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ABSTRACT
France’s so-called exceptionalism in multilateral security policy is often explained with its Gaullist political culture. However, a closer look shows that Gaullism cannot easily capture different French policies, particularly toward NATO. To unearth what can explain policy variance, this paper asks the question of whether French political parties value NATO differently and, if so, to what effect? Looking at French governments from 1991 to 2014, I argue that political parties in France carry different values, which lead them to interpret NATO’s role for France’s security policy differently. As a result, French parties in power encouraged, delayed, or halted NATO institutional transformation at specific junctures. This argument builds on the insights of the study of ideational factors in IR and the study of party politics in Comparative Politics. Through an analysis of French governments’ policy preferences toward NATO, this paper stresses that institutional transformation can be understood through the study of veto points in conjunction with national preference formation.
KEYWORDS:
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Notes
1 Alastair Cameron, ‘NATO Reintegration: Causing a Stir in France’s Domestic Debate’, RUSI Newsbrief, 20 Mar 2009. <https://rusi.org/publication/newsbrief/nato-reintegration-causing-stir-frances-domestic-debate>.
2 This argument is constrained to regime types that allow political parties to vary in their value structure as well as to rotate in and out of government.
3 In May 2015 they renamed themselves Les Republicains. Given the time frame under consideration, I will refrain from using the new name.
4 Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia UP 1996).
5 Robert B. McCalla, ‘NATO’s persistence after the Cold War’, International Organization 50/3 (1996), 445–475; Helga Haftendorn, Robert O. Keohane and Celeste Wallander (eds), Imperfect Unions: Security Institutions over Time and Space (NY: Oxford UP 1999); Celeste A. Wallander, ‘Institutional Assets and Adaptability: NATO After the Cold War’, International Organization 54, 4 (2000), 705–35; Galia Press-Barnathan, ‘Managing the Hegemon: NATO under Unipolarity’, Security Studies 15/2 (2006), 271–309; Wallace J. Thies, Why NATO Endures (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2009).
6 Randall Schweller, ‘Unanswered Threats: A Neoclassical Realist Theory of Underbalancing’, International Security 29/2 (2004), 163.
7 Ibid., 164.
8 Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press 1973), 18, 20–21.
9 Robin M. Williams, ‘Change and Stability in Values and Value Systems: A Sociological Perspective’, in Milton Rokeach (ed.), Understanding Human Values. Individual and Societal (New York: The Free Press 1979), 15–46.
10 Paul V. Warwick, ‘Economic Trends and Government Survival in West European Parliamentary Democracies’, American Political Science Review 86/4 (1992), 355.
11 John Gerring ‘Ideology: A Definitional Analysis’, Political Research Quarterly 50/4 (1997), 980.
12 Stephanie C. Hofmann, European Security in NATO’s Shadow. Party Ideologies and Institution Building (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2013).
13 Vincent Pouliot, ‘Multilateralism as an End in Itself’, International Studies Perspectives 12 (2011), 18–26.
14 Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony. Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton UP 1984).
15 John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War’, International Security 15/1 (1990), 5–56.
16 Ernst Haas, Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization (Stanford: Stanford UP 1964).
17 Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe. Social Purpose and State Power From Messina to Maastricht (Ithaca: Cornell UP 1998).
18 Craig Parsons, ‘Showing Ideas as Causes: The Origins of the European Union’, International Organization 56/1 (2002), 47–84.
19 Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton: Princeton UP 1957).
20 Alexander Thompson, ‘Coercion Through IOs: The Security Council and the Logic of Information Transmission’, International Organization 60/1 (2006), 1–34.
21 Derek Beach, ‘The unseen hand in treaty reform negotiations: The role and influence of the Council Secretariat’, Journal of European Public Policy 11/3 (2004), 408–439.
22 Antonio Missiroli, ‘The Impact of the Lisbon Treaty on ESDP’, Policy Briefing for the European Parliament, Policy Department External Policies (2008) <http://www.statewatch.org/news/2008/feb/ep-esdp-lisbon.pdf.>
23 Barbara Koremenos, ‘Contracting around International Uncertainty’, American Political Science Review 99 (2005), 549–65.
24 Jacqueline Best, ‘Ambiguity and Uncertainty in International Organizations: A History of Debating IMF Conditionality’, International Studies Quarterly 56 (2012), 674–688.
25 NATO member states had tried to avoid being dependent on France to decide on when, why and how national forces should be used as NATO does not have its own troops at its command on a permanent basis.
26 Interview with Hubert Védrine in Paris (29 May 2008).
27 Charles G. Cogan, The Third Option. The Emancipation of European Defense, 1989–2000 (Westport: Praeger 2001). 23. See also Hubert Coudurier, le monde selon Chirac. Les coulisses de La diplomatie francaise (Paris: Calmann-Lévy 1998), 254.
28 Dominique Moïsi, ‘De Mitterrand à Chirac’, Politique étrangère 4 (1995/96), 849–851; Lionel Jospin, ‘Evolution générale de la politique de défense de la France’, Défense Nationale 11 (1998), 17.
