Comparative Capitalisms, Ideational Political Economy and French Post-Dirigiste Responses to the Global Financial Crisis

Abstract

This article advances the case for the more systematic incorporation of ideational factors into comparative capitalisms analysis as a corrective to the rational choice proclivities of the Varieties of Capitalism approach. It demonstrates the pay-off of such an ideationally attuned approach through analysis of French capitalist restructuring over the last 25 years, placing it in comparative context. A modus operandi for such ideational explanation is elaborated through delineating different national conceptions of the market, and setting out their impacts on practices of market-making. The claim made in this article is that understanding the evolution of French capitalism requires recognition of the ongoing market-making role of the French State, in combination with the French conception of the market and its embedding within a social context characterised by the inter-penetration of public and private elitist networks of France's ‘financial network economy’ which remains substantially intact. The ideational dimension is crucial because French understandings of the market and competition, the ideational building blocks of market-making, inform French state interventions and leave footprints on French institutions and market structures, and the evolutionary trajectory of French capitalism. In charting this trajectory, this article deploys the concept of post-dirigisme. We map out the parameters and causes of the post-dirigiste condition in France through examination of French bond market development, privatisation, the shift from a government- to a market- dominated financial system, and French capitalism's internationalisation. It then uses post-dirigisme to explain French state responses to the financial crisis and the banking bailout, noting how state actors, in concert with the banking elites, actively facilitated dominant market positions of French international champions.

Keywords:

• France
• varieties of capitalism
• ideational institutionalism
• market-making; post-dirigisme
• global financial crisis

Notes

The author would like to thank Paul Lagneau–Ymonet, Cornelia Woll, Michel Goyer, David Howarth, the editor, and two anonymous referees for extremely helpful and insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Any errors remain my own.

The coherence of the post-war dirigiste paradigm has been questioned by revisionist interpretations (Hayward 1973: 180–7, 213–26; Hancké 2001: 309–12; Guyomarch et al. 1998: 161–8; Loriaux 1999: 241–7, 251–2; Levy 1999: Ch 1). Yet even if a debate remains as to how much ‘glorious’ growth was really due to indicative economic planning and strategic interventionism in industry creating ‘national champions’ – the basic institutional features of the French post-war model are not in doubt.

The OPESC research group's analysis charts executive board memberships as gleaned from company reports throughout the 2000s. See http://www.opesc.org/reseaux/reseaux-gen.php

‘Brussels Blocks French Bank Bail-out’, Financial Times, 28 November 2008.

Literally translated, the shuffling from high political to business office in one's carpet slippers.

‘Brussels Blocks French Bank Bail-out’, Financial Times, 28 November 2008.