| Abstract: | One of the main tasks of those who study French politics is to explain the source of presidential power in the Fifth Republic. In French, two rival explanations have emerged: the state power thesis and the majority power thesis. For the former, presidential power is structural, being derived from the organization of the state. For the latter, it is conjunctural, being dependent on the nature of the parliamentary majority. The aim of this article is twofold. It introduces an English-speaking audience to the two existing explanations of presidential power. It also proposes an alternative explanation drawn from the recent literature of new institutionalism. An institutional explanation combines the strengths of the two existing approaches and provides a future research agenda for the study of presidential power in France. |
