Politics as Normal? the 2012 French Presidential Election

This article proposes a framework based on three levels of analysis for understanding the 2012 presidential election: the institutional, the partisan and the situational. The 2012 election confirmed the bipolar institutional incentives that structure political competition in the Fifth Republic. The partisan dimension, however, was more fluid than this bipolar reading would lead one to expect. The situational dimensional was highly relevant in terms of the overarching crisis and the loss of trust in Nicolas Sarkozy. The poor quality of fit between underlying partisan choice and political representation does not augur well for a broad-based response to the crisis.