The Government and Politics of France 4th Edition continues to provide students with a comprehensive and incisive introduction to the intricacies of French politics and government. Written by two leading authorities on the subject, this widely used textbook has been fully revised and up-dated to take into account the many changes that have occurred since the last edition was published. Coverage includes: * French political traditions * constitution and the Fifth Republic * the executive * the Parliament * parties and the party system * the Administration * interest groups * local politics * the impact of the EU.
The Government and Politics of France has been the leading textbook on French politics for over a generation, and continues to provide students with a comprehensive and incisive introduction to the intricacies of French politics and government. This edition updates every chapter, with the addition of a new chapter on France and Europe. Recent events necessitate a new edition, particularly the 2002 elections and the growing interpenetration of France and the EU in student programmes, as well as in the real world. Whether covering the shifting balance within France's two-headed executive, the paradoxes of the French party politics, the power and fragmentation of France's administration, the growing assertiveness of French local government, or the newly visible world of the judiciary, The Government and Politics of France has always sought to confront established paradigms with the complex and untidy reality of French politics at the grass roots.
First published in 1973 The Government and Politics of France: Volume Two provides a comprehensive overview of French political history from 1958-1973. Dorothy Pickles writes with her characteristic elegance and the major themes are fully discussed and clearly related to their roots in earlier periods and to their consequences in later ones. The book covers the Algerian war and its aftermath; the notion of ‘participation’; educational reform; economic problems; regionalism; the changing nature of Gaullism; and in the field of foreign policy – attitudes of European Community; relations with the Atlantic powers and France’s attempts at achieving a world role. This book is a must read for students of French politics, political science, political institutions, and European politics.
Updated throughout to cover the period of Chirac/Jospin cohabitation and the implications of Chirac's success in the dramatic 2002 presidential and parliamentary elections, the third edition of this popular and widely-used text provides a clear and comprehensive account of the contemporary French political system.
The Government and Politics of France provides a clear and concise introduction to the working of the major political institutions in France, including the presidency, parliament, the government and administrative machinery, local government, political parties and pressure groups. The emphasis is on a lively sense of how political action happens, where power is located and how, and within what constraints, it is used. The new second edition provides a critical review of the Mitterand presidency and an assessment of continuities and change under Chirac.
According to received wisdom parties have played a mainly destructive role in French political development. Of questionable legitimacy, pursuing narrow sectarian goals, often corruptly, they have brought about division, weakness and the collapse of regimes. A proper reading of history suggests differently. By combining historical research and contemporary political science theory about party, the author shows that for over a century party has irrigated French democracy in often invisible ways, brokering working compromises between groups divided strongly along social, political and cultural lines. The key to this success is the party system, which allowed for a high degree of collusion and cooptation between political elites, rhetoric notwithstanding. This hidden logic has persisted to this day despite the advent of presidentialism and remains the key to the continuing prosperity of French democracy.
Excerpt from Government and Politics of France Of all the great powers engaged in the late war, the Republic of France had to sustain the heaviest burden. Her richest territories were occupied by the invader; unparalleled sacrifices were imposed upon the whole people. The government, though formerly much criticized by foreign observers and by Frenchmen themselves, passed through the ordeal triumphantly; and students of government are manifesting a new interest in this parliamentary system, with its highly centralized administrative organization, which has proved so capable of adjusting itself to grave emergencies. This volume by Professor Sait is the only work in English that describes the structure and practical working of the French government of today; for the textbooks hitherto used in our colleges were published a quarter of a century ago and have not been adequately revised. Much has happened in that quarter of a century. In certain directions French institutions have been profoundly modified, even transformed. For example, the party system, with its annual delegate conventions and its hierarchy of committees, has gradually taken form in the past fifteen or twenty years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
