Bulletin n. 1/2005 | ||
December 2005 | ||
Thoenig Jean-Claude |
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Territorial Administration and Political Control: Decentralization in France | ||
in Public Administration , August 2005 - Vol. 83 Issue 3 , 2005 , 689 - 708 | ||
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. | ||