective help clarify the theorydriven aim of this definition. The first concerns EU policy-making where French authors have consistently pushed for actors to be better taken into account (Saurugger, 2015). In studying issues such as ‘the usages of Europe’ (Jacquot and Woll, 2004) or how local politics affects the EU (Pasquier and Weisbein, 2004), the focus has been less upon the evolving rules and norms so dear to historical institutionalism (Streeck and Thelen, 2005) and more upon ‘mechanisms of appropriation and socialisation,

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especially those involving state elites – both administrative and political’ (Radaelli, 2015, 228). A second example of actor-centred approaches to the institutions of policymaking concerns research on policy transfer across national borders. More than neo-institutionalists, French work in this area has emphasised how ‘active national and local “receptors”’ play a key role in ‘translating’ practices identified abroad into policy recipes at home (Hassenteufel and de Maillard, 2013, 390). Specifically, how power is configured within bureaucratic spaces is seen as playing a decisive role. The central claim made here is that the translation of international norms occurs within domestic contexts, marked by institutional rivalries, ideational frameworks and political constraints. From this point of view, processes of ‘convergent divergence’ and the mixing of diverse components generally predominate. Ideas emanating from international organisations circulate through the active interventions of policy intermediaries who redefine these norms and acclimatise them to local contexts (Clavier, 2013). One example of setting up research around this claim is to discover how neoliberal ideas (especially those coming from the Chicago school) have not been translated in a straightforward manner into national standards and norms, even within supposedly internationalised competition policies (Smith, 2013). Another example is how the transposition of ‘new public management’ in Russia has been marked by the legacy of the past, especially the enduring relations between public sector actors within the Federal state (Sigman, 2013). A third approach to actors in policy-making illustrates a combination of institutionally derived and structuralist analyses when focusing upon the work of street level bureaucrats within public administrations (Dubois, 2012). According to this Bourdieu-influenced approach, these agents oscillate between various identities that are administrative (relying on the strict enforcement of rules) and personal (involving forms of compassion towards users). These agents interpret loose administrative categories in ways that depend upon their own trajectories and social distance towards policy beneficiaries. This ‘critical’ research to policy studies also highlights the effects upon social services of macro-level changes towards neoliberal policies. Finally, socio-historical research on institutions conducted in France also highlights the role of social and political actors. If this work also underlines the structuring effects of institutions, they above all seek to identify the contingent moments before such rules, norms and conventions stabilised. Consequently, the long-term effects of institutions are studied less, and the microsocial interplay of actors more, than in similar studies undertaken in other countries (Payre and Pollet, 2013). In summary, ever since the 1990s this type of micro perspective on actors has frequently been adopted by policy studies specialists in France order to grasp who changes or reproduces institutions, as well as how they do so. If, during the 2000s, a willingness to import ‘off the shelf ’ theories and concepts began to challenge this inward-looking way of conducting research and engaging in international 70

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scholarship, during that decade it prompted little innovation and considerable new friction within the domestic field of policy studies itself. Revealingly, it is only over the past five or six years that both these characteristics have begun to change.

Does policy analysis only study the making of policies, or the state and politics? Indeed, revitalising French policy studies has largely come about through the resuscitation of another often cited ambition of French policy studies: generating knowledge on wider phenomena, namely the state and politics. This has been an enduring line of questioning within the domestic field that partly reflects a disciplinary divide. If sociologists are prone to analyse public policies as incoherent sets of programmes implemented by a varying range of public and private actors (thus giving no primacy to political regulation), political scientists have tended to link the analysis of the multiplication of actors to more macro approaches to the state and political power (see Musselin, 2005). Indeed, this linkage between public policies and political phenomenon is a constant source of debate. A fear often expressed in France is that specialists of policy analysis on the one hand and those of the state on the other, have created sub-disciplines for themselves which either fail to communicate, thereby creating a logic of decreasing returns (Bezes and Pierru, 2012), or forget to really study the linkage between politics, policies and polity. Here many non-specialists of policy studies blame ‘AngloSaxon’ policy analysis and its plethora of concepts (‘windows of opportunity’, governance, policy networks, advocacy coalitions, and so on). If this claim is not completely without foundation, it is more accurate and interesting to highlight how and why two recent series of publications by French policy specialists have nevertheless sought to tackle first the transformation of the state and, second, the links between public policies and political phenomena. Crucially, both these strands of work have sought to better integrate insights from French and nonFrench scholarship, and this while engaging more assertively in international debates. Between public policies, elites and the changing state Indeed, scholars from within policy studies have worked to rebind it into what is known in France as the sociology of the state, and this by reinvesting in reflection over elites. In so doing, they are partly reviving a strand of analysis developed by the original importers of PPA into France who all highlighted the influence of state elites upon French policies, the importance of civil servants being trained within the Grand Corps and, more generally, state interventionism in the economy and society (Thoenig, 1987). But this emphasis upon elites also stems from an attempt to update knowledge about the state combining tools from policy studies and administrative sociology.

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The most formalised approach here is that of ‘programmatic elites’ developed by Genieys and Hassenteufel (2012; Genieys, 2011). Beginning with work on what they call ‘the welfare elite’, these authors mapped the civil servants who had worked for or against the liberalisation of social policies, and health insurance in particular, within the French state during the 1990s. Biographical statistics were compiled and a typology of career trajectories was established. Meanwhile, a wide range of interviews were conducted with these actors in order to grasp the cognitive, symbolic and material resources or representations they had mobilised in order to promote or resist policy change. By combining these sociographic and interpretative methods, they then proposed an analytical framework for studying trends within states which places competing ‘programmatic actors’ at its centre. In claiming that this framework is generalisable to other sectors and issue areas, Genieys and Hassenteufel have thereby put forward a means of comparing change in governmental activity through studying closely both who governs, and in the name of what. More precisely still, they have shown, including within international journals (2015), how these two questions can be rigorously tackled within empirical research projects. Interestingly, some authors have gone beyond the sole focus on administrative elites (and, conversely, street-level bureaucrats), to promote the careful analysis of the work of middle managers within public administrations in charge of translating general objectives into practice (Barrier et al, 2015). From a different angle, French analysts of policy instruments have also sought to reinvest in studying states, here by combining analyses in terms of instrument type, its relationship to politics and its primary mode of legitimacy (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007, 351; Halpern et al, 2014, 18). Inspired by Michel Foucault, the aim here has been to track the evolving role of particular instruments as a means of understanding contemporary government and its legitimacy. Starting from another point (but with a shared Foucaldian inspiration), some scholars have explored the politics of administrative reform within the French state and the diffusion of neo-managerialist recipes and standards (Bezes, 2009), but also the transformation of the boundaries of public administration since the 1980, especially through agencification and organisational mergers (Bezes and Le Lidec, 2016). In his latest work, Pierre Muller (2015) joins such authors in considering that there is a distinct co-relation between the types of policy instrument mobilised in a polity and its type of state. Public policy and politics Debates over policy studies’ treatment of the state are mirrored by another concerning the way researchers using this perspective study politics. Over the last decade, three ways of tackling this question have emerged. The first concerns the role of politicians in public policy-making. Here studies have increasingly targeted the capacity of actors such as mayors (Douillet and Robert, 2007) or even the French President (de Maillard and Surel, 2012) to participate in the production and implementation of public policies. Are they 72

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able to build and maintain relations with experts or holders of other types of legitimacy, and this by building durable teams of advisors and wider networks? Can they use the specificity of their relationship to the public in order to increase their influence of policy-making? Has the changing sociological profile of politicians (for example, higher education levels) had an impact upon how they work with administrators (Gaudin, 2007)? In terms of theoretical propositions, however, initial work on ‘political leadership’ (Smith and Sorbets, 2003) still largely remains to be followed up with systematic and original research. In particular, the collective dimension of political leadership (for example, a politician’s team and networks), as well as their communication practices, has yet to give rise to the generation of quantitative and qualitative data. Another classical approach to the role of politics in public action is to study the impact of electoral cycles. Beyond the traditional issue of the electoral cycle and the question of the effect of political turnover, some authors have questioned how the political rhythm (as regards the calendar fixed by elections) shapes policy orientations and calculus (de Maillard, 2006). Others have underlined the discrepancy between political time and managerial time, especially by focusing on the actual length in office of ministers and showing that the ministers who initiate a reform are rarely those who implement it, thereby increasing the effects of political announcements not followed by action (Siné, 2005). Meanwhile, other researchers have revived interest in the effect of political parties on public decisions, by specifying under what conditions governing parties influence public policies. From this angle, the now longstanding Comparative Agendas Project has had considerable impact upon research undertaken at Sciences Po Paris, Bordeaux and Grenoble, in particular (Persico et al, 2012). Some have also used public policy concepts and tools to study the electoral field (Erhard, 2016). Finally, and more recently, scholars in France have begun to reinvest in the question of how public action produces public and political order (Zittoun, 2013). More precisely, here it is claimed that public policies are the mechanisms through which the disorder of both socio-economic and political life is given a certain pattern. From this perspective, governing means producing discourses that shape the way we interpret politics and thereby contribute to the production of a certain social order. For example, within urban studies, some studies have underlined how governing the city means orienting behaviours, imposing choices and controlling territories (Aguilera, 2012).

Conclusion Much more could and should be said about the development of policy studies in France over the last two decades. Nonetheless, two points that arise from this chapter both synthesise the distance it has travelled so far and provide pointers for the road ahead. First, much has changed in this national field over the last 30 years, in particular the insertion of French scholars in international research programmes, together 73

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with their usage of concepts and paradigms developed elsewhere. This insertion has often caused frictions within and without France. This is largely because there has also been considerable continuity within the field, driven in particular by the importance of political science within it and the close relationship between this discipline and French sociology. However, a strong trend within recent publications suggests that sterile conflicts are currently being replaced by a more innovative approach to both theory development and engagement in international research and debates. Second, and finally, another singularity of French policy studies must also be underlined: the academic developments traced above have been led by analytical and theoretical debates (analysis of public policy) that have generally been far removed from more normative lines of questioning (analysis for public policy). Indeed, some would argue that in France the academic development of policy analysis has been conducted almost exclusively from the former perspective, and this at the expense of providing a form of policy analysis that is directly useful to decision makers. While refuting this allegation (by underlining the contribution of policy studies to contemporary French expertise and to the teaching of certain elites), it is also important to recall that such a trajectory is not specific to France. As elsewhere, this trajectory has been shaped by the various intellectual and institutionalised components of French policies that will be explored in other chapters of the book (notably the isolation of the training schools of top civil servants from the Academy and the relative undervaluing of policy-oriented work among academic circles). Nevertheless, as this chapter has highlighted throughout, over the last 30 years, indirectly but surely, French policy studies has made great strides in affecting both scholarship and public life. References Aguilera, T. (2012) ‘Gouverner les illégalismes. Les politiques urbaines face aux squats à Paris’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(3), 101–24. Barrier, J., Pillon, J.-M., Quéré, O. (eds) (2015) ‘Les cadres intermédiaires de la fonction publique’, Gouvernement et action publique 4(4), 9–171. Bezes, P. (2009) Réinventer l’Etat: Les réformes de l’administration française (1962– 2008), Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Bezes, P., Pierru, F. (2012) ‘État, administration et politiques publiques: les déliaisons dangereuses’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(2), 41–87. Bezes, P., Le Lidec, P. (eds) (2016) ‘Politiques de l’organisation’, Revue française de science politique 66(3–4), 407–33. Bongrand, P., Gervais, J., Payre, R. (eds) (2012) ‘Les savoirs de gouvernement à la frontier entre “administration” et “politique”’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(4), 9–20. Boussaguet, L. (2008) La pédophilie, problème public: France, Belgique, Angleterre, Paris: Dalloz.

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Boussaguet, L., Surel, Y. (2015) ‘Des politiques publiques “à la française”?’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 153–84, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Boussaguet, L., Jacquot, S., Ravinet, P. (eds) (2015) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Clavier, C. (2013) ‘Les causes locales de la convergence: La reception des transferts transnationaux en santé publique’, Gouvernement et action publique 2(3), 395–413. Crespy, A., Ravinet, P. (2014) ‘Les avatars du néolibéralisme dans la fabrique des politiques européennes’, Gouvernement et action publique 3(2), 9–29. Desage, F., Godard, J. (2005) ‘Désenchantement idéologique et réenchantement mythique des politiques locales’, Revue française de science politique 55(4), 633–61. Douillet, A.-C., Robert, C. (2007) ‘Les élus dans la fabrique de l’action publique locale’, Sciences de la société 71, 3–26. Dubois, V. (2012) ‘Ethnographier l’action publique: Les transformations de l’État social au prisme de l’enquête de terrain’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(1), 83–101. Duran, P., Thoenig, J.-C. (1996) ‘L’État et la gestion publique territoriale’, Revue française de science politique 46(4), 580–623. Durnova, A., Zittoun P. (2013) ‘Les approches discursives des politiques publiques’, Revue française de science politique 63(3), 569–77. Engeli, I., Perrier, G. (2015) ‘Pourquoi les politiques publiques ont toutes quelque chose en elles de très genré’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 349–75, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Erhard, T. (2016) ‘Penser les politiques électorales’, Gouvernement et action publique 5(1), 9–33. Faure, A., Pollet, G., Warin, P. (eds) (1995) La construction du sens dans les politiques publiques, pp. 13-24, Paris: L’Harmattan. Fouilleux, E. (2003) La politique agricole commune et ses réformes, Paris: L’Harmattan. Gaudin, J.-P. (2007) Gouverner par contrat: L’action publique en question, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Genieys, W. (2011) Sociologie politique des élites, Paris: Armand Colin. Genieys, W., Hassenteufel, P.  (2012) ‘Qui gouverne les politiques publiques? Par-delà la sociologie des élites’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(2), 89–115. Genieys, W., Hassenteufel, P. (2015) ‘The shaping of the new state elites: Healthcare policymaking in France since 1981’, Comparative Politics 47(3), 280–95. Guigner S. (2012) ‘Pour un usage heuristique du néo-institutionnalisme: Application à la “directive temps de travail”’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(4), 7–29. Hall, P. (2015) ‘An American perspective to French approaches to public policymaking’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) (2015) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 237–42, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Hall, P., Taylor, R. (1996) ‘Political science and the three new institutionalisms’, Political Studies 44(5), 936–57. 75

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Halpern, C., Lascoumes, P., Le Galès, P. (eds) (2014) L’instrumentation de l’action publique, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Hassenteufel, P. (2011) Sociologie politique de l’action publique, Paris: Armand Colin, 2nd edn. Hassenteufel, P., Maillard, J. de (2013) ‘Convergence, transferts et traduction: Les apports de la comparaison transnationale’, Gouvernement et action publique 2(3), 379–93. Jacquot, S., Woll, C. (eds) (2004) Les usages de l’Europe, Paris: l’Harmattan. Jobert, B. (1995) ‘Rhétorique politique, controverses scientifiques et construction de nouvelles normes institutionnelles: esquisse d’un parcours de recherché’, in A. Faire, G. Pollet, Ph. Warin (eds) La construction du sens dans les politiques publiques, pp. 13-24, Paris: L’Harmattan. Jobert, B., Muller, P. (1987) L’Etat en action, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Jullien, B., Smith, A. (2012) ‘Le gouvernement d’une industrie: vers une économie politique institutionnaliste renouvelée’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(1): 107–28. Jullien, B., Smith, A. (eds) (2014) The EU’s Government of Industries, London: Routledge. Lascoumes, P. (1995) ‘Les arbitrages publics des intérêts légitimes en matière d’environnement’, Revue française de science politique 45(3), 396–419. Lascoumes, P., Le Galès, P. (eds) (2007) ‘Understanding public policy through its instruments’, Governance 20(1), 1-144. Lascoumes, P., Le Galès, P. (2011) Sociologie de l’action publique, Paris: Armand Colin. Maillard, J. de (2006) ‘La conduite des politiques publiques à l’épreuve des temporalités électorales: Quelques hypothèses exploratoires’, Pôle Sud 25, 39–53. Maillard, J. de, Surel, Y. (eds) (2012) Politiques publiques sous Sakozy, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Mazur, A., Revillard, A. (2016) ‘Gender policy studies: Distinct, but making the comparative connection’, in R. Elgie, E. Grossman, A. Mazur (eds) The Oxford Handbook of French politics, pp. 556–82, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Muller, P. (2015) ‘Une théorie des cycles d’action publique pour penser les changements systémiques’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 405–35, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Muller, P., Surel, Y. (eds) (2000) ‘Les approches cognitives des politiques publiques: présentation’, Revue française de science politique, 50(2), 187–350. Musselin, C. (2005) ‘Sociologie de l’action organisée et analyse des politiques publiques: deux approches pour un même objet?’, Revue française de science politique 55(1), 51–71. Nay, O., Smith, A. (2002) ‘Les intermédiaires en politique : médiation et jeux d’institutions’, in O. Nay, A. Smith (eds) Le gouvernement du compromis, pp. 149–75, Paris: Economica.

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Palier, B. (2003) ‘Gouverner le changement des politiques de protection sociale’, in P. Favre, J. Hayward, Y. Schemeil (eds) Etre gouverné, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Palier B. (ed) (2010) A long good bye to Bismarck?, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Palier, B., Surel, Y. (2000) ‘Les “trois I” et l’analyse de l’Etat en action’, Revue française de science politique 55(1), 7–32. Pasquier, R., Weisbein, J. (eds) (2004) ‘L’Europe au microscope du local’, Politique européenne, 12, 5–121. Payre, R., Pollet, G. (2013) Socio-histoire de l’action publique, Paris: La Découverte. Persico, S., Froio, C., Guinaudeau, I. (2012) ‘Action publique et partis politiques: L’analyse de l’agenda legislative français entre 1981 et 2009’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(1), 11–35. Quantin, P., Smith, A. (2013) ‘Risse’s deliberative logic and governance: a critical engagement’, Critical policy studies 7(3), 263–72. Radaelli, C. (2015) ‘Un certain regard: “French” public policy analysis in Europeanization research’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 221–35, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Saurugger, S. (2015) ‘The Europeanization of public policy in France: Actorcentred approaches’, in R. Elgie, E. Grossman, A. Mazur (eds) Oxford Handbook of French politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sigman, C. (2013) ‘Le “nouveau management public” en Russie’, Gouvernement et action publique 2(3), 441–60. Siné, A. (2005) ‘Politique ou management public: le temps de la politique et le temps de la gestion publique’, Politiques et management public 23(3), 19–40. Smith, A. (1999) ‘Developments in French Policy Analysis’, Public Administration 77(1), 111–31. Smith, A. (2013) ‘Transferts institutionnels et politiques de concurrence’, Gouvernement et action publique 2(3), 415–40. Smith, A., Sorbets, C. (eds) (2003) Le leadership politique et le territoire, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Steinmo, S., Thelen, K., Longstreth, B. (eds) (1992) Structuring politics: Historical institutionalism in comparative analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Streeck, W., Thelen, K. (eds) (2005) Beyond continuity: Institutional change in advanced political economies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thoenig, J.-C. (1985) ‘L’analyse des politiques publiques’, in M. Grawitz, J. Leca (eds) Traité de science politique, vol 4, pp. 1–60, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Thoenig, J.-C. (1987) L’ère des technocrats (2nd edn), Paris: L’Harmattan. Zittoun, P. (2013) La fabrique politique des politiques publiques, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

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FIVE

Methods of French policy studies Claire Dupuy and Philippe Zittoun

Introduction Methodological debate is central to characterising the scientificity of social sciences research (Merton, 1957) and policy studies in particular (Lerner and Lasswell, 1951). This chapter focuses on French policy studies and the methods of policy analysis. Its objective is to highlight the main features of these approaches as compared to other national community practices. This task seems somewhat daunting as explicit discussions on methods among policy specialists are scarce. This is evidenced by the fact that over the last 30 years, none of the main French public policy analysis textbooks contain a complete chapter on methodology (Thoenig, 1985; Mény and Thoenig, 1989; Muller and Surel, 1998; Duran, 1999; Muller, 2015; Gaudin, 2004; Boussaguet et al, 2014; Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2006; de Maillard and Kübler, 2015; Massardier, 2008; Hassenteufel, 2008). The same can be said for classic French policy studies (Padioleau, 1982; Dupuy and Thoenig, 1985; Jobert and Muller, 1987; Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2004; Collectif, Laborier and Trom, 2003; Payre and Pollet, 2005; Zittoun, 2013). Recently though, special issues have dealt with methodological issues (see Gouvernement et action publique, 2012, 1–2 ; Muller et al, 2005). This relative neglect of methodology is not specific to France; in other national settings as well, methodological debates rank second in collective discussions. The French case, however, may be explained by the peculiarity of French policy studies, that is, the influence of sociology. This has led to a strong reliance on the methods and debates privileged in sociology studies and thus to the absence of autonomous methodological debates. This contrasts sharply with methods used in policy analysis, even though our knowledge on practitioners is still scarce. This chapter primarily focuses on political science, where in academia in particular, a clear emphasis has been placed on producing empirical knowledge on the policy process that is axiologically neutral, as opposed to normative contributions. There is also a strong tradition of qualitative empirical inquiry in French studies but relatively few quantitative studies (Lewis-Beck and Bélanger, 2015); the sociological imprint of inquiry tools is obvious, notably semi-structured interviews, mid-term analyses of the policy process and small-N studies; last, when it comes to theoretical approaches, emphasis is placed on ideational processes and, in parallel, rational choice frameworks are rejected. By contrast, there is greater heterogeneity in terms of methods when the analysis is undertaken by 79

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practitioners. Moreover, this type of policy analysis has hardly been formalised and prioritises the oral transmission of know-how among professional communities. During the 1970s, however, specially trained engineers (Grand Corps) who then dominated departmental bureaucracies attempted to develop common methods of policy analysis. These attempts failed in the 1980s and 1990s because of changes in power relations between ministries in the aftermath of the economic crisis. Their failure was also driven by the emergence of alternative expertise within the public sphere, originating in particular from the decentralisation process of the then unitary state and a contestation of the central state’s monopolistic expertise. This chapter therefore suggests that policy studies and the methods of policy analysis have largely developed in parallel with virtually no intersection. It illustrates the main features of the methods used by academics and practitioners. The first section discusses the empirical focus and the methods used in French academic research to observe the policy process. The second section centres on the methods that explain this process. The third section examines the methods used by practitioners for policy analysis.

The empirical observation of the policy process This section focuses on three issues: the widely debated empirical approaches used by academics in French policy studies, the issue of time and timeframes when observing the policy process and, last, data collection methods. As the previous chapters in this book have established, the emergence of French policy studies as a subfield within the field of political sciences in the 1980s was linked to the new representation of the state driven by policy researchers. Policy studies distanced themselves from administrative and law studies which proposed a coherent and reified conception of the state. They privileged an empirical vision of the state through the sociological observation of actors ‘in action’, that is, concretely making or implementing public policy. The titles of the initial major French policy studies such as the Concrete State (‘l’Etat au concret’) or the State in Action (‘L’Etat en action’) illustrate this empirical orientation which sought to ‘open the black box’ of state policy-making (Jobert and Muller, 1987; Padioleau, 1982). A strong empirical orientation Compared to Anglo-Saxon countries, empirical sociology and its methodologies play an important role in French political science in general (Favre, 1989; 1981) and in public policy studies in particular. Distinguished from law and administrative studies from which they originally emerged, the sociological methods used to observe actors are perceived as key to the scientific analysis. The empirical focus emerged in the 1970s when policy studies began and became increasingly important in the 1980s and 1990s. The previous chapters have shown the importance of the sociology of organisations as a new theoretical perspective behind the emergence of French 80

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policy studies. Rejecting all reification of the state, Crozier applied sociological methods to empirically observe bureaucracy and paved the way for a new perspective on state studies in France (Crozier and Friedberg, 1977). He argued that the empirical observation of actors is the first step to understanding how an organisation really works and how actors with different interests succeed, or not, in cooperating and solving major problems in spite of existing conflicts. Seminal policy studies drew on this method. In his primary work, Jean-Claude Thoenig, a policy scholar who played a key role in introducing policy studies in France in the 1970s, combined several sociological methods in the 1970s to study the role played by high-ranking civil servants in the policy process – the Grand Corps des Ponts et Chaussées – in the case of the Ministry of Road, Transport and Housing Policy (Thoenig, 1976). He conducted semi-structured interviews to grasp their profile, career path and role in the establishment of the new Ministry of ‘Equipment’. He also conducted a survey on more than 800 mid-level civil servants and their career trajectories. Bruno Jobert’s studies on the ‘Plan’ (1981) also resulted from a considerable empirical inquiry into the key civil servants involved in this planning administration department and drew from a considerable amount of documentation (Jobert, 1981). The emergence of a policy field in the 1980s led scholars to develop a policy studies foundation based on empirical inquiry in the sociological tradition (Zittoun and Demongeot, 2010; Le Galès, 2011; Commaille et al, 2010; Jamous et al, 1969; Lascoumes, 1994; Jobert and Muller, 1987). Most of these authors produced empirical sectorial policy studies in fields such as agriculture or the environment and continued to focus on actors while paying greater attention to their role in the policy process. Empirical inquiries gained further significance in the 1990s when policy studies were incorporated in political science. A new generation of researchers followed in the footsteps of the pioneers, built on this empirical orientation and developed an important empirical study in their attempt to more widely open the ‘black box’ of the policy process (for example, Muller, 1995; Jouve and Négrier, 1998; Zittoun, 2001a; Borraz, 1998; Warin, 1991; Le Galès, 1990; Setbon, 1993; Smith, 1996). From the early 2000s, another generation investigated new areas of policy-making pertaining to gender equality in France and in the European Union (Jacquot, 2015), including policies promoting work–life balance (Morel, 2007; Jacquot et al, 2011), morality policies (Engeli, 2009; Boussaguet, 2008) or state feminism (Revillard, 2009). The researchers used traditional sociological methods to study the main actors, their roles and their strategies, and to link their observations and the policy process. These generations became the main lecturers for undergraduate and postgraduate students in public policy; they contributed to constituting this empirical approach influenced by qualitative sociological methods and the comprehensive perspective as a norm for policy researchers. This institutionalisation of French policy studies explains why, compared to other countries, empirical inquiry in France is more qualitative and constructivist (Hall, 2015), and focuses on how actors influence policy processes. It is interesting to note that those policy studies proposing some methodological tools to allow 81

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for the empirical observation of actors, their representations and their discourses have received the greatest attention. These include the studies by Hugh Heclo, Rod Rhodes, Paul Sabatier, Peter Hall, Frank Baumgartner, Vivien Schmidt, Bryan Jones and Frank Fischer (Heclo and Wildavsky, 1974; Marsh and Rhodes, 1992; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993; Hall, 1993; Jones and Baumgartner, 2005; Fischer, 2003). In this sense, rather than attempting to grasp the internal logic, which is always context-specific, the main empirical issue revolves around understanding the political dimension (Hall et al, 2015). The policy process over time The choice of the study timeframe is another feature of policy analysis methods. Far from being neutral, this choice has a direct impact on data collection methods. Generally speaking, policy ethnography is associated with short timeframes, interviews are associated with short- and medium-term timeframes, and archives are generally used to study medium- and long-term timeframes. While French policy studies tend to be dominated by medium-term empirical studies, the other timeframes can also be found. Short-term research projects, that is, from a few months to one or two years, focus on the everyday behaviour of policy actors. Policy ethnography and participatory or non-participatory observation allow a very precise observation of the detailed behaviour of policymakers in response to specific events such as policy reforms, policy implementation, policy-making, or the mobilisation of interest groups. They also make it possible to explicitly observe the behaviour of street-level bureaucrats in their everyday lives, as well as the daily routines of policy beneficiaries. Semi-structured or life-story interviews may also be used as an additional method. For instance, Vincent Dubois analysed the day-to-day events surrounding policy implementation by observing interactions between streetlevel bureaucrats and policy beneficiaries for several months. He observed both routine behaviour and variations and compared these to normative bureaucratic behaviour (Dubois, 2010a). While French policy studies initially focused more on single decisions and reforms, studies focusing on specific events alone eventually became rarer. However, along with a growing interest in ethnographic methodologies, single-event studies have recently re-emerged. Boy, Brudigou, Halpern and Lascoumes’s work on Grenelle de l’Environnement illustrates this (Boy et al, 2012). Observing events where more than 1,500 actors came together to discuss environmental policy, the four authors studied the sociological position of the actors and the content of their discourses. Other policy studies have focused on extended timeframes, that is, often across several decades. Two distinct approaches predominate, although they are frequently in conflict (Baudot, 2014): historical neo-institutionalism and the ‘socio-historical’ approach. Both approaches pay little attention to the observation of specific events and privilege the main policy trajectory itself. They focus on individual actors’ agency and the manner in which stable configuration networks 82

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and organisations shape these actors’ behaviours and decision-making. Bruno Palier’s work on the French welfare system epitomises the use of historical neoinstitutionalism, tightly associated with process tracing. In the volume he edited on changes in Bismarckian welfare systems, Palier analysed the French reform trajectory in the post-war period by distinguishing the main dimensions of welfare reform trajectories (the problems, the reforms, the politics of the reforms, and the outcomes and consequences of the reforms) (2010, 34), as well as four sequences of change. Following the standard historical neo-institutionalist understanding of the unfolding of temporal processes, the analysis pays attention to timing and lock-in mechanisms. Studies within the ‘socio-historical’ approach have also examined wide timeframes and have been influenced by the French historical tradition (from École Annales to Gérard Noiriel’s understanding of socio-historical research). Most research tends to focus on policy genesis and institutionalisation processes; however, in contrast to historical neo-institutionalism, the ‘socio-historical’ approach is less interested in linking the past to the present. Research within the socio-historical approach considers time to be a key dimension of the policy analysis approach and, more specifically, of what the proponents of this approach refer to as state control (étatisation). This approach firmly rejects the use of macrosociological concepts or definitions and analytical models, as these are considered to disregard empirical cases (Payre and Pollet, 2005). This approach privileges the study of archives. The third timeframe, that is, the medium-term timeframe, is probably the most widely-used timeframe in French policy studies. Periods ranging across one or two decades are frequently investigated through the sociological study of actors and of policy dynamics. Semi-structured interviews are the most commonly used method of data collection. This timeframe enables researchers to distance themselves from specific events and to determine the empirical connection between past and present events, making it possible to analyse the dynamics of the policy process. To a certain extent, the medium-term period may work as a methodological device to prevent any confusion between practitioners’ expertise and normative orientation. For instance, most chapters in recent publications, such as the Politiques publiques series published by Presses de Sciences Po analyse the policy process on a meso-scale. The use of the meso-scale dates back to the beginning of French policy studies. The early works of Bruno Jobert, Pierre Muller, Pierre Lascoumes, Jean-Claude Thoenig, and Jean-Gustave Padioleau studied policy over a period of one decade (Jobert and Muller, 1987; Thoenig, 1976; Lascoumes, 1994; Padioleau, 1982). While these scholars often focused on specific policy reform events (agriculture policy reform, social policy reform, equipment reform, environmental reform, and so on), they extended the period of observation to understand the policy dynamics at the moment the reform took place. Put differently, they attempted to embed policy reforms into the larger process of the formation of policy ideas and representations. The policy instrument approach also privileges observation across one or two decades. In so doing, it 83

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makes it possible to analyse instrument choice within the constraining context of the introduction of the instrument, its implementation, and the resistance it may trigger (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2004). The discursive approach primarily focuses on ten-year studies; while these are longer than studies conducted over the short term, they are shorter than many medium-term studies which could span 15 to 20 years. Focusing on the discourse produced by actors during the policy process and specifically on discrete interactions within the bureaucratic system, the interviews conducted aim at reconstituting scenes, even though this is limited by actors’ limited memory capacities. The predominance of interviews among data collection methods Despite the strong empirical orientation of French policy studies from the outset, it is surprising that data collection methods were not discussed until the 2000s, with the notable exception of Samy Cohen’s widely referenced edited book on elite interviews. The recent surge in methodological attention is driven by the broader context of political science, where methodological issues have made their way to the top of scholars’ collective agenda. Since the beginning, French policy researchers have used various methods and there has been considerable diversification over the last few years. Among the methods for data collection, however, interviews, and semistructured interviews in particular, predominate. In a vivid debate published by the Revue française de science politique (Bongrand and Laborier, 2005; Pinson and Sala Pala, 2007), the contributors agreed that semi-structured interviews, along with documentary analysis, are the most widely used method of data collection in French policy studies. Bongrand and Laborier have shown that recent PhD dissertations labelled as ‘policy studies’ largely resort to semi-structured interviews. Based on French policy studies, we may identify four main uses of interviews. First, most interviews see the interviewee as a witness of the policy process under study, and they are intended to collect oral history in order to piece together the often discontinuous and conflicting phases of the policy-making process. These interviews focus on identifying the different steps of negotiation, opposition and consensus-building in the policy arena, as well as the associated justifications, competing definitions and narratives. Second, interviews are used to analyse stakeholders’ ideas, representations and interests. In such instances, the policy process is more likely to be considered continuous and progressive and the research focus is more synchronic than diachronic. The objective of such interviews is to discuss with stakeholders their definition of policy, their understanding of its potential consequences, the problems these policies solve, the public they affect, the values they mobilise, and so on. Moreover, the researchers try to collect the representations of the interviewed stakeholders and to identify the subjective definition of their own interest, as well as their preferences and motivations. Third, interviews may focus on actors’ trajectories and social characteristics. Following a sociological perspective on the study of elites (Bourdieu and Christin, 1990; 84

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Genieys and Hassenteufel, 2012), these interviews primarily trace actors’ careers and education in order to assess the professional and social networks to which they belong and their role in the policy process. A fourth use of interviews involves actors’ own descriptions and representations of their own practices. Attention is paid to the capacity of the actors to justify and discuss their actions, as justification is perceived as playing an important role in explaining preferences. Surprisingly enough, although (semi-structured) interviews are a dominant method of French policy studies, few studies have addressed why this specific data collection method is privileged. Indeed, Bongrand and Laborier (2005) highlight this issue and emphasise the routinised and non-reflexive use of semistructured interviews in policy studies. Methodological discussions mainly focus on the issues raised by semi-structured interviews (for instance, memory issues, power relationships between the interviewee and the interviewer, the absence of reflexivity on the part of interviewees) and attempt to identify how to circumvent them (for a discussion, see Pinson and Sala Pala, 2007). A similar absence of collective methodological debate can be observed with documentary sources, irrespective of whether they are grey literature – including administrative and expertise reports – administrative documents and archives, personal notes and e-mails, newspaper articles or websites. Practically all policy studies rely on such material. Although historians in particular have developed comprehensive methods to study archives and, more broadly, written texts, there has been no collective methodological debate (for a tentative analysis, see Dupuy and Pollard, 2012a). Other methods of policy studies such as policy ethnography and actors’ prosopography have been used increasingly and have gained prominence over recent years. Interestingly, these strands of research focus on policy actors, both empirically and analytically. Analysing policy actors helps explain policy change or inertia (Dubois, 2012; 2010a; Genieys and Hassenteufel, 2012). Some proponents of policy ethnography argue that this method is instrumental to uncovering the ‘implementation trick’; this refers to the idea that the contradictions between policies as enacted and communicated by politicians, and as implemented within a policy context given the resources available and the street-level bureaucrats can only be perceived through an ethnographic study of policy implementation (Dubois, 2012). In this respect, ethnographic implementation studies are perceived as studies that document policy changes in general and not merely policy implementation per se. In a similar vein, other proponents of policy ethnography argue that this method allows policy studies to connect the four dimensions of a policy, that is, policymakers, beneficiaries, street-level bureaucrats and other policy brokers (Belorgey, 2012), and thus fully understand a given policy. Other studies contend that actors’ prosopography coupled with other methods is a privileged methodological tool to study policy change. In a cross-sectoral comparative study, Patrick Hassenteufel and William Genieys showed that combining methods from the sociology of elite – including actors’ sociography, reputation and position – with a cognitive policy analysis triggered significant advances in the analysis of 85

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policy change by endogenising its explanation (2012). They argued that policy change in healthcare and the military sector might be explained by the ideas and roles of groups of ‘programmatic elites’ that had gained autonomy from elected politicians, designed a coherent understanding of the role of the central state in both policy sectors and subsequently shaped policy changes. Overall, qualitative methods of empirical investigation are dominant in French policy studies. It is true for mainstream policy studies as well as for less-developed empirical and analytical perspectives, like feminist comparative policy studies (Mazur, 2009). This strand of research relies essentially on qualitative methods of data collection. Its main difference with mainstream studies is that these works are less dependent upon a sector-based analysis of policy-making and pay more attention to its cross-sectoral dimension (Perrier, 2013; Engeli and Perrier, 2015). While quantitative analyses have also been undertaken (in particular through the French team of the Comparative Agenda Project [Persico et al, 2012]) they remain at the margins of French policy studies.

Methodological research design To discuss the process of explanation building in French policy studies and the ways in which it relates to methodological choices, this section presents some of the most influential theories and popular analytical tools as well as comparative research designs. Popular theories and analytical tools with which to study the policy process This chapter does not pretend to propose an exhaustive review of the analytical tools used in French policy studies. Rather, it focuses on three analytical models largely used to study the policy process. Each model outlines the scope of observation, the main issues to solve and identifies the most effective explanation. The first model is the step-by-step model referred to in France as the ‘Jones framework’ in reference to the Charles Jones textbook (Jones, 1970). It was imported by Jean-Claude Thoenig in the early 1980s as an analytical method to analyse the policy process across different stages (Thoenig, 1985, 18–37). This model was certainly instrumental in encouraging the shift from the French classical sociology of bureaucracy to the emerging field of public policy; while the focus on policy actors remained constant, attention also began to be paid to institutions and outputs. This analytical method involves empirically isolating each phase and viewing the link between them as problematic. Following Kingdon’s perspective, the model separately analyses policy formulation, the problem agenda-setting and the political activities. It also studies the impact these phases have on each other during the analysis of policy dynamics, actors and ideas in each phase (Thoenig, 1985; Mény and Thoenig, 1989; Lascoumes and Galès, 2006; de Maillard and Kübler, 2015; Duran, 1999; Hassenteufel, 2008).

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Second, the cognitive and normative approach plays a key role in French policy studies. This analytical framework emerged at the end of the 1980s and was inspired by Kuhn’s perspective on a scientific paradigm (Kuhn, 1962). Initially developed by Bruno Jobert and Pierre Muller, this approach was an alternative to the first analytical model as it specifically focused on crisis and policy change by paying more attention to how ideas influenced the policy process. While this model continues to question the link between the configuration of actors and the policy process, it primarily zeroes in on identifying three stages, that is, policy stability, policy crisis and policy change (Zittoun, 2009), and on empirically observing the transformation from crisis to stability. Third, the pragmatic approach has gained importance in public policy over the last few years (Durnova and Zittoun, 2013). Influenced by Joseph Gusfield, by Bruno Latour’s sociology of science, and by Bolstanski’s pragmatic sociology (Gusfield, 1984; Boltanski, 2009; Latour, 1990), this approach focuses on the career of instruments or policy proposals rather than on a specific period. It considers instruments to be dynamic and suggests that analytical methods should focus on the changes observed with regard to instruments and proposals and take their failure and disappearance into account. Comparative research designs One important feature of the research design of policy studies in France is the comparative method. Since the early 2000s, comparative analyses have become increasingly popular in French policy studies (Boussaguet and Dupuy, 2014). This was a period when French policy studies took stock of their latest developments and when calls were made to ‘breathe new life’ into policy analysis (Hassenteufel and Smith, 2002). Specifically, in order to counteract what was conceived of as policy studies-specific explanations, due in part to the use of jargon, calls were made to ‘mainstream’ policy studies’ analytical tools into standard political science (in the case of EU policy, see Hassenteufel and Surel, 2000). In addition, over the same period, new generations of scholars started to explore then uncharted territories. Europeanisation of public policy and regionalisation of public policy students thus initiated a research path distinct from the original works in French policy studies due to their emphasis on comparative designs (Pasquier, 2004; Le Galès, 2003; Woll and Jacquot, 2010). A growing interest in comparative analysis grew out of this context not only within the European Union but also at the international level (Fouilleux, 2015), in Latin America and in African countries. Patrick Hassenteufel’s contributions were instrumental in discussing comparative designs from a methodological point of view and raising awareness of their pitfalls and advantages (2000; 2005). In particular, he highlighted four designs that largely resemble comparative designs but are essentially different. For instance, ‘Canada dry comparisons’ typically propose several single case-studies but provide no common analytical frameworks or even lines of questioning. Similarly, ‘Office comparisons’ are exclusively based on documentation available 87

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on the web but propose no further investigation. ‘Jivaro comparisons’ refer to studies based on quantitative indicators that over-simplify the phenomenon under study by assessing only one aspect of it. Last, ‘ventriloquist comparisons’ are works where case studies are designed in such a way that they must confirm the initial hypotheses without leaving room for any alternative explanations. Interestingly, however, this new popularity of the comparative analysis failed to trigger sustained collective methodological discussions (for one exception, see in particular Dupuy and Pollard, 2012b, on the issues raised by compound research designs investigating comparative subnational policies in several national settings). In this respect, French policy studies are very similar to the field of policy analysis in general where, until very recently, scholars have mostly relied on discussions of comparative politics to ground their comparative research designs without explicitly reflecting on their potential variation when applied to policy studies (Engeli and Rothmayr Allison, 2014; Levi-Faur, 2006). Case-oriented comparative research designs distinctly dominate, as opposed to variable-oriented studies which are rather scarce. This observation is largely dependent on the fact that French policy studies mainly rely on qualitative research methods much more than on quantitative data analyses. Small N comparative studies are most common. Comparative case studies investigate a wide range of issues, from policy process to agenda-building and problem definition. On top of international or cross-sectoral comparative designs, some studies have also relied on ‘transnational comparisons’ that pay attention to interdependences between the cases at hand (Hassenteufel, 2005). These include policy convergence or policy transfer studies (Hassenteufel and de Maillard, 2013).Classic and compound research designs are most common among comparative policy studies in France. Among common comparative research designs, the comparison of one policy across several national settings is prominent. While some studies seek to analyse how governments react when faced with similar problems, others explore processes of policy change. Cornelia Woll’s (2014) recent study of bank bailouts in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland and Denmark provides an example of the former. Her book seeks to explain the significant variation of bank rescue schemes from the onset of the financial crisis in 2007, in terms of overall amount (share of national income) and constraints put on participating institutions. This research was designed as a paired comparison of the most similar cases with regard to the type of market economy, the role of banks in the financial system, and the tradition and ideology vis-à-vis state control over banks. Despite the similarities expected to account for similar reactions to the banking and financial crisis, substantial differences were observed in each paired comparison bank bailout scheme. Woll argued that the differences were due to the varying ability of the banking sector to organise itself and to its political activity, that is, to banks’ collective inaction. Other classic comparative designs have investigated processes of policy change. Charlotte Halpern and Patrick Le Galès’ (2011) comparative work on EU environmental and urban policy instruments is exemplary in this regard. The authors focus on EU policy-making 88

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and on the supposedly new instruments of the supposedly new EU governance. The comparison between EU policy instruments in two policy sectors is thus instrumental in explaining EU environmental and urban policy change and institutionalisation by emphasising how the choice and combination of policy instruments relate to the Commission’s strategy to expand its scope of intervention as well as the limitations on its resources in doing so. In addition to these classic uses of comparative designs in French policy studies, compound research designs are well developed. The fields of territorial and urban policies have been key contributors to the development of such research designs. In order to study territorial transformations and the ensuing policy change, most research designs articulate three dimensions: sub-national policies, national settings, and time. Gilles Pinson’s (2009) book on urban projects and the use of this policy instrument by middle-sized cities provides a good illustration. The book explores the changing role of cities as actors in multilevel systems. It studies the shift over time from state-led hierarchical planning to city-led horizontal urban projects development. The empirical data rely on a comparative approach involving four longitudinal and cross-national case studies of the cities of Marseille and Nantes, both in France, and Venice and Turin in Italy. Based on this comparative design, Pinson shows the rise of European cities and their key role in attracting resources, shaping their own development and, overall, governing European societies.

Practitioners’ policy analysis methods As discussed in previous chapters, there is an important gap between the academic policy community and policy practitioners. While the former focus on the policy process and, more specifically, on practitioners to understand their role in the process, they keep the latter at a distance to better study them as objects. In their quest for practical problem-solving methods, policy practitioners keep these academic policy studies at distance and turn to practitioners’ know-how. Consequently, the gap between academics who study the policy process and practitioners who use policy analysis has led to a lack of analytical models taught at universities or Grandes Écoles; moreover, these models are not shared with practitioners. Another consequence is the lack of visibility of the policy analysis practitioners use. The policy analysis methods used by practitioners are primarily transmitted orally rather than through textbooks or written forms which are easier to grasp. Considering this invisibility, we would like to propose two ways of grasping a modest part of this fragmented image of the analytical method used. The first one involves observing the Grand Corps where we find high-ranking civil servants and a common training and profile. The second one takes on a sectoral perspective where a predominant method is used in a specific period to observe some of the main methods used to analyse a policy. By combining these two perspectives,

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we can identify four examples which highlight the success and failure of some policy analysis models. The partial success of the use of mathematical models to analyse policy Depending on the period and the sector, different mathematical models have emerged and been developed to analyse policy. This success, which is often shortlived, can be easily linked to the importance of the Grand Corps of state engineers who have an expert knowledge of mathematics and who occupy high-ranking positions within a few important Ministries such as Road, Transport, Energy, Environment, Housing, and so on. Used as a method, mathematical formalisation allows them to produce analyses they can use to bolster their dominant position and their influence. Two examples clearly demonstrate these engineers’ importance. The first revolves around the housing policy with the development in the 1970s of the ‘Polo’ model which was the first French version of the US Planning-ProgrammingBudgeting System (PPBS) (Zittoun, 2001a). This rationalisation of the budget choice (Rationalisation des Choix Budgétaires [RCB]) method was imported through a specific practitioner network, the Grand Corps of statistician public administrators of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (administrateur de l’Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques [INSEE]). These engineers went on to occupy the key positions at the new Department of Prospective created in 1965 within the Ministry of Economy and, more specifically, within the sub-department of RCB (Spenlehauer, 1998). Polo’s promoters primarily sought to build a mathematical model to simulate human behaviour ‘objectively’ and proposed a method to help decision-makers make the ‘best’ choice through cost–benefit analyses. This model primarily posits that when choosing where they will live, people overemphasise the utility function. This makes it possible to grasp their behaviour and, especially, to make them predictable. Consequently, engineers can create different fictions in which they can simulate the impact of a policy proposal and make it possible to compare ‘objectively’ the effect of different attempts. Considered too costly for the Ministry of Finance, the housing policy was evaluated using this model. The main instrument which helped finance social housing was compared to another instrument to directly finance people living under the minimum wage. Based on Polo’s results, two reports were issued in 1971 and 1975 which contributed to the housing policy reform approved in 1977. Both reports provoked much debate, controversy and counter-expertise in the housing sector, even though ultimately, the reform did not follow the ‘Polo’ model recommendations. Considered a housing policy failure, this method progressively disappeared, much like in the United States. The second example is drawn from the transport policy. Similar to Harold Mazoyer’s study, some high-ranking civil servants, that is, engineers in particular, have developed different mathematical models which allow the simulation of the behaviour of people based on the assumption that they generally choose the 90

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‘fastest’ mode of transport. Developed in the 1960s, this different mathematical model simulated behaviour and developed a fictional account of the impact of a policy proposal, making it possible to compare different possible choices. The transport sector was one of the rare cases where the model was developed not only by practitioners but also within academia by engineer-economists using the rational choice theory to disseminate and justify the model. In the transport policy, the monetisation of behaviour helped produce expertise and knowledge to analyse policy and inform decision-makers. While this method has been challenged over the last 20 years and has thus lost influence, a few ‘old generation’ experts continue to use it. The ‘bricolage’ method, a dominant know-how practice With the exception of some specific sectors and periods, it is quite difficult to identify a specific method used to analyse policy. By contrast, bricolage, which can be illustrated through the following three cases, seems to prevail. The case of the Economic Policy Turn in 1982–85 reveals how some of the analytical methods used to study policy can be built pragmatically, how they fail to have any real links to the academic field, and how they appear as the result of bricolage. In 1970, a homogenisation process within the Ministry of Finance resulted in less diversity and in the increased presence of some members of the Grand Corps such as the tax inspectorate (L’inspection des finances) and INSEE administrators (Jobert, 1994). In contrast to the Keynesian model for the analysis of the economic and finance policy, a new analytical model referred to as the ‘désinflation competitive’ was developed (Zittoun, 2001b). Far from being a theoretical model built by economists, this model was built by civil servants lacking theoretical knowledge of economics; indeed, the model’s link to economic theory is highly elusive (Lordon, 1997). Second, although this model is based on affirmative statements and causal chains (such as ‘exportation is the only way to get growth’), there are no academic references to back them up. Third, these statements provide an analytical framework to distinguish ‘relevant’ policy from ‘irrelevant’ policy. The success of this analytical framework can be explained by the importance of the network that supported and disseminated it, specifically in the Ministry of Economy through the Grand Corps of finance inspectors. The second example reveals that some new institutions responsible for analysing and evaluating policy never discuss methods. In 2007, a specific institution was established and charged with the specific task of analysing public policy. Initially known as the General Review of Public Policies (Révision Générale des Politiques Publiques [RGPP]), it changed its name to Modernisation of Public Policy (MAP). The MAP has been very active – between 2012 and 2014, it published more than 60 policy evaluations. These evaluations were essentially produced by high-ranking civil servants from the different inspection bodies, Within the SG MAP, these civil servants developed an ‘official’ method with three components: a collaborative process, a double focus on content and its social acceptability, and 91

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the different timescales. The focus on content generally used the MCA method, with specific attention being paid to criteria such as innovation, transparency, efficiency or relevance, and to the development of some technical tools such as econometric studies, opinion surveys, statistics, impact studies and interviews. The large number of references to all possible techniques reveals the ‘bricolage’ aspect developed by the method. Given this wide repertoire, the evaluator can do as he/she wishes and uniformity within the different evaluations proposed can hardly be identified. It is worth noting that most evaluations essentially involve the synthesis of all existent information and analyses. It is rare for an evaluation procedure to integrate a real autonomous inquiry and a specific research aspect to produce new knowledge. The third example is the Cour des Comptes, a specific institution responsible for observing public policy from a financial perspective. This institution comprises high-ranking civil servants from ENA who have received generalist training. This strategy is very similar to the one used by SG MAP to evaluate public policy. The institution has a very wide repertoire of evaluation tools which incorporate the participation of actors. While no specific knowledge is produced, the institution synthesises and analyses existing knowledge (for instance, the homeless policy published in 2012).

Conclusion Two separate worlds produce policy knowledge. They both fail to systematically develop any specific literature about how to conduct an inquiry, what kind of method to choose and how to prevent or to take into account the multiple biases that result from these choices. This has led to two different situations. On the one hand, researchers produce knowledge using a relatively homogenous method focused on qualitative inquiry and inspired by sociology. Policy studies first focus on the role of actors and the importance of ideas and institutions in the policy process. Moreover, there is a high and common tendency to use semi-structured interviews and small N comparative case studies as well as process-tracing. On the other hand, high-ranking civil servants who are members of the Grand Corps undertake analyses and summarise already existent data in a very heterogeneous manner. This methodological heterogeneity, which has encouraged little debate, reveals that the method of knowledge production is perceived as insignificant and that the bureaucratic elite position and the practical knowledge it produces is perceived as central in policy analysis (see the chapter on Civil Servants). References Baudot, P.-Y. (2014). ‘Le temps des instruments: Pour une socio-histoire des instruments d’action publique’, in C. Halpern, P. Lascoumes, P. Le Galès (eds) L’instrumentation de l’action publique, pp. 193–236, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

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Payre, R., Pollet, G. (2005) ‘Analyse des politiques publiques et sciences historiques’, Revue française de science politique 55(1), 133–53. Perrier, G. (2013) ‘Politiques publiques’, in C. Achin, L. Bereni (eds) Dictionnaire genre et science politique, pp. 395–407, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Persico, S., Froio, C., Guinaudeau, I. (2012) ‘Action publique et partis politiques: L’analyse de l’agenda législatif français entre 1981 et 2009’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(1), 11–35. Pinson, G. (2009) Gouverner la ville par projet: Urbanisme et gouvernance des villes européennes, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Pinson, G., Sala Pala, V. (2007) ‘Peut-on vraiment se passer de l’entretien en sociologie de l’action publique?’, Revue française de science politique 57(5), 555–97. Revillard, A. (2009) ‘L’expertise critique, force d’une institution faible? Le comité du travail féminin et la genèse d’une politique d’égalité professionnelle en France (1965–1983)’, Revue française de science politique 50(2): 279–300. Sabatier, P.A., Jenkins-Smith, H.C. (1993) Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. Theoretical Lenses on Public Policy, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Setbon, M. (1993) Pouvoirs contre SIDA de la transfusion sanguine au dépistage, décisions et pratiques en France, Grande-Bretagne et Suède, Paris: Seuil. Smith, A. (1996) Europe politique au miroir du local: Les fonds structurels et les zones rurales en France et en Espagne, Paris: L’Harmattan. Spenlehauer, V. (1998) L’évaluation des politiques publiques, avatar de la planification, Grenoble: Humanities and Social Sciences, Université Pierre Mendès-France – Grenoble II. Thoenig, J.-C. (1976) L’ère des technocrates, Paris: L’Harmattan. Thoenig, J.-C. (1985) ‘L’analyse des politiques publiques’, in M. Grawitz, J. Leca (eds) Traité de science politique, vol 4, pp. 1–60, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Warin, J. (1991) Les usagers dans l’évaluation des politiques publiques: Étude des relations de service, Paris: L’Harmattan. Woll, C. (2014) ‘Bank rescue schemes in Continental Europe: The power of collective inaction’, Government and Opposition 49(3), 426–51. Woll, C., Jacquot, S. (2010) ‘Using Europe: Strategic action in multi-level politics’, Comparative European Politics 8(1), 110–26. Zittoun, P. (2001a) La politique du logement, 1981–1995: Transformations d’une politique publique controversée, Paris: L’Harmattan. Zittoun, P. (2001b) ‘Partis politiques et politiques du logement, échange de ressource entre dons et dettes politiques’, Revue Française de Science Politique 51 (October). Zittoun, P. (2009) ‘Understanding policy change as a discursive problem’, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 11(1), 65–82. Zittoun, P. (2013) La fabrique politique des politiques publiques, Paris: Presses de Science Po.

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Zittoun, P. (2014) The Political Process of Policymaking: A Pragmatic Approach to Public Policy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Zittoun, P., Demongeot, B. (2010) ‘Debates in French policy studies: From cognitive to discursive approaches’, Critical Policy Studies 3(3–4), 391–406.

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Civil servants and policy analysis in central government Emilie Biland and Natacha Gally Contrary to the US (since Lasswell, 1951) and Canada (Dobuzinskisk et al, 2007), French policy analysis has not emerged as a coherent body of knowledge, methods and tools designed for improving administrative processes. This noninstitutionalisation of policy analysis can seem paradoxical in a country where specific schools (grandes écoles de service public) are dedicated to civil service training. Indeed, the existence of powerful Grands Corps (the most prestigious status groups within the civil service), which have long possessed a monopoly over the production of knowledge on and for policies, and the historical strength of Grandes Écoles, as alternatives to universities, have most certainly contributed to keep academics at a distance from the bureaucratic field. Therefore, administrative knowledge of policies has been little formalised and theorised: rather than a discipline, it consists more of practical skills and know-how that are transmitted between civil servants, either in schools or on the job, and mobilised by the latter in their everyday work inside departments. Thus, considering the relationship between civil servants and policy analysis implies going beyond the nominalist pitfall that would restrict policy analysis to knowledge and practice that is labelled as such. Rather, this chapter will define policy analysis broadly as the legitimate knowledge on and for policies produced and mobilised by civil servants. Similarly, a comprehensive definition of the civil service has been chosen. The definition of the civil service (haute fonction publique) is indeed complicated, since higher public administration is a very segmented space, across two main dimensions: the professional one symbolised by the existence of a great variety of corps (each of them having a specific professional jurisdiction), and the organisational one embodied by vertical-hierarchical (for example, junior or senior positions), as well as horizontal-sectoral divisions (for example, between ministers or directorates). Therefore, it would be reductionist to limit our study to the famous Grands Corps, especially as change in civil servants’ relationship to governing knowledge and tools has often been initiated from the civil service margins, either by heterodox members of the Grands Corps, or even by hierarchically or territorially less prestigious groups (middle-rank civil servants, local officials or non-permanent staff). Thus, this chapter will discuss the relationship between civil servants and policy analysis in a diachronic perspective, showing which types of knowledge have participated throughout time to what Bourdieu has called ‘pensée d’Etat’ (1993), that is, ways of thinking and classification principles that civil servants 101

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produce and use to govern. It will underline the heterogeneity of this legitimated knowledge and its evolutions since 1945, within administrative schools and in civil servants’ daily practices.

Civil servants and policy analysis at school Beyond the ‘generalist model’: knowledge for policies in Grandes Écoles (1940s–1960s) This discussion of the relationships between civil servants and policy analysis cannot ignore higher education institutions historically designed to recruit and educate members of the administrative elite. Indeed, one of the peculiarities of France compared to its European neighbours lies in the existence of so-called Grandes Écoles constituting distinct and distinguished tracks in the higher education field and towards senior positions within the state apparatus (Bourdieu, 1989). However, the existence of such institutions as the internationally known National School of Administration (École nationale d’administration [ENA]) does not entail the existence of a consistent corpus of knowledge on and for policies that would be inculcated in higher civil servants in a uniform or specialised manner. The field of French Grandes Écoles is indeed structured by a generalist educational norm, historically embodied by the École Polytechnique (the state engineering school funded in the post-revolutionary France of 1794) and progressively deployed in other educational institutions as it defines the hierarchy of prestige within the field (Lazuech, 1999). The administrative elite derives its ‘nobility’, as exposed by Bourdieu (1989), from its ‘generalist culture’, whose socially reproductive nature explains the over-representation of a white upper-class male elite at the head of public administration and within private offices of ministers (cabinets ministériels). Understood as the ability to mobilise general knowledge on a wide range of topics, as a skill to synthesise complex situations, and as an aptitude to take various positions within – and even outside – government, the unequal distribution of this attitude toward policy knowledge is partly due to the stratification of the civil service. Whereas specialisation is conceived as an obstacle to successful career strategies in higher administration (Suleiman, 1979), the study of the ENA training in the 1990s has shown the predominance of formal know-hows and reproductive socialisation mechanisms in the shaping of administrative elites, focused on the transmission of ‘appropriate’ ways of thinking and ‘conforming’ behaviours rather than substantial knowledge (Eymeri, 2001,79). Overall, specialist or technical knowledge remains associated with ‘dirty work’ (Hughes, 1962) and has historically been reported on subordinate staff such as attachés (middle-rank officials) (Quéré, 2015; Quéré 2017) in order to preserve the higher civil service monopoly on prestigious activities of political advice and policy conception. This ‘generalist model’ does not, however, exhaust the question of civil servants’ socialisation to policy knowledge. First, it does not apply to the entire civil 102

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service: notably, it does not account for specific knowledge and know-how at the core of the historical institutionalisation process of engineering Grandes Écoles, such as the École des Ponts et Chaussées (School for Bridges and Roads) created in 1747 in order to train competent officers for bridges and roads. Unlike their administrative counterparts, state engineering Grands Corps have historically been trained in specialised subjects according to the career they chose (Mines; Bridges and Roads; Civil Aviation; Statisticians, and so on) in one of Polytechnique’s postgraduate schools for practical training (Écoles d’application). Second, the ‘generalist’ category is indeed ambiguous and hides the successive transformations of the ENA curriculum (Biland and Kolopp, 2013; Biland and Vanneuville, 2012). Therefore, studying the relationships between civil servants and policy analysis requires exploring the variety of meanings the ‘generalist model’ has taken over time in specific administrative schools. First, the creation of a generalist school to educate civil servants in 1945 appeared as an ‘historical compromise’ (Chagnollaud, 1991, 149) between moral, democratic and professional concerns. This reform of the administrative elite’s education had a symbolic character, designed to restore the civil service’s image after the collaborationist Vichy episode. Indeed, the former École libre des sciences politiques (a private elite higher education institution founded in Paris in 1870) was nationalised and renamed the Institute for Political Studies (Institut d’Etudes Politiques). Along with the creation of similar institutes in several cities and of the ENA, this change intended to give the future elite a better sense of ‘public service’ and ‘general interest’ while opening the higher civil service to middleclass students. However, the ENA founding fathers’ idea was also to foster the emergence of a unified and professional senior civil service, properly trained to administrative matters and specialised according to four programmes, matching four main types of careers: general administration, economic and financial administration, social administration and diplomacy. Hence, topics taught at the ENA were simultaneously general and specialised, moral and professional, these two facets being constitutive of the ambiguous agreement of 1945. Biland and Kolopp (2013) have shown this major tension between a ‘humanistic’ and a ‘scientific’ conception of higher civil servants’ education. Whereas the ENA was originally oriented towards general and abstract knowledge and dominated by public law (Biland and Vanneuville, 2012, 34), the humanistic curricula have been criticised early on as too far from practical issues. From the mid-1950s onward, this ‘humanistic’ model eroded as classes were reoriented towards economics – especially quantitative/mathematical economics – and became less encyclopedic and more case-oriented (Biland and Kolopp, 2013, 241–3). This turn was also illustrated by the nature of entrance examinations, which were progressively oriented towards policy problems and technical case studies from 1958 onwards (Mangenot, 1999). Reflecting this further detachment from the university reference, the number of academics in the administrative board of the school decreased steadily, while a quasi-permanent pedagogic team – mainly composed of civil servants – emerged at the margin of the board (Biland and Kolopp, 103

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2013, 227–30). In the meantime, leading officials of the General Commission for Planning (Commissariat général du Plan [CGP]) and of the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques [INSEE]), teaching economics in a problem solving and ‘modernising’ perspective, turned out to be central figures of the school (Kolopp, 2013). Concomitantly with this shift towards economics and specialisation, the organisation of teaching at the ENA became paradoxically less sector-oriented, since the 1958 reform abolished the four programmes mentioned earlier. Resulting from a process of gradual change related to the concern of civil servants’ professional organisations – the Grands Corps especially – for controlling their own recruitment and maintaining the implicit hierarchy associated with the generalist norm (Gally, 2012, 259–68), this reform entailed that knowledge of and for policies was conceived as cross-sectoral, consistently with the centralist planning and programming ideology of the CGP (Pasquier, 2003). A similar shift was observable within engineering state schools, at least within the School for Bridges and Roads (Gervais, 2007a), where teaching increasingly turned towards ‘social sciences’ or ‘humanities’ from the 1960s onwards. Indeed, the education of state engineers, traditionally focused on scientific and technical matters linked to structural engineering (for example, ‘resistance of materials’, ‘reinforced concrete’, ‘steel construction’), has included increasingly more law or economics, in the form of elective courses followed by second-year students (Gervais, 2007a, 391–2). The increasing importance of courses considered as ‘non-technical’ has hybridised the historical curriculum of the school based on knowledge and skills specific to a policy sector (that is, public works). This allowed further competition with ENA alumni for the access to senior positions within and outside higher administration. In the 1960s the influence of the ‘generalist model’ was also illustrated by the creation of the National Centre for Judicial Studies (Centre national d’études judiciaires [now known as École nationale de la magistrature]) in order to educate future judges as ‘honest men’ and generate interest for non-judicial techniques such as forensic medicine or accounting (Boigeol, 2013, 19–22). Overall, the ‘generalist norm’ appears as a cornerstone in the field of elite schools as well as the cognitive basis for male domination over public administration: till 1976, all members of the ENA board were men; by the mid-1960s, very few women had reached the most prestigious and lucrative positions in the civil service (2 per cent of women among top officials in the Finance department in 1964, for instance) (Darbel and Schnapper, 1969, 126). Nevertheless, this male dominance should not overshadow the heterogeneity of civil servants’ relationships to knowledge on and for policy. Policy analysis, as it is inculcated in senior officials embraces a wide diversity of subjects and teaching methods, which have varied among different schools and throughout time. This diversity is indeed directly related to the intern segmentation of the higher civil service, consisting of a plurality of professional groups in competition for positions within and outside the state (Gally, 2012). In this perspective, knowledge is undoubtedly a resource 104

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likely to be used to claim new professional jurisdictions and (re)negotiate the professional boundaries of the higher civil service. Managerial shifts in civil servants’ training (1970s–2010s) Since the 1970s, changes in these training patterns have been neither radical nor sudden. Prestigious schools of the civil service as well as powerful status groups have subsisted. Policy analysis has not been institutionalised as an autonomous field of knowledge. Nevertheless, along with the diffusion of managerial principles within government (Bezes, 2009), curricula in several Grandes Écoles have shifted towards a managerial perspective on policy making (Biland and Kolopp, 2013). This trend has had diverse paths depending on the school. As the leader of the French civil service vanguard, the board of the ENA has long been reluctant to such a change. During the 1970s, professors of law and members of the Council of State (Conseil d’État), which stands as the highest administrative court, have postponed in this school the implementation of management classes, which they devalued as a ‘set of tools’ (Bezes, 2012). As a result, managerial training has first been implemented in less prestigious institutions. Continuing education programmes for administrators (Bezes, 2012), engineers (Chanut, 2001) and public health officials (Buton and Pierru, 2012) have offered a setting at the margins of schools to experiment the teaching of new knowledge. Within the local civil service, administrators used management science as a way to upgrade their status (traditionally far below that of the ENA alumni’s) while distinguishing themselves from lower local civil servants. Designed in 1984 as a continuing education programme, the training centre for senior managers (Centre Supérieur de Formation des Cadres) was described as halfway between state schools and business schools (Roubieu, 1999). As a matter of fact, it involved consultants as well as scholars specialised in management, who were familiar to the US business programmes – some of them having failed to implement such a programme at the ENA. This training centre has legitimised a new professional figure: favouring abilities regarding policy outcomes (rather than internal procedures) to achieve efficiency (Thoenig, 1994), this has helped local civil servants to get influence over elected officials (Roubieu, 1994). In state schools, management science has risen in comparison to the ENA ‘generalist’ model. In the Regional Institutes for Administration (Instituts Régionaux d’Administration), which train middle-rank officials, management has been taught since these schools were established, back in 1970. It was first thought of as a technical tool (such as ‘budgeting techniques’ and ‘managerial accounting’), thus fitting in with these officials’ subordinate position. It has been gradually used, however, to legitimate their ability to design public policy and to be involved in decision-making, in other words to be granted autonomy from the ENA alumni (Quéré, 2014). At the School for Bridges and Roads, the teaching of management began in the 1970s with a new course designed for both engineering and business students (the latter being registered at HEC, the most well-known 105

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French business school). Dual career opportunities for alumni (either in private companies or in public administration) encouraged this change. Beginning in the 1980s, the transfer of powers and skills in Public Works towards local authorities then encouraged these State engineers to endorse a less technical but more managerial professional identity. Management teaching helped adapt students to new career opportunities – within and outside the state – and finally to get material and symbolic benefits (Gervais, 2007b). As compared to these schools, has the ENA curriculum remained on the sidelines of this managerial shift? In fact, its initial reluctance has faded away since the 1980s. The first class of management was circumspectly implemented in 1982, but, since the 2006 reform, the ‘public management’ training module has been the core of the curriculum and has included a 15-week internship in private companies. In 2015, according to the ENA website, its goal is ‘to turn students into managers who are able to manage teams and lead projects’. Such an evolution has not made a clean slate of the past though: to put it briefly, legal and economic knowledge are still important in the ENA curriculum. Rather, it has been possible because most of the powerful status groups in this school have believed that they could benefit from it. The conversion of jurists to management teaching is crucial, since they used to strongly oppose it. Threatened by domestic rivals (Grands Corps specialised in economic and financial matters) as well as by international institutions (especially the European courts), members of the Council of State have gradually reshaped legal teaching at the ENA in order to counter criticisms of being ‘irrelevant’ to ‘modern’ government. Since the 2000s, legal classes have focused on the teaching of ‘legistics’, which is namely the art of drafting proper legal texts, as well as on the jurists’ plea for the political usefulness and effectiveness of law, as a toolbox complying with economic rationality (Biland and Vanneuville, 2012). In short, such an ‘instrumentalisation’ of law (Morand, 1999) is the result of jurists’ efforts to keep influence and power within government, in the age of new public management (NPM). At last, management training is quite heterogeneous from one school to the other and it has been implemented through rather diverse timings. This should prevent scholars from considering it as an overwhelming wave in civil servants’ education. Indeed, the rise of managerial education results from struggles between status groups and between public institutions. It has come from actors and schools at the margins of historical state prestige and has then been undertaken by senior players whose power was threatened by diverse trends (from decentralisation to critics of legal expertise). Further, such a trend cannot be understood from an exclusively state standpoint: these decades are characterised by growing interactions between public and private actors, as well as between domestic and international ones. Managerial training has involved consultants and foreign inspirers. It has favoured business-trained students’ careers in the public service, which is linked to the rise of civil servants taking jobs in private companies. This practice of pantouflage has developed during this period (Rouban, 2010); it has encouraged the teaching of pieces of knowledge transferable from private companies to 106

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public administration and vice versa (Biland and Kolopp, 2013). Overall, the consequences of this managerial shift on the redefinition of sources of legitimate expertise remain questionable. Are managers just old-fashioned generalists in new clothes? Or does the managerial toolbox represent an opportunity for alternative or formerly dominated actors in the civil service? Recent research has pointed out the reconfiguration of power relationships within professional bureaucracies (Barrier and Musselin, 2015) and administrative corps (Boussard and Loriol, 2008). However, the effects of NPM over the gendered division of administrative labour remain ambivalent (Bereni et al, 2011), as illustrated by the persistant ‘glass ceiling’ for female employees within the French higher civil service (women counted for about a quarter of top officials in 2014) (Jacquemart et al, 2016).

