10 research outputs found
Not saying, not doing: Convergences, contingencies and causal mechanisms of state reform and decentralisation in Hollandeâs France
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 HollandeâAyrault administration, drawing comparisons where appropriate with the previous Sarkozy regime. The limits of President Hollandeâs 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 âStates of Convergenceâ 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
Offers of assistance in politicianâconstituent interaction
This paper was accepted in the journal Discourse Studies [© Sage] and the definitive version is available at http:dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461445615602376How do politicians engage with and offer to assist their constituents; the people who vote them into power? We address the question by analyzing a corpus of 80 interactions recorded at the office of a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom, and comprising telephone calls between constituents and the MPâs clerical âcaseworkersâ as well as face to face encounters with MPs in their fortnightly âsurgeriesâ. The data were transcribed, then analysed using conversation analysis, focusing on the design and placement of offers of assistance. We identified three types of offers within a longer âofferingâ sequence: 1) âproposal offersâ, which typically appear first in any offering sequence, in which politicians and caseworkers make proposals to help their constituents using formats that request permission to do so, or check that the constituent does indeed want help (e.g., âdo you want me toâ; âwe couldâŠâ); 2) âannouncement offersâ, which appear second, and indicate that something has been decided and confirm the intention to act (e.g., âI will do Xâ), and 3) ârequest offersâ, which appear third, and take for form âlet me do Xâ. Request offers indicate that the offer is available but cannot be completed until the current conversation is closed; they also appear in environments in which the constituent reissues their problems and appears dissatisfied with the offers so far. The paper contributes to what we know about making offers in institutional settings, as well as shedding the first empirical light on the workings of the constituency office: the site of engagement between everyday members of the public and their elected representatives
The drafting of the new French regions: The party politics of regional reform
Decentralization has been a matter of partisan divide in most European countries in the past decades, usually supported by parties excluded from power or with a strong territorialized support. On the basis of an analysis of party discourse and legislative behaviour and the concerned literature, this article aims to interpret the changes to regional governance and powers enacted in France in the last 5 years, in the light of decade-long political competition on this dimension. The laws no. 2010-1563 and 2015-29 aimed to rationalize a cumbersome and costly local government system. They confirm the divisive nature of territorial government reform in a majoritarian political system such as France
Review of Politiques publiques. 1, la France dans la gouvernance européenne, edited by Olivier Borraz and Virginie Guiraudon
An ambitious new book, Politiques publiques. 1, La France dans la gouvernance européenne, edited by Olivier Borraz and Virginie Guiraudon, offers an empirically rich and theoretically reflective response to questions concerning the impact on national policymaking and administration of growing inter-state cooperation, the sharing of decisional authority within the European Union and the delegation of regulatory responsibilities to semi-autonomous agencies at home. It investigates where, with internationalisation and Europeanisation, policy is made and by whom, who decides and to whom they are accountable, and what has become of the French model. Avoiding the dogmatism that characterises debates about globalisation and Europeanisation, the book provides a detailed, well-informed and accessible overview of policy and policy-making in a large and singular EU member state