Territorial Administration and Political Control: Decentralization in France |
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Authors: | Jean-Claude Thoenig |
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Affiliation: | directeur de recherche;at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, university of Paris Dauphine (Dauphine-recherches en management, DMSP) and Professor of Sociology at INSEAD, Fontainebleau. |
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Abstract: | This paper, which is based on recent field research, suggests an interpretative model of territorial government in France. Relations between national and local authorities as well as policy- making processes suggest that the centralized state has faced a major decline of its hegemony and that decentralization reforms have induced a polycentric dynamic. Seven basic characteristics and three key properties of the model are discussed. The emerging model fits neither a new localism nor a new centralist pattern. It is the product of ongoing and incremental trade-offs between centrifugal and centripetal rationales. This complexity reflects a situation that is under the rather conservative, as well as tight, control of national politicians who hold multiple local elected mandates. |
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