Civil servants and policy analysis at work The historical diversification of policy knowledge production Whereas civil service schools are undoubtedly critical institutions for the production of policy analysis, expertise is also developed and mobilised by various – and often competing – administrative organisations whose importance has evolved over time. While the production of policy expertise within French administration was historically related to the power of the Grands Corps, their monopoly over knowledge on and for policies has been seriously challenged after the Second World War by new centralist organisations involved in planning and programming activities. Under the fifth Republic, ministerial cabinets have emerged as a crucial source of policy analysis, these positions being practically monopolised by higher civil servants. At the departmental level, the development of statistical services represents another resource for the production of sectoral expertise. Policy analysis has been historically produced through a division of labour between technical and administrative Grands Corps. On the one hand, the former have based their legitimacy upon sectoral policy expertise mobilised in the conception of public policies such as road extension or the regulation of mines since the end of the eighteenth century. On the other hand, the Council of State, the Court of Auditors (Cour des comptes) and the General Finance Inspectorate (Inspection générale des finances) were created in the Napoleonic era and the Restoration period as centralist organisations located outside departmental hierarchy, examining administrative activities downstream of the policy process (Bodiguel and Quermonne, 1983; Kessler, 1986). However, these initial boundaries have progressively been blurred: administrative Grands Corps have developed their function of policy advice ahead of political decisions and/or in specific policy sectors, while engineering corps have claimed a crosssectoral competence. The Council of State has been increasingly considered as a source of expertise on public policies: its thematic annual reports focused on specific policy issues (‘agencification’ policies, citizens’ participation to public 107

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decision, water regulation, and so on) have been increasingly influential, along with the strengthening of its research department (section des études) (Biland and Vanneuville, 2014). In the social sector, the Court of Auditors and the General Inspectorate for Social Affairs (Inspection générale des affaires sociales [IGAS]) have also developed prospective sectoral expertise and serve as socialisation places for an emergent policy elite since the 1980s (Genieys and Hassenteufel, 2001; Hervier, 2008; Genieys, 2010; Genieys and Hassenteufel, 2012). In the meantime, state engineers have invested other type of knowledge as those directly related to their policy sector. For instance, some engineers of Bridges and Roads claimed to be competent in economics within the former Department of Public Works (Mazoyer, 2012; 2013). From 1995 to 2015, several state engineering corps have merged, so that their number decreased from eleven to five, thus questioning the organic link between corps, sectoral departments and technical sector-oriented knowledge (Gervais, 2011). In addition to these evolutions in Grands Corps, alternative sources of policy expertise have emerged in relationship to the transformations of state intervention. In the post-war period and along with the development of planning and programming activities, centralist organisations, called administrative task forces (administrations de mission) (Pisani, 1956), have been created outside bureaucratic hierarchy and with non-permanent staff (that is, civil servants on secondment or non-civil servants on fixed term contracts). The most important of these was certainly the General Commission for Planning (CGP), which was designed in 1946 to direct and steer the French economy in the reconstruction period. The first generation of CGP members had a heterodox profile compared to sectoral departments’ civil servants and members of the Grands Corps. They had been socialised outside public administration – particularly in the banking sector – and in the Resistance besides the General De Gaulle (Pasquier, 2003, 108). They first served as mediators between French and American administrations for the management of the Marshall Plan, and imported national accounting principles (Spenlehauer, 1999). Then, they developed a role of ‘modernisers’, spreading out macro-economic theories and defending a strong-willed conception of economic policy and state intervention (Gaïti, 2002). De Gaulle’s return to power in 1958 and the context of economic growth favoured the extension of the CGP’s remit in the 1960s, from a few policy sectors narrowly linked to post-war reconstruction such as charcoal, electricity, agricultural machinery, or transport infrastructures, to general matters related to economic and social development. For almost 50 years, the CGP, which reported directly to the Prime Minister, played a crucial role in the production of expertise on public policies and as a consultative forum whose five-year plans were approved by Parliament and had formal legal force. Starting from the middle of the 1980s though, it became increasingly criticised, along with the overall questioning of the state. Its planning function was abandoned in 1993 and gradually refocused on prospective studies. Concomitantly, several other committees reporting directly to the Prime Minister were created to tackle specific sectoral subjects such as economics (Conseil d’analyse économique 108

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since 1997) and pensions (Conseil d’Orientation des Retraites since 2000). In 2005, the CGP was renamed Centre for Strategic Analysis (Centre d’analyse stratégique) and reorganised along the model of the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, as the coordinator of the centralist committees’ network (Tirera, 2005, 23). It has become the General Commission for Strategy and Prospective (Commissariat general à la stratégie et à la prospective) in 2013, and is currently in charge of advising the government on various policy issues in addition to its already mentioned coordination role. In the meantime, departments have played an increasing role in the production of knowledge on and for policies. Compared to other countries, a crucial feature of the Fifth Republic politico-administrative system is the existence of powerful ministerial cabinets, mainly staffed with civil servants. Working at the crossroads of policy and politics, they provide politicians with policy knowledge coming up from departments, and conversely adapt policy instruments to match issues of timing and political feasibility (Eymeri, 2003). In addition, the role of departmental inspection corps must not be overlooked. Besides three crossdepartmental inspections (the already mentioned IGF and IGAS, plus the General Inspection of Administration [Inspection générale de l’administration]), these are important knowledge producers for their respective departments. Historically focused on administrative control, some of them have recently been reformed, such as the Economic and Financial General Control (Contrôle général économique et financier), and their role extended to audit, evaluation, research and policy advice (Coppolani, 2007). At last, departments have also encouraged the creation of directorates dedicated to the production of knowledge on and for policies, especially statistical data and performance indicators. The most famous of these is certainly the already mentioned INSEE, created in 1946 as a general directorate of the Finance Department but whose organisational autonomy was acknowledged in 2008. While it does not directly take part in public policies, the INSEE remains nowadays a key producer of statistical data on French society, and therefore contributes to shape the categories through which policies are formulated and implemented (Desrosières, 1993). Ministerial Statistical Services (MSS) have also played an increasing role in the publication of sectoral knowledge likely to be mobilised in policy formulation. The Research and Statistics Unit (Direction de l’animation de la recherche, des études et des statistiques) (DARES) at the Department of Work and Employment and the Research, Evaluation and Statistics Unit (Direction de la recherche, des études, de l’évaluation et des statistiques) (DREES) at the Department of Public Health are the most well-known MSS. Mainly staffed with middle-rank civil servants, these statistical services show that the production of policy knowledge in central government is not the monopoly of administrative elites (Penissat, 2012). The creation in 1965 of the Committee of Women’s Work (Comité du travail féminin) (inspired by the US Women’s bureau) at the Department of Work and Employment further illustrates the non-monopoly of higher civil servants over the production of policy expertise: the institutionalisation of State

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feminism in France has led to the administrative acclimatisation of knowledge on and for women and gender equality (Revillard, 2016, 50–60). The Division for Economic and Financial Studies (Service des études économiques et financières) of the Finance Department is another famous example of departmental source of policy knowledge. Created in 1947 within the Treasury directorate of the Finance Department, it was institutionalised as an autonomous Prospective Directorate (Direction de la prévision) in 1965. It played a crucial role in the emergence of a reflexive body of knowledge over administrative activities, especially costs and productivity indicators, in the framework of the planning-programming-budgeting system (the Rationalisation des choix budgétaires programme) (Bezes, 2009, 68–71). At the same period, other policy-oriented units were created within various departments, for example within the Department of Public Works, where the role of the Division of Economic and International Affairs (Service des affaires économiques et internationales [SAEI]) has been recently documented (Mazoyer, 2012; 2013). More recently, the rise in power of the Social Security Directorate (Direction de la sécurité sociale) is another example of how sectoral expertise can serve as a resource to negotiate with the powerful Budget Directorate (Direction du Budget) of the Finance ministry (Hassenteufel, 2012). To put it briefly, organisations involved in the production of policy analysis have considerably increased in number and changed in nature over time. Moving from organisations to individuals, how is policy analysis actually mobilised in professional practice? Practicing policy analysis First of all, the institutionalisation of a profession devoted to ‘policy analysis’ within the French public administration has never really occurred. Created in 2010, the on-line job market for central government (Bourse interministérielle de l’emploi public) indexes 28 professional areas, two being explicitly linked to public policy. In May 2017, 443 job ads (out of 7,713) were indexed in the area called ‘Development and management of public policies’ and targeted senior civil servants; 204 ads were associated to the ‘evaluation of public policies’; most of them asked for middlerank civil servants. These ads indicate the growing acknowledgment of ‘policy analysis’ vocabulary within public administration. However, this trend has not reached the same degree as in several other western countries where ‘policy analyst’ is a dignified governmental job. In France, such labels are not autonomous; they gather various jobs, which have little in common except highlighting strategic tasks rather than operational ones and targeting qualified professionals. To analyse what kind of knowledge and skills civil servants use in their daily practice, one shall not restrict the scope to these labels, but rather include broader professional categories, from Grands Corps to middle-rank civil servants. For the last 15 years, several studies have used a sociological approach to investigate civil servants at work. They show that the latter’s writing skills are key resources to act as policy advisers: drafting documents – from notes and reports 110

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to regulations and bills – takes a major part in civil servants’ work, since law has long been granted the status of ‘official thought’ within the French government (Caillosse, 1998, 81). When they take a new position, the socialisation to their new working environment includes learning how to write properly (Laurens, 2013): this ‘learning on the job’ process is indeed crucial to incorporate the ‘house culture’ (Eymeri, 1999), which differentiates one department from the others regarding the kind of policy knowledge that is mobilised. Drafting is indeed the main vehicle to convince elected officials, that is, to frame political debates and solutions (Laurens, 2013) and to define which matters are political – requiring the arbitration of the minister – and which matters are technical – being under the administrative staff’s jurisdiction (Eymeri, 2003). Writing texts is also a means to get influence outside government, since those documents latter qualify public issues and may suggest policy proposals. Parts of confidential notes may be turned into public discourses to the media (Laurens, 2013). Moreover, since the 1980s, the MSS issue publicly available short papers, which have been used by statisticians to inform public opinion on government policies (Penissat, 2012). Concomitant with their growing influence within public administration, this involvement of MSS in publishing activities is part of a major trend to ‘turn words into numbers’ (Desrosières, 2008) in order to quantify social and economic issues along with public policies. Certainly, quantification is not the one and only dimension of NPM; besides, this tendency appeared prior to the NPM period. As mentioned earlier, the planning-programming-budgeting system stimulated quantitative economic expertise and legitimated the new figure of ‘economist engineer’ during the 1960s and 1970s (Dulong, 1996; Mazoyer, 2012). Nevertheless, the diffusion of quantification in every sector of public policy, far beyond economic and technical departments, is attributable to the growing influence of managerial ideas within government. Formerly a selfregulated sector, valuing slowness as a quality guarantee, the Justice department has faced major changes since the 1990s, combining a lack of resources and the rise of quantitative objectives, such as reducing judicial costs and delays in Court (Vigour, 2006; Vauchez, 2008). In the education sector, pupil flows have been quantified since the 1990s, in order to arrange academic orientation and to allocate resources between schools (Normand, 2011). Since the 2000s, this trend has gained ground in the higher education sector, which is targeted by European policies (Bologna declaration in 1999, Lisbon European Submit in 2000). It has led to the creation of new agencies in 2006–07: The French National Research Agency (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) for funding; and the Research and Higher Education Evaluation Council (Haut Conseil de l’évaluation de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur) for evaluation. The latter undertakes benchmarking activities, regarding universities and scholars (Bruno and Didier, 2013). In this period of scarce resources, these agencies encourage programmes from which private companies could benefit. Finally, the healthcare sector is probably the one most affected by this managerial shift. Competition between hospitals is organised by several agencies: National Performance Support Agency (Agence nationale 111

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d’appui à la performance) and National Authority for Health (Haute Autorité de Santé) nationwide; Regional Health agencies (Agences Régionales de Santé) in each region. This competition relies on financial mechanisms based on performance (T2A standing for Price for Activity) rather than on inputs (Pierru, 2007). To what extent do civil servants support the use of such quantitative indicators? First promoted by State economists in order to enforce budgetary restraint (Jobert and Théret, 1994), these have then been appropriated by senior officials involved in other sectors. During the 1990s, especially, the ‘welfare elite’ (that is, the members of Grands Corps who got involved in social policies) pleaded for the budgetary equilibrium of the welfare system (Sécurité Sociale) in order to limit the interference of economic administrators as well as the traditional influence of doctors in this sector (Genieys and Hassenteufel, 2012). In local welfare offices, attitudes towards managerialism are more ambiguous. Among social administrators of conseils départementaux (local public administration in charge of social policies), ‘managerial language’ (for instance, the use of the term ‘social performance’) is widespread. However, there is no common knowledge about management principles. What administrators have in mind when they use these terms varies a lot depending on their professional and educational background. Social administrators trained at the ENA or at the INET (the training institute for local higher officials), who have worked in different sectors, are more likely to value metrics on social policies than social workers who have climbed the bureaucratic ladder within the welfare sector (Alcaras et al, 2014). Generally, policy knowledge is at stake in many conflicts between State elites. In 2007, for example, statisticians from the DARES went on strike against the publication of the ‘official unemployment figures’ that they considered misleading and badly designed. They defended the autonomy of statisticians in producing quality against political interference, while criticising the ineffectiveness of the right-wing government’s policy on unemployment (Penissat, 2012). The selfregulation of administrators in designing indicators has also been contested during the 2000s regarding environmental indicators. First sustainable development indicators (SDIs) were designed within a small independent agency, the French Institute for the Environment (Institut Français de l’Environnement). Though inspired by the United Nations’ SDIs, those French ones were more policy-oriented. In 2003, the right-wing government devalued them as too ‘political’ (meaning ‘environmentalist’) and decided to internalise the production of indicators within the Department of Environment in order to control them closely. This result is a shift ‘to a minimalist view of the role of SDIs in policy making’ (Le Bourhis, 2015, 11). Gender equality indicators, which have been developed as criteria of evaluation in many policy sectors since the Organic Law on Finance Laws (Loi organique relative aux lois de finances [LOLF]) passed in 2001 (Mazur, 2007), are a third illustration of the political and conflictual use of performance indicators. Gender equality as a cross-sectoral policy goal (known as ‘gender mainstreaming’) undermines the capacity of feminist activists to shape and control these instruments in public administration (Jacquot, 2015; Revillard, 2016). 112

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These examples should prevent observers from concluding on the irrefutable impact of indicators on policy analysis. The institutionalisation of public policy evaluation within public administration is worth being summed up in order to assess this impact. Evaluation practices were dispersed, slightly visible and poorly used in policy-making until the end of the 1990s (Perret, 1999). During the 2000s, the LOLF (which reformed the budget-making process) and the General Public Policy Review (Révision générale des politiques publiques) (that led to 170 modernisation audits), were the two main programmes for State modernisation. Both aimed at developing the culture of evaluation, but they failed to achieve it. First, policy evaluation is less an administrative practice than a market for private consulting firms (see Gervais and Pierru in this volume). Second, the financial goal of these programmes (finding quick and substantial budgetary savings) took precedence over the rigorous evaluation of policy achievement. Despite the plea for participative evaluation at the end of 1980s (Viveret, 1989), evaluation indicators still focus on metrics. Certainly, policy evaluation as practised by civil servants is often restricted to a quantitative and financial approach. This narrow definition may be an impediment to the development of comprehensive evaluation practices, as they are valued in the international community of evaluators (Lacouette Fougère and Lascoumes, 2013).

Conclusion This chapter has pointed out the persistent prevailing role of top civil servants in the production and mobilisation of policy analysis in the French context. Top officials have historically built their legitimacy on the monopolistic detention of policy knowledge, transmitted within administrative Grandes Écoles, and mobilised at the central or ministerial level. This monopolistic situation certainly contributes to an explanation of one of the specificities of the French case, which is the gap between policy analysis as it is theorised by academics within universities (see Hassenteufel and Le Galès in this volume) and knowledge for policies as it is developed within government. Further, the diagnosis of a ‘generalist ethos’ is helpful as compared to other national contexts. However, it should not hide the diversity of knowledge mobilised by the civil service throughout time and sectors. What policy analysis means and how it is practised within the state depends on the internal competition for the definition of legitimate knowledge between various segments of the civil service. The diffusion of neo-managerial tools since the 1980s should be analysed in relation to these administrative struggles. Though not specific to the French case, two significant evolutions are the increasing influence of ‘numbers’ compared to more traditional literary or legal skills and the shift of policy expertise downstream of the policy process, as top civil servants’ work has been increasingly oriented toward policy evaluation and performance measures. Therefore, the study of administrative elites’ role in producing and using policy knowledge is now more than ever necessary to understand public policies (Page, 2012). Their ability to master these new types 113

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of policy knowledge certainly conditions the persistence of their power over rival actors, such as consultants, private-sector experts and members of interest groups, who strengthen as alternative sources of knowledge on and for policies. References Alcaras, J.-R., Marchand, C., Marrel, G., Nonjon, M. (2014) ‘Quand les directeurs des services départementaux se saisissent du management: des représentations et des pratiques singulières et équivoques’, Politiques et management public 31(3), 337–56. Barrier, J., Musselin, C. (2015) ‘La réforme comme opportunité professionnelle? Autonomie des établissements et montée en puissance des cadres administratifs des universités’, Gouvernement et action publique 4(4), 127–51. Bereni, L., Marry, C., Pochic, S., Revillard, A. (2011) ‘Le plafond de verre dans les ministères: Regards croisés de la sociologie du travail et de la science politique’, Politiques et management public 28(2), 139–55. Bezes, P. (2009) Réinventer l’État: Les réformes de l’administration française (1962– 2008), Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Bezes, P. (2012) ‘État, experts et savoirs néo-managériaux: Les producteurs et diffuseurs du New Public Management en France depuis les années 1970’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 193, 16–97. Biland, E., Kolopp, S. (2013) ‘La fabrique de la pensée d’État: Luttes d’institutions et arrangements cognitifs à l’ENA (1945–1982)’, Gouvernement et action publique 2(2), 221–48. Biland, E., Vanneuville, R. (2012), ‘Government lawyers and the training of senior civil servants: Maintaining law at the heart of the French state’, International Journal of the Legal Profession 19(1), 29–54. Biland, E., Vanneuville, R. (2014) ‘Les mutations de la surveillance juridique des administrations: Le conseil d’État français et la promotion de la légistique’, in J. Crête (ed) Les surveillants de l’État démocratique, pp.109–33, Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Bodiguel, J.-L., Quermonne, J.-L. (1983) La haute fonction publique sous la Ve République, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Boigeol, A. (2013) ‘Quel droit pour quel magistrat? Évolution de la place du droit dans la formation des magistrats français, 1958–2005’, Droit et société 83, 17–31. Bourdieu, P. (1989) La noblesse d’État: Grandes écoles et esprit de corps, Paris: Minuit. Bourdieu, P. (1993) ‘Esprits d’État: Genèse et structure du champ bureaucratique’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 96–7, 49–62. Boussard, V., Loriol, M (2008) ‘Les cadres du ministère des affaires étrangères et européennes face à la LOLF’, Revue française d’administration publique 128(4), 717–28. Bruno, I., Didier, E. (2013) Benchmarking: L’État sous pression statistique, Paris: La Découverte.

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Buton, F., Pierru, F. (2012) ‘Instituer la police des risques sanitaires: Mise en circulation de l’épidémiologie appliquée et agencification de l’État sanitaire’, Gouvernement et action publique 4, 67–90. Caillosse, J. (1998) Introduire au droit, Paris: Montchrestien. Chagnollaud, D. (1991) Le premier des ordres: Les hauts fonctionnaires XVIIIe–XXe siècle, Paris: Fayard. Chanut, V. (2001) L’État employeur et l’État didactique: Politique de gestion et formation au management public des cadres supérieurs du ministère de l’équipement, PhD thesis, Paris: Université Paris 1. Coppolani, C. (2007) ‘Le contrôle général économique et financier’, Revue française d’administration publique 124(4), 625–31. Darbel, A., Schnapper D. (1969) Les agents du système administratif, Paris: Mouton. Desrosières, A. (1993) La politique des grands nombres: Histoire de la raison statistique, Paris: La Découverte. Desrosières, A. (2008) Gouverner par les nombres: L’argument statistique II, Paris: Mines ParisTech. Dobuzinskis, L., Howlett, M., Laycock, D. (eds) (2007) Policy Analysis in Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Dulong, D. (1996) ‘Quand l’économie devient politique: La conversion de la compétence économique en compétence politique sous la Ve République’, Politix 9(35), 109–30. Eymeri, J.-M. (1999) Les gardiens de l’État: Une sociologie des énarques de ministère, PhD thesis, Paris: Université Paris 1. Eymeri, J.-M. (2001) La fabrique des énarques, Paris: Economica. Eymeri, J.-M. (2003) ‘Frontière ou marches? De la contribution de la haute administration à la production du politique’, in J. Lagroye (ed) La politisation, pp. 47–77, Paris: Belin. Gaïti, B. (2002) ‘Les modernisateurs dans l’administration d’après-guerre: L’écriture d’une histoire héroïque’, Revue française d’administration publique 102(2): 295–306. Gally, N. (2012) Le marché des hauts fonctionnaires: Comparaison des politiques de la haute fonction publique en France et en Grande-Bretagne, PhD thesis, Paris: Institut d’Études Politiques. Genieys, W. (2010) The New Custodians of the State: Programmatic Elites in French Society, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Genieys, W., Hassenteufel, P. (2001) ‘Entre les politiques publiques et la politique: l’émergence d’une “élite du Welfare”?’, Revue française des affaires sociales 4, 41–50. Genieys, W., Hassenteufel, P. (2012) ‘Qui gouverne les politiques publiques? Par-delà la sociologie des élites’, Gouvernement et action publique 2(2), 89–115. Gervais, J. (2007a) La réforme des cadres de l’action publique ou la fabrique d’un ‘nouveau’ corps des Ponts et Chaussées. Impératifs managériaux, logiques administratives et stratégies corporatistes (fin du XXème siècle), PhD thesis, Lyon: Université Lumière Lyon 2, Institut d’Études Politiques. 115

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Gervais, J. (2007b) ‘Former des hauts fonctionnaires techniques comme des managers de l’action publique. L’“identité managériale”, le corps des Ponts et Chaussées et son rapport à l’Etat’, Politix 20(79), 101–23. Gervais, J. (2011) ‘The rise of managerialism as a result of bureaucratic strategies and power games’, in J.-M. Eymeri-Douzans, J. Pierre (eds) Administrative Reform, Democratic Governance, and the Quality of Government, pp. 80–93, London: Routledge. Hassenteufel, P. (2012) ‘Les sources intellectuelles des réformes du système de santé français: la prédominance des forums et des acteurs administratifs’, in J. de Kervasdoué (ed) Carnet de santé de la France 2012, pp. 161–83, Paris: Economica. Hervier, L. (2008) ‘Le rôle des organismes de contrôle en matière d’évaluation. 1949–2007: l’exemple de la Cour des comptes’, Informations sociales 150(6), 44–55. Hughes, E.C. (1962) ‘Good people and dirty work’, Social Problems,10(1), 3–11. Jacquemart, A, Le Mancq F., Pochic S. (2016), ‘Femmes hautes fonctionnaires en France: L’avènement d’une égalité élitiste’, Travail, genre et sociétés 35(1), 27–45. Jacquot, S. (2015), Transformations in EU Gender Equality: From Emergence to Dismantling, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Jobert, B., Théret, B. (1994) ‘France: La consécration républicaine du néolibéralisme’, in B. Jobert (ed) Le tournant néo-libéral en Europe, Paris: L’Harmattan. Kessler, M.-C. (1986) Les grands corps de l’Etat, Paris: Presses de la FNSP. Kolopp, S. (2013) ‘De la modernisation à la raison économique: La formation en économie à l’Ena et les déplacements des lieux communs de l’action publique (1945–1984)’, Genèses 93(4), 53–75. Lacouette Fougère, C., Lascoumes, P. (2013) ‘L’évaluation: Un marronnier de l’action gouvernementale?’, Revue française d’administration publique 148(4), 859–75. Lasswell, H. (1951) ‘The Policy Orientation’, in D. Lerner and H. Lasswell, The policy sciences: Recent developments in scope and method, pp. 3-15, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lasswell, H.D. (1968) ‘The policy sciences’, in R.K. Merton, D.L. Sills (eds) International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 12, pp. 181–9, New York: Macmillan and The Free Press. Laurens, S. (2013) ‘Une sociologie de la note administrative: Notations sur un instrument du pouvoir administratif ’, in J.-M. Eymeri-Douzans, G. Bouckaert (eds) La France et ses administrations: Un état des savoirs, pp. 379–410, Brussels: Bruylant-DeBoeck. Lazuech, G. (1999) L’exception française: Le modèle des grandes écoles à l’épreuve de la mondialisation, Nantes: Presses universitaires de Nantes. Le Bourhis, J.-P. (2015) ‘The politics of green knowledge: A comparative study of support for and resistance to sustainability and environmental indicators’, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 18(4), 1–16.

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Mangenot, M. (1999) ‘‘‘L’entrée en technocratie” : Le concours de l’ENA et les transformations du modèle du haut fonctionnaire’, in D. Dulong, V. Dubois (eds) La question technocratique: De l’invention d’une figure aux transformations de l’action publique, pp. 93–107, Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg. Mazoyer, H. (2012) ‘La construction du rôle d’ingénieur-économiste au ministère des Transports: Conseiller le politique, résister au comptable et discipliner le technicien (1958–1966)’, Gouvernement et action publique 4(4), 21–43. Mazoyer, H. (2013) ‘Réformer l’administration par le savoir économique: La Rationalisation des choix budgétaires aux ministères de l’Équipement et des Transports’, Genèses 93, 29–52. Mazur, A. (2007) ‘Women’s policy agencies, women’s movements and a shifting political context: Towards a gendered republic in France’, in J. Outshoorn, J. Kantola (eds) Changing State Feminism, pp. 102–23, New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Morand, C.-A. (1999) Le droit néomoderne des politiques publiques, Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence (LGDJ). Normand, R. (2011) Gouverner la réussite scolaire: Une arithmétique politique des inégalités, Berne: Peter Lang. Page, E. (2012) Policy without Politicians: Bureaucratic Influence in Comparative Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pasquier, R. (2003) ‘La régionalisation française revisitée: Fédéralisme, mouvement régional et élites modernisatrices (1950–1964)’, Revue française de science politique 53(1), 101–25. Penissat, E. (2012) ‘Publier des “chiffres officiels” ou les contraintes bureaucratiques et politiques qui façonnent l’expertise d’État: Le cas des statistiques du ministère du Travail’, Gouvernement et action publique 4(4), 45–66. Perret, B. (1999) ‘L’évaluation des politiques publiques dans les administrations d’État, éléments de diagnostic’, Congrès de la Société française d’évaluation, Marseille, 4–5 June. Pierru, F. (2007) Hypocrate malade de ses réformes, Bellecombe-en-Bauges: Croquant. Pisani, E. (1956) ‘Administration de Gestion: Administration de Mission’, Revue française de science politique 6(2), 315–30. Quéré, O. (2014) L’Atelier de l’Etat. Des Instituts régionaux d’administration pour former les cadres intermédiaires de la fonction publique (1966-2013), PhD Thesis, Lyon: Université de Lyon: Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Lyon. Quéré, O. (2015) ‘La fabrique des cadres intermédiaires de la fonction publique: Enseigner et assigner un positionnement aux attachés dans les Instituts régionaux d’administration’, Gouvernement et action publique 4(4), 33–54. Quéré, O. (2017) ‘Construire l’État par son milieu: Les transformations du mandat des cadres intermédiaires de l’administration’, Sociologie du travail, 59(3), http:// sdt.revues.org/828, DOI: 10.4000/sdt.828 Revillard, A. (2016), La cause des femmes dans l’Etat: Une comparaison France–Québec, Fontaine: Presses universitaires de Grenoble.

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Rouban, L. (2010) ‘L’inspection générale des finances, 1958–2008: Pantouflage et renouveau des stratégies élitaires’, Sociologies pratiques 21(2), 19–34. Roubieu, O. (1994) ‘Le modèle du “manager”: L’imposition d’une figure légitime parmi les hauts fonctionnaires des collectivités territoriales’, Politix 7(28), 35–48. Roubieu, O. (1999) ‘Des managers très politiques: Les secrétaires généraux des villes’, in V. Dubois, D. Dulong (eds) La question technocratique, pp. 217–31, Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg. Spenlehauer, V. (1999) ‘Intelligence gouvernementale et sciences sociales’, Politix, 12(48), 95–128. Suleiman, E. (1979) Les élites en France: Grands corps et grandes écoles, Paris: Seuil. Thoenig, J.-C. (1994) ‘Savoir savant et gestion locale’, Politix 7(28), 64–75. Tirera, L. (2005) Du Commissariat général du plan au Centre d’analyse stratégique: Stratégie de réforme d’une administration de mission, Paris: L’Harmattan. Vauchez, A. (2008) ‘Le chiffre dans le “gouvernement” de la Justice’, Revue française d’administration publique 125(1), 11–120. Vigour, C. (2006) ‘Justice: L’introduction d’une rationalité managériale comme euphémisation des enjeux politiques’, Droit et société 63–34(2), 425–55. Viveret, P. (1989) L’évaluation des politiques et des actions publiques, Paris: La documentation française.

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SEVEN

Policy analysis in French local government Alain Faure and Emmanuel Négrier The subject of the present chapter attempts to ‘deconstruct’ the French territorial question and demonstrate that territorial policy analysis can break free from the limitations imposed by the primarily ‘statist’ conceptual framework in which it has hitherto been viewed. In the first section of the chapter, we indicate the scale and nature of the present political and administrative territorial structures and comment also on the paucity of academic research work on this subject. In the second section, we highlight the main changes in the territorial framework of policy building, through an evolution from vertical to horizontal dialectic of powers and capacities. In the third section we discuss territorialisation, as the results of a double process. On the one hand, the role of ideas in territorial policy building; on the other hand, the dynamics of differentiation that put the French model into question. Thus, focusing on policy analysis in French local policies – in a global comparative perspective – sheds light on the huge challenge it causes for the coherence of ‘national models’. As in other countries, local policies in the French context are simultaneously influenced by globalisation and decentralisation, opening new scenes for vertical and horizontal interactions toward the provision of public goods and service.

An old, dense and underestimated territorial administration The structures of French territorial government are notoriously complex.1 Many of its contradictions and paradoxes can be traced back to its origins in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period when the much-desired tabula rasa was put into operation to destroy and even to eliminate the memory of the traditional, often millennial, territorial structures. And yet, for all its rationalist features, the new structures could scarcely avoid or conceal new and long-lasting conflicts, concerning different meanings as well as applications of concepts such as ‘popular sovereignty’, (‘direct democracy’ or versions of the ‘general will’), ‘federalism’ (compared with ‘Jacobinism’), plus conflicting theories of representativeness and electoral practice, and, above all, the emergence of the ‘nation’ – as the paramount unitary organisational structure which led Napoleon (particularly when faced with foreign wars) to settle the arguments by streamlining the administrative system, with an overwhelming stress on ‘top-down’ rather than ‘bottom-up’ processes. For the following century and a half, this basic structure of French politics and administration went largely unchallenged, at least until after the Second World 119

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War when a new generation of young planners started to highlight the dangers of Paris et le désert français. Motivated no doubt by a desire to resuscitate economically and socially many of the run-down and neglected provinces as part of post-war European regeneration, this strong desire for territorial regeneration became a central thrust of government policy under the Fifth Republic, particularly with the setting up of a devoted body: the Land Development and Regional Action Delegation (Délégation à l’Aménagement du Territoire et à l’Action Régionale [DATAR]) in 1963. In less than 30 years, this largely successful injection of economic vitality into many parts of France had run its course, and, in the postMitterrand years, emphasis has passed to a questioning of the more essentially political functionality and efficacy of the complicated local and regional political structures which have emerged (or survived or – worse still – thrived through bureaucratic accretion), raising many questions concerning present policies and the politics surrounding them. The sheer density of French territorial administration is much greater than the European average. In the three-tiered system of territorial government into which the structure is normally divided, it is the basic unit of the ‘commune’ which reveals the most startling diversity. With 36,767 communes, of which 32,000 have less than 2,000 inhabitants, France alone counts for more than 40 per cent of the total number of ‘municipalities’ in the European Union. This makes the use of this basic essential unit of limited value in functional normative terms. In order to counter the obvious disparities created by this communal fragmentation, French political forces have regularly encouraged intercommunal cooperation, and this has led to the creation of a second local ‘unit’: intercommunalité. This level, slowly but inexorably, has been ‘institutionalised’, given specific tasks, including powers of taxation, with its own officials elected by universal suffrage, and its own administration. This level of government now counts for 2,133 institutions. Of these 11 are called metropoles (representing large urban conurbations) with a further 238 ‘inter-communal communities’ in urban zones and 1,884 in rural zones, some of which remain small (less than 5,000 inhabitants). Parallel to these institutions which are called ‘Public Establishments for Intercommunal Cooperation’ (EPCI), there are other bodies, without tax-raising powers, whose role is to fulfil certain (often technical) tasks. These latter are called ‘intercommunal syndicates’ (numbering 13,402 in 2015) and it has been the desire of successive governments since the 1990s to somehow ‘merge’ them into the first intercommunal category (Kerrouche, 2012). We are not there yet! Of the two ‘higher’ levels of territorial structures, the division of France into ‘départements’ was enacted in the first year of the Revolution (with the clear intention of breaking the political and cultural power of the old provinces) and Napoleon confirmed the departments’ ‘top-down’ function with the state appointment of a ‘prefect’ to each department. The Fifth Republic has seen, however, a major reduction in the powers of the prefect and, particularly in the 1980s, increasing power has been accorded to the departmental conseils which mainly control local social policy. Threatened by developing institutions ‘above’ 120

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and ‘below’ it, the département is the real phoenix of French administration, often rising from the ashes because of strong support for it in the Senate and its effective control over the implementation of social policy, redistributive aspects of local solidarity and questions of transport (Négrier and Nicolas, 2011). It is the département which is the crucial level at the intersection of urban and rural zones. Its electoral system, direct universal suffrage at the canton level, tends to reinforce the weight of rural zones and has recently been reformed, giving birth, in 2015, to a unique two-round majority election of dual male/female candidates. The modern ‘regions’, only date from 1964. While traditionally the weakest link in French territorial administration (dating back no doubt to the revolutionaries’ fear of the power of the old provinces) the regions have progressively advanced in recent years in political importance and agenda-setting policy-making (Barone, 2011). Their main thrust concerns economic development, education and higher education and research, but also general territorial infrastructures. One very recent development (2014–15) has been the (hasty) reduction in the number of regions from 22 to 13 (excluding the five overseas regions), a ‘reform’ that reveals the underlying paradox in attitudes to territorial government. Clearly intended to save money by cutting out duplication of services at a time of general economic retrenchment, the reform nonetheless officially aspires to create more powerful regions, which can exist and thrive on a supra-national European level. To take one example, the disparity between official aim and actual achievement is exemplified in the amalgamation of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France. This new region is more than twice the size of Catalonia, its neighbour in the north-east of Spain. But its consolidated budget comes to less than 10 per cent of the Generalitat, its Catalonian institutional equivalent (Négrier, 2015). This highlights the general problem – the relationship of the local and regional resources (transfers from the central state plus limited tax-raising powers) to their gradually increasing spheres of competence (resulting from the several waves of decentralisation reforms particularly since the 1980s) and the corresponding decline in direct central state territorial administration (Biland, 2012). It is true that both the areas of competence and the resources have increased considerably, to the extent that in 2012 local and regional services employed 1.8 million agents, or 34 per cent of total public employment in France.

Table 7.1: Levels of territorial administration in France and associated expenditure Collectivity

Number

Total expenditure 2012 (in €billions)

Communes

37,767

26

EPCI

2,133

39.58

Départements

100

71.35

Regions

26

27.92

Source: Personal extrapolation from distinct sources of Ministry of Interior figures, 2014

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Increasing range of competences, growing human and financial resources, enhanced legitimation through the application of universal suffrage – all these would suggest a greater focus on territorialité in the overall political study and analysis of French public policy. And yet strangely, the opposite seems to be the case. A perusal of the content of the Revue Française de Science Politique in recent years shows that any emphasis on the crucial importance of local and territorial concerns in French policy studies remains a rarity. A similar analysis of the content of the journal French Politics since 2010, which could serve as a barometer of the extent to which the French territorial model is recognised internationally, gives sparse results (one single article deals with decentralisation policy under the Hollande presidency [Cole, 2014]) but without analysing the mechanisms or other specificities of the French case; there are comparative studies integrating France in general social policy (MacDaniel, 2014) or the evolution of the welfare state (Simonet, 2014) but with no consideration of the territorial aspects of these subjects. Perhaps the reason for this neglect is the enduring prevalence of the historical ‘hierarchisation’ of French political values inferred above: ‘top-down’ has a tendency to concentrate on the top. Localised nuances tend to get lost, and simply obfuscate the international comparisons that emerge more clearly when state models are not clouded by niceties of ‘local’ differences, which can easily be relegated to what Freud dismissed as the ‘narcissism of minor differences’. But if this marginalisation of the territorial issue applies to political science analyses of French public policy and action (Douillet et al, 2012), French territoriality nonetheless figures prominently in the English-speaking publications devoted to urban, metropolitan and regional policies. An analysis of the content of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, of the Journal of Urban Affairs or of Regional and Federal Studies shows that France not only has its place in the international comparisons made but also that the French ‘exceptionalism’ (often implicit in the ‘state’ comparisons), is no longer so evident. Once we move away from the national framework and put the focus on local configurations (regions, metropoles, districts), then ‘national cultural factors’ fade into the background, giving place to fruitful differentiations within the same national context (for example: Lyon/Marseille, or Brittany/Ile-de-France) and (dispensing with national borders entirely) facilitating very useful interterritorial comparisons (Brittany/Galicia or Lyon/Barcelona).

Vertical and horizontal transformations The historically ‘verticalist’ perspective, referred to above, needs further analysis, before demonstrating the extent to which it has been superseded by increasing ‘horizontalist’ policy impulsions. ‘Horizontal’ does not imply that the horizons are the very limited ones of localist autonomy but also include distant horizons, thus giving a freer rein to international connections as well as international comparisons, leading to what we propose as a new paradigm of territorialisation. 122

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The ‘local’ is in any case a relative term. Mediation of ideas and practices can take place at various levels with various horizons (particularly at the metropolitan level). The verticalised ‘local’ and questioning the ‘top-down’ norm The traditional vertical dialectic certainly dominated French territorial politics in the early, Gaullian, years of the Fifth Republic. And the paradigms which were current in the 1970s and 1980s, if trying to move away from the simple ‘top-down’ model, sought to identify points of equilibrium or of tension between the centre and the periphery. Work on ‘régulation croisée’ (Grémion, 1976), in attempting to locate such intersecting areas of tension, did indeed amount to a critique of the normative discourse (often framed in juridical terms) which reduced territorial politics simply to that of enacting state policy (Alliès, 1980). Nonetheless, local powers were still essentially ‘heteronomous’, that is, dependent on ideological and practical norms pertaining to the decision-making apparatus of the state. The experiments carried out in certain major cities and other local projects were only exceptions to the rule (Jobert and Sellier, 1977, 215). This ‘top-down’ vision was also more or less shared by geographers, sociologists and economists who were interested in questions of local government. Research on urban planning (Lojkine, 1972), on the city (Castells and Godard, 1974; Lefèbvre, 1973) or even on socioeconomic relations on a global scale, all tend to question any normative central/ local binary division – such a dichotomy is refuted as a false equality (Dulong 1978), with localism seen as a false identity (Sfez, 1977). Neo-marxist or other overall systemic orders do not need to lay stress on the ‘local’. Political science, however, focuses, on the tension at the territorial level between the elective and the bureaucratic elements, leading to interesting variations from any simple pattern, but all tending in the 1970s to be viewed in relation to a ‘central’ norm, the supposed coherence of which remained intact (Mabileau, 1972). Gradually, however, this was to change. Exceptions to the rule multiplied, and with the French cumul des mandats (the holding by politicians of several local or national mandates simultaneously), ‘power politics’ in some areas could no longer be dismissed as small-time local politics of peripheral interest. There were also cultural/political territorial manifestations (Lenclud, 1986) specific to certain areas (Corsica, Languedoc, Brittany, for example). The analyses of these cases, taking their differentiation from any national norm as a starting point, highlight their socio-economic heterogeneity and the tenuous link of these to national political integration (Jobert, 1977). Clearly, the top-down vertical and juridical model had become an inadequate tool for satisfactory analysis. The horizontal dialectic and international and interdisciplinary dimensions It was at the beginning of the 1980s that the first major decentralisation movements seriously called into question the adequacy of the vertical dialectic. This was also a period when a generation of political scientists became more open to constructive 123

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dialogue with other social scientists (particularly geographers, economists and sociologists) in focusing on the territorial factor affecting social and political issues. The ensuing controversies favoured the emergence of a more horizontal conception of notions such as urban government (Borraz, 1998; Jouve and Lefèvre, 1999), governance (John, 2001; Leresche, 2001), territorialised political exchange (Négrier, 1998), the public/private relationship (Le Galès, 1997) and also subsidiarity (Faure, 1998). These perspectives brought into play factors which had been ignored in the top-down/Jacobin approach. In the case of political sociology, in particular, such a reorientation of focus is the key to a quite different approach to ascertaining what constitutes the essence of localised politics (Briquet, 1997; Sawicki, 1997). Some of the work follows up on older studies, in monograph form, of how politics itself and power relations are constructed at the very basis of human behaviour (Lagroye, 1972, for example). These types of analysis, are close to political anthropology, bringing ethnology ‘back to French soil’ (Abélès, 1989; Pourcher, 1995). The local voice is no longer just a sort of ‘state ventriloquist’ (Mabileau, 1993). Socio-historical work on politics and administration reveal all that the bureaucratic mentality owes to the emergence, in small towns, of a particular social group and its basic need to establish institutional routines (Dumons et al, 1997). Other studies suggest that public policy has developed, earlier and more effectively, policies that have subsequently become an essential component of the new social contract. For example, the decisive entry of women into local and regional governments, as well as the reform of departmental elections (Troupel, 2017) contrasts with the erratic implementation of national parity laws (Troupel, 2013). Apart from representation issues, it was also at the local level that the first women’s rights policies were forged, of which no one today disputes the centrality in contemporary democracy (Mazur and McBride, 2006). It becomes very clear in this sort of work that questions concerning the specificity of local space, legitimacy, social influence and local circumstances and motivations are more important factors than whatever regulations, procedures and party ideas are imposed by Paris. In the case of the predominant ‘vertical’ dialectic, we observed that ‘top-down’ does not mean that all horizontal interactions were excluded (for example deals made between the prefect and the influential ‘notables’ in a particular department). In a similar way, the new emphasis on basic localism does not mean that other variables are not also at play, factors such as economic competition, territorial ‘benchmarking’, Europeanisation, the weight of private interests – all these factors, invoked in the 1990s, mean that we should not retain any simplistic romantic vision of what local autonomy really means. The change of perspective rather reflects a rejection of the post-Napoleonic juridical and rationalist organisational dogmatism, and its replacement by a renewed (and largely international) interest in institutional analysis (Hall, 1993; Hall and Taylor, 1996) as well as new reflections on the meaning of ‘governance’ (Jessop, 1997; Marks, 1996) and on the workings of an ‘urban régime’ (Harding, 1994). It should also be noted that regional analysis is increasingly viewed in comparative terms (Keating and Loughlin, 1996; Jeffery, 124

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1997; Le Galès and Lequesne, 1997; Négrier and Jouve, 1998). Metropolitan questions have also moved away from a strictly national/top-down interpretation towards focus on debates (reform vs public choice for example) which date back a long time in English-language research (Woods, 1958; Ostrom et al, 1961). These analytical models and concepts, such as ‘governance’, ‘urban regimes’, ‘new regionalism’, ‘new institutionalism’ – recently imported from Englishlanguage publications – are not accepted wholesale as a coherent block without a discriminating assessment of each term by the French academic community. Urban governance is one of the clearest examples of the different variants of meaning revealed (Jouve and Lefèvre, 1999; Lorrain, 2000; Gaudin, 2002; Le Galès, 2003). Besides, other more continental imports have also had an impact on French thinking about territorial politics. This is notably the case with the Italian writings on industrial districts grouped around Carlo Trigilia (Trigilia, 1986; Ritaine, 1989; Benko and Lipietz, 1992) and on political exchanges (Pizzorno, 1977; Ceri, 1981). These writings have also helped us to question the hypothesis of the specific radical nature of the French case, and lead us to consider French territoriality in comparative terms alongside other examples. The whole territorial question is not about simply applying preconceived sets of rules or central algorithms; rather, it opens up further questions, both empirical and theoretical, about the meaning of public action and hence about the very raison d’être of territorial policies (Arnaud et al, 2005). An example. Lessons from the regionalisation of policy capacities in three policy domains: education, transport, training The results of the management of these areas by the regions is, in the opinion of experts from each of them, especially noteworthy, given the initial capacity of the regions. Not only the means that have been devoted to them have greatly exceeded their investments consented before by the state through its central management, but they have affected technicians, managers and elected officials who no longer have any need to envy the professionals’ territorial administration of the state. This professionalisation, which was initially inspired by the know-how developed by civil servants, themselves transferred from the state, is no longer due to them: the regional councils have become, especially in management positions and sector steering, particularly attractive for more graduate and younger administrators (Bachelet, 2006). However, this professionalisation has developed not against the state but in broad partnership with it. This is what Thierry Berthet finds in the area of ​​vocational training policies, beyond the differences affecting, region by region, socio-economic structures of the country, or even the way politicians do politics with such policies (Berthet, 2011). The same assessment can be found for regional transport policies, for which Sylvain Barone showed that once the regional professionalisation of these policies was observed, these policies not only differed because of the topography of an area, but because of former policies in the area, which necessarily constrained some of the choices ahead. They also differed because of distinct forms of politicisation of this policy area throughout different regions. To illustrate, in a region such as the Languedoc-Roussillon, Barone 125

Policy analysis in France notes that one vice president of the Regional Council from 2004 is not only a former Communist Party leader, former Minister of transportation but also a former railwayman, very sensitised to the maintenance of secondary lines and not just an apostle of speed railway. Alongside more material factors, this has a clear influence on the regional policy guidelines on the subject. In education, we draw similar lessons: a) a strong involvement of institutions in quantitative terms, with a level of investment in the construction of school facilities far higher than what the state spent in it, and at a faster pace; b) professional management in partnership with state that, in this area, has retained the management of personal and educational programmes; c) a relative differentiation of educational policies across regions, less according to a global ideology (left against right politics and policies) than the way politicians considered educational policies within their own prospects of political legitimacy (Dupuy, 2011). We can take the example of some policy tools implemented during a period – between 2004 and 2014 – where almost all regions were managed by French left governments. A regulation indeed considered as ‘leftist’ (the provision of school books to children according with resource conditions, that is, positive discrimination) was often preferred while it was rather ‘rightist’ in its political orientation. Similarly, if early in their management of academic competence, the left-wing regional governments were more reserved than those belonging to the right wing about private education funding, this ideological ‘marker’ has almost disappeared over time.

Basically, the regionalisation experience of public policies led to some paradoxes: implemented by politicians, it has largely depoliticised; in sectors full of ideology and collective imagination, ideas into action have defused rather than confirmed hopes or fears; expertise, less autonomous than shared with the authorities of different levels, here leads to disappointment: the ideas it produces dissolve the ideological content of public policies.

The emergence of a new paradigm of territorialisation At the heart of these questions, there lies a question of scale. The horizontal against the vertical has to be re-examined in the light of the changing nature and the growing dimensions of territorial politics. New ideas are permeating the new territorialisation processes – more levels of expertise, suitable to each different local context. A political inversion The clearly discernible movement towards both further decentralisation and also towards Europeanisation has led to an inversion of tendencies, with a repoliticisation of the state and a depoliticisation and professionalisation of territoriality. There has been a change of scale, both political, administrative and spatial, with a move to transfer a great number of public services to the intercommunal level. At the same time, the relations between the different scales have also undergone transformation (Faure et al, 2007). The territorial authorities 126

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now take on a growing proportion of what is still called ‘welfare state’ activities, now including social, educational, housing and cultural policies, with the state playing a more distant role, often resorting to contractualisation (Epstein, 2004) and placing greater reliance on market forces rather than directly attributing responsibility for, and exercising direct control over, specific activities. The result of this is that local elites are more professionalised and better equipped (and with more funding). The idea of the state as master of public policy is replaced by local governments, with their new attributions, developing their own expertise, taking more management decisions as well as more control over policy (Borraz and Négrier, 2007). We should note that this inversion means that the state cannot remain aloof from or be impervious to local politics/policies (as it did in the early Fifth Republic) and this brings us back to the more fluid interactions between central and local government during the Third and Fourth Republics (Le Lidec, 2001). Territorial ideas in action Does this shifting of the centre of gravity of public policy imply new constraints and a change in the set of paradigms pertaining to the discourse of territorial government? This is the subject of much discussion between scholars. Local districts cannot themselves arrogate, unilaterally, the expression of their own political ‘world’. Ideas have to be more generalised in their origin than that and the border between the public and private influences is difficult to draw. Taking the ‘urban’ question as an example, the word of the state professionals on this subject is now diluted by the more diffuse and variegated expertise expressed by local public bureaucracies, by circles of expertise emerging from the mixed economy, from consultancy agencies and international bodies (Cadiou, 2005). It is true that the essential plurality of this new world will not prevent the emergence of dominant discourses. This plurality is clearly one of the most significant current territorial changes. For example, one observes a certain standardisation in the production of ideas on ‘urban projects’ (Pinson, 2005), but the acceptance of this standardisation remains relatively limited, given the strong variation in argument from one locality to another and the important restructuring changes that are underway. There were of course in the past distinctive political ‘visions’ which were rooted in certain areas of France. One thinks of ‘municipal socialism’ which was a powerful vector of partisan identification of public policy in certain areas (Lefebvre 2006). One thinks also of other ‘markers’ of leftwing municipal policy, such as ‘cultural action’ (Négrier, 2003) or ‘social housing’ policies (Maurin, 2004; Donzelot, 2006). In a certain way, it is paradoxically the decline of these ‘great ideals’ which has opened the way for the new expression of territorial action. This turning point of institutional reform of urban government can be illustrated by analysing the two forms of public action, diametrically opposed, which structure current local government debate along the lines of reform 127

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versus public choice. The first word (reform) implies tackling the new problems of urbanisation by creating new institutions which, in their scope and potential targets, will adequately deal with the new scale of urban problems (Wood, 1958). The problem here is that no two urban conglomerations are remotely the same (Aix/Marseille is fundamentally different from a ‘Greater Paris’ or a ‘Greater Grenoble’). Whereas the second phrase (public choice) implies that institutional fragmentation, entailing little new bureaucratic structures, leaves the field open to fiscal competition and competing services between communes, intending thereby to improve the efficacy of local government through ‘customer/residents’ choice (Ostrom et al, 1961). What lessons can be learnt from these dilemmas? Above all that ideas must take concrete form at the urban and metropolitan levels themselves. Ideas only receive lukewarm endorsement when they have been thought up elsewhere. Ideas originating in the very place of their implementation will stand a better chance of being well and truly implemented. The setting up of an urban conglomeration, for example, has to face directly concrete problems of specific kinds: the type of representation for participating communes in the new cooperative body (Le Saout and Madoré, 2004); the effectiveness of their public policies (Négrier, 2007); fairer ways of tax redistribution (Rousseau, 2004) and above all the problem of justifying (through a new public discourse) the existence of a new level of territorial government by a clear demonstration of the need for sharing (public transport costs, school provision, social housing, cultural facilities, and so on). Even the virtually new word ‘métropole’ impedes, by its recent – and sometimes ambiguous – meaning, the development of a discourse which can be impassioned and convincing. The variables of local differentiation The territory has ceased to be ‘heteronomous’, to become a sphere in which political interests, the differing logics of sectors, professional expertise and civil society’s expectations, come together in a unique combination. This dynamic of differentiation is as far removed as possible from what remains of the ‘Jacobin’ (or Napoleonic) requirement for a unified national ‘territory’, designed like a classical French garden. When having to arbitrate priorities, the regional, departmental and metropolitan administrations can no longer treat small differences as narcissistic distractions from the big picture, as in the early days of decentralisation. Local objectives and satisfaction are the primary concern. Dossiers are no longer easily categorised in nationally unified rational terms and multiple types of expertise must constantly be tested, evaluated and re-evaluated. This new form of public action, that has to be reflected also in national and international regulations, has recently been likened by the political scientist Pierre Muller to the coming together of three tectonic plates, a metaphor (albeit a potentially cataclysmic one) for the interaction of the play of market forces, the exigencies of the ‘public space’ and the traditional 128

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dirigisme (even if much reduced) of the state (Muller, 2015). These are the forces to be reconciled in each large urban area. Two variables must constantly be taken into account in reconciling these three factors in our way of studying territories. The first is of a cultural socio-historical nature and concerns the weight of a location’s specific past, that is, the depth, values and circumstances which condition the socio-cultural proclivities and the choice of options of the actors concerned. Comparative studies show that power, authority, institutions and democracy are not thought of in the same way, even if the stakes are the same, depending on whether one is recounting the common good in Madrid, Barcelona, Naples, Milan, Marseille, Nantes, Frankfurt or Munich. Each urban region has its own ‘dependency path’ of institutions and values which produce quite different public actions, even within the same national space. The second variable is more materialist and is also topographic. Depending on the location, for example in a mountainous or maritime area, in a dense or relatively sparsely populated area, the territorial location does not point to the utilisation of the same political instruments. For the analyst, whether as an engaged expert or a distanced observer, taking these two variables into account poses complicated problems of method and conceptualisation. In the nascent French research devoted in recent years to urban and regional governments, these imponderables have been translated into a series of new challenges: opening up new frontiers for public action (Mevellec, 2008), leading to irreversible changes in our conception of political power (Ben Mabrouk, 2006), creating new discursive narratives to fit the metropolitan pattern (Tomàs, 2012), assessing the impact of the rise of regional governments on social fragmentation (Dupuy, 2011), and reflecting on how local elected officials are invested with new missions of political mediation (Faure, 2016). In France, as elsewhere, the rise in power of metropolitan areas and of regions suggests the emergence of a democratic differential in the sense that there will be in future powerful territorial ways of producing order and enunciating meaning. This new equation is thrust into the very heart of the research agenda in political science and suggests bridges to connect several interpretations and conceptual frameworks hitherto considered as competing and irreconcilable. To the brave accomplishments of ‘new public management’ or of ‘public choice’ can now be superposed a whole motley of hypotheses which echo the analytical innovations sometimes qualified as turning points (territorial, narrative, linguistic, emotional, participative and so on). The perspectives opened up by all this can make one a little giddy, for they link the ‘big questions’ concerning power and political legitimacy to our ability to see these questions through new scientific paradigms.

Conclusion Local government and territorial policies have changed over the past 30 years. They contribute to transforming political analysis itself, suggesting new objects, but also new epistemological challenges. Thus, the three perspectives we’ve 129

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highlighted (professionalisation, pluralisation, differentiation) offer social scientists unprecedented challenges in France, although often better established in other European countries. The first perspective – the professionalisation of local policies – requires analysts to produce models more aware of territorial configurations. It leads to paying more attention to ground research (less theoretical, more empirical) and to new links with other scientific disciplines (geography, history, law, anthropology). The second perspective – the pluralisation of actors – implies a renewed work on local narratives and discourses. It would be tempting to only consider the functional issues of multi-layered management, as generally understood in terms of overcrowded policy making. But territorial governance challenge is less technical than symbolic and semantic. This pluralisation means at first the crisis of the great and abstract narrative on general interest (Faure, 2007): a double crisis both in terms of membership and in terms of efficiency in the everyday political life of cities and regions. The third perspective – territorial differentiation – leads to a double and especially critical issue in France. The first is political and economical: producing knowledge on the conditions of a ‘positive differentiation’ (Négrier, 2010) that combines fiscal, legal and philosophical prospects. Here, the surrender of the territorial equality myth is only the starting point of a huge project: the invention of territorial equity. The second issue questions local identity. Behind this term, extremely opposed conceptions of social and spatial diversity can be found. Between territorial identity evoked in active strategies of diversity and that of essentialist neo-regionalism, there is a tremendous chasm. The Catalan experience, as well as those of Lombardy and Scotland, or the issues related to migration in contemporary Europe show that these controversies must be explored. Here, the role of experts is fundamental: experts who invite us to understand all claims of identification but to be wary of any pretension to identity. These three perspectives highlight the extent to which local policy analysis is now confronted by a crucial issue: to go beyond its ‘natural’ tendency to produce specialised diagnostics and develop an original perspective about a political/policy model of democracy both influenced by standardisation and differentiation. This double dialectics (politics/policy; standard/difference) has more to offer than the ritual opposition between institutionnalisms and culturalisms. And the French case, much more acquainted with standards, national institutions and politics, should be the country for assessing differences, regional and policy contrasted influences. Note 1

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The French adjective territorial, in an administrative sense, like its derivative territorialité, tends to cover all tiers of government up to but not including the central state.

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References Abélès, M. (1989) Jours tranquilles en 1989, Paris: Odile Jacob. Alliès, P. (1980) L’invention du territoire, Fontaine: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. Amin, S. (1973) Le développement inégal: Essai sur les formations sociales du capitalisme périphérique, Paris: Éditions de Minuit. Arnaud, L., Le Bart, C., Pasquier, R. (2005) ‘Déplacements idéologiques et action publique: Le laboratoire des politiques territoriales’, Sciences de la société 65, 3–7. Bachelet, F. (2006) ‘Sociologie, formation et carrière des hauts fonctionnaires territoriaux’, Annuaire des collectivités locales 26, 99–113. Barone, S. (2011) Les politiques régionales en France, Recherches Politiques, Paris: La Découverte. Ben Mabrouk, T. (2006) Le pouvoir d’agglomération en France: Logiques d’émergence et modes de fonctionnement, Paris: L’Harmattan. Benko, G., Lipietz, A. (1992) Les régions qui gagnent. Districts et réseaux: les nouveaux paradigmes de la géographie économique, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Berthet, T. (2011) ‘La régionalisation de la formation professionnelle’, in S. Barone (ed) Les politiques régionales en France, pp. 51–64, Recherches Politiques, Paris: La Découverte. Biland, É. (2012)  La fonction publique territoriale, Repères/Sciences PolitiquesDroit, Paris: La Découverte. Borraz, O. (1998) Gouverner une ville: Besançon,1959–1989, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Borraz, O., Négrier, E. (2007) ‘The end of French Mayors?’, in J. Garrard (ed) Heads of the Local State in Past and Present, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Briquet, J.-L. (1997) La tradition en movement: Clientélisme et politique en Corse, Paris: Belin. Cadiou, S. (2005) ‘Vers une action urbaine “moderniste”: Les effets du discours des experts savants’, Sciences de la société 65, 9–27. Castells, M., Godard, F. (1974) Monopolville. L’entreprise, l’État, l’urbain, Paris: Mouton. Ceri, P. (1981) ‘Le condizioni dello scambio politico’, Quaderni di Sociologia 4, 640–63. Cole, A. (2014) ‘Not saying, not doing: Convergences, contingencies and causal mechanisms of state reform and decentralisation in Hollande’s France’, French Politics 12(2), 104–35. Donzelot, J. (2006) Quand la ville se défait, Paris: Le Seuil. Douillet, A.-C., Faure, A., Halpern, C., Leresche, J.-P. (2012) L’Action publique locale dans tous ses États: Différenciation et standardisation, Paris: L’Harmattan. Dulong, R. (1978) Les régions, l’Etat et la société civile, Politiques, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Dumons, B., Pollet, G., Saunier, P.-Y. (1997) Les élites municipales sous la IIIème République: Des villes du Sud-Est de la France, Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS).

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Dupuy, C. (2010) Politiques publiques, territoires et inégalités: Les politiques régionales d’éducation en France et en Allemagne (1969–2004), PhD thesis, Paris: IEP de Paris. Dupuy, C. (2011) ‘Y a-t-il de la politique dans les politiques régionales d’éducation?’, in S. Barone (2011) Les politiques régionales en France, pp. 65–84, Paris: La Découverte. Epstein, R. (2004) ‘Après la territorialisation, la différenciation territoriale?’, Pouvoirs Locaux 63(4), 407–33. Faure, A. (ed) (1998) Territoires et subsidiarité, Logiques Politiques, Paris: L’Harmattan. Faure, A. (2007) ‘Une nouvelle critique territoriale?’, in A. Faure, E. Négrier (ed) Les politiques publiques à l’épreuve de l’action locale, pp. 275–83, Paris: L’Harmattan. Faure, A. (2016) Des élus sur le divan. Les passions cachées du pouvoir local, Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Faure, A., Leresche J.-P., Muller P., Nahrath S. (eds) (2007) Action publique et changements d’échelles: Les nouvelles focales du politique, Paris: L’Harmattan. Garraud, P. (1983) ‘Le recrutement des maires en milieu urbain: Esquisse de typologie’ Pouvoirs 28, 29–44. Gaudin, J.-P. (2002) Pourquoi la gouvernance?, La bibliothèque du citoyen, Paris: Presses de Science-Po. Ghorra-Gobin, C. (2004) ‘L’étalement de la ville américaine: Quelles réponses politiques?’, Esprit 3–4, 145–59. Grémion, P. (1976) Le pouvoir périphérique: Bureaucrates et notables dans le système politique français, Paris: Seuil. Hall, P. (1993) ‘Policy paradigms, social learning and the state’, Comparative Politics 25(3), 275–96. Hall, P.A., Taylor, R.C.R. (1996) ‘Political science and the three new institutionalisms’, Political studies 44(5), 936–57. Harding, A. (1994) ‘Urban regimes and growth machines: Towards a cross-national research agenda’, Urban Affairs Quarterly 29(3), 356–82. Jeffery, C. (1997) The Regional Dimension of the European Union: Towards a Third Level in Europe?, London: Frank Cass. Jessop, B. (1997) ‘Capitalism and its future: Remarks on regulation, government and governance’, Review of International Political Economy 4(3), 561–81. Jobert, B. (1977) ‘Bureaucraties sociales et planification locale’, Annuaire de l’Aménagement du territoire, vol 8, pp. 237–50, Fontaine: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. Jobert, B., Sellier, M. (1977) ‘Les grandes villes: Autonomie locale et innovation politique’, Revue Française de Science Politique 27(2), 205–27. John, P. (2001) Local Governance in Western Europe, London: Sage. Jouve, B., Lefèvre, C. (1999) ‘De la gouvernance urbaine au gouvernement des villes? Permanence et recomposition des cadres de l’action publique en Europe’, Revue Française de Science Politique 49(6), 835–53.

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Jouve, B., Négrier, E. (2008) ‘La sécession métropolitaine: Analyse comparée franco-américaine’, in M. Camau, G. Massardier (eds) Les régimes politiques revisités, Paris: Khartala. Keating, M., Loughlin J. (1996) The Political Economy of Regionalism, London: Frank Cass. Keil, R. (2000) ‘Governance restructuring in Los Angeles and Toronto: Amalgation or secession?’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24(4), 758–81. Kerrouche, E. (2012) ‘Bilan de l’intercommunalité à la française’,  Revue française d’administration publique 141, 37–53. Lagroye, J. (1972) Société et politique. Jacques Chaban-Delmas à Bordeaux, Paris: Pédone. Le Galès, P. (1997) ‘Quels intérêts privés pour les villes européennes?’ in A. Bagnasco, P. Le Galès (eds) Villes en Europe, pp. 231–54, Paris: La Découverte. Le Galès, P. (2003) Le retour des villes européennes, Paris: Presses de Science Po. Le Galès, P., Lequesne, C. (1997) Les paradoxes des régions en Europe, Paris: La Découverte. Le Lidec, P. (2001) Les maires dans la République: L’association des maires de France, élément constitutif des régimes politiques français depuis 1907, thesis, Paris: Université de Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne. Le Saout, R., Madoré, F. (2004) Les effets de l’intercommunalité, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Lefèbvre, H. (1973) Espace et politique, Paris: Anthropos. Lenclud, G. (1986) ‘De bas en haut, de haut en bas, le système des clans en Corse’, Etudes Rurales 101(1),137–73. Leresche, J.-P. (2001) ‘Gouvernance et coordination des politiques publiques’, in J.-P. Leresche (ed) Gouvernance locale, cooperation et légitimité: Le cas suisse dans une perspective comparée, pp. 29–65, Paris: Pédone. Lojkine, J. (1972) La politique urbaine dans la région parisienne, Paris: Mouton. Lorrain, D. (2000) ‘Gouverner les villes: Questions pour un agenda de recherche’, Pôle Sud 13, 27–40. Lowery, D. (2001) ‘Metropolitan governance structures from a neoprogressive perspective’, Swiss Political Science Revue 7–3, 130–6. Mabileau, A. (1972) Les facteurs locaux de la vie politique nationale, Paris: Pedone. Mabileau, A. (1993) A la recherche du ‘local’, Paris: L’Harmattan. MacDaniel, S. (2014) ‘Post-crisis social democratic policy capacity in France and the United Kingdom: A lesson from the globalisation and social democracy debate’, French Politics 12(4), 283–309. Marks, G. (1996) ‘European integration from the 1980’s: State-centric v multilevel governance’, Journal of Common Market Studies 34(3), 341–78. Maurin, E. (2004) Le ghetto français. Enquête sur le séparatisme social, Paris: Seuil. Mazur, A., McBride, D. (2006) ‘The RNGS data set: Women’s policy agencies, women’s movements and policy debates in western post-industrial democracies’, French politics 4(2), 209–36. 133

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Mevellec, A. (2008) La Construction politique des agglomérations au Québec et en France, Laval: Presses de l’Université de Laval. Muller, P. (2015) ‘Une théorie des cycles d’action publique pour penser le changement systémique’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquo, P. Ravine (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 405–35, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Négrier, E. (1998) ‘Échange politique territorialisé et intégration européenne’, in R. Balme, A. Faure, A. Mabileau (eds) Les nouvelles politiques locales: Dynamiques de l’action publique, pp. 111–34, Paris: Presses de Science Po. Négrier, E. (2007)  ‘Penser les changements d’échelle territorial: Institution, dynamiques sociales et politiques métropolitaines’, in A. Faure, J.-P. Leresche, P. Muller, S. Nahrath (eds) L’action publique à l’épreuve des changements d’échelle, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Négrier, E. (2010) ‘La différenciation positive’, in J.C. Nemery (ed) Quelle nouvelle réforme pour les collectivités territoriales françaises?, pp. 315–24, Grale, Paris: L’Harmattan. Négrier, E. (2015) ‘Réforme territoriale: Le pire n’est pas sûr’, NectArt (Nouveaux Enjeux sur la Culture, les Transformations artistiques et la revolution Technologique) 1(1), http://www.nectart-revue.fr/1-negrier/ Négrier, E., Jouve, B. (1998) Que gouvernent les régions d’Europe?, Logiques Politiques, Paris: L’Harmattan. Négrier, E., Nicolas, F. (2011) ‘Cumbersome inheritance or democratic lever: The department at the center of French territorial concerns’, in H. Heinel, X. Bertrana (eds) The Second Tier of Local Government in Europe: Provinces, Counties, Départements and Landkreise in comparison, pp. 73–89, London: Routledge. Ostrom, V., Tiebout, C., Warren, R. (1961) ‘The organisation of government in metropolitan areas: A theoretical inquiry’, American Political Science Review 55(4), 831–42. Pinson, G. (2005) ‘l’idéologie des projets urbains’, Sciences de la société 65, 29–51. Pizzorno, A. (1977) ‘Scambio politico e identità collettiva nel conflitto di classe’, in C. Crouch, A. Pizzorno (eds) Conflitti in Europa, pp. 407–33, Milan: Etas Libris. Pourcher, Y. (1995) Les maîtres de granit: Les notables de Lozère du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours, Paris: Plon. Ritaine, E. (1989) ‘La modernité localisée? Leçons italiennes sur le développement regional’, Revue Française de Science Politique 39(2), 154–78. Rousseau, M.P. (2004) La nouvelle architecture fiscale locale et les enjeux d’intégration et de développement économique des territoires, Rapport ŒIL, pour le Ministère de l’Intérieur, Paris: Université Paris XII. Sawicki, F. (1997) Les réseaux du parti socialiste. Sociologie d’un milieu partisan, Paris: Belin. Sfez, L. (1977) L’objet local, Paris: Christian Bourgois. Simonet, D. (2014) ‘The convergence of the British and French models of capitalism’, French Politics 12(1), 1–21.

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Tomàs, M. (2012) Penser métropolitain ? La bataille politique du Grand Montréal, Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec. Trigilia, C. (1986) Grandi partiti e piccole imprese: Comunisti e democristiani nelle regioni a economia diffusa, Bologne: Il Mulino. Troupel, A. (2013) ‘Entre consolidation et remise en cause: Les tribulations de la loi sur la parité (2000–2010)’, Modern and Contemporary France 21(February), 17–36. Troupel, A. (2017) ‘Élus’, in N. Kada, R. Pasquier, C. Courtecuisse, V. Aubelle (eds) Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la décentralisation, pp. 483–9, Paris: BergerLevrault. Wood, R. (1958) ‘The New Metropolis: green belts, grass roots or Gargantua’, American Political Science Review 52, 108–22.

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EIGHT

Beyond weakness: policy analysis in the French parliament Olivier Rozenberg and Yves Surel Not all parliamentary activities call for policy analysis. Some, such as oral questions, require less expertise and a good share of bad faith. Others are based on log-rolls and on strategic or signalling games. To some extent, however, Members of Parliament (MPs) in modern legislatures are expected to care about the content of public policies. Despite a shared trend toward de-parliamentarisation (Rosanvallon, 2015), most legislation still has to be formally approved by parliament in most democracies. Beyond passing laws, parliaments can also oversee government activities and public policies. The electoral and institutional stakes of such oversight activities are high since, all over Europe, including in France, legislatures can decide to dismiss governments not only for legal reasons but also for political reasons. Any legislature actually finds itself in a twofold situation vis-à-vis policy analysis. First, it relies on policy analysis produced beyond its walls to perform its main tasks: legislating, overseeing the government and participating in public debates. In order to do so, legislatures in Europe crucially depend on external expertise because their human resources are limited. The topics they are supposed to cover are potentially unlimited. Moreover, in most cases, MPs have to act in emergency situations. Parliaments, however, are also loci where policy analysis is produced through a variety of procedures: inquiry committees, reports of all kinds, answers obtained from the administration in response to oral or written questions for example, therefore producing reliable information about public policies can be either a by-product of parliamentary activities (as is the case for committee reports published during the legislative process) or an end in itself (as for inquiry committees’ reports). This chapter assesses the role of the French parliament which comprises two assemblies, the National Assembly (NA) and the Senate, based on this twofold dimension (using and producing expertise). Should the shared and well-known diagnosis of the weakness of the French parliament under the Fifth Republic (Huber, 1996; Hayward, 2004; François, 2007) be extended to the policy analysis dimension? This may seem logical. Indeed, given that the process of expertise is a key dimension of actual legislative games (Krehbiel, 1991), one might expect the French government to strictly bind the houses’ capacity to use and produce information. Yet, the alternative hypothesis can also be formulated: the French parliament might have sought to offset its constitutional boundaries by relying and investing in expertise. Collecting reliable information or producing relevant public policy assessments would thus constitute a sort of soft power for the 137

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backbenchers’ ends. In this chapter, both views are tested. First, the numerous limits encountered by the French parliament are analysed. Second, the chapter examines MPs’ capacity to initiate and use policy analysis.

