L es research on public administration and civil service suffers from two handicaps in France. The first is the division of disciplines and prioritization of topics they address. The political field of science place in his professional priorities the study of politics as a singular object that can feed specific professional practices and behavior that does not analyze the general sociology: the elector and the elected activist role in shaping irreducible activity which does not cross that of the administration, management or even the rule of law, unless their claim the unenviable status of socio-political environment. The specificity of the political object is obviously to support the assertion of a professional community that seeks to distinguish itself and lawyers and sociologists. Senior officials, therefore, do not appear in the category of legitimate political actors, but in that of illegal immigrants, usually under the technocracy as a perversion of elective democracy. Research on the role of public service in the construction of political regimes are very rare [2] [2] Badie (Bertrand) Birnbaum (Pierre), Sociology ... .
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A second problem arises from the supposed omnipotence of the State under the V the Republic, leading some analysts to either reject the study of senior officials, "these arrogant characters', finally cataloged by their social, to emphasize the "civil society" or "social movements" or to be diluted in more general analysis of public policies and to obscure the social specificity of the public service compared to other groups actors as part of a "governance" more or less apolitical.
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In other words, it is often placed either in front of an excess of specificity (the French exception, the role of the NAS in the formation of political elites, the strong integration of the public service "main political force" of V the Republic) or before a trivialization, emphasizing pluralism of public policy, do not take into account the phenomena of domination or historical dynamics.
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The first line of reflection can be provided by the need to revise the knowledge of the public service on which is built the political science for twenty otherwise thirties. Either because some teachings were entrusted from the beginning of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques senior officials, which could then distribute the image they wanted the relationship between administration and policy, either because the intellectual heritage was relatively lean on this ground, the stereotypes have accumulated and came to feed the explanations that could give the V the Republic. The most classic themes here we will resume some of the square of the senior civil service in the French political system, including the question of relations between officials and political power.
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A second reflection is the role of actors in public action at a time when the work of some historians administration leads to defend the idea of a history "narrative" that might oppose history of social structures. Oral Histories, biographies are now presented as the archetype of a new administrative history, which is precisely that of the officials [3] [3] Descamps (Florence), historian, archivist and ... . the question raised by these historians is central to the extent that the study of the senior civil service often seems stuck between a little faster sociographic and stories placing individual action at the heart of contemporary political changes. In simple terms, the academic horizon has often been dominated either by the "state nobility" of Pierre Bourdieu [4] [4] Bourdieu (Pierre), The State Nobility: great schools ... or by briefs senior officials who embodied the modernity of the V the Republic, as a François Bloch-Lainé [5] [5] Bloch-Lainé (François), occupation: Civil servant ... or Delouvrier [6] [6] Chen (Roselyne) Delouvrier (Paul), Delouvrier ... . so we constantly rocking an explanation in terms of classes and groups, still considered highly homogeneous and defending positions power or reform projects (or opposing) to an explanation in terms of individual trajectory and historical context, or even purely personal characteristics relating to the will and the charisma of the actors. We should, therefore, consider the possibility of writing a history of high public office who can define the collective action of some of its representatives while placing them in the social world of their time. Can we isolate "intermediate" structures to understand the game introduced by individual initiatives while taking into account the phenomena of domination and hierarchy?
FALSE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE POLITICAL SCIENCE: LOOKING BACK
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Among the most conducive to the clichés about the role and place of the senior public service in the fields V e Republic are the relations between administration and politics. Almost official historiography says that officials serve came to support force to the new regime set out with parliamentarian previous regimes. The V the Republic has therefore established the "state power", a mixture of direct democracy through the use of referendums and technocracy by the omnipresence of senior officials in the most important decision-making bodies [7] [7] Chagnollaud (Dominica), Quermonne (Jean-Louis), Le ... . it can be assumed without difficulty that the V the Republic has inherited structures developed under the IV to to plan the economy, develop the territory or control an industrial policy. The question is however whether the establishment of mission administrations and a new apparatus of power involves the political neutrality of the public service and its high dilution in a techno-oligarchic complex. This thesis of political neutralization is expressed in the idea that a double movement occurred, firstly of "bureaucratization" of political life and, secondly, a "politicization" of the senior public Service that would take place in isolation, as a spoils system to the French homegrown that personal political changes concern only the officials to remain unengaged in political activities in the strict sense. In other words, the politicization under the V the Republic meets functional logic of interpenetration of administrative and political worlds no one can know which of the two can have the greatest influence on public policy.
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