29 Interview with Admiral Jean Dufourcq in Paris (27 May 2008). See also Beatrice Heuser, ‘Mitterrand’s Gaullism: Cold War Policies for the Post-Cold War World?’, in Antonio Varsori (ed.), Europe 1945–1990: The end of an era? (New York: St. Martin’s Press 1994), 346–369.
30 Interview with Hubert Védrine in Paris (29 May 2008); see also Philip H. Gordon, A Certain Idea of France. French Security Policy and Gaullist Legacy (Princeton: Princeton UP 1993) 107.
31 Ibid., 124.
32 Parti Socialiste Manifesto, Propositions pour La France. Texte adopté à la Convention National Du Parti Socialiste (1988) Comparative Party manifesto research group, Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung an der Universität zu Köln 8, 10–11; Parti Socialiste Manifesto, Changeons d’avenir. Nos engagements pour La France (1997). Comparative Party manifesto research group, Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung an der Universität zu Köln 1.
33 Colette Mazzucelli, France and Germany at Maastricht. Politics and Negotiations to Create the European Union (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1997), 139, 160.
34 See Jolyon Howorth, ‘France and European Security 1944–94: Re-reading the Gaullist “Consensus”’, in Tony Chafer and Brian Jenkins (eds), France. From the Cold War to the New World Order (Houndsmills and London: Macmillan Press 1996) 17–38 for a discussion on all the different foreign and security policy issues where the RPR differed from the PS.
35 Nicolas Sarkozy, Discours Place de La Concorde, Paris, 15 Apr 2012. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEL9e-ajhSs>
36 RPR-UDF Party Manifesto, Un nouvel élan pour La France. Plate-former d’union RPR-UDF (1997) Comparative Party manifesto research group, Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung an der Universität zu Köln 4; Chirac, Jacques, ‘Speech on European security and defence to the Presidential Committee of the WEU Assembly at the Elysée Palace’, Paris, 30 May 2000.
37 Interview with Admiral Jean Dufourcq in Paris (27 May 2008).
38 David S. Yost, ‘France’s Nuclear Dilemmas’, Foreign Affairs 75/1 (1996), 108–118.
39 Chirac, ‘Speech on European security and defence to the Presidential Committee of the WEU Assembly at the Elysée Palace’.
40 Quoted in Howorth, ‘France and European Security 1944–94: Re-reading the Gaullist “Consensus”’, 22.
41 Dominique Chagnollaud and Jean-Louis Quermonne, La Ve République. II. le pouvoir exécutif et l’administration (Paris: Flammarion 2000) 89; Jean-Jacques Chevallier, Guy Carcassonne and Olivier Duhamel, Histoire de La Ve République. 1958–2007, 12 ed. (Paris: Dalloz 2007) 319–22.
42 The French Constitution, Articles 19 and 52.
43 Gordon, A Certain Idea of France. French Security Policy and Gaullist Legacy, 146.
44 Cogan, The Third Option, 32.
45 Frédéric Bozo, La France et l’OTAN. de La guerre froide au nouvel ordre européen (Paris: Masson 1991) 186–7; David S. Yost, ‘France and West European defence identity’, Survival 33/4 (1991), 327–351.
46 Alan Riding, ‘French and Germans Plan an Army Corps Despite NATO Fears’, The New York Times (23May 1992) 1; Pascal Boniface, ’NATO’s enlargement, France’s dilemmas’, in David Haglund (ed.) Will NATO go East? (Kingston: Queens UP 1996), 181–195.
47 Pascal Boniface, ‘The NATO Debate in France’, Paper presented at Enlargement: The National Debates over Ratification Conference, 7 October 1997.
48 Frédéric Bozo, ‘France, Gaullism, and the Cold War’, in Melvyn P. Leffler et Odd Arne Westad (eds), Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2010) 280–82; David S. Yost, ‘France in the New Europe’, Foreign Affairs 69/5 (1990), 119–120.
49 London Declaration, Declaration on a transformed North Atlantic Alliance issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council (‘The London Declaration’), London, 6 July 1990, par. 2.
50 Yost, ‘France and West European defence identity’, 331–32.
51 Joseph Fitchett, ‘France is Miffed at NATO Plans for Rapid Force’, International Herald Tribune (5 June 1991).
52 Gabriel Robin, ‘A quoi sert l’OTAN?’, Politique Etrangère 60/1 (1995), 171–180.
53 Ibid., 173.
54 Ministère de la Défense, Livre Blanc sur La Défense (1994) <http://lesrapports.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/BRP/944048700/0000.pdf;> Moïsi, ‘De Mitterrand à Chirac’, 853.
55 Gilles Andréani, ‘La France et l’OTAN après la guerre froide’, Politique etrangere 1 (1998) 85.
56 Philippe Lemaitre, ‘La réunion des ministres de la défense de l’Alliance atlantique a Séville. La distribution des roles au sein de l’OTAN entre Américains et Européens se fait attendre’, le Monde (29 September 1994); Edouard Balladur, Deux Ans À Matignon (Paris: Plon 1995) 81; Anand Menon, ‘The “