A parliament in a weak position The limitations of the French parliament’s capacity regarding policy analysis are numerous. They are rooted in the practice and spirit of the regime despite an ambitious reform of the Constitution in 2008. They also result from the type of human resources available in each assembly and from how these human resources are managed. A bounded parliamentarism There is a rare consensus among scholars and practitioners about the weakness of the French parliament. Indeed, Philip Norton (1990) once wondered whether the French parliament could even be defined as a legislature. The significance of the 1958 shift largely explains this consensus. Before 1958, under the Fourth Republic, France was characterised by a traditional parliamentary regime where unstable parliamentary majorities regularly broke governments. In 1958, De Gaulle famously conditioned his come-back on a new constitutional settlement that was far less favourable to parliament. Constitutionally, the legislative branch faces two types of disadvantages. First, the President of the Republic tends to be the real leader of the executive power to the detriment of the Prime Minister. Since 1962, this President is elected not by parliament but directly by the people and, most important, parliament can neither dismiss nor oversee him. This constitutes a major source of disequilibrium because the NA (but not the Senate) can be easily dissolved by the President. Second, there is still a government which is headed by a Prime Minister and which can be censured by the NA (not the Senate), but many constitutional provisions are detrimental to the parliament. Those rules are numerous and cover all aspects of political life: government formation and resignation, the oversight of the government, the definition of the legal field and, last but not least, the legislative procedure. In addition to these numerous constitutional limitations, a political limitation was added in 1962 with the election of a pro-President majority in the NA following a tense dissolution. Ever since, presidents have usually had at their disposal a rather solid majority in the NA which strictly follows the voting instructions of the government. Many elements contribute to maintaining what has been called le fait majoritaire: the choice of the voters, the threat of dissolution, the effect of the plurality electoral system and the ascendancy of the presidential election over political life. Exceptions to this have been the three periods of divided governments (cohabitation) in 1986–88, 1993–95 and then the longest one in 1997–2002. As a result of the opposition between the NA majority and the President, the Prime Minister was de facto imposed on the President and held 138

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most of the power. However, two reforms undertaken in the early 2000s have made such a situation less likely: the alignment of the duration of the presidential term with the legislative one (five years) and the decision to vote for the President before the NA – the parliamentary majority to some extent owing its victory to the President. As a result of this constitutional imbalance, the capacity of the Parliament to initiate bills or to define autonomously its own agenda is strictly bounded (Gicquel and Gicquel, 2015). An aspect of the asymmetry between the executive and legislative power can be observed through the origin of adopted bills. Since the last legislative elections in 2012, 372 texts have been presented by the government whereas 1,517 texts have been proposed by MPs. However, if we consider the texts that were ultimately adopted, 277 texts proposed by the government were enacted (75 per cent) as opposed to only 82 private bills (25 per cent).1 One quarter of the law production is certainly not negligible but an insight into the issues covered reveals that private bills often tend to focus on secondary topics related to day-to-day life rather than on major society choices. In addition, some of the private bills indirectly originate from the government because some ministers seek to avoid endorsing them publicly. Moreover, the ability of the parliament to develop an autonomous expertise on policies is further constrained by limitations on its capacity to amend the texts it has initiated. While the Constitution (article 44) states that both the government and MPs have the right to amend legislative proposals, some additional dispositions privilege the government. For example, in the plenary session, the government can oppose an amendment which has not previously been examined by the relevant legislative committee. Article 44-3 also provides for a procedure for blocked votes which authorises the government to ask for a vote on a text with the amendments it has presented or accepted. As a result of this set of restrictive rules, during the current term more than 100,000 floor amendments, presented primarily by MPs, have been proposed, but only 15,650 of them have been adopted (15 per cent for 2012–15). Article 49-3 of the Constitution also sets out another famous specific constitutional provision. It allows the government to pass a bill without voting except in circumstances where its opponents are ready to censure the government. This kind of institutional blackmail, which makes it possible to clarify who is in the majority and who is not (Huber, 1996), has been used essentially when the majority is uncertain (1976–81) or reduced (1988–93). More recently, it was activated by President Hollande to circumscribe the rebellion among the parliamentary troops. These data and new developments are consistent with previous observations in comparative research on political regimes and/or on parliaments (see for example Döring, 1995; Norton, 2002; Sieberer, 2011). The French parliament remains one of the weakest legislative institutions among contemporary political regimes when it comes to the assessment of its role in the decision-making process. As a consequence, it is fair to say that there are limited incentives for the development of a real expertise in policy analysis within the parliament. Since the influence of 139

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MPs on policies is weak, they are less inclined to specialise in policy issues and to develop any expertise in several policy domains. This is all the more true given that parliament is composed of a limited number of standing committees: eight in the NA since 2009 for 577 députés. Compared to the US Senate, where there are 16 standing committees and 88 committees for 100 senators, French MPs are not called upon to specialise and work actively on specific issues with their colleagues and with the relevant private actors. In many instances, debates are therefore more political than technical and they are rarely based on an autonomous policy analysis. From a policy analysis perspective, the constitutional leadership of the President is a source of difficulty for the assemblies. The problem is not just that the leader de facto initiating most of the bills cannot be censured in parliament; the greatest problem is that the President cannot be heard or questioned in each assembly. The President is indeed not accountable to the Parliament. Since 2008, although the President has been able to deliver a speech to both assemblies jointly in Versailles, the Constitution specifies that the President should leave the hemicycle should a debate take place afterwards. In addition to the constitutional text, the interpretation by the Constitutional Council since the very beginning of the Fifth Republic contributed to limiting the capacity of parliament to develop several kinds of non-legislative activities, including policy evaluation. In a famous 1959 decision, the Council stressed that the NA could only control the government through the procedures that were specifically provided for in the Constitution, that is, confidence votes.2 The justified desire to preserve the stability of the government contributed, in the long run, to establishing less justified restrictions on the oversight capacity of the parliament vis-à-vis the government. To give just one example, the Council declared in 2009 that the debates of a new NA evaluation committee could not be made public as it was the task of the whole assembly, and not of a given committee, to control the government.3 More generally, this interpretation led to the emergence, in the legal doctrine, of a distinction between the oversight of the government, a political control that could virtually lead to censure, and the assessment of administration and public policies, a more neutral control lacking coercive legal means. We will return to the damaging effect of this abstract distinction in terms of political mobilisation in our conclusion. The 2008 Constitutional revision: a useless reform? Elected in 2007, the right-wing President N. Sarkozy launched a major constitutional reform officially aimed at strengthening the French parliament (Rozenberg, 2016; Pouvoirs, 2013). Although there were other motivations such as the willingness to limit parliamentary filibustering, and although Sarkozy did not want to depart from the so-called ‘logic of the Fifth Republic’, the project was undoubtedly ambitious. It was all the more ambitious as it was delegated to academics and politicians outside the administration. These constitutional 140

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entrepreneurs were seemingly convinced that the key to legislative influence was information and expertise, and that parliament should not only legislate but should also assess legislation. Many of the amendments passed were thus connected to the policy analysis capacity of parliament. The first change was symbolic and concerned the definition of parliament. In addition to the traditional functions of legislation and oversight, article 24 of the Constitution now stipulates that parliament ‘shall assess public policies’. This provision paved the way for the creation of a new evaluation body within the NA detailed below. Another sign of the priority given to non-legislative activities was the stipulation that ‘during one week of sittings out of four, priority shall be given…to the monitoring of government action and to the assessment of public policies’ (article 48). This constituted a double shift, first, because the government no longer held the monopoly of setting the order of the day of plenary sessions and, second, because it promoted non-legislative debates. However, the implementation of the provision was a source of deception. The government (with the agreement of the parliamentary majority) largely used the possibilities of derogation laid down in the Constitution to give priority to its own bills during this week (Carcassonne and Guillaume, 2014). The low attendance during floor sessions also indicated a lack of motivation among the MPs, and the ‘control week’ was informally renamed the ‘constituency week’. Another new article highly significant on paper was the provision of a six-week period between the moment when a bill was first transmitted to an assembly and its discussion on the floor. The rapporteur(s)4 and standing committee(s) therefore had a month and a half to gather information before amending the bill. This seemed all the more necessary given that the role of the standing committees was comprehensively revaluated by the reform (Thiers, 2014). Indeed, the bill considered on the floor was no longer the original one drafted by the government; in fact, as in most European legislatures, it was the text modified by the leading committee. As standing committees were strengthened, it seemed logical to secure time for them. Yet, the Constitution stipulates that this new delay ‘shall not apply if the accelerated procedure has been implemented’ (article 42). It is easy for the government to use this accelerated procedure: only the board of the assembly can oppose it, which is unlikely given the party discipline determined by the majoritarian system. Indeed, this has never occurred to date. As a consequence, both right- and left-wing governments decided to use this provision almost systematically. The view that legislation requires knowledge and time did not resist the pressure of day-to-day events, the new aggressive tone of the French weekly press or the record unpopularity of Presidents Sarkozy (2007–12) and Hollande (2012–17). We can list other outcomes of the 2008 reform relative to the policy analysis capacity of parliament: the increase from six to eight of the maximal number of standing committees, the increased ease with which the opposition can set up an inquiry committee, the possibility of requesting the legal expertise of the Council of State on a private bill, the constitutional obligation to create European affairs 141

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committees, the mission given to the Cour des comptes to ‘assist the parliament’ or the obligation for the government to attach an impact note to draft bills. While this was far from negligible, it was not decisive regarding the capacity of Parliament to develop a proper expertise. In addition, much like the changes listed above, many of the new provisions have been implemented in a restrictive way. It is easier for the opposition to propose the creation of an inquiry committee but there are still possibilities of blocking it. Moreover, once in place, the key position of rapporteur is given to a majority backbencher. Likewise, impact notes are now compulsory but they are drafted by the same governmental department that prepares the bill and no procedure has been foreseen to check their quality (Combrade, 2014).5 Finally, one of the most important and rather overlooked aspects of the reform probably lies in the obligation to award the chairmanship of the budget committee to an opposition MP. This reform, made possible by the revision of the Constitution and stipulated by the standing orders of the chambers, enables a member of the opposition to access all official budgetary documents that he/ she wishes – and even to gain entry to official buildings. Although the budget rapporteur, an MP from the majority, is the most important person during the budgetary process, the chair can also benefit from the human resources within the committee. Compared to the traditionally limited prerogatives of the opposition in France, this new provision appears to be far from negligible (Carcassonne, 2013). So far, it has mostly been used to stage colourful visits to the budget administration, but it may play a role in the future, especially regarding controversies related to the financial credibility of government commitments. A deficit of expertise Extra-institutional factors can also explain parliament’s inability to use and produce policy analysis. The main factor involves how parliamentary resources are used. The financial means of both assemblies are significant. The budget of €576,000 for the NA and €425,000 for the Senate allocated in 2015 place both assemblies among the most well-funded in the world (NA, 2014).6 However, the capacity of the assemblies to use these considerable means to collect independent and reliable information is limited. The management of human expertise in particular raises issues as seen by the examples of the clerks, assistants and MPs themselves. In 2015, there were 1,162 clerks in the NA and 1,257 in the Senate. They joined the assemblies after passing national examinations prepared within the best French special institutions. Many praised their qualities as bureaucrats and their commitment to public service. However, by recruiting young inexperienced people who will spend their whole career within the assembly, parliament loses the opportunity to benefit from the experience of professional seniors, and especially that of former high-ranking civil servants from governmental departments. Employees under contracts are rare: in early 2015, there were only 115 in the NA. In addition, each assembly has long developed a drastic turnover system that 142

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forces clerks across all positions to change services after a few years. The system has its merits but also its flaws in terms of cumulative knowledge. It constitutes a major source of imbalance vis-à-vis the governmental administrations where the same people remain in similar branches for decades. The second problem involves MPs’ assistants and their groups. Of these, 2,181 were employed in the NA in early 2015 on a full- or part-time basis, which means 3.8 contracts for each député. An MP is free to decide how to use the resources provided for assistance. Surveys indicate that a député employs, on average, one assistant in Paris and two to three locally (Fretel and Meimon, 2015; see also Le Lidec, 2008; Kerrouche, 2009). Locally, employees also tend to have more fulltime contracts. In the competitive environment caused by a plurality electoral system and multiple interchanges between the left and the right, the emphasis is clearly put on surgery work, which is further confirmed by the vision of the mandate shared by MPs (Costa et al, 2013). In addition, the level of expertise in public policy issues is only one resource among others sought by MPs when forming their staff. Party proximity, local and family roots or the network within the party are just as, if not more, significant. As a result, assisting an MP in Paris tends to be largely perceived as a way of entering full-time politics (Boelaert et al, 2017). The picture is even gloomier when it comes to parliamentary party groups. Despite their considerable budget – the NA groups globally receive approximately €10 million a year – they employ only a handful of collaborators: for instance, in 2016, the socialist majoritarian group of the NA had only 25 employees (excluding the communication service). Moreover, political proximity to the party chair matters more than competence. Ultimately, it appears that party groups tend to reproduce rather than offset the policy analysis deficit of political parties and party foundations as suggested by this telling anecdote: in 2012, the right-wing Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP) group, which held the majority at that time, secretly lent €3 million to the UMP party.7 Finally, turning to the profiles of the MPs, a few elements detrimental to the policy analysis capacity of parliament emerge. Almost one MP out of two has previously worked as a civil servant (François and Grossman, 2011; Rouban, 2011) – a proportion that puts the French parliament at more than ten points above the European average. While there appears to be more civil servants on the left than on the right, the difference between political families in this regard has drastically decreased over the last 30 years (Costa and Kerrouche, 2007). More recently, there has been a trend toward further professionalisation with regard to the selection of only those MPs with a political background (Rouban, 2011; 2012; Boelaert et al, 2017). Of the 577 députés elected in 2012, 158 (27 per cent) had never worked outside politics. They had been assistants or advisors to ministers, local government leaders and…MPs. Owing to the presence of both civil servants and professional career politicians, French legislators have less experience of some realities of contemporary France – particularly regarding the private sector (Costa and Behm, 2013). Another important specificity of French MPs lies in the accumulation of offices (cumul des mandats): 80 per cent to 90 per cent of 143

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the members of both assemblies are simultaneously locally elected and most are in charge of a local government. This practice makes the daily management of their agenda more complex (Lefebvre, 2014) and contributes to their reduced involvement in Parisian legislative or oversight parliamentary activities (Bach, 2012). Recently, a law seeking to abolish this cumul in local leadership positions has been passed and has become effective after the general elections of 2017. This may drastically change MPs’ behaviour in both houses. Beyond their professional background, the gender, age and social profiles of MPs, their assistants and the clerks also affects their capacity to perceive and support some issues. The slow and tardy rate of change regarding gender in France is a particularly well-studied phenomenon (Gardey, 2015; Achin and Gardey, forthcoming). The presence of elected women remained almost the same from 1945 to 1997 – around 5 per cent of the NA. Since then, the increase has been progressive, slow and incomplete despite the vote of affirmative action laws in 1999 and 2000. In 2012 for the first time at the NA and in 2014 in the Senate, women represented more than one quarter of the seats, which is exactly the European average – an improvement resulting from left-wing efforts only. The gender unbalance is also present at the civil servants’ level since two thirds of the 200 highest clerks of the NA are male (NA, 2015) – the ratio being exactly the same in the Senate.8 Although surveys tend to show that female MPs do not especially focus on ‘female topics’ (Pearson and Dancey, 2012; Murray, 2010), the deficit of women necessarily has an impact on the capacity to put some related issues on the agenda – given the gender division of labour in many aspects of social and economic life. As a result of the disengagement of many MPs, the limited capacity of their assistance and groups, and the choices made in the management and selection of clerks, a certain amateurism can be noted in how information is processed: there is no such thing as calls for evidence. Instead, the rapporteurs and standing committees tend to hear actors that have already been heard at the governmental level and by the other assembly. The representatives of the administration are by far the most numerous. A study of 9,300 hearings mentioned in more than a thousand NA reports published from 2007 to 2010 revealed that nearly half of the witnesses called originated from public bodies.9 Among the civil society, academics and experts, there is little variation regarding the participants with the same personalities invited year after year. Over the years, some of them have developed an impressive capacity of influence over backbenchers as indicated, for instance, by a case study on the controversial law on the Muslim veil passed in 2010 (De Galembert, 2014). Recently, the NA has been allowed to externalise the collection of information by contracting research centres or audit cabinets. This decision seemingly breaks with the view that each assembly should be able to develop its own expertise alone – a view related to the secular strategy of autonomy of the legislative power vis-à-vis the state and even society in France (Gardey, 2015). So far, it has only been implemented in a limited manner.

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The discrete contribution of the French parliament to policy analysis Despite the many boundaries to the parliament’s ability to use and produce knowledge relative to public policies, both assemblies often show a capacity to develop some expertise over a variety of topics. Naturally, this concerns the issues that directly and personally concern MPs themselves such as the organisation of regional and local governments (Le Lidec, 2012) or the funding of political life (François and Phélippeau, 2015). But there are also many other issues for which the parliamentary arena is able to gather an important amount of expertise. For instance, the last laws regarding euthanasia were passed in 2005 and 2016 through private bills after extensive consultations piloted by a couple of majority and opposition MPs in the NA. On a very different matter, the long process of reforming the budgetary procedure developed throughout the 2000s has largely been initiated by specialised MPs and clerks from finance committees (Waline et al, 2009). Across the issues, many monographs point to the appropriate, if not high-level, expertise of MPs in various policy fields: weapons and military operations (Rozenberg et al, 2015), foreign affairs (Riaux, 2014), civil rights (Lascoumes, 2009) or jail policies (Chabbal, 2016). How can this be explained given the shortcomings previously identified? To assess the actual use of policy analysis in parliament, it is necessary to distinguish between agenda setting and evaluation. The French parliament and agenda setting ‘Parliamentary reports make the glory of the shelves’ is an ironical sentence often employed in the corridors of the Palais-Bourbon. It means that although parliament is not inactive and may produce interesting works, there is no genuine follow-up. Many cases, however, suggest that this view is largely biased. In November 2012, for instance, a few months after a series of terrorist attacks that killed a number of people in Toulouse, the Green députés proposed to create an inquiry committee on the ‘weaknesses’ of the intelligence services – a routine kind of proposal on an unusual, if not taboo, subject. After tense debates over the risk of threatening French defence, the inquiry committee was decided upon. The chair of the prestigious law committee, Mr Urvoas, was elected rapporteur. All the key actors in the field – more than 30 – were heard, often behind closed doors. The report was finally published in May 2013 in a far less controversial atmosphere than when the committee was launched. Two years later, in March 2015, the government proposed a bill on intelligence services that revoked most of the proposals made in the report. Once again, Urvoas acted as rapporteur. The bill passed consensually in both assemblies and a few months later Urvoas became the minister for justice. This episode indicates that even in a strategic field such as intelligence services where the executive is supposed to act more or less discretionarily, parliament can play a decisive role. Parliament’s inquiries, 145

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reports, debates and questions may matter. They can especially help set the agenda regarding the future options taken by the government. Four specific assets are particularly valuable in this perspective. First, time plays an important role for parliament. Although the assemblies work under the pressure of tightly packed agendas, they produce documents, analyses and reports that may have an impact in the long run. It has been stated on several occasions that a parliamentary report, seemingly forgotten just after its publication, was taken up years later by a governmental service in charge of preparing a new bill. An important parliamentary report published on a topic, for instance on jail policies, is something that decision-makers cannot totally ignore – even if they contest its conclusion. Among other elements, these types of reports may set the agenda. The quality and depth of many reports and the prestige of the assemblies might partly explain such influence over the long term. The continuity of some of the views supported by specialised MPs is also important. The duration of parliamentary careers, the principle of seniority in accessing key positions, the cyclicality of some activities – notably the passing of the finance bill – all contribute to give some kind of continuity to parliament. Thus, a field-expert rapporteur working on the finance bill is in a position to raise the same concerns year after year. From this perspective, the rotation of officials, evoked previously, is not necessarily a weakness since it may lead a clerk freshly arrived in a new position and in charge of a given task to refer back to the previous parliamentary report written on the same topic. While this does not contribute to innovation, it gives MPs’ views a coherency that can have weight in the long run. Second, despite its weakness under the Fifth Republic, the French parliament is still seen by policy actors as the symbolic locus of democracy. Although they begin to defend their views long before the parliamentary stage, lobbyists, NGOs and academics expect to be heard by committees. They never forget to mention this in their yearly reports and boast if one of their claims is supported by a parliamentary report. The normative status of parliament also contributes to crediting the positions taken within it, especially when they are consensual. From a constructivist standpoint, it can even be noted that the converging views of left- and right-wing MPs, officially presented on a report or during a debate, help establish the ‘win-set’ of the possible outcomes for a given issue. This is especially true for diplomatic questions discussed in foreign affairs or European Union committees: the seemingly pointless backbenchers’ debates contribute, among other things, to the day-to-day elaboration of what ‘national interest’ means. Third, parliaments are both flexible and endowed with important resources. They offer a great variety of oversight instruments depending of the content of the issue as well as its political sensitivity (Lazardeux, 2009). A standing committee can independently decide to investigate a given issue, for instance by creating a kind of inquiry sub-committee called a mission. Moreover, at the beginning of each parliament, MPs also establish inter-party study groups on specific issues as well as so-called friendship groups focused on parliamentary diplomatic bilateral 146

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relations. Some of these groups, such as the groups on hunting activities or private–public partnerships, have constituted, in the recent past, a key space for lobbying. In comparison with think tanks and even governmental departments, both assemblies also have the capacity to devote important financial and human resources for gathering expertise. MPs are able to travel in France and abroad. The websites of both assemblies offer access to a considerable number of documents compared to most of the other European parliaments. Finally, the logic of parliamentary behaviour is, at least partly, well-fitted to gathering expertise. An MP can hope to benefit from specialising in a given topic in the eyes of the public at large but also of parties’ gate-keepers. The example about Urvoas cited above is telling. Being known for one’s mastery of a set of issues may help one become a minister, not necessarily because of the expertise accumulated, but, rather because of the notoriety attained among rank-and-file backbenchers. Despite the fact that other resources, such as party ties, may turn out to be more crucial for a career, existing surveys indicate that most of the MPs share the view that ‘if you aren’t specialised, you’re dead’ (Abélès, 2001; Costa and Kerrouche, 2007). Freshly elected MPs thus seek a niche in which they can build a reputation for being serious and reliable, and work on their personal network. Detailed investigations indicate that the actual level of specialisation or commitment of a supposedly specialised MP is not necessarily as significant as for the European affairs committee chairs for instance (Rozenberg, 2009). However, maintaining a reputation for expertise requires some effort, especially since some of the oversight activities are precisely those that cannot be fully delegated to officials and assistants: hearing witnesses, travelling to the field or talking in a committee meeting and on the floor. Evaluating public policies from the French parliament Legislative institutions might play a role as both a sponsor and implementer of a given evaluation. In the US, for example, the evaluation process at the federal level is dominated by a specific agency created in 1921 and closely related to the Congress – the Government Accountability Office (GAO). While congressmen may request the GAO to carry out a specific evaluation, the GAO can also autonomously initiate the examination of the outcomes of a specific policy to assess its normative and financial regularity. Moreover, the GAO benefits from a real administrative capacity with an annual budget of $534 million and more than 3,000 employees. The situation is quite different in France where there is no real equivalent even if some recurrent initiatives have tried to institutionalise an evaluation capacity within the French parliament (Lacouette-Fougères, Lascoumes, 2013). One of the first significant institutions was created in 1983 – the Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment (Office parlementaire d’évaluation des choix scientifiques et technologiques [OPECST]). At the time, the government justified the creation of this organisation using the following argument: technological issues 147

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had become even more complex and subject to rapid change, and it was thus necessary to benefit from the advice of a specialised committee composed of MPs (18 députés and 18 senators) assisted by a scientific advisory board composed of 24 experts. The OPECST, however, was also designed on the basis of the Office of Technological Assessment (OTA) created in 1972 within the US Congress to assess the socio-economic problems and the ethical issues related to new technologies. Contrary to its equivalent in the US (the OTA was dismantled in 1996), the OPECST is still functional and it publishes ten detailed reports on average per year on key scientific issues, irrespective of whether they are related to scientific controversies or law implementations concerning medical or scientific issues. For instance, a recent report was devoted to assessing the so-called French model in the regulation of ‘genetic vegetal resources’. Although this institution is still in place, it is fair to say that its role has remained limited. Its competencies are focused on some major bioethical issues and, more often than not, the OPECST is mainly used to follow up some recent laws which have had consequences for research activities. Analysing this situation, Yannick Barthe (2002) proposed some basic explanatory factors. As in other policy domains (Bezes, 2012), he stated that this OPECST had to compete with French highranking civil servants, especially the Grands Corps, which have largely succeeded in focusing their expertise on policy analysis. Consequently, the access to relevant information and expertise has often been constrained and the reports published by the OPECST have had very poor visibility and legitimacy. Second, successive governments have always been very reluctant to grant space to controversies or debates which might influence political mobilisation and dissent. Finally, the fact that the OPECST is divided into two main bodies composed respectively of MPs and experts has led to the emergence of competition between political actors and scientific experts. According to Lacouette-Fougères and Lascoumes (2013, 59–60), many MPs fear that their deliberation will be contaminated by experts’ views, which ‘could constrain their choices and submit democratic norms and values to rational criteria’. The seniority of this scientific office contrasts with the great difficulties the NA has encountered in setting up a durable structure aimed at assessing public policies. Following the election of Jacques Chirac to the presidency in 1995, two laws were adopted to fulfill one of the promises he had made during the presidential campaign, that is, the modernisation of parliament. Two offices were then created, one for evaluating public policies (Office parlementaire d’évaluation des politiques publiques) and another for evaluating the law-making process and legislation (Office parlementaire pour l’évaluation de la législation). Philippe Séguin, Speaker of the NA at that time, played a leading role in this reform. However, the division of these offices across the two chambers and a government shift in 1997 hindered any real implementation of this institutional framework. In 1997, the new speaker of the NA, Laurent Fabius, decided to put aside these structures which were dismantled in 2001 (Perret, 2014). Interestingly, when Philippe Séguin became president of the Court of Auditors (Cour des Comptes) in 2004, 148

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he developed a policy evaluation dynamic in this prestigious administrative body, thereby transferring to the bureaucracy the reform principles which had failed within parliament. During the 2000s, several other specialised structures were created to assess public policies related to specific policy fields such as the national budget with a structure for assessment and control (Mission d’évaluation et de contrôle [MEC]),10 the welfare budget (Mission d’évaluation et de contrôle de la sécurité sociale)11 or health policies (Office parlementaire d’évaluation des politiques de santé).12 The major shift of the national budget procedure that started with a 2001 law (known by the French acronym LOLF) triggered these changes. Foreign models were also explicit references for institutional entrepreneurs, such as the National Audit Office in Westminster in the case of the MEC. The innovative feature of these developments contrasts with their lack of public visibility. Although some of them continue to produce in-depth reports and, especially, to conduct numerous hearings, they suffer from the lack of commitment of high-profile or ambitious MPs. In a sense, both assemblies have developed a parliamentary bureaucracy aimed at assessing the governmental one.A more advanced and major step toward the institutionalisation of policy evaluation was taken in 2009 with the creation of a Commission for the Assessment and Monitoring of Public Policies (Comité d’évaluation et de contrôle des politiques publiques [CEC])13 within the NA. Although the decision to create this body originated in the constitutional revision of 2008, there had been tense internal disputes within the right-majority about who would lead the reform. These tensions reveal how salient organisational issues are within assemblies – it appears that protecting a standing committee status might take the place of actually influencing public policies. They also confirm that the degree of heterogeneity of a majority constitutes a major factor for institutional innovation (Lazardeux, 2009). It was ultimately decided that this commission would be chaired by the NA Speaker and would be partially formed of the standing committee chairs as well as the parliamentary party group presidents. The involvement of the standing committee leaders aimed at reassuring them that the new structure would not deprive their committee of their prerogatives. The high standing of the members was also supposed to demonstrate the depth of the mobilisation of the entire chamber. However, the relative marginality of this structure seven years after its creation indicates that it may have produced the opposite effect. Indeed, it appears that the ‘VIP MPs’ of the commission have other priorities beyond assessing public policies and that most of the work is carried out by the 15 remaining backbencher members. The balance sheet of this new structure is not yet negative. Approximately four in-depth reports are discussed and published by the commission each year.14 They are always co-signed by MPs from the majority and the opposition in order to depoliticise public policy assessment. In practice, the cooperation between the two camps is made possible by the delegation of the greater part of the writing to clerks and by the relative confidentiality of the work. The reports deal with a wide variety of issues. The initial official view that they were supposed to 149

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consider transversal questions in order to avoid encroaching on the prerogatives of the standing committees has not diverted the commission from considering significant specific issues such as the training policy or anti-tobacco health policies. In addition, other reports concerning the implementation of the recommendations of previous CEC reports are published regularly, including some from previous terms. Such continuity is noticeable in an institution like the NA which must frequently respond to emergencies and topical events. To finish, it should be noted that the parliament is also able to develop a capacity of evaluation in some policy areas in which MPs expressed a specific interest and expertise. This is for instance the case regarding the issue of women representation in politics for which both assemblies have shown remarkable and continuous interest despite changing majorities (Achin and Bereni, 2013). In 1999, a private bill proposed by the Speaker of the NA allowed each chamber to create ad-hoc non-legislative committees on women rights (Délégations aux droits des femmes). Those committees – to which very few men belong – have been active since then, without interruption, and have held an average of 20 meetings a year in the NA. Successive reports on the implementation of the 2000 law in favour of equal representation of male and female in politics have been crucial in understanding the limit to this affirmative action policy. As such, they have contributed to the regular increase of financial sanctions against macho political parties. In this case, the capacity to evaluate the implementation of policy reforms depends crucially on the following two dimensions: the capacity of some female interested MPs to agree on shared diagnostic beyond party lines, and the capacity of those committees to liaise both with NGOs and a rather weak ministerial department.

Conclusion In conclusion, the assessment of the policy analysis capacity of the French parliament is inevitably balanced. Beyond the well-known constitutional constraints, the parliament suffers from a lack of capacity, willingness and knowhow in terms of collecting original, new and diverse expertise on public policies. The fragmentation of the parliament, the influence of technocratic elites and the relative lack of interest of the MPs largely explain why most evaluation in France is still undertaken by the government bureaucracy as opposed to the political control of the Congress in the US which is specifically based on its capacity for policy analysis with the help of independent agencies such as the GAO. Noticeable efforts have been made to offset the situation; for instance, constitutional changes were made in 2008 and a new body for evaluation was created in 2009 in the NA. Not everything about them is negative; indeed, some changes introduced on these occasions may produce results in the long run. For instance, the introduction of the impact assessment obligations in 2009 is probably a first step toward the strengthening of a more constraining system in the wake of the better regulation agenda supported by international organisations.

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To date, however, these recent changes have not dramatically altered the policy analysis deficit of the French parliament. This might largely be explained by the lack of political incentives for MPs to specialise in policy fields, participate in evidence collection and be involved in policy evaluation. Opposition MPs are in an especially difficult situation given the depoliticised features of many of these activities, such as those of the CEC. The abstract legal view that the parliamentary evaluation of the administration should have nothing to do with the political oversight of the government is a noticeable demotivating factor (Rozenberg, 2013). A major stake for the future thus lies in the capacity of the French parliament to grasp policy analysis while continuing to offer what is expected of Parliament: pluralist debate. Notes 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/statistiques-de-l-activite-parlementaire. Decision 59-2, 24 June 1959. Decision 2009-581, 25 June 2009, point 58. The rapporteur is the MP in charge of presenting a report on a given bill within a standing committee and then of supporting the committee’s views at the floor stage. At the NA, he or she always belongs to the majority. See also his PhD thesis defended at the University Paris I in 2015. Same source for the other figures of this part; Senate: Rapport d’information du Sénat 618, 20 May 2016. For a worldwide comparison: IPU, 2012. ‘UMP: l’emprunt caché de 3 millions d’euros’, Mediapart, 21 June 2014, https://www.mediapart. fr/journal/france/210614/ump-lemprunt-cache-de-3-millions-deuros?onglet=full. Source: Senate documents, 31 December 2016. See www.regardscitoyens.org/transparence-france/etude-lobbying/. Created in 1999 at the NA. Created in 2007 at the NA. Suppressed in 2009 when the CEC was created. See the ongoing PhD thesis prepared at the University Paris II by Hortense de Padirac. We thank her for her valuable comments. In addition, the CEC can also assess the assessment notes prepared by the government and accompanying bills. So far, this activity has not been developed.

References Abélès, M. (2001) Un ethnologue à l’Assemblée, Paris: O. Jacob. Achin, C., Bereni, L. (2013) ‘Comment le genre vint à la science politique’, in Dictionnaire genre and science politique: Concepts, objets, problèmes, pp. 13–41, Paris: Presses de Science Po. Achin, C., Gardey, D. (forthcoming) ‘Genre et Parlement’, in O. Rozenberg, E. Thiers (eds) Traité d’études parlementaires, Brussels: Larcier. Bach, L. (2012) ‘Faut-il abolir le cumul des mandats?’, Paris: Editions Rue d’Ulm. Barthe, Y. (2002), Le rôle de l’OPECST, une mise en perspective historique, Rapport pour le programme ‘Concertation, décision, environnement’, Grenoble: CERAT-CSI.

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Bezes, P. (2012) ‘État, experts et savoirs néo-managériaux: Les producteurs et diffuseurs du New Public Management en France depuis les années 1970’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 193, 16–37. Boelaert, J., Ollion, E., Michon, S. (2017) Métier: député, Paris: Raisons d’agir. Carcassonne, G. (2013) ‘L’opposition parlementaire comme objet juridique: Une reconnaissance progressive’, in O. Rozenberg, E. Thiers (eds) L’opposition parlementaire, pp. 85–94, Paris: La Documentation française. Carcassonne, G., Guillaume, M. (2014) La Constitution (12th edn), Paris: Seuil. Chabbal, J. (2016) Changer la prison, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Combrade, B.L. (2014) ‘L’étude d’impact au Parlement français: Un instrument de mutation du rôle des assemblées dans le processus législatif ?’, Revue française d’administration publique 149(1), 195–206. Costa, O., Behm, A.-S. (2013) ‘Les députés connaissent-ils l’entreprise?’, En temps réel: Les cahiers, 48. Available at: http://www.entempsreel.com/files/cahier52.pdf Costa, O., Kerrouche, E. (2007) Qui sont les députés français: Enquête sur des élites inconnues, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Costa, O., Brouard, S., Kerrouche, E., Schnatterer, T. (2013) ‘Why do French MPs focus more on constituency work than on parliamentary work?’, Journal of Legislative Studies 19(2), 141–59. De Galembert, C. (2014) ‘Forcer le droit à parler contre la burqa: Une judicial politics à la française?’, Revue française de science politique 64(4), 647–68. Döring, H. (ed) (1995) Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Elgie, R. (2011) Semi-Presidentialism: Sub-Types and Democratic Performance, Oxford: Oxford Universiy Press. François, A., Grossman, E. (2011) ‘Who are the deputies of the Fifth Republic? Some figures’, French Politics 9(4), 364–80. François, A., Phélippeau, E. (2015) Le financement de la vie politique. Réglementations, pratiques et effets politiques, Paris: Armand Collin. François, B. (2007) ‘Le Parlement sous la Ve République’, in J. Garrigues (ed) Histoire du Parlement de 1789 à nos jours, pp. 427–93, Paris: Armand Colin– Assemblée nationale. Fretel, J., Meimon, J. (2015) ‘Les collaborateurs parlementaires, un vivier pour les cabinets ministériels?’, in J.-M. Eymeri-Douzans, X. Bioy, S. Mouton (eds) Le règne des entourages: Cabinets et conseillers de l’exécutif, pp. 527–51, Paris: Presse de Sciences Po. Gardey, D. (2015) Le linge du Palais-Bourbon: Corps, matérialité et genre du politique, Lormont: Le Bord de l’Eau. Gicquel, J., Gicquel, J.-E. (2015) Droit constitutionnel et institutions politiques, Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence (LGDJ). Hayward, J. (2004) ‘Parliament and the French government’s domination of the legislative process’, The Journal of Legislative Studies 10(2), 79–97. Huber, J.D. (1996) Rationalizing Parliament, Legislative Institutions and Party Politics in France, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 152

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IPU (Inter-parlementary Union) (2012) ‘The changing nature of representation’, Global Parliamentary Report, Geneva: IPU. Kerrouche, E. (2009) ‘Usages et usagers de la permanence du député’, Revue française de science politique 59(3), 429–54. Krehbiel, K. (1991) Information and Legislative Organization, Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Lacouette-Fougères, C., Lascoumes, P. (2013) ‘“Les scènes multiples de l’évaluation”: Les problèmes récurrents de son institutionnalisation’, Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d’évaluation des politiques publiques (LIEPP) Policy Paper 1, Paris: LIEPP-Sciences Po. Lascoumes, P. (2009) ‘Les compromis parlementaires, combinaisons de surpolitisation et de sous-politisation’, Revue française de science politique 59(3), 455–78. Lazardeux, S. (2009) ‘The French National Assembly’s oversight of the executive: Changing role, partisanship and intra-majority conflict’, West European Politics 32(2), 287–309. Le Lidec, P. (2008) ‘Les députés, leurs assistants et les usages du crédit collaborateurs: Une sociologie du travail politique’, Sociologie du travail 50, 147–68. Le Lidec, P. (2012) ‘Decentralisation and territorial reforms in France: How constitutional constraints impact strategies for reform’, in A. Benz, F. Knüpling (eds) Changing Federal Constitutions: Lessons from International Comparison, pp. 249–67, Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich. Lefebvre, R. (2014) ‘Les élus comme entrepreneurs de temps: Les agendas des cumulants’, in D. Demazière, P. Le Lidec (eds) Les mondes du travail politique: Les élus et leurs entourages, pp. 53–70, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Murray, R. (2010) ‘Second among unequals? A study of whether France’s quota women are up to the job’, Politics and Gender 6, 93–118. NA (National Assembly) (2014) Annexe au rapport de certification de la Cours des Comptes, Paris: NA NA (National Assembly) (2015) Bilan social, Paris: NA. Norton, P. (1990) ‘Conclusion: Legislatures in perspective’, in P. Norton (ed) Parliaments in Western Europe, pp. 143–52, London: Frank Cass. Norton, P. (ed) (2002) Parliaments and Citizens in Western Europe, London: Routledge. Pearson, K., Dancey, L. (2012) ‘Speaking for the under-represented in the House of Representatives: Voicing women’s interests in a partisan era’, Politics and Gender 7, 493–519. Perret, B. (2014) L’évaluation des politiques publiques, Paris: La Découverte. Pouvoirs (2013) ‘Le renouveau du Parlement’, 146. Riaux, G. (2014) ‘Les professionnels de la politique et la politique étrangère’, Gouvernement et action publique 3(1), 51–73. Rosanvallon, P. (2015) Le bon gouvernement, Paris: Seuil.

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Rouban, L. (2011) ‘Les députés’, Les Cahiers du CEVIPOF n°55, Paris: Sciences Po, Centre de recherches politiques. Available at: http://www.cevipof.com/ fichier/p_publication/829/publication_pdf_cahier_55.3_jp.pdf Rouban, L. (2012) ‘Les députés de 2012: Quelle diversité?’, Elections 2012: Les électorats politiques 8, Note de recherche du CEVIPOF, Paris: Sciences Po, Centre de recherches politiques. Available at: http://www.cevipof.com/fr/ les-publications/les-cahiers-du-cevipof/bdd/publication/829 Rozenberg, O. (2009) ‘Présider par plaisir: L’examen des affaires européennes à l’Assemblée nationale et à la Chambre des Communes depuis Maastricht’, Revue française de science politique 59(3), 401–27. Rozenberg, O. (2013) ‘L’opposition parlementaire, espèce à protéger’, in O. Rozenberg, E. Thiers (eds) L’opposition parlementaire, pp. 191–210, Paris: La Documentation française. Rozenberg, O. (2016) ‘Un petit pas pour le Parlement, un grand pour la Vème République’, The Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP) Working Paper 61, Paris: LIEPP-Sciences Po. Rozenberg, O., Chopin, O., Hoeffler, C., Irondelle, B., Joana, J. (2015) ‘Des députés experts militaires? Les motivations et rétributions au sien des commissions défense de parlements européens’, Politique européenne 48, 178–200. Sieberer, U. (2011) ‘The institutional power of western European parliaments: A multidimensional analysis’, West European Politics 34(4), 731–54. Thiers, E. (2014) ‘Les commissions permanentes de l’Assemblée nationale et l’élaboration de la loi depuis 2008: Une révolution très discrète’, Revue juridique Thémis de l’Université de Montréal (RJTUM) 48(1), 211–22. Waline, C., Desrousseaux, P., Pellé, B. (2009) Contrôle et évaluation des finances publiques, Paris: La Documentation française.

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Public inquiries, committees Cécile Blatrix and Guillaume Gourgues

Over the last 30 years, the proliferation of public participation mechanisms in decision-making has led to the emergence of extremely varied participation forms: public inquiries, users’ committees, public hearings, consensus conferences, participatory budgeting for example. Few studies, however, have questioned what, if anything, these mechanisms have changed in the existing dynamics of knowledge production about and for public policy. Naturally, studies on public participation have revolved around the capacity of mechanisms to influence the decision-making process. Indeed, while it is far more significant to focus on how public participation mechanisms influence the production of knowledge and its mobilisation for public policy, this issue remains difficult to grasp. Analysing the extent to which the knowledge produced in these mechanisms sustains the decision-making process remains a minor concern. Put differently, the manner in which this knowledge is taken into account in policy-making has attracted little interest. On the contrary, attention has focused on what the existence and development of these mechanisms change in terms of mobilising knowledge on policy. Moreover, there has been considerable interest in the extent to which these mechanisms are perceived as new resources or new constraints, and for whom, even while the boundary between these two types of analyses may not always be obvious. Over the years, academic literature has explored this approach to public policy (Fischer, 2000; Hisschemöller et al, 2001). Drawing on existent literature, this chapter will focus on public inquiries and committees. We must first, however, clarify what we refer to as ‘public inquiries’ and ‘committees’. In the French context these two terms have specific meanings and are associated with two distinct public participation mechanisms: while the former are geared to the general public and mainly involve environment-related projects, the latter are geared to those who affect or may be affected by the policies, and may be organised across sectors and at different levels; they are commonly referred to as ‘consultative government’ or ‘democracy in public administration’ (Weber, 1968; Le Clainche, 2011). Indeed, while the rhetoric around these mechanisms suggests that they seek to involve ‘citizens’, ‘beneficiaries’ or the ‘target population’ in policy-making, public inquiries and committees actually bring together different actors whose roles have been analysed in this book: interest groups,1 NGOs2 and, more sporadically, ‘unorganised’ publics. We thus believe that public participation mechanisms are defined by their public nature. ‘Public’ here refers to two specific things: first, these mechanisms 157

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are involved in ‘creating public awareness’ in relation to the decision-making process and the knowledge on which it is based; they thus make the process more transparent. Second, the mechanisms all directly involve the target population in knowledge production for public policy, that is, traditional representatives do not act as mediators. Their development thus seems to reflect their desire to widen the decision-making circle across several policy areas (Barnes et al, 2007), as has been extensively discussed in the literature (Fischer, 2012; Fung and Wright, 2003). In this chapter, we argue that public participation in policy analysis must be put into perspective. We assert that, in France, the so-called ‘participatory mechanisms’ such as public surveys and users’ committees rarely produce their own policy knowledge. In other words, these mechanisms do not create otherwise non-existent knowledge. While some mechanisms produce ‘original’ knowledge, assimilating this knowledge into the policy process is far from easy. Focusing on the French case and its specificity, we suggest that participatory mechanisms enable both policy actors and the government to indiscriminately use knowledge, opinions and actors from outside the state apparatus. These mechanisms, however, may also give rise to assessments seeking to identify how public issues are addressed. These assessments may modernise the dominant frameworks and, in rare cases, lead to the emergence of new ‘expertise’. Participatory mechanisms may thus enable barely visible knowledge and analytical frameworks to come to the fore. They are occasionally involved in the interpretation, dissemination and comparison of the knowledge produced by highly varying actors ranging from professional interest groups to local residents. Beyond the influence on policy analysis, one of the most significant effects in relation to the issues we raise in this chapter is that participatory mechanisms undeniably produce more or less formalised knowledge of the policy process itself.

Knowledge mobilisation mechanisms beyond the political and administrative system It seems necessary to examine why participatory mechanisms tend to develop unevenly across policy areas. Not all policy areas are equally affected by the tendency to include organised or unorganised civil society in these types of mechanisms. This suggests that some sectors are more willing than others to mobilise participatory mechanisms and the knowledge which these may provide. For instance, while environmental policies are characterised by the emergence of public debate forums, macroeconomic policies have remained highly monopolised by small circles of ‘experts’, to the extent that citizens’ influence on these policies now seems to have disappeared (Streeck and Schafer, 2013). It therefore seems appropriate to pay more attention to the specific configurations in which these mechanisms are created and used. Drawing on two case studies in France, this chapter will focus on the policies in two specific sectors: the environment and rail transport sectors. These case studies suggest that most participatory mechanisms are characterised by a similar process: the manner in which they 158

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are designed, implemented and function in these two sectors is closely linked to the changes in power relations both within and beyond the circle of influence of the institutional actors traditionally responsible for policy-making. A similar process can be observed in other countries; in Britain for instance, the state’s new system of governance known as ‘new public management’ has gradually replaced ‘public participation’ (Pratchett, 1999; Lowndes et al, 2001). However, this process is particularly marked in France where state institutions have historically monopolised expertise. Indeed, since the 1980s, France has implemented a variety of mechanisms largely analysed as participatory democracy or deliberative democracy. While these mechanisms encourage participation in the debates and dialogue preceding decision-making, few actors are involved in the actual decision-making process itself. The studies that have focused on the analysis of these mechanisms in France have become increasingly specialised, as has been observed in other national contexts (Chilvers, 2008); little attention has thus been paid to how public participation mechanisms may be integrated within public policy. These mechanisms are often analysed as issues of interest in themselves, rather than as spaces where policy analysis occurs, despite the fact that their very existence provides valuable insights into public policy. The growth of these different forms of participatory mechanisms suggests that the French government, far from its traditional image as an ultra-centralised policymaker, has become conscious of the need to strengthen its decisions by making use of all the available knowledge. The question that arises, then, is whether, from the perspective of national and local decision-makers, public participation mechanisms can produce ‘new’ and ‘specific’ knowledge about and for public policy. Caution, however, must be exercised when addressing this question: indeed, participatory mechanisms go beyond complementing government knowledge as they are the result of the random encounter between different factors such as the quest for acceptability, political communication, the attractiveness of democratic innovations and legal obligations. Analysing the origins of public participation mechanisms reveals that knowledge production about/for public policy was never the initial intention; rather, these mechanisms had multiple objectives that sought to avoid conflict, reinforce decision-makers’ legitimacy and inform decision-making. Participatory mechanisms thus fall within a context of fragmented knowledge production about policy. They are exploited by government authorities eager to influence how this expertise circulates in an attempt to reinforce their own position and potential monopoly. The case of environmental policy The use of participation mechanisms in France has been most apparent in the fields of urban policy, transportation planning and environmental and qualityof-life policies; it is in these fields as well that public participation has been institutionalised. Participatory mechanisms in the environmental and urban 159

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planning and development sectors are thus recognised as equal participants in the decision-making process. Globally, the need for public participation in the early stages of the decision-making process has been increasingly recognised in the environmental field since the 1992 Rio Declaration and the 1998 Aarhus Convention. Adopted after the signing of the Aarhus Convention, the 2005 French Environmental Charter, and Article 7 in particular, gave everyone the right to participate in all national and local public decisions affecting the environment. Against this background, and after successive reforms,3 public inquiry thus begun to gain in importance. Public inquiry is undoubtedly the most long-standing and most widespread form of public participation in decision-making. However, it remains relatively unknown. Introduced in the nineteenth century to protect private property before expropriation, public inquiry developed and was extended to other sectors following two major reforms in 1976 and 1983. In 1976, that is, five years after the creation of the French Ministry of the Environment, André Fosset Minister of the Quality of Life, expressed the will to recognise the role of associations in policy-making. As a result, for the first time, environmental organisations were invited to participate in various consultative committees such as the agency for waste recycling and recovery, site committees and the executive boards of national parks and water supply agencies. The simultaneous recognition of the environment as a service of general interest, and of citizen participation as a guarantor of this concern, was legally established by the law on the protection of nature on 10 July 1976. This law assigned a new task to public inquiry4 requiring it to make environmental impact assessments available to the public; this became obligatory when projects touched on the environment. Publishing impact assessments was perceived as a means of ensuring their quality and reliability by forcing their developers to anticipate controversies. In 1983, the scope of public inquiries was extended even further: public inquiry was now expected to consider private property, strengthen environmental protection and democratise decision-making, as evidenced by the title of the Bouchardeau law of 12 July 1983 on the ‘democratisation  of  public inquiries  and  environmental protection’. Since the reform, 15,000 to 20,000 projects have been subjected to public inquiry each year.5 Public inquiries are generally organised as follows. Supervised by a head of inquiry (commissaire enquêteur ) or by a commission of inquiry (commission d’enquête), inquiries usually last for one month. During this period, the public is free to view documents relating to the project (including environmental impact assessments) and record their observations in a register available in the town halls of each municipality in which the project is to be undertaken. Once complete, the head of inquiry drafts a report in which he/she draws conclusions which can be favourable, unfavourable or favourable but with reservations. In contrast to public inquiries in Britain, French public inquiries are thus essentially a written and very formal procedure. Unlike their British counterparts, French heads of inquiry are not trained professionals who are regularly assessed but, rather, occasional collaborators seconded from government. 160

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Despite successive reforms, much criticism continued to be levelled against public inquiry. Indeed, this process occurred rather late in the decision-making process and was thus referred to, notably by environmental organisations and activists, as a ‘mock democracy’ set up to endorse decisions already taken at a higher level. This criticism paved the way for ‘public debate’ in the 1990s; organised earlier in the process, public debate was implemented for the largest projects. Such debates provided a forum making it possible to discuss the very relevance of projects. Subsequently, as debate on the decision-making process progressed, this issue was considered to be fully resolved. Making environmental impact assessments public via public inquiry enabled associations to act as potential whistle-blowers. For the young Ministry of Environment established in 1971, this development represented a great opportunity as it made it possible to strengthen the role played by the public in general and, specifically, the role of environmental organisations. This was perceived as the best way to protect the environment and mobilise various forms of support from appropriate arenas when necessary. It is a well-known fact that environmental organisations had long acted as ‘decentralised services’ for a Ministry that lacked these services over a long period of time (Lascoumes, 1994). From the emergence of the environmental policy, those responsible for the structurally weak Ministry of Environment thus endeavoured to maintain a close relationship with these ‘supporters’ (Spanou, 1991). Within the context of neo-corporatism à la française (Muller, 1984) characterised by markedly strong sectoral dynamics, the Ministry of the Environment was particularly deprived of resources. Indeed, expertise had been independently produced by the administrative bodies of other ministries and, as such, environmental issues lacked dedicated policy analysis. Consequently, since its establishment in 1971, the Ministry of the Environment has drawn its knowledge from pre-existent major technical institutions: the institute of Bridges (corps des Ponts), the Water and Forestry institute attached to the Ministry of Equipment and Transport, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Mines for projects on soil and energy. Unlike other sectors, the environmental policy does not therefore rely on its own elite institutions, that is, on the specialised state bodies enjoyed by other ministries. While this option had been initially considered, it was finally rejected (Kessler, 1999). Many Environment ministers have described the difficulties which they encounter when dealing with sectors which have specialised bodies at their disposal (see Lepage (1998) for a vivid account of one former Environment Minister). In an attempt to find its place among other more established policy sectors, the environmental policy began to rely on environmental groups, thus giving them a platform to express themselves. The development of an ‘advisory board’ and participatory tools thus gave a voice, and a role, to these more or less institutionalised environmental organisations which provided the ‘support’ mentioned earlier. These organisations’ demands for greater public participation have always been tied to the defence of their inclusion in the development of projects and decision-making.

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Regional rail transport policies The establishment of users’ committees, known as railway committees (comités de ligne), in the early 2000s to support new regional railway policies also made the same strategic use of associative knowledge. After a five-year period during which experiments were conducted in seven regions, the management of the passenger railway service was transferred to French regional councils in 2002. To determine their policy content, that is, the services offered, investment priorities and pricing strategy, these councils were expected to negotiate with the traditional national railway operator (SNCF), a monopoly that enjoyed a very strong position in rail expertise. However, each regional council had already set up a users’ committee between 1999 and 2006. Initiated in Alsace in 1997 and legalised in 2000, these comités de ligne could be described as consultative bodies set up by regional councils on a voluntary basis.6 They brought together various stakeholders such as local elected officials, users (individual or community representatives) and railway unions to discuss the development of the regional transport offer in single railway lines or specific sections of the network. While they differed in name, frequency and in how they monitored proposals, all these users’ committees were actually one and the same mechanism, that is, comités de ligne. The popularity of users’ committees among regional councils today reflects the power struggles specific to the railway sector where regions must assert their legitimacy and credibility. An analysis of how these comités de ligne operate (Gourgues, 2012) reveals how they produce knowledge. Indeed, users’ associations use these mechanisms the most. Specifically, irrespective of the region analysed, there appears to be a small core group of association leaders who regularly attend these committees. This is despite the fact that these associations have considerable expertise in transport issues because of their members’ trajectories (former railway workers, SNCF management, or trainspotters commuting by rail over the years), the existence of nationwide federations, and their ability to give voice to users’ recurring requests (punctuality, schedules, information displays at stations, and so on). This expertise allows them to publicly initiate discussions with the SNCF, which can be technical and even highly specific. Discussions revolve around the problems encountered with specific railway lines such as electrification, equipment available and possible technical solutions. These associations possess alternative knowledge which occasionally enables them to challenge the SNCF’s expertise and demand answers and commitments; specialised agents from regional councils can in turn draw on this knowledge. Several consequences have ensued from the use of ‘comités de ligne’. First, these associations have marginalised the participation of non-members who generally lack the technical skills required to participate in discussions, even when these discussions focus on their problems and their demands. Users seeking to be active participants gradually join other associations which allow them to acquire a sufficient level of expertise. Second, the slowdown of regional investments has been put on the agenda. Indeed, while regional councils sought to increase their legitimacy by relying on expertise from beyond the sphere of the SNCF during 162

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periods of sustained investment (2002–10), the rapid decline of regional interest in these committees has been associated with the sharp slowdown of investment that began in 2010. The participants who had actively participated in discussions thus found it difficult to deal with the progressive lack of interest and challenged the decreasing budget. In both environmental and regional railway policies, public participation mechanisms thus operate as spaces where knowledge and actors are mobilised. They have hence been able to establish a fragile form of legitimacy. Thus has emerged the crucial role of uncertainty that Michel Callon, Pierre Lascoumes and Yannick Barthe (2013) observed when alternative knowledge was sought by challenging expertise. It seems important, however, to underscore that real alternative knowledge and the de-monopolisation of expertise remain closely controlled and relatively constrained within participatory mechanisms. It is not so much a matter of producing knowledge than of mobilising and bringing to the fore cognitive and human resources in terms of support and the ability to mobilise people in the context of emerging policies whose legitimacy is yet to be asserted. Irrespective of whether they are public inquiries or users’ committees, French participatory mechanisms do not produce knowledge in the strictest sense. To understand how they participate in policy analysis, these mechanisms must be analysed as part of a system of interacting institutions, each fighting to impose its own vision of decision-making. While the academic literature has argued that involving the public in policymaking may produce new knowledge to inform decision-making, we found that this view was challenged by those responsible for knowledge production. Moreover, strong advocates of participatory mechanisms were often hard put to give specific examples of these ‘nuggets’ of participation. Indeed, admitting that lay citizens might produce useful knowledge hitherto unknown to the institutions responsible for knowledge production and to policy officials is tantamount to admitting that the expertise is faulty and that the representatives barely represent the concerned parties. This clearly shows that public participation mechanisms challenge the very production and mobilisation of knowledge, as well as its reliability, solidity and even its ‘righteousness’. Public participation thus relies on a fine and hesitant balancing act between giving people greater access to the decision-making process on the one hand, and controlling this access on the other. Why, then, do public officials engage in setting up mechanisms they paradoxically define as useless or dangerous? The answer lies in the power struggles taking place among these officials. Civil servants, for instance, attempt to free themselves from policy-making through public participation and the use of dynamics very similar to what is observed when a new administration is put in charge of producing studies (Mazoyer, 2012): when attempting to limit the influence of administrative departments thought to wield excessive power, policy officials turn to public consultations and committees to obtain valuable support, especially as these can often unilaterally define organisational design. Conversely, mayors can also rely on users’ or residents’ 163

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committees to urge the different departments to change policies. For instance, a Minister might organise a widespread consultation with farmers in the form of a General Assembly for Agricultural Development to stand up to primarily hostile agricultural associations (Suaud, 1984). Local authorities can rely on users’ committees to impose guidelines in relation to new policies when faced with operators who hold most of the expertise. With regard to knowledge production, competition is therefore rife and occurs within the context of consultations and committees. These mechanisms are used and are sometimes created amid institutional struggles between the different administrative and policy sectors. However, while strategic uses by ‘official’ actors exist, little is done to prevent the actors from overstepping the boundaries imposed, especially if they concern social mobilisation.

The increasing complexity of the decision-making process and competing forms of expertise A few French policy studies assert that understanding how target populations perceive government knowledge is essential. They argue that, ‘depending on the contexts and the publics involved, knowledge mobilisation can either contribute to legitimising government bureaucracy or trigger criticism’ (Bongrand et al, 2012). Similarly, studies on the coalition and protest logics at work in environmental assessment worldwide have revealed that the influence produced by knowledge within participatory mechanisms in relation to public decisions depends largely on the power relations established through social mobilisation (Devlin, Yap, 2008). Indeed, how these mechanisms influence knowledge production and mobilisation in policy has remained somewhat ambivalent. In this second section, we will distinguish the different types of potential knowledge mobilisation within the framework of participation mechanisms, irrespective of their origins; indeed, these origins may strengthen decision-makers’ legitimacy or, on the contrary, challenge or outflank them. The mobilisation of unrepresented lay knowledge in the knowledge production system Many participatory mechanisms have failed to produce entirely new knowledge on public policy. However, some authors, especially in France, argue that lay citizens may generate ‘lay knowledge’ which can be distinguished from traditional forms of expertise. The development of public consultation mechanisms is part of a trend which questions the restricted development of scientific and technical expertise (Wynne, 1996; Lascoumes, 2002; Akrich et al, 2010; Barbier, 2013); the existence of ‘dispersed knowledge’ (Sunstein, 2006) thus plays a key role insofar as it justifies the participation of the ‘general’ or ‘lay’ public.

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Michel Callon (1998) has distinguished three models to characterise the relationship between science and society. The first is the ‘public instruction’ model which supports the view that ‘not only must scientists teach the public everything, they can learn nothing from the public’. The second is the ‘public debate’ model in which scientific knowledge is complemented by local, increasingly complex and ever-changing knowledge. Callon argues that public inquiries and public hearings fall within this second model as they rely on comparisons between different viewpoints, forms of knowledge and judgements which, despite their differences, mutually enrich one another. The third is the ‘co-production of knowledge’ model in which scientific expertise not only asks for but also integrates the public’s opinion ‘as soon as the actors start developing knowledge affecting the concerned public’. The co-production of knowledge has received particular attention in sciences studies (Fiorino, 1990) and has also attracted the interest of French urban studies. For instance, Héloïse Nez and Yves Sintomer (2013) have proposed a global typology of the type of knowledge lay citizens participating in policy analysis can produce. These authors have distinguished three types of knowledge: ‘local knowledge’ referring to individuals’ ‘common sense’ or concrete collective experiences; ‘expert or professional knowledge’ linked to an individual’s specific skills or to the production of a second, independent, expert opinion; and ‘political knowledge’ based on individual and collective activism. Naturally, this typology of produced knowledge is politically significant insofar as it is expected to assess the extent to which citizens might contribute to policy-making. Similar expectations can be found at the international level as evidenced by the approaches that focus on evidence-based policies (Corburn, 2005; Cartwright, 2007). There are other types of knowledge related to the contexts of victimised actors or those excluded from the decision-making process. Participatory mechanisms may thus occasionally allow actors relatively excluded from the political process to express themselves: for instance, the priorities and perceptions of a category of the population (the inhabitants of a neighbourhood, youth, elderly or disabled people) can be taken into account to select elements that may be of interest to public policy. A wide range of committees such as youth committees, elders’ committees and neighbourhood committees are in line with this approach. Other mechanisms have sought to include the actors affected by the decisions taken. Public inquiry in France has largely been conceived as a means of preventing future conflicts. Specifically, it has been designed to avoid conflicts over private property issues when projects presumed to be in the general interest are being developed. The ‘taking into account of collateral damage’ thus complements more traditional expropriation processes. These participatory mechanisms thus seek to acknowledge those whom new infrastructure or projects will not directly benefit but who will nonetheless have to bear the inconveniences. On the one hand are thus the beneficiaries of public policy and on the other hand its victims, who are expected to sacrifice their private interests in the interest of the common good. Public inquiry 165

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enables victims’ circumstances to be taken into account and thus implies that, by highlighting their sacrifice, their circumstances may be made more acceptable. Dismissing the objections of those opposed to policies as mere manifestations of the ‘Nimby syndrome’ is therefore an effective means of discrediting actors reluctant to embrace the rules of the game. These mechanisms indirectly enable state authorities to assess the public’s mobilisation on a given issue, providing a variety of potential options to decisionmakers who may or may not use them. Put differently, even in cases where participatory mechanisms allow new policy knowledge to be created, there can be no guarantee that this knowledge will be incorporated into policy-making. Studies on environmental justice have shown how some locations are chosen based on particularly detailed knowledge of the likelihood of protest depending on the socioeconomic characteristics of the residents concerned. In an attempt to intensify monitoring of the population, studies may also be used to more effectively identify potential opponents. Producing different forms of lay knowledge is thus insufficient; indeed, the knowledge must also be integrated into the decisionmaking process and the conditions under which it will be ‘taken into account’ must be clearly defined. What does ‘taking into account’ mean? Highlighting the democratic nature of the decision-making process Studies on policy analysis and policy process study have shown relatively little interest in the knowledge produced via public participation mechanisms. This in itself is revealing. Indeed, the majority of these studies have found that this knowledge plays only a minor role in policy-making (Papadopoulos and Warin, 2007). Contrary to what ‘participation studies’ – which are occasionally normative – may suggest (Blatrix, 2012), it is questionable whether they have any real impact on the content of policies (Blatrix, 2010). While public participation mechanisms help change the power relations between actors or give greater visibility to certain kinds of knowledge such as expert knowledge, these mechanisms do not provide a body of knowledge capable of challenging conventional policy-making processes. The use of deliberative minipublics in France is significant: while these publics are valued as an innovative democratic experience (Gourgues, 2010), they generally represent isolated and one-off operations that hardly challenge the decision-making process. Moreover, outcomes (opinions delivered, recommendations, diagnostics) are integrated into policy analysis only when they are in line with pre-established and dominant knowledge (Barbier et al, 2009). Broadly speaking, the role of participatory mechanisms in policy analysis is guided by a rather restrictive framework and by highly specific expectations. As Archon Fung (2007) argues, public participation is often analysed in terms of policy failures which participation is expected to address. Public participation may thus allow citizens to develop their preferences; it may also monitor changes in preferences, strengthen the accountability of 166

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decision-makers and improve the policy implementation process. This therefore explains why the mechanisms that do not fulfil their assigned functions, or those that go beyond expectations, are unlikely to be integrated into the decisionmaking process. This ambiguity does not only result from the restrictive framework that constrains public participation mechanisms. Applying a gender perspective to participatory mechanisms, Marion Paoletti and Sandrine Rui (2015) argue that participation mechanisms could prevent, in a sophisticated and co-produced way, the emergence of a feminist critical discourse on policies. On the one hand, women attend participatory mechanisms and should, logically, produce such a critique, insofar as their presence supposes that a gender perspective is ‘represented’ in decision-making processes. On the other hand, however, the production of feminist critical policy analysis is often avoided by participants themselves. In the case of males, a universal framing of citizenship and public debate is opposed to gendered perspectives. By contrast, women face a so-called ‘Mary Wollstonecraft dilemma’ (Pateman, 1988) and are caught between claims for equality and/or for difference. Echoing gender policy studies in other national contexts, applying a gender perspective to participation mechanisms in France highlights the need to distinguish between gender inclusiveness in public participation and the development of feminist critical policy analysis within policy-making. It also provides an insightful explication of why a large number of feminist movements still prefer counterpublic strategies (Fraser, 1990), which ensure higher levels of autonomy and critically empowering women, rather than participating to top-down public participation mechanisms. Although single-sex participatory mechanisms do not guarantee a better ability to shape policy outcomes (Sa Vilas Boas, 2016), it nevertheless facilitates the emergence of feminist counterhegemonic discourses. Decisive moments for dominant policy analysis and increasing the visibility of alternative frameworks Individuals may participate in public inquiry or public debate in an attempt to evaluate the soundness of the knowledge on which projects are based. By occasionally undertaking a very thorough analysis of the conditions of production of ‘official expertise’, by demanding or conducting counter-expertise, and by proposing alternative solutions, participants not only subject state knowledge to the test of truth but also assess its soundness. They test the relevance of policy analysis that lies behind projects under discussion (for instance, concerning transport infrastructure or traffic forecasting [Doridot, 2007]) as they force project leaders to disclose their assumptions and methods, and even their beliefs and perceptions of society. The expertise behind the projects may thus emerge as faulty, and it may prove to be outdated and/or to be more closely associated with the preoccupations of a specific group of actors rather than the interests of the public at large (irrespective of whether this concerns state or non-state 167

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actors such as major sports federations or professional organisations) and local authorities. The recent conflict around ‘unnecessary imposed mega projects’ provides a number of examples to illustrate this point.7 Provided that these mechanisms are recognised as such when they are mobilised, they could provide spaces enabling different policy analyses to be compared by undermining the dominant expertise and increasing the visibility of the policy analysis undertaken by objective challengers who are rarely granted access to the public space. Ultimately, these mechanisms bring existing arguments and world views to the fore, even if this means re-establishing the political dimension of competing social projects. Irrespective of whether they involve public inquiries, committees or public debates, participatory mechanisms can become privileged spaces for highlighting alternative frameworks. These alternative frameworks go beyond simply providing counter-expertise as they can pit different definitions of ‘public interest’ against one another. Actors are thus encouraged to commit to social learning which forces them to re-examine their initial preferences. However, the impact of this process on actors’ perceptions and strategies must not be overestimated (Muro and Jeffrey, 2008). Public participation can thus go beyond its initially intended framework and directly influence policy analysis. As evidenced by the example of the burial of nuclear waste (Barthe, 2002), the production of expert knowledge can elude policymakers. As a result, power relations favouring some form of counterexpertise or the dominant view may emerge and obstruct the decision-making process. In the case of nuclear waste mentioned above, the scope of the public problem evolved during the public inquiry, following a struggle that highlighted competing arguments. A number of public inquiries have given rise to largescale mobilisations and thus enabled activist networks to challenge the directions in which policies have developed: in the transport sector, the primacy of the motorway network at the expense of the railway was denounced by opponents, at a time when environmental concerns were beginning to be heard. The same issue was raised in relation to the development of high-speed trains at the expense of local railway services. The circulation of the policy process analysis Whatever their degree of control, participatory mechanisms bring different viewpoints to the fore and help give them a voice. They go well beyond policy analysis and analyse the policy-making process itself. Put differently, public participation mechanisms provide knowledge on policies that drive actors’ actions as well as on how government and politics function. The creation of the aforementioned French public debate procedure is worth mentioning. Towards the end of the 1980s, a public inquiry was established to examine a new high-speed train project (TGV Méditerranée). It was during this process that critics of public inquiry and of the decision-making process itself voiced strong criticism. The lack of transparency in the decision-making process was denounced because the major 168

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infrastructure projects were seen as imposed by the state. While the opponents did not dispute the choice of location, they challenged the very relevance of the projects. Following this conflict, a procedural concession to involve opponents was made. Discussions were held on how the concept of public utility might be reformed and a new procedure referred to as ‘public debate’ was created. This procedure was to be carried out under the auspices of an independent commission entitled the ‘National Public Debate Commission’.  Analysing how these mechanisms function thus draws our attention to another important characteristic of public participation: while public participation produces knowledge on public policy (policy analysis), it invariably results in an analysis of the decision-making process itself (policy process analysis). Criticism has often been levelled against the decision-making process during the moments of mobilisation previously mentioned: decisions were hardly based on sound and reliable policy studies, choices lacked transparency and were dependent on political calculations, and the public decision-making process favoured specific questionable interests. Far from unanimously supporting the organisation of public inquiries and debates, participants took advantage of public participation mechanisms to explicitly challenge the decision-making mechanisms and the legitimacy of both dominant knowledge and decision-makers, forcing them to justify themselves. Analysing how public debates function, Sandrine Rui (2004) has shown that the decision-making process itself often fuels controversy. French public inquiry thus has a rather intriguing nature. While participatory mechanisms are set up to address the social criticism levelled against the decision-making process (policy process analysis), the manner in which these mechanisms function continues to reveal that these problems remain persistent and that the decisionmaking process never really changes. Recent examples of violent conflicts around major French development projects, including the zones to be defended (zones à défendre [ZAD]) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes [airport project] and Sivens [dam project], are strongly reminiscent of environmental conflicts in the 1970s and 1980s. These examples show that participatory mechanisms do not systematically lead to a greater acceptability of proposed projects.

Conclusion Analysed in terms of policy analysis, participatory mechanisms such as public inquiries or committees lie at the heart of a certain degree of tension: while they are rarely set up to produce original knowledge on public policies, the mobilisation they favour may occasionally reorganise the long-held conventional knowledge and invoke criticism of the decision-making process itself. As evidenced by the French example, it thus seems crucial to analyse public participation from a broader perspective that focuses on the conventional forms of policy-making and takes into account representative, administrative, economic and scientific elites. The design, implementation and functioning of participatory mechanisms are closely associated with shifts in the power relations within and beyond the circle 169

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of influence of the institutional actors responsible for policy-making. These power relations largely determine what, if anything, public participation mechanisms might change in terms of policy analysis. Notes 1 2 3

4

5 6 7

See Chapter Thirteen. See Chapter Fourteen. According to article L1223-1 of the Environmental Code, the objective of public inquiry is to inform the public and allow them to participate in decision-making in issues likely to affect the environment. All collected information is taken into account by both the project supervisor and the decision-makers. An analysis of parliamentary sessions at the National Assembly in 1975-1976 shows that public participation is viewed as a guarantee for the quality of impact assessment (Nungesser, 1976). The draft decree communicated to the managing committee specified that the project manager was solely responsible for conducting the impact assessment or, alternatively, for commissioning someone to conduct it, and he/she alone was responsible for drawing the consequences from the assessment’s conclusions. As such, the quality of the assessment was not guaranteed and managers could even view impact assessments as a mere formality: ‘Indeed, nothing can guarantee the quality and reliability of the study commissioned by the project manager. To meet the legal requirements, he/she needs only give a reasoned opinion on a study even if it provides no guarantees. The project manager is thus free to harm the environment as he/she wants’ (Nungesser, 1976). Consequently, project managers are required by the Commission responsible for studying the draft law to make the environmental impact assessment public: ‘Everyone can thus be informed of the consequences of the planned works and the mere fact that the assessment is made public should deter its authors from being too (sic) sloppy’ (Nungesser, 1976). There has been a recent decrease (to approximately 5,000 projects) following the recent reforms seeking to simplify environmental law. While the Solidarity and Urban Renewal Act (SRU) enabled these committees to be set up, regional councils were not legally bound. We can briefly cite the project of the Sivens dam constructed across the Tescou River and the project seeking to expand the Roland Garros stadium.

