Not saying, not doing: Convergences, contingencies and causal mechanisms of state reform and decentralisation in Hollande's France

Alistair Mark COLE*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

    11 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Are States in contemporary Europe subject to new forms of convergence under the impact of economic crisis, enhanced European steering and international monitoring? Or is the evolution of governance (national and sub-national) driven fundamentally by diverging, mainly domestic pressures? Drawing on extensive new data, the article combines analysis of the State Modernisation and Decentralisation reform programmes of the Hollande-Ayrault administration, drawing comparisons where appropriate with the previous Sarkozy regime. The limits of President Hollande's anti-Sarkozy method were demonstrated in the first 2 years; framing state reform and decentralisation in negative terms prevented the emergence of a coherent legitimising discourse. The empirical data is interpreted with reference to a comparative 'States of Convergence' framework, which is conceptualised as a heuristic device for analysing variation between places, countries and policy fields. The article concludes that the forces of hard convergence are gaining ground, as economic, epistemic and European pressures continually challenge the forces of institutional inertia.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)104-135
    Number of pages32
    JournalFrench Politics
    Volume12
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2014

    Scopus Subject Areas

    • Sociology and Political Science
    • Political Science and International Relations

    User-Defined Keywords

    • Convergence
    • Decentralisation
    • Divergence
    • France
    • Hollande
    • State reform

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