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Pathways to concrete outcomes in equal employment policy implementation in France and Canada: toward better theory in comparative policy studies

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French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

The goal of this article is to highlight the methodological and theoretical contributions the four articles in the special issue on the implementation of equal employment in France and Canada make to research and theory-building on policy inside and outside of France. The first section discusses the scientific opportunities for comparison the four research articles offer. Then, three pathways to achieving gender equality in equal employment policy implementation are identified from the four implementation case analyses in France, Canada and, within Canada, Quebec. Third, issues for comparative research on equal employment policy are raised in the context of a comparative analysis of the six cases in the two countries. The article finishes with a discussion of the contributions of this comparative analysis to research in Comparative Gender Equality Policy Studies and Comparative Politics and Policy.

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Notes

  1. For more on Comparative Gender Policy Studies, see Mazur and Hoard (2014) and in relation to French gender policy studies see Mazur and Revillard (2016).

  2. Montoya (2013) first used the term “practice” in the study of violence against women policy in the European Union.

  3. As Mazur and Revillard (2016) and Engeli and Perrier (2015) show a part of the “French touch” in gender policy analysis has been an ethnographic and detailed analysis of actors, often at local and sub-national levels of governments as well as the macro and national and supra national levels, through the lens of the policy frame or “référentiel” seen to structure the terms of policy discussions and policy approaches in adoption, implementation and evaluation. For more on the French approach to public policy in general, see Boussaguet et al. (2015). It is important to note that not all French policy scholars agree that there is such a shared common approach.

  4. It is important to note here that the analyses of equal employment policy implementation in the special issue articles have been supplemented with some discussion of findings of other research in this policy area in Canada and France. This comparative analysis presented in this article, however, is not by any means an exhaustive study of the dynamics and determinants of equal employment policy implementation, but an effort to trace larger trends for future comparative studies to assess in Canada, Quebec, France and other post-industrial democracies.

  5. For an analysis of the major international research projects on gender and policy in recent years, see Mazur and Hoard (2014).

  6. As Goertz and Mazur (2008) and others attest, it is important that comparative analysis seeking to construct sound theory uses concepts and measures that accurately assess what is actually occurring—validity-across many different cultural contexts so that the same phenomena are being observed—reliability. Building on Sartori’s foundational notion of concept traveling (1970), operational concepts need to be able to travel across national boundaries without over-stretching their core meaning. Goertz and Mazur (2008), Collier and Mahon (1993) and others have asserted the importance of developing reliable yet valid concepts for comparative analysis. The similarities in Canada and France as well as the shared analytical perspectives of the francophone authors in the special issue mean that the core analytical concepts being used, like intersectionality and gender equality, do not lose their validity and reliability. In other words, rather than being stretched they travel across the national boundaries.

  7. The Défenseur des droits was created in 2011 to handle specific cases of the violation of civil rights and to assure equal access to civil rights. It replaced the HALDE (Haute Autorité pour la lutte contre les discriminations) that had been created in 2005.

  8. Increasingly in Canadian and European policy, adding the + to equality policies implies an intersectional approach that targets all vectors of inequalities.

  9. The findings of this study must be placed in the context of the problem of ethnic and racial statistics, mentioned above and flagged in the introduction by the authors of the study. While the French Census does include questions on background including French naturalized immigrants, only first-generation citizens are surveyed and not their parent’s generation. Still, with 22,000 respondents, this survey on immigrants and their descendants in France and the accompanying study on discrimination raises the question of whether background is a factor by itself in the  inequality of social outcomes. In the absence of any study of the individuals who actually are doing the discriminating, the analysis is only based on the perceptions of the victims who do not refer specifically to ethnically or racially based discrimination as would victims in Canada, Great Britain or the USA. Thus, this study is focused only on the subjective individual experience of racism and religious prejudice, rather than on any objective measure of the actual discriminatory acts.

  10. Equal Employment Action plans must include the following elements: an analysis of the employment process, in particular the hiring and firing policies and practices as well as training; numerical targets by job type for each group targeted by the law; specific measures on equal opportunities, support and when needed, to eliminate discriminatory practices; and a timetable for putting into place all of these measures and a proposal of how their effects will be assessed (article 13 of the law).

  11. For more on policy frames and référentiels, see Mazur and Revillard (2016).

  12. For more on GEPP go to http://www.csbppl.com/gepp/ or contact Amy Mazur at mazur@wsu.edu/. For a discussion of the GEPP Approach, see Engeli and Mazur (2018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Washington State University, Pullman, USA

    Amy G. Mazur

  2. HEC Paris - 1, rue de la Libération, 78351, Jouy en Josas Cedex, France

    Jacqueline Laufer

  3. Lise-CNAM (UMR 3320), 292 rue Saint Martin, 75141, Paris cedex 03, France

    Frédérique Pigeyre

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  1. Amy G. Mazur
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  2. Jacqueline Laufer
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  3. Frédérique Pigeyre
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Correspondence to Amy G. Mazur.

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Mazur, A.G., Laufer, J. & Pigeyre, F. Pathways to concrete outcomes in equal employment policy implementation in France and Canada: toward better theory in comparative policy studies. Fr Polit 16, 235–253 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-018-0069-6

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