Thomas Poguntke and Paul Webb published their influential book on presidentialization in 2005, and it has had a significant influence of students of political executives, and of governments more generally. There have been numerous scholarly articles and books discussing presidentialization in a number of countries, and generally accepting the concept and its importance for understanding contemporary government and politics. While we can identify many of the dimensions of presidentialization in contemporary political systems, it is time for a new comparative assessment of the concept. The almost two decades since that publication have involved a series of events-- political, economic, and social–that lead us to want to analyze the presidentialization thesis over time. This paper proposes to consider data and examples from a wider range of countries in order to assess and expand the coding of presidentialization available in the Poguntke and Webb book. Our aim is to extend that form of analysis by rating a “sample” of 26 countries on a set of attributes suggested by the Poguntke and Webb book, and our own understanding of the nature of contemporary political executives. The coding will be conducted for 2005, around the time that the data for the original book was gathered, and again for 2023.

In the analysis of presidentialization we will focus on several factors that may have strengthened, or weakened, the roles of chief executives. There have been at least three major disturbances in the environment of all of these countries that could have affected the role of the chief executive. The first was the “Great Recession” that caused significant shocks to the economies of all countries, and to some extent continues to have effects at this writing. The second was the COVID pandemic, again affecting politics and governance in all countries. The third disturbance has been the growth of populist politics, and democratic backsliding, that has not been universal, but which has had profound effects in some systems. We will also add the war in Ukraine as a fourth factor with significant effects in many if not all countries

“Who governs?” was (and still is) a vivid question in the study of the French Fifth Republic: while a textual study of the 1958 constitution tends to credit the Prime minister to be the head of government, ever since de Gaulle’s presidential terms (1959-1969) the president appears to assume this role.

One way used by scholars to address this gap between the constitutional text and its practice has been to look at the role of presidential advisers in governmental coordination. Although few scholars have addressed this issue, their conclusion is explicit: the central governing body in France remains the Prime minister’s office, because its services are way more developed than the Elysée’s secretariat general (Cohen, 1980 ; Foucaud, 2010). A quotation from one of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s advisers (also a law academic) is often used as a central argument: the Elysée’s general secretariat is described by Charles Debbasch as a “2 horsepower car with a Rolls royce’s ambitions” (1982, p. 34). Floran Vadillo’s thesis gives credit to this general idea: he concluded to the limited influence of François Mitterrand’s presidential advisers on governmental policy-making in the area of counter-terrorism (2012).

While the Prime minister’s staff, along with the government secretariat general (Eymeri-Douzans and Mangenot, 2019), certainly is the centre of governmental coordination (at least until 2007 according to Brigitte Gaïti, cf. 2019), one question remains unanswered: how can the president of the Republic appear as the head of government instead of the Prime minister? Delphine Dulong has already studied the institutionalization of the Prime minister’s subordinate status to the president (2021). We would like to argue in this communication that another side of the answer lies in the practical activity of the building of presidential responsibility over governmental policies carried out the Elysée’s secretariat general.

To study this concrete activity, we will use the case study of Georges Pompidou’s advisers (from 1969 to 1974). We delved into their public and private archives to understand their professional practices; we also conducted interviews with some of them (Jean-François Saglio, Bernard Esambert, Jean Daney de Marcillac, Jean-Pierre Teyssier, Philippe d’Iribarne and René Galy-Dejean) and listened to taped interviews curated by the Georges Pompidou Institute in Paris.

To make sense of this empirical data, the notion of “role” (Lagroye, 1997) will be used, as it allows the study of the different audiences mobilized by presidential advisers to align governmental policymaking with the president’s political identity and claim it for his own credit, at the expense of the Prime minister’s. This focus enables us to brush aside methodologies based on the research of the presidential advisers’ “influence” in the processes of governmental policymaking, since the definition of an individual’s responsibility in such processes is mostly illusional (Eymeri-Douzans, 2009). Therefore, another answer can be brought to the question “who governs?”, one that focuses on the work of crediting the president’s influence. This contribution also aims to contribute to the debates surrounding the roles of executive advisers, by highlighting the interests of the sociology of roles developed by Jacques Lagroye.

Bibliography :

COHEN Samy, Les conseillers du Président : de Charles de Gaulle à Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, « Politique d’aujourd’hui », 1980.

DEBBASCH Charles, L’Élysée dévoilé, Paris, Albin Michel, 1982.

