Democratizing France : the political and administrative history of decentralization /

Can the unitary state decentralize? In the French case, the standing wisdom (produced by Sidney Tarrow, Jean-Pierre, Worms, Pierre Gremion and others) is that, behind the formal fa,cade, much de facto decentralization already proceeds at the hands of pragmatic prefects, local notables, and field administrators of the central ministries. Schmidt's wordy, repetitious effort to demonstrate that, this time around, things are different, does not really come off. At best, the Socialist-engineered reforms of 1982 and later resemble the well-known Soviet reforms under Krushchev, which rendered de jure what had already transpired de facto in the field of agriculture. The well-documented problem lies in the not-so-subtle difference between decentralization and devolution (especially of the taxing power), and in the relationship between local, regional, and national political party structures. However, little of this comes through these overwritten, often tedious pages. If the Socialist government's decrees have actually "unblocked" French society, then stronger conceptual apparatus, evidence, and argumentation is required than is provided here. Schmidt may eventually turn out to be correct, in which case, however, the decentralization decrees themselves will no doubt be found to have merely recorded, rather than legislated, relationships between center and periphery. For graduate students and professionals.-J. Lapalombara, Yale University