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Agenda-setting dynamics in France: Revisiting the ‘partisan hypothesis’

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French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

This paper presents an original way of testing the ‘partisan hypothesis’. Building on the substantial literature on the party-policy link, we test this link with respect to issue attention, rather than spending or macroeconomic outcomes. We examine the evolution of issue attention through the systematic analysis of agenda setting of three major French political institutions: the President, the government and the National Assembly. Although our results point to partisan differentiation on some issues, the overall conclusion is that partisan differentiation is at best one factor of variation among others.

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Notes

  1. For a detailed discussion of the different arguments at stake, see Esping-Andersen (1996).

  2. See the discussion by King and Laver and the authors’ reply (G. King and Laver, 1993).

  3. For a longer and more detailed discussion of executive politics and its evolution in France (cf. Grossman, 2008).

  4. For the original codebook, see http://www.policyagendas.org. The French codebook is available from the authors on request.

  5. As there is only one presidential speech per year, this series has several gaps corresponding to those years where there was a shift in government control, and therefore two periods.

  6. It is those issues that have yielded significant differences in some of the major comparative studies (Blais et al, 1993; Boix, 2000).

  7. Van den Brug and colleagues recently showed that under some circumstances, voters will vote for left-wing parties in a context of high unemployment and for right-wing parties to fight inflation (Van der Brug et al, 2007).

  8. For a more detailed discussion of the French political system, see Elgie (2003) or Brouard et al (2008).

  9. On this point cf. Brouard (forthcoming) and the vast comparative study directed by Strøm, Müller & Bergman (2003).

  10. But probably also in other countries with a ‘premier-presidential’ executive or similar ‘executive-legislative relations’, such as the United Kingdom (A. King, 1976; Elgie, 1997).

  11. Education is a highly interesting area as it figures prominently among statements (up to 10.8 per cent), but represents always less than 2 per cent of the legislative load. This is mainly because of the largely regulatory character of most measures in the area of education policy in France.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, 27599-3265, NC

    Frank Baumgartner

  2. Sciences Po Bordeaux, 11 allée Ausone, Domaine universitaire, Pessac Cedex, 33607, France

    Sylvain Brouard

  3. Sciences Po Paris, 98, rue de l'Université, Paris, 75007, France

    Emiliano Grossman

Authors
  1. Frank Baumgartner
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  2. Sylvain Brouard
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  3. Emiliano Grossman
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Correspondence to Sylvain Brouard.

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Baumgartner, F., Brouard, S. & Grossman, E. Agenda-setting dynamics in France: Revisiting the ‘partisan hypothesis’. Fr Polit 7, 75–95 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2009.7

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