References Akrich, M., Barthe, Y., Rémy, C. (2010) Sur la piste environnementale: Menaces sanitaires et mobilisations profanes, Paris: Presses de l’ École des Mines. Barbier, M. (2013) ‘Pour une approche pragmatique, écologique et politique de l’expertise’, Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances 7(1), 1–23. Barbier, R., Bedu, C., Buclet, N. (2009), ‘Portée et limites du dispositif “jury citoyen”: Réflexions à partir du cas de Saint-Brieuc’, Politix 2(86), 189–207. Barnes, M., Newman, J., Sullivan, H. (eds) (2007) Power, Participation and Political Renewal: Case Studies in Public Participation, Bristol: Policy Press. Barthe, Y. (2013) ‘Rendre discutable: Le traitement politique d’un héritage technologique’, Politix 15(57), 57–78. Blatrix, C. (2010) ‘Démocratie locale et débat public’, in O. Borraz, V. Guiraudon (eds) Politiques publiques 2, pp. 213–42, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Blatrix, C. (2012) ‘Des sciences de la participation: Paysage participatif et marché des biens savants en France’, Quaderni 79, 59–80. 170

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Bongrand, P., Gervais, J., Payre, R. (2012) ‘Les savoirs de gouvernement à la frontière entre “administration” et “politique”’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(4), 9–20. Callon, M. (1998) ‘Des différentes formes de démocratie technique’, Annales des mines - Responsabilité et environnement 9, 63-73. Callon, M., Lascoumes, P., Barthe, Y. (2013) Acting in an uncertain world, Boston, MA: MIT Press. Cartwright, N. (2007) Evidence-based Policy: Where is our Theory of Evidence?, London: London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and San Diego, CA: University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Chilvers, J. (2008) ‘Environmental risk, uncertainty, and participation: Mapping an emergent epistemic community’, Environment and Planning A 40(12), 2990–3008. Corburn, J. (2005) Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Devlin, J., Yap, N. (2008) ‘Contentious politics in environmental assessment: Blocked projects and winning coalitions’, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 26(1), 17–27. Doridot, F. (2007) ‘Débattre publiquement autour des chiffres: Quelques enjeux de la controverse sur les flux dans le débat LAALB’, in M. Revel, C. Blatrix, L. Blondiaux, J-M. Fourniau, B. Hériard Dubreuil, R. Lefebvre (eds) Le débat public: Une expérience française de démocratie participative, Paris: La Découverte. Fiorino, D.J. (1990) ‘Citizen participation and environmental risk: A survey of institutional mechanisms’, Science, Technology and Humans Values 15(2), 226–43. Fischer, F. (2000) Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Fischer, F. (2012) ‘Participatory governance: From theory to practices’, in L.-F. David (ed) Oxford Handbook of Governance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fraser, N. (1990) ‘Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy’, Social Text 25/26, 56–80. Fung, A. (2007) ‘Democracy and the policy process’, in M. Moran, M. Rein, R. Goodin (eds) Oxford Handbook of Public Policy, pp. 669–85, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fung, A., Wright, E.O. (eds) (2003) Deepening democracy: Institutional innovations in empowered participatory governance, London: Verso. Goodin, R.E. (2008) Innovating Democracy: Democratic Theory after the Deliberative Turn, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gourgues, G. (2010) ‘Studying the region as a space for democracy: A sociological approach of regional politics’, Regional and Federal Studies 20(3), 353–69. Gourgues, G. (2012) ‘Des dispositifs participatifs aux politiques de la participation. L’exemple des conseils régionaux français’, Participations 1(2), 30–52. Hisschemöller, M., Hoppe, R., Dunn, W.N., Ravetz, J.R. (eds) (2001) ‘Knowledge, power, and participation in environmental policy analysis: An introduction’, Policy Studies Review Annual 12, 1–28.

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Kessler, M.-C. (1999) ‘Pourquoi n’y a-t-il pas de corps de l’environnement?’, in P. Lascoumes (ed) Instituer l’environnement. Vingt-cinq ans d’administration de l’environnement, pp. 71–85, Paris: L’Harmattan. Lascoumes, P. (1994) L’éco-pouvoir: Environnements et politiques, Paris: La Découverte. Lascoumes, P. (2002) ‘L’expertise, de la recherche d’une action rationnelle à la démocratisation des connaissances et des choix’, Revue française d’administration publique 103(3), 369–77. Le Clainche, M. (2011) ‘L’administration consultative, élément constitutif ou substitut de la démocratie administrative  ?’, Revue Française d’Administration Publique, 137–8(1), 328–48. Lepage, C. (1998) On ne peut rien faire, Madame le Ministre…, Paris: Albin Michel. Lowndes, V., Pratchett, L., Stoker, G. (2001) ‘Trends in public participation: Part 1 – Local government perspectives’, Public Administration, 79(1), 205–22. Mazoyer, H. (2012) ‘La construction du rôle d’ingénieur-économiste au ministère des Transports: Conseiller le politique, résister au comptable et discipliner le technician (1958–1966)’, Gouvernement et action publique 4(4), 9–20. Muller, P. (1984) Le technocrate et le paysan, Paris: Les Éditions ouvrières. Muro, M., Jeffrey, P. (2008) ‘A critical review of the theory and application of social learning in participatory natural resource management processes’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 51(3), 325–44. Nez, H., Sintomer, Y. (2013) ‘Qualifier les savoirs citoyens dans l’urbanisme participatif ’, in A. Deboulet, H. Nez (eds) Savoirs citoyens et démocratie urbaine, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Nungesser, M. (1976) Rapport au nom de la commission de la production et des échanges, National Assembly, 2372, Paris: Assemblée Nationale. Paoletti, M., Rui, S. (2015) ‘La démocratie participative a-t-elle un sexe?’, Participations 2(12), 5–29. Papadopoulos, Y., Warin, P. (2007) ‘Are innovative, participatory and deliberative procedures in policy-making democratic and effective?’, European Journal of Political Research 46(4), 445–72. Pateman, C. (1988) The Sexual Contract, Cambridge: Polity Press. Pratchett, L. (1999) ‘New fashions in public participation: Towards greater democracy?’, Parliamentary Affairs 52(4), 616–33. Rui, S. (2004) Les citoyens face à l’action publique, Paris: Armand Colin. Sa Vilas Boas, M.-H. (2016) ‘The social anchoring of representation: Becoming a spokesperson in municipal women’s conferences in Recife, Brazil’, Revue française de science politique 1(66), 71–89. Schäfer, A., Streeck, W. (eds) (2013) Politics in the age of austerity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Smith, G. (2009) Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizens Participation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spanou, C. (1991) Fonctionnaires et militants: L’administration et les nouveaux mouvements sociaux, Paris: L’Harmattan. 172

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Suaud, C. (1984) ‘Le mythe de la base: Les Etats Généraux du développement agricole et la production d’une parole paysanne’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 52–3(1), 56–79. Sunstein, C.R. (2006) Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge, New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, Y. (1968) L’administration consultative, Paris: Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence. Wynne, B. (1996) ‘May the sheep safely graze? A reflexive view of the expert–lay knowledge divide’, in S. Lash, B. Szerszynski, B. Wynne (eds) Risk, Environment and Modernity, pp. 44–83, London: Sage.

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Management consultants as policy actors Julie Gervais and Frédéric Pierru In the literature related to corporate participation in public policies, the case of France is often considered as an exception. French so-called resistance to consultants is often put down to the organisation of its senior civil service around Grands Corps. It is the very existence of these prestigious bodies deemed to show resistance to any kind of competitors coming from the private sector which would explain the fact that corporate actors are less present in the public sector than in other countries (Saint-Martin, 2000a; 2000b). This thesis conceals the growth of ‘consultocracy’ (Hood and Jackson, 1991, 224) in France since the beginning of the 2000s, but it also artificially opposes two groups: corporate actors on the one side and public ones on the other, which are both supposed to protect the price and the legitimacy of their own expertise. A close sociological study of their training, trajectories and careers shows that they are much more intermingled and similar than the common picture seems to indicate. Being in a sociological position of homology, many consultants and high civil servants in France have common interests, speak alike, share the same values and follow similar careers (Gervais, 2012). This paper summarises the main steps which contributed to consultants’ increasing deployment in French public policies and seeks to describe the type of service they aim to deliver, as well as what decision-makers may consider as their ‘added-value’. It argues that a critical part of their increasing deployment within French public policies and administrative reforms relies on their legitimising effects over change. By doing so, it highlights the national variations at stake in terms of their involvement and the extent to which they have an impact on the French public sector.

The consultant: the new state expert icon French nineteenth-century experts belonged to a clearly defined and bounded world, and were closely linked to academia and the scientific field. They derived their social recognition, credibility and legitimacy from their scientific knowledge (Berrebi-Hoffmann and Lallement, 2009). In sharp contrast with these nineteenth-century characters, today’s experts work for corporate firms, devise performance targets and set efficiency savings programmes. This shift occurred during the late twentieth-century in France, when state reform expertise moved from the field of intellectuals and academics to that of consultants and think tanks (Berrebi-Hoffmann and Grémion, 2009). France was first characterised 175

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by its internal expertise capacity via the state-controlled training of experts and controllers belonging to the senior civil service, organised into unified and quite powerful bodies called Grands Corps. In the 1970s, large consulting firms started getting involved in public sector ‘modernisation’ process. For example, the corporate transformation of the French postal service was prepared by confidential reports from McKinsey & Co (Vezinat, 2015). During the heyday of French consulting firms, in the 1980s, technical Grand Corps and some ‘intellectuals’ closely worked together. They used organisational knowledge promoted by anti-bureaucratic thinkers such as Michel Crozier, himself closely related to rightwing managerial circles and governmental boards and commissions (Magnin, 2010). Specialised in organisational issues, French consultancy firms acted as mediators between Anglo-Saxon managerial culture and administrative elites’ knowledge (Berrebi-Hoffmann and Grémion, 2009). Hence until the 1990s, state expertise was a matter for high civil servants, political elites, some business leaders, along with a few carefully selected academics, intellectuals, journalists and union leaders gathered in closed clubs. They soon will be overthrown by big Anglo-Saxon consultancy firms which underwent major economic growth in France, especially as a result of restructuration programmes accompanying French public companies in their privatisation process during the 1990s. From the 1990s onwards, alongside the expansion of new public management (NPM) ideology on the continent, big consultancy firms started investing the flourishing market of French general government by intensifying their contacts with senior civil servants (Bezes, 2012), transferring their engineering knowledge from big companies to state related matters, and by hiring high civil servants and graduates from French Grandes Écoles. After undergoing a period of concentration, these big companies opened up ‘public sector and government’ departments, first focused on data processing, then on audit and public accounting reforms, and finally on ‘state reorganisations and de-bureaucratisation’ (Berrebi-Hoffmann and Grémion, 2009, 56). These companies now provide a large variety of services, from IT infrastructures, benchmarking databases, change management projects, cost and quality service improvements to organisational design, risk assessment studies, cost-cutting reforms and outsourcing strategies. If the Commissariat à la réforme de l’État temporarily resorted to consultants in the late 1990s (Bezes, 2012, 30), it is really at the beginning of the 2000s that contacts between consulting companies and senior civil servants started developing on a more regular basis. Hence two major state reforms are symbolic of the intensification and the widespread diffusion of NPM standards in French administration. First, the Constitutional bylaw of 2001 on budget acts (also known as LOLF in French), enforced in 2006, introduced new rules for preparing and implementing the state budget by moving from a resource-based to a resultsbased approach. It set the institutional and legal conditions for public spending to become outcome-oriented with performance indicators, justification from the first euro spent, rendering of accounts, and results evaluation. The LOLF mobilised consultancy firms such as McKinsey-Accenture, Capgemini-Boston Consulting 176

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Group or Ernst & Young which played a major role in the 2006 ‘modernisation audits’ which put together high civil servants and consultants in order to closely examine public policies in a budgetary-cuts approach. Launched in 2007 and inspired by the Canadian Program Review, the French General Review of Public Policies (RGPP) placed strategy consultants ‘at the heart of the state’, assigning them ‘a role unheard of in the French context’ (Bezes, 2012, 33). The RGPP initiated both a quantitative and a qualitative shift in the involvement of consulting firms within the French state. It opened up a very specific configuration of state reform introducing two major changes in comparison with previous reforms. On the one hand, ‘state reform’-related matters fell within the Ministry of Budget’s remit, symbolising a turning point to a more budget-based approach. On the other hand, as was the case with its Canadian counterpart, the RGPP was highly politicised. It was at the heart of Sarkozy’s campaign for the 2007 presidential election as he framed it as a symbol of his political voluntarism and leadership. Once Sarkozy was elected, the first steps of the RGPP were launched in May–June 2007, with an early involvement of Capgemini. The Directorate-General for the Modernisation of the State (Direction générale de la Modernisation de l’État [DGME]), an interministerial body responsible for coordinating the transformation of French government, was in charge of organising auditing teams which paired high civil servants and consultants from major multinational firms. By favouring the latter, the DGME excluded smaller consulting firms from the deal and gave priority to standardised international solutions (Bezes, 2012, 32) designed by McKinsey Accenture, Capgemini-Boston Consulting Group and Ernst and Young. The RGPP thus enabled strategy consultants to make an entrance at the heart of the French state. At the articulation between French administration and the corporate world, the DGME, led by François-Daniel Migeon, a senior civil servant who worked as an associate partner at McKinsey company for eight years, was staffed with consultants on short-term contracts coming from major companies such as Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, McKinsey, Ernst & Young, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, and so on. Between 2007 and 2011, the budget devoted to auditing services and modernisation impact studies amounted to €111 million. If these sequences represent major trends, many public policies have their specific temporality and logic (Boussard et al, 2015). For example, it was shown that French police reforms were less radical than Anglo-Australian ones because external consultants and experts were less involved in their design (de Maillard, 2009). However, ad hoc policy decisions on ‘urban safety’ in particular contributed to the consulting market boom in the mid-1990s. By requiring that local authorities carry out ‘local security diagnostics’, French executives facilitated the structuring of a consultancy market dominated by two large firms (Bonelli, 2009). In the hospital sector, reforms from the mid-1980s also contributed to the emergence of small consultancy firms, often founded by former health professionals and hospital managers. The gradual deployment of NPM in the 1990s did not create a consultancy market ex nihilo; rather it played a part in its restructuring (Pierru, 177

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2012). Soon though, small firms were crowded out by major transnational firms entering the market while the state reform went into ‘industrial mode’ (Bezes, 2012). In other words, every public policy area reflects the dominant trends in its own history and its institutional configuration.

Felicity conditions for resorting to consultants The circulation between the private and the public spheres helps to understand how a hybrid elite of general government works hand in hand in the development and diffusion of NPM ideas within the French state. The ideological impregnation which turns the corporate system into a model and NPM doctrine as an obvious and imperious necessity also finds its roots in the evolution of French high civil servants’ training (Gervais, 2007) and in civil service competitive examinations’ reforms such as that of hospital managers which subsequently changed the social backgrounds of its candidates, now more willing to ‘take on a rewarding managerial role’ (Pierru, 2012, 37). However, the control which consultants have over public sector organisations they are paid to transform is not only due to their social proximity to political and administrative elites. In the case of gender experts and consultants promoting diversity, equal opportunities and environmental protection within the public sector, a market which has significantly grown since the 2000s in France, specialists circulate back and forth from the worlds of academia, social movements and expertise. Consultants can also find allies lower in the hierarchy. In the case of the privatisation of electricity (EDF), consultants found resonance among individuals in non-managerial positions who had spent their entire career in the public company: those forced to take circuitous routes in order to get promoted saw the collaboration with consultants as an opportunity to show their technical expertise in accordance with their ‘public service spirit’ (Thine, 2012). Similarly, in hospitals, consultants met the interest of professionals working in dominated medical areas (Pierru, 2013) or positioned at the margins of their organisation (Belorgey, 2010). Thus consultants can rely both on their proximity to political and administrative elites and their one-off alliances with collective and individual actors dominant in their professional positions. Beyond the mapping of alliances which created work and contract opportunities, one has to pay attention to what consultants actually provide in order to understand the conditions in which executives resort to them. Consultants’ contribution often comes down to a methodological input (Boni-Le Goff, 2012). Their added value stems from the gradual development of standard tools transferable from one sector to another, and not from any specific knowledge regarding the subject or area they are meant to reorganise – this knowledge often being non-existent at the start of their missions. Their tools are of four types: work organisation in project mode; methods of simplifying data processing and analysis production; methods of collaborative work (animation methods, for example); and presentation of the results, whereby PowerPoint supplants the traditional administrative report. These skills and tools are not generally mastered by administrators. In the 2009 178

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case of the merger of state services and health insurance in French regional health agencies (ARS), a ‘project group’ was set up following the implementation of the law. This group included a handful of senior officials, acquainted with the ins and outs of health administration, but also many junior consultants who were not familiar with the area. Three reasons explain the pervasiveness of consultancy in this case. First, the merger process bears the mark of the RGPP which involved a qualitative leap in the use of consultants by the state. Second, the ‘project group’ struggled to recruit senior officials as they were reluctant to take on temporary positions; and third, officials poorly mastered the skills and techniques of project management. Hence interviews conducted with officials show their ambivalence toward consultants: they often lament consultants’ ignorance of the subjects at stake but they concede that the latter provided resources which French administration internally lacked. Even when they were sceptical, these officials considered that if it hadn’t been for the consultants’ work, the reform could not have been carried out within the very short timeframe imposed by political executives. Finally, the success of consultancy lies in the legitimising effects it has on public policies and administrative reforms. Management consultants admit themselves ‘sugaring the pill for the staff’ (Pierru, 2012, 42), helping executives implement their agendas, or gathering information and material in order to justify a decision already made. Even gender equality consultants, who work on translating feminist theories to practitioners (Bustelo et al, 2016, 13) and seek to get this information ‘incorporated into formally adopted rules, statutes, actions and/or decrees of the organisation in question’ (Hoard, 2015, 3), cannot always escape the ‘smothering of feminist knowledge’ (Davids and Eerdewijk, 2016) and its colonisation by neoliberalism (Rottenberg, 2014). Often, decision-makers are after a ‘linguistic paraphernalia’ (Sorignet, 2012, 26) which would be authoritative insofar as it comes from the private sector, sanctioned as the legitimate model to be followed. The very mention of the consulting firm’s label as the source of the diagnosis establishes the authority of the decision and tends to make the arbitrary nature of the recommendations acceptable (Gantenbein, 1993). The service of management consultants may also be helpful insofar as it provides an external point of view so that executives seeking blame-avoidance can distance and protect themselves from possible controversies. It furthermore enables decision-makers to bypass potential resistance from public agents. Their externality and the temporality of their interventions reduce the potential for the formation of an autonomous group which would gather support and oppose ‘change’ from within. According to NPM’s anti-bureaucratic ideology and the distrust of civil servants it promotes, resorting to consultants acts as a check on any hint of resistance from the primarily concerned staff. Hence far from the claim of neutral and objective expertise, one can see management consultants’ intervention as inherently political in the way that it acts as a useful instrument in order to overcome oppositions, weaken internal positions and make people accept controversial reforms (Poupeau et al, 2012). In the end, research conducted on various public policies show that the structure of consultancy markets, the role and degree of penetration of consultants in 179

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decision-making processes, and their impact on final results and outputs widely vary. Even after the 2000s, consultants are often not in a situation of omnipotence (Poupeau et al, 2012). From this point of view, the ‘cognitive tutelage’ exercised by the few specialists in financial engineering over public policymakers about the private finance initiative (PFI) (Deffontaine, 2012) cannot be compared to the weak position of small consulting firms intervening in the ‘strategy and urban projects’ market (Linossier, 2012). In one case, consultants coming from major companies who master highly technical financial instruments are the only ones who can get into the black box of contract tendering. Policymakers are content with a few indicators and ratings on the various projects tendered. The asymmetry of skills between them is difficult to reduce. The first reason is because of a lack of financial and internal resources in the public sector. The second is because the circulation at work plays against such a trend: civil servants who could receive specific training would immediately get poached by a private company offering an incomparably attractive salary (Deffontaine, 2012). In the other case, the situation is dominated by officials for the consultancy market is fragmented, unclear, unstable and economically weak. In this case, consultants are only secondary participants in a market which is the preserve of public organisations. Consulting firms working for this atypical trade have no choice but to develop business strategies to bring out their professional network or to diversify their skills and professional experiences. Consultants’ careers in town and country planning evolve at the articulation of several professional circles, between public and private sectors, political and technical worlds, academic and practical fields. Resources mobilised also vary depending on configurations. In the first case, the technical monopoly of consultants is a key resource in relations with policymakers. In the second, the consultants have ‘niche strategies’ and they rely on relationships, particularly among their political networks. Finally, the border between consultancy and final decision is mobile, according to the balance of power between the different members of the consulting relationship. Hence the thesis of ‘consultocracy’ requires careful handling. We should not only consider the few striking reform cases in which consultants from multinational consulting companies played a leading role. Here as elsewhere, the researcher must pay attention to the particularities of public policy sectors, their history and their institutional configuration.

The impact of consultancy If some authors consider that management consultants’ implication in the reform of the state has ‘powerful effects on the content and the forms of reform policies’ (Bezes, 2012, 35; Saint-Martin, 2000a), the great paradox which characterises consultants’ work, according to others, is the impossibility of assessing their interventions and their impact in the name of their prescriptions’ autonomy (Thine, 2006). Because consultants strive to disappear behind their principals, their activities remain in the shadows, especially during the development phase 180

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of reforms. Then the instruments they develop constitute the bulk of their firms’ capital: the secret is jealously guarded and often sheltered from researchers. However, some social scientists managed to get hired as consultants in public agencies, hence getting the opportunity to watch consultants at work, as in the case of Nicolas Belorgey who studied the deployment of NPM in French public hospitals (Belorgey, 2010). Critical to the consultant’s impact will then be her or his position in the division of labour reform which can vary greatly from one public sector to another. In other areas, a limited amount of research shows how consultants directly inspired the content of reforms they led. Thus, the few firms specialised in lean management directly affected the streamlining of administrative procedures, particularly in prefectures, under the RGPP sequence of French state reform process (Bezes, 2012). While it is often practically ‘impossible to determine whether a consultancy mission has succeeded or failed’ (Henry, 1992, 38), the attempts to control the controllers seem nevertheless to have led to an ever-expanding auditing machinery, multiplying assessment levels with a proliferation of indicators in a systemic and profitable logic (Berrebi-Hoffmann and Lallement, 2009, 8–11) with a clearly perceptible impact: the self-reproduction of the consultancy market. In their search for profit, management consultants create problems which they will be paid to fix, producing a self-maintained consulting inflationary spiral. It is the case with the development of PFI whereby large consulting firms, in spite of the accumulated failures of this mode of public investments, encourage the development of the market by ‘educating’ their public customers (Deffontaine, 2012) – what they also call ‘market education’ in order to ‘open up officials’ minds’, ‘create mature customers’ and ‘raise executives’ awareness’ (Gervais, 2012, 19). Existing research also shows the impact of consultancy standardisation on public sector reforms and public policies. Time pressure, the availability of business models from the private sector to be made standard, as well as the deliberate ignorance or lack of knowledge of public sector’s constraints and specific values lead management consultants to safely choose the route of imitation and ready-made solutions. In the case of the French public radio and television reform, consultants ‘eradicate[d] any organisational memory’ by adopting a ‘de-historicising approach’ (Sorignet, 2012, 28) and drastically framing what was thinkable and what was not, what was relevant and what was not, what was feasible and what was not. In this case, the appointment of previously privatesector managers in key positions in the public radio and television sector opened up new opportunities for consultants. The idea that the reform was about putting an end to cumbersome bureaucracy and unnecessary administrative procedures was constantly reinforced both by public managers and private consultants. ‘Public ways’ of dealing with reforms were systematically disparaged in regards to a supposedly flexible, effective and efficient ‘private-sector approach’ to change. By resorting to an obscure and technical wording, incomprehensible to nonspecialists, consultants managed to neutralise potential criticisms from employees. The latter were left totally confused, incapable of levelling any criticism as they just 181

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‘didn’t understand a damn thing!’ (Sorignet, 2012). It was even more difficult to accept that it was the very definition of their job as journalists which was at stake. Hence, the employment of private consultants by the new managerial team aimed to naturalise the reform and avoid ‒ or ‘exernalise’ ‒ responsibility for any blame while, at the same time, making its content very difficult to grasp by those who were directly affected by it. In this way, consultants exert a real ‘symbolic violence’ over employees, while the plans and procedures they implement deeply transform the latter’s daily professional activities. This double dispossession, both lexical and practical, undergone by civil servants and employees of the public sector in regards to the reforms they are subjected to is at work in other fields of state reform. In French hospitals for example, the neo-managerial language spread by consultants and used by the new leadership who now run hospital complexes and their staff doesn’t fit the work realities of clinicians. The latter find this mismatch difficult to express and lack the categories and standards through which to oppose this neo-managerialism. How indeed can one counter organisational transformations which claim to adhere to ‘efficiency’ and ‘performance’, invoke ‘healthcare quality’ and refer to the alleged objectivity of managerial quantification? The healthcare elite is discredited and denigrated as the representative of the ‘old world’ attached to its privileges while ‘the modern’ managers associate themselves with apparently irrefutable and objective standards of ‘performance’, ‘efficiency’, ‘accountability’ and ‘healthcare quality and security’. These standards are further fortified by being embedded in larger discourses of economic growth and democracy. The public sector ends up with hastily tacked-on grid and schemes, often totally ‘unsuited to administrative realities’ (Pierru, 2012, 45). In the French health sector, consultants − who increasingly come from large consultancy firms – totally lack ‘organisational memory’ or the very understanding of professional identities and practices of the sector. The exteriority of management consultants’ intervention allows them to keep staff at bay and ignore the people primarily targeted by the measures they prescribe. The marginalisation or exclusion of civil servants and the absence of recognition of their skills, competencies and indigenous knowledge bears a strong link to the impact of management consultant’s intervention on public agents’ work, stress and motivation. In the case of French hospitals’ reforms, consultants’ industrial vision of medicine run counter to the autonomy of health professionals. Closely associated with the development of HPST (relating to hospitals, patients, health and territories [hôpital, patients, santé, territoires]), as part of the RGPP, they implemented reorganisation schemes that did not take into account the historical institutional rivalry between the French state and French public welfare system (Sécurité sociale). In line with the Trojan horse strategy, however, their implication in designing the law allowed them to conquer new markets: they are now closely associated with hospital reorganisations and the certification of hospitals’ accounts. At this stage, they contribute to the trivialisation of public service delivery: they apply blunt tools and tack on worldviews that are largely unaware of the hospital sector’s specificities – among which are its public status, public service constraints, or the independence of health professionals. 182

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Sponsored by local and national supervisory authorities, consultants’ intervention is often resented by hospitals’ staff: their high cost is weighed against the pointlessness of their recommendations to achieve ‘performance leaps’. If one now turns to the field of local authorities, a similar phenomenon is at stake. State services and planning agencies had a quasi-monopoly on expertise until the 1980s but decentralisation laws, the development of internal expertise by local authorities, the investment of large consultancy firms into local public management, pressures from the European Union, and the growing number of public–private partnerships (PPPs) changed the situation (Abiker, 1996). Now consultants convey a cross-sector and ‘deterritorialised’ expertise, focused on a unique conception of ‘performance’ (Bérard, 2011) regardless of the distinctive social, historical, economic or political features of a particular area. In the same perspective, consultants translate issues into their own categories of understanding and transcribe situations into their corporate language in order to reduce uncertainties or dilute any specificity into standardised categories and handy one-size-fits-all solutions. In other words, they format the thinkable. Being confined to a methodological dimension, consultants seemingly comply with their principals’ autonomy. The former apparently fades behind the latter. Consultants tend indeed to present the methodological skills and tools they sell to executives as politically neutral ones, their neutrality justifying their high level of formalisation and standardisation, as well as their transferability from one sector to another. But as with any other policy tools, consultants’ instruments are obviously not neutral (Chiappello and Gilbert, 2013). First, their transferability only goes one way: from the private sector, adorned with all the virtues, to the public sector, which organisation and working methods are deemed as disqualified. Therefore, and second, these tools implicitly convey the dominant rationality of their place of manufacturing, namely industrial rationality. They produce effects of truth and interpretation of the world. Specifically, they convey a managerialist and productionist philosophy. In the hospital sector for example, under the guise of promoting ‘quality’ in emergency services, consultants sent by the National Agency for Support to Performance (ANAP) generated productivity indicators – for waiting time in casualty departments, for example (Belorgey, 2010). Presenting quantitative indicators as qualitative ones partly countered medical oppositions: no professional could openly oppose the official objective of improving the quality of the services he or she delivered. In general, benchmarking indicators produced by consultants encapsulate arbitrary conceptions of organisations and public activities (Bruno and Didier, 2013). In the case of PFI, the high technicality of the financial instruments endows the consultants who master them with control over policymakers. Along the way, the complexity and technicality involved played a part in naturalising the requirements of lenders and investors. Technical tools transform public facilities into financial assets and consultants create ‘good [public] clients’, in line with financial markets’ standards (Deffontaine, 2012).

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Opposing consultants’ intervention is particularly difficult as they are mobilised and supported by administrative and political elites, as they develop esoteric language and instruments, and find objective allies among dominated subjects in workplaces undergoing ‘modernisation’. Admittedly, consultants are ridiculed because they are expensive and because they are ignorant of the sectors which they reform. This satire however has not stopped the normalisation and everyday usage of their services. Consultants’ intervention drove labour unions to shift their approach from contentious to managerial. Thus, some labour unions have developed a ‘counter-expertise’ through specialised firms. For example, France Telecom Orange, which used to be a public utility (Postes et Télécommunications [PTT]) before its privatisation in 1996, since had to face an increasing number of suicides from its employees subjected to continuous restructuring plans. These suicides led labour unions to resort to consulting firms which shared their views in order to develop an expertise in ‘psychosocial risks’. Union counter-expertise does empower employees to challenge consultants in charge of restructuring plans. However, resorting to this type of collective action strategy is likely to further isolate the leadership from the grassroots and weaken union solidarity. Thus, struggles about working conditions increasingly oppose experts of one kind or another, while employees barely have any influence over them. Caught by the competition at work in the consulting business, some consulting firms created by large groups of affiliated trade unions are even tempted to play the competitive game with incumbent consulting firms (Henry, 2012). In the end, consultants are key players of the ‘mimetic institutional isomorphism process’ (Di Maggio and Powell, 1983). By crossing organisational boundaries and circulating highly formalised tools and standardised practices, they contribute to the structuring of ‘organisational fields’. They participate both in the dedifferentiation of the state and the loss of organisational diversity within the state. They are key operators of the ‘neoliberal bureaucratisation’ of the world (Hibou, 2012) and they are involved in the dynamic of ‘growing integration’ – as understood in the theory and history of firms (Chandler, 1977) – of ‘professional bureaucracies’ (Benamouzig and Pierru, 2012). Meanwhile, the spread of the same standardised methods such as lean management ignores the specific nature of certain social practices. This is particularly true in all areas where ‘prudential practice professions’, such as medicine, teaching or social work, operate (Champy, 2011). Professionals in such fields must enjoy a certain autonomy of thinking because they work on singular, complex and uncertain cases. The dissemination of standardised working methods which closely monitor professional autonomy is a hindrance to what Aristotle called ‘phronesis’ (practical wisdom). In doing so, consultants contribute to the degradation of the quality of professional services while claiming to do the opposite. It is no coincidence that the rise of large consulting firms in public policy was contemporary to the convergence of various professional mobilisations in the ‘Appel des appels’ (Gori et al, 2009). In the case of hospitals, the RGPP caused an unprecedented mobilisation of the medical elite who as a 184

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result were facing a closed decision-making process while this professional group had always had direct access to policymakers (Pierru, 2013). Medical ‘bosses’ in French public hospitals denounced the takeover by hospital managers, and the growing intrusion of highly paid consultants while doctors and nurses’ jobs were being cut. More generally, professionals denounce the proliferation of ‘dispositifs’ which frame professional practices from a distance and harm the realisation of their work. Consultants nowadays symbolise the dedication of this ‘disembodied management’ (Dujarier, 2015). The contemporary French situation in regards to consultants’ involvement in public policies seems to contradict both the thesis of a widespread ‘consultocracy’ and that of a national resistance to public policies’ penetration by private sector’s ‘input’ – or the so-called ‘French exception’ (Chafer and Godin, 2005). Nevertheless, the recent changes bear witness to the increasing deployment of market-based solutions provided by consultants to the French public sector. Such a trend raises broader issues that pose a significant challenge for those who aim at analysing these evolutions. It has become indeed increasingly important to assess whether private consultants’ goals, interests and values can fit with the non-profit mission of the public sector and its critical requirements in terms of equality, social justice and fairness. It also raises the larger question of democratic control over public policies’ orientation and whether decision makers and elected representatives can genuinely continue steering while increasingly letting consultants take over the rowing. References Abiker, D. (1996) Les consultants dans les collectivités locales, Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence (LGDJ). Belorgey, N. (2010) L’hôpital sous pression: Enquête sur le nouveau management public, Paris: La Découverte. Benamouzig, D., Pierru, F. (2012) ‘Professionals and the “System”: The institutional integration of the medical world’, in P. Bezes, D. Demazière, T. Le Bianic, C. Paradeise, R. Normand, D. Benamouzig, F. Pierru, J. Evetts (eds) ‘Debate: New public management and professionals in the public sector. What new patterns beyond opposition?’, Sociologie du travail 54, English Supplement 1. Bérard, Y. (2011) ‘Consultant’, in A. Cole, S. Guigner, R. Pasquier (eds) Dictionnaire des politiques territoriales, pp. 86–90, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Berrebi-Hoffmann, I., Grémion, P. (2009) ‘Elites intellectuelles et réforme de l’État: Esquisse en trois temps d’un déplacement de l’expertise’, Cahiers internationaux de sociologie 126(1), 39–59. Berrebi-Hoffmann, I., Lallement, M. (2009) ‘À quoi servent les experts?’, Cahiers internationaux de sociologie 126(1), 5–12. Bezes, P. (2012) ‘État, experts et savoirs néo-managériaux : Les producteurs et diffuseurs du New Public Management en France depuis les années 1970’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 193, 16–37. Bonelli, L. (2009) ‘Quand les consultants se saisissent de la Sécurité urbaine’, Savoir/Agir 9, 17–28. 185

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Boni-Le Goff, I. (2012) ‘“Trois mois pour faire la difference”: Usages et effets des instruments d’intervention dans le conseil en management auprès du secteur public’, Politiques et management public 29(1), 99–112. Boussard, V., Martin, E.,Vézinat, N. (2015) ‘La permanence dans le changement. Les usages renouvelés de la “modernisation” des entreprises publiques’, Sociétés contemporaines 97, 5–23. Bruno, I., Didier, E. (2013) Benchmarking: L’État sous pression statistique, Paris: La Découverte. Bustelo, M., Ferguson, L., Forest, M. (eds) (2016) The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer: Gender Training and Gender Expertise, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Chafer, T., Godin, E. (2005) The French Exception, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Champy, F. (2011) Nouvelle théorie sociologique des professions, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Chandler, A.D., Jr (1977) The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business, Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Chiapello, E., Gilbert, P. (2013) Sociologie des outils de gestion, Paris: La Découverte. Davids, T., Eerdewijk van, A. (2016) ‘The smothering of feminist knowledge: Gender mainstreaming articulated through neoliberal governmentalities’, in M. Bustelo, L. Ferguson, M. Forest (eds) The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer: Gender Training and Gender Expertise, pp. 80–96, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Deffontaine, G. (2012) ‘Les consultants dans les PPP: Entre expertise au service du client public et intermédiation pour protéger le “marché”’, Politiques et management public 29(1): 113–33. Di Maggio, J.P., Powell, W.W. (1983) ‘The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields’, American Sociological Review 48(2), 147–60. Dujarier, A.-M. (2015) Le management désincarné: Enquête sur les nouveaux cadres du travail, Paris: La Découverte. Gantenbein, M. (1993) ‘Un métier de rêve: Regards dans les coulisses du métier de consultant’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 98, 69–80. Gervais, J. (2007) ‘Former des hauts fonctionnaires techniques comme des managers de l’action publique. L’“identité managériale”, le corps des Ponts et Chaussées et son rapport à l’État’, Politix 20(79), 101–23. Gervais, J. (2012) ‘Les sommets très privés de l’État: Le “Club des acteurs de la modernisation” et l’hybridation des élites’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 194, 4–21. Gori, R., Cassin, B., Laval, C. (2009) L’appel des appels. Pour une insurrection des consciences, Paris: Mille et une nuits. Henry, O. (1992) ‘Entre savoir et pouvoir: Les professionnels de l’expertise et du conseil’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 95, 37–54. 186

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Henry, O. (2012) ‘Les syndicats et l’expertise en risques psychosociaux: Note de recherche sur les années noires du management à France Télécom Orange’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 194, 52–61. Henry, O., Pierru, F. (2012) ‘Les consultants et la réforme des services publics’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 193, 4–15. Hibou, B. (2012) La bureaucratisation du monde à l’ère néolibérale, Paris: La Découverte. Hoard, S. (2015) Gender expertise and public policy: Towards a theory of policy success, Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Hood, C., Jackson, M. (1991) Administrative argument, Dartmouth: Aldershot. Linossier, R. (2012) ‘Le conseil en stratégies et projets urbains: Un marché atypique’, Politiques et management public 29(1), 57–78. Magnin, B. (2010) ‘La réussite du thème de la crise de l’État ou l’impérialisme de la compétence’, in L. Bonelli, W. Pelletier (eds) L’État démantelé, pp. 54–64, Paris: La Découverte. Maillard, J. de (2009) ‘Réformes des polices dans les États occidentaux: Une perspective comparée’, Revue française de science politique 59(6), 1197–230. Pierru, F. (2012) ‘Le mandarin, le gestionnaire et le consultant: Le tournant néolibéral de la politique hospitalière’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 194, 32–51. Pierru, F. (2013) ‘Les mandarins à l’assaut de l’usine à soins: Bureaucratisation néolibérale de l’hôpital et mobilisation de l’élite hospitalo-universitaire en France’, in B. Hibou (ed) La bureaucratisation néolibérale, pp. 203–30, Paris: La Découverte. Poupeau, F-M., Guéranger, D., Cadiou, S. (2012) ‘Les consultants font-ils (de) la politique ?’, Politiques et management public 29(1), 9–19. Rottenberg, C. (2014) ‘The rise of neoliberal feminism’, Cultural studies 28(3), 418–37. Saint-Martin, D. (2000a) Building the new managerialist state: Consultants and the politics of public sector reform in comparative perspective, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Saint-Martin, D. (2000b) ‘Enarchie contre ‘consultocratie’: Les consultants et la réforme administrative en France depuis les années 80’, Entreprise et Histoire 25, 82–92. Sorignet, P.-E. (2012) ‘“On n’y comprend rien”: Des salariés européens face à l’action des cabinets de conseil dans la réforme de l’audiovisuel public’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 194, 22–31. Thine, S. (2006) ‘Pierre Bourdieu: Éléments d’une analyse du champ du conseil’, Revue française de gestion 165, 35–43. Thine, S. (2012) ‘Du militant au manager’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 193, 74–79. Vezinat, N. (2015) ‘Stratégies, formes et facteurs de la modernisation postale: Regard sur la financiarisation des PTT’, Sociétés contemporaines 98, 25–48.

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Part Four Parties, interest groups, research institutes and think tanks

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ELEVEN

The field of state expertise Mathieu Hauchecorne and Etienne Penissat

Unlike other countries where public policy expertise comes primarily from academia or think tanks (Desrosière, 1999; Medvetz, 2012), governmental administration in France has historically been a privileged site for the production of knowledge pertaining to the state and its interventions.1 This state expertise consists of myriad recommendations from experts and research institutes affiliated with various ministries and the Prime Minister’s office. Taken together, they are the primary site for the production of statistical knowledge of the French economy and society, and the main source of administrative reports intended to guide and evaluate state intervention. Most knowledge of the state, which could be considered the French equivalent of American ‘policy analysis’, is produced in these institutions. Today this field of state expertise bears the legacy of three reconfiguration processes. The first consists of the establishment of indicative planning after the Second World War, followed by the liberal turn economic policy began to take in the mid-1970s. The second is associated with the transformation of the top tier of the French civil service, within which the great corps of engineers (graduates of two exclusive state technical schools, commonly known as ‘X-Mines’ and ‘X-Ponts’) first assumed responsibility for state expertise, only to face competition subsequently from the corps of statisticians (administrators of the French statistics institute (Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques [INSEE]) and the administrative corps (financial and social affairs inspectors). The field of French state expertise also shows traces of the institutionalisation process experienced by the social sciences, which initially took place on the fringe of French universities. State reports and the institutional logics underlying their being requested, their creation, and their reception cannot be understood without considering the structure of the field of state expertise in France and how it has changed since 1945. This is obviously true for reports coming from councils, commissions and research services affiliated with various ministries and the Prime Minister’s office, but it is also true of reports produced by the ad hoc commissions to which the French President, Prime Minister and Ministers may turn from time to time, since their work tends to rely heavily on the work of these longer-lasting bodies. Thus, although the founding and transformation of various bodies and councils within the state owe much to political will, the field of state expertise that they shape nonetheless enjoys relative autonomy, which explains how the ‘requests’ for such reports can often be partly produced by these bodies themselves. Although it is structured around specific issues and oppositions, the field of state expertise 191

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must be understood in relation to three other spaces: the political field, of course, to which the reports produced by these bodies and councils are supposed to be addressed; the intellectual field, of which the field of state expertise is a segment; and the economic field and the range of interest groups (employers or workers’ unions, non-profit groups, and so on) likely to be consulted during the preparation of these reports. As we will see in the first section, the field of state expertise was formed in the first two decades following the Second World War, largely in response to the needs of French indicative planning. Initially strongly centred on the General Planning Commission (Commissariat Général du Plan [CGP]), it gradually developed a polyarchical structure with the development of ministerial research services and the emergence of challenges to planning (second section), which favoured the reorientation of expertise toward the measurement and analysis of state intervention through public policy evaluation. The last two decades were marked by the revocation of the Plan and the creation of new councils, lighter organisations over which political authorities could exercise greater control (third section). A means of bypassing the Plan’s modernisation commissions in the post-war years, the government-appointed ad hoc commissions and the reports they produced took on new meaning in this changed context (fourth section).

The building of a field of state expertise (1945–65) The production of reports within the state is an old practice whose first examples can be traced back to the nineteenth century, and the roots of many research services at public authorities’ disposal today lie in the political reconfigurations of the 1930s and the war. But a genuine field of state expertise did not take shape until the decades following the Second World War, changing scale and becoming institutionalised with the creation of several research services. These transformations were related to the development of indicative planning and its need for more standardised knowledge of French society, its economy and the national territory. The institutional scheme comprised of the Plan and the numerous research services gravitating around it is thus probably intrinsically tied to the expanding reach of state economic intervention. It also reflects the emergence of new patterns of legitimation for public authorities, as Delphine Dulong has demonstrated. Faced with the legicentric model making parliament and the law the cornerstone of state intervention, post-war ‘modernisers’ backed an initiative for rational policy, rooted in economic expertise and forecasting, to be implemented by re-enforced administrative and executive branch powers (Dulong, 1997). Created in 1946, the CGP was originally charged with three functions: improving knowledge of the French economy and society, defining the medium- and long-term objectives of economic policy, and proposing measures to reach these objectives (Bauchet, 1970). Initially backed by a small elite from the state’s high-ranking technical corps, the newly founded National School of 192

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Administration (École Nationale d’Administration), and (to a lesser extent) industry and unions (Dulong, 1997; Rousso and Margairaz, 1987), the CGP was formed around the commissioner, a team of several dozen civil servants, and modernisation commissions whose reports and recommendations were supposed to contribute to the definition of four- to six-year Plans. Commissions were composed of one third representatives of the administration, one third representatives of employers and workers, and one third experts (Bauchet, 1970). The output of these commissions was sometimes prepared by less formal working groups, usually formed within the Plan’s administration (Bauchet, 1970). They also relied on analyses produced by a whole string of institutions external to the Plan but intervening in the elaboration and/or implementation of successive Plans, especially INSEE and the Economic and Financial Studies Service (Service des Etudes Economiques et Financières [SEEF]), created in the Ministry of Finance in 1952 (Bauchet, 1970, 60; Fourquet, 1980). In addition to a shared worldview or even ‘rationalist ideology’ (Jobert, 1981), the connections between these organisations are notably manifest in the rank held by actors involved in planning and their circulation between these institutions (Dulong, 1997). A kind of national account system took shape through such staff exchanges between the CGP, SEEF and INSEE, making it possible to represent the French economy and make it a subject of state intervention (Fourquet, 1980). The CGP was additionally driven to create and rely on a proliferation of newly created research bodies whose work was supposed to contribute to preparation of the Plan (Bauchet, 1986, 25). The Centre for Consumption Research and Documentation (Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur la Consommation [CREDOC]) was founded in 1954 to study household consumption (Benamouzig 2005). The scenarios submitted to modernisation commissions could be developed using macroeconomic models developed by the Centre for Economic and Mathematical Forecasting Studies Applied to Planning (Centre d’Etudes Prospectives Economiques et Mathématiques Appliquées à la Planification [CEPREMAP]), which quickly became an interface between state expertise and fundamental research (Fourquet, 1980, 284–9). Studies devoted to regional development were confided to the Delegation for Land-Use Planning and Regional Intervention (Délégation à l’Aménagement du Territoire et à l’Action Régional [DATAR]), created in 1963, which helped develop human geography (Claval, 1998). Since 1966 the Centre for the Study of Revenues and Costs (Centre d’Etude des Revenus et des Coûts [CERC]) produces reports on developments in prices, incomes and inequalities. The Centre for Forecasting and International Information Studies (Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales [CEPII]) was added to the ranks of these organisations in 1978, to address the international economy. Within the Plan and these organisations emerged the figure of the engineer-economist, most often an X-Mines or X-Ponts alumnus, who promoted a formalised economic approach at a time when the economic sciences being taught in law programmes still had a very literary character (Fourcade, 2009). Some new areas of analysis emerged or developed, including public economics, which applies the tools of 193

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microeconomics to the study of the role of the state, and health economics, which developed in various forms within CREDOC and the Ministry of the Economy and Finance (Benamouzig, 2005). Although the Plan was a linchpin of state expertise, it should be emphasised that many research services and public bodies of experts began to appear in governmental ministries in the post-war period. This is notably the case of the National Institute for Demographic Studies (Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques [INED]), founded in 1945, which helped establish family policy based on statistics and demography (Rosental, 2003) and even more so for INSEE, which transformed pre-war statistical production, criticised for being extremely deficient and incomplete, into a solid public statistics system producing social and economic data supporting planning policy. The originality of these institutes must be signalled from the outset: while most European statistical institutes are dedicated exclusively to the production of data to be analysed by other organisations and academics in their own studies, in France statistics, research and analysis are integrated (Desrosières, 2000). So INSEE administrators, a state corps mainly composed of graduates from the prestigious École Polytechnique (an elite technical school), present themselves as ‘magistrates of numbers’ as much as economists, producing both macro-economic predictive models and in-depth studies of the transformations in French society. This explains why these institutes acquired immediate visibility and significant stature in the field of expertise in France. Additionally, INSEE’s position is even more important because its administrative corps circulates through a variety of ministries. Alongside these major institutes, some ministries have their own statistical service as well as a research service or fully-fledged institute, and sometimes even their own educational institution. The statistical division of the Ministry of Labour was confided to a young INSEE administrator in 1946; the Centre for Social and International Relations Research (Centre de Recherches Sociales et des Relations Internationales) was given to the Marxist economist Charles Bettelheim (Denord and Zunigo, 2005); and the Social Sciences and Labour Institute (Institut des Sciences Sociales et du Travail), whose vocation was to train unionists, was created with the joint oversight of the University of Paris in 1951 (Tanguy, 2008). This last example thus indicates that there was a potential place for the social sciences among the expertise acquired by Ministries, and sociology in particular. This opening nonetheless remained marginal, and state expertise was still primarily concentrated around the Plan, SEEF and INSEE.

From the ‘crisis of the Plan’ to the neoliberal turn (1965–95) The field of state expertise that emerged in the post-war years was deeply transformed by reconfigurations that began to affect French planning in the midto late 1960s. Several factors contributed to redefining the context structuring modernisation commissions and imposed the ‘crisis of the Plan’ or ‘unplanning’ (déplanification) theme on French economic policy producers and analysts. This 194

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new realignment is first of all inseparable from the marked reconfiguration of senior civil service at the Plan level, as modernisation commissions included increasing numbers of ‘enarques’ (graduates of the highly selective National Administration School [École Nationale d’Administration]), finance inspectors and INSEE administrators, to the detriment of X-Mines and X-Ponts alumni and representatives from technically oriented ministries (Rousso and Margairaz, 1987). It also came from transformations in the political field, as De Gaulle’s departure from the French presidency and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s arrival in power in 1974 favoured a liberal shift in economic policy (Fourquet, 1980, 291–5). Last, it is connected to changes specific to the economic field: if there was a tendency toward less representation of industrial, and even labour union, interests in Plan commissions after 1965, banking sector involvement increased, while the private sector increasingly took the Treasury’s place in funding public investments (Andrieu, 1987). These reconfigurations are moreover not without consequence on the Plan’s orientations: the ‘revenue policy’, of Keynesian inspiration, was challenged following the departure of Pierre Massé in 1965 (Fourquet, 1980), and the Finance Commission supported the introduction of Milton Friedman’s work and monetarist ideas into state expertise (Andrieu, 1987, 169). The state’s shift to neoliberal approaches led experts to focus more on the state, its effectiveness and its functioning, and make it an object of knowledge (Bezes, 2002; 2009). It all adds up to make the state, subject to criticism and a reform process, into a political subject. The Plan’s decreased legitimacy in steering the economy seemed to initially contribute to strengthening its research-related functions. The central importance accrued to its study functions was especially manifest in the June 1969 creation of the Centre for the Coordination and Orientation of Economic and Social Development Research (Centre de Coordination et d’Orientation des Recherches sur le Développement Economique et Social [CORDES]). The Centre differed in two ways from other research bodies at the time. Instead of producing research as such, it funded studies by requesting research grant proposals on particular themes. Organised around an ‘epistemic community’ of high-ranking civil servants and researchers, it connected political demand for applied research with the interests of researchers in French universities undergoing massification (Bezes and de Montricher, 2005). The Plan’s repositioning encouraged sectorial ministries to develop their own capacities in expertise. Their research services experienced a period of growth in the late 1960s and 1970s. From a few dozen agents in the 1960s, the research and statistics services of the Ministries of Labour and National Education rose to nearly 200 agents each in the late 1980s (Penissat, 2009; Pons, 2008). This context lead to the permanent institution of statistics and economics at every level of the state in the ‘modernising’ Fifth Republic (Dulong, 1997) and the ‘colonisation’ of various ministerial statistics and research services by INSEE administrators. But at the Plan’s incentive, ministries also opened up to the social sciences to an unprecedented extent. Research funding thus played a key role in shaping a vast field of empirical research in France, especially 195

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in sociology (Pollak, 1976; Amiot, 1986). These ministerial services brought together INSEE statisticians, a full range of staffers from the ministry in question, and a great many people working on contract recruited from universities and research centres. Although these different kinds of agents rarely worked together at the beginning, their diverse skillsets gradually started to converge. This was notable in the production of statistical surveys: starting in the 1970s, INSEE’s great cyclical surveys and administrative data sources would be supplemented by thematic surveys using specialised questionnaires and innovative methods (panels, following cohorts and so on). The findings of such research still took report form, but were also promoted in formats similar to those used in academia, especially journals. The social sciences thus underwent a movement of institutionalisation and independence (Bezes et al, 2005). Researchers and analysts in these services were in a split position, enlisted in backing the development and support of sectorial policies while also contributing to the dissemination of social critique (Pollak, 1976). This movement is found in relation to the Plan and its associated organisations, as the studies they funded and developed helped redefine planning. If the Plan’s early years were marked by the development of national account systems, econometric advances in the late 1960s and early 1970s made it possible to model a variety of economic policy scenarios, as exemplified by the Physicofinancial model (FIFI) (Angeletti, 2011). Similarly, the production of indicators was a response to the growing importance accorded to the evaluation of public policy (Jobert, 1981; Spenlehauer, 1998). This movement mainly concerned the Plan and the so-called ‘social’ ministries (Health, Education, Labour and Employment), whose need for this research was even greater because they were trying to use science to build their legitimacy to defend themselves from the Ministry of Finance, which increasingly controlled their interventions. In fact, the Ministry of Finance created the Forecasting Division for that very purpose in 1965, replacing the SEEF (Terray, 2003). While continuing to develop expertise in economic forecasting, the division also staffed itself with project managers that developed cost–benefit analyses of the interventions of other ministries through what was known as the Rationalisation of Budgetary Choice (RBC), imported from the United States (Spenlehauer, 1998). Indeed, the top civil servants of the so-called ‘transversal’ ministries (Finances, but also Interior and Civil Service) tried to concentrate and get control over the expansion of areas of state intervention, especially in educational, health and social policies. They did this in part by developing knowledge sets aiming to audit management and evaluate the effectiveness of their public policies, with particular reliance on microeconomics. Although the RBC failed, in no small part due to the resistance of the corps of the state, this ‘state self-concern’ would simply shift to public policy evaluation in the 1980s (Bezes, 2002). Recourse to social science or economic expertise has been more marginal in ‘sovereign’ ministries (Justice, Interior, Foreign Affairs, Defence). The research services in these ministries are usually relatively small, as is the case for the Centre for Social Science Studies of Defence (Centre d’Etudes en Sciences Sociales de la 196

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Défense [C2SD]), a research body contractually affiliated with the Ministry of Defence (Jankowksi and Vennesson, 2005), or the Analysis and Forecasting Centre (Centre d’Analyse et de Prévision [CAP]), a small research unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kessler, 2005). These ministries make flexible use of expertise from small services or a handful of institutions of various statuses in the Ministry’s remit, as seen with the Justice Ministry’s statistical service, the Law and Justice Mission (Mission Droit et Justice), that funds studies, and the Centre for Sociological Research on Law and Penal Institutions (Centre de Recherche Sociologique sur le Droit et les Institutions Pénales [CESDIP]), which maintains a privileged relationship with the Ministry despite having become independent in the 1980s. Their status is also more fragile and less stable, depending on political circumstances – the left encouraging their creation, the right neglecting them – or even specific political figures’ appetite for studies. Alain Joxe provides a prime example: a Minister from the Socialist Party, he promoted the creation of the National Institute of Higher Internal Security Studies (l’Institut Nationale des Hautes Etudes de la Sécurité Intérieure [IHESI]) at the Ministry of the Interior in 1989, and then the 1992 founding of the Strategic Affairs Delegation (Délégation aux Affaires Stratégiques [DAS]), a sort of think tank charged with ordering studies for the Ministry of Defence (Frison-Roche, 2005). IHESI illustrates a configuration where political changes considerably affect the position of both the content and institution of expertise: founded to defuse security debates by introducing an expert discourse and more specific consideration of the history and sociology of policing, it was challenged when the right came to power in 1993 and Charles Pasqua became Minister of the Interior, because it was considered to be too critical of the police corps. The institute was renewed when the left rose to power in 1998, only to once again be jeopardised by Nicolas Sarkozy’s arrival as head of the Ministry in 2002, especially due to his preference for using private expertise firms (Ocqueteau and Monjardet, 2005). With the exception of the Ministry of Justice, acceptance of social science research has often proved to be tenuous in these ministries, where civil servants often consider themselves experts in their domains and more readily work piecemeal with private firms (the case for the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs), or where they more explicitly reject the social sciences, as with the police and the prefectoral corps in the Ministry of the Interior. If these organisational reconfigurations of state expertise services favour a greater plurality of disciplines and knowledge, the neoliberal turn of the 1980s sped up the marginalisation of the Plan in the field of state expertise that had begun in the mid-1970s (Jobert and Théret, 1994). CORDES was eliminated in 1979 and the Plan commission structure was modified in 1982 by the creation of the National Planning Commission (Commission Nationale de la Planification), which notably made room for representatives from the non-profit sector (Bauchet, 1986, 22). The 1980s were thus an ambivalent period for the structure of state expertise. The left’s 1981 arrival in power allowed contractual agents hired in the 1960s to 1970s to accede to permanent positions, which stabilised ministerial research service staff. Likewise, the position of these services is significantly strengthened 197

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in both ministries and in the field of state expertise. The Ministry of Finance’s increasing intervention in the policies of sectorial ministries through its Forecasting Division (Jobert and Théret, 1994) indeed pressed these other ministries to equip themselves with their own expert capacities. In some cases, this leads to the creation of full-fledged ministerial divisions: the Evaluation, Forecasting, and Performance Division (currently called the Direction de l’Evaluation, de la Prospective, et de la Performance [DEP]) at the Ministry of National Education in 1987, Research, Studies, and Statistics Division (Direction de l’Animation de la Recherché, des Etudes, et des Statistiques [DARES]) at the Ministry of Labour in 1992, and, later on, Research, Studies, Evaluation, and Statistics Division (Direction de la Recherche, des Etudes, de l’Evaluation, et des Statistiques [DREES]) at the Ministry of Health in 1998 (Serré, 2001). Finally, the increasingly demanding standards of public policy evaluation seemed, at least at the outset, to offer a new space in which these services could invest. Staff were able to benefit from it by obtaining new means for research and funding studies while retaining the ability to critique governmental intervention. Moreover, CGP leadership in the 1980s and early 1990s tried to re-focus the Plan on public policy evaluation, experiencing a boom at the time. This strategy ran up against the opposition of a variety of administrative and political actors (especially in the senior civil service) worried about a potential renewal of influence making it possible to coordinate public policy through evaluation (Spenlehauer, 1998).

A rising politicisation of state expertise? (1995 to the present) Preparation of the eleventh Plan was abandoned in 1993, leading to the CGP’s disappearance a few years later. This put the field of expertise through a new phase, marked by the multiplication and the accumulation of public expertise organisations. After 1995, several reports and position statements were applied along these lines to reconceive the configuration of research services affiliated with the Prime Minister, by, for example, charging the Plan with orchestrating public debate by framing enquiry and disseminating arguments and data likely to contribute to deliberation, using the expertise of its affiliated organisations. This reconfiguration caused some organisations to disappear, others to be transformed, and new ones to be created, such as the Economic Analysis Council (Conseil d’Analyse Economique) in 1997, the Pension Orientation Council (Conseil d’Orientation des Retraites) in 2000, and the Employment Orientation Council (Conseil d’Orientation pour l’Emploi) in 2005. These new structures differed on many points from the former modernisation commissions and, to a lesser extent, the research services associated with the Plan. Unlike modernisation commissions, they left barely any place for representatives of economic or union interests, appearing to be more turned toward expertise in consequence. This new orientation proceeded to make more room for actors from outside the administration. This was especially true in the Economic Analysis 198

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Council, mainly composed of university-based economists: its creation came to challenge the monopoly over economic expertise previously held by members of the senior civil service (Clairat, 2013). In addition, these various ‘councils’ were lighter structures than older Plan organisations, primarily charged with using grant offers to spur research and studies in other institutions such as INSEE, INED, universities, or the National Centre for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique [CNRS]). In these regards, the restructuring of state expertise bore the imprint of economics and the social sciences’ institutionalisation in the university system and redefined power relations between high-ranking civil servants and academic researchers. It also bore the mark of new public management (Bezes, 2005), as these light structures seem more subordinate to public demand. The 1993 elimination of the CERC and the morphology of the organisations that succeeded it are typical of these developments. Founded in 1966, CERC predominantly studied the evolution of income and capital inequalities, and its reports from the early 1990s sparked debate upon several occasions. Markedly situated to the left, it was eliminated in 1993 by the conservative Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, who replaced it with a new organisation, the Higher Council for Employment, Revenues, and Expenses (Conseil Supérieur de l’Emploi, des Revenus et des Coûts [CSERC]). This flexible structure was organised around a smaller team of rapporteurs who were generally transferred to CSERC from elsewhere in the administration for a few years, and its main function was producing summarising reports and encouraging the pursuit of new themes in French public research and statistics by offering research grants on specific topics. In 2006, the CGP was eliminated and the Strategic Analysis Centre (Centre d’Analyse Stratégique) took its place, to be renamed Strategy France (France Stratégie) in 2013. This new institution was given the mission of public policy evaluation, forecasting, consulting and advising.2 To this end, it coordinated the activities of the councils that had been founded since 1997 in affiliation with the Prime Minister’s office. Expertise production in Strategy France consists mainly of offering summaries and short reports on themes and issues of current relevance to political leaders, and they are also concerned with getting this expertise into the media and public debate. Due to these morphological changes, state expertise seems to lose some of its independence from political authorities. This politicisation of expertise illustrates changes that typify this period beginning in the 1990s. Indeed, expertise was established in the 1980s – and considered essential in the 1990s – as a veritable tool for political communication and politicising public policy. State expertise organisations began to publish their studies and data in many formats (aimed at audiences from the general public to the most academic); the conference format became increasingly widespread; ministerial cabinets repeatedly used ‘numbers’ as tools for intervening in the public debate (Tissot, 2004; Penissat, 2012). The price of expertise’s greater visibility was a tightening of political control over the production of studies and data that was manifest in many ways. The first was the creation of incentivised research funding mechanisms (calls for grant proposals) 199

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on topics chosen according to political concerns. Likewise, the appearance of expert divisions in ministries mainly occurred through the creation of small research cells to meet political demand, especially for economic and budgetary forecasting. In some cases, these organisations were exclusively seen as resource agencies for responding to political leaders’ requests for solutions, as is the case for the National Institute for Public Health Surveillance (Institut National de Veille Sanitaire) (Buton, 2006). This re-enforced political constraint did not occur without resistance from the organisations’ staff, and it led to many tensions that sometimes made it into the media. Debates over the 2007 unemployment figures, recurrent disputes over delinquency statistics, and conflict over the non-publication of studies and reports produced by the Ministry of National Education’s expertise service all illustrate the rising tension over the dissemination of statistics and studies (Penissat, 2009). Likewise for the controversy over the institutionalisation of criminology in universities, which was jointly driven by political actors (Nicolas Sarkozy), private-sector actors, and expert organisations affiliated with the Ministry of the Interior (such as the National Institute for Higher Security Studies [Institut National des Hautes Etudes de la Sécurité]), proof par excellence of the role of state expertise in the institutionalisation of academic disciplines (Mucchielli, 2010). It should lastly be stressed that the fragmentation and multiplication of organisations does not work counter to a certain homogenisation of the knowledge being used. To the contrary, changes in the characteristics of the hired agents and the transformation of power relations in the scientific field were decisive in fostering an emergent uniformity. Indeed, in the 1980s to 1990s, permanent INSEE staffers became established as the dominant experts, while contractual employees were marginalised. Most of the initially hired INSEE administrators had been trained in the social sciences, and proved to be useful in countering the economic orthodoxy movement promoted by the Ministry of Finance. Those at the Ministry of Labour, for instance, backed the 35-hour workweek reform that the Ministry of Finance’s experts rejected. This employee pool changed as a result of transformations in agents’ educational backgrounds; however, econometrics and neoclassical economics are the order of the day at the administrator training school, the National School for Statistics and Economic Administration (École Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Économique [ENSAE]). Likewise, in the field of economics, heterodox economists find themselves marginalised in favour of neoliberal economists and econometrics specialists (Lebaron, 2000). This shift is at the root of the movement to standardise expertise around econometrics and individualist approaches that began in the 1990s. The reconfigurations of state expertise and the creation of new organisations also reflect the emergence of new public issues, however. The powers of the National Consultative Ethics Committee (Comité consultatif national d’Ethique [CCNE]) – created in 1983 – were strengthened during the 2000s as result of growing public concern for bio-ethics issues (Memmi, 1996). Likewise, the development of state feminism over the past decades also had an impact on the field of state expertise 200

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(Revillard, 2016), especially through the experts attached to the ministry of Social Affairs, where women have traditionally been more numerous. The first committees on ‘women’s condition’ was set up during the 1970s. The creation of the Observatory on Parity between Men and Women (Observatoire de la parité entre les femmes et les hommes [OPFH]) in 1995 and its replacement in 2013 by a national council on equality between men and women (Haut Conseil à l’égalité entre les hommes et les femmes) shows the gradual institutionalisation of a state expertise on gender inequalities. The feminist critique of patriarchy also had an impact on the categories and statistical classifications promoted by state expertise (Fouquet, 2003; Ponthieux, 2013). For instance, the category of ‘household’ used by INSEE has gradually been reshaped in order to account more adequately for family structures and women’s activity (De Saint Pol et al, 2004; Amossé and De Peretti, 2011). More generally, the development and systematisation of gender statistics was supported by a circular signed by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin on 8 March 2000. More recently, the creation of the Observatory of Secularism (Observatoire de la laïcité) was meant to provide the government with an expertise on religious issues.

Ad hoc commission reports These reconfigurations of the field of state expertise naturally modify the role of the ad hoc commissions to which the French government may turn from time to time, as well as the reports that they produce. Although it is impossible to enumerate them all, such reports – which may occasionally be the work of isolated authors3 – have made a powerful contribution to defining the issues in the French public debate and getting various measures onto the political agenda since 1945. Officially instituted by the Prime Minister, sometimes in association with the President or a cabinet minister, the ad hoc commissions seem to be more flexible than the aforementioned councils and organisations, and their work can sometimes be even more politicised. Their assigned missions, requested by the Prime Minister’s office, are indeed directly tied to governmental strategies, and their members generally set out to formulate a number of practical recommendations. Their composition is less restrained than that of the Plan’s modernisation commissions prior to 1993, and their membership reveals a wide range of options. To give but a few examples, the committee formed around Louis Armand and Jacques Rueff in 1959 to consider ‘obstacles to economic expansion’ included high-level civil servants, academic figures and representatives of labour and employers’ unions (Rueff and Armand, 1960). Presided over by the economists Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz, the Commission on the Measure of Economic and Social Performance, formed in 2008 at the initiative of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, was composed entirely of researchers and academics.4 Formed the following year, the Commission on the Liberation of Growth (Commission pour la libération de la croissance) presided over by the essayist Jacques Attali (2010), accorded a much greater place to business leaders and representatives of private 201

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interests. One might follow Philippe Bezes and distinguish three models, which each commission follows to a varying degree – the scientific commission, the technical commission and the partisan commission. They represent so many ways of reconciling the various imperatives commission composition must respect: the guarantee of some kind of expertise, concern for the representativeness of its members, and their acceptability to the relevant political authorities and agents (Bezes, 2003). The range of their missions is left to the government’s discretion and may include all major areas of public policy, as with the Commission on France of the Year 2000, created in 1994 around the businessman-essayist Alain Minc (Hauchecorne, 2009), or on a specific topic, like the Mission on the Responsibilities and Organisation of the State, formed in 1993 under Jean Picq (Bezes, 2003). They do the work and submit their reports in a relatively short timeframe (from a few months to a year), or at any rate shorter than the time needed to prepare fully-fledged Plans. With the establishment of the Plan after the war, these flexible ad hoc commissions are sometimes seen as a way to work around the modernisation commissions, which were considered more democratic (Andrieu, 1987, 166). Ad hoc committees are thus constituted where distinctly political issues intersect with issues more specific to state expertise. For example, from April to November 1994 about 20 intellectuals and a few top-level civil servants and business leaders were brought together in the Commission on France of the Year 2000, instituted by Prime Minister Edouard Balladur following the proposal of the General Commissioner of the Plan at the time, Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld. De Foucauld conceived of the commission – a small group of experts in charge of skimming a vast number of subjects (economic policy, education, European policy and redistribution, to name but a few) in a short time – as a possible response to the ‘crisis of the Plan’, the Plan putting its expertise and a team of rapporteurs at the commission’s disposal. However, while the commission is presided by Alain Minc, one of the Prime Minister’s closest counsellors, his report also proved to be an unofficial campaign platform for Edouard Balladur, who had not yet officially declared his candidacy in the presidential race (Hauchecorne, 2009). If they are a way of circumventing the ordinary rationales of state expertise, these ad hoc commissions are nonetheless closely related to them. The resources of permanent councils and organisations are usually put at their disposal, and they are also the most common recruiting grounds for commission rapporteurs (Andrieu, 1987, 166). This favours a cumulative aspect in their work: the first order of business in the Picq Commission was collecting all previous administrative reports on state reform and making an assessment report of them (Bezes, 2003), and the 2009 mission assignment addressed to Jacques Attali for composing the Commission on the Liberation of Growth explicitly gave him the model of the 1959 Armand– Rueff committee. Benefiting from unprecedented publicity, these reports sometimes enjoy wide distribution, as happened with the ‘Computerisation of Society’ report submitted by Simon Nora and Alain Minc, which sold 100,000 copies in France and 202

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was translated into several other languages (Walliser, 1989). They are a way of influencing public debate while giving the government an opportunity to keep its distance, since the proposals they formulate only officially commit commission or working group members. They nonetheless frequently lend legitimacy to public policy by showcasing the expertise upon which they are supposedly based and by gathering a collection of disparate measures into a coherent package, as illustrated by the case of the Commission on the Liberation of Growth, whose recommendations run the gamut, from the status of regulated professions to the regulation of motor coach transportation and working on Sunday. Through this legitimating function, these commissions can sometimes favour an orientation change in public policy, as happened with the Barre Commission on housing in 1975, which formalised the transition in housing policy from construction subsidies for multi-dwelling units (known as aide à la pierre) to individual support for tenants and home buyers (called aide à la personne) (Bourdieu and Christin, 1990).

Conclusion The political-administrative field in France thus appears to be a privileged site for the production of public policy knowledge and its areas of intervention. This research function, under the purview of public authorities from 1945 to this day, favoured the constitution of a veritable field of state expertise structured around research services and councils of experts affiliated with various ministries and the Prime Minister’s office. Greatly polarised by the French planning system at the outset, today it appears to be a polycentric space where large organisations such as INSEE and INED, which have accrued considerable scientific legitimacy and built themselves the reputation of independence, coexist with lighter structures such as the councils around the Prime Minister involved in Strategy France. Although the oppositions structuring this space arise in part from political oppositions or competition between different corps of the civil service, we have seen that they cannot solely be reduced to those factors, and may also come from issues specific to state expertise, ingrained in its organisational history and related to legitimate representation of the social world, public problems and the general interest. This field of state expertise has singular importance in the history of French social and economic sciences, in that it was a site of their institutionalisation between 1945 and the early 1980s. Far from being a product of academic knowledge imported into public policy from the outset, state expertise quite often favoured the crystallisation of new knowledge (especially in economics), first indexed on the imperatives of public policy and only subsequently receiving academic recognition. This relationship seems to have reversed itself in recent years, and state expertise has stopped being a site of scientific innovation as economics and the social sciences became institutionalised in the university and research centres. It would also be a mistake to make these organisations and councils’ activities out to be the simple production of knowledge about public 203

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policy. As sites of state knowledge of the state, their reports are products of state needs and internal logics. Mixing empirical description, scientific objectives and political prescriptions, they seem to constitute the state interventions that they are also intended to analyse. This explains why they are a privileged resource for studies devoted to the intellectual or symbolic frameworks of state intervention. But it is still important to remember the relative independence of this space as well as its internal differences, which in turn leads one to question these institutions’ specific position and perspective (trying to reconcile savant and political ethos, the demands of science, and the limitations of action) and the mediations between these sites of production and decision-making centres. Notes 1 2 3

4

This chapter was translated from French by Juliette Rogers. www.cae-eco.fr/Presentation.html. This is the case, for instance, of the report Education et société (Education and Society) by Jacques Lesourne and that of Simon Nora and Alain Minc on the digital sector. For more on these two reports, see Walliser 1989 and 1995. Commission on the Measure of Economic and Social Performance (Commission pour la mesure des performances économiques et sociales), Stiglitz et al (2009).

