Atelier PACTE-LET

Introduction

In this panel, we would like to examine the specific approaches and methods developed by French policy analysis understand the distance with Anglo-Saxon policy analysis and explain the difficulties for the two traditions to discuss together.

French policy analysis is influenced by the early policy analysis stream which was imported by some researchers. But, as any importation process, this transfer produced an hybrid result with the French dominant approaches. In 1970's, the debate in French social sciences is organised around the structuralist approach (with Pierre Bourdieu) and the individualist one (with Raymond Boudon). Questions about the State, institutions and the respective roles of structure and agents' will are some of the most important debates.

To understand the situation in political science, one must underline the role of Michel Crozier, who then develops an individualist sociology of organisations and disturbs the established positions. Crozier opens the black box of the State and showed the importance of participants Government, their strategy and their power conflicts. Most of French policy analysts have been influenced by this sociological approach including heirs of the Weberian tradition. Influenced by this approach but as a reaction to it, another part of the scientific community, more influenced by Gramsci and Foucault, developed a "cognitive" approach that endeavoured to connect strategic analysis and the role of actors with political regulation's specificities and the role of ideas. Bruno Jobert and Pierre Muller opened here a new way in 1987 with their book "The State in action" (L'État en action), which became prominent among policy analysts in the subsequent years

In this way, Policy Analysis in France does not need to "rediscover" institutions, because it has always nurtured a flourishing debate about them. Today, this debate has slightly evolved, towards a sociological approach of the actors who produce policy instruments on one hand,  an analysis of public policy in more structural terms (role of ideas, institutions, "heavy variables", etc.) in the other hand.

 This panel's papers may they be empiric or theoretical, try to highlight the specificities of French Approaches, and point out the difficulties to set up an international discussion. They also question the promise of the discursive/pragmatic approach to reconcile the French and the anglo-saxon traditions.