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date: 18 September 2019

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter begins by reviewing the study of executive politics comparatively. It then reviews the study of executive politics in France, showing how scholars based in France were once at the cutting edge of international scholarship in this area. However, with the turn of French political science to political sociology, the study of the French executive tends to be carried out more by scholars outside France and by comparativists rather than by scholars within France itself. In this context, the chapter proposes a research agenda that urges a focus on the application of the new institutionalism to the French case, particularly the comparative work in this area, for an emphasis on the study of personalization and mediatization; for the literature on political psychology to be applied more systematically; for work on coalitions, and government formation and termination, to be extended; and for constructivist approaches to political leadership to be applied.

Keywords: France, executive politics, presidency, government, coalition, political leadership, institutionalism, public law, political sociology, political psychology

Robert Elgie

Robert Elgie's research career has centered on the systematic study of institutions on political outcomes. Recently, his work has concentrated on whether semi-presidentialism helps or hinders the process of democratization in young democracies. He is the author of Semi-presidentialism: Sub-types and Democratic Performance (Oxford University Press, 2011). He is also a very active blogger at semipresidentialism.com. In addition, he has considerable expertise in the study of contemporary French politics. He is the co-editor of the journal French Politics, published by Palgrave Macmillan. He is also the lead co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of French Politics (Oxford University Press).

Emiliano Grossman

Centre d’études européennes de Sciences Po

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