Local Mirrors of State Modernisation: The Case of the Territorialisation of Employment Policy in France

Abstract

Nation-states today tend to play a lesser role as central actors in economic and social regulation. In France there has been a profound change in State action over the last twenty years. Two different objectives have presided over the modernisation of the State – the adaptation of its institutional organisation to the new forms of power through the déconcentration (deconcentration) of State services (a corollary of decentralisation), and more effective administrative intervention through the development of new forms of action, presented as innovative models of territorial action. The State has had to show its capacity for changing public policy-making in order to reaffirm its power, and adapt to the reality of modern public life while guaranteeing the principles of equality and territorial continuity – the foundation of the Republic’s intervention with a view to furthering general interest and social cohesion (Duran 1999). As a consequence territorialisation and déconcentration have been regarded as potent mechanisms in the transformation of public politics, and the part played by local actors in the local articulation of general interest has come to be more widely acknowledged. Considering such an evolution in territorial public action, special attention should be focussed on France’s employment policy – especially in the context of the crisis of the Welfare State – in an attempt to analyse and define the concept of “local general interest” (Simonin 2000). It is true that employment policy may still be influenced by a “national” logic but the local context has progressively come to play a more significant role.

A preliminary version of this article was published in Th. Berthet (dir.), Des Emplois près de chez vous ? La territorialisation des politiques de l’emploi en questions, Pessac: Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, 2004.