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Political parties and think tanks: policy analysis oriented toward office-seeking Camilo Argibay, Rafaël Cos and Anne-Cécile Douillet Are political parties spaces for the production of a form of policy analysis? This query arises especially given the ‘programmatic function’ typically attributed to parties, a fact that raises two questions: To what extent are the political alternatives proposed by parties and the critiques they direct to those in power formulated in terms of public intervention? And are such plans developed using party-based policy expertise? The literature on political parties provides few answers to these questions, least of all the second. This is first of all related to the way parties are understood in the main theoretical models. A number of analyses hold that political platforms are of only secondary importance to parties. The notion of the ‘catch-all party’ (Kirchheimer, 1966) thus leads one to think that voters more often choose a party according to its leader than its platform and, with electoral success in mind, that it is better for parties to stay vague and ambiguous. But other analyses, interpreting proposals for public intervention as ‘resources and subjects of party competition’ (Coman and Persico, 2014), are not particularly attentive to the way in which these proposals are produced. This is notably the case in approaches holding that policy issues pre-exist parties, that they use them strategically (Downs, 1957), or that they position themselves according to the ‘cleavage’ they represent (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967). The same also holds for approaches placing the choice of issues at the heart of competition between parties (Stokes, 1963), to the extent that the construction of issues receives less attention than differences of ‘salience’, and possibly framing, depending on the party. The ‘cartel party’ model (Katz and Mair, 1995) not only highlights the reduced competition between parties and the growing similarity between party options, but also emphasises the value given to management abilities in parties that manage the state more than they represent society. Little is said, however, about how these abilities are constituted and used. Recent French studies of French political parties have been attentive to field research and frequently demonstrated a critical distance from the preceding analytical models, but they provide few answers to the question of party-specific policy analysis. This is partly explained by the predominance of approaches focused on the entrepreneurial and organisational dimensions of parties that follow a paradigm ‘of Webero-Schumpeterian inspiration’ (Sawicki, 2001). It can also be explained by an observed ‘professionalisation’ movement, understood as the tightening and re-structuring of party organisations around the stakes of electoral conquest. Doctrinal activities seem to have become somewhat marginalised in 209

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the main French parties, to the advantage of election-strategy considerations. This finding emerges from work on the French Parti Socialiste (PS) (Lefebvre and Sawicki, 2006) and Parti Communiste Français (PCF) (Mischi, 2014), while work on the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), to the right of the political spectrum, stresses its managerialisation (Petitfils, 2007). Such observations do not foster interest in the construction of official positions and party platforms.1 In light of these dead-ends, this chapter gives serious consideration to the hypothesis that political parties may pursue public policy work. This perspective is an invitation into the black box of political parties to see the extent to which, and under which conditions, they are spaces of production, diffusion and mobilisation of knowledge about and for public intervention. The question is whether party expertise on public policy exists, regardless of its impact.2 Analysis began with a survey of the literature on political parties and policy process studies3 to assemble pertinent findings, which were supplemented by data from ongoing research.4 The investigation focused specifically on the national organisations of two parties: the PS5 and the UMP, which became Les Républicains (LR) in May, 2015. The former party Rassemblement Pour la République (RPR) was grouped with the UMP, which was formed in 2002 by the fusion of several parties of which the RPR was the most substantial.6 Both the PS and the RPR/ UMP/LR are governing parties that have acquired positions of power at the national as well as local levels. This exploratory research established the hypothesis that seeking office and seeking policy are not antithetical objectives: in fact, developments in party rationales, like those in the profile of governing parties’ elites, are favourable to intensifying interest in policy issues (see the first section of this chapter). Political parties’ professionalisation nonetheless appears to have a marked effect on their internal production of public policy expertise: party membership is marginalised while the electoral issues and internal competition have a structuring impact (see the second section). Last, analysis of public policy expertise production shows that it is mainly done in the vicinity of party organisations, due to the significant recourse to experts outside of parties and the role of think tanks (see the third section).

Policy issues in professional political parties The professionalisation of political parties (as defined in the preceding section) seems to lead to a devaluation of ideas as resources that are relevant to parties internally, but it is probably fairer to speak of the transformation of ideal work. Indeed, the dynamics of party activism over recent decades have had a hand in erasing ‘master narratives’, instead favouring discourse which is more focused on policy issues. This movement was accompanied by a transformation of party elites, today more socialised in public policy. As a consequence, questions related to public intervention are not absent in professional political parties.

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The reformulation of inter-party competition around policy issues Electoral competition presupposes mobilising one’s ‘political family’ and setting oneself apart from the opponent: this is what is at stake in a party’s proposed platform. The symbolic goods that constitute this proposal may, however, be of various natures: more or less well-developed ideological references, theories of greater of lesser sophistication, policy proposals of variable technical complexity. The dynamics of the history of the PS on one side and the RPR-then-UMP on the other have fostered competition largely focused on policy issues. The creation of the PS in about 1970 was part of the effort to capture power after a decade of Gaullist control. Its founding was part of a political plan, both sealing an alliance between socialists and communists and introducing a party that was ready to govern. To this end, the ‘Common Programme of the Left’, signed in 1972, exhibits a certain degree of sophistication in its review of a large number of public policies, while the presidential platform of François Mitterrand in 1981 contained 110 proposals. The plan to ‘open the way for socialism’ was thus very attentive to public policy proposals. Once in power, the conversion to monetarism and rigour made it more difficult to mobilise ‘master narratives’ on the excesses of capitalism and re-enforced a sector-based approach to problems, especially as the opposition on the right then had more difficulty disqualifying the PS as the ‘harbinger of collectivism’: ‘the controversy changes levels, and henceforth the challenge is to the socialists’ ability to ensure the management of the republican State’ (Jobert and Théret, 1994, 60). The neoliberal rhetoric appropriated by the main leaders of the right in the early 1980s (Denord, 2004) to better distinguish themselves from the left in power was also toned down: their return to government in 1986–88 heralded a less doctrinaire and more managerial approach to public problems. The lesser salience of socialist or neoliberal references does not necessarily mean a move away from ideology – for proof one need only look to Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign, radicalising entire areas of discourse in the UMP (Haegel, 2012). On the other hand, it means that from the latter 1980s, party activism has been more focused on ‘competition over the issues’, especially the environment, public security, unemployment and immigration. The issue of the environment, gradually taken on by the dominant parties, is a good case in point (Persico, 2014). Parties make particular efforts to pre-empt the casues of rival organisations. On the right, for example, the UMP largely cornered the traditional themes of the Front National (especially immigration), and in 2007 it drew from the repertoire of the left on the theme of employment policy; on the left, the PS has positioned itself since the mid-1990s on the issues of public security (Cos, 2012a). Especially in the context of electoral campaigns, parties often try to shape the agenda of debates around their priority issues and policy proposals (as with the 35-hour work week for the PS in 1997, and the UMP’s ‘fiscal shield’ in 2007).

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The concentration on particular policy issues has been accompanied by the mobilisation of more technical weapons in the competition between parties. Putting figures to the cost of programmes is one example. Although some programmes had their costs evaluated as early as the 1970s, costing proposals became more systematic during the most recent presidential elections (Lemoine, 2008). The public debt being made into a major problem is likely part of this trend. Moreover, if personalisation and the simplification of political discourse are the media influences that usually come to mind, there is also an observable media injunction for technical credibility in electoral platforms, especially where the budget is concerned. The forms taken by electoral competition, particularly in parties such as the UMP and the PS, thus leave room for the development of policy analysis in the service of political parties, due to the prominence of debates on policies to be pursued and the means to be mobilised to that end. This movement is paired with party leaders’ increasingly strong socialisation in public action. Transformations of the political occupation in governing parties Interest in policy-related questions in political parties is also prompted by on-going transformations in political legitimacy, particularly the inclusion of public policy ‘skills’ among legitimising criteria for elected officials. It is thus important to note that since the 1960s economic skills have gradually been converted into political capital. While this skill was previously primarily associated with the stigmatised figure of the technocrat, judged to be little compatible with the democratic ideal, today it has become a key marker of political identities (Dulong, 1996). This economic skill has consequently been very influential in styling political entrepreneurs, both at the local (Le Bart, 1992) and national levels (Gaïti, 1990). This symbolic construction work on political identities comes with a noticeable reformulation of the profiles of party elites, which are increasingly distinguished by claims to skills in economic matters and/or state expertise. High-ranking civil servants have thus become more present in party leadership. The legitimacy linked to having studied at a prestigious institution for the training of high-ranking civil servants moreover tends to substitute for that traditionally associated with the electoral career: thus, in the PS, the first generation of École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) graduates7 also possessing significant political party capital was succeeded by a second generation in the 1980s that acceded directly to ministries under the left upon graduation, without having held any office previously (Lefebvre and Sawicki, 2006). Parties’ leadership bodies also solicited high civil servants: Mathieu Fulla (2012) has emphasised how in the 1970s the PS actively sought to recruit high-ranking bureaucrats from the Ministry of Finance such as Alain Boublil and Jacques Attali. The non-negligible proportion of deputies that attended power-schools is another illustration of what a resource it is to possess this capital: among deputies in office in 2002–07, 14.5 per cent were graduates of Sciences Po Paris, 6 per cent were ENA graduates, and 4.5 212

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per cent from another Grande École, the upper tier of selective universities (Costa and Kerrouche, 2007). Having graduated from a Grande École additionally facilitates access to the more prestigious parliamentary commissions (the Legal and Finance Commissions in particular). Beginning in the 1970s, the profiles of the highest-ranking executive branch officials were often also distinguished by having attended a Grande École (ENA, Polytechnique), be they Presidents of the Republic (V. Giscard d’Estaing, J. Chirac, F. Hollande) or Prime Ministers (L. Fabius, M. Rocard, E. Balladur, A. Juppé, L. Jospin). This rising power of expert legitimacy among politicians developed in parallel with another movement, related to political alternation: indeed, since 1980 the left and right have succeed one another in power at an unprecedented rate, winning four and five national elections, respectively. This provides leaders of the PS and the RPR/UMP regular access to elected office as well as positions in ministerial cabinets and the administration, making it possible to acquire public management training through experience in party activities and holding elected office, as opposed to education in elite civil-service institutions. As Carole Bachelot stresses in her study on socialist leaders between 1993 and 2003, it is ‘indeed the politicaladministrative apparatus that has, to a significant extent, trained party leadership’ (2008a, 270): over this period, 40 per cent of the members of the party’s national office had held a position on a ministerial cabinet. In addition to these national movements, local elected officials (who are numerous in the parties studied here) have become increasingly important.8 They are in direct contact with public policy issues, especially as the decentralisation reforms begun in 1982 have reenforced power and fostered significant policy developments at the local level. So it is that a substantial proportion of party elites accumulated a panoply of public policy knowledge and know-how while attending power-schools and/ or holding a bureaucratic or elected position. Moreover, regular participation in the sites of power – as elected official, cabinet advisor, or high-level civil servant – allows political entrepreneurs to develop networks of expertise within the state apparatus or business world. For the majority of elites in governing parties, then, political professionalisation (as the rationalisation of political work in view of electoral imperatives) is accompanied by the accumulation of dispositions and resources favourable to the development of public policy expertise within the party.

Intra-party policy analysis influenced by presidentialisation Counter to a simplistic vision of political work as purely the conquest of votes, the preceding text would seem to indicate that party elites are dealing with public policy issues even when not in elected office, and that these issues are valuable to inter-party competition. How this translates into party operations remains to be examined. Two complementary characteristics can be emphasised in this regard: the tension between how the party functions as a group and the individual

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investment of political entrepreneurs, and how work on public policy issues fits into the rationalised quest for elected positions. The fragility of the bodies of experts within political parties Since the 1970s, party-based circles of expertise have become institutionalised. In the PS, following the 1972 creation of an ‘expert committee’, 15 or so thematic commissions were established (and statutorily recognised in the internal rules and regulations of 1978) and placed under the responsibility of a ‘National Secretariat for Studies’ (Bachelot, 2008a; Sawicki, 1998). These events, resulting from the aforementioned strategy to renew the party, helped ensure the continued existence of these bodies of experts within the party. The number of national secretariats proliferated significantly: in 1979, the PS had 16 national secretariats, only half of which addressed a public policy issue. In April 2015 there were 56, 40 of which focus on a specific theme – more than the number of state ministers and secretariats. In early 2015, the UMP9 had 30 thematic national secretariats (along with the 12 ‘functional’ secretariats) and LR had 58 (along with the nine ‘functional’ secretariats) in March, 2016.10 Regardless, although these developments account for the attention political parties have given to a wide range of topics related to public intervention, they do not allow identification of parties’ preferred channels for shaping their public policy positions. In practice, the activity of these commissions seems quite unequal. It depends first on the positions held by the parties. It is logical that these commissions should take the form of spaces for policy analysis, because they are seen as sites for producing counter-expertise to challenge the governing majority’s decisions. This logic relies on two complementary factors: the party’s collective interest in publicly demonstrating its opposition to policies implemented by the party or parties in power, and the more individual interests of those who, party member or not, are invested in its commissions, and may harbour hopes of being ‘discovered’ and included in future ministerial cabinets (Bachelot, 2008b; Zittoun, 2001). The counterpart of this logic is that these commissions are often largely abandoned when the party finds itself in power, when the parliamentary arena and to a greater extent ministerial cabinets seem like more determinant scenes for orienting the debate on a variety of issues (Bioy et al, 2015). The output of national secretariats also largely depends on the personal interests and party capital of those connected with them. In the first place, an elected official’s specialisation in a public policy issue may contribute to making the relevant commission more active. This logic is typical of young elected officials who are given their first national secretariat. Their strategy often consists of creating credibility for their position by heavily investing themselves in the field leadership assigned them, which may be more or less related to their academic and professional training. These young elected officials are thus often engaged in expanding the number of active members in these commissions, organising periodic events and publishing press releases and in-depth reports (Cos, 2012a; 214

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2012b). In the second place, the renown of an internal party leader may also contribute to making these secretariats more appealing, as this fame often intersects with the legitimacy of the theme in question (for example, the national secretariats for the economy are often held by prominent figures11). So although there are some favourable conditions for these bodies’ work, the position they hold remains structurally unstable and fragile.12 Beyond the effects mentioned earlier, to which the regular rotation of terms in office should also be added, the circulation of work that could be done there is determined by several constraining factors that are particularly linked to competition internal to the parties. Policy analysis shaped by intra-party competition Internal competition is often manifest in the establishment of advisory bodies. Although the PS has seen the activities of its various currents focus on the promotion of their leaders since the 1990s, there are still regular demonstrations of concern for the prolonged examination of particular public problems. Benoît Hamon’s ‘La Forge’ (the Forge), Jean-Louis Bianco’s ‘Pôle idées’ (Idea Centre), Ségolène Royal’s association ‘Désir d’avenirs’ (Futures Wanted), and Martine Aubry’s ‘coopérative d’idées Renaissance’ (Renaissance ideas cooperative) are some recent examples. Lacking work on the subject, one might hypothesise that within the RPR and UMP, the weaker institutionalisation of currents has limited the development of stables of competing expertise; clubs are sometimes established around major figures, but they do not seem to develop genuine public policy expertise.13 Beyond that, the formation of ad hoc advisory groups on platform and/ or public policy issues is always associated with the individual initiative of the organisation’s most central actors. From his accession to the leading position of the UMP in 2004, Nicolas Sarkozy depicted himself as candidate for the next presidential election and organised teams to supply him with ideas: a small exploratory committee at first, while at the Ministry of the Interior, then a more fleshed-out team gathered around Emmanuelle Mignon,14 who Sarkozy solicited for the development of his presidential plan. Mignon ultimately joined the UMP hierarchy, becoming Director of Studies in November 2004. She then got most of the staff of this division to leave in order to replace them with young Grande École graduates (Confavreux and Lindgaard, 2007). These ‘experts’ and ‘intellectuals’ were expected to help cement the worldviews held by Sarkozy and his team, both in terms of diagnosing actuality (including the evaluation of implemented policies) and making recommendations. Their work was productive, leading to thematic conventions (on education, immigration and so on) and trips to other countries to see ‘what is done elsewhere’, all generating reports. With an eye to the 2012 presidential election, the PS established the Ideas Centre (Laboratoire des idées) in 2009, intended to counter the right’s ideological offensive during the 2007 presidential election. If, despite the production of 20-some thematic reports, the Ideas Centre’s ability to contribute to the party platform seems limited, this 215

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is partly because it appeared to be an initiative of Martine Aubry (leader of the party at the time, but defeated by François Hollande in the primaries), and the legitimacy of its status as organ of the party was heavily contested. Moreover, although the ‘permanent’ thematic commissions officially participate in platform-building in pre-electoral periods, the presidentialisation at work in both parties makes broad use of their output. Although not recent, this development is especially obvious in the case of the PS. The platform production chain can be divided into two basic parts. First, a team in charge of preparing the text consults the national secretariats. Once drafted, the text is submitted to the National Bureau for deliberation and arbitration, then confirmed by party members, who are generally kept at a distance during this first phase. The candidate is chosen in the second phase. The candidate and his or her team15 then largely rework the first version of the text to propose a second ‘platform’ or ‘plan’ (where a personalisation of the choice and the formulation of the proposals appears) and to structure the campaign strategy (by the selection of priority issues); this logic is radicalised when the candidate has come through the executive branch. When the candidate’s inner circle only assembles a few people, some of whom may not be party members, electoral campaigns are also revealing of the personalised character of expertise mobilisation in parties. Party-specific policy analysis thus takes place both in the service of and in reaction to electoral imperatives, within a frictional juxtaposition of networks that are simultaneously collective and individual. It is consequently caught up in the interplay between political currents, which use it without fully controlling it.

Policy analysis from extra-party sources Understanding policy analysis production in party organisations requires not limiting oneself to what happens within the boundaries of a party. Indeed, such work is largely the purview of experts who are only rarely permanent employees or members of the party, although they are never very far from it. Engaged in more or less formal bodies, such people contribute directly to the elaboration of political proposals. How parties use expertise The professionalisation of political parties results in an organisational division of labour. The elaboration of political ideas and solutions is more the business of experts than it is of activists. Among these experts are ‘organic intellectuals’ who are in charge of studies and training for party leadership bodies. They may, like Henri Weber and Alain Bergounioux in the PS, be in charge of the party’s intellectually oriented journal. Their role is nonetheless often limited to establishing and maintaining relations between party leadership and experts in specific sectors.

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The experts called upon by parties are primarily from two professional worlds that have historically been competitors in French public expertise (Barbier et al, 2013). The first, rather typical of the French political field, is that of high-level civil servants. A strong technocratic expertise developed in France with the advent of the Fifth Republic, even within administration (Dulong, 1998). These high-ranking civil servants are rather easily mobilised by party leadership, a great many of whom, as mentioned earlier, attended selective civil service schools. This category of experts is often found in the most prestigious commissions (typically economic). Their experience in upper administration manifests in an ability to produce briefs and give a highly operational dimension to their recommendations. Based on ‘technical’ legitimacy, this expertise is nonetheless not politically neutral and, for example, has contributed to the circulation of neoliberal approaches in – or, more precisely, at the head of – the PS, as early as the 1970s (Jobert and Théret, 1994). In addition to high civil servants, party authorities call on academics. They are particularly solicited for ad hoc work tied to platform development, as illustrated by invitations from the Ideas Centre or Mignon’s preparation of Sarkozy’s campaign. Work meetings thus resemble research seminars, akin to what is familiar to academics in their usual professional setting, but always with a ‘requirement for results’ (Chahsiche, 2014, 92), meaning an imperative for specific proposals. These academics are mobilised for their broader knowledge of the issues at hand, but most of all they confer a more intellectual dimension to the resulting expertise, surpassing the register of isolated solutions. Economists are mobilised the most often, but jurists, sociologists and political scientists also participate in such work. Although both kinds of expert can be found in a variety of bodies of experts in service to a given party, their mobilisation varies according to the circumstances: academic expertise seems compatible with the middle-range work inherent in party-related organisations (commissions, research groups and so on), while high civil servants seem to operate in a way that is more suitable to election time. Writing briefs containing assessments of a situation, avenues for recommendations, and some ‘language elements’ is an exercise familiar to senior civil servants that is objectively adapted to campaigning. Indeed, they are processes that are as relevant to the vagaries of the media agenda (ordering candidates to react on a variety of topics) as they are the occasion for projecting into potential state governance (assessments of overall accounting and budgetary balances, costing proposals, evaluating their legal feasibility and so on). By relying on these two professional profiles of people, whose contributions may be individual or collective, the PS and UMP mobilise expertise outside organisational boundaries. These experts often (but not always) have political sympathies for the party which they are helping, as demonstrated in its absence by the refusal of some of the experts solicited by Mignon because they did not identify with the UMP (Confavreux and Lindgaard, 2007). The same logics are found in more enduring organisations that gravitate around parties and also contribute to the production of policy analysis: think tanks. 217

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The role of think tanks alongside political parties The role played by certain French think tanks reveals the existence and assertion of bodies specialised in the production of ‘political solutions’ alongside political parties. Most of these think tanks maintain a privileged but nevertheless ambiguous relationship with a particular political party: they may provide expert advice and political proposals to a given party under certain circumstances, and bypass it in others. Although they are formally distinct entities, think thanks and political parties may in some respects be interconnected through the people involved and their networks. Think tanks, as professionalised non-profit organisations producing public policy-related expertise and claiming a degree of independence (Stone, 2000), emerged rather late in France, where this kind of organisation began to proliferate around the year 2000. French think tanks have much more limited resources (financial and human) than their British or American peers, and their political role is considerably less institutionalised (Medvetz, 2012). Although party affiliations are less strong than with German foundations (Dakowska, 2004), the main generalist think tanks in France have clearly identified connections with a political party (Schmid, 2013): Fondapol and the Institut Montaigne are close to the UMP, Terra Nova and the Fondation Jean Jaurès to the PS, and the Fondation Gabriel Péri to the PCF. This proximity results from a significant circulation of individuals between the two organisational types: think tank founders are often members of political parties, think tanks approach elected officials as experts, and think tank experts and directors frequently assume political responsibilities (as is the case at Terra Nova and Fondapol). In addition, some think tanks are specialised in particular sectors, devoted to a specific issue (international relations, the environment, health for example),16 and less directly connected to parties. To do their work well, think tanks turn to sector experts, often recruited from various edges of the field of power (high-ranking civil servants, academics, consultants, business people). Following political parties’ example, there are few representatives from union and associative worlds among these experts, at least in generalist think thanks. Named as individuals or as part of thematic groups, these experts work on the development of various kinds of documents (briefs, reports, books, interviews, on-line videos and the like) published and distributed by the think tanks. Despite this formal diversity, the proffered arguments have much in common, such as evaluations of implemented policies, international comparisons, references to other studies and reports, and costing and legal counsel concerning the proposals. One particular circumstance where think tanks work on producing policy proposals is during the preparation of electoral campaigns. The creation of Terra Nova, for instance, was connected to plans for intellectual production in the service of a party: a small group of high-ranking civil servants, intellectuals, and young entrepreneurs began meeting in 2007, after Ségolène Royal’s defeat in the presidential election, and created Terra Nova in 2008 to ‘respond to the ideological deficit’ of the PS, looking ahead to the 2012 elections. Anticipating 218

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this electoral deadline, Terra Nova worked to get experts to participate in thematic groups, which met over the course of several months and published reports at the conclusion of their work. Consequently, 32 reports were published between February 2008 and May 2012, of which 28 concern public policy and the other four address ‘political strategy’ (Argibay, 2016). This policy analysis work is done by an organisation that claims to be distinct from the party, but which contributes to reflection on its platform; the think tank thus presents itself as intellectual support for the party and its candidate, which have the final say over which elements will end up in the electoral platform. Fondapol’s positioning in 2012 shows that under certain circumstances even a think tank closely connected to a party17 may work at a distance from it. At the time, Fondapol made no claim to being in the UMPs service: the foundation’s General Secretary, Dominique Reynié, said he wanted to have an influence on the debate and raise themes, but without working directly for the UMP. This is notably explained by the previously described parallel undertakings of the UMP’s presidential candidate and the competition internal to the party. This example attests to the fact that think tanks may position themselves as being involved in political competition alongside political parties, with intellectual outputs that are partly in competition with theirs. Think tanks continue to produce policy solutions outside of periods of electoral campaigning. Since 2012 and the arrival of the PS in power, Terra Nova continues to produce expertise on state-level public intervention without going through the party. It is no longer concerned with contributing proposals or ‘ideas’ to a party, instead intervening more directly with those in power. In addition to the publication of briefs and reports, its recommendations are disseminated through informal meetings with members of the administration and ministerial cabinets as well as through presentations at the National Assembly. It is sometimes difficult to tell if it is a matter of providing proposals or organising forms of governmental communication; Fondapol’s thematic conferences in the early 2010s, which were regularly opened by a minister in the Fillon administration, are a case in point. Whatever the case, the relationship is not built with a party, but with a governmental team. Think tanks also act apart from parties by publishing most of their results (digitally or in print), thus distributing their ‘political solutions’ to interested readers. Last, beyond relationships with public leaders, some may also take on a cause; this was the case of the Institut Montaigne, which in 2004 was the first organisational actor to represent the theme of ‘diversity’ (Bereni, 2009) in public debate.

Conclusion Analysis of political parties’ contributions to the production of knowledge on and for public intervention is a topic with considerable potential for further study. The issue has thus far been neglected in work on political parties, which predominantly looks at the professionalisation process through the renewed 219

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focus on electoral issues. Regardless, this chapter has shown that this process is not contradictory to ideal political party work, even if the ways this work is accomplished take on characteristics of professionalisation. Activists are thus kept at a distance from such activities, at best limited to the validation of the electoral platform; this work is party leadership business, and more specifically that of the experts surrounding them. Examining political parties through the question of party-specific policy analysis thus makes it possible to see what party professionalisation conceals in terms of ideal work. It is particularly typified by intensification during electoral periods and a strong division into sector-specific work, as demonstrated by the multiplication of national secretariats at the head of both of the studied parties and the thematic organisation of the think tanks close to them. Intra-party policy analysis is not about working on overarching ideologies, but focuses instead on positioning the party on the issues and producing political solutions for implementation. Another aspect of this relationship between political professionalisation and ideal party work concerns the sites where this work is produced. Indeed, research highlights that these bodies are less often truly the party’s bodies of experts than they are more or less formalised spaces associating people from the party and an assortment of other agents typically able to boast of academic titles and expert resources. Far from putting these separate worlds into conflict, these spaces show the mutual acquaintanceship connecting a substantial proportion of party elites to state expertise, especially from ministerial divisions. In this sense, study of French governing parties from the perspective of their public policy expertise re-enforces the sense of a strong interpenetration between governing parties and the state. Notes 1

2 3

4

5

6 7 8

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Other parties, such as the extreme-right Front National, have inspired research on the construction of their ideological positions, but it has remained marginal (Dézé, 2006). It is also noteworthy that French political science has recently seen a surge in interest in the topic of ‘platforms’ (see Bué et al, 2015). The question of parties’ influence on public policy, the core of several studies (see the Comparative Agendas Project), is not of direct interest here. Policy studies also have little to contribute to this analysis, especially because of the secondary role often attributed to political actors in public policy-making (Sawicki, 2002; Douillet and Robert, 2007). The rare studies raising this question (Jobert and Théret, 1994; Zittoun, 2001) emphasise the limited or even non-existent expertise within the party in question. Rafaël Cos is conducting doctoral research on the production of electoral platforms in the Parti Socialiste between 1995 and 2012, and Camilo Argibay holds a post-doctoral position researching think tanks in France. The Parti Socialiste was formed under this name in 1969, taking over from the SFIO (Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière), and integrated several other parties identifying with socialism in 1971. The RPR was founded in 1975. The École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) is the most selective and prestigious civil service school, and its graduates, known as énarques, are considered to form a networked national elite. In the PS, sometimes characterised as ‘the party of elected officials’, 40 per cent of members were local elected officials in 2011. Additionally, 8 per cent of members worked with elected

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9 10 11

12

13

14

15

16 17

officials, and 13 per cent were employees of regional, departmental, or local-level governments (mostly in middle and upper management), further re-enforcing the weight of members working on local public policy issues (Dargent and Rey, 2014). To the authors’ knowledge there is no published work on the history of bodies of experts in right-wing parties. The themes include sports, education, tourism, justice, health, disabled persons and public security. Significantly, in the PS, the National Secretariat for the Economy was assigned to a woman once only (Karine Berger, in 2012), although women are quite numerous to hold a position in the national secretariats. The key position of head of the National Secretariat for Studies has never been assigned to a woman either since 1971. In her study, C. Bachelot (2008a) also mentions the PS’s Economic, Social, and Cultural Committee. Supposed to take over from the ‘group of experts’ after 1998, and more open to the participation of members of ‘civil society’, this committee seems nonetheless marked by the limited attention it receives within the party, and the selected themes could also be seen as relatively ‘minor’ (time of life, urbanism, associative life and so on). F. Haegel (2012) thus evoked the existence in 2009 of ‘Dialogues et initiatives’ (Dialogues and Initiatives), ‘France.9’, and ‘Le chêne’ (The Oak), formed around J.-P. Raffarin, F. Fillon and M. Aliot-Marie respectively, and ‘Génération France’ (France Generation) for J.-F. Copé. She describes these ‘advisory clubs’ as being formed mainly for the promotion of a particular figure. A graduate of a prestigious business school (ESSEC) and an exclusive political science institute (IEP de Paris), Emmanuelle Mignon was first in her class at ENA in 1995 and quickly joined the Conseil d’Etat (the supreme administrative court). She was named cabinet secretary under Nicolas Sarkozy in 2002. The composition of these teams is an indicator of the marginalisation of women in party-based ideal work. As for the PS, only five women have had a meaningful position in the teams in charge of electoral platforms, three of them being implied in the elaboration of Segolène Royal’s platform for the 2007 presidential election. The key role played by Emmanuelle Mignon for Nicolas Sarkozy’s platform in 2007 appears to be an exception in the gender division of labour within political parties. This is the case for the Fondation Nicolas Hulot for environmental issues, for example, or the Foundation for Strategic Research (Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique) for international issues. Fondapol was founded in 2004 with the support, including financial, of the UMP.

References Argibay, C. (2016) ‘La construction d’un projet politique par fragments: Le rôle du think tank Terra Nova pendant la campagne de 2012’, in J. Gervais, G. Courty (eds) Enjeux présidentiels: Groupes en campagne (2012) Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Bachelot, C. (2008a) ‘Groupons-nous et demain’: Sociologie des dirigeants du Parti socialiste depuis 1993, doctoral dissertation in Political Science, Paris: Sciences Po Paris. Bachelot, C. (2008b) ‘Revisiter les causalités de l’évolution: Le PS au prisme de la cartellisation’, in Y. Aucante, A. Dezé (eds) Les systèmes de partis dans les démocraties occidentales, pp. 384–410, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Barbier, M., Cauchard, L., Joly, P.-B., Paradeise, C., Vinck, D. (2013) ‘Pour une approche pragmatique, écologique et politique de l’expertise’, Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances 7(1) 1–23.

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Bereni, L. (2009) ‘Faire de la diversité une richesse pour l’entreprise’, Raisons politiques, 3(35) 87–105. Bioy, X., Eymeri-Douzans, J.-M., Mouton, S. (2015) Le règne des entourages: Cabinets et collaborateurs de l’exécutif dans la France contemporaine, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Bué, N., Fertikh, K., Hauchecorne, M. (2015) Les programmes politiques: Genèses et usages, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Chahsiche, J.-M. (2014) ‘De l’ “éthique du care” à la “société du soin”: La politisation du care au Parti socialiste’, Raisons politiques 4(56) 87–104. Coman, R., Persico, S. (2014) ‘Politiques publiques et partis politiques’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Dictionnaire des politiques publiques, pp. 482–90, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Confavreux, J., Lindgaard, J. (2007) ‘L’hémisphère droit: Comment la droite est devenue intelligente’, Mouvements 4(52) 13–34. Cos, R. (2012a) ‘Le Parti socialiste et la régulation politique des désordres: L’émergence d’un nouvel entrepreneur de sécurité’, in M. Boucher, V. Malochet (eds) Regards croisés sur la régulation sociale des désordres, pp. 75–90, Paris: L’Harmattan. Cos, R. (2012b) ‘Les élus socialistes face aux chiffres de la délinquance: Dispositions, positions et prises de positions partisanes sur les statistiques policières’, Mots: Les langages du politique 100: 107–22. Dakowska D. (2004) ‘Les fondations politiques allemandes en Europe centrale’, Critique internationale 24(3), 139–57. Dargent, C., Rey, H. (2014) ‘Sociologie des adhérents socialistes: Rapport d’enquête’, Les cahiers du CEVIPOF, 59 (entire issue). Denord, F. (2004) ‘La conversion au néo-libéralisme’, Mouvements 5(35), 17–23. Dézé, A. (2006) ‘Le Front National comme “entreprise doctrinale”’, in F. Haegel (ed) Partis politiques et systèmes partisans en France, pp. 255–84, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Douillet, A.-C., Robert, C. (2007) ‘Les élus dans la fabrique de l’action publique locale’, Sciences de la société 71, 3-26. Downs, A. (1957) ‘An economic theory of political action in a democracy’, The Journal of Political Economy 65(2), 135–50. Dulong, D. (1996) ‘Quand l’économie devient politique: La conversion de la compétence économique en compétence politique’, Politix 9(35), 109–30. Dulong, D. (1998) Moderniser la politique: Aux origines de la Ve République, Paris: L’Harmattan. Fulla, M. (2012) Le Parti socialiste face à la question économique (1945–1981): Une histoire économique du politique, doctoral dissertation in Political Science, Paris: Sciences Po Paris. Gaïti, B. (1990) ‘Des ressources politiques à valeur relative: Le difficile retour de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’, Revue française de science politique 40(6), 902–17. Haegel, F. (2012) Les droites en fusion: Transformations de l’UMP, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. 222

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Jobert, B., Théret, B. (1994) ‘France: La consécration républicaine du néolibéralisme’, in B. Jobert (ed) Le tournant néo-libéral en Europe: Idées et recettes dans les pratiques gouvernementales, pp. 21–85, Paris: L’Harmattan. Katz, R., Mair, P. (1995) ‘Changing models of party organization and party democracy. The emergence of the cartel party’, Party Politics 1(1), 5–28. Kirchheimer, O. (1966) ‘The transformation of the Western European party systems’, in J. LaPalombara, M. Weiner (eds) Political parties and political development, pp. 177–200, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Le Bart, C. (1992) La rhétorique du maire entrepreneur: Critique de la communication municipale, Paris: Pedone. Lefebvre, R., Sawicki, F. (2006) La société des socialistes: Le PS aujourd’hui, Bellecombe-en-Bauges: Editions du Croquant. Lemoine, B. (2008) ‘Chiffrer les programmes politiques lors de la campagne présidentielle 2007: Heurs et malheurs d’un instrument’, Revue française de science politique 3(58), 403–31. Lipset, S., Rokkan, S. (1967) Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives, New York: Free Press. Medvetz, T. (2012) Think Tanks in America, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mischi, J. (2014) Le Communisme désarmé: Le PCF et les classes populaires depuis les années 1970, Marseille: Agone. Persico, S. (2014) Un clivage, des enjeux: Une étude comparée de la réaction des grands partis de gouvernement face à l’écologie, doctoral dissertation in Political Science, Paris: Sciences Po Paris. Petitfils, A.-S. (2007) ‘L’institution partisane à l’épreuve du management’, Politix 3(79), 53–76. Sawicki, F. (1998) ‘The Parti Socialiste: From a party of activists to a party for government’, in P. Ignazi, C. Ysmal (eds) The Organization of Political Parties in Southern Europe, Wesport, pp. 70–8, London: Praeger. Sawicki, F. (2001) ‘Les partis comme entreprises culturelles’, in D. Cefaï (ed) Les cultures politiques, pp. 191–212, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Sawicki, F. (2002) ‘Du parti à l’assemblée régionale: Itinéraire d’un professionnel de l’intermédiation’, in O. Nay, A. Smith (eds) Le gouvernement du compromis, pp. 23–45, Paris: Economica. Schmid, L. (2013) ‘Pourquoi les partis ne sont pas producteurs d’idées?’, Esprit 8–9, 40–2. Stokes, D. (1963) ‘Spatial models of party competition’, American Political Science Review 57(2), 368–77. Stone, D. (2000) ‘Non-governmental policy transfer: The strategies of independent policy institutes’, Governance 13(1), 45–62. Zittoun, P. (2001) ‘Partis politiques et politiques du logement, échange de ressource entre dons et dettes politiques’, Revue Française de Science Politique 51 (October).

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Economic interest groups and policy analysis in France Guillaume Courty and Marc Milet Knowledge production in and about public policy by economic interest groups in France – that is, the professional groups that represent and defend the economic sector and its affiliated companies – has given rise to almost no specific studies. Consequently, although historical (Guillaume, 2004; Lefranc, 1976) and sociological (Offerlé, 2013) studies1 abound on ‘employer organisational space’, knowledge of the conditions of the production of public policy analysis conducted by major employers themselves remain vague. This is undoubtedly linked to the paucity of studies on political economy and industrial relations, and to the existing division between the approaches used in the analysis of public policy on the one hand and the analysis of interest groups on the other. The portmanteau word ‘expertise’ has simply been a point of convergence (Restier-Melleray, 1990). Policy analysis has thus been primarily and implicitly perceived as knowledge manipulated by policymakers to legitimise public policies, or as one of the sets of action used by interest groups (Robert, 2008). This chapter focuses on three areas: first, it analyses organisations in order to identify and highlight the types of analytical structures in place; second, it analyses selected texts from sectors from which our field study was conducted and for which we have sufficient reliable data (for instance, we have very specific data on transport and small and medium enterprises); third, it analyses the documentation issued by organisations within the context of the 2012 presidential elections. We have decided against proposing an overview of doctrinal positions and instead we have chosen to focus on how analytical approaches and structures have been developed. We defend two key ideas: first, although there is a long-held perception of France as a dominant state which tends to impose its expertise, a presentation of the traditional co-production of encrypted data reveals a lasting and more complex relationship between economic interest groups and the French government. In this sense, even during the ‘golden age of the State’ (Courty and Suleiman, 1997), the authorities long depended on the data and studies provided by economic interest groups. Moreover, the process of producing standards meant that policy analysis conditions varied greatly from one type of text to another – that is, regulatory or legislative – and across sectors. This puts the perception of an ad hoc, unequivocal and national French model into perspective. The first section presents the latest developments and the groups involved in policy analysis. The second section explores the different analysis modes within a context that revisits 225

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the interventionist state model. We seek to situate, over the long term, how the different forms and modes of analysis produced by interest groups have been organised. These forms and modes reveal early professionalisation in a real lobbying know-how à la française which conflicts, however, with the discourse promoted by economic actors themselves. These actors argue that the assumed delay of the French in practising a logic of influence is the result of a philosophical and political tradition hostile to intermediate bodies that has influenced the country ever since the French Revolution. The third section analyses the expertise developed in public policy and presents the different proactive and reactive conditions of policy analysis. The last section presents the current developments in the context of state transformation.

Little-known economic interest group activities Public policy analysis by economic interest groups has remained an unexplored area of research; indeed, emphasis has been placed on renewed analyses around economic interest groups on the one hand and public policy studies on the other. We must therefore begin by questioning this underdevelopment and presenting the actors involved. Policy analysis by economic interest groups: an addressed but vague activity A brief survey of studies that have focused on general analysis of economic interest groups reveals five types of approaches that provide implicit details on the little attention that has been paid to how these groups undertake policy analysis activities. The interactionist approach examines the relationship between interest groups and the state (based on the definition of a pluralistic, neo-corporatist and interventionist model). In this context, to grasp the activities of economic actors, public policy is analysed in terms of policy networks and through the pursuit of a national model. Situating France has been a longstanding issue. The agricultural and industrial sectors have been central, both in validating the French version of the neo-corporatist model (Keeler, 1987) and in initiating a pluralist model characterised by niches of sectoral co-management, specific to meso-level corporatism (Wilson, 1987; Jobert and Muller, 1987). Analysis of industrial policies and labour relations has primarily presented an opportunity to show the privileged position of the state as an agent of regulation, placing it on an equal footing vis-à-vis civil society (Schmidt, 1996). Irrespective of the model chosen, there has been a tendency in the literature to implicitly consider that policy analysis lies primarily not within interest groups, but, rather, within the ‘public expertise’ developed by high-ranking institutions (Suleiman, 1979). A second approach is part of the sociology of power and elites. In its French version, these dominant actors have a functional constraint that acts in their favour (that is, they do not hinder economic dynamics) and exempts them from working with public authorities (Schmitter and Streeck, 1985). French literature reflects this 226

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interpretation by underscoring the perpetual weakness of umbrella organisations (the National Centre of French Employers (Centre national du patronat français (CNPF), then the Movement for French Companies (le Mouvement des entreprises de France [MEDEF]) and, more broadly, of the different representative organisations in relation to firms or entrepreneurs’ clubs and think tanks. In this context, recent studies have focused on the emergence of consultants in the policy monitoring field (Grossmann and Saurugger, 2004; Henry and Pierru, 2012) which has been accompanied by the integration of experts in the new structures created to reform entire sectors (for health, see Benamouzig, 2012). Shifting away from comparative politics and the challenges that emerge during state and interest group interactions, sociology has adopted a qualitative approach partly based on research monographs (Michel, 2006; Offerlé, 2013) and longitudinal studies. This sociological trend, which has also revived the internal and organisational approach of interest groups (Salisbury, 1969), questions the feasibility of measuring interest group influence (Lowery, 2013) and its relevance (Courty, 2006; Offerlé, 1998). This approach thus resonates with perceptions of policy analysis: as the activities conducted by economic interest groups do not merely seek to influence policy-making, the manner in which norms and data are interpreted essentially fall within the ‘logic of membership’. This logic publicly reveals groups’ actions and appears to be primarily oriented toward their members. Challenging French lobbying calls for the redefinition of its outlines: within the context of a comprehensive approach, which activities do actors consider as policy analysis? Is the provision of a scope for public issues viewed as a lobbying activity, a policy analysis activity, or both? Taking into account economic interest groups when forming the ideas that inform action programmes (Muller, 1982) is thus a fourth path through which to initiate policy analysis. The transformation of employers’ umbrella organisations (from CNPF to MEDEF in 1998 [Woll, 2006]) can thus be interpreted as a manifestation of the new ambitions to produce an almost doctrinal corpus in the quest to influence and shape the social regulatory policy model: employer organisations propose a ‘new social constitution’ based on a radical reform that advocates change in how the scope between the law and the contract is divided, with the objective of including the social sphere in the contract (Duclos and Mériaux, 2001; Palier, 2002). It was thus possible to present the positions defended in the early 2000s by D. Kessler – then deputy vice president of MEDEF and president of the French federation of insurance companies – as the seizure of power by the liberal trend and analysis within the umbrella organisation. This generic interpretation of policy analysis, however, must be interpreted with caution insofar as it tends to use an extensive logic and integrates all the activities of a group within this analysis. Available studies have as yet been unable to clarify the real contribution of economic interest groups in relation to other structures (such as think tanks). Similarly, the precise conditions in which an internal corpus is produced (including but not limited to MEDEF) have remained inaccessible to date. The final path through which policy analysis has been initiated has 227

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consisted of considering economic actors within the local space when dealing with a territory. Such areas, however, may show no interest in establishing relationships with political authorities as the study of the bourgeois of Marseille (Zalio, 2004) has shown. In this case, policy analysis is an endogenous activity that seeks to better understand the norms and economic action framework, while keeping its distance from the political field. The recent interest of political science for economic interest groups Each in their own way, the approaches mentioned above have increasingly begun to focus on economic interest groups. The presentation below shows the density and diversity of this area, as well as exploring some of the misconceived areas of political science. With the exception of the agricultural sector, French employer organisational space is structured into seven organisations (Offerlé, 2011). Four of these are viewed as representative organisations: MEDEF was established in 1998 to replace CNPF, which was established in 1946 (74 organisations and 750,000 members); the General Confederation of Employers of Small and Medium Companies la Confédération des petites et moyennes entreprises (CPME) (ex-Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises [CGPME]), established in 1944 (92 organisations and 550,000 companies); the professional workmanship union (l’Union des entreprises de proximité [U2P] [ex-UPA]), established in 1975 (59 organisations and 300,000 members); The National Union of Self-employed Professionals (l’Union nationale des professions libérales [UNAPL]), established in 1977 (58 organisations and 110,000 members). In addition to these organisations, of which membership is voluntary, there are also consular organisations of which membership is mandatory: the assembly of French Chambers of Commerce and Industry (l’Assemblée des chambres de Commerces et d’Industrie [ACFCI]) and Permanent Assembly of Chambers of Trades and Crafts (l’Assemblée permanente des Chambres de métiers et de l’artisanat [APCMA]). Last, the French association of private companies (Association française des entreprises privées [AFEP]), established in 1982, concerns the 100 largest private groups. Hundreds of alliances and thousands of federated trade unions have developed from these umbrella organisations. Public policy analysis can thus be developed at the three levels comprising​​ economic interest groups. At the first level are the structures, that is, companies. Above these are the federations and unions of the different branches and sectors. At the top level are four representative organisations, and also the three key players in policy-making and policy monitoring. French political science has only very recently begun to show an interest in approaches of interest groups. Moreover, it has long placed emphasis on the top level and overlooked the other two levels. Despite the existence of numerous studies focusing on sectoral public policies which might be expected to fill this gap, in most cases, these studies have focused on the top levels of the state, once again leaving aside interest group structures involved in the formulation and monitoring of public policies. Consequently, we 228

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cannot fully address this gap. At best, we can propose some generalisations based on monographs focusing on the organisations of which we have information on how public policy analysis is undertaken. To provide a summary of the new configuration of which these organisations are now part, a few recent developments must be highlighted. These developments have affected organisations’ structures and hampered their analytical activities. After their incorporation into the policy network that the French government developed after the Second World War – from which the definition of a ‘planned economy’ or ‘neo-corporatism’ emerged – economic interest groups were pulled to one side by the European project that was launched in the second half of the 1950s involving the energy, agriculture and transport sectors. They were pulled to the other side by the increasing power of local authorities, revived in France by the decentralisation laws passed from 1982. The transition to the twenty-first century was thus inspired by more than the neoliberal turn; indeed, the classification of areas of expertise in economic policy was modified. In this three-dimensional space – supranational, national and local – economic interest groups have now become potential actors and companies have become legitimate actors among these institutions. Moreover, umbrella organisations such as branch federations have not ceased in their attempts to monopolise expertise in their sectors.

Economic interest groups and the interventionist French model Analysis of economic interest groups can be influenced by two models. On the one hand, it is difficult to disagree with the idea that the state dominates in France, making it a model of a system driven by state-centred interests. On the other, it is equally difficult to avoid addressing the business community’s control over some public policies, a model that can also be found in British and American case studies. With regard to the ninteenth century, these two models must be viewed in perspective. Indeed, it is noteworthy that although economic interest groups and the state jointly produced policy instruments and policy issues, this activity was not as important and central as it had been up until the mid1960s. Subsequently, it was necessary to re-examine the traditional separation of instruments that the government brought into play to develop and analyse public policy. Among the most fundamental instruments were socio-economic data, which fuelled simulation and forecasting models. Rather than representing state knowledge as such, these data were co-produced. The co-production of statistics and macroeconomic forecasting Economic interest groups have always had a special role in policy analysis because, relatively early, governments have always conferred on them the role of informers and producers of socio-economic data. Far from being actors working outside the government, economic interest groups have been involved in the development of statistics, even though these data have been claimed and monopolised by 229

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state agents since the 1950s. Owing to these past experiences, interest group representatives have internalised the custom of transmitting figures that political agents have become accustomed to expecting from them. Indeed, the social history of statistics also pits business interest groups and government elites against each other to understand how three tools useful for macroeconomic forecasting are produced: the economic sector, the product and the area of activity (Courty, 2006). From the onset of the institutionalisation of the representation of interests, as part of the National Economic Council (Conseil national économique [CNE]) which foreshadowed the Economic and Social Council of the Environment (Conseil Économique et Social de l’Environnement [CESE]), the available statistical data were extracted from the population census (Volle, 1982). Surveys of different branches and production surveys were the instruments used then (Margairaz, 1991). They helped create a link between administrative groups and offices and built the networks necessary for quantification and for the required additional data (Chambers of Commerce, Chambers of Agriculture and trade unions). The inclusion of these groups was shaped by two decrees issued in 1938, obliging employers with more than five employees to produce statistical data or face a fine. The first directories and regular newsletters were published from 1945; while one counted, the other informed. This task was recognised and guaranteed by the state for 88 employer organisations in 1939, then for organisation committees created by the Vichy government to replace the trade unions of the Third Republic, and, last, for the remaining 235 approved professional organisations in 1966. However, only high-ranking government officials held the keys to the formalisation of the figures and programme development. The division of statistical activities between interest groups and high-ranking officials was thus established and persisted with planning. As Volle has pointed out, this co-production required actors to go through a learning process. Companies ‘certainly had no in-depth accounting skills’ allowing them to transmit the expected data. Moreover, it was in the best interest of employers to fabricate lies or develop ‘administrative arrangements’ because their contributions to economic interest groups partly depended on the data transmitted and there was thus a certain tendency to underestimate data in order to reduce one’s contribution. Indeed, inconsistency between the data from tax returns and data collected in surveys across different branches resulted in the implementation of systematic industrial censuses. Co-production was not a marginal phenomenon. Between the Liberation and the industrial census of 1962, approximately 1,000 people working for employer organisations transmitted data that was then transformed into statistics by 15 state officials (Volle, 1982). Once launched, National Agency of Statistics (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques [INSEE]) fought against the CNPF in particular, as it sought to impose its surveys and their publication, and to organise and provide annual data (see the annual business survey from 1968). The co-production approach also applied to the forecasting tools used in the context of the Marshall Plan. Moreover, it proved relevant, helping to explain 230

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the sectoral policies structured from the interwar period. Here again, economic interest groups were solicited, and some were even funded by the government. Some of the most legitimate of these groups thus shifted from their roles as government critics and became official informers. Between 1921 and 1923, the Federation of Industrialists and French Traders (Fédération des industriels et des commerçants français [FICF]), that is, the most representative group of French employers at the time, became a collaborator and practically a Commerce, Labour and Finance ministries’ official as it was contracted to assist in the production of technical information (Dubos, 2002). Further analysis reveals that other places also emerged, reflecting the different facets of the co-production of public policy. The neoliberal state and the maintenance of public–private interdependence The French interventionist state is governed by enlisting economic interest groups – can the same be said of the neoliberal state and deregulated economic sectors? Two examples drawn from sectoral policies may prove helpful in understanding the changes introduced. They clearly show the transitions made by neoliberal policies in France: deregulation; the transformation of public service concepts; the primacy of the most open competition possible; withdrawal of the state as contractor and state as shareholder. In both the transport and building sectors, public policies were fragmented into several sections even while these sectors were transitioning from regulation to deregulation. Although economic interest groups maintained a close relationship with the government, these changes affected their structures and their modes of public policy analysis. With regard to fragmentation, these sectoral policies received an educational component around the 1960s when vocational certificates (CAP), technical school certificates (BEP) and vocational schools were created. A new technical education policy was implemented with the economic interest groups of transport and building sectors which had developed ad hoc organisations or specialised departments. An obvious consequence ensued: economic interest groups ceased to analyse economic policies alone and began to monitor, finance and transmit data useful for educational policy. When lifelong training was developed, this logic was reproduced in adult vocational training. This interdependence is reflected in other government policies ranging from infrastructure management to environmental standards. The recent trend developed by the executive to propose legislation concerning several public policies has also proved a constraint to economic interest groups. Public policy analysis has been broken down by types of services because of the new form of neoliberal policies. Indeed, these policy texts have become increasingly heterogeneous, embracing several economic sectors and affecting each economic actor. Policy analysis now requires monitoring of the overall activity of authorities rather than simply carrying out legal monitoring on ministry and parliamentary committees or specific regulatory bodies. This constraint has also

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had an impact on companies, which now face greater legal uncertainty than in the past. Last, economic interest groups have maintained the production of educational or critical analysis for their members, competing organisations, the media and political officials: explaining, increasing understanding of and mobilising for and against a newly adopted mechanism have remained vital traditions.2 This activity is also subject to a graduated and varied approach that ranges from developing a communication policy to awaiting a special issue of the professional journal of the sector such as the indispensable Le Moniteur in the building sector. After presenting the social history of statistics in France, this broad evaluation approach calls for a detour through the history of the trade press because the ‘organs’ of economic interest groups have been among the supporters of policy analysis. Professional journals have become independent, as demonstrated by the journal l’Officiel des transporteurs, created in 1935 then integrated into the National Federation of Road Transport (Fédération nationale des transports routiers (FNTR), now affiliated with the CGPME). This journal became one of the publications of the Lamy group after several reforms. In this variant, these publications enjoy the ambiguity of their history: considered by some as the ‘unofficial’ spokespersons of the organisation, they are generally in situations of interdependence with groups and can thus hardly refuse to publicise their political assessment of an approved bill or one under discussion. Irrespective of their reputation, they present another opportunity to understand the diversity of professionals involved in this assessment, acting as economic journalists belonging to public policy analysis ‘associated rivals’ (Salisbury, 1991). Another possible alternative is to maintain an internal publication enabling the organisation to communicate to both its members and the political field in relation to how it evaluates a mechanism. Magazines, bulletins, newsletters and, recently, multimedia (official sites and sites dedicated to specific operations or situations – elections in particular) and audiovisual (Medef TV). All these supports also allow organisations to assess how sectoral policy analysis is used in the professional sphere. In small- and medium-sized enterprises, the common point in the development of representative organisation journals is a result of the desire to have a dissemination channel designed in line with the sector rather than as a simple trade union body (this includes La Volonté des PME for CGPME or Le bâtiment artisanal for the Confederation of Crafts and Small Construction Enterprises (Confédération de l’artisanat et des petites entreprises du bâtiment [CAPEB]). This trend reached its ultimate goal for CGPME when the journal of professional organisation changed from a trade union support journal to a more general publication, Perspectives entrepreneurs. In the local commerce and craftsmanship sectors, these publications were more a tool for the dissemination of policy information than for the analysis of mechanisms. According to Olson’s logic, membership of craft unions in the Fourth Republic and the beginning of the Fifth Republic enabled members to take advantage of monthly updated data of the applicable price lists. Such models disappeared when the general price regulation regime was implemented 232

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in the 1980s. However, the decision-making model remained unchanged. Given the increasing complexity of the VAT system, publications began to submit applications with different tax rates depending on working arrangements (for example, renovation, improvement of energy efficiency). This detour through the broad approach to policy analysis that led to the inclusion of communication activities also redefined its contours. While professional associations relayed policy mechanisms, they also participated in their analysis. Last, the group of large enterprises included those both publicly and privately owned. These enterprises were attentive to abiding by current laws and anticipated the reforms that were likely to have an impact on process manufacturing, the state of labour laws and the conditions of sale within markets. Owing to the presence of lawyers within the firms, the division of labour was initiated but few services were responsible for relevant public policy analysis. In this group as well, this activity was fragmented between the departments in charge of the employment and social policy, and those whose responsibility it was to monitor taxation, production standards and competition terms. The major innovation was the development of public affairs directorates (Directions Affaires publiques [DAF]), the only organisation to have government authorities as their interlocutors. Moreover, during social audits and preparations for elections, they had the difficult task of specifying how the company concerned was going to implement government policies. Pressurised by national and European public policies, the enterprises were also under pressure following the transformation of management that resulted in the redesigning of their organisational structure and analytical work (Greenan and Walkowiak, 2010).

Economic interest groups: public policy ‘experts’? Interest groups are perceived as key experts recruited by institutions (for the European system, see Saurugger, 2002), seeking to compensate for the shortfalls of political parties when developing the different sections of their programmes (Zittoun, 2001). In this field, a longitudinal approach enables the groups to develop expert knowledge early in their respective fields. This knowledge is referred to as ‘technical knowledge’ when it addresses production standards, ‘legal knowledge’ when negotiations around the content of a given law are involved and ‘economic’ or ‘fiscal’ knowledge when negotiations involve tax rates or hiring incentives. The perception of expertise as ‘fashionable’ has generated a number of myths that should be dispelled. The greatest myth suggests that every economic interest group is an expert in the sectoral policies that affect it. The example of small-scale businesses and SMEs reveals that the model of a specific structure responsible for assessment and expertise is a myth. The integrated model conforms to a synergy between specialised services that work together and debate on the monitoring of legislative and regulatory reforms (UPA3 and CAPEB). Organisations at the national level stand out as key institutions: on the one hand, they can be a resource to local structures which turn to them in their 233

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quest for information on policy systems; on the other, they can seek out local representatives to participate in the working groups established by government departments (a specific case is consultations with the department management team when preparing decrees) or acquire ‘local reviewers’ of proposals developed by the central authority. The rule, at CAPEB, is therefore to designate a representative ‘project leader’ in the office who will be in charge of a theme and work with a permanent team. Models of expertise: competition and evolution Transforming types of outsourcing rather than shifting from an integrated model, strictly speaking, to an outsourced model, has historically been more commonly observed among small-scale businesses and SMEs. From 1946 to 1972, CGPME developed a highly personalised expertise model, notably via the use of a business law consultant who played only an ‘advisory’ role in ‘discussions and negotiations’ with parliamentarians and the administration, and was the recognised representative of SME expertise within the public space. Similarly, MEDEF created a department of public affairs chaired by a former congressman. At the turn of the 2000s, organisations representing craftsmen and SMEs turned to consulting firms. A hybrid organisational configuration of policy analysis followed: far from shifting from an internal analysis model to an outsourced model of analysis, arrangements between the two types of models were transformed. For instance, although UNAPL had an employee responsible for policy affairs, it also used the services of consulting firms. Consulting firms were thus called upon to provide quantified data (via commissioned surveys and even simple surveys) and internal resources were favoured in the context of interactions with the authorities (working groups, presenting argumentation material, parliamentary hearings). Two characteristics emerge irrespective of the sector considered (small business, craft, small- and medium-sized enterprises). First, the actors are unable to define what falls within the ad hoc analysis of public policies and lobbying; the studies undertaken and transmitted to elected officials in favour of the interests defended are used to support dissemination. The second characteristic is linked to the state’s role as a partner of so-called ‘independent’ expertise structures. One of the leading think tanks on ‘independent economic analysis’, Coe-rexecode, emerged in 2006 following the merger of two 50-year-old institutions. Of its funding, 15 per cent was provided by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris Île-de-France (Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Paris Île-de-France [CCI Paris Île-de-France]), from which it had partially originated. This public institution was under the authority of the state and was administered by elected business leaders. Established as a partnership between the professional organisation of the food trade and the trade unions within the food industry in 2004, the occupations and skills observatory signed a contract to provide prospective studies with the state in 2009. Similarly, in the mid-1990s, the Higher Institute of Trades developed a craft innovation centre 234

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managed on behalf of the Ministry on which it partially depended (the Institute was established in partnership with the Ministry of Crafts, UPA and APCMA). It is thus worth noting that, as in the latter case, the emergence of these ‘back rooms’ was less associated with the desire to use new policy analysis tools than with the will to participate in the legitimisation of the ongoing shaping of the representation of the sector (Milet, 2008). A state dependent on the expertise of business circles? The literature on the effects of information resources in lobbying (Bernhagen and Bräuninger, 2005) has shown the highly varied nature of the status accorded to policy analysis across different structures. The authors postulate that the use of expertise differs according to two constraints: the level of technical information available for policy and for business groups on the one hand, and, on the other, the reputation of the interest group vis-à-vis government, and of the ruling group vis-à-vis its electorate. When a government has sufficient expertise resources, economic interest groups favour self-restraint to avoid losing their reputation by disseminating erroneous analyses. Existing studies suggest that, in the same country, the degree of dependence of government in terms of expertise varies across policy sectors, but also across the different decision-making structures. Using ‘policy analysis’ rather than ‘lobbying’ provides new arguments that enable a breaking away from the idea of ​​a national model of expertise, and offers an interesting avenue for overcoming the harmful effects of analyses in terms of influence. Evaluation of the timing and degree of involvement of interest groups in the generated expertise is independent of the quest for knowledge on the potential effects on decisions. The transformations of two specific public policies perfectly illustrate this in the French case (Milet, 2013). The first began in the summer of 2007. The president commissioned a former minister to prepare a report on the conditions for implementing a ‘Small Business Act à la française’ expected to promote SME access to government, then European contracts. The presidential project of a Small Business Act (SBA) for Europe, established by Bercy following the recommendations of a task force, was based on a typically French perception of state intervention which failed to meet the expectations of the European Commission and a majority of European partners eager to preserve the logic of free trade. Subsequently, the initial French project had to be rapidly restructured. It was only when the mechanisms were reorganised that European partners and French representative organisations (UPA, CGPME) rallied around the mechanism which was adopted in the fall of 2008. In terms of the decision-making process, the SBA, which established a set of legally non-binding measures via ‘soft law’, was thus hardly in line with the initial objectives of the French presidency, despite the fact that the representative organisations had merely acted within the framework of a reactive action.

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The second policy is rather different: this is the promotion of reduced VAT rates in the building renovation sector which was promoted by the main representative organisation, CAPEB, from the mid-1990s. The expertise produced by the organisation (via commissioned surveys and information gathered internally) sought to show the government that tax revenue losses could not only be partially offset by the effects associated with the economic stimulation of the sector, but could also encourage employment. The analysis generated took a comparative approach (with Luxembourg in particular). In both cases, however, the mechanism adopted cannot be directly attributed, nor is it reducible, to the actions of economic actors. Similarly, within a given sector, the status of expertise differs depending on whether the analysis produced by the organisations drive public policy (proactive action), or whether they are simply a response to a proposed reform (reactive analysis).

The metamorphosis of economic interest groups Deregulation policies, state reforms and the institutionalisation of French market lobbying have all been involved in the metamorphosis of economic interest groups. At the heart of this metamorphosis, the space occupied in the state configuration presented at the beginning of this chapter has ceased to exist. Consultation and forecasting systems have been dismantled, putting an end to governmental dependency on data produced by economic interest groups. Questioned on this point, employers are no longer aware of this past, nor do they feel that INSEE can provide them with relevant information. The government, for its part, now increasingly uses consultants to develop this data (Henry and Pierru, 2012). As well as integrating consultants, the models used by economic interest groups are proving to be increasingly fragmented, distanced from the past, and in the very process of metamorphosis. Dissemination of the evaluation model In the late 2000s, European Association of Craft, Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (Union Européenne de l’Artisanat et des Petites et Moyennes Entreprises [UEAPME]) – the Eurogroup to which the most representative organisations of craftsmen and SMEs of the member states adhered – embarked on the implementation of an internal evaluation of European policies. Faced with a deepening economic crisis, the predominant idea was that the arguments defended by the group could be better taken into account if they relied on ‘statistics, surveys and quantitative data’. The establishment of a ‘study unit’ was perceived as a response to the dual competition in the statistical arguments production market that emerged from the DG Enterprise of the European Commission and databases already created by Eurochambres, BusinessEurope, and other economic interest groups. However, even as the Eurogroup invested in opinion surveys among entrepreneurs, the main French member organisations, that is, CGPME 236

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and UPA, launched similar partnerships with external consultants at the national level. The Europeanisation of the assessment mechanisms of the economic health of different sectors primarily involved the use of ‘barometers’ rather than the widespread use of statistical tools: the quantifiable data produced hardly relied on objective data, but was the result of combined ‘staff judgements’ collected from respondents’ perceptions when data on the constitution of representative panels of craft enterprises and SMEs was collected. As such, assessment of the effects of public policy and the economy was primarily based on opinion surveys. The Europeanisation of policy analysis was also reflected in the dissemination of national surveys from other member organisations of the Eurogroup. In the early 2000s, impact studies were commissioned by the French professional organisation to challenge the studies undertaken by the European Commission. Managerial techniques were first taken up by government officials with the European Commission’s adoption of ‘new public management’ techniques (Sanchez Salgado, 2007); they were then adopted by interest groups. At national level, economic interest groups began to use the same assessment approach as public authorities, reflecting the transposition of policy categories into collective action. While this process already existed, changes applied to the constitution on 23 July 2008 were particularly reflected by the obligation for ordinary legislation to develop impact assessments (Organic Law of 15 April 2009). The economic actors endowed with sufficient resources seized this opportunity to develop a ‘lobbying assessment’ within their repertoire of action. This original assessment independently established government authorities through self-referral. Unlike ‘technocratic’ and ‘participative’ assessments (Hassenteufel, 2008, 235), it did not seek to improve and/or control policy but rather to influence law-making, depending on what was promoted. Thus, the use of ‘anti-impact assessments’ grew, such as those established by organisations representing regulated professions within the framework of the assessment of the growth and activity act (known as the ‘Macron Act’) in 2015. Changes observed in ‘applied analysis’ In terms of social interactions, the 2000s marked a turning point that saw France shift from a system in which interactions between employers and trade unions were viewed as a ‘by-product of conflict’ (in the words of D. Labbé) to a system of social dialogue promoted by the state. This institutionalisation of forms of social dialogue led to changes in the expertise provided by the employer organisations which now provided the foundation, in part, for the production of labour legislation. Inspired by European social dialogue mechanisms, the Larcher law of 31 January 2007 established a mandatory procedure requiring social partners to consult with the government before making laws. In the fields of vocational training, employment and working conditions, the government provided a guide (with a ‘diagnosis’ and the objectives and main options selected) to the social partners. These partners could decide whether or not to initiate negotiations in order 237

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to reach an agreement transposable into the legislation. Once again, however, the established regime remained somewhat ambivalent. Indeed, the restoration of social dialogue shifted the centre of gravity of the defended positions from parliament to social partners. Moreover, employee unions deplored the fact that the agreements negotiated were directly drawn from the proposals developed and initiated by employer organisations. When assessing draft laws, employers’ ‘common position’ was the main working text used. The ambivalent status of the state arose from the fact that it could use the right of amendments or the declaration of state emergencies to circumvent mechanisms, and also because the new regime was not enshrined in the constitution. Besides these constitutional and legislative developments, the analysis developed by economic interest groups was also affected by major changes in the political field. Two of these stand out: recognition of different forms of participatory democracy and the institutionalisation of the electoral calendar in which presidential and legislative elections were synchronised. One policy provides a perfect illustration of the impact of participatory democracy on interest group activities. Energy policies – which revolve around the role of nuclear power in France – have increasingly resorted to debate to enable representatives of the interests concerned to express themselves. The law on energy transition thus contains mechanisms through which MEDEF and pro-nuclear representatives are overrepresented. These new arenas provide numerous forums through which the incentives and different scenarios of proposed energy policies can be assessed and objectified. The recent electoral calendar further reinforces the need for a forward-looking approach. Economic interest groups have used electoral conditions to present their ‘projects’ over a five-year period to prospective candidates (Courty and Gervais, 2016). These projects are as much a review of the previous legislature – the state of positive law, identification of abandoned texts, formulation of the necessary requirements for the sector – as well as a projection of the five-year term about to begin. At the heart of all these documents, some of which are presented as ‘programmes’, is another facet of policy change. Economic interest groups also view public policies as multi-pronged, comprising economic, legal, social, environmental and tax issues; subsequently, it has become increasingly difficult for a single law or a single department to address these issues. Through their development, policies help revive parliament’s power.

Conclusion Following dramatic changes in the twenty-first century, the French political field has done away with the last traces of the role played by economic interest groups within the state. While these groups no longer intervene upstream public policies as the accredited suppliers of socio-economic data necessary for the formulation of public policy, they have nevertheless supported the evolution of the political system of the Fifth Republic by co-producing policies owing 238

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to their maintained claim of expertise in their respective fields, and their use of evaluation and simulation methods. There has been no specific need for the creation of specialised structures to address these activities; on the contrary, they have extended and multiplied across directions, services and consultancy services, depending on the skills required. Notes 1

2

3

The gender perspective about interest groups remains underdeveloped even if organisations representing women entrepreneurs exist (Femmes chefs d’entreprises [FCE France]). A limited number of studies show the over-representation of men at the head of these organisations. Others provide some information about attempts at feminising specific jobs or discuss the role of spouses in economic activities, especially the craft sector. In this sense, interprofessional organisations have thus communicated to their members to provide expertise on changes in the rules of equality between men and women (see Medef ’s practical guide which proposes ‘a general outline for the implementation of the new Equal Opportunities’, June 2012, and the leaflet ‘UPA equality between women and men in local businesses: A reality and an opportunity’, June 2014. The UPA was transformed in November 2016 to U2P, following the accession of the UNAPL (liberal professions).

References Benamouzig, D. (2012) ‘Du grand soir au clair-obscur: Expertise économique et privatisation bureaucratique de l’assurance maladie’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 193–6, 56–73. Bernhagen, P., Bräuninger, T. (2005) ‘Structural power and public policy: A signaling model of business lobbying in democratic capitalism’, Political Studies 53, 43–64. Courty, G. (2006) Les Groupes d’intérêt, Paris: Coll. Repères, La Découverte. Courty, G., Gervais, J. (2016), ‘Les représentants d’intérêt et la campagne présidentielle de 2012: Rapports au politique et formes de coopération avec les candidats’, Politix 113(29), 117–39. Courty, G., Suleiman, E. (1997) L’Age d’or de l’État: Une métamorphose annoncée, Paris: Coll. L’histoire immediate, Le Seuil. Dubos, J. (2002) ‘La Fédération des Industriels et des commerçants français entre groupe de pression et syndicat d’union patronale’, in J. Garrigues (ed) Les groupes de pression dans la vie politique contemporaine, en France et aux Etats Unis, de 1820 à nos jours, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Duclos, L., Mériaux, O. (2001) ‘Autonomie contractuelle et démocratie sociale: Les implicites de la “refondation”’, Regards sur l’actualité 267(Jan), 19–34. Greenan, N., Walkowiak, E. (2010) ‘Les structures organisationnelles bousculées par les nouvelles pratiques de management?’, Réseaux 4(162), 73–100. Grossman, E., Saurugger, S. (2004) ‘Les groupes d’intérêt français: Entre exception française, l’Europe et le monde’, Revue internationale de politique comparée 4(11), 507–29.

