Redeploying the State: Liberalization and Social Policy in France

Abstract

Abstract France has long been paired with Japan as the archetypal state-led political economy (Shonfield 1965; Cohen 1977; Katzenstein 1978; Zysman 1983; Hall 1986).1 For decades, French planners aggressively manipulated an array of policy instruments-from trade protection, to subsidies, to cheap credit, to exemption from price controls-in an effort to accelerate the pace of economic modernization. French authorities channeled resources to privileged groups, favoring investment over consumption, industry over agriculture, and big business over small. They also ‘picked winners’, both specific sectors, such as coal and steel in the reconstruction era and nuclear power and telecommunications in the 1970s, and specific firms, the so-called ‘national champions’, multinational corporations anointed as France’s standard-bearers in the battle for global economic leader­ ship.

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