Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- 1 Governing France -- Governing as government -- Structures and institutions -- Institutions and actors -- Process: the case of coordination -- Outputs -- Forces and dimensions of governance -- Causal narratives around the state -- Actors and agents -- Levels -- Sectors and beyond sector -- Participatory governance and the regulatory state -- Studying governance in France: a framework for analysis -- 2 Reforming the state -- The state-centric model and its limits -- Reforming the state: from administrative modernisation to the regulatory state -- The logic of technical choices: policy instruments and the regulatory state -- Contractualisation and governance -- Contractualisation within ministries: Infrastructure and Education compared -- Budgetary reform and the LOLF: a case-study of new public management? -- The governance of state reform -- 3 Decentralisation and local governance -- Centralisation and decentralisation in France -- Decentralisation Act 1, 1982-1983 -- Decentralisation Act 2, 2003-2004 -- Decentralisation as steering at a distance? -- Decentralisation as territorial capacity building? -- Decentralisation and identity construction -- The governance of decentralisation -- 4 Europeanisation -- France and Europe: national and institutional context -- The institutional and ideational context of French European policy-making -- Europeanisation as the imperfect art of uploading French preferences -- Adapting and adjusting to Europe -- Strategic adaptation: the case of the Council of State -- Adjusting (with difficulty) to Europe: the core executive and bureaucratic coordination -- From adaptation to inertia -- Parliament and the democratic deficit -- Party and partisan actors -- Inertia and the causality of policy change -- From inertia to rejection.

The 2005 referendum on the draft constitutional treaty -- France's European governance -- 5 State capacity and public policy -- The economy and economic development: from dirigisme to globalisation -- France and globalisation -- The dynamics of governance -- Social policy, the welfare state and the French social model -- Dynamics of governance in social policy, the welfare state and the French social model -- Education -- The dynamics of governance -- The governance of policy sectors -- 6 State-society relations -- A French style corporatism? -- Social partnership in action: the case of workplace training -- Horizontal coordination: networks and networking -- Who governs urban governance? Economic development in Lille and Rennes -- Regional circuits and competitive interdependencies -- Associations, new social movements and the public sphere -- Multi-level dynamics and challenges to the French model -- The governance of state-society relations -- 7 Making sense of the state -- Making sense of the state: the cognitive and normative school -- Claims and counter-claims -- From global to globalisation -- Making sense of the state: appropriate behaviour and public officials -- Making sense of the state through parties and political leadership -- Sarkozy's political leadership -- Making sense of the state -- 8 Governing and governance in France -- Governing as governance in France -- New modes of participation and regulation -- Multi-level and multi-actor dynamics -- State capacity and the hollow state -- Sector-specific dynamics -- France in comparative perspective -- France's contingent governance -- Bibliography -- Index.