DULONG Delphine, Premier ministre, Paris, CNRS Editions, « Culture & Société », 2021.

EYMERI-DOUZANS Jean-Michel, « Logiques de l’action publique : responsabilité impossible, imputabilité improbable » in Constitution et responsabilité, Xavier Bioy (éd.), Paris, Lextenso-Montchrestien, 2009.

EYMERI-DOUZANS Jean-Michel et MANGENOT Michel, « Rouage ou centre de l’État ? (I) Genèse et institutionnalisation du Secrétariat général du Gouvernement », Revue française d’administration publique, no 3, vol. 171, 2019, p. 603‑627.

FOUCAUD Fabien, « Le secrétaire général de l’Élysée : éclairage sur la présidentialisation du régime », Revue du droit public, no 4, 2010, p. 1027‑1042.

GAÏTI Brigitte, « Gouverner le Gouvernement : les trajectoires des politiques de coordination gouvernementale en France (1935-2019) », Revue française d’administration publique, no 3, vol. 171, 2019, p. 565‑585.

VADILLO Floran, L’« Élysée » et l’exercice du pouvoir sous la Cinquième République. Le cas de la politique de lutte antiterroriste (1974-1997), Thèse pour le doctorat en Science politique, sous la direction de Sadran Pierre, Bordeaux, Sciences Po Bordeaux, 2012.

« On ne subit pas son rôle. Entretien avec Jacques Lagroye », Politix. Revue des sciences sociales du politique, no 38, vol. 10, 1997, p. 7‑17.

Politically appointed “special advisors” are not a novelty in France: the first “creatures” serving a “master” appeared in the 1700s, with the prototypic figure of Father Joseph, “the Grey Eminence” serving Prime Minister-Cardinal de Richelieu. First modern ministerial cabinet was the one of Lucien Bonaparte, minister of the Interior (January 1800). Since then, despite revolutions and regime changes, ministerial (and presidential) cabinets have been one of the most constant, resilient, flourishing institutions in France: despite tiny legal bases, they have deep roots into the French politico-administrative culture. These entourages consist in a system of oversized and powerful cabinets of politically appointed personal advisors to ministers, Prime Ministers and Presidents, copied in other continental European countries. In terms of historic sociogenesis, it is a counter-model to British (and former British dominions) small “ministers’ private offices”, while the rise of “special advisors” in Westminster systems since the 1980s has transformed the situation. The entourages of the Executive are major players of the governing of France, forming a “triangle” with the political masters and the senior bureaucrats/ “cadres dirigeants” appointed by presidential decree taken in the Council of ministers (emplois à la decision du gouvernement). Yet, differently from what is observed in classic parliamentary democracies, French cabinets are not that much a tool of “political control” over the bureaucracy than a shadow space of “administratification” of politics.

Since 1981, there was a constant growth in size of these entourages, with a climax of 730 persons was reached under President Mitterrand in the 1990s. Variation between 500 and 600 according to the number of ministers since then. Often criticized for their uncontrolled influence, two attempts to cut drastically their number to foster direct cooperation between ministers and directors-general in person with a view to increase efficiency in decision-making were made by President Chirac and PM Juppé (1995-1997), and by President Macron, and PM Edouard Philippe (2017-2020). Both attempts of “decabinetization” à la française (if this was so) have failed lamentably. For example, Government E. Philippe had only 300 advisers (« Jaune », 1st August 2018), but half a year later, burn-out and resignations among advisers were growing, and ministers were allowed to add more collaborators. Then, in July 2020, a new PM, Jean Castex, restores the previous ceilings, confirmed in 2022 with new PM Elisabeth Borne. As a result, the total amounts to 570 persons in 2021 as in 2022. It is a return to the world before!

This recent failed reform is a real-life experience which demonstrates that the French Core Executive cannot operate without huge teams of collaborators: cabinets remain essential to the governance of France!

