FRANCE

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FRANCE

• Political Culture, Political Recruitment and
  Political Socialization

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Some Relevant History

• One of the oldest nation-states of Europe
• French Revolution began with the establishment of
  a constitutional monarchy in 1791 (the First
  Republic)
• Three more constitutions
• Napoleon
• Restoration of Bourbons
• House of Orleans
• Paris Revolution in 1848

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More The Historical Perspective

• Second Republic (1848-1852)
• Universal male suffrage
• Napoleon III
• Franco Prussian War
• Third Republic (1871)
• WWII deeply divided France
• Charles de Gaulle
• Fourth Republic (1946-1958)
• 24 governments in 12 years
• Fifth Republic (1958 onward)

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Political Culture Conceptual Review

• Levels of political culture
• System
• Process
• Policy

• Public attitudes toward politics and their role
  in the political system
• Parochial
• Subject
• Partipatory

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French Political Culture Themes

• Burden of history

• Versailles

• Enlightened monarchs allowed relatively free
  through as long as it remained abstract
• Concept of being Frenchunites
• Specifics of what that means divides

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Shape of Political Trust

• Conflicting orientations arising from valuation
  of individualism and equality
• Participation in politics initially seen as means
  of weakening strong government
• Assertion of individualism sometimes led to
  anarchy

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Religious and anti-religious Traditions

• Roman Catholics vs. Huguenots
• Anti-clerical sub-culture
• Church teaching less authoritative in Catholic
  sub-culture

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Other Religious traditions Antireligious
Traditions

• French Jews
• de-christianized secular culture
• Revolution of 1789
• Impact of World War II
• Muslims
• New immigation

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Defense Against Anarchy

• Place individuals who reflected he popular will
  in power
• Individuals who reflect popular will use
  government to bring about equality
• Allows for the accommodation to large role for
  the bureaucracy

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History and the Process of Change

• Sudden change rather than gradual mutation have
  dominated critical moments in French history
• Leads to conclusion that no change can be brought
  about except by major upheaval
• Lead to skepticism about the possibility of
  meaningful change

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Between the French Revolution and the Fifth
Republic Rules of the Political Regime in France
were satisfactory to only one segment of the
polity - and hotly contested by others
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Fifth Republic

• Early years political culture resembled the
  situation that prevailed between 1789 and 1958
• Election of Francois Mitterrand to presidency
  (1981)
• aid to rest two hundred years of hostility among
  French political elites
• Attitudes and orientations of masses followed
  developments among the elites

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Political Socialization Family

• Traditionally conservative
• Modifications to traditional patriarchal
  structure
• Associations as tools of political socializations

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Political Socialization Education

• Historic importance of baccalauret and lycee
• Changes in the Fifth Republic
• 700,000 graduates in 1945
• 6.1 million in1994
• Universities
• 48 in higher education during 1990s
• Comparable to rest of W. Europe

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Grandes Ecole

• Functions outside of regular system of
  universities
• Highly selective- no increase in enrollment
• Training ground of highly specialized elites

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Socialization and Mass Communication Print Media

• For much of 20th century major newspapers were in
  the hands of business tycoons or political
  parties
• Currently most papers owned by business
  conglomerates

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Television

• State ownership from 1945 1981
• Television and radio opened to private sector in
  1982 - a project of the Socialists
• State television forced to provide the opposition
  with time to reply to the government
• Only two of six non-cable channels owned by
  government

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Elite Political Recruitment

• Grandes écoles
• higher education establishments outside the
  mainstream framework of the public universities
  system.
• selection criteria of grandes écoles rests mainly
  on competitive written and oral exams

• Fifth Republic more senior civil servants from
  the professionals class than during the Fourth
  Republic

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grandes écoles Corps

• Recruited from Ecole Nationale dAdministration
  Ecole Polytechnique
• Elite political class numbers less than 20, 000
• Grand Corps now important in recruitment of
  business elites

• École Nationale d'administration
• created in 1945 by Charles de Gaulle to
  democratize access to the senior civil service.

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Importance of Gender

• Low representation of women among French
  political elites
• Political advancement requires deep investment in
  parties
• Segolene Royal
• Graduate of the ENA
• Member of the Council of State
• Dearth of womens representation recognized but
  not addressed

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Outsiders have extreme difficulty in penetrating
the French political and business elite