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Guillaume, S. (2004) Le petit et moyen patronat dans la nation française de Pinay à Raffarin, 1944-2004, Paris: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux. Hassenteufel, P. (2008) Sociologie politique: L’action publique, Paris: Armand Colin. Henry, O., Pierru, F. (2012) ‘Les consultants et la réforme des services publics’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 193, 4–15. Jobert, B., Muller, P. (1987) L’Etat en action: Politiques publiques et corporatisme, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Keeler, J.T. (1987) The Politics of Neocoporatisme in France: Farmers, the State and Agricultural Policy-making in the Fifth Republic, New York: Oxford University Press. Lefranc, G. (1976) Les Organisations patronales en France: du passé au présent, Paris: Payot. Lowery, D. (2013) ‘Lobbying influence: Meaning, measurement and missing’, Interest groups and advocacy 2(1), 1–26. Margairaz, M. (1991) L’État, les finances et l’économie: Histoire d’une conversion 1932–1952, Paris: Comité pour l’Histoire économique et financière de la France, Vols 1–2. Michel, H. (2006) La cause des propriétaires Etat et propriété en France, fin XIXe-XXe siècle, Paris: Belin. Milet, M. (2008) ‘Parler d’une seule voix: La naissance de l’UPA et la (re) structuration du syndicalisme artisanal au tournant des années 1970’, Revue française de science politique 58(3), 483–509. Milet, M. (2013) ‘La configuration de la décision. Retour sur la question de l’influence des lobbies à partir des politiques européennes à l’égard des PME’, in Mélanges en l’honneur du professeur Jacques Chevallier: Penser la science administrative dans la post-modernité, pp. 167–77, Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence (LGDJ). Muller, P. (1982) ‘Comment les idées deviennent-elles politiques? La naissance d’une nouvelle idéologie paysanne en France, 1945–1965’, Revue française de science politique 32(1), 90–108. Offerlé, M. (1998) Sociologie des groupes d’intérêt, Paris: Montchrestien (Clefs). Offerlé, M. (ed) (2011) L’espace patronal français: Acteurs, organisations, territoires, Paris: Ministère du travail, DARES. Offerlé, M. (2013) Les Patrons des patrons: Histoire du Medef, Paris: Odile Jacob. Palier, B. (2002) Gouverner la sécurité sociale: Les réformes du système français de protection sociale depuis 1945, Paris: Quadrige, Presses universitaires de France. Restier-Melleray, C. (1990) ’Experts et expertise scientifique: Le cas de la France’, Revue française de science politique 40(4), 546–85. Robert, C. (2008) ‘Expertise et action publique’, in O. Boraz, V. Guiraudon (eds) Politiques publiques 1: La France dans la gouvernance européenne, pp. 309–35, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Salisbury, R. (1969) ‘An exchange theory of interest groups’, Midwest Journal of Political Science 13(1), 1–32.

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Salisbury, R.H. (1991) ‘Putting interest back into interest groups’, in J. Cigler Allan, A. Loomis Burdett (eds) Interest Group Politics, Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press. Sanchez-Salgado R. (2007) Comment l’Europe construit la société civile, Paris: Dalloz. Saurugger, S. (2002) ‘L’expertise: Un mode de participation des groupes d’intérêt au processus décisionnel communautaire’, Revue française de science politique 52(4), 375–401. Schmidt V. (1996) From State to Market? The Transformation of French Business and Government, New York and London: Cambridge University Press. Schmitter, P.C., Streeck, W. (eds) (1985) Private Interest Government: Beyond Market and State, London: Sage. Suleiman, E. (1979) Les élites en France: Grands corps et grandes écoles, Paris: Seuil. Volle, M.l. (1982) Histoire de la statistique industrielle, Paris: Economica. Wilson, F.L. (1987) Interest Group Politics in France, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woll, C. (2006) ‘La réforme du Medef: Chronique des difficultés de l’action collective patronale’, Revue française de science politique 56(2), 255–79. Zalio, P.-P. (2004) ‘D’impossibles notables? Les grandes familles de Marseille face à la politique 1860–1970’, Politix 17(65), 93–118. Zittoun, P. (2001) ‘Partis politiques et politiques du logement, échange de ressource entre dons et dettes politiques’, Revue Française de Science Politique 51 (October), 683–706.

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NGOs, civil society and policy analysis: from mutual disinterest to reciprocal investment Laurie Boussaguet and Charlotte Halpern

Introduction In this chapter, we address the role played by non-governmental (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) in the development of policy analysis in France. A brief overview of the existing literature about the French context suggests that these organisations have an ambivalent relationship to the policy process. Scholarly work paid little attention to these actors until relatively recently. Two major reasons were repeatedly brought forward in order to account for such mutual disinterest (Callon et al, 2013). First, forms of decision-making and state–society relationships in the context of the Fifth Republic offered little opportunities for non-state actors to shape policy-making. CSOs and NGOs were primarily considered as service providers at policy implementation stage, by contrast with the formal role granted to workers’ unions and professional organisations in the policy process after the Second World War. Second, the French neo-corporatist model of policy-making favoured the participation of a limited number of organised CSOs to policy formulation (Hayward and Watson 1975), whereas the vast majority of CSOs and NGOs occupied marginal positions in the policy process and preferred other forms of interests’ representation, such as protest (Wilson, 1983). While the former were often referred to in scholarly literature as policy insiders and were, as such, the focus of much attention in scholarly work about the functioning of the state and policy-making in France, the latter were considered as policy outsiders and only included in policy studies insofar as they acted as veto-players or as agents of policy change.1 Decentralisation reforms somewhat confirmed this division of tasks. Following the 1982 laws, the generalisation of ‘public policy by delegation’ (Lorrain, 2005) strengthened the critical role of non-state actors – both private and non-profit organisations – in the development of policy offer and the provision of public services at the local level (see also Gaudin, 2007). Yet the formulation of public policies themselves, and the production of policy analysis, remained concentrated at the national level and in the hands of higher civil servants – generalists and/or specialists – and professionals (Douillet et al, 2012). As a result, until recently, the relationship between NGOs and policy analysis was characterised either by a mutual lack of interest or by strong distrust.

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Recent work done on CSOs and NGOs suggests, however, their new and growing interest in the production of knowledge and expertise, as well as for their formal inclusion into state-led consultation processes and organisations across levels of government (Hély, 2009; Laville and Salmon, 2015). The strategic use of policy analysis also proves particularly instrumental in the competition between organisations for public subsidies and funding. This progressive shift has been observed across a large variety of policy domains, and also concerns organisations that explicitly refused to cooperate with state organisations in the past. It increased over the recent period in a context of reduced available public subsidies and the post-2008 crisis. In the absence of any systematic work on these groups’ uses of policy analysis across policy sectors, this process remains undocumented: for those CSOs and NGOs that are involved in the production of policy analysis, what does it entail? What are their uses of policy analysis, and how is it included in their action repertoires? This chapter seeks to explain the growing interest of NGOs and CSOs for policy analysis as a legitimate form of action repertoire, and it return, how it was analysed in policy studies. The first section discusses the origins and later development of the voluntary sector in the French context. We then proceed to examining the role of CSOs and NGOs in the production of policy analysis until the early 1990s. In the third section, we explore the shift that took place recently by looking in more detail into these groups’ effective contribution to policy analysis and how it was analysed in policy studies.

CSOs and NGOs in the French context: origins and latest developments Beyond the French context, it is widely agreed that CSOs and NGOs share some common features, in the sense that they are voluntary associations, independent and not-for-profit (Saurugger, 2007; Kohler-Koch, 2008). Trade unions, political parties and organisations representing specific professional interests are also included in this broad understanding. Notwithstanding these generic approaches to CSOs and NGOs, important variations can be found from one political system to another, as their origins are deeply rooted in long-term historical and political processes that constitute state–society relationships in a given polity. In the French context, this is very much linked to the development of the voluntary sector in the context of the 1901 Law on the Freedom of association. The invention of the voluntary sector The emergence of the voluntary sector in the French context is closely related to post-revolutionary debates about individual and collective rights, and to forms of interests’ representation beyond the state’s realm (Hayward, 2007). Following the 1791 Le Chapelier Law, any pre-existing organisations (religious, professional, political and so on) were abolished and a de facto ban on the right to strike and 244

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to form an association was introduced. Until 1884 (Waldeck-Rousseau Law), strikes, demonstrations and associations were considered as a major threat to successive political regimes, thus explaining why various groups could only be incorporated in policy-making on a limited basis. Indeed, the voluntary sector emerged at the intersection between, on the one hand, a strong distrust in the ability of self-interested factions to generate desirable policies in the general interest and on the other hand, increased demands stemming from an active citizenry in favour of additional collective rights (Hazareesingh, 1994; Rosanvallon, 2004). The 1901 Law on Freedom of Association (the so-called ‘Association Loi 1901’) was introduced in order to allow for the development of community-based organisations while at the same time accommodating the legacy of the French Revolution. The Association Loi 1901 opened new opportunities for society-based organisations, provided that they complied with specific procedures, including clearly defined statutes. Since then, a large variety of organisations (trade unions, political parties, interest groups and citizens’ initiatives and so on) developed as part of the 1901 Law umbrella that still constitutes, to this date and, with the exception of religious associations,2 a cornerstone of state–society relationships in the French context. This broad category was refined through successive pieces of legislation, thus leading to multiplying the number of subcategories that are defined according to the rights (for example, fiscal or judicial) granted by the state and other public authorities at various levels of government. Insofar as they contribute to explaining variations in the rights and obligations these organisations enjoy, some differences are worth mentioning. First, although under the Association Loi 1901 organisations are under no obligation to formally register with public authorities, only registered organisations enjoy full legal capacity and as such, are allowed to develop relationships with third parties, being public or private. In addition, only a small number of registered organisations are recognised as being of public utility (some 2,000 in 2015), which grants them access to extended legal capacity and rights, including the ability to manage state property and funding for general and public interest activities. Second, some additional variations are observed according to these organisations’ main focus (for example, sports and youth, health and social care, nature protection, women’s rights and consumers), their scale of intervention (for example, local versus regional/national), and intra-sectoral levels of cooperation (for example, presence or absence of umbrella organisations). As of late, citizens’ associations emerged as a specific type of community-based organisation that pursues an objective that goes beyond the satisfaction of its members and aims at contributing to the common good. Notwithstanding this large variety of CSOs and NGOs, this chapter adopts a restrictive approach and leaves out trade unions, interest groups, as well as political parties and think tanks, each of those being addressed by other contributors to this volume.

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The voluntary sector in France: recent trends A brief overview of the voluntary sector today gives some additional insights to the above-mentioned changes. It confirms a high level of diversity across and within policy sectors, as well as recent rapid and profound restructuring processes. This broad overview also suggests the critical role played by the Association Loi 1901 status in shaping relationships with public authorities. According to the latest census done by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE, 2010), the voluntary sector includes a large number of organisations, which amounts to some 1.3 million in 2012 and, together, add up to 21 million members and some 11 million volunteers (see also CPCA, 2012; Bazin and Malet, 2015). Additional differences can be observed when considering sources of revenues (for example, membership fees, donations, public grants), the amount of revenues, and their thematic scope and scale of intervention (for example, from the neighbourhood to the national scale) (Tchernonog, 2012). Historically, the vast majority (66 per cent) of organisations intervene in the field of culture, sports and leisure, while only a minority seeks to promote collective rights or professional interests, or to provide humanitarian, charity and healthcare services. The former are primarily organised at neighbourhood level, they experience a rapid turnover rate, manage low levels of income and are highly dependent on public grants, while the latter are primarily organised at national level, benefit from a larger variety of income sources and manage high levels of income. Indeed, some 22 per cent of existing associations manage a yearly income of less than €1,000 that is, 0.2 per cent of the total budget of the voluntary sector, while 2 per cent of existing associations, which are primarily active in the field of health and social care manage a yearly income of more than €500,000, which is more than 70 per cent of the total budget of the voluntary sector. In 2012, the voluntary sector added up to a total revenue of €85 billion, which relied primarily on the provision of services (60 per cent), public grants (25 per cent), membership fees (10 per cent) and donations (1.9 per cent). By contrast with other western democracies, corporate sponsorship is little developed in the French context. It only benefits some 9 per cent of the biggest organisations, and more specifically national-based organisations from the humanitarian sector. Yet, when looking more specifically at public (tendering and grants) versus private (membership fees, donations and users) sources of income, the dependency to public authorities in terms of income sources remains above the 50 per cent threshold. Over the past decade, and as a result of declining (or less stable) membership income on the one hand, and of decreasing income from the public sector, the voluntary sector tends to increase private revenue sources by increasing service rates. Among those public authorities that directly contribute to funding the voluntary sector, the state’s contribution declined from 15 per cent of total income sources in 1999 to 11 per cent in 2012, and that of municipalities from 15 per cent in 1999 to 11.5 per cent in 2012. By contrast, contributions of the counties (départements) have known a constant increase over the same 246

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period, as a result of their increasing competences in the social and the health policy domains. While the amount of grants from public authorities is constantly decreasing, their support to the voluntary sector increasingly takes the form of public tendering or delegation in exchange for the provision of services. This is particularly the case for those groups who are declared to be of public interest. This broad overview of recent changes taking place within the voluntary sector suggests a shift in the role and function of CSOs and NGOs in the policy process (Laville and Salmon, 2015). Indeed, grassroots organisations increasingly tend to operate as policy insiders, especially at implementation stage and, to some extent, during policy formation and evaluation. This is primarily explained in a context of reduced public funding capacity across levels of government, and the need for CSOs and NGOs to demonstrate value for money. It also suggests increased inequalities within and across policy domains, in terms of resource distribution and levels of professionalisation. Yet it provides little information regarding other action repertoires (protest, judicialisation) and contradicts the view that is commonly found in the academic literature regarding these groups’ marginal role in the policy process. The high level of variation observed between policy domains constituted a major obstacle to cross-sectoral comparative studies. As a result, we draw on the existing academic and practitioners’ literature in order to illustrate those few trends that are widely shared across time and policy domains while at the same time seeking to highlight profound differences through the selection of most-different cases.

Civil society organisations and policy analysis: a long period of mutual lack of interest In this section, we seek to explain why, until a recent period, the relationship between CSOs and NGOs and policy analysis was characterised by mutual lack of interest. We argue it is due, one the one hand, to policy analysis itself, and the lack of interest of practitioners and academics vis-à-vis these organisations, and on the other hand, to CSOs and NGOs themselves as policy analysis was often disregarded as a possible – or even desirable – tool in developing their own strategies. The blindness of emerging policy studies for CSOs and NGOs The blindness demonstrated by policy studies for the role of CSOs and NGOs goes back to the discipline’s origins in France. Following its formal introduction in 1981 (Boussaguet and Surel, 2015), policy studies followed a slightly different path in the French context to that of its American counterpart. It was immediately considered an academic field of study that was to be strictly demarcated from policy analysis itself, including from the pre-existing tradition of public and rational policy analysis within the Plan Commission (Commissariat Général au Plan).3 Furthermore, its import into the French social sciences academic context 247

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led to some adjustments in order to accommodate existing intellectual traditions, such as organisational sociology, Marxism or administrative science (Leca and Muller, 2008). This had some long-term impact over policy studies themselves,4 such as the rejection of rational choice approaches, a stronger interest in actors and a preference for a top-down perspective on policy-making, which by extension justified the marginalisation of CSOs and NGOs. First, the policy process was primarily considered from a ‘statist’ perspective, in which civil servants, and to a lesser extent elected representatives, plaid a prominent role. This somewhat echoes practitioners’ views as well as their lack of faith in the ability of self-interested groups to generate desirable policies in the general interest. Second, policy studies in the French context reproduced, to some extent, the shortcomings of the ‘French model of policy-making’ insofar as it primarily focused on a small number of actors. In this perspective, that was very much influenced by the work of Jobert and Muller (1987), policy-making was characterised 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. In other words, policy-making results from the close cooperation between a ruling state elite and organised interests. The notion of ‘circles’, as developed by Muller (2009), best exemplifies this hierarchical perspective of the policy process. The first circle includes key decision-makers (for example, members of the executive and their respective staff). They are considered as the main instigators of major political decisions and critical policy choices and as prominent actors in setting policy priorities and selecting preferred modes of action. The second circle is constituted by sectoral administrations (education, agriculture, environment, industry, defence and so on), in which higher civil servants – both generalists and specialists – play a prominent role in order to adjust sectoral interests to the wider political requirements and policy priorities. Non-state actors are included in the analysis as part of the third circle,5 yet this notion refers to organised interests in the framework of corporatist arrangements, that is, professional organisations, trade unions or experts, insofar as they are identified as major veto-players or drivers of policy change, whereas the vast majority of CSOs and NGOs are considered as policy outsiders.6 In his account of the changes taking place in the agricultural policy domain in the late 1950s, Muller examined in detail the growing role of the Catholic Agricultural Youth Organisation (Jeunes Agriculteurs Catholiques ) in developing an alternative policy programme that was grounded in a changed approach to the farmers’ role, namely that of a business manager as opposed to a householder, and how this CSO successfully championed a major policy reform (Muller, 1984). Similar studies were undertaken in these early stages of French policy studies in order to explore the relationship between other professional organisations (civil engineers, doctors, teachers and so on) and policy developments across sectors. Interestingly, the ability of these groups to produce information and knowledge about their respective domains and to develop alternative policy programmes is 248

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identified as a resource conducive to success, insofar as it is strategically mobilised jointly with other resources (such as protest) as part of influence-seeking strategies. By contrast, little attention is devoted to non-professional organisations and by extension, to those transversal policy areas such as environmental, social and cultural policy areas, in which citizen-led organisations played a critical role in early policy developments. Civil society organisations far from policy analysis This lack of interest by CSOs and NGOs in French policy studies resonates with that of a vast majority of CSOs and NGOs in policy analysis as a resource commonly used in their action repertoires. In her extensive work on the Associations Loi 1901, Barthélémy (2000) convincingly argues that only a minority of these groups are ‘likely to take, at least partially, a defence function, either “participatory” (within the decision-making circuits) or “tribune” (without willingness to invest power spheres). The assimilation of associations to forms of social experimentation and identity or militant expression proceeds from a largely illusory vision’. Policy studies in and about France echoes this view. These groups are considered as ‘policy outsiders’ in the policy-making process, which is primarily shaped by internal dynamics in combination with political and institutional features. In this respect, comparative political research often highlighted the so-called ‘French exceptionalism’, that is a tendency of the ‘contentious French’ (Tilly, 1986) being more prone to unconventional forms of participation and the choice of protestation as a preferred and dominant action repertoire. It seems so true that some authors suggested adding a third model to the two already existing ones (‘pluralist’ and ‘neo- corporatist’) in order to better qualify state–society relations in the French context, namely the ‘protest model’ (Wilson, 1983). In this perspective, organised groups primarily sought to indirectly exert pressure by mobilising public opinion through the extensive use of protest, including demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins and boycotts. Unlike the situation observed elsewhere (Nelkin and Pollack, 1981), they rarely used expertise and knowledge production as part of their influence-seeking strategies. According to these authors, two main factors accounted for this overrepresentation of protest in the French case. First in the context of the Fifth Republic, the French state constitutes an archetypically strong, centralised and unified political opportunity structure. Insofar as few venues are opened to alternative expertise and policy challengers, technocratic forms of decision-making encourages the use of disruptive strategies as seen as the last resource of the powerless (Kitschelt, 1986). Second, due to internal power struggles, organisations themselves choose to remain policy outsiders and prefer politicisation as an alternative form of influence-seeking strategy. Examples from two contrasting policy domains – environment and culture – offer a good opportunity to further examine these organisations’ ambivalent approach to policy analysis.

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CSOs and NGOs in the environmental sector are particularly representative of the so-called ‘protest model’ (Hayes, 2002; Filleule, 2002). Also, due to the transversal dimension of environmental issues, it offers a good opportunity to understand the role of policy analysis in the strategies developed by CSOs and NGOs in order to challenge forms of policy-making in those policy sectors that are often considered as paradigmatic cases of the French public policy model (for example, transport, energy or agriculture) (see also Szarka, 2001). The development of the French ecologist movement is deeply rooted in a vivid network of grassroots organisations structures, which, together, sought to ensure some level of coordination at national level under the leadership of a single umbrella organisation, that is, France Nature Environment (FNE)7 (Ollitrault, 2008). As such, these organisations played a pivotal role in the creation of the Ecology Ministry’s central and regional services (Lascoumes and Le Bourhis, 1997; Charvolin, 2003), so much so that this administration was often referred to as an ‘activist administration’ (Spannou, 1991). In this policy’s early developments, grassroots’ organisations provided the Ministry with two critical resources: on the one hand, detailed information on the state of the environment and if and how policies were being implemented, and on the other hand, power to denounce non-compliance through protest and litigation (Lascoumes, 1994). As nonprofit organisations (Associations Loi 1901), these organisations could apply for public funding and formal recognition by public authorities (agrément) as a way to gain access to the judiciary system. Some of them successfully engaged in the procedure by which they were recognised to be of public utility, and through which they could access additional legal rights. As such, they also contributed to expanding the policy offer and to delivering specific services in cooperation with local authorities. Environmental CSOs ad NGOs, however, are usually considered in policy studies as watchdogs rather than service providers. In some areas such as the management of natural resources (water, fauna and flora and so on), they were marginalised as they competed with specialised fields of knowledge and expertise, some of which were trained in Grandes Écoles. Also, a majority of ecologist activists and organisations in France contested FNE’s strategy and highlighted the need to maintain their position as outsiders to mainstream political parties and the institutional system (Halpern, 2016). By contrast with FNE, a new generation of environmental organisations (for example, the French branch of Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Greenpeace) was less interested in the preservation of the state of nature but sought for increased democratic participation and alternative sources of expertise in policy-making as part of an anti-nuclear protest. They favoured protest and litigation over policy analysis, and publicly opposed FNE’s attempts to cooperate with state authorities. By contrast, the cultural policy domain shows why CSOs and NGOs developed a growing interest in policy analysis as part of their direct involvement in policy implementation. In this policy domain, the high number of associations is strongly related to this policy’s origins and initial goal which is the principle of cultural 250

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democratisation.8 Following the mobilisation of extraparliamentary opposition during the 1960s, alternative forms of cultural policy-making and implementation were favoured in order to operationalise the idea of ‘access to culture for all’. Successive generations of cultural activists actively engaged in the creation of large networks across cultural policy subfields (theatre, classical music and so on). In some cases, this was done in cooperation with formal cultural institutions, but not systematically. Indeed, the creation of CSOs was strongly encouraged in order to achieve increased spatial coverage throughout the national territory and to explore a greater diversity of forms of cultural expression, including those stemming from civil society and citizen participation (Arnaud et al, 2015).9 Yet such support did not prevent the permanence of strong hierarchies and the creation of new inequalities between CSOs (Dubois, 2015), which are also – but not exclusively10 – shaped by relationships with state authorities and the use of policy analysis as an influence-seeking strategy over the selection of policy priorities and tools. Only a small minority of CSOs did develop policy analysis, while a vast majority focused on policy offer, including the provision of specific services and the management of cultural facilities on behalf of public authorities. Furthermore, and with the exception of a few figures, policy formulation remains in the hands of higher civil servants, some of whom were trained as generalists at the ENA, others stemmed from specialised schools (École du Louvre, École normale supérieure, École des Chartes and so on) and some were competitively selected. In addition, local state authorities (Préfets) and, following the 1982 decentralisation laws, public authorities across levels of government, often made a strategic use of the distribution of public subsidies and of contractualisation procedures. This proved particularly instrumental in ensuring social control (for example in the suburbs of large cities) (Gaudin, 2007) and in developing clientelistic networks and sustaining political leadership (Pinson, 2009).11 Upon closer attention, these approaches tend to overestimate the constraining role of political opportunity structures. Yet whether active as service providers or as watchdogs, NGOs and CSOs remain largely secluded from policy formulation and policy analysis is not developed as a preferred mode of action. In the following section, we examine how CSOs and NGOs have progressively emerged as policy producers in the French context.

The increasing use of policy analysis as an action repertoire The growing interest of CSOs and NGOs for policy analysis occurred as a result of a continued shift in state–society relations since the 1980s onwards. Following the claim recently made by Laville and Salmon (2015), these organisations can no longer be categorised as either service providers or as protesters, but directly contribute to restructuring forms of policy-making as a result of their changed role in the policy process. Several factors are often highlighted in order to explain how these actors’ position as an alternative source of expertise and knowledge strengthened over time in the French context. First, some CSOs and NGOs 251

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have been able to influence policy-making by blurring the limit between ‘policy insiders’ and ‘policy outsiders’. In the case of some women’s groups, the presence of ‘femocrats’ within the state apparatus has been repeatedly highlighted in the literature (McBride Stetson and Mazur, 1995; Bereni, 2009; Banaszak, 2010). Second, a series of environmental health crisis (for example, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or ‘mad cow disease’) led to vivid debates about forms of decisionmaking and to increasing demands in favour of more diverse forms of expertise and knowledge in policy-making processes (Gilbert and Henry, 2009). Third, European and International law on the right to have access to information fostered the opening of the policy-making process at the domestic level. Notwithstanding some variations across policy domains, CSOs and NGOs were granted a formal role in the decision-making process, mostly as observers. The introduction of ad hoc consultation processes and participatory devices offered additional channels of access to the policy process. Third, Europeanisation (Saurugger, 2007; Balme and Chabanet, 2008) and devolution (Douillet et al, 2012) processes also increased opportunities for these organisations to systematically cooperate with public authorities in order to jointly implement public policies across policy domains. Even though only a limited number of CSOs and NGOs effectively engage in policy formulation activities, and were able to compete for leadership with higher civil servants for knowledge production and policy analysis, a large proportion of CSOs and NGOs now ensures the distribution of policy offer and service provision throughout the territory. The development of alternative action repertoires All these factors were critical in fostering a shift in the NGOs and CSOs preferred action repertoires across policy areas, including litigation and knowledge production. Following the opening of additional judicial opportunities, CSOs and NGOs developed a strategic use of law and litigation. As convincingly argued by Israël (2009), this does not result from a mere legal translation of a political struggle but it also has some long-term impact on forms of mobilisation in the French context. While it still counts as a reactive strategy, the preparation of trials did foster the accumulation and the codification of information and knowledge. Expert testimony during trials was seen as an opportunity to produce collective memory and to develop a new series of arguments that would allow for activists to be considered as credible contributors in the judicial arena.12 Alliances with lawyers and civil servants that supported public interest lawyering were sought after in order to promote changes in the jurisprudence in various areas of law. In the case of immigration law, for example, the creation of organisations such as the Immigrant Information and Support Group (Groupe d’information et de soutien des immigrés [GISTI]) led to the accumulation of specific cases in order to consider the variety of legal issues to be overcome and to develop a strategic approach to litigation (Israël, 2009).13 252

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In addition to litigation, demands in favour of the opening of the policymaking process directly contributed to strengthening the role of NGOs and CSOs within the policy process while at the same time accelerating a shift from protestoriented towards more policy-oriented strategies. By systematically engaging in the production of policy analysis in their respective area of expertise, CSOs and NGOs highlighted its role as a resource for collective action (Mouchard, 2002). More specifically, by organising conferences and producing information bulletins, CSOs contributed to data gathering and knowledge production, to identifying best practices and to commissioning new or alternative research which, together, added up to credible expertise in the policy-making process. Once again, the example of the women’s movements is representative of this broader claim. Although the use of protest has long been considered a preferred action repertoire, notably by the second wave of feminist activists, women’s movements increasingly chose to develop knowledge production and expertise as part of women’s rights campaigns. In the case of sexual violence, these groups played a pioneering role in producing knowledge about this issue by drawing on the information received through the hotline and the shelters they helped create (Boussaguet, 2009). Indeed, the strategic use of knowledge proved critical in order to influence the policy agenda and shape policy solutions. The support they received from formal arenas also helped amplify and transmit feminist expertise and discourses to policymakers (Boussaguet, 2013) – a trend that is also exemplified by the decisive role played by the Women’s Labour Committee (Comité du travail féminin) in the case of the equality at work policy (Revillard, 2009).14 In the field of health policy, the production of policy analysis accelerated the recognition of CSOs and NGOs as credible contributors within the arena of credential expertise about rare diseases or about the formal recognition of afflictions resulting from exposure to various sources of pollution (Huyard, 2009; Gilbert and Henry, 2009). AIDS activism fostered lay participation in biomedical research and the reform of clinical trials (Favre, 1992; Callon et al, 2013). The growing interest of NGOs and CSOs for policy analysis directly contributed to these groups’ professionalisation, that is, the accumulation and concentration of a distinctive knowledge, the development and codification of specific statues and the growing criticism against amateurism (Hély, 2009).15 This is particularly true in those policy domains in which CSOs and NGOs already played a meaningful role during policy implementation. In the medico-social field for example, they run three-quarters of private medical and social accommodation (nursing homes, kindergartens, hospitals and so on), a dense network of home care for the elderly and a near monopoly in care for people with disabilities and in distress. The growing interest for policy analysis has been observed across a large variety of policy domains, and also concerns organisations that explicitly refused to cooperate with state organisations in the past. It is increasingly considered as a major resource as part of fundraising and monitoring activities, as well as for those that are formally included in consultation processes and organisations. To be sure, such evolution can also be analysed in a classic Weberian perspective, 253

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as a progressive autonomisation process. What we see, however, is that CSOs and NGOs remain more action-oriented than oriented towards the production of knowledge, thus explaining the continued disconnect with policy analysis. Whereas their role in policy implementation is firmly institutionalised across policy sectors, their role as policy producers is more contested for reasons that are both external – for example, veto actors within the politico-administrative system – and internal – for example, debates within each organisation about their role and function. The rapidly evolving role of umbrella organisations from a mere platform wholly dependent upon its members towards a fully developed organisation that seeks to develop resources through alternative influence-seeking strategies, including policy analysis, best exemplifies this tension. In the case of addictology for example, the growing interest for policy analysis and the recognition of its strategic role as part of influence-seeking strategies led to the major organisational changes and the strengthening of a single umbrellaorganisation, the Fédération Addiction (Gaubert, 2014). The main rationale for merging three pre-existing organisations explicitly resulted from the need to adjust to new financial constraints while at the same time developing a global approach to addictions in order to overcome barriers between different sources of professional expertise and achieve greater impact on the policy-making process. The production of knowledge for policy-making, including policy recommendations and influence-seeking strategies, captures a growing share of the organisation’s resources with some profound impact on internal power relations between the umbrella organisation and its members as well as on its external image. Also, the strengthening of umbrella organisations and increased attention devoted to policy knowledge and production as part of CSOs and NGOs activities is closely related to the opening of new opportunities in the policy-making process, as exemplified in the environmental policy domain. Since the late 2000s, debates about ecological democracy accelerated the institutionalisations of large environmental NGOs (for example, FNE, Friends of the Earth and so on) as ‘policy insiders’ (Boy et al, 2012). The introduction of mandatory policy review mechanisms and the strengthening of inquiry procedures at implementation stage directly benefited those organisations that had been able to establish themselves as legitimate policy actors by developing knowledge production and policy analysis as a preferred action repertoire. In terms of resource allocation, this led to employing additional staff who are primarily recruited for their expertise rather than their records as activists, and with a clear mandate to increase policy expertise and search for alternative funding sources in order to reduce their dependency on a major donor, including the state. Even though it is not a straightforward evolution and while it remains a hotly debated topic within most organisations, the growing interest of CSOs and NGOs for policy analysis has long-term practical implications on state–society relationships within the French context, and more specifically on NGOs and CSOs themselves. It confirms the continued blurring of frontiers between policy 254

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insiders and policy outsiders, as well as the state’s ability to effectively structure and organise private interests’ participation and contribution to the development of policy analysis (Dupuy and Halpern, 2009). This in turn led to a renewed perspective in French policy studies on the role of CSOs and NGOs in policymaking. A renewed perspective on the role of CSOs and NGOs in policy-making The debate about how to examine state–society relationships gained a new momentum following what is alternatively referred to as a ‘governance turn’ in policy studies (Gaudin, 2007; Commaille, 2010).16 In the French context this led to a shift from ‘classic’ approaches to public policy towards a more dynamic, multilevel and less state-centred understanding of policy-making. In this perspective, CSOs and NGOs are not considered as policy outsiders, but as non-state actors that, together with public and private actors, contribute to shaping the policy process across levels of government and through hybrid action repertoires. By contrast to the ‘French model of public policy’ in which institutionalisation dynamics relied primarily upon sectorisation mechanisms, it provides empirical evidence of bottom-up processes of policy change as well as it demonstrates the role of hybridisation and recycling mechanisms in shaping long-term policy developments. In this perspective, less emphasis is put on the role of ideas and socio-political structures, and more so on policy outsiders, conflicts, innovations and continued negotiations throughout the policy process (see also Lolive, 1999; Barthe, 2006; Callon et al, 2013). In addition, increased attention is given to nonorganised forms of policy-making, to the introduction of participatory devices (Bacqué et al, 2005),17 to the emergence of lay expertise (Boussaguet, 2008; Fromentin and Wojcik, 2008) and to innovations in governance (Boy et al, 2012). This changed perspective on the policy-making process highlighted the growing competition between these organisations and ‘ordinary citizens’ as policy analysis increasingly relied upon lay expertise. The case of anti-poverty policy is particularly representative of such attempts to transform policy targets, users and beneficiaries into policy actors in order to generate alternative forms of expertise than that produced by socio-economic actors, CSOs and NGOs, and in some cases, the administration itself. Historically, the need to increase the socio-political inclusion of the poorest sections of society and their contribution to policy-making played a critical role in the development of major NGOs such as ATD Quart-Monde, Fondation Armée du Salut and so on (Carrel and Eme, 2007; Cefaï and Gardella, 2011; see also Paugam and Duvoux, 2008). Recently, however, formal access to policy-making was given to policy beneficiaries, first as an experimentation, and following the 2008 law generalising the active solidarity income and reforming insertion policies, as an institutionalised source of expertise and knowledge about policies in this field. In this context, the National Council of Policies against Poverty and Social Exclusion (Conseil national des politiques de lutte contre la pauvreté et l’exclusion sociale [CNLE])18 formally recognised the 255

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expertise of policy beneficiaries in combination with other sources of expertise (for example, unions, governmental agencies, NGOs, or local authorities) (Weltin, 2013). At first, the creation of the so-called ‘eighth college’ directly challenged the role played by NGOs and CSOs until then as civil society’s representatives. But over time, it also led these organisations to strengthen their role as policy producers by allocating additional resources (for example, human resources, the production of studies) to the production of policy knowledge in their respective field and to further distinguish themselves from other participants to the CNLE.

Conclusion The role played by NGOs and CSOs in the development of policy analysis evolved considerably over the recent period. This has confirmed the need to go beyond a simplistic distinction between policy outsiders and policy insiders in order to fully grasp the numerous ways in which these organisations contribute to policy-making in the French context. Examples from various policy domains confirm that they have developed an increased interest in policy analysis as a strategic action repertoire. This shift is made material by the reallocation of internal resources, the creation and/or the strengthening of umbrella organisations and the diversification of influence-seeking strategies that rely upon policy knowledge and expertise. In other words, these organisations can no longer be categorised as either service providers or as protesters, but should be seen as directly contributing to restructuring forms of policy-making as a result of their changed role in the policy process (Laville and Salmon, 2015). Yet the role of NGOs and CSOs in policy analysis should not be overestimated. This cautionary note first derives from their judicial status, which confirms strong levels of dependency across the voluntary sector upon formal recognition procedures and public subsidies. As such, only a few large NGOs and CSOs are able to gain more autonomy, and this is often due to their ability to strategically combine several action repertoires and to engage into various forms of collective action at different levels of government in order to multiply sources of funding and increase their legitimacy. As such the voluntary sector remains characterised by high levels of inequalities and we suspect that policy knowledge and expertise plays a critical role in this growing differentiation process. Second, this cautionary note also derives from the differences observed across policy domains. In this respect, the development of an actor-centred approach to public policy confirms – almost by default – the critical role played by classic veto-players (for example, Grands Corps, professional interest groups) in the French Jacobin policy-making tradition in relegating NGOs and CSOs to acting as watchdogs, service providers or in some rare cases as external consultants during policy-making. Only recently, several cases confirmed the deep mistrust between NGOs and CSOs on the one hand, and the central and local administrations on the other hand, in their ability to produce legitimate policy analysis regarding the construction of a major dam (Sivens) and a new airport (Notre-Dame-des-Landes), in welcoming Syrian 256

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refuges or providing migrants wishing to cross the Channel with emergency accommodation at Calais. In this respect, ‘French exceptionalism’ still has good days ahead. Notes 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

By contrast, a lot of work was done on CSOs and NGOs in sociology or in other subdisciplines within political science, but not necessarily in relationship with the policy process. Religious associations are considered as a major exception and have enjoyed a specific status since the 1905 Law on secularism. See Chapter Eleven in this volume. See Chapters Four, Seventeen and Eighteen in this volume. Muller suggested a fourth and final circle including other political institutions such as the Parliament, considered as a weak institution in the context of the French Fifth Republic, and judicial authorities. See Chapter Eight in this volume. This was also the case of the work done by organisations’ sociologists. Since 1969, FNE has brought together some 3,500 grassroots’ organisations in the field of environmental protection. It was adopted in 1959 and justified the creation of the Culture Ministry. See also Négrier (2010) on festivals. Other sources of inequalities were highlighted: localisation, political networks, new forms of cultural expression (for example, comics, photography or street arts) (Arnaud et al, 2015). The support from cultural associations was considered as pivotal in explaining the victory of the Socialist Party following the 1977 municipal elections and the 1981 legislative and presidential elections. For a recent work about environmental law, see Doherty and Hayes (2014). A similar evolution was observed in the case of housing following the introduction of the compulsory right to housing (Weill, 2013). See Chapter Eleven by Hauchecorne and Penissat in this volume. See for example the work about development aid policy (Dauvin and Siméant, 2002). See Chapters Four and Nine in this volume. See Chapter Nine by Blatrix and Gourgues in this volume. CNLE consultative agency was created in 1992 in order to monitor and assess the minimum income scheme (Revenu minimum d’insertion). It now provides national administrations with expertise and knowledge about all anti-poverty and anti-social exclusion policies and programmes.

References Arnaud, L., Guillon, V., Martin, C. (eds) (2015) Elargir la participation à la vie culturelle: Expériences françaises et étrangères, Grenoble, Observatoire des politiques culturelles, www.observatoire-culture.net/fichiers/files/etude_complete_ telecharger_2.pdf. Bacqué, M.H., Rey, H., Sintomer, Y. (eds) (2005) Gestion de proximité et démocratie participative, Paris: La Découverte. Balme, R., Chabanet, D. (2008) European Governance and Democracy, London: Rowman and Littlefield. Banaszak, L.A. (2010) The Women’s Movement: Inside and Outside the State, NewYork: Cambridge University Press. Barthe, Y. (2006) Le pouvoir d’indécision, Paris: Economica. 257

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Barthélémy, M. (2000) Associations, un nouvel âge de la participation?, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Bazin, C., Malet, J. (2015) La France associative en mouvement, Recherches and Solidarités (13th edn), September, www.recherches-solidarites.org/. Bereni, L. (2009) ‘Quand la mise à l’agenda ravive les mobilisations féministes: L’espace de la cause des femmes et la parité politique (1997–2000)’, Revue Française de Science politique 59(2), 301–23. Boussaguet, L. (2008) La pédophilie, problème public: France, Belgique, Angleterre, Paris: Dalloz. Boussaguet, L. (2009) ‘Les faiseuses d’agenda: Les militantes féministes et l’émergence des abus sexuels sur mineurs en Europe’, Revue Française de Science Politique 59(2), 221–46. Boussaguet, L. (2013) ‘Agenda/mise à l’agenda’, in C. Achin, L. Bereni (eds) Dictionnaire genre et science politique, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Boussaguet, L., Surel, Y. (2015) ‘Des politiques publiques “à la française”?’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 153–84, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Boy, D., Brugidou, M., Halpern, C., Lascoumes, P. (ed) (2012) Grenelle de l’environnement: acteurs, discours, effets, Paris: Armand Colin. Callon, M., Lascoumes, P., Barthe, Y. (2013) Acting in an Uncertain World, Boston, MA: MIT Press. Carrel, M., Eme, B. (2007) Les communautés Emmaüs dans un monde incertain, Paris: Union centrale des communautés Emmaüs. Cefaï, D., Gardella, E. (2011) L’urgence sociale en action: Ethnologie du Samusocial de Paris, Paris: Bibliothèque du Mauss, La Découverte. Charvolin, F. (2003) L’invention de l’environnement en France, Paris: La Découverte. Commaille, J. (2014) ‘Sociologie de l'action publique’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Dictionnaire des politiques publiques, pp. 599–607, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 4th edn. CPCA (Conférence permanente des coordinations associatives) (2012) La gouvernance des associations, Paris: CPCA. Dauvin, P., Siméant, J. (2002) Le travail humanitaire, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Doherty, B., Hayes, G. (2014) ‘Having your day in court’, Comparative Political Studies 47(1), 3–29. Douillet, A.C., Faure, A., Halpern, C., Leresche, J.P. (eds) (2012) L’action publique locale dans tous ses États, Paris: L’Harmattan. Dubois, V. (2015) Culture as a vocation, London: CRESC, Routledge. Dupuy, C., Halpern, C. (2009) ‘Les politiques publiques face à leurs protestataires’, Revue française de science politique 59(4), 701–22. Favre, P. (ed) (1992) Sida et politique: Les premiers affrontements (1981–1987), Paris: L’Harmattan. Fillieule, O. (2002) ‘Local environmental politics in France: The case of the Louron valley, 1984–1996’, French politics 1(3): 305–30.

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Fromentin, T., Wojcik, S. (eds) (2008) Le profane en politique: Compétences et engagements du citoyen, pp. 211–36, Paris: L’Harmattan. Gaubert, M. (2014) La Fédération Addiction, l’expertise renouvelée: Mémoire de master politiques publiques de santé, Grenoble: Université Pierre Mendès-France, p 139. Gaudin, J.P. (2007) Gouverner par contrat: L’action publique en question (2nd edn), Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Gilbert, C., Henry, E. (eds) (2009) Comment se construisent les problèmes de santé publique?, Paris: La Découverte. Halpern, C. (2016) ‘Environmental and energy policy in France’, in A. Appleton, R. Elgie, E. Grossman, A. Mazur (eds) Oxford Handbook of French Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hayes, G. (2002) Environmental Protest and the State in France, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hayward, J. (2007) Fragmented France, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hayward, J., Watson, M. (eds) (1975) Planning, politics and public policy: The British, French and Italian experience, London: Cambridge University Press. Hazareesingh S. (1994) Political traditions in modern France, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hély, M. (2009) Les metamorphoses du monde associative, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Huyard, C. (2009) ‘Who rules rare disease associations?’, Sociology of Health and Illness 31(7), 979–93. INSEE (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques) (2010) Vie associative, INSEE première 1327, December, Paris: INSEE. Israël, L. (2009) L’arme du droit, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Jobert, B., Muller, P. (1987) L’Etat en action, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Kitschelt, H. (1986) ‘Political opportunity structures and political protest’, British Journal of Political Studies 16, 57–85. Kohler-Koch, B. (2008) ‘Civil society in EU governance: a remedy to the democratic accountability deficit?’, Concepts & Methods 4(1), 3–6. Lascoumes, P. (1994) L’eco-pouvoir: Environnements et politiques, Paris: La Découverte. Lascoumes, P., Le Bourhis, J.P. (1997) L’Environnement ou l’administration des possibles: La création des Directions Régionales de l’Environnement, Paris: L’Harmattan. Lascoumes, P., Le Galès, P. (2007) ‘Understanding public policy through its instruments’, Governance 20(1), 1–21. Laville, J.L., Salmon, A. (2015) Associations et action publique, Paris: Desclée de Brouwer. Leca, J., Muller, P. (2008) ‘Y a-t-il une approche française des politiques publiques? Retour sur les conditions de l’introduction de l’analyse des politiques publiques en France’, in O. Giraud, P. Warin (eds) Politiques publiques et démocratie, Paris: La Découverte. Lolive, J. (1999) Contestations du TGV Mediterranée, Paris: L’Harmattan.

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Lorrain, D. (2005) ‘Urban capitalisms: European models in competition’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29(2), 231–67. McBride Stetson, D., Mazur, A. (1995) Comparative State Feminism, London: Sage. Mouchard, D. (2002) ‘Les mobilisations des “sans” dans la France contemporaine: L’émergence d’un “radicalisme autolimité”?’, Revue française de science politique 52(4), 425–47. Muller, P. (1984) Le technocrate et le paysan, Paris: Economie et humanisme, Les éditions ouvrières. Muller, P. (2009) Les politiques publiques (8th edn), Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Négrier, E. (ed) (2010) Les publics des festivals, Paris: France Festivals and Michel de Maule. Nelkin, D., Pollak, M. (1981) The atom besieged, London: Siege. Ollitrault, S. (2008) Militer pour la planète, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Paugam, S., Duvoux, N. (2008) La régulation des pauvres, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Pinson, G. (2009) Gouverner la ville par projet, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Revillard, A. (2009) ‘Le comité du travail féminin et la genèse d’une politique d’égalité professionnelle en France (1965–1983)’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 59(2), 279–300. Rosanvallon, P. (2004) Le modèle politique français, Paris: Le Seuil. Saurugger, S. (2007) Democratic ‘misfit’? Conceptions of civil society participation in France and the European Union, Political Studies 55(2), 384–404. Spannou, C. (1991) Fonctionnaires et militants, Paris: L’Harmattan. Szarka, J. (2001) The shaping of environmental policy in France, New York: Berghahn Books. Tchernonog, V. (2012) ‘Le secteur associatif et son financement’, Informations sociales 172(4), 11–18. Tilly, C. (1986) La France conteste de 1600 à nos jours, Paris: Fayard. Weill, P.E. (2013) ‘Le droit au service des personnes défavorisées?’, Gouvernement et action publique 2(2), 279–302. Weltin, L., 2013, ‘De public à acteurs, transformation du rôle des pauvres dans les politiques sociales’, Mémoire de master Villes, territoires, sociétés, Grenoble: Université Pierre Mendès-France. Wilson, F.L. (1983) ‘Les groupes d’intérêt sous la cinquième république’, Revue Française de Science Politique 33(2), 220–54.

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Trade union expertise in public policy Sophie Béroud and Jean-Marie Pernot The role of French trade unions in public policy has not been discussed much in the academic literature in the fields of political science or industrial relations. This lack of interest is due to several factors. First, the French labour movement is considered unusual in that it is strongly marked by ideologies and very divided. In international comparisons, it is usually described as atypical, being characterised by a remarkable ability to mobilise the population despite a low rate of unionisation (Phelan, 2007; Milner and Mathers, 2013). Second, from 1970 to 2000, authors who studied the role of trade unions in public policy often used an approach based on neo-corporatism, applying the theory of macro-level political exchange. These analyses focus on configurations of interests at the national level, forms of social arrangements, and dynamics of social pacts. Authors who use this framework may examine Spain or Italy, for example, but they usually ignore France, where relations between the ‘social partners’ seem unstable and nationwide social pacts are rare. Finally, most studies of the French labour movement since the 1990s focus on its difficulties and examine union organising practices and the mechanisms through which workers may join or at least support unions. Studies on countries other than France point to trade unions’ ability to take on a ‘governmental’ or ‘public administration’ function (Ewing, 2005), which entails influencing the orientation of public policy and also contributing to the application of public policy measures. The way unions tend to adhere to the framework of debate set up by governmental institutions and other stakeholders – especially associations – leads to thoughts their relative autonomy on their capacity to produce their own expertise. Investigating this question can yield new insights into the French situation. The labour movement in France is characterised by a small proportion of members – only 7 to 8 per cent of wage earners – and many internal divisions. The historical origins of these splits lie in ideological differences (between socialists and communists within the General Confederation of Labour [Confédération générale du travail (CGT)], and later on between the CGT and the Workers’ Force [Force ouvrière (FO)] [see Box in this chapter on Trade unions in France]), in religious differences (the Catholic confederation Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens [CFTC]), and in differences between categories of workers (the French Confederation of Management – General Confederation of Executives [Confédération française de l’encadrement – confédération générale des cadres (CFE-CGC)] is specific to managers and professional staff). 261

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Trade unions in France Today there are eight national organisations: the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail [CFDT]), the General Confederation of Labour – the Workers’ Force (CGT-FO), the French Confederation of Management – General Confederation of Executives (CFECGC), the Catholic confederation (CFTC), the National Union of Autonomous Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes [UNSA]), the Solidarity union (Solidaires) and the Unitary Trade Union Federation (Fédération syndicale unitaire [FSU]). The first five are officially recognised as representative of employees on the national level in all sectors. The CGT is the largest confederation. Founded in 1895, it was initially led by revolutionaries. After the First World War, there was a split between reformists and revolutionaries; the latter created a separate organisation called the Confédération générale du travail unitaire (General and unitary confederation of labour). After the CGT reunified in 1936, the majority of its members were communists; they controlled the organisation after the Second World War. Most of the reformists left; some founded FO in 1948, while others became unaffiliated. Teachers set up the Federation of National Education (Fédération de l’éducation nationale [FEN]) in 1948. The FEN split into two organisations in 1993: the National Union of Autonomous Unions (UNSA) and the Unitary Trade Union Federation (FSU), a more militant organisation. The Catholic confederation, the CFTC, was created in 1919; a reform in ideology resulted in the abolition of all reference to the Christianity in 1964. The organisation then became the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT), although a minority maintained the traditional CFTC, keeping the old name and an explicitly Catholic ideology. The CFDT became more radical after 1968 and played a leading role in mass protest movements throughout the 1970s. The organisation changed its orientation at the beginning of the 1980s and became clearly reformist. Several federations left the CFDT and created a group of unions called Solidarity, Unity, Democracy (Solidaires, unitaires, démocratiques [SUD]), which linked up with various unaffiliated unions to form a new organisation called Solidaires in 1998. Like UNSA, Solidaires has few members and, on the basis of the results of employee elections, it has not been officially recognised as representative on the national level. Finally, the CFE-CGC was founded in 1944; its membership is made up of a small minority of professional staff and managers.

The most important factor who limit the French labour movement’s ability to influence public policy is linked to the ambiguity and opacity of relations between political parties and trade unions, especially on the left of the political spectrum. Due to the tradition of union independence instituted by the Charter of Amiens in 1906,1 relations such as those that were traditional in social democratic settings or in the British Labour Party never existed in France, where trade unions do not overtly influence the programmes of political parties. This factor contributes to the common notion that trade unions influence policy only by contributing to mass protests. However, French unions have developed expertise in certain areas of public policy and they have participated 262

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in the design of policy measures. Today, along with employers’ organisations, they play a role through their participation in the jointly-managed institutions that run essential elements of the welfare state: health insurance, retirement pensions, unemployment insurance and job training. This role has brought trade unions to develop expertise in these areas, even though the state predominates in defining the orientations of these institutions. The first part of this chapter examines the history of the French labour movement from its beginnings to see how it has envisaged its relations with government and its modes of intervention in government. We show that proposals elaborated by trade unions have had a strong influence on the design of public policy at certain key moments in social history. The second part of the chapter examines the mechanisms devised by the two largest confederations, the CGT and the CFDT, for gathering information and carrying out analyses; we also look at how these organisation have become involved in government decision making in some areas.

An influence linked to certain key historical events The development of trade union expertise in economics: from the first labour laws to the movement for central government planning (1890 to 1940) The CGT’s first years of existence, from 1895 to 1914, were marked by bitter confrontation with the state. Nonetheless, the CGT’s revolutionary syndicalism produced new knowledge of the manual workers’ situation. At that time, the CGT did not have the means to carry out research, which was certainly not a major preoccupation. Most important were the activities of a few individuals, such as Alphonse Merrheim, secretary of the metalworkers’ federation, who was passionately interested in research. The journal La vie ouvrière, founded in 1906, was revolutionary syndicalism’s organ of reflection. It was designed primarily to disseminate propaganda rather than to evaluate public policy, but the publication also reacted to the policy proposals submitted to the parliament and discussed in the press. For example, during the debates on the creation of retirement pensions for manual workers that took place between 1901 and 1910 (Renard, 1992), the CGT argued against building up reserves to fund pensions and against a retirement age of 65, claiming that it would create a system of ‘retirement for the dead’. After the First World War, the CGT adopted a modern form of reformism based on three principles: negotiation of wages through collective agreements, basic social rights including social security and economic reforms (such as nationalisation of certain industries). In its 1918 programme, the CGT pushed for creation of a National Economic Council to study social issues and facilitate discussion among stakeholders (Lefranc, 1967; Chatriot, 2002). The CGT produced arguments in favour of a system of social insurance (Assurances sociales) on the occasion of parliamentary debates preceding the vote on the 1930 law. Over the following years, a faction in favour of central government planning emerged 263

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within the CGT. They felt that the paradigm of a planned economy could be used to oppose older forms of economic liberalism, which had foundered after the 1929 economic crisis, and to combat the rise of fascist neo-corporatism. The group that favoured central planning within the CGT was made up of trade unionists and also intellectuals who sympathised with the trade unions. The confederation’s centre for worker education, the Confederation Centre for Workers’ Education (Centre confédéral d’éducation ouvrière [CCEO]), directed by Georges Lefranc, was the rallying point for this group (Poggioli, 2008; Lefranc, 1966). Some members of this group followed the lead of René Belin, a prominent member of the faction, by actively collaborating with the Vichy regime in 1940. Even though they were few in number, this betrayal by intellectuals close to the labour movement contributed to FO’s perennial mistrust of intellectuals. In the 1930s, political considerations dominated public policy debate. Within the labour movement, politics took on an international dimension: the revolutionary CGTU was largely subservient to the Comintern; the reformist wing of the CGT, led by Léon Jouhaux, was active in the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), which inspired most of its economic programme. The IFTU collaborated with economists of the Labour and Socialist International (LSI), experts from the International Labour Organization (ILO), and economists from the League of Nations. A lecture series given in Zurich in 1930 and 1931 formulated proposals for economic reforms that were taken up by several national trade unions, including the CGT: these included demands for a 40-hour 5-day work week, paid holidays and mandatory schooling (FSI, 1931, cited in Pernot, 2001). Within the favourable context of the 1936 Popular Front, these demands were taken up by the government itself. Union involvement in consolidation of the welfare state (1945–47) French unions were much involved in government action just after the Second World War. The CGT and the CFTC were fully-fledged members of the National Council of the Resistance (Conseil national de la résistance), and they pushed for application of the Council’s programme by the three-party coalition government. At the CGT convention of 1946, Jouhaux presented the confederation’s economic programme, which included nationalisation of key sectors and central government planning for the economy. The first draft of the Monnet Plan was considered ‘a solid programme of reconstruction, modernisation and development of the essential foundations of the French economy’ (Narritsens, 2005). The CGT played a key role in some sectors such as energy. Coal mines were nationalised and the national electricity company EDF (Electricité de France) was set up. Both were headed by Marcel Paul, minister of industry and secretary of the CGT’s federation of electrical workers (Gaudy, 1996), a double role that reveals a certain blurring of the boundaries between party and union among Communists. Union involvement in policy making waned after the war: the Communist Party left the coalition government in 1947. 264

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Throughout the existence of the central government Plan, union experts were active as members of its Commissions. In 1946, 18 Commissions for modernisation were set up: the CGT participated in 17 of them and the CFTC in seven. In 1947–48, the CGT was evicted from the boards of directors of several public enterprises, but it was not evicted from the Plan (Hayward and Watson, 1975). Pierre Le Brun, a reformist who had originally been an engineer, became head of the CGT’s economics bureau in 1946. Before the Second World War, he had participated in the movement for central government planning. The collaborators he chose for the economics bureau were not Communists for the most part, but they had decided to stay in the CGT after the FO split off. Little by little, as members of the Plan Commissions were replaced, the CGT withdrew. Some Communist CGT members participated in teams involved in developing the Plan under the leadership of Jean Monnet (Fourquet, 1980). A new era of union influence after the 1981 election of François Mitterrand In 1968, as a result of mass social mobilisation, a number of demands that unions had been putting forward for a long time were finally satisfied. In particular, unions gained the right to be present in the workplace. A little later, other union-backed institutional reforms were enacted. These included changes in the system of job training, new forms of decision-making through systematic collective bargaining in public enterprises (called contrats de progrès). However, union influence depended on a favourable balance of power created through strikes and demonstrations. At the beginning of the Pompidou presidency, from 1969 to 1972, Jacques ChabanDelmas and Jacques Delors espoused a ‘new society’ based on social dialogue and employee participation in company governance; however, their objective was not to pursue trade union goals but rather to disarm the labour movement by satisfying some of its demands. It was only in 1981, however, with the election of François Mitterrand, the first socialist president of the Fifth Republic, that the labour movement became truly involved in government and that it was in a position to influence policymakers. The political configuration changed radically between 1981 and 1984, when Pierre Mauroy was prime minister. Leaders from the CFDT who were also active members of the Socialist Party were appointed to positions in some ministries, including the Ministry of Labour, headed by Jean Auroux. CFDT activists also actively participated in the creation of the Ministry of the Rights of Women, working together with Yvette Roudy who was a major figure of the women’s movement in the 1970’s. Jeanette Laot, for instance, played a pivotal role within the CFDT in linking the fight for abortion rights with that for wage equality. Similarly, the four Communist ministers – in charge of the civil service, transportation, health and job training – chose collaborators from the CGT. Such positions for union activists in ministries have been so rare under the Fifth Republic that analysts call attention to them (Mathiot and Sawicki, 1999). Furthermore, the governments formed by Prime Minister Mauroy sometimes pursued trade union 265

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goals and even adopted trade union analyses. Of course, this was the case for the Auroux laws, which were shaped by the CFDT’s ideas on employee participation in company decisions (Tracol, 2009). It was also the case for the 1983 reform of the civil service; in accord with proposals formulated by the CGT federations of local government and public hospital workers, this reform applied not only to central government civil servants but also to local governments and public hospitals. Last but not least, it applied to the Roudy law (1983) which addressed discriminations against women in accessing work and the gender wage gap. The trade union’s expertise on this particular issue was pivotal in order to promote a gender perspective in public policies targeting private companies. Generally, however, union political influence during this period was weaker than in the years just after the Second World War. Opportunities for such influence did not arise again, even at times when the Socialist Party was in power. The labour movement was profoundly destabilised by the crisis in mines and steel, the rise in unemployment, and the austerity measures adopted in 1984. At that point, some members of the CGT, particularly those involved in the confederation’s economics bureau, tried to design proposals for industry – on the national and company levels – based on alternative criteria for management (Huiban, 1984; Lojkine, 1996). The irrelevance of trade union expertise in a climate of economic liberalism Like the Mauroy governments, the Jospin government (1997 to 2002) had ministers who were socialists, communists and ecologists, but it was more distant from trade unions than at the beginning of Mitterand’s seven-year term of office. Although the CFDT favoured reducing work time, the confederation showed little enthusiasm for the Aubry laws instating a 35-hour work week. The CFDT wanted the reform to be enacted through company-level collective bargaining rather than through legislation. The CGT did not succeed in stopping deregulation of the energy sector and it was also unable to prevent the separation between Réseau Ferré de France, that controls train track, and the train company SNCF, a reform that was carried out under the aegis of a Communist minister of transportation. Gender equality provides another interesting example. By contrast to the role they exerted in the case of the Roudy law (1983), trade unions didn’t influence the development of the Gender Parity Law (2000) on equal access for men and women to electoral mandates even though they welcomed it. In the early 2000s, gender parity was a hotly debated topic within the union, only to promote women’s access to management positions in public and private organisations (Silvera, 2006). Privatisations carried out under the Jospin government widened the gap between the CGT and the government, and that gap was to grow wider still in coming years. Along with other unions, the CGT participated in the national pensions council (Conseil d’orientation des retraites), created in 2000 to monitor developments in the retirement system, but the CGT has opposed all of the 266

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retirement system reforms enacted since 2000. Even when the CGT proposed alternative measures, they had no impact on public policy, with the single exception of a system of extra compensation for employees who have worked under physically harmful conditions, a system that was initially proposed by the CFDT. In recent decades, the CFDT has supported several policy reforms that its unionists felt they had inspired or that seemed to be in keeping with CFDT positions. Concerning changes in the retirement system, the health system, and government institutions, the CFDT styles itself as a partner of the state and generally chooses to support reforms in order to influence policy orientations, at least at the margin. Through its links with intellectuals who are close to the ‘second left’, which favours decentralisation of government, the CFDT has had access to certain think tanks (for example, the Fondation Saint Simon in the 1990s, Terra Nova and La République des idées since 2000), but the organisation’s influence on government seems very limited.

A limited production of analyses of public policy Our summary of the history of union influence on public policy poses the question of trade unions’ capacity to maintain links with political parties in power, but above all it poses the question of their capacity to formulate proposals based on their own analyses. French trade unions have little to do with the university academics, despite the creation of the Labour Institutes (Instituts du travail) under the leadership of the university professor Marcel David in the 1950s (Tanguy, 2006). Unions tend to rely on their own rather inadequate internal resources, as shown by the examples of the two largest confederations, the CGT and the CFDT. The Economic and Social Research Institute (Institut de recherches économiques et sociales [IRES]), created in 1982, is an atypical institution, since it is common to several trade unions and its financial resources are public. A certain degree of internal independence at the CGT The development of studies on economic policy was institutionalised in 1946 with the creation of the Confederation Centre for Economic and Social Studies (Centre confédéral d’études économiques et sociales [CCEES]). This body represents the CGT in certain organisations like the Plan and also, later on, at the National Council on Statistics (Conseil national de la statistique [CNS]) created in 1972 for the national statistical institute (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques [INSEE]). Many members of the CGT’s delegation to the Economic and Social Council (Conseil économique et social [CES]) were from the CCEES. The first studies carried out by the CCEES concerned the Monnet Plan (1947–53), the Marshall Plan (1948–52), and the Franco-American Blum–Byrnes agreement (1946). Subsequently, the CCEES published many studies on trends in wages for manual workers, purchasing power, consumption and household budgets. The CCEES undertook a series of international studies and published discussions 267

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of macroeconomic policy that were used by the confederation (Magniadas, 2015). The CCEES published extensive analyses of the European Coal and Steel Community, of the Common Market, and of European and international economic initiatives. The CCEES is also an important resource for the CGT’s training centre for unionists, where its members teach courses on Marxist economics (Ethuin and Yon, 2014). In 1982, the CGT set up a research institute, the Union Institute for Social and Economic Research (Institut syndical d’études et de recherches économiques et sociales [ISERES]), alongside the CCEES, at the same time as the government set up an institute common to all the major trade unions (see below): the IRES. In the climate of euphoria that followed the left’s accession to power, the ISERES adopted an ambitious programme and recruited young researchers. In the 1990s, the ISERES began to seek European research contracts to finance its activities. A decline in CGT resources, in addition to management errors, finally brought the CGT to close the ISERES at the beginning of the 2000s, some 20 years after its creation. Throughout its existence, one of the institute’s main roles was publication of an annual report on the economic and social situation, under the supervision of Henri Jacot. After the disappearance of the ISERES, the CGT did not create a new research institute; cooperation with researchers, in particular with economists (Lebaron, 2008) but also with sociologists, results from individual contacts.The CGT’s economics bureau, the CCEES, has a certain independence within the confederations central structures as a result of the internal configuration of power. At first, this independence was largely due to the personalities of Pierre Le Brun, a member of the CGT governing body. This independence was reaffirmed and protected by Benoît Frachon, who wanted to show that the CGT was not obliged to tow the Communist Party line. At certain moments of tension, the CCEES was called back into line. Nonetheless, its independence was genuine, and it was maintained by Le Brun’s successors: Jean-Louis Moynot, member of the CGT governing body from 1967 to 1981, and Gérard Alezard from 1982 to 1995. Moynot was among the CGT leaders who wanted to open up the organisation to non-dogmatic communist ideas. He was in favour of putting forward ‘counterproposals’ designed to deal with problems in companies or industrial sectors, rather than simply opposing government measures. In 1979, he resisted the seizing of power at the CGT by hardline Communists. Tensions were manifest during the 1979 labour conflict over steel production in Lorraine when Moynot and his colleagues criticised the tactics of the CGT’s metallurgy federation. Disagreements became more pronounced on the question of Europe. Moynot, who disapproved of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the CGT’s position on Solidarnosc in Poland, stepped down, along with three other members of the CGT’s governing body. Alezard, who succeeded Moynot, was much more ‘orthodox’, but, toward the end of his mandate, he joined other top leaders in pushing for faster reform of the CGT. At the end of the 1990s, Jean-Christophe Le Duigou, head of the economics bureau, was labelled a ‘moderniser’ by opponents within the CGT.

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Knowledge for training union activists at the CFTC and CFDT The history of the CFTC – and of its successor, the CFDT – is quite different from that of the CGT but it is similar in some ways. Before the Second World War, members and leaders paid little attention to public policy: the programme adopted by the CFTC in 1935, called a ‘Plan’ at the time, was very different from the agenda of the CGT and had nothing to do with central government planning. In keeping with ideas on the reconstruction of the social order contained in the Quadragesimo anno papal encyclical of 1931, the CFTC favoured the principle of subsidiarity of higher levels of decision making to local levels and the principle of a minimal role for the state, limited to guaranteeing a balance between social forces. Nonetheless, the CFTC stated that the study of economic questions was imperative for trade unions. During its first convention in 1920, the CFTC condemned materialist doctrines and pleaded for changes in work conditions. The organisation did not push for radical change in the social order but rather sought to harmonise the social order with the Christian humanist values. Consequently, the CFTC attached an intrinsic value to research in and of itself, in particular to analyses of the economic context of union action. After the Second World War, a CFTC fringe group, led by Paul Vignaux, spearheaded debate within the Catholic organisation. It influenced a ‘minority’ within the CFTC, made up of industry or regional federation leaders who wanted the confederation to abandon the links with the catholic Church. Economic questions were central to the Cahiers (‘Notebooks’) published by this faction of the CFTC, while the confederation itself intervened mainly in reaction to government initiatives. Little by little, under the influence of dissidents, the CFTC came to approve the concept of central planning; as early as 1950, General Secretary Marcel Gonin insisted on the importance of investment as a means of giving a social and democratic orientation to the economy. In 1955, pressure from the dissident ‘minority’ increased. In 1959, the CFTC convention adopted a report on democratic government planning that constituted a turning point in the Catholic confederation’s concept of the economy. The report contained a significant number of proposals designed to increase government control on investment. In 1961, in response to proposals for economic cooperation formulated by the reformist faction of employers’ organisations, the CFTC affirmed that its aspirations were incompatible with maintenance of the capitalist structures of companies. At the 1961 CFTC convention, a report on ‘wage policy’ stated that collective bargaining alone could not regulate wages sufficiently and that a national governmental income policy was needed. Economic analyses of planning and social democracy thus played an important role in 1964 when the majority of the CFTC membership transformed the organisation into the CFDT. Throughout the history of the CFTC-CFDT, it attached great importance to training for militants, particularly as a means to understanding the economy (Henry, 1956). Because of the need to constantly update information and analyses, the confederation created an institute for union research and training (Institut 269

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confédéral d’étude et de formation syndicales). About 20 regional institutes (called Écoles normales ouvrières) were set up to organise training sessions. The content of training courses changed with the transformation of the CFTC into the CFDT, but training continued to be based on a two-fold goal: self-realisation through general education and improving the effectiveness of union action. It was felt that activists should be capable of understanding both company strategies and the orientations of public policy. After 1964, the focus switched to democratic central planning. Albert Détraz, who was in charge of the confederation’s political bureau, exhorted members to become ‘technically revolutionary’. The expression implied that education and training were imperative for an organisation whose members had to be effective activists indeed in order to compete with the CGT, which had many more members. During the 1960s and until 1973, René Bonéty headed the CFTC-CFDT’s economics bureau, one of six confederation bureaux. He called on the expertise of another department of the confederation called the Bureau of Research and Economic Action (Bureau de recherches et d’action économique [BRAEC]). The BREAC was headed by Jacques Delors until 1962, when he was put in charge of social affairs at the General Commissariat of the Plan. At that time, the BRAEC published many documents that included economic analyses but were not restricted to economics, since the BRAEC’s field of competence was broader than that of the CCEES. Generally, the CFDT focused less on economics than the CGT. Because of its particular relationship to Marxism, the CFDT systematically carried out political analyses: a political bureau was created in 1961; social analysis became its forte and May 68 enhanced this role. Between 1973 and 1982, the economics bureau was headed by Michel Rolant along with experts such as JeanPierre Oppenheim, Jean-Pierre Aubert and Hubert Prévost. These men were more influenced by Marxism than other members of the confederation and their positions were contested, especially after the outbreak of the economic crisis in 1973. Economic analysis was mobilised in internal struggles over the CFDT’s orientation for the years to come. The strategy adopted at the end of the 1970s focused on action in the workplace rather than political activities; it was based on an interpretation of the crisis as being, not cyclical, but structural, or even a crisis of civilisation. Pierre Héritier replaced Rolant in 1982 as head of the economics bureau. Like his predecessor, his was an explicitly non-dogmatic approach to Marxism. Héritier named a team of economists, but he also chose sociologists. Research and statements on public policy at this period concerned subjects that were national in scope, such as hygiene, security and conditions in the workplace. During the 2000s, the CFDT launched several action research programmes, notably on the transformation of work.

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Weak links with universities, offset by a common research institute In all the areas where unions intervene regularly (job training, wage equality, institutions that are jointly run by employers and unions, and social insurance in general), confederations try to develop analytical frameworks to guide them in their role as managers. Unlike unions in others countries, they do not have permanent links with university research centres. The only area in which there is long-term cooperation with academic researchers is gender issues. Sociological surveys on the role of women in trade unions are regularly led, in connection with the CFDT, the CGT, the FSU and Solidaires. The unions can also rely on the IRES, created in 1982 ‘to serve trade unions that are representative of employees’. The IRES was created at the same time as the OFCE, which is designed to inform public debate on government policy, and Rexecode, a research institute intended to serve employers’ organisations. The creation of these institutes was inspired by the Lenoir Report, written in the framework of the eighth Plan. The report recommended fostering the production of economic and social information by institutions other than the national statistical office, the INSEE, which practically had a monopoly at the time.The IRES has a two-fold structure. On the one hand, it has a main office which initially was supposed to be mainly a documentation centre but which developed research activities, especially when Jacques Freyssinet was the director. On the other hand, the IRES finances research carried out by the different trade unions. The unions choose the subjects in which they are interested and submit their reports to the IRES, which makes them available to all the unions. Initially, the goal was to encourage unions to develop their own research capacities in order to improve ‘social partnership’ (although the term was not in use in the IRES’s early years), at a time when economic restructuration threatened to increase tensions in labour relations. Up to 2006 the IRES grew in notoriety and in size, in terms of both the number of researchers and the number of studies carried out by the six trade union organisations that were members of the institute.2 The IRES is the only institution that groups together all of the major French trade union confederations. This cohabitation has persisted despite many conflicts over the last 30 years. The confederations receive some financial support for their activities from participating in the IRES, but the sums in question are small compared to the other subsidies they receive in various forms from the government. The main benefit for participating unions is that financing from the IRES has guaranteed a certain continuity in the research carried out by confederations; within the smallest organisations, such as the CFTC or the CFE-CGC, research would probably have disappeared altogether due to budget restrictions stemming from their small memberships. In addition, the IRES has heightened confederations’ awareness of the importance of international comparisons.

