Challenging French Interest Groups: The State, Europe and the International Political System
- PDF / 163,888 Bytes
- 18 Pages / 442 x 663 pts Page_size
- 29 Downloads / 159 Views
Challenging French Interest Groups: The State, Europe and the International Political System Emiliano Grossmana and Sabine Sauruggerb a FNSP, CEVIPOF, 10, rue de la Chaise, 75007 Paris, France. E-mail: [email protected] b IEP de Grenoble, BP 48, 38010 Grenoble, Cedex 9, France. E-mail: [email protected]
The article offers an analysis of the situation of French interest groups in France. Largely ignored by mainstream political science in France, interest groups are confronted with a wide spectrum of transformations. Three types of challenges can be identified: European integration, globalization and the changing role of the French State. Faced with these challenges, the adaptational changes of groups are diverse. We observe profound changes in organizational structures, the questioning of power relations between the State and the groups as well as among groups in the main policy areas, the emergence of new groups and a process of professionalization of interest representation, often transferred to specialized consultancies. Finally, this article points out a number of venues for further research regarding interest group politics in France. In this context, it is important to underline the opportunity presented by the multiplication of interest groups in a context of a crisis of political representation, by the adaptation capacity of French interest groups at the European level, and their willingness to use the global arena strategically to represent their interests at the national level. French Politics (2004) 2, 203–220. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200053 Keywords: interest groups; France; Europeanization; globalization
Introduction The transformation of state–interest group relations is a widely researched subject in most European countries. In France, however, these studies remain rare.1 State–group relationships are studied, at the utmost, as annexes in works on democracy or the French political system. The aim of this article is to offer a remedy to this academic silence. This article will study the challenges that French interest groups are confronted with today and analyse the processes of adaptation, as well as the resistance to change. Much of this transformation is due to changes at the European level. The launch of the Single Market and the Economic and Monetary Union has led to an increase of the role of private economic actors in France and elsewhere.
Emiliano Grossman and Sabine Saurugger Challenging French Interest Groups
204
At the same time, the development of supranational and non-European governance structures, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United Nations or the Baˆle Committee has put into jeopardy a number of characteristics of the so-called ‘French system of interest representation’, generally described as statist. At the domestic level, regulatory reform and the creation of independent agencies have upset the historical relationship between public and private spheres. This article argues that public–private relationships have become more d
Data Loading...