La coordination au sommet de l’Etat belge et, ce quel que soit le niveau de pouvoir envisagé (fédéral, régional ou communautaire), est centralisée au niveau d’acteurs politiques (Frognier, 1997 ; De Winter et al. 1996). Plus précisément, c’est au cœur des Conseils des Ministres que toutes décisions gouvernementales sont arrêtées, lesquelles à l’instar de ce qui prend place dans nombre de démocraties parlementaires, sont à l’origine de l’élaboration de la majorité des politiques publiques et des projets législatifs (Goransson, 2014). Ces conseils rassemblent hebdomadairement les ministres de chaque gouvernement, lesquels sont préparés en amont par leur entourage ministériel. Celui-ci rassemblé en cabinets, souvent pléthoriques, jouent un rôle prépondérant au cœur des exécutifs belges. Les membres des cabinets monopolisent l’ensemble des processus décisionnels, excluant la haute administration de toute élaboration de politiques publiques, négociant, parfois ligne par ligne, les décrets d’exécution (Goransson & Eraly, 2015). De nombreuses réformes, à l’instar du Plan Copernic , sont dés lors développées au cœur des entourages ministériels, soutenus par des bureaux de consultance et des experts issus des centres d’études des partis politiques de la majorité. Ensuite, les membres de cabinet gardent la main dans la traduction des réformes en dispositifs concrets. Il en résulte une certaine résistance de la part des fonctionnaires généraux qui doivent appliquer des mesures dans l’élaboration desquelles ils n’ont pas été associés (Goransson, 2014 ; de Visscher & Randour, 2011 ; Pichault, 2007).

Toutefois, depuis 2017, il est un secteur en particulier où les relations politico-administratives ont évolué. Il s’agit de l’éducation et de l’enseignement obligatoire. Une nouvelle dynamique apparaît aujourd’hui entre les acteurs politiques et les agents de l’administration de l’enseignement, spécifiquement dans le cadre d’une réforme d’envergure, initiée fin de l’année 2014, le Pacte pour un Enseignement d’excellence. Dans la mise en œuvre de celui-ci, nous constatons une implication accrue des hauts fonctionnaires et de leurs équipes qui alimentent et suivent les diverses mesures dans leur élaboration, leur concrétisation en décrets, leur suivi sur le terrain et leurs ajustements. Dans ce cadre, nous constatons également des rencontres régulières entre l’administration et les acteurs politiques, lesquels malgré des changements de majorité gouvernementale, soutiennent les différents projets développés initialement dans le Pacte et les concrétisent progressivement en nouveaux dispositifs que les écoles mettent en pratique.

La présente communication entend analyser cette évolution. Plus précisément, il s’agit de développer différents éléments qui peuvent expliquer le changement. Ces éléments constituent à ce stade différentes pistes de réflexion qui, une fois contextualisées et comprises, pourraient transformer durablement les logiques politico-administratives qui prévalent au sommet de l’Etat belge. Pour ce faire, les auteurs reviendront primo sur les relations politico-administratives qui prennent généralement place au cœur de l’exécutif belge. La centralité des cabinets est détaillée ainsi que l’exclusion de la haute administration dans le cycle des politiques publiques. Secundo, les signes qui permettent de déceler une évolution dans la dynamique politico-administrative au sommet de l’Etat belge sont présentés. Tertio, les auteurs présentent une série de variables qui constituent autant de pistes explicatives du changement.

Pour ce faire, les auteurs se baseront sur une démarche méthodologique exclusivement qualitative alimentée par leur connaissance rapprochée du processus de réforme depuis ses préliminaires. Cette connaissance résulte, dans un premier temps, du rôle d’expert qu’un des auteurs a lui-même assumé tout au long de l’élaboration du changement. Ensuite les deux auteurs ont participé à sa mise en œuvre en accompagnant de nombreux Comités de Pilotage de la réforme ainsi qu’en apportant leur expertise tout le long de sa concrétisation. Cet ensemble de données récoltées est complété par une série d’entretiens auprès des acteurs-clés de la réforme.

Increasingly researchers are considering gender (im)balances in relation to ministerial advisers, engaging with the rich existing scholarship that has previously focused on women politicians and to some extent representative bureaucracy. This study aims to extend this line of inquiry further from this salutary historical institutionalist basis and its focus on binary descriptive representation towards a concomitant sociological institutionalist perspective to perform a gender analysis of ministerial advisory systems (within the tradition of Kristeva, Butler, and others). This encompasses the nature and scope of the work, power dynamics and relationships within the executive triangle, and polyvalent roles, code switching and psychological impacts, including upon departure. Through a comparative investigation of OECD countries clustering at the upper (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Netherlands), middle (Belgium, Italy, Canada, and Australia), and lower (Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and Greece) ranges of the UN’s Gender Inequality Index, this paper provides some initial insights into this form of insecure work, which remaining outside gender mainstreaming policy and administrative processes (where they even exist).

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