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Links between the production of information and the internal dynamics of trade unions Trade union confederations are not the only organisations to produce information and expertise on public policy. Certain federations that have succeeded over decades in organising a large proportion – even a majority in some cases – of workers in their sectors of activity can shape the regulation of industrial relations and the orientation of public policy. This is the case for the CGT’s mining and energy federation in the field of nuclear energy. It is also the case for teachers’ federations: there was a single organisation, the FEN, in the past; it has now split into UNSA-éducation and the FSU. Since the Second World War, teachers’ unions have participated in designing education policy, through their participation in consultative bodies (such as the Superior Council of Teaching (Conseil supérieur de l’enseignement) and through the positions they take on reform proposals (Robert, 2004). For a long time, these unions were inspired by the 1947 LangevinWallon Plan, which advocated a school system designed to achieve a more egalitarian society, in keeping with the programme of the National Council of the Resistance. Despite some differences between categories of teachers (primary school, secondary school), the unions that made up the FEN elaborated their own plan for making education more democratic. They managed to influence the Haby reform in the 1970s who instituted a single type of secondary school. However, it was the teachers’ federation of the CFDT, the General Trade Union of National Education (Syndicat général de l’éducation nationale [SGEN]), which grouped all categories in a single organisation, that inspired another major innovation in education, the priority education area (Zone d’éducation prioritaire [ZEP]), a mechanism for enhancing the resources of schools in deprived areas, instituted by the Mauroy government in 1981 (Robert, 2004, 122–8). In this case, union expertise was used to analyse a problem (inequalities in education) and to elaborate concrete measures that directly influenced government action. This episode destabilised the SNES, the FEN’s union of secondary school teachers. The capacity of teachers’ unions to draw up programmes for coherent alternative reforms of the educational system, concerning pedagogical objectives and the content of school programmes, has waned considerably over the last 20 years. One reason for this is the divisions between categories within the main federation, the FSU: each national union – primary school, secondary school, university – defends its own membership. Thus, teachers’ unions have tended to limit themselves to defensive reaction to reforms proposed by government, and they have few resources available to come up with viable counter proposals. This example from a specific sector helps to reveal the kind of expertise that unions need. Schmitter and Streeck’s (1999) distinction between the logic of influence and the logic of membership is helpful in discerning what a union needs to faithfully represent its membership and what it needs to participate in shaping public policy. These two types of action are interconnected, as the example of teachers’ unions shows. Manufacturing federations also need to produce 272

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guidelines for policy in their specific sectors, in order to orient their company level organisations, who are too taken up with daily struggles against redundancies and delocalisations to have a broad picture. Such a goal has inspired the way the CGT has approached the question of work in recent years, trying to apply the practical know-how that union activists have acquired as elected or appointed members of the Hygiene, Safety, and Work Conditions Committee (Comité d’hygiène, de sécurité et de conditions de travail [CHSCT]). This know-how can be fashioned into a body of knowledge that can be used to shape political orientations and to train unionists. On the basis of the idea that the issue of the link between employee health and work conditions can be used to reform union practices and promote unionisation, the CGT has formed a ‘work and emancipation’ taskforce, made up of researchers, practitioners and union activists, which has published several documents. Inspired by experiences such as the struggles of workers exposed to asbestos, the group has developed positions which include demands for compensation for victims and demands for adding more work-induced illnesses to those officially recognised by public institutions. The leaders of the group feel that it has influenced some parts of the third national Plan for Workplace Health (Plan Santé au travail), in force from 2015 to 2019. However, there have been internal disagreements over the idea of making this subject a priority for the confederation and devoting a large share of the organisation’s intellectual and training resources to it. The capacity to produce independent policy orientations in this area, based on solid arguments and prepared in cooperation with professionals (especially doctors in charge of workplace health) without becoming subordinated to those professionals, is not considered a priority by all the CGT’s leaders. Some prefer to stick to more traditional demands. These tensions reveal unions’ difficulties in proving to members that participating in consultative bodies – as opposed to decision making bodies – in certain areas of public policy is worthwhile. Such participation may result in cooptation of union activists, but it is also a source of information and knowledge.

Conclusion Our study of periods when the French labour movement has been able to influence public policy leads us to several conclusions. The first is that unions have constantly tried to produce analyses of their social and economic environment, even when such analyses were carried out by only a small group of union leaders or experts. This preoccupation goes beyond the laws and reforms that directly confront unions, whose research agendas are not dictated by the public policy agenda. Although French unions are sometimes depicted as weak and highly dependent on government (Howell, 1998), their capacity to maintain independence vis-à-vis the political sphere has been linked to a certain capacity to produce independent expertise. A second conclusion is that union influence on public policy has been strongest at exceptional times, marked by major political events (the Second World War) or sweeping social protest movements (1936, May 273

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68). Their ability to put their ideas forward successfully thus seems to be linked to a favourable balance of power established through struggles rather than through institutions designed for consultation or negotiation (notably institutions that are jointly managed by unions and employers’ organisations). The third and last idea concerns the role of production of knowledge. While one of its goals is to orient public policy in a direction that the unions want, it also has internal uses. By developing expertise in particular areas, unions not only show government that they are legitimate political actors, they also reinforce members’ perception of their legitimacy as spokespersons and representatives. Notes 1

2

Adopted by the 1906 convention of the CGT, the Charter of Amiens proclaimed the total independence of the trade union from the socialist party and defined a two-fold role for the union: to act to change workers’ present situation; to prepare for worker’s social, economic, and political emancipation. Representatives of the five trade union organisations that are officially considered to be representative of employees on a national level sat on the IRES’s board of directors, along with representatives of the federation of public school teachers, FEN. Today, the composition of the board of directors is the same, except that the FEN has been replaced by UNSA.

References Chatriot, A. (2002) La démocratie sociale à la française: L’expérience du Conseil national économique (1924–1940), Paris: La Découverte. Ethuin, N., Yon, K. (eds) (2014) La fabrique du sens syndical, la formation des représentants des salariés en France (1945–2010), Broissieux: Le Croquant. Ewing, E.K. (2005) ‘The function of Trade Unions’, Industrial Law Journal 34(1), 1–22. Fourquet, F. (1980) Les comptes de la puissance, Paris: Encres, Éditions Recherches. FSI (Fédération syndicale internationale) (1931) Aux prises avec le chômage et la crise économique, Amsterdam: FSI. Gaudy, R. (1996) Et la lumière fut nationalisée, Paris: VO Éditions. Hayward, J., Watson, M. (eds) (1975) Planning, Politics and Public Policy: The British, French and Italian Experiences, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Henry, F. (1956) ‘La CFTC et l’éducation ouvrière’, in C. Blondel, J. Bussienne, L. Carliner (eds) Culture ouvrière et action syndicale, Paris: Éditions du Cerf. Howell, C. (1998) ‘Virtual unionism in France’, in H. Chapman, M. Kesselman, M. Schain (eds) A Century of Organized Labor in France, New York: St Martin’s Press. Huiban, J.-P. (1984) ‘La contre-proposition industrielle comme élément de stratégie syndicale (1973–1980)’, in M. Kesselman, G. Groux (eds) 1968–1982: Le mouvement ouvrier français, crise économique et changement politique, pp. 295–313, Paris: Les éditions ouvrières. Lebaron, F. (2008) ‘A contre-courant: Le renouveau de l’économie critique en France depuis 1995’, in B. Geay, L. Willemez (eds) Pour une gauche de gauche, pp. 177–94, Broissieux: Le Croquant. 274

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Lefranc, G. (1966) ‘Le courant planiste dans le mouvement ouvrier français de 1933 à 1936’, Le mouvement social 54, 69–89. Lefranc, G. (1967) Le mouvement syndical sous la Troisième république, Paris: Payot. Lojkine, J. (1996) Le tabou de la gestion, la culture syndicale entre contestation et proposition, Paris: Atelier. Magniadas, J. (2015) ‘La CGT et l’économie’, Analyse et documents économiques 120, 5–9. Mathiot P., Sawicki S. (1999) ‘Les membres des cabinets ministériels socialistes en France (1981-1983): recrutement et reconversion’, Revue Française de Science politique 49(1), 3–30. Milner, S., Mathers, A. (2013) ‘Membership, influence and voice: A discussion of trade union renewal in the French context’, Industrial Relations Journal 44(2), 122–38. Mioche, P. (1987) Le Plan Monnet: Genèse et élaboration (1941–1947), Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. Narritsens, A. (2005) ‘Programme économique ou programme d’action, le tournant du 30ème congrès de la CGT’, in E. Bressol, M. Dreyfus, J. Hedde, M. Pigenet (eds) La CGT dans les années cinquante, pp. 403–13, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Pernot, J-M. (2001) Dedans dehors, la dimension internationale dans le syndicalisme français, PhD thesis, Université Paris X – Nanterre. Phelan, C. (ed) (2007) Trade Union Revitalisation: Trends and Prospects in 34 Countries, Oxford: Peter Lang. Poggioli, M. (2008) ‘Le planisme à la CGT: Les origines d’une refonte syndicale au tournant du Front populaire’, Cahiers d’Histoire103, 27–40. Renard, D. (1992) ‘Une vieillesse républicaine? L’État et la protection sociale de la vieillesse, de l’assistance aux assurances sociales (1880–1914)’, Sociétés contemporaines 2(10), 9–22. Robert, A. (2004) ‘Jeux croisés des syndicats d’enseignants face aux réformes et projets de réforme (1944–2000)’, in J. Girault (ed) Les enseignants dans la société française au XXe siècle, itinéraires, enjeux, engagements, pp. 111–32, Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. Schmitter, P., Streeck, W. (1999) ‘The organization of business interests: Studying the associative action of business in advanced industrial societies’, Max-PlanckInstitut für Gesellschaftsforschung Discussion Paper 99(1), 1–95, Cologne: MaxPlanck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung. Silvera, R. (2006) ‘Le défi de l’égalité hommes/femmes dans le syndicalisme’, Mouvements 43(1), 23–9. Tanguy, L. (2006) Les instituts du travail: La formation syndicale à l’Université de 1955 à nos jours, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Tracol, M. (2009) Changer le travail pour changer la vie: Genèse des lois Auroux, Paris: L’Harmattan.

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Economics and policy analysis: ‘from state to market’? Daniel Benamouzig and Frédéric Lebaron

Introduction Deeply rooted in a French political tradition, economic expertise is expressed in both widespread and diverse ways. One general feature that has remained persistent is undoubtedly its strong yet complex and shifting relationship with the state: economic expertise has remained largely public. As in other western countries, market mechanisms at both the macroeconomic and microeconomic levels now play a greater role in public policy. Economic experts, however, still primarily work within or, increasingly, with national and transnational public bureaucracies. Although there is a greater reference to markets, economic expertise has remained strongly connected to bureaucratic action. In this chapter, we analyse three different periods which characterise different historical configurations. We examine the role of French economists in the state at different levels; although their role was rather national at the outset, it has become more international and transnational in recent times. In the post-war decades, economic expertise was mainly developed within the state and promoted either a micro or macroeconomic state-centred approach. French engineer-economists were trained in Grandes Écoles and employed as civil servants in the administration where they acted as experts. They played an important role in the monetary and fiscal policy at the national level, that is, in macroeconomics. They were also key players at the sectoral level and participated in the early development of health economics, in close interaction with national planning (Benamouzig, 2005). The case of health is a particularly good test of the sectoral variations in a broader process because it was long perceived as resistant to economic reasoning. From the 1970s, the academicisation and internationalisation of economics developed following a clear shift toward microeconomic reasoning. Moreover, the influence of pro-market expertise in the public sphere – at both the national and sectoral level – also increased, as evidenced by the aborted project of privatisation of the French healthcare system. Finally, the reinforced internationalisation of economic expertise in recent times has paved the way for pro-market policies. The international spread of economic ideas in public decision-making has also developed alongside the rise of new technical bureaucracies devoted to economic expertise. At the transnational level, this new economic bureaucracy has expanded and now covers both national policies and international bodies. 279

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The Europeanisation of the fiscal and monetary policy illustrates this trend which can also be observed at the sectoral level. The rise of national agencies working transnationally in health technology assessment illustrates this process: while new bureaucracies seem to differ from the former national ones, they nonetheless share some common traits. This, in turn, has called into question the role economic expertise may play in modern transnational societies. We will therefore focus on whether this evolution is specific to French history or, rather, is part of a wider international trend, embedded in global forms of economic expertise. Given the importance of transnational bureaucracies in recent times, a progressive convergence towards a rather general model can be expected. However, path-dependency processes may explain other national features as well.

A state-centred economic expertise In this section, we focus on the importance of the national state in the field of economic expertise in France. Specifically, we analyse the first primarily national orientation until the 1970s and highlight the role of engineer-economists. The fiscal and monetary policy is a key element of a ‘Keynesian’ economic construction; we therefore focus on this policy to show the centrality of the national state in the development of economic expertise in France. State economic policy: money, budget and performance Economics emerged in the seventeenth century as a pure ‘cameral science’1 within the royal court. Although it initially revolved around powerful political actors, it soon became an activity practiced by politicians, high-ranking civil servants and various industrial actors during most of the nineteenth century (Perrot, 1992). From the end of the nineteenth century, a tradition of engineer-economists emerged. They were trained within scientific and technical schools (Grandes Écoles) and participated in major innovations across various fields (Etner, 1987). As in many other countries, economic knowledge in France developed within the state. It provided a foundation and acted as a point of reference for new types of public policies such as ‘macroeconomic policies’ that emerged in the 1940s. In parallel, political economy and, subsequently, economics were initiated and established as scientific disciplines. They enjoyed a close connection with public policy and a certain degree of scientific autonomy. ‘Academically’ speaking, economic expertise was first developed in France in the nineteenth century in the so-called Grandes Écoles (such as L’école Polytechnique) rather than in universities. Generally speaking, scientific innovation did not occur in universities until the second half of the twentieth century, as evidenced by the lack of possible career options for Léon Walras in France (Dumez, 1987).2 As such, unlike in other countries, the interplay between policy and economic knowledge can hardly be reduced to a simple interaction between academics and economic policy in France,

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because it was first and foremost an institutional process which transformed both the state and the forms of knowledge. The interplay between mathematics, especially probability and statistics, engineering sciences, and social issues best illustrated by the work of Maurice Allais3 in the post-war decades, led to the emergence of a ‘modern-style’ mathematical and statistical economics integrated within French Administration (Desrosières, 1993). From the end of the war, economists were present within the state; they produced and analysed national accounts and economic models and forecasts by adapting them to specific sectoral conditions. This was behind the success of the discipline in the policy sphere. Economists were primarily located at the École nationale de la statistique et des études économiques, and then at the École Polytechnique. Both centres were closely connected to a recently established technical department at the Ministry of Finance, that is, the Direction de la Prévision (as described by Fourquet, 1980). Between the 1950s and the 1960s, economics emerged and expanded under the impulse of actors such as Edmond Malinvaud who was the director of the National institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques [INSEE]), the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) and Professor at the Collège de France (Lebaron, 2000). Monetary and fiscal doctrines drove economic reasoning within the state. During the twentieth century, this became a global trend in the day-to-day functioning of the modern state. As in other countries, the economic reasoning mobilised in France was strongly based on the current state of the political economy. Drastic changes were observed over the years when macroeconomic models emerged; the first were changes in intellectual technology (Armatte, 2010) in the 1930s, and then in how the models were applied in the 1940s. Largely based on statistics, this macroeconomic expertise was also restructured and applied to different sectors of public policy such as industry and trade. It was also applied to social policy, especially education and health, but was ultimately challenged by more ‘microeconomic’ and managerial types of reasoning in the 1970s. Since the Second World War economic expertise has become a universal tool for public policy. Over the centuries, monetary doctrines have traditionally developed at the intersection of treasuries and central banks. During the twentieth century and after the Second World War in particular, the interaction between these doctrines and the academic world became increasingly important. Most of the features of the ‘Banque de France doctrine’ appear to have remained relatively stable (especially with regard to its anti-inflationist stance and its pragmatic conception of monetary order). After the Second World War, however, the institutionalisation of macroeconomic thinking and action led to the transformation of its conditions of application. There was a strong dependence on the central bank, defined at the time as an administration within the state. Monetary policy was inspired by the then dominant views in macroeconomics, that is, a sort of pragmatic and soft Keynesianism implemented by financial civil servants (inspecteurs des finances). This 281

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vision of macroeconomics emphasised the use of econometric models produced and managed by engineer-economists (at the INSEE and the Direction de la Prévision [DP]) which provided the basis for ‘fine-tuning’ the economic policy. During the same period, a parallel process affected budget policy. During the reconstruction years, the state was the central actor and planning (with the Plan Commission [Commissariat Général du Plan]) was one of its major tools. In particular, the state set long-term production and modernisation objectives. It sought to modernise the economy and make it more productive, in terms of both quantity and quality. After the Second World War, many academic actors (either scientists working in the Grandes Écoles, the National Centre for Scientific Research (Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS]), or university professors) already had relationships with policy actors and institutions at various levels. This is evidenced for instance by François Perroux, a catholic intellectual who was then a prestigious Professor of Economics (at Sciences Po, then at the Collège de France). He regularly voiced his strong opinions on policy issues, including during the Vichy regime years, and, years later, at the French Economic and Social Council (Conseil économique et social [CES]). Among his notable contributions was his involvement in the creation of national accounts after the Second World War. He also participated in the creation of a critical theory of development which served as a foundation for various expertise activities undertaken by his followers in newly independent countries in the 1960s and 1970s. This will be further discussed in the sections below. Academic economists nevertheless played a minor operational role: they were involved in the production of a general discourse about the economy which was diffused by politicians, especially in the 1960s. This discourse then began to be challenged by much more market-oriented and pro-business views. From the outset, the French conception of planning was both ‘administrative’ and ‘market-oriented’. The borders between more interventionist and more liberal (free-market) conceptions within the French administration were somewhat blurred. As planning declined, Europeanisation and globalisation became more constraining. Academic economists were thus regularly called upon to propose guidelines to enhance the position of France and Europe on the global market. Health economics and planning at national level At the sectoral level, the emergence of health economics in France illustrates the crucial role of administrative and public bodies in the post-war period. Health economics had long been inhibited in France by several factors. While some of these factors were common across developed countries, others were more specific to France. First, the establishment of medicine as a profession enabled physicians to protect their activities from external economic regulation by both the state and the market. Second, the social security system created in the aftermath of the Second World War allowed a consensual increase in public spending devoted 282

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to healthcare, and this did not require stringent economic regulation. Third, a pervasive ideology of modernisation and progress in the healthcare sector paved the way for the strong support of expensive innovations which did not require economic assessment. However, recurrent financial tensions were increasingly taken into account. Health economics expertise was initially promoted by the state administration rather than by academic experts (Benamouzig, 2005). The first attempt to develop health economics in France resulted from the connection between the national planning system and a few physicians working in the administration. Working alongside the Plan Commission established in 1946 to implement the national Plan, a small group of experts comprising physicians and statisticians were charged with the mission of developing health consumption national accounts in 1954. This was the first attempt to develop ‘medical economics’ within a wider macroeconomic framework. Interestingly, no economist was part of this team, which helped quantify the ‘need’ for hospitals and health spending for decades. The data gathered by statisticians and interpreted by physicians such as Henri Péquignot and Georges Rösch were consistently aggregated. This was in line with the consensus in the medical profession in the post-war period: while medical consumption was accounted for globally, it was perceived as legitimate for public spending to increase alongside physicians’ revenues. As such, professional practices remained unquestioned. In the late 1960s, the introduction of cost–benefit analysis in health economics met with some resistance. In January 1968, the Ministry of Finance launched a national operation known as Rationalisation of Budgetary Choices (Rationalisation des Choix Budgétaires [RCB]) which sought to adapt the American Planning Programming Budgeting System to the French administration. Engineereconomists initially trained at École Polytechnique had long used cost–benefit analyses in some sections of the French administration such as transport and defence planning. In the early 1970s, the health sector was targeted as an experimental field in which to deploy these methods. A special unit led by highranking officials and closely connected to the Secretary of State for Health was set up. Over the next few years, many programmes were assessed; these included perinatal care, cervical screening, psychiatric care and vaccination. While the use of cost–benefit analysis was viewed as technically innovative, it proved to be politically dubious. The methods used tended to oversimplify possible options. In several cases, the very criteria chosen for the assessment were inappropriate. The quantification of the so-called ‘price of life’ was even viewed as scandalous. A new generation of economists working in the administration eventually rejected cost–benefit analyses. Younger experts trained primarily in the USA were highly reluctant to use the pre-existing economic instruments for planning such as macroeconomic models and cost–benefit analyses. They found the methods inappropriate at a time when fluctuation and crisis were common. A pro-market international wind was blowing from the United States and it reached the French circles of economic expertise.

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While there was a slight increase in the role of academics during this period, it remained limited compared to the role of administrative experts. Some academics acted as advisors and others were involved in the training of public experts. However, this occurred in Grandes Écoles rather than in the universities. The shift to more clearly market-oriented policies would later be accompanied, and even determined, by the greater input from from academic experts.

The emancipation of academic economics and the rise of marketoriented policies In this section we describe the evolution of public policies toward more marketoriented policies. We also highlight the growing importance of academic economists as a global profession driven by market-oriented policies in a complex causal relation (Fourcade, 2009). In the field of health policies, this trend can be observed both in economic policies and at the sector level. It does not imply a shift of economic expertise from the public to the private sector; rather, it implies a diversification of expertise with a growing role of external academic specialists within policy decision processes. A pro-market economic policy? From the 1970s onwards, a more pro-market economic policy was progressively taking root in France. It was, first and foremost, the result of changes among political and administrative elite groups who saw this orientation as the best response to globalisation. This evolution is illustrated by the historical emergence of political actors such as Raymond Barre, Jacques Delors and Michel Rocard who based their careers on ‘economic pragmatism’ and especially on ‘budgetary rigour’ (‘rigueur budgétaire’) and/or ‘austerity’ (‘austerité’). Some of these actors (for instance Raymond Barre who was a professor at Panthéon-Sorbonne and author of a book that was famous in the 1960s–70s) explicitly referred to academic knowledge which had been developing in the US around monetarism and ‘supplyside economics’. However, they abandoned neither their political and economic pragmatism nor their Keynesian references. These actors perceived public debt as dangerous and urged a return to the ‘fiscal balance’ doctrine. In parallel, neoliberal doctrines were largely diffused in the political field and in the media after 1984. At the end of the 1970s, monetarism became much more influential among high-ranking civil servants as well as in some academic circles. More dramatic changes occurred in the monetary and fiscal policy, especially after 1983–84. The changes were driven by the triumph of ‘competitive disinflation’ and the pro-European orientation of the socialist government and its liberal successor in 1986. After 1988, ‘alternances’ after the general elections did not change this general orientation that was deeply rooted in a new alliance between politicians, senior civil servants and financial and industrial actors. From the 1990s, this shift was associated with the greater role played by academic economists in certain 284

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sectors of economic policy. This role, however, has remained modest compared to the central role played by Grands Corps and traditional state actors. The domination of the Bundesbank in Europe and the major changes observed within financial and monetary administrations across the world (the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD]) help explain the rapid shift toward the orthodox doctrine of ‘competitive disinflation’ in the 1980s. This move was initially promoted by high-ranking civil servants such as Jean-Claude Trichet. The changes were supported by a network of academics such as the influential Christian de Boissieu (Panthéon-Sorbonne) who worked in connection with the Treasury and the central bank. With the growing role of public independent structures such as the Court of Audit (Cour des comptes) in the assessment of budget policies, the coalition between different groups of civil servants (financial inspectors [inspecteurs des finances], civil administrators [administrateurs civils] and statisticians-economists [statisticienseconomistes]) has remained central within the French administration. However, the role of macroeconomic forecasts and statistics seems to have declined in the long run: competing predictions of GDP growth continue to be important in the political debate, especially during fiscal negotiations between ministers and the head of government, or in electoral debates. However, discussions on the macroeconomic effects of fiscal stimulus, and more generally, of fiscal decisions have been bypassed by the general emphasis on fiscal stability since the second half of the 1980s. The rising role of academic economists During the 1960s, French economic departments within universities became more important and gained in legal autonomy. Their evolution favoured ‘modern’ research activities. In particular, this evolution favoured scientific production, that is, the publication of research articles with some mathematics and statistics in peer-reviewed journals. This brought it closer to the Grandes Écoles tradition of engineer-economists which had occurred in the 1980s and 1990s and had been driven by various academic and administrative actors such as Henry Guitton and the French Assocation of Economics (Association française de science économique) as well as by a new generation of academics in major universities such as the Sorbonne University (Paris-1) and the University of Nanterre. During this period, a clear shift toward mainstream economics occurred within universities and the CNRS where critical and heterodox conceptions had been of great importance in the 1970s. A political economy close to the social sciences has remained present in these institutions to this day.4 In February 1981, Raymond Barre, a professor of economics who had also been Prime Minister since 1976, decided to create new departments in order to provide a more diversified macroeconomic expertise for the state as well as for non-state actors: thus were established the French economic observatory, the Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (directed by Jean285

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Marcel Jeanneney who had been close to General de Gaulle), the Institute for Economic and Social Research (Institut de recherches économiques et sociales) (related to workers’ union confederations) and Rexeco (which later became Rexecode and was related to business organisations, see Delmas, 2007). This paved the way for a certain diversification and a greater role for think tanks. It may also have led to the relative decline of macroeconomic knowledge in the hierarchy of legitimate cognitive tools and a preference for microeconomic models which were also developed within the state. In the following years, new economic styles gained importance within the university setting. New classical economics influenced macroeconometric forecasting and heterodox theories were far less present in public policy circles. The shift was internal in part; socialist and critical academic economists rapidly shifted to more liberal conceptions of economic policy after 1984, as evidenced by the example of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. This is even more clearly illustrated by Strauss-Kahn’s former colleague Denis Kessler who might be seen as a symbol of this evolution following his shift from a critique of inequality to an active promotion of pension funds. As Denord (2007) has described, the rise to power of the right wing in 1986 greatly revived the French liberal tradition. Maurice Allais’ Nobel prize in 1988 was interpreted as the consecration of this part of French academic production which was closely associated with the evolution of large public companies (Finez, 2015). Economists such as Christian de Boissieu played a role in this general shift. The shift involved a rapid decline of left-wing and Keynesian viewpoints rather than the genuine emergence of a new type of economist; this economist had actually already been long present. Health economics offers another good example and exemplifies the general trends introduced in this section. International health economics, from state to market? Health economics began to refer to the market in the mid-1980s in the quest to professionalise and globalise health economics (Benamouzig, 2009). The first international congress of health economics in Tokyo in 1973 did not target academic economists alone. Most participants were specialised civil servants working in national public administrations. The French delegation in particular comprised experts working either in the Plan Commission or in the Ministry of Finance. Although John Kenneth Arrow’s very famous and seminal paper on asymmetries of information was being discussed at the international level, it was barely taken into account in France (Arrow, 1963). Only a couple of French economists even mentioned it in the 1970s. The situation changed dramatically in 1979 when a second international congress of health economics took place in Leyden, the Netherlands. Many more academic economists participated in the congress and met foreign colleagues on professional grounds. North American economists increasingly used microeconomics to analyse patients’, physicians’ and insurers’ behaviour. For instance, the Canadian economist Robert Evans presented 286

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a remarkable paper that grasped the main features of any national health system in a simple analytic framework. He was able to enhance the strategic behaviour of ‘agents’ within the framework. This model made international comparisons easier. It was used as an analytical tool across countries. It also elicited new conceptions of health reforms: by comparing various national systems according to a common set of principles, one could imagine possible transitions from one system to another. Moreover, it became possible to observe different national logics that had previously been perceived as insular and idiosyncratic. Evans used economics to make structural reforms feasible and comparable. Other American economists were more genuinely committed to pro-market reforms. Working behind the scenes (when Ronald Reagan was President), Professor Alain Enthoven promoted the American model of health maintenance organisations at the international level. This model was supported by the Republicans from the 1970s onwards. These organisations, which were often forprofit companies, provided managed care for health insurance. Travelling across Europe after the Leyden congress, Enthoven met influential national experts and decision-makers. He met with some success in several countries such as the UK, because of the Nuffield Trust, for instance. In France, he got on well with an academic economist trained in the USA, Robert Launois, who was fond of microeconomics and had an interest in pro-market political reforms. In 1985, a think tank recently launched by a few French private companies, La Boétie Institute, promoted pro-market ideas in view of the upcoming elections. They asked Launois to write a book on market competition in healthcare (Giraud and Launois, 1985). Advertised by the Institute, the project received much attention. It marked a turning point in the history of the French healthcare system. Against all odds, a few physicians showed interest in this free-market option. On the one hand, the anti-state perspective appealed to right-wing physicians who had long been hostile to public regulation. On the other, left-wing physicians were interested in a stronger integration of medicine in collective practice. Naturally, traditional frontiers were blurred. While the reform was perceived as globally unconvincing, its microeconomic foundations were unanimously acclaimed. Along with other innovative academic research, microeconomics became a lingua franca in health economics. Although market competition proved relatively incompatible with the national healthcare system, reformers viewed the spread of microeconomics as crucial. During this second period, academic economists played a greater, albeit limited, role in policy-making in France. It remains, however, difficult to quantify this role. This change was largely driven by a shift toward microeconomics applied, in particular, to sectors such as health which had long been perceived as relatively inadequate sectors for economic reasoning. In macroeconomics, the shift was internal and consisted in a rapid decline of Keynesian and Marxist references. It led to a rapid change in favour of more liberal views. The strongest influence, however, was associated with the transnationalisation of the economic policy which accelerated after 1984. This transnationalisation 287

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blurred the shift toward a market-oriented policy because it was diffused in a complex set of bureaucratic institutions.

The transnational bureaucratisation of economic expertise? In this section, we highlight the internationalisation of economic expertise in a more recent period (from the mid-1990s onwards). This period is marked by a growing reference to bureaucratic transnational institutions which tend to promote or regulate pro-market orientations. Experts from both the administration and the universities are now present. They often compete in this new globalised and bureaucratised field of economic expertise where private actors as such remain marginal. Here again, economic policy and health economics provide good examples of this evolution. The international bureaucratisation of economic policy The Council of Economic Analysis (Conseil d’analyse économique [CAE]) was established by Lionel Jospin in 1997 and was linked to the office of the Prime Minister. Although it symbolised a new trend, this trend had actually begun in the early 1990s. It involved placing greater emphasis on academic expertise in economic policy-making, from the macroeconomic level to more specific sectoral issues such as retirement reform. While numerous and undoubtedly influential, the reports produced by the CAE were still competing with classical administrative reports from a wide variety of agencies and institutions. Although some of the economic experts in the CAE were from the financial sector, others were from the administration (including statistical administration). This can best be illustrated through two rapid case-studies of the monetary policy and ‘structural reforms’. European monetary unification provoked a strong institutional shift which led to the emergence of a more direct presence of academics in decision-making spheres: in the first ‘council of monetary policy’ of the newly independent Banque de France in 1994, Denize Flouzat incarnated the growing presence of French academics within decision-making bodies. With the creation of the European Central Bank (ECB), traditional financial senior civil servants maintained their leading position. In 2012, however, Benoît Coeuré, a member of the Polytechnique-ENSAE and author of several academic books about European economic policy was appointed to the Executive Board of the Governing Council of the ECB. This illustrates the growing interest in more scientific profiles in the management of money at the European level. Although Coeuré received the support of a section of academia on the occasion of the appointment of a new governor of the Banque de France in 2015, the head of the state preferred François Villeroy-de-Galhau, a classical Finance Inspector. Fiscal stakes have been largely recast as a ‘structural’ issue related to efficiency and ‘structural reforms’. Following a trend partly initiated by academics, fiscal 288

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policy has become less involved with the short-term state of the economy or with issues pertaining to social justice. Academic actors have helped shape this new conception of fiscal policy. Actors such as Jean Tirole, Pierre Cahuc, André Zylberberg and Philippe Aghion still participate in the recurrent debate about pensions and their structural reforms and labour market reforms. Since the 2000s, these academic economists have argued in favour of the flexibilisation of the labour market in line with the recommendations of the European Commission and the OECD. This was the case of the ‘Attali report’ of 2007 (Attali, 2008); this brought together high-ranking civil servants, modernist business leaders and a few reformist academics such as Philippe Aghion. The report proposed a ‘rupture’ in economic policies through the acceleration of structural reforms and liberalisation. As the global financial crisis of 2008 affected some of their propositions, academic economists expressed their disappointment at the lack of interest shown in their ideas by political and bureaucratic actors. In 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy and Christine Lagarde launched a debate on the measurement of economic performance and social progress. The Stiglitz– Sen–Fitoussi report produced by members of academia from major American institutions, including four Nobel laureates, was a major contribution to the debate (Stiglitz et al, 2009). Although actors from international organisations and statistical institutions were also present, they had a secondary role which was demonstrably something new in the French traditional division of labour. The report proposed major changes, some aspects of which have been implemented by national institutes of statistics. The report clearly reinforced the position of academic economists in policy debates in France and strengthened core economic issues such as: What is wealth? What is performance? What is progress? (Lebaron, 2010). The references to econometric models and business-cycle debates remain common in the economic discourse around today’s policies. A typically Keynesian type of reasoning continues to shape the predictions and analyses on the impact of a budget on growth and unemployment. Nevertheless, their political effects seem less significant compared to the emphasis placed on the importance of taxes expected to limit the country’s competitiveness in global markets. Basic macroeconomic discourse is now produced just as much by international agencies such as the OECD and the European Commission as by national actors such as INSEE or the Treasury. Since 2010, national debates have tended to follow the critical stance of a section of leading US academic economists as regards European policy. This has led to the emergence of a huge divide pitting the experts of the ECB, the European Commission and the Ministries of Finance against a fraction of leading world economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Thomas Piketty. This divide shows that macroeconomic reasoning in the international scientific community is still important. It also reveals the tension between economic policy criteria promoted by European institutions on the one hand, and the more global and less consensual academic debates on the other. 289

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Health economic bureaucracies at transnational level? In the 1990s, several public policies reinforced the use of health economics. However, no structural reform implemented at the time was as comprehensive as that imagined by Robert Launois a decade earlier. The use of health economics was rather pervasive in several public institutions. In the public health sector, the implementation of national ‘plans’ targeting specific diseases and disorders made it possible to assess the efficiency of such plans using cost–benefit methods. These methods were also proposed to assess health technologies, especially in relation to drugs. The pharmaceutical industry invested large amounts of money to develop ‘pharmaco-economics’ and adapted the good old cost–benefit analysis to randomised clinical trials. In academia, a national ‘College of health economists’ was created to adequately address new industrial needs. The College brought together academic economists, civil servants, professionals working in the pharmaceutical industry and physicians interested in the field. Some economists were hired by both the administration and the industry. Their methods were, however, contentious. Not only were the studies sponsored by the industry rare, they were also often biased. National civil servants and physicians involved in the regulation of drugs expressed growing doubts about the soundness of these methods. At the international level, the destiny of economic methods did not encounter a similar stalemate. In 1999, French health economists gazed admiringly at the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) established in the United Kingdom. The Institute had been placed in charge of health technology assessment in the NHS. According to French economists, this innovation paved the way for the use of economic methods in decision-making. No institutional equivalent existed in France then, nor was there any political will to create one. Transnational dynamics, however, played a decisive role. At the European level, independent agencies were set up in the 1990s to guarantee the independence and soundness of decision-making, especially for drug market authorisation and food safety. Other agencies were also set up to regulate and/or promote specific health policies. In France, one agency was set up to promote the quality of care. Gradually, its missions extended to health issues at large. In the 2000s, a new Higher Authority for Health became competent in health economics. An academic economist, Lise Rochaix, who had previously worked in the French administration and in the United Kingdom, was appointed to the board of the authority. A small department of economics was set up to deliver expertise in ‘medico-economics’. Parliament acknowledged this competence in 2012 which was then extended to drug-pricing procedures. This evolution brought the French authority closer to its British equivalent. Such proximity facilitated horizontal relationships with a number of similar agencies in Europe such as the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (Institut für Qualität und Wirtschaftlichkeit im Gesundheitswesen [IQWiG]) and the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre (Federaal KenniscentrumView on Map [KCE]) among others. 290

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Over the years, the work undertaken by these kinds of agencies has gone beyond the national level. It has involved the sharing of processes across similar bodies at the European level. The economic guidelines defined by national agencies and consequently used by the industry for regulatory purposes have been widely discussed among national institutions and experts. Their respective conclusions have circulated across agencies. The periodic revisions of the guidelines have been undertaken alongside benchmarking processes. Incorporated in the day-to-day activities of national agencies, health economics has become standard protocol, facilitating routine uses. This new use of much older economic methods has given rise to ambiguous results. On the one hand, agencies show familiar traits of the so-called ‘regulatory state’, that is, they are limited to steering functions. On the other hand, they have gradually acquired some traits of classical bureaucracies such as independence and formal ways of doing. They have also acquired some level of hierarchy, between European and national levels for example. This practical use of health economics has not expanded to the national level; for instance, it has not affected the historical bureaucracies which have been in existence since the 1960s and now operate at transnational level along with bureaucratic forms of organisation. Although health remains a national competence of memberstates in Europe, economic regulation facilitates horizontal relationships between member states’ agencies. This process differs from classical European Community integration because national agencies are not associated with an integrated European body. Rather, they relate with each other at the transnational level. Health economics has thus been involved in the gradual formation of a new bureaucratic web connecting independent bodies beyond frontiers.

Conclusion Over the years, both the content and scope of economic expertise have changed. The interactions between economics and public policy have become more complex and diversified. Moreover, the field of economics has become much more diverse although the dominant academic discourse is highly compatible with ‘market solutions’. From the 1970s, economics gained autonomy within universities and higher education institutions. In parallel, the internationalisation and ‘academicisation’ of the discipline occurred over the same period. This influenced public policies at both the national and sectoral levels. It occurred alongside the increased use of academic works in public decision-making. At the national level, the changes observed in fiscal, monetary or economic performance policies illustrate the wider transformations that have occurred in the relationship between economic experts and public policies. At the sectoral level, the case of the health sector, which has increasingly been influenced by economic references in the past decades, shows how these general trends have been able to permeate more specific areas. Given these dynamics, the competition between senior civil servants, state economists and academic economists has never really ceased but has become 291

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increasingly blurred with the rise of international (especially European) levels of governance. This governance is characterised by new forms of bureaucratic integration; while it at times advocates the expansion of market mechanisms, at other times it does not. These relationships have made the well-known trajectory ‘from state to market’ more complex. The trajectory has characterised the ‘classical’ narrative on the relationship between state, economics and the market from the 1980s onwards. Judging from recent transformations at the transnational and international levels, economic expertise has not simply shifted ‘from state to market’; it has also shifted from the market to new technical bureaucracies operating at both national and transnational levels. In some cases, this has restricted market mechanisms. These recent trends associate state economists and academic economists more than ever; while these economists work together, they also compete at the very heart of new bureaucratic and transnational arenas. These trends have simultaneously been observed at different levels and may ultimately favour the renewed expansion of market mechanisms or the creation of new bureaucratic regulations that limit market expansion. Notes 1 2

3 4

A cameral science is a discipline deeply shaped by its connection with a policy sector: see Chapter Two by Payre and Pollet in this book. This was the case until relatively recently when both institutional traditions began to converge as illustrated by today’s Centres of Academic Excellence (Toulouse School of Economics and Paris School of Economics). In parallel, economics developed in the Grandes Écoles, the French institute of statistics and its extensions, the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, and at the National Centre for Scientific Research (Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS]). Academic expertise underwent great changes, as did its relationship with policy analysis. The first French man to be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1988 – if we don’t take into account the French American Gérard Debreu. In the 1950s and 1960s, this tradition was frequently referred to as ‘école française’ or ‘unconventional economics’; it is today defined as ‘heterodox’ economics (Pouch, 2001).

References Armatte, M. (2010) La science économique comme ingénierie: Quantification et modélisation, Paris: Presses des Mines. Arrow, K.J. (1963) ‘Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care’, American Economic Review 53(5), 941–73. Attali, J. (ed) (2008) Rapport de la commission pour la libération de la croissance française, Paris: La documentation française. Benamouzig, D. (2005) ‘L‘État au chevet de l‘économie médicale’, la contribution du CREDOC’, in P. Bezes, M. Chauvière, J. Chevallier, N. de Montricher, F. Ocqueteau (eds) L‘État à l'épreuve des sciences sociales. La fonction recherche dans les administrations sous la Ve République, pp. 88–110, Paris: La Découverte. Benamouzig, D. (2009) ‘Professionnalisation académique et engagement partisans des économistes de la santé (1970–1990)’, Sociétés Contemporaines 1(73), pp. 73–95. 292

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Delmas, C. (2007) La Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Paris: Un ordre négocié, Droit et société 67, 597–613. Denord, F. (2007) Néolibéralisme version française: Histoire d’une idéologie politique, Paris: Demopolis. Desrosières, A. (1993) La politiques des grands nombres, Paris: La découverte. Dumez, H. (1987) Le cas Walras: L’économiste, la science et le pouvoir, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Etner, F. (1987) Histoire du calcul économique en France, Paris: Economica. Finez, J. (2015) Pratiques économiques et pensées du changement dans un service public marchand. Une sociologie des chemins de fer français aux XIXe et XXe siècles, Thèse pour le doctorat de sociologie, Université de Lille, 1 novembre. Fourcade, M. (2009) Economists and Society: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain and France, 1890–1990, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fourquet, F. (1980) Les comptes de la puissance: Histoire de la comptabilité nationale et du Plan, Paris: Encres, Éditions Recherches. Giraud, P., Launois, R. (1985) Les réseaux de soins: Médecine de demain, Paris: Economica. Lebaron, F. (2000), La croyance économique: Les économistes entre science et politique, Paris: Seuil. Lebaron, F. (2010), La crise de la croyance économique, Broissieux (Bellecombe-enBauges): Le Croquant. Perrot, J.C. (1992) Une Histoire Intellectuelle de l’Economie Politique, Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS (L’ École des hautes etudes en sciences sociales). Pouch, T. (2001), Les économistes français et le marxisme (1950–2000), Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., Fitoussi, J.P. (2009) Richesse des nations et bien-être des individus, Préface de Nicolas Sarkozy, Paris: Odile Jacob.

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The academic world of French policy studies: training, teaching and researching Patrick Hassenteufel and Patrick Le Galès The gap between the policy analysis developed by policy actors and the existing academic knowledge on public policies has been identified in previous chapters as being central in France. This chapter aims at exploring and providing some explanation of this division. As with the rest of this book it relies upon the distinction between, on the one hand, policy analysis, defined as ‘applied social and scientific research – but also involving more implicit forms of practical knowledge – pursued by government officials and non-governmental organisations which usually focus on designing, implementing and evaluating existing policies, programmes and other courses of action adopted or contemplated by states’, and, on the other hand, policy (process) studies ‘conducted mainly by academics and relate[d] to “meta-policy” or the overall nature of the activities of the state. It is generally concerned with understanding the development, logic and implications of overall state policy processes and the models used by investigators to analyse those processes’ (Dobuzinskis et al, 2007, 1). In France this gap is particularly vivid, despite an importation of policy analysis in the 1960s and 1970s (see Chapter Three) and is illustrated by the absence of autonomisation of policy analysis in specific academic departments or institutions (corresponding to public policy schools). French policy analysis has not triggered the creation of a new disciplinary field. By contrast, policy studies have been integrated and have contributed to existing academic disciplines, in particular, sociology, political science and economics. This situation is sometimes obfuscated by the use of the French expression ‘analyse des politiques publiques’ which refers more to policy (process) studies in the abovementioned sense than to policy analysis. Our hypothesis is that this strong segmentation between expert knowledge of public policies (policy analysis) and scientific knowledge of public policies (policy studies) is historically rooted in the power organisation of the French academic field at large, which has three main characteristics (Heilbron, 2015, 6). The first one is the centralisation of academic institutions and production in Paris. This centralisation produces specific centre–periphery relations. However, innovations are often initiated in the periphery to challenge the centre. The second one is the strong hierarchy between very selective elite higher education schools (Grandes Écoles) and universities (open to all students having a high school degree, without selection). It has several consequences: the reinforcement of centralisation in Paris, the control of access to academic and administrative (so as political) positions 295

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by these Grandes Écoles and a strong competition between them. The third characteristic is the institutionalised separation between research and teaching. Much of the research is historically concentrated in specific research institutions, for social sciences especially the National Centre for Scientific Research (Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS]) and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS]). The first part of this chapter develops a long-term historical analysis of the French higher education system in order to highlight its legacy on the development of policy analysis and policy studies. This development is analysed in the second part with two main arguments. First, in relation to the centralisation of elite Grandes Écoles in Paris, the training of senior civil servants brought together policy analysis and law. By contrast policy process studies developed at the periphery, within less prestigious higher education organisations, often in relation to the CNRS. Second, the academisation process of policy studies in the existing disciplines (especially political science) has widened the gap with policy analysis. In our final section we point towards some recent evolutions that may contribute to partly bridge it.

A long-term separation between the training of elites, universities and research The gap between policy analysis and policy (process) studies was explained in previous chapters by the legacy of administrative science (Chapter Two) and the domination of state expertise (Chapter Six). In these chapters, with minor exceptions, university professors are more or less absent from the story, except to a limited extent in the faculties of law. This section further explores the same line by focusing on the organisation of the higher education system, with a specific interest for the main disciplines involved in the study of public policy: sociology, political science and law (the previous chapter already dealt with economics). The historical dichotomy between universities and Grandes Écoles Universities are only one section of the French academic world, and not the most prestigious one, with limited contribution to the training of state elites. By contrast, the best students were historically trained in isolation both from classic academic disciplines and from research within specific French institutions: the Grandes Écoles. Unsurprisingly, at a later stage, when those students become leading policymakers, they ignore what kind of academic knowledge is being produced. They are ‘the experts’, they are the ‘state nobility’ to take Bourdieu’s famous word (Bourdieu, 1989), they take decisions, why would they need policy studies? Tellingly, among state elites, a PhD is seen more as a handicap than an added value. However, significant changes are now taking place as will be shown in the last section of the chapter. Until recently, no academic institution looked like a public policy school. 296

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France has an original higher education and research system (Charle and Verger, 2007). Historically, in parallel to other European countries, medieval universities developed, in Paris (the famous Sorbonne), Montpellier, Strasbourg, Toulouse or Bordeaux among others. Then came the time of the creation of professional schools, in most cases outside universities. They were particularly numerous in France, illustrating the inertia of universities and the lack of trust of the centralising state elites for rebellious and conservative universities. Before the French Revolution three schools for the training of state engineers were created: the École Royale des Ponts (then École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussée) in 1743, the École de genie de Mézieres in 1749 and the École des Mines in 1783. This model, opposed to universities, based on the acquisition of professional skills, a direct control of the state and the selection of students, was reinforced during the French Revolution with the creation, in 1794, of the École Polytechnique (training future state engineers) and the École Normale Supérieure (for the best scientific and literary students). These elite institutions were labelled Grandes Écoles, in order to train the elites who would run the country, and build separately from the universities (the only exception are the Écoles Normales Supérieures structured around the academic disciplines and training future university professors, in the same way as high school professors and researchers). The core role of these elite schools and the suspicion towards universities is symbolised by their abolition during the French revolution (in 1793). Re-created by Napoleon they were then strongly controlled by the state, fearing political contestations (which was the case in 1830 and 1968 for instance). The political control of universities is a long-term issue. They are under state scrutiny and face constant reform attempts. This appears in stark contrast with the never-ending development of the Grandes Écoles (outside universities) during the nineteenth century in relation to industrial development and economic growth. Notable here were the creation of the École spéciale de Commerce et d’Industrie (later the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris[ESCP]) in 1819 (the first French business school), of the École centrale in 1829 (training engineers for the industry), of the Haute École de Commerce in 1881, of the École Supérieure d’Electricité (1894) and the École Supérieure d’Aéronautique (1909). Other business schools were then developed after the First World War. The whole French education system has progressively become geared towards selecting the brightest pupils (or rather the more prepared and adapted to the education system with a high level of social reproduction) for this elitist group of Grandes Écoles, through highly competitive national exams. With some exceptions (medicine), the top 5 per cent of the students after baccalauréat (the end of high school examination) enter competitive intensive special higher education classes within high schools (classes préparatoires) instead of going to university, in order to pass the national exams, after two years of preparation, and then enter those elitist Grandes Écoles.1 Therefore, progressively, they recruited the children of the Parisian bourgeoisie and a minority of bright young students from all over the country. By contrast, universities are not allowed to make a selection of their students, hence a massive gap in terms of prestige and resources. 297

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For quite a long time therefore, the university system has not attracted the best French students. Educated within these elitist small Grandes Écoles, French scientific, administrative and economic elites have been trained to run the state and French firms, with the self-confidence of being the chosen meritocratic superior elites. Interestingly, for many of those schools (with the exception of the Écoles normales supérieures), the training does not include many contacts with research in the different academic disciplines. Teaching in these institutions is characterised by the refusal of specialisation in academic disciplines, the promotion of practical exercises and evaluation and the valorisation of the acquisition of a general knowledge distinct from academic research and based on pluri-disciplinarity. Training in these schools lasts between three or four years and delivers a specific diploma, not a university degree (until recently). Students of these schools therefore rarely then go on work towards a PhD, their school diploma being sufficient to be recruited into top administrative or economic positions. A last characteristic has to be stressed: the teaching and direction functions in these schools are held by alumni with careers in the administration or/and in the private sector, but not in universities. Academic recognition does not play a role and the main part of the teaching staff of these schools is non-permanent. These characteristics are particularly relevant for the Grandes Écoles providing training for public policies and administration. In this perspective, it is important to mention the creation of the École libre des sciences politiques in 1871 by (minority) protestant elites. Even if it had a private status it shared the practical orientation of the elitist public Grandes Écoles, the separation from university faculties and training based on a flexible combination of different disciplines (mainly law, history and economics, and ‘modern social sciences’ such as political science and sociology). The research objectives of the founder of the school, Emile Boutmy, were very soon abandoned in favour of the preparation for the competitive exams giving access to upper-level positions in the administration (Favre, 1981). It was nationalised after the Second World War and transformed into the National Foundation of Political Sciences (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques) managing the Institute of Political Studies (Institut d’Études Politiques [IEP]) in Paris, the successor of the École libre, then known as ‘Sciences Po’, and the new IEPs created in Bordeaux and Grenoble. The majority of students who passed the competitive national competitive exam to enter Sciences Po would prepare then, during their three years curriculum, the even more competitive exam to enter the National School of Administration (École Nationale d’Administration [ENA]), also created in 1945 to train the future upper-level civil-servants (see Chapter Six). Sciences Po, like the ENA, was run by top civil servants on the one hand (from the Council of State mostly, later also from the Inspection des Finances) and a small number of university professors in history, political science and sociology. Sciences Po graduates have for long more or less monopolised access to ENA. The second main source of state elites involved in public policies are the scientific Grande Écoles, and most importantly the École Polytechnique, leading to specialised highly prestigious engineering schools (for instance the École des Mines 298

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or the Écoles des Ponts et Chaussées). Graduates from those Grandes Écoles (also from the National School of Statistics and Economic Administration [École Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Économique, ENSAE]) in statistics mentioned in previous chapters) have for decades monopolised the production of expertise and top jobs in various policy sectors in ministries, agencies and large firms alike. Within Sciences Po and the ENA law was still present but mostly taught by the members of the Council of the State, not by university professors. Social sciences or research about the administration or public policy, not to mention comparison, were more or less non-existent. French top civil servants were trained to be the elites, had worked hard in competitive exams with a strong sense of meritocracy, they run large firms and ministries, they produced expertise, took decisions with next to no contacts with universities or research centres. They had no clue why policy studies might be relevant. The distinct growth of social science research The dichotomy between universities (with a rather low status, except in medicine, law and history) and Grandes Écoles is not sufficient to explain the French higher education system. A third kind of organisation, the CNRS, was set up by the Front Populaire (left wing government) in the late 1930s and officially created in 1939. One explanation for this creation of a distinct national organisation for advanced research was the conservatism of universities. Some leading scientists did not find the right conditions to develop advanced research. After the war, beyond physics and more classic sciences, the CNRS opened its doors for young researchers in disciplines that were either underdeveloped or not very popular within universities, for instance sociology (Mendras, 1995). CNRS would welcome those young people who were later supposed to get a more prestigious university job. After 1945, sociology had become marginal in the university system (except in Bordeaux and Paris). CNRS progressively welcomed a generation of young people interested in sociology and the change of their society, who would learn their trade in the US, often benefiting from Ford Foundation scholarships to go to Chicago, Harvard or Columbia. With or without the US journey, Alain Touraine, Michel Crozier, Edgar Morin, Henri Mendras to name a few, made their research within CNRS. Research centres were created such as the Centre for the Sociology of Organisations (Centre de Sociologie des Organisations) in 1964, with Michel Crozier and a group of young researchers (Renaud Sainseaulieu, Pierre and Catherine Grémion, Jean-Claude Thoenig, Jean-Pierre Worms, later Erhard Friedberg). During the 1960s, until the mid-1970s research funding in social sciences grew fast and was oriented towards the CNRS and the EHESS (Heilbron, 2015, 162–6). French social science research developed in CNRS research centres first in sociology then in political science with a creation of a new section including the discipline. It is important to note that CNRS researchers did not have to teach and were isolated from students. Sociology developed in universities only in the 1970s. 299

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By contrast, political science emerged both in Sciences Po and in the faculties of law. Political science was institutionalised in part in France at Sciences Po, with the creation of the French Association of Political Science (Association Française de Science Politique) in 1949, of the French journal of political science, Revue Française de Science Politique, in 1951, both financed by the FNSP, and the two first research centres in political science in the mid-1960s, the Centre for the Study of French Political Life (Centre d’Études de la Vie Politique Française [CEVIPOF]) and the Centre for International Relations Studies (Centre d’Études des Relations Internationales [CERI]). Both were to become CNRS centres later. In accordance to what was mentioned before, researchers within these centres were not involved in teaching, and then became in charge of basic teaching. Sciences Po’s teaching was done by this relatively small group of senior professors and a large number of professionals, dominated by ENA graduates who had become top civil servants. One would have thought that the close interactions between public policy practitioners and experts on the one hand, political science senior professors and a growing body of research fellows would have led to the rise of policy studies on the one hand, and of policy studies courses to train future civil servants on the other. That was not the case. First, state administrative elites providing most of the teaching for the students fiercely resisted any attempt to include solid social science in the curriculum for decades (including economics). Several attempts were made by sociologists (Crozier and Friedberg) in the 1980s to train students with policy studies or organisations’ sociology. That remained either non-existent or marginal. In the late 1980s, the political science professor Yves Mény, with CNRS research professor Jean-Claude Thoenig also mobilised several scholars to provide a strong public policy programme including some of his British colleagues (Jack Hayward and Vincent Wright). He tried to develop that both in the PhD programme but also for the students preparing for ENA. The project was unambiguously rejected. Later, both Erhard Friedberg, then director of the Centre of Sociologies of Organisations (Centre de Sociologies des Organisations [CSO]) (a joint CNRS/Sciences Po research centre by then), and Jean Leca, senior professor of political science, made several similar attempts. All were rejected. The Council of State and the French elite civil servants would not accept social science in their training. Even in the 2000s, the rather radical director of Sciences Po, Richard Descoings, several times started to work on a public policy school project that would have included policy studies in political science, sociology and economics. Although a member of the Council of State himself, he faced systematic opposition and only designed the premise of the project: state administrative elites still trained future state administrative elites. Until the 1980s, top students were trained in elitist Grandes Écoles with little contact with university professors and little access to research. The main part of research in social sciences was done in CNRS research centres and the EHESS, disconnected from either the Grandes Écoles or the university system. Universities (with some exceptions in terms of disciplines – medicine, law – or cities) attracted neither the best students, nor the most advanced research. 300

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Nevertheless, as documented in Chapter Two, some attempts were made to create a sort of administrative science combining faculties of law and state civil service practitioners and that had some influence in a few law faculties. But, within a conservative environment in universities, it took a long time for some disciplines to progressively become autonomous, especially political science. In the prestigious law faculties, research was not prominent and social sciences were rejected.

The diffusion of policy process studies within the academic world: from innovation at the periphery to institutionalisation in existing disciplines As argued in other chapters, policy studies were a latecomer in the French academic world. On the one hand state civil servants (in fact different kinds of them, often in competition) produced the expertise, defined policies and were in charge of them. On the other hand, French political science did not take policy studies as an interesting object of inquiry. Innovations came from the periphery: from CNRS research centres in sociology and political science and from centres outside Paris where new institutions have been created after 1945 (Institute of Political Studies [Institut d’Études Politiques] in Bordeaux and Grenoble, then in Strasbourg, Lyon, Aix, Toulouse, Rennes and Lille; new specialised schools related to specific policy domains, for example the National Institute for Transport and Safety Research [Institut national de recherche sur les transports et leur sécurité (INRETS)] for transport policies, the National School for Public Health [École Nationale de la Santé Publique] for health policy, and the Paris Institute for Urban studies [Institut d’Urbanisme de Paris (IUP)] for urban policies and others). The core institutions of French political science, Paris I-Sorbonne and Sciences Po, showed little interest until the late 1990s. For the sake of clarity, this part is divided into three periods. The first starts in the late 1960s with the importation of policy analysis from the USA, mainly by CNRS sociologists based outside French universities with links to policymakers. The academic marginality of policy analysis at that time is a first explanation of the division between policy analysis and policy studies. During the 1980s an important turn occurred with the growing importance of policy studies in political science, focused on the analysis of the policy process. The 1990s and the beginning of the twenty-first century, the second period, corresponds to the academicisation of policy studies with a strong development of research programmes, publications and policy studies teaching in the existing disciplines. The third and current period is characterised by evolutions beginning to bridge the gap between policy studies developed in the academic world and policy analysis in the world of policy practice.

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The development of policy analysis at the fringes of universities (1960s–1980s) Leca and Muller’s influential paper (2008) reviewed the three main intellectual influences that fed the rise of policy studies in France, namely administrative science and public law (see Chapter Two), the sociology of organisations (developed at the CSO) and Marxism. Administrative science was a subset of public law approaches. Marxists developed a critical approach of the state (at the national and local level around urban policy, housing and the welfare state). The same applies to the two leading figures of French social sciences of the 1970s: Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault. They were vigorously opposed to the more instrumental policy analysis taught in US public policy schools. Therefore, sociology of organisations was the sub-discipline that played the leading role in the transfer of policy analysis from the United States. As already noted by Fabrice Hamelin in Chapter Three, Michel Crozier played a key role in the academic knowledge transfer between France and the United States. Crozier, close to French modernist elites, but not a critical scholar, had been in close connection and taught at Harvard and later went to Standford. CSO became an internationalised research centre where its nearly official ambassador, Martha Zuber, for years organised the visits of scores of US scholars interested in France. The connection between CSO and US leading policy and organisation sociologist scholars has been a major explanation of the diffusion of US policy studies scholarship in France. Some became long-term companions to CSO such as Suzanne Berger from MIT or Peter Hall from Harvard. This transfer did not directly concern policy analysis, it was more focused on sociology of organisations, especially the sociology of administration. Notwithstanding, in the CNRS autonomous research centre created by Michel Crozier in 1964 (the CSO) policy studies were developed, especially on local policies (Grémion, Worms), urban policies (Thoenig) and industrial policies (Friedberg). After Crozier, the next generation of policy studies sociologists, such as Thoenig or Jean-Gustave Padioleau, also made the trip to the US. The research developed at the CSO was often connected to administrative demand and therefore integrated to public policies themselves. Michel Crozier was part of a group of modernist civil servants the ‘club Jean Moulin’. Both the planning body, the General Planning Commission (Commissariat Général du Plan [CGP]) and the Centre for the Coordination and Orientation of Economic and Social Development Research (Centre de Coordination et d’Orientation des Recherches sur le Développement Economique et Social [CORDES]) financed a long-term research programme at the CSO including public policies and leading to publications that became landmarks of French social science research (Bezes and Chauviere, 2004). This connection, which is the second aspect of this period, is not specific to the CSO. At the end of the 1960s the CGP reoriented his activity on research financing with the creation of the CORDES (see Chapter Eleven) and different specialised research centres were created in the 1970s and early 1980s: the Centre for Sociological Research on Law and Penal Institutions (Centre de Recherche 302

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Sociologique sur le Droit et les Institutions Pénales [CESDIP]), by the Justice Ministry and the CNRS to work on crime and justice, the centre for Cultures and Urban Societies (Cultures et Sociétés Urbaines [CSU]), another CNRS research centre, to work on urban policies in relation to the Ministry of Infrastructure, or the Research Group for Social and Health Policies (Groupe de Recherches de l’Action Sociale et Sanitaire [GRASS]) at the EHESS to work on social policies in relation to the Social Affairs Ministry (Le Galès, 2015). The third aspect is that these different research structures were neither located in universities nor directly related specifically to an academic discipline. The CSO as a CNRS research centre, was neither part of the university system and nor was it involved in the teaching of civil servants in Grandes Écoles. Like the CSO, other academic research institutes working on public policies have been created outside universities: the main example is the Research Centre on Administration and Territories (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur l’Administration et le Territoire [CERAT]) at the IEP Grenoble (see Chapters Three and Four). Teaching of public policies was also developed in a business school: the ESCP under the impulsion of Padioleau who was another key figure of the transfer of policy studies from the US to France (Padioleau, 1980). However the main figure of the diffusion of policy studies was Jean-Claude Thoenig, a trained sociologist who started his academic career at the CSO and worked on public policies in a policy analysis perspective. He was involved in the first European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) workshop on public policies in 1977 organised by Bruno Dente, focused on organisational analysis, public administration and local governments in a comparative perspective and aiming to produce relevant knowledge to policymakers. After leaving the CSO, Thoenig created the Public Policy Analysis Group (Groupe d’Analyse des Politiques Publiques [GAPP]) in the mid-1980s, a pluri-disciplinary CNRS research institute without direct relation to a university where a group of researchers (J. Commaille, Patrice Duran, Pierre Lascoumes and others) developed the sociological analysis of public policies. He was also, with Patrick Gibert, a professor of management, the founder of the first French policy analysis journal in 1983: Politiques et Management Public. This journal, created mainly by sociologists and management specialists, claiming its scientific orientation (Gibert, 1983), was also trying to combine academic articles and practice-oriented papers written by public policy actors and/or experts. This policy analysis perspective is also obvious in the several conferences organised by the journal (and then published) mixing different kind of participants from and outside the academic world. In a nutshell, the diffusion of policy studies in academic institutions started in the 1960s, with strong links to policy practice. But it didn’t lead to the institutionalisation of policy analysis and was located in marginal institutions of the academic system. This situation changed with the development of policy studies in the existing academic disciplines, especially political science.

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The academicisation of policy studies (1990s–2000s) As stressed in the previous section policy analysis was imported and developed in France mainly by sociologists and only marginally by political scientists (essentially in Grenoble with Bruno Jobert, Pierre Muller and Lucien Nizard who worked with different policy actors and also shared policy oriented objectives). Three explanations may be put forward: the first one is the late autonomisation of French political science from public law (mainly in the 1970s). Therefore studies on the state and public administration were dominated by the ‘administrative science’ perspective traditionally strongly linked to the public law approach (Leca and Muller, 2008). Second, the autonomisation of political science from public law was based mainly on the development of research about elections, parties, political systems, institutions, area studies, as the core field showing the specificities of a non-law oriented approach focused on the understanding of political behaviour. In the 1980s the sociological approach of the state was also developed (Badie and Birnbaum, 1979) based on the critic of the political development perspective (Badie, 1984). However, the historical and sociological approaches endorsed by these authors neglected the role of public policies in the process of the construction of the state (Hassenteufel, 2007). Third, French political science was rather selfcentred. American classic political science was well known but until the 1980s there was little interest in political science in other countries, and the development of policy studies remained unnoticed or ignored. Nevertheless policy analysis was not totally absent from academic political science in the 1980s, even if in his study of the situation of political science in France Pierre Favre mentioned the fact that policy analysis was a subfield with very few specialists (Favre, 1982). During the first national congress of the French Association of Political Science (Association française de science politique [AFSP]) in 1981 a roundtable on ‘Policy Analysis’ was organised by Leca and Jean-Louis Quermonne (both became President of the AFSP some years later). And, in 1985, when the first French Political Science treaty (Grawitz and Leca, 1985) was published, one volume (among four) was devoted to policy analysis, though directed by a sociologist (Thoenig). Political scientists authored seven of ten chapters of the volume, a major breakthrough with long last influences. This situation changed in the 1990s with a progressive development of teaching, research, academic manifestations and publications in relation to policy studies. Once again, innovations came from the periphery: in Grenoble most importantly but also in Bordeaux, Montpellier or Rennes. This trend begins to be obvious in the mid-1990s with the increasing role played in political science at the centre (Sciences Po, Association Française de Sciences Politique) by senior scholars such as Muller and later Lascoumes at Sciences Po, in sociology by Christine Musselin and Philippe Urfalino at CSO, Thoenig and Duran at the École Normale Supérieure (of Cachan). The change was also supported by the coming of age of a young generation of comparative European public policy scholars trained in the US, in England, Germany, Switzerland, or at the European University Institute in 304

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Florence. The analysis of political science courses in law faculties (where political science is mostly taught in French universities) in 1995–96 realised by Favre (1998) showed that courses related to public policies (policy analysis, public administration, local policies, European policies, social policies) represented 12.7 per cent of the total amount. Even if it was still a minor part, it corresponded to an over 100 per cent growth compared to how it was in 1977–78, with 5.9 per cent of the political science courses related to public policies (exclusively public administration courses) at that time. The proportion of masters (then called Diplômes d’Études Approfondies) in law faculties including policy analysis was even higher: 22 per cent (9 among 41) in 1995–96. Law faculties including political science departments were however the rearguard. This growth of policy analysis teaching was spectacular in the IEPs where the main CNRS research centres developing policy studies were located at that time: especially the IEP Grenoble (CERAT), the IEP Bordeaux (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur la vie locale [Research Centre on Local Politics])and the IEP Rennes, the Centre for Administrative and Policy Research (Centre de Recherches Administratives et Politiques [CRAP]). This change can be related to the development of political science in the French academic world based on the creation, in the early 1990s, of political science bachelors and of two new IEPs (in Rennes and Lille). It gave rise to a growing recruitment of CNRS research fellows and assistant professors in political science. The resistance of political science should not be underestimated, however. For years, foreign scholars working on France had tried to convince their colleagues from the core, that is, Paris I-Sorbonne and Sciences Po, to develop policy studies. Berger (MIT), Dente (Bologne), Hayward (Hull and Oxford), Wright (Nuffield College Oxford) had developed very strong connections and cooperation within French political science, for instance with Jacques Lagroye, a dominant figure of French political science for three decades at Paris I-Sorbonne. Although that type of research was known it was unambiguously rejected, and hardly appeared in the main handbook of political science written by Lagroye in the early 1990s. On the other hand, political science at Sciences Po, until the late 1990s, developed with little interest in public policy (with the exception of a marginal small research centre, the Research Centre on Administrations [Centre de Recherches Administratives, CRA]). The only exception was Yves Mény, who had spent a year in Cornell and was professor at the European University Institute of Florence in the 1980s. At Sciences Po, beyond failing to develop policy studies teaching for future civil servants, he tried to influence political science and to develop public policy, regularly inviting Dente, Hayward or Wright. It proved difficult and did not raise much interest. He left to become the head of the Schuman Centre in Florence. Jean Leca, who, in the 1990s, managed to organise the development of policy studies at Sciences Po (with Quermonne) always argued that a political science professor at Sciences Po accepted a sort of gentleman’s agreement with French administrative elites who run Sciences Po. They were part of the governing coalition but they were not supposed to study policies. It was only with the arrival 305

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of Pierre Muller at Sciences Po, attracting students, colleagues (for example Pierre Lascoumes) and younger scholars that research on public policies developed there from the late 1990s onwards. Three evolutions can be put forward in order to explain this growing position of policy studies in French political science: the transformations of public policies themselves, the dynamics of public policy research in France and the reforms of the higher education system. First, French public policies traditionally dominated by the state have been deeply transformed by two major changes. The first one is the decentralisation process (officially starting in 1982) which transferred new competences and new (institutional and financial) resources to local governments. They (urban governments in particular) progressively defined, decided and implemented more autonomous public policies (especially urban, transport, economic and cultural policies). This strong development of local policies triggered the development of new courses on local government and the creation of new master’s degree courses specialising in local policies because of the new professional opportunities at this level. It also led to the creation of a new school specialising in the training of upper-level local civil servants (the Local Civil Servants National Centre [Centre National de la Fonction Publique Territoriale, CNFPT]) where some leading figures of French policies studies taught (Thoenig, Gibert, Duran). The second change was the ever-increasing Europeanisation of public policies leading to the completion of the single market and the adoption of the Maastricht treaty. These two major trends have widened the scope of policy studies, until then dominated by a strong national and statist perspective. The AFSP organised two major conferences on these topics: the first one in 1991, ‘Is the French model of administration in crisis?’ (‘Le modèle français d’administration est-il en crise?’), the second in 1994, ‘Public policies in Europe’ (‘Politiques publiques en Europe’). Both were published in the new series created by Pierre Muller at l’Harmattan publishing house, entitled ‘Political Logic’ (‘Logiques politiques’). Other conferences, organised by the AFSP (on the policy networks approach, or on cognitive approaches, for example), as well as several PhDs studying policy processes at the local, national and/or European level were published in this important series for the diffusion of policy studies. The development of local and European policies, deeply transforming national policies, gave a decisive impulse to comparative policy process studies in a political science perspective different from administrative science and taking the institutional and political dimensions more into account than the sociological approaches mainly inspired by the sociology of organisations (see Chapter Four). Pierre Muller created a public policy standing group of the AFSP in 1994 strengthening the position of policy studies in the discipline. It organised several workshops and conferences and triggered the publication of special issues of the French political science journal, Revue française de science politique (RFSP) focusing on public policy: five between 1992 and 2005. It was also in the 1990s, that French handbooks were published. The first one was written by Mény and Thoenig in 1989. Its content was mainly the presentation of the international 306

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literature on policy analysis (on the different policy sequences and comparative approaches). Then, in 1990 Muller published a shorter synthesis more focused on his own cognitive approach and on the analysis of public policies in France; he is also the co-author (with Yves Surel) of another handbook published afterwards (in 1998). This academic development of policy analysis in political science was mirrored in the 2000s by the publication of many handbooks: by Gilles Massardier (2003), by Jean-Pierre Gaudin (2004), by Pierre Lascoumes and Patrick Le Galès (2007), by Patrick Hassenteufel (2008) and by Jacques de Maillard with Daniel Kübler (2009). Their content reflects the priority given to the presentation of approaches, that is, to theoretical and methodological issues, over the description and analysis of the transformations of specific sectors. Third, the institutionalisation of policy studies was also facilitated by the slow transformation of the higher education system. As documented by Musselin (2001), the division between Grandes Écoles, university and CNRS research centres started to diminish, an on-going process. CNRS research centres mostly became joined research centres between either university or Grandes Écoles and the CNRS. Those research centres would therefore comprise both CNRS researchers and university professors. Despite many rivalries, those joined centres gave a major boost to the development of research, including policy studies, within universities in political science and sociology. Within CNRS, a special section was created in the 1980s bringing together organisation and labour market sociology, and political science. It became a stronghold of policy studies scholar very much involved in comparative analysis. Also, this paved the way to the long-term transformation of CNRS staff: researchers started to teach more regularly and consistently. The teaching of policy studies expanded massively both in universities and IEPs (in Paris and outside Paris). Yet, this academic affirmation of public policy studies in existing disciplines (not only in political science but also in sociology, managerial sciences and economics) with a strong focus on theory building and discussion has widened the gap with policy practice as the weak position of academics in the development of policy evaluation (dominated by administration and consultants), especially sociologists and political scientists (Lacouette-Fougères and Lascoumes, 2013, 140) and the absence of creation of specific policy analysis schools or departments show. But some slow changes are currently on the way. Bridging the gap between policy studies and policy analysis? (2010s) The trend towards the academic affirmation and institutionalisation has been strengthened in the most recent period especially in political science were policy studies are considered as one of the most important disciplinary subfields after political sociology. A good indicator is the number of candidates for the national qualification process. This qualification is the condition to become a candidate for an assistant professor position in a university. In the recent years the proportion turns around 307

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15 per cent for public policies (16 per cent in 2011, 14 per cent in 2013, 18 per cent in 2015 [CNU, 2011–15]). Another related indicator is the number of recruited assistant professors: between 2006 and 2012, 23.6 per cent of the recruited assistant professors in political science had a public policy profile (Déloye, 2012, 124). And in the survey conducted in 2009 by Emiliano Grossman on French political scientist policy studies appear as the second subfield behind political sociology (Grossman, 2010, 569). This position of policy studies in political science is also reflected by the number of roundtables on public policies at the French Political Science Congress (around 25 per cent of the selected panels for the 2017 Congress deal with policy studies) or the presence of public policy specialists at the political science section of the National University Council (Conseil national des universités [CNU]), in the national jury recruiting full-time professors every two years, in the fortieth section of the national commission of the CNRS and in the editorial board of the French political science journal, RFSP. Significantly, a new journal focused on public policy and public administration (Gouvernement et action publique) was created in 2012 and has the same publisher as RFSP: the Presses de Sciences Po. It is a more academic journal than Politiques et Management Public, focused on political science and sociology (excluding the more practice oriented managerial sciences), with an internationalised editorial board. Its content reflects the increasing links between policy studies and other areas of political science (political sociology, international relations, European studies, comparative politics and so on) and sociology (sociology of administration, sociology of professions, sociology of science, for example) so as the growing internationalisation of French policy studies. A growing number of scholars are involved in international associations (especially the International Political Science Association (IPSA), with the creation of the International Public Policy Association (IPPA) by Philippe Zittoun, the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), and the Council for European Studies), publish in English, develop comparative policy studies programmes, and are involved in international public policy journals, for example. Internationalisation is also considered as a main factor for the development of gender perspectives in French policy studies. Starting in the 2000s, transnational connections with the feminist comparative policy community have nurtured researches on gender policy studies made by French scholars through various European projects and on comparative studies of gender equality policies (Mazur and Revillard, 2016, 563). Inside the French political science association Pierre Muller, at that time general secretary, played a pioneering role during the mid-2000s (Engeli and Perrier, 2015, 355) by organising workshops and an international conference on gender and public policy (then published in 2008: Engeli et al). In 2009 a special issue of the RFSP on gender between policy and politics was published (Boussaguet and Jacquot, 2009) and since that period several scholars working on the gender dimensions of public policies have been recruited in French universities and research centres. The gender dimension is now systematically integrated into public policy researches and courses, as a part 308

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of a more general trend towards the growing inclusion of gendered approaches in political science and sociology.2 If the academic position of policy studies has been strengthened (especially for political science and to a lesser extent in sociology), the development of policy process studies has also led to a dilution (in relation to the adoption of a political sociology perspective) and fragmentation of policy studies (in relation to a specialisation in policy domains: for example, urban policies, justice and crime, welfare, health and the environment). Nevertheless, this fragmentation and dilution is also a sign of healthy intellectual debates between different approaches and a renewal of methods. It is also important to note that the French public administration is increasingly interdependent with international organisations and national administrations all over Europe and the EU. The splendid isolation doesn’t work anymore, and the French state is, like others, being reconfigurated (King and Le Galès, 2017). It was quite a shock for top French civil servants to discover that they were now turned down for jobs at the World Bank or the OECD because they did not have a PhD. Progressively some sectors of the French Administration are understanding the necessity to work with academic policy studies. The Council of State now works with law university professors and occasionally might mobilise policy studies. In negotiating in Europe or elsewhere, the Ministry for foreign affairs has learned to work with academics including policy studies in a systematic way. With the decentralisation process, many local and regional politicians have developed systematic interactions with policy studies research, especially at the regional level. The French state has created institutes, developing executive education programmes where policy studies play a major role, in several ministries. Executive education and policy evaluation is on the rise, including for civil servants, and policy studies experts are involved in those flourishing programmes as well as in the new expertise institutions created in some policy fields since the end of the 1990s. Even Sciences Po has finally opened a public policy school (2015) where future candidates for ENA are now obliged to be trained in economics, in policy process studies and sociology. Furthermore, some Grandes Écoles engaged in a long-term transformation to be closer to an international model. Sciences Po paved the way to become officially (in 2015) an international research university, still elitist but comprising not 2,000 but 13,000 students with a steady increase of the number of full-time academics in the teaching and the organisation combining research, teaching and close connections to professionals. This trend also concerns business schools, the École Normale Supérieure and Engineer Grandes Écoles. A growing number of Grandes Écoles have now a five-year curriculum, deliver master’s degrees and even PhDs. This is also related to the most recent development of French higher education policy with the creation of large communities of higher education institutions, Communauté d’universités et établissements (COMUE) composed of universities, Grandes Écoles and CNRS research centres, in which new master and doctoral programmes specialising in

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public policies can be developed, blurring the traditional differentiation between professional and research masters.

Conclusion This chapter stressed two main factors of the gap between policy analysis and the academic world in France: the first one is the core role of the Grandes Écoles, located outside universities and separated from research, in the training of future policy elites; the second one is the strength of disciplinary logics in the academic field, contradicting with the pluri-disciplinarity required by policy analysis. It helps to understand why policy studies started, and have been developed, in institutions more opened to various disciplines (and historically located at the fringes of the academic system): the CNRS and the Institut d’Études Politiques, as has the role of political science. This more recent (and weaker) discipline, at the crossroads of different social sciences, has been more welcoming than others for the analysis of public policies. Notwithstanding policy studies have been developed in already existing disciplines, without creating neither a new one, nor new specific academic institutions. Nevertheless, the days of the splendid isolation between elites from the Grandes Écoles running the French state and academic research may be (nearly) gone. In this slow, but systematic, long-term transformation, more connections between policy studies and policymakers can be noticed (with the growing participation of academics in policy expertise forums) and the trend towards the creation of French public policy schools is on the way. Policy studies are on the rise not only in universities but also in some Grandes Écoles, they are now well established and more integrated and recognised in international research circuits. The mixture of influence of sociology, political science, political economy and ethnography provokes many debates and interesting innovations in terms of methods and research questions, even if the tensions, on the one side, between disciplines, especially with the strengthening of economic policy analysis and economic policy evaluation (see the previous chapter), and on the other side, between disciplinary logics and the pluri-disciplinarity of policy analysis, are far from having disappeared! Notes 1 2

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The website of the Conférence des Grandes Écoles gives a list of 222 schools. In relation with the feminisation of French social sciences: between 2005 and 2015 the number of women among assistant professors has increased from 32 per cent to 42 per cent in political science and from 42 per cent to 54 per cent in sociology; for full professors it has increased from 10 per cent to 20 per cent in political science and from 20 per cent to 33 per cent in sociology (data taken from Faudot, 2017).

The academic world of French policy studies

References Badie, B. (1984) Le développement politique, Paris: Economica. Badie, B., Birnbaum, P. (1979) Sociologie de l’État, Paris: Calmann-Lévy. Bezes, P., Chauviere, M. (eds) (2004) L’État à l’épreuve des Sciences sociales, Paris: La découverte. Bourdieu, P. (1989) La noblesse d’État, Paris: Minuit. Boussaguet, L., Jacquot, S. (eds) (2009) ‘Le genre entre policy et politics’, Revue française de science politique, Special Issue, 59(2), 173–351. Charle, C., Verger, D. (2007) Histoire des universités, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. CNU (Conseil national des universités) (2011–15) Rapport annuel du Conseil National des Universités, section 04 (science politique), Political Science Section, Paris: CNU. Déloye, Y. (2012) ‘Eléments pour une morphologie des politistes français au vingt et unième siècle’, Politique et Sociétés 31(3), 109–26. Dobuzinskis, L., Laycock, D.H., Howlett, M. (2007) Policy Analysis in Canada: The State of the Art, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Engeli, I., Perrier, G. (2015) ‘Pourquoi les politiques publiques ont toutes quelque chose en elles de très genré’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp. 349–75, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Engeli, I., Ballmer-Cao, T.-H., Muller, P. (eds) (2008) Les politiques du genre, Logiques politiques, Paris: L’Harmattan. Faudot, D. (2017) Les carrières des enseignantes-chercheuses dans l’enseignement supérieur, Paris: Syndicat national de l’enseignement supérieur, Fédération syndicale unitaire (SNESUP-FSU), www.snesup.fr/sites/default/files/fichier/femmes_et_ esr.pdf?ct=t(La_Lettre_du_Sup_Lettre_d_information_du_5_30_2017)&mc_ cid=c5c9e75eb6&mc_eid=a13869aff6. Favre, P. (1981) ‘Les sciences de l’État entre déterminisme et libéralisme: Emile Boutmy et la création de l’École Libre des Sciences Politiques’, Revue Française de Sociologie 22(3), 429–65. Favre, P. (1982) ‘La science politique en France depuis 1945’, International Political Science Review 2(1), 95–120. (Translation of ‘Political science in France’, in W. Andrews (ed) (1982)  International Handbook of Political Science, pp. 154–68, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.) Favre, P., Legavre, J.-B., (eds) (1998) Enseigner la science politique, Paris: L’Harmattan,  Gaudin, J.-P. (2004) L’action publique, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Gibert, P. (1983) ‘Éditorial’, Politiques et management publics 1(1), 1–3. Grawitz, M., Leca. J. (eds) (1985) Traité de science politique, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Grossman, E. (2010) ‘Les stratégies de publication des politistes français’, Revue Française de Science Politique 60(3), 565–85.

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Hassenteufel, P. (2007) ‘L’État mis à nu par les politiques publiques?’, in B. Badie, Y. Déloye (eds) Les temps de l’État: Mélanges en l’honneur de Pierre Birnbaum, pp. 311–29, Paris: Fayard. Hassenteufel, P. (2008) Sociologie politique: L’action publique, Paris: Armand Colin. Heilbron, J. (2015) French Sociology, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. King, D., Le Galès, P. (eds) (2017) Reconfigurating European states in crisis, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lacouette-Fougères, C., Lascoumes, P. (2013) ‘“Les scènes multiples de l’évaluation”: Les problèmes récurrents de son institutionnalisation’, Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d’évaluation des politiques publiques (LIEPP) Policy Paper 1, Paris: LIEPP-Sciences Po. Lascoumes, P., Le Galès, P. (2007) Sociologie de l’action publique, Paris: Armand Colin. Le Galès P. (2015) ‘Les approches françaises de politique publique au temps de Pierre Muller: Complément d’enquête’, in L. Boussaguet, S. Jacquot, P. Ravinet (eds) Une ‘French touch’ dans l’analyse des politiques publiques?, pp.185–201, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Leca, J., Muller, P. (2008) ‘Y a-t-il une approche française des politiques publiques? Retour sur les conditions de l’introduction de l’analyse des politiques publiques en France’, in O. Giraud, P. Warin (eds) Politiques publiques et démocratie, pp. 185– 99, Paris: La Découverte. Maillard, J. de, Kübler, D. (2009) Analyser les politiques publiques, Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. Massardier, G. (2003) Politiques et action publiques, Paris: Armand Colin. Mazur, A.G., Revillard, A. (2016) ‘Gender policy studies: Distinct but making the comparative connection’, in R. Elgie, E. Grossman, A. Mazur (eds) The Oxford Handbook of French Politics, pp. 556–82, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mendras, H. with Le Galès, P., Oberti, M. (1995) Comment devenir sociologue: Souvenirs d’un vieux mandarin, Arles : Actes Sud. Mény, Y., Thoenig, J.-C. (1989) Politiques publiques, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Muller, P. (1990) Les politiques publiques, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Muller, P., Surel, Y. (1998) L’analyse des politiques publiques, Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence (LGDJ). Muller, P., Quermonne, J.-L. (eds) (1995) Les Politiques publiques en Europe, Paris: L’Harmattan. Musselin, C. (2001) La longue marche des universités françaises, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Padioleau, J.-G. (1980) L’État au concret, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Thoenig, J.-C. (ed) (1985) Les Politiques publiques, vol 4 of M. Grawitz, J. Leca (eds) Traité de science politique, Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

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Public policy analysis in France: from public action to political power Patrice Duran Compared to other countries in Europe, public policy analysis in French universities began rather late. Indeed, this research approach proved largely dependent on the state in which it was undertaken and on the nature of the elites that were likely to drive it. In addition, it depended on cultural elements that shaped how public affairs were defined and justified. In this regard, France subscribed to a highly structured unitary state in which legal reasoning not only played a historically dominant role in the training of civil servants but also dictated how they carried out their duties (Duran, 1990). Moreover, the very idea of public policy had little empirical clout and even less scope because the technical reasons associated with public finance made it impossible to adequately connect policy to specific French programmes that might have been granted specific funds within the budget. It was not until the reform of the legal framework of the finance laws of 1 August 2001, upon the adoption of the organic law relating to the finance laws (LOLF), that public spending began to be correlated with public policy objectives in order to present state policies as ‘performance programmes’. It is noteworthy that Raymond Aron, one of the few French authors to evoke the term ‘policy’ in the 1950s and 1960s, spoke only, and rather vaguely, of programmes of action through which individuals and groups could assert their interests (Aron, 1962; 1965). Given the absence of more in-depth analyses, references to ‘policies’ and ‘programmes’ remained ambiguous from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. These terms were associated with ‘fields’ as vague as social, cultural, economic and industrial policies. In no way was policy analysis associated with a genuine research approach. Extending beyond the inevitable fashion trends around the discovery of a new approach, however, policy analysis established itself from the 1980s. It emerged as indispensable to the study of political power and soon became a dominant field of research within French political science. Even today, policy analysis is fully acknowledged by other social science disciplines such as sociology, economics and even law (Caillosse, 2016; Mockle, 2007). The reception and development of public policy analysis in France is strongly tied to the question of the state for several reasons. First, the state is perceived as central in French political culture because it played an important role in the political integration of the country and because it embodies a powerfully structured state highly differentiated from civil society. Second, public policy debate was initiated at a time when political sociology had just ‘rediscovered’ the state following, in particular, the closure of a 313

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major socio-historical research programme supervised by Charles Tilly about the formation of European states. This ‘rediscovery’ led to the creation of a genuine ‘sociology of the state’ which represented a major scientific challenge for the study of political power (Tilly, 1975; Badie and Birnbaum, 1979; Leca 1980). Third, the discovery of policy analysis occurred alongside a crucial and unique moment, that is, during the decentralisation reform in 1982. This reform prompted debate on the actual role of central government in the management of public affairs. In sum, French public policy analysis could only integrate the sociology of the state, and as a result, could do no more than revisit and complement it. This explains French researchers’ interest in this new analytical approach. Policy analysis henceforth appeared as a powerful tool with which to analyse the state and, more broadly, political power. Indeed, as Ted Lowi (1970) rightly argued, the state is not a phenomenon that can be studied directly. Starting from the observation of actions and, thus, actors, policy analysis is essentially the principle of reality of a state ultimately defined by its actions, rather than by its roles and structures. Policy analysis has indeed emerged as the ‘missing link’ making it possible to associate the management of public affairs with the institutional framework that makes this management possible (Duran, 2004). Reflecting on action calls to attention the fact that while action is always based on intentions and capabilities, it is also linked to operational conditions; the main characteristic of action is the opportunity it affords us to account for the linkages between these dimensions. Public policy analysis was attractive as it made it possible to more accurately grasp the scope of the institutional arrangements specific to each state by analysing their impact on the definition and implementation of public policies (Ashford, 1978). Subsequently, in the French context, policy analysis made it possible to highlight the impact of the changes observed in intergovernmental relations with regard to the management of public affairs. Public policy analysis thus offered a remarkable tool with which to interpret political power by integrating its constituent dimensions, that is, policy, politics and polity. It is no coincidence that modern states were thereafter defined as Policy states. These states were characterised by governing modes largely shaped by public policies and by multiple forms of privatisation and delegation closely linked to the exercise of state authority (King and Le Galès, 2011). Beyond the issue of the state, which has remained a decisive factor, many French researchers have adopted an analytical approach that avoids isolating policy analysis from a more general reflection on political power, that is, on its nature, context and scope. This combination enables policy analysis to produce the most useful insights, and it is to this approach that French researchers have remained highly committed (Duran, 1990; Leca, 2012; Bezes and Pierru, 2012; King and Le Galès, 2011). Thus specified, public policy analysis – at least in France – is undoubtedly the modern theory of political power. Public policy can no longer refer to the simple characterisation of the intervention of public authorities. Above and beyond their specific advantages, the legal theories of public authorities or of the civil service that have largely shaped French public law and structured the practices of civil servants do not 314

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allow us to fully grasp the reality and specificity of these theories in all their aspects. The significant development of policy analysis and, more broadly, the strong focus on the modalities of development of public action have renewed our understanding of how public affairs are managed. Analysing policy from the perspective of political power thus requires analysts to seriously take into account the intervention of public authorities relative to their ability to construct and implement public policies. This analysis provides a definition of political power that is now complete: the ability to define collective goals, mobilise the necessary resources in their pursuit, make the necessary decisions to obtain them and accept the outcomes. Policy analysis leads to a strictly empirical conception of political power which conclusively associates the reality of power with the knowledge of that reality. What does public policy analysis really mean? What has been the impact of the concepts it has developed to explain political reality? There is a need to draw attention to these essential questions both in France and elsewhere. In other words, there is a need to (1) better understand the process of appropriation that contributed to the full development of public policy analysis on the French academic scene, particularly from the perspective of the sociology of public action that quickly established itself as the dominant analytical approach, and (2) analyse the social utility of policy analysis at a time when questions about how modern societies are managed have become increasingly common.

Public policy and public action: the singular French approach of the sociology of public action Today, it is widely accepted that public policy analysis is neither a ‘discipline’ nor a fully integrated theory of public action; rather, public policy analysis is more a project and an area of research. The French case is not original in this respect. The social sciences are based on a methodological pluralism driven by the different ways these sciences analyse research objects. Moreover, interest in an empirical object does not necessarily mean that the object will be automatically transformed into a research object, especially since, as we mentioned previously, the concepts of ‘programme’ and ‘public policy’ long remained foreign to the French vocabulary of the management of public affairs. The appropriation of policy analysis became a preoccupation of French research and, in both sociology and political science, was reflected in particular by the progressive shift from the concept of public policy to that of public action: from the analysis of policies strictly speaking to a political sociology of public action. The preference for the concept of public action significantly contributed to the development of a research agenda specific to French research which became increasingly autonomous with time. The public action concept emerged in the 1990s following critical reflection around the dissatisfaction with how the term ‘public policy’ was commonly used (Duran and Thoenig, 1996; Thoenig, 1998; Duran, 2009). The criticism levelled against this term was wide-ranging: its trivialised use was challenged and the 315

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manner in which it was used was criticised for its inappropriate assimilation to a rather institutionalist logic of intervention often associated with a questionable methodological approach. Its use was also criticised for its limited analytical scope as it embodied a type of public action that was too historically situated (Hassenteufel, 2011). Indeed, it seemed preferable to speak of public action rather than public policy because, while the concept of public policy clearly underscored the voluntary nature of action, the frequently rhetorical use of the term also promoted a reassuring image of a government aware of what it was doing and of where it was going. Owing to a government culture strongly influenced by the legal theory of public authority and that of the public service, such a representation was clearly favoured in France. It thus became necessary to liberate the country from a concept of policy which included vague definitions and which tended to be too easily identified only with the objectives formally pursued by government. It was thus necessary to distance policy analysis from the basic category invented by the policymakers themselves. This ‘disenchantment of politics’ driven by the sociology of public action sought to bring attention to the fact that not all public actions necessarily embody public policy, nor are they necessarily part of policies or action programmes. Defining action as an intentional act means that we must define public policy as a systematic intention and, unless the expression is to be rendered completely meaningless, accumulating disparate measures and diverse gestures does not reflect controlled action. However, while the role of public policy is defined by specific issues, public policies also require actors to identify sequences of actions and connect these sequences together around specific policy objectives. The concept of public policy cannot, in itself, symbolise all public action (Duran, 2003). In addition, the very idea of public policy encompassed a form of public intervention methodologically driven by a frequently top-down interpretation. This was influenced by an essentially state-centred analysis of public decisionmaking, even as social sciences were attempting to rectify this view by introducing bottom-up approaches. Bottom-up approaches were an attempt to incorporate the most recent contributions in the sociology of action into public policy analysis (Thoenig, 1976; Elmore, 1979; Hjern and Porter, 1981; Sabatier, 1986). While there seemed to be a general consensus about the importance of taking into account the implementation phase during the policy-making process, the corresponding analysis revealed highly varying research approaches. Methodology posed the greatest challenge. It was less an issue of a specific type of intervention than the criticism of a method of analysis far too dependent on the established frameworks of public policy, and one that paid too little attention to actors’ interactions within concrete systems of action, interorganisational networks or policy subsystems. This reflected an image that was somewhat counterintuitive to a fragmented political system largely characterised by the diversity of problems that needed to be addressed and by the poor coordination of corresponding social systems; the situation proved conducive to alternative modes of reasoning. The 316

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increased focus on public issues would also prove decisive; analysis helped highlight the change in nature as well as the complexity of these issues. Indeed, it has become increasingly clear that the approaches used to address public issues today go beyond the scope of government institutions and do not always take the form of clearly institutionalised policies. The identification of the interactive relationships and numerous interdependences that span institutional frameworks challenges the most common boundaries between the public and private spheres and between levels of government, and has thus led to fresh questions about the issue of political power. The concepts of governance and multilevel governance with regard to the specifically European dimension of public action have been the most representative indicators of this new focus. Naturally, in the attempt to grasp the reality of political power in a multipolar and pluralistic world, a few difficulties were encountered. The unclear points of reference essentially resulted from the gap between the representations that still largely shaped how France interpreted politics and the experience of a public action that did not fit within those mental frameworks. The state remained a central issue. Multiple studies about the concept of ‘governance’ described the emergence of a new age of public action characterised by the complexity of public issues, increasing interdependence and international competition, the existence of multiple decision-making centres lacking clear hierarchy and the development of informal decision-making methods to offset the lack of flexibility in bureaucratic structures. Owing to both European integration and to the processes of decentralisation that were being developed in all member states and in France in particular, ‘polycentric forms of power’ emerged. Moreover, there were internal changes in a public action that increasingly distanced itself from the logic of production characteristic of the formation of a welfare state and became increasingly characterised by ‘the fluidity of public issues, the uncertainty of territories and the fragmentation of political power’ (Duran and Thoenig, 1996: 582). Ever since, the term ‘public action’ has gained the upper hand. As Pierre Lascoumes and Patrick Le Galès accurately describe, ‘the notion [has been] widely adopted by most contemporary writers’ (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007: 17). This systematic use has gradually been taken into account to develop the political sociology of public action. Although this perception of public action is multifaceted, it has shifted away from a policy analysis considered somewhat ‘orthodox’ (Muller, 2000). This research approach has proved valuable by producing high-quality studies around the analysis of public issues in particular, and by developing a new and exciting sociology of public action based on instruments (Halpern et al, 2014). Shaped by the dual influence of Weber and Foucault and the combination of several sociological approaches including the Sociology of Science and Technology, current French thought on the instruments of government has enriched and built on a decisive issue – although this line of thought remains indebted to the pioneering work of Christopher Hood. French thought has undoubtedly revived the issue of policy implementation. Moreover, 317

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it has introduced substantial changes in the approach by proposing a different type of reasoning which has revealed that the development of management systems involves far more than mere actors’ games. Developing a system of governance is not a trivial affair. Beyond the effects produced, this development also highlights the effort to articulate the making of public policies with the distinctiveness of how government structures have been built in order to reduce any decoupling between the construction of administrative organisations and public policymaking; this is a decisive issue as we shall see below. By restoring the link between policy implementation and policy outcomes, the sociology of instruments clearly revives what, in my opinion, lies at the heart of the debate initiated by public policy analysis. The strength of the mode of reasoning in terms of public policy within what is now commonly referred to as public policy analysis has arisen from how it connects problems, choices, means, outputs and outcomes. Indeed, reflecting on public policy means putting into perspective political choices, the concrete processes through which these choices are implemented, and the ensuing outputs and outcomes. The link between outputs and outcomes has historically defined the originality, novelty and importance of public policy analysis. The implementation of public action is a process whose nature is instrumental; its ability to effectively contribute to addressing the problem that inspired its formation should be assessed. A decision is valuable only if it is implemented; this explains why the issue of the instruments of government is appealing and relevant. The tools chosen are a good indicator of governance ‘styles’ and of a genuine desire to undertake an action plan. As Hood has noted, the choice of policy instruments may lead to an extremely heated political debate, a debate that may be even stormier than one on the expected outcomes, simply because a policy instrument has direct and practical implications for policy effectiveness and efficiency. Policy instruments provide the link between what is desired and what is actually achieved. The sociology of instruments draws its strength from the relationship it re-establishes between outputs and outcomes. At a time when performance matters, it draws attention to the fact that the performance of public action is defined by its outcomes. As Peter John forcefully argues, ‘Policy outcomes are what decision-makers should be concentrating on and responding to’ (John, 2011). Classical authors as distinct as Weber and Dewey asserted that politicians should be held accountable for policy outcomes; indeed, they argued that the main responsibility of politicians was to ensure outcomes. As developed in France, the issue of instruments is consistent with this central view. Regardless of its significance, public policy analysis cannot simply be reduced to the construction of problems without questioning the effectiveness of policy choices and, thus, policy outcomes. While sociologists and political scientists abandoned the issue of outcomes, economists became very keen on this issue. Today, economists continue to enjoy a monopoly in this area, to the extent that French policy evaluation studies primarily mobilise the knowhow of economists, even as the latter have long distanced themselves from policy studies (Duran, 2010). The sociology of public policy instruments à la française 318

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is likely to rectify this situation and provide valuable insights into the analysis of outcomes by reiterating the question of the ability of policymakers to produce outcomes. This also provides an opportunity to reintroduce a causal relationship into the analysis; when it relates to action, this is all the more essential insofar as taking action requires explanatory knowledge. Public policy analysis should not, however, lead the concept of public policy into oblivion; indeed, abandoning this concept is not without its risks. Reflecting on public action has the potential to provide a general and decisive framework. This framework makes it possible to incorporate the concept of public policy as a form of action and to more adequately define its analytical dimensions. Criticism has generally been levelled against the inaccurate and ambiguous use of the term ‘public policy’, rather than against the concept in the strictest sense of the term. Moreover, it must be said that literature has failed to provide a precise and in-depth definition of this concept due to an approach that is more often descriptive rather than analytical and which overlooks the fact that ‘a concept is not knowledge, but an instrument of knowledge’, as Weber rightly stated. By observing the intricacies of an indeterminate public action, the notion of public policy may be lost. Undoubtedly, the usefulness of the concept of public action lies in the fact that it is a generic concept that can be defined as all social processes through which problems considered to fall under the responsibility of public authorities are addressed. Conversely, public policy refers to a very specific aspect of public action that can be defined as an action consciously directed toward ends, means and outcomes. A useful approach improves our understanding of social phenomena and ultimately acts as a tool for action. Borrowing from the categories developed by Gilles-Gaston Granger, ‘epistemic rationality’ (the rationale behind description and explanation) and ‘practical rationality’ (the rationale behind action) differ in nature and scope but are proving to be increasingly interdependent today (Granger, 1995). While there is a need to distinguish the explanatory power of the social sciences from their uses, it must be pointed out, however, that these uses are made possible through the advancement of science. The reflection initiated by public policy analysis stimulated the debate on evaluation, that is, on the informed assessment of actions defined and implemented by public authorities in an attempt to contribute to the resolution of public issues identified as requiring their intervention. This assessment is based on an in-depth knowledge of potential outcomes and the processes that may produce them. In terms of management of public affairs, assessment merely reflects the imperatives of public policy analysis. Unfortunately, public authorities have failed to take full ownership of public policy analysis. This has frequently hampered the development of a research approach appropriate for evaluation within the social sciences and has accorded a dominant position to economics. Moreover, the multidisciplinary approach at the heart of policy sciences and public policy analysis in North America has never caught on in France. This can be explained by the fact that the institutionalisation of disciplines in France is probably stronger than elsewhere and, instead of combining 319

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the different analytical perspectives, it has pitted them against each other; this also largely explains the absence of real ‘Schools of Public Policy’. At stake is the shift from the analysis of policy to the analysis for policy. While social sciences have become essential for the management of public affairs, their role has remained largely dependent on how they are organised, which determines the effectiveness of their joint mobilisation. In this regard, the slow pace of learning is clearly regrettable.

Analysing political power through the prism of the theory of public action Reasoning in terms of public problems leads to a radical transformation of the management of public affairs. The significant development of public policy analysis and, more broadly, the greater focus on the modalities of development of public policy methods have led to an increased understanding of the management of public affairs. Moreover, it has made it possible to understand how changes in public action have put a strain on the nature, context and scope of political power. Put differently, in the French context, these changes have led to increased tension in the public service, the state and in democracy. Rethinking the public service Public authorities have clearly lost the ownership of public problems. As in other parts of the world, the French government had to focus on this thorny issue which resulted from the encounter between a necessarily collective definition of the issues to be addressed and their fragmented implementation, horizontally and vertically, between both public agencies and government levels. Involving the authorities in policies beyond their scope has a significant impact on their functioning. These authorities, however, are yet to take all measures and implications into account, which clearly explains their slow and difficult modernisation. Fundamentally, all management styles and the whole management system must be turned upside down in the face of the need to advance toward the desegmentation of public interventions and ensure their coherence. Many issues call for greater flexibility in administrative organisation and administrative action: the existence of multiple partners, the often contingent nature of the coalitions to set up and the dynamic nature of public issues and their permeable boundaries. Currently, integration costs are the most sensitive points to be accounted for in the organisation of work. It is less about mechanically implementing competencies and more about connecting different competencies depending on the issues to be addressed; these issues increasingly cut across official nomenclature and organisation charts. In France, the difficulty associated with introducing administrative reforms is a reflection of the difficulty encountered in developing a joint plan of action; this difficulty goes beyond the issue of human and financial resources.

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There have been successive reforms over the last 20 years and these have been primarily characterised by intense organisational restructuring. The reforms have generally been marked by the revision of organisation charts primarily through decentralisation, ‘agencification’, privatisation and the merging of services. It is still impossible today to make an overall assessment of all the reforms undertaken. However, it may be noted that organisations, rather than more flexible forms of coordination, are still perceived as the most convenient channels through which to establish coordination. There is an obvious preference for tightly coupled systems over loosely coupled systems (Landau, 1991). As a result, a paradoxical situation has emerged: on the one hand, strong criticism has been levelled against bureaucracies considered incapable of efficiently managing problems judged to be way beyond their scope. On the other hand, attempts to rethink these bureaucracies have presented them as indispensable (Bézès, 2007; Le Galès and Scott, 2008). The proliferation of diverse agencies that emerge alongside existing administrative structures could thus represent a solution to the difficult integration of the sectoral logics that may be in competition in any given domain of intervention, for instance in environmental or health issues. Finally, although it was said that the reforms’ objectives were to ensure greater operational capability, greater efficiency and greater effectiveness, it is clear that most of these reforms were primarily motivated by an attempt to reduce state spending. Indeed, the distinction between outputs and outcomes, which lies at the core of public policy analysis, has proved to be highly destabilising for administrative organisations in a state that has consistently developed the ‘cult of Administration with a capital A’, to the extent of making this distinction the ‘historical treasure of the State in France’ (Legendre, 1992). It has actually led to the emergence of a more complex governing approach that has greatly undermined the French government in the sense that one can now say that a public policy perspective aims at substituting a logic of outcomes by a logic of outputs. Indeed, government authorities are no longer mere service providers responding to more or less demanding social issues. These authorities must now incorporate the imperatives of the management of ‘public issues’ although they rarely have a monopoly in addressing these issues. Moreover, the manner in which they address public issues generates outcomes which define the reality of their performance in terms of the nature, scope and the extent of their responsibility. The notion of outputs prevalent in state authorities must now incorporate the notion of outcomes prevalent in public policy. Meanwhile, assessing the activities undertaken by the authorities does not simply involve an internal technical assessment of the quality of production. Rather, it also involves assessing how these activities contribute to addressing situations defined as problematic. Evaluation has now become external, which explains why an evaluation of public policies that goes beyond the difficulties associated with their implementation has gained in popularity; this also explains why the concerned authorities have been highly reluctant to undertake this evaluation. Indeed, these authorities soon discovered that the quality of their services did not justify the legitimacy of their actions and that product quality no longer determined 321

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governance effectiveness: constructing roads does not automatically translate into land use planning, just as obtaining a degree does not necessarily mean one will find a job. State agencies as public bureaucracies are driven by production and are thus more sensitive to the more familiar management vocabulary than to the more distant language of outcomes, especially as actors are generally assessed depending on what they do rather than on what their actions generate. It is clear that focusing on the activities of government authorities alone without taking into account what these activities really mean can lead to no more than an evaluation of the dimensions of production and the services offered. This can only encourage highly managerial reflexes which have now shifted toward the quest for savings, to the detriment of genuine cost management, as evidenced by the so-called General Review of Public Policies (Révision Générale des Politiques Publiques [RGPP]) policy conducted between 2007 and 2012 which had little to do with public policy analysis. The influence of new public management (NPM) has often contributed to the development of highly managerial approaches in which the goals of efficiency and cost management have largely prevailed over the analysis of outcomes which is always more difficult to establish and is also more politically disturbing. Indeed, one of the lessons learnt from public policy analysis in relation to paving the way for a fundamental distinction is that the management of bureaucracy is not synonymous with policy management; the effectiveness of one does not necessarily translate into the effectiveness of the other. This has been a major source of tension insofar as it is easier to master the management of public administrations than public policy, especially when efficiency tends to outweigh efficacy and the quest for ‘best practices’ prevails over the quality of outcomes. Public policy analysis places emphasis on the fact that government authorities are simply an instrument for the management of public affairs. As we previously mentioned, this is one of the potential advantages of the debate on the instruments of government, and in particular, management instruments (Gibert, 2010), as this debate provides a central view that makes it easier to reflect on the relationship between organisation and policy, and thus, more effectively to connect outputs and outcomes (Halpern et al, 2014). From the perspective of knowledge, the success of public policy analysis led to the loss of interest in the analysis of state agencies which, until then, had been traditionally strong in France. The challenge today lies in better understanding the relationship between organisational structure and the outcomes of a given action. Clearly, there is room for a genuine research programme and French authors have now shown great interest in this programme by focusing on the analysis of the ‘organisational policy’ implemented by public authorities (Bezes and Le Lidec, 2016a; 2016b). To date, French authorities have yet to develop a genuinely collective culture of outcomes based on outcomes management. The lack of interest in outcomes has historically led to a negative consequence, that is, France has experienced delays in establishing reliable databases and, more broadly, public bureaucracies have generally poor knowledge of their contexts for action. The mobilisation of data, however, is crucial for the effectiveness of 322

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public policies and for accurately assessing the impact of public programmes. The slow diffusion of the evaluation of public policy in France is largely linked to this unfortunate situation (Duran, 2010). Reflecting on outcomes also results in the emergence of a different relationship with the territory. Indeed, the territorial principle which guides public policy debate seeks to define a dynamic space of the management of public affairs characterised by diverse situations, potential solutions and the variability of the territories’ geographical influence; policy implementation requires adequate knowledge of territories. Where a detailed knowledge of the areas concerned is lacking, there can be no quest for efficiency. Governance begins and ends by questioning territories. Naturally, all problems are rooted in a territory. It is known, however, that territorial scales can vary considerably depending on the nature of the issues involved. It is not simply about action; it is also a decisive issue owing to the effects of knowledge that have become increasingly crucial, and the considerable increase in the distance between the spaces where decision-making takes place and the spaces where the practical effects occur. The consequences of this new approach to governance have been far from harmless. Because territories are complex and always specific configurations of issues and actors, they are not adapted to excessively automatic management methods that rarely fall under the responsibility of a single level of government. Once again, public policy debate has broken one of the old rules of the French legal culture of governance by putting an end to standardised management solutions in France. The territorialisation of public action primarily involves knowing and understanding situations. Its vast scope includes expert knowledge, policy instruments, renewed methods of coordinating the action and cooperation of actors, and the institutional frameworks in which public action takes place (Duran, 2011). Redefining the rules of the game Naturally, we must also question the validity, relevance and legitimacy of the institutional framework within which public action unfolds. As we mentioned earlier, the management of public affairs increasingly involves complex structures comprising multiple issues and actors in territories that are always specific and thus rule out management methods that are too mechanical or excessively standardised. In other words, it seems important to question how an effective public policy can be produced and how this can be translated at the institutional level. Today, the challenges associated with decentralisation, the division of powers between the different levels of government, the holding of multiple offices (cumul des mandats) and the voting systems cannot be dissociated from the quest for practical effectiveness when addressing public issues (Bezes and Le Lidec, 2010). The decentralisation movement that has affected France since 1982 can be characterised as a constituent policy as defined by Lowi (1972), that is, as an essentially procedural policy that defines the rules of the game and the 323

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power of actors. It is typically ‘an institutional reform as a tool of government’ (John, 2011). The biggest problem today is that the division of power does not cut across the concrete modalities associated with addressing public issues. This explains why the debate on territorial reform is primarily focused on the division of powers across government levels. In addition to the polycentric forms of power linked to both European integration and decentralisation processes that have developed in all member states, internal changes that touch on the very nature of public action have emerged. Public issues correspond to ‘issue areas’ whose frame of reference is increasingly varied. This explains why there is a management problem arising from the mismatch between the institutional framework that determines political authority and a public action that does not necessarily fall within its borders. Clearly distinguishing between what should fall within the authority of the central government or, on the contrary, within the power of local authorities has thus become an immense challenge. Therein lies the problem – which was initially technical – raised by decentralisation in France. It is worth mentioning that all federal governments have also attempted, to varying degrees, to accurately define the division of powers between the state and federal states. However, regardless of whether the division of responsibilities between federal states and the state is sectoral or functional, interdependent intergovernmental relations have resulted in the considerable intertwining of policies because of overlapping responsibilities and resources such as local and national political and administrative staff. In most policy areas in the United States, one can observe the existence of a concurrent jurisdiction between states and federal states that is considerably distant from a distinct vertical separation of functions; this had led to cooperation between the different states. In Germany, the famous Politikverflechtung, that is, the interlocking of policies, also largely blurred the previously well-organised roles. Co-financing and joint actions had begun to develop by the 1950s. The diversity of local authorities and the variability of the management areas of issues raise the question of the architecture of the institutional arrangements that shape how political power is exercised, as well as the forms of cooperation between stakeholders. Unquestionably, there has been a disproportionate increase in coordination problems. Ultimately, by revealing generalised interdependence, the dispersion of political power has only reinforced the need for cooperation. France is thus involved in a game of ‘competition and collusion’ in which no single player holds the keys to the future but, rather, all the players must learn to deal with increasingly explicit dependent relationships. This presents a twofold problem: first, the changing nature of public issues greatly increases interdependency between the different actors. Second, cooperation becomes difficult and is hampered by the segmentation, fragmentation and multiplication of the political elites linked to decentralisation. The multiple forms of partnerships, roundtable discussions and co-financing do no more than illustrate that, although the playing field is wider, the institutional architecture induces increasingly prohibitive coordination costs. Moreover, the institutional architecture has also 324

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introduced a lack of transparency not only with respect to the processes involved that will probably remain opaque in the long run, but even more so in relation to the responsibility of the relevant actors (Duran and Thoenig, 1996; Gilbert and Thoenig, 1999). How can the ability to address public issues be understood, given that this does not automatically depend on positions of authority alone? This question is particularly true in France, a country which, after long being the most successful example of legal centralisation, launched a local government reform that led to the emergence of a political and administrative system without real hierarchy between levels of government. Indeed, according to French law, one local authority cannot be under the supervision of another. To the surprise of foreign observers, France gave birth to a territorial management system where actors are forced to coordinate without a formally institutionalised hierarchical solution. This explains why the principle of ‘community leader’ (collectivité chef de file) was adopted during the constitutional revision of 2003. This solution was reassuring because it never implies a definitive solution. Indeed, it is simply a management process that involves deciding when a local authority (municipality, department or region) should act as a facilitator for the solution to a particular problem by making arrangements for joint actions. This local authority, however, has no power to impose these arrangements on other actors. Over and above the explosion of coordination costs, the multiple scenes and intergovernmental relations undoubtedly raise the question of prioritisation. Although public issues reflect a generalised interdependence that is part of ‘multilevel governance’, the diversity of local authorities and the variability of the management area of public problems clearly raise the question of the institutional frameworks which are supposed to determine how political power is exercised and to influence the modalities of cooperation between the concerned actors. This explains the blurred composition of authority and the extreme difficulty encountered in the attempt to produce institutional reforms capable of addressing the coordination of action. A direct consequence in France has been the current impasse in the local government reform. The challenge can be articulated as follows: the question that now arises concerns the development of institutional mechanisms that allow satisfactory relationships to be built between authority and power. Put differently, one must question whether the structures of authority hinder the exercise of power, and whether the reality of power contradicts the statement of authority. How, then, should one reflect on hierarchy in a context of generalised interdependence? In addition, because of the European Union, there is a need for governments to distance themselves from the narrow definition of decentralisation as the simple confrontation between the state and local authorities due to the fact that the competition between different territories takes place beyond national borders. For the first time, questions have been clearly raised about the boundaries of the French political system and these have introduced a fundamental shift in the country’s political culture by shattering the image of policy as a magical space where all is recomposed and the unity of society restored. Political power in France has been 325

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haunted by a unitary and community representation of policy embodied in the greatness of the nation state. Analysis reveals a world lacking a specific centre and shaped, to the contrary, by multiple centres, heterogeneous ends and a variety of actors. The French idea of power is now shifting. However, the pervasiveness of the former model is still visible in the lively debates on sovereignty and the republic. Naturally, the importance of institutional issues has also been affected by the weakening of the state model. It is clear that public policy analysis obliges actors to consider the discrepancies and, thus, the tensions that may appear between institutionalised political territories and the spaces where real governance occurs, and between the widespread support political authorities need in order to act and the particularist and partial legitimacy necessary for the management of specific public policies. While there is a need to reflect on the differences between local institutions and the requirements of a given action which may overwhelm and thus potentially weaken these institutions, it also seems important to reflect on the issue of legitimacy that must be addressed by public authorities who attempt to justify their legitimacy through their actions. These different aspects must be taken into account and linked together within a renewed theory of democracy. Rebuilding democracy Today, this implies reflection on how democracy might be adapted to the reality of political power which has undergone great transformation and into which public policy analysis has provided new insights. Political power must incorporate a new dimension associated with its ability to address community problems. According to the so-called two-dimensional definition of democracy, a good government now needs to be responsive, that is, sensitive to social demands, and problem-solving, that is, capable of effectively addressing community problems (Scharpf, 1997; Leca, 1997). Redefining the categories of justification of political power leads to the emergence of new constraints on the exercise of power. Governors’ demands for legitimacy are no longer simply tied to the legality of their actions but, rather, to the impact of these actions as well. In most modern states where efficiency and performance have become the slogans of the state action doctrine, it seems necessary to highlight the outcomes of this action. This is indeed a dual requirement involving research and the correction of mistakes on the one hand, and democracy on the other. The issue of political participation has emerged from the shortcomings of a ‘pluralist constitutional democracy’, in the words of Raymond Aron, which have led to the inability of this democracy to ensure the full legitimacy of political power and, in parallel, its failure to adequately monitor the actions of this power (Aron, 1965). The widespread support required by the authorities in order to take action must be accompanied by a democratic assessment of how this action is driven. Indeed, the rift between different political spheres seems to have widened: while front stage politics is highly publicised, 326

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back stage politics, where the complex intricacies of policy-making are typically shielded from the public, has remained in the shadows. Consequently, better governance involves more than greater efficiency and efficacy in the pursuit of collectively desired ends. It also involves better deliberative processes about what the ends, means and outcomes of government action or inaction mean (Participations Journal, 2011). Democracy can no longer be simply considered an electoral activity. It must also ensure the participation of all those who may be affected by policy outcomes and promote the impartial monitoring of government activities through adapted institutions (Rosanvallon, 2008). This general framework may explain the development of what has been referred to in France as new forms of political participation, irrespective of whether they specifically refer to participatory or deliberative approaches of democracy (Duran and Truong, 2013). In parallel, public policies are now increasingly linked to the consultation and participation procedures likely to ensure that both citizens and those for whom policies are intended have a say on public policy; moreover, these procedures inform governance (Participations Journal, 2012). However, the manner in which the participation theme has been embodied in the concept of pluralism has not been without serious ambiguities. It is by no means certain that what may ultimately arise from negotiation and participation in management practices should be equated with the development of democracy. The risk lies in the temptation to endlessly fragment the channels through which subjects express themselves and voice their demands. This is because governors easily fall into the trap of seeking within the micro-regulations of so-called ‘participatory’ democracy, a practical antithesis to uncertain political democracy and a specific way of managing public issues, at the risk of confusing public interest with the interests of the public. It thus follows that the government is responsible not only for managing society but also for building a genuine public sphere. This means that there is more at stake than simply improving the practice of traditional representative democracy. Indeed, there is a need to create wider and deeper consultation channels between citizens and the government with regard to the ends and means of state action which, more than ever, can be described as a ‘controversy space’. The obligation to be accountable is the core of responsibility; this obligation must be considered in relation to the reality of public action, regardless of how difficult this might prove (Duran, 2013).

Conclusion: political power under tension How can collective goals whose formulation is rather sensitive, actors with highly varying statuses and interests, heterogeneous territories and varying timescales be articulated? This practical question is also a research question that allows researchers to better grasp how political power is exercised both in terms of how action is coordinated and in terms of the accountability and legitimacy of the authorities involved. This reflection renews the issue of the management 327

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of public affairs of our societies and questions the centrality of authorities in regulating society. Reflecting on public action in a situation experiencing the fragmentation of sovereignty and the dilution of power has led to renewed interest in the conditions that may enable the formation of a legitimate political order. This situation is clearly favourable to increased intellectual interest and to the development of new concepts. In any event, it is clear that public policy analysis is inseparable from debate on political power. This may be one of the greatest strengths of French policy analysis which has developed an approach that takes into account all major theoretical and practical issues that affect all aspects of political power. Unlike in many American studies, ‘polity’ cannot be easily stripped of its state dimension in France. This may explain the extent to which French studies have remained strongly committed to a line of questioning that does not dissociate the ability to produce effective public policies from the context that defines the conditions of possibility. Moreover, public policy analysis provides a good illustration of the difficulties political power now faces, and it highlights the substantive issues arising from its structure. Just as no relevant territory exists in itself, the fact that no scene, in principle, can impose itself on another is also symbolic; neither the state, nor Europe, nor even the local authorities can do so. How can one judge this new war of the gods in a situation in which the state no longer has the monopoly of the public good? What community should be ‘chosen’ as the framework of reference for the actions undertaken by the authorities when the nation can no longer rely on evidence? While empirical analysis may find that no one actor dominates another, should public action be reduced to a vast market of more or less coordinated transactions between autonomous actors? Which principles should govern how these transactions are coordinated? What will become of the symbolic dimensions of political order and the formation of political identities through which actors construct an image of themselves as political actors? These are clearly the issues in France and they are consistent with the policy debate even though the precepts of public policy analysis are difficult to put into practice, as we previously mentioned. Indeed, public policies shape political power insofar as addressing these questions relates to ‘organisational policy’, which seeks to address public issues through organisational procedure, ‘constituent policies’, which may determine the rules of collective action, and ‘democracy policies’, whose objective is to provide legitimacy to governors who must justify both their position of authority and the effectiveness of their actions. These remarks reflect the concerns about our capacity to steer the society; indeed, the only real question is whether we can influence reality and the conditions under which this influence can occur. Preparing for the future thus depends on our capacity to make the world intelligible. In other words, it depends on our ability to understand the future as more than just chaos and chance, and its ability to promote technical and social solutions capable of ensuring its functioning. Unfortunately, understanding the world does not automatically lead to a practical mastery of the world. The reflexive nature necessary for developing 328

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solutions inevitably encounters the collective dimension of their implementation. In the words of Wildavsky (1987, 109-203), public policies are indeed a ‘mix of cogitation and interaction’! References Aron, R. (1962) ‘À propos de la théorie politique’, Revue française de science politique 12(1), 5–26. Aron, R. (1965) Démocratie et Totalitarisme, Coll. 10/18, Paris, UGE: Union Générale d’Édition. Ashford, D.E. (1978) ‘The structural analysis of policy, or institutions do really matter’, in D.E. Ashford (ed) Comparing Public Policies, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Badie, B., Birnbaum, P. (1979) Sociologie de l’État, Paris: Calmann-Lévy. Bezes, P. (2007) ‘Construire des bureaucraties wébériennes à l’ère du New Public Management’, Critiques internationals 35, 9–29. Bezes, P., Le Lidec, P. (2010) ‘L’hybridation du modèle territorial français: RGPP et réorganisation de l’État territorial’, Revue française d’administration publique 4(136), 919–42. Bezes, P., Le Lidec, P. (2016a) ‘Politiques de l’organisation: Les nouvelles divisions du travail étatique’, Revue française de science politique 66(3–4), 407–33. Bezes, P., Le Lidec, P. (2016b) ‘Politiques de la fusion’, Revue française de science politique 66(3–4), 507–41. Bezes, P., Pierru, F. (2012) ‘“État, administration et politiques publiques: Les dé-liaisons dangereuses”, La France au miroir des sciences sociales nordaméricaines’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(2), 41–87. Caillosse, J. (2016) L’État du droit administratif, Droit et Société, Paris: Éditions Lextenso. Dewey, J. (1927) The Public and its Problems, New York: Holt. Duran, P. (1990) ‘Le savant et le politique: Pour une approche raisonnée de l’analyse des politiques publiques’, L’Année sociologique 40, 227–59. Duran, P. (1999) Penser l’action publique (2nd edn), enlarged with a Postface ‘Pouvoir politique, action publique et sciences sociales’, with a preface by Jacques Caillosse, Droit et Société,Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence (LGDJ), 2009. Duran, P. (2003) ‘Le pouvoir politique pris aux mots: Action publique, politique publique, service public’, Revue Informations sociales 109, 38–49. Duran, P. (2004) ‘Genèse de l’analyse des politiques publiques’, in Dictionnaire de l’analyse des politiques publiques, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Duran, P. (2009) ‘Légitimité, droit et action publique’, L’Année sociologique 59(2), 303–44. Duran, P. (2010) ‘L’évaluation des politiques publique: Une résistible obligation. Introduction générale’, Revue française des affaires sociales, ‘L’évaluation des politiques sanitaires et sociales’, special issue coordinated by Patrice Duran, 1–2, 7–24. 329

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Duran, P. (2011) ‘Territorialisation’, in R. Pasquier, S. Guigner, A. Cole (eds) Dictionnaire des politiques territoriales, pp. 475–82, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Duran, P. (2013) ‘La responsabilité administrative au prisme de l’action publique’, Revue française d’administration publique 147(3), 589–602. Duran, P., Thoenig, J.-C. (1996) ‘L’État et la gestion publique territoriale’, Revue Française de Science Politique 46(4), 580–623. Duran P., Truong F. (2013) ‘La participation politique: nouvelles dimensions, nouveaux problèmes’, Idées économiques et sociales 17, 4–7. Elmore, R.F. (1979) ‘Backward Mapping: Implementation Research and Policy Decisions’, Political Science Quarterly 94(4), 601–16. Gibert, P. (2010) ‘Contrôle et évaluation, au-delà des  querelles sémantiques, parenté et facteurs de différences’, Revue française des affaires sociales 1–2, 71–88. Gilbert, G., Thoenig, J.-C. (1999) ‘Les cofinancements publics: Des pratiques aux rationalités’, Revue d’économie financière 51(1), 45–78. Granger, G.-G. (1995) ‘Les trois aspects de la rationalité économique’, in L.-A. Gérard-Varet, J.-C. Passeron (eds) Le modèle et l’enquête: Les usages du principe de rationalité dans les sciences sociales, pp. 567–80, Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Halpern, C., Lascoumes, P., Le Galès, P. (2014) L’instrumentation de l’action publique, Paris: Les Presses de Sciences Po. Hassenteufel, P. (2011) Sociologie politique: L’action publique, Paris: Armand Colin. Hjern, B., Porter, D.O. (1981) ‘Implementation structures: A new unit of administrative analysis’, Organization Studies 2(3), 211–27. John, P. (2011) Making Policy Work, Abingdon: Routledge. King, D., Le Galès, P. (2011) ‘Sociologie de l’État en recomposition’, Revue française de sociologie 52(3), 453–80. Landau, M. (1991) ‘On multiorganizational systems in public administration’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 1(1), 5–18. Lascoumes, P., Le Galès, P. (2007) Sociologie de l’action publique, Paris: Armand Colin. Lasswell, H.D., Lerner, D. (eds) 1951The Policy Sciences : Recent Developments in Scope and Method, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Leca, J. (1980) Élaboration d’un bilan interdisciplinaire des travaux concernant l’Etat français d’aujourd’hui et proposition de programmes de recherche, Paris: Commissariat Général au Plan, Rapport Cordes. Leca, J. (1997) ‘Le gouvernement en Europe, un gouvernement européen?’, Politiques et management public 15(1), 21–31. Leca, J. (2012) ‘L’État entre politics, policies et polity:  Ou peut-on sortir du triangle des Bermudes?’, Gouvernement et action publique 1(1) 59–82. Le Galès, P., Scott, A.J. (2008) ‘Une révolution bureaucratique britannique? Autonomie sans contrôle ou “freer markets, more rules”’, Revue française de sociologie 49(2), 301–30. Legendre P. (1992) Trésor historique de l’État en France. L’administration classique, Paris: Fayard. 330

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Lowi, T. (1970) ‘Decision making vs policy making: Toward an antidote for technocracy’, Public Administration Review 30(May/June), 314–25. Lowi, T. (1972) ‘Four systems of policy, politics and choice’, Public Administration Review 32, 298–310. Mockle, D. (2007) La gouvernance, le droit et l’État, Brussels: Bruylant. Muller, P. (2000) ‘L’analyse cognitive des politiques publiques: vers une sociologie politique de l’action publique’, Revue française de science politique 50(2), 189–208. Papadopoulos, Y. (2013) Democracy in Crisis? Politics, Governance and Policy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Revue Participations (2011) ‘Démocratie et participation: un état des savoirs’ 1. Revue Participations (2012) ‘Participation et action publique’ 2. Rosanvallon, P. (2008) La légitimité démocratique, Paris: Seuil. Sabatier P. (1986) ‘Top-down and bottom-up approaches to implementation research: A critical analysis and suggested synthesis’, Journal of Public Policy 6(1), 21–48. Scharpf, F. (1997) ‘Européanisation et gouvernement démocratique’, Politiques et management public 15(1), 11–20. Thoenig, J.C. (1976) ‘Politiques publiques et décisions interorganisationnelles’, Revue Suisse de Sociologie 2(2), 55–69. Thoenig, J.-C. (1998) ‘Politiques publiques et action publique’, Revue internationale de politique compare 5(2), 295–314. Tilly, C. (ed) 1975) The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Widavsky, A. (1987) Speaking Truth to Power. The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 109–203.

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Index

Index Notes: Page numbers followed by an ‘n’ refer to end-of-chapter notes.

A

academic economists 290 increased importance 285–286 international bureaucratisation of economic policy 288, 289, 290 international health economics 286–288 pro-market economic policy 284–285 state-centred economic policy 282, 284 academic institutionalisation 52–58 academics 217 collaboration with practitioners 51 disconnect between academic and practitioners’ knowledge 8–11 see also policy process studies ad hoc commissions 201–203 addictology 254 administration reviews 33 administrative elite see civil servants administrative law 39 Administrative Research Centre (CRA) 41 administrative science 31, 32–38 uncompleted institutionalisation of 38–44 administrative task forces 13, 108 anti-poverty policy 255–256 Attali report 289

B

bricolage method 91–92 budgetary choices, rationalisation of (RCB) 49–50, 51 Bureau of Research and Economic Action (BRAEC) 270 bureaucratisation 288–291 bureaucratic system 11–12 business organisations 19

C

Callon, Michel 165 Canada dry comparisons 87 Catholic confederation (CFTC) 262, 264, 265, 269–270

Centre for Consumption Research and Documentation (CREDOC) 193 Centre for the Analysis of Regional Administration (CERAT) 53–55 Centre for the Coordination and Orientation of Economic and Social Development Research (CORDES) 195, 197, 302 Centre for the Sociology of Organisations (CSO) 53, 55, 302, 303 Centre for the Study of Revenues and Costs (CERC) 193, 199 Charter of Amiens 262, 274 Chirac, Jacques 148 civil servants 72, 143, 212, 217 gender unbalance 144 knowledge production 107–110 policy analysis practice 110–113 training 9, 102–107. see also Grandes Écoles see also Grand Corps; practitioners; state elites civil service 101 civil society organisations (CSOs) 243–244 origins and developments 244–247 policy analysis increased use of 251–256 lack of mutual interest 247–251 civil-society organisations (CSOs) 19–20 Coe-rexecode 234 Coeuré, Benoît 288 cognitive approach to policy studies 87 Commission for the Assessment and Monitoring of Public Policies (CEC) 148–149 Commission on France 202 commissions 201–203, 214 committees 157, 162–164, 165 Communauté d’université et établissement (COMUE) 309–310 communes 120 communicational rationality 66 community leaders 324 comparative research design 87–89 compound research designs 89

333

Policy analysis in France Confederation Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CCEES) 267–268 congresses of administrative sciences 35–36 Constitutional bylaw on budget acts 2001 (LOLF) 176–177 constitutional reform 140–142 consultancy 18, 234 conditions for using 178–180 development 175–178 impact 180–185 Cooreman, Georges 35 co-production of knowledge 165–166 corporate actors see consultancy cost-benefit analysis 283 Council of Economic Analysis (CAE) 288 Crozier, Michel 53, 81, 302 cultural policy 251

D

data collection methods 82, 84–86 decentralisation 59, 213, 229, 243, 306, 309, 323–324 see also territorial administration decision-making tools 48–52 see also public participation mechanisms democracy 326–327 départements 120–121 Deposits and Consignments Fund (CDC) 49 differentiation, local 128–129 Directorate-General for the Modernisation of the State (DGME) 177

E

École Libre des Sciences Politiques (Independent School of Political Sciences) 34, 40, 298 ecologist movement 250 Economic Analysis Council 16, 198–199 Economic and Social Research Institute (IRES) 267, 271 economic expertise 196–197, 280–284, 288–291 economic interest groups 226–229 changes in applied analysis 237–238 changes in policy assessment 236–237 co-production of statistics and macroeconomic forecasting 229–233 neoliberalism and public-private interdependence 231–233 as policy experts 233–236 economic policy international bureaucratisation 288–289 pro-market 284–285, 286–288 state-centred 280–284 see also academic economists economic skill 212

334

education see Communauté d’université et établissement (COMUE); Grandes Écoles; universities education policies 126, 231, 272 Egger, Rowland 37 electoral calendar 238 electoral competition 211–212 electoral cycles 73 elite networks see Grand Corps elites 38, 71–72, 85–86, 112, 212–213 empirical observation 80–82 employee unions 238 energy policies 238 environmental organisations 250, 254 environmental policy 159–162, 250 epistemic rationality 319 ethnography see policy ethnography European Association of Craft, Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (UEAPME) 236–237 European integration 68–69 European monetary unification 288 European policy 236–237 European Union 325–326 expertise economic 196–197, 280–284, 288–291 economic interest groups 233–236 parliament 142–144 within political parties 214–215 political parties’ use of external 216–217 social sciences 196–197 think tanks 218–219 see also consultancy; state expertise

F

Federation of National Education (FEN) 262, 272 field studies 55 Fifth Republic 12, 13, 50–52 Finance Department, Division for Economic and Financial Studies 13–14, 110 fiscal policy sees economic policy Fondapol 218, 219 French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT) 262, 265–267, 270

G

gender 144, 167, 178, 179, 221n, 239n gender equality 112, 178, 179, 291, 266 gender policy studies 6, 22n, 63, 167, 308–309 General Commission for Planning (CGP) 13, 108–109, 192–193, 302 General Commission for Strategy and Prospective 109

Index see also General Commission for Planning (CGP) General Confederation of Labour (CGT) 262 historical development 263–267 policy analysis 267–268 and internal dynamics 273 General Review of Public Policies (RGPP) 177 Genieys, William 72, 85–86 global-sectorial relationship 65 governance 317–318 governance turn 255 Grand Corps 11–12, 90, 107–108, 175, 176 Grandes Écoles 9, 40, 102–107, 213, 279, 280, 284, 309 versus universities 296–299, 307 Grenoblois 64–65

H

Hassenteufel, Patrick 69, 72, 85–86, 87–88 health economics 282–284, 286–288, 290–291 healthcare 86, 111–112, 182–183, 184–185, 253 Higher Council for Employment, Revenues, and Expenses (CSERC) 199 higher education see Communauté d’université et établissement (COMUE); Grandes Écoles; universities horizontal dialectic, territorial politics 123–126

I

ideas 64–67 Ideas Centre, Partie Socialiste (PS) 215–216 impact assessments 170n implementation trick 85 Independent School of Political Sciences (École Libre des Sciences Politiques) 34, 40, 298 institutionalisation policy analysis 48–52 policy process studies 52–58 policy studies 65, 67–71, 81–82 Instituts d’Études Politiques (IEPs) 41–42 integration costs 320 intelligence services 145 intercommunalité 120 International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) 264 international health economics 286–288 pro-market economic policy 286–288 International Institute of Administrative Sciences 35, 37 international policy transfer 70

internationalisation, policy process studies 56–58 internationalisation bureaucratisation 288– 291 inter-party competition 211–212 interviews 81, 82, 83, 84–86 intra-party policy analysis 213–216

J

Jivaro comparisons 88 Jobert, Bruno 64, 65, 81 Jones framework 86 Jospin, Lionel 201, 288 Jospin government 266 Joxe, Alain 197

K

knowledge production 107–110 outside the politico-administrative system 17–20 public participation mechanisms 157–159 democratic nature of 166–167 in environmental policy 159–162 impact assessments 170n lay knowledge 164–166 policy process analysis 168–169 providing alternative frameworks 167–168 in regional rail transport policies 162–164 see also expertise; state expertise

L

labour unions 184 see also trade unions Lagarde, Christine 289 Langrod, Georges 42 Law on Freedom of Association 1901 245 lawsuits 252 lay knowledge 164–166 learned societies 34–35 legislative institutions 147–148 legislative power 139 litigations 252 local authorities 183, 324, 325 see also territorial administration local differentiation 128–129 LOLF (Constitutional bylaw on budget acts 2001) 176–177

M

macroeconomic forecasting 232–233 macroeconomics 281–282 management consultants see consultancy managerial training 105–107 managerialism 112

335

Policy analysis in France market-oriented economic policy see promarket economic policy Marshall Plan 48, 49 mathematical models 90–91 mediators 64–65 medical economics 282–284 Members of Parliament (MPs) 143–144 Mény, Yves 305 methodology 79–80, 316 bricolage method 91–92 data collection methods 82, 84–86 empirical observation 80–82 mathematical models 90–91 research design 86–89 study timeframe 82–84 Ministry of Finance, service of economic and financial studies (SEEF) 49, 50 Mitterrand, François 265 monetary policy see economic policy Movement for French Companies (MEDEF) 227, 228, 234, 238

N

National Assembly (NA) 138–139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 148 National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) 299–300, 307 National Foundation for Political Sciences (FNSP) 40 National Institute of Higher Internal Security Studies (IHESI) 197 National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) 13, 109, 194, 200 National School of Administration (ENA) 9, 102, 103–104, 106, 212, 220n National Union of Self-employed Professionals (UNAPL) 228, 234 neo-institutionalism 68–69 neoliberalism 70, 194–198, 211, 231–233 new public management (NPM) 322 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 19–20, 243–244 origins and developments 244–247 policy analysis increased use of 251–256 lack of mutual interest 247–251 normative approach to policy studies 87

O

Office comparisons 87–88 Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment (OPECST) 147–148 outcomes 321, 322–323 outputs 321

336

P

parliament 138 contributions to policy analysis 145–150 limitations 138–144 power asymmetries 17–18 Partie Socialiste (PS) 211, 212, 212–213, 214, 221n Ideas Centre 215–216 use of external expertise 217 participatory democracy 238 see also public participation party elites 212–213 Perroux, François 282 planning 54 policy actors 85–86 policy analysis centralisation 11–15 changes in politics and practices 15–20 disconnect between academic and practitioners’ knowledge 8–11 foundations 38–44 in the French context 3–8 at the fringe of universities 302–303 historical development 1 institutionalisation 48–52 see also policy process studies; policy studies policy ethnography 82, 85–86 policy evaluation 147–150, 236–237 policy instruments 318–319 policy knowledge see knowledge production policy process studies 4–5 development 47, 52–58 see also policy studies policy states 314 policy studies 4, 5–8 academisation of 303–310 governance turn 255 institutionalisation 81–82 institutions and actors 67–71 lack of interest in CSOs and NGOs 247–249 methodology bricolage method 91–92 data collection methods 82, 84–86 empirical observation 80–82 mathematical models 90–91 research design 86–89 study timeframe 82–84 and politics 72–73 role of ideas 64–67 state elites 71–72 see also policy process studies policy transfer 70 policy-making 66–67 political economy 68 political legitimacy 212–213

Index political participation see public participation political parties 18, 209–210 inter-party competition 211–212 intra-party policy analysis 213–216 political legitimacy 212–213 use of external expertise 216–217 political platforms 209 political power 320–329 political sciences 39–40 politicians 72–73 political legitimacy 212–213 poverty 255–256 practical rationality 319 practitioners disconnect between academic and practitioners’ knowledge 8–11 policy analysis methods 89–92 see also civil servants pragmatic approach to policy studies 87 problem-solving orientations 8–9 programmatic elites 72, 86 pro-market economic policy 284–285, 286–288 protest model 249–250 public action 6, 315–320 and political power 320–329 public administration, science of 36–38, 43 public choice 128 public debate 161, 165, 169 public hearings 165 public inquiries 157, 160–161, 165–166, 168–169, 170n public participation 20, 326–327 public participation mechanisms 157–159 democratic nature of 166–167 in environmental policy 159–162 impact assessments 170n lay knowledge 164–166 policy process analysis 168–169 providing alternative frameworks 167–168 in regional rail transport policies 162–164 public policy 4, 5 public policy analysis see policy analysis public policy evaluation 147–150 public service 320–323

Q

quantification 111–113

R

rail transport policies 162–164 railway 168–169 railway committees 162–164 Rassemblement Pour la République (RPR) 210, 213

rationalisation of budgetary choices (RCB) 49–50, 51, 90, 196, 283 rationality 319 referentials 64–66 reform 127–128 regeneration 120 regional rail transport policies 162–164 regionalisation 125–126 regions 121 research design 86–89 reviews of administration 33

S

Sarkozy, Nicolas 140, 177, 197, 200, 211, 215, 289 schools of administration 33, 40 science of public administration 36–38, 43 Sciences Po 298, 299, 300, 305–306, 309 semi-structured interviews 81, 82, 83, 84–85 Senate 142 service of economic and financial studies (SEEF) 49, 50 Small Business Act (SBA) 235 social change 51 social dialogue 237–238 social science expertise 196–197 social science research 299–301 social sciences 51 Société de statistique de Paris 34–35 societies, learned 34–35 sociology 8–9, 79, 80–81 sociology of public action 6–7, 8, 315–320 Solidarity, Unity, Democracy (SUD) 262 state elite networks see Grand Corps state elites 71–72, 85–86 state expertise 12–15, 176, 191–192, 212 development 192–201 economics 280–284 restructuring 16 statistics 229–233 Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi report 289 Strategy France 199 sustainable development indicators (SDIs) 112

T

teachers’ unions 272 Terra Nova 218–219 territorial administration 119–122, 323 vertical and horizontal transformations 122–126 territorialisation 126–129 think tanks 18, 218–219, 234, 287 Thoenig, Jean-Claude 53, 81, 303 timeframes 82–84 trade press 232 trade unions 19, 237–238, 261–263, 270

337

Policy analysis in France Economic and Social Research Institute (IRES) 271 historical development 263–267 policy analysis 267–271 and internal dynamics 272–273 training administration 33, 40–41 civil servants 9, 102–107. see also Grandes Écoles training policies 125 transnational bureaucratisation 288–291 transport policies 90–91, 125–126, 162–164, 168

U

Union Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISERES) 268 Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) 3, 210, 211, 214, 215 think tanks, 219 218 use of external expertise 217 United States decentralisation 324 Government Accountability Office (GAO) 147 Office of Technological Assessment (OTA) 148 policy analysis 3, 49–50 policy process studies 56–58 science of public administration 36–38, 43 universities 296–299, 302–303, 307 see also academics users’ committees, rail transport 162–164

V

VAT rates 236 ventriloquist comparisons 88 vertical dialectic, territorial politics 123, 124 voluntary sector 244–247

W

welfare elites 72, 112 women see gender; gender equality women’s groups 252, 253

338

Vol 11

Policy analysis in France lays the foundation for a more systematic understanding of policy analysis in the country. In doing so, the volume discusses the role of the state and its restructuring, processes of government and governance, and state-society relationships and policies as both a process and an outcome. Through 18 chapters contributions focus on policymakers, their practices, ideas and discourses, how they engage in sustained relationships with a large variety of market and society actors, and the concrete devices they use in order to make policy objectives operational. This is a comprehensive study of policy analysis in France that will be valuable to academics and postgraduate students researching and studying a range of policy and public management areas.

INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF POLICY ANALYSIS IRIS GEVA-MAY & MICHAEL HOWLETT

“French policy analysis has changed dramatically over the past generation, as has the study of public policy in France. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand these changes. The coverage is encyclopedic; the contributors define the current state of the art; and the editors have brought it together into a coherent overview. It is a major contribution to the literature.” Frank R. Baumgartner, University of North Carolina

INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF POLICY ANALYSIS SERIES EDITORS: IRIS GEVA-MAY & MICHAEL HOWLETT

Features of the ILPA series

• Policy analysis in Mexico, edited by Jose-Luis Mendez and Mauricio I. Dussauge-Laguna (2017) • Policy analysis in Belgium, edited by Marleen Brans and David Aubin (2017) • Policy analysis in the United States, edited by John A. Hird (2018) • Policy analysis in Canada, edited by Laurent Dobuzinskis and Michael Howlett (2018) CHARLOTTE HALPERN is associate research professor in political science at Sciences Po, Centre d’Etudes Européennes (CEE), CNRS, Paris. PATRICK HASSENTEUFEL is professor in political science at the University of Versailles and Sciences Po SaintGermain-en-Laye, Printemps (CNRS). PHILIPPE ZITTOUN is research professor at LAET-ENTPE (University of Lyon) and General Secretary of the International Public Policy Association.

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Policy analysis in France [HB] [PRINT].indd 1

POLICY ANALYSIS IN FRANCE

Recent volumes published and forthcoming

Edited by Charlotte Halpern, Patrick Hassenteufel and Philippe Zittoun

• a systematic study of policy analysis systems by government and non-governmental actors • a history of the country’s policy analysis, empirical case studies and a comparative overview • a key reference for research and teaching in comparative policy analysis and policy studies

ISSN 2059-0326

Edited by Charlotte Halpern, Patrick Hassenteufel and Philippe Zittoun

02/11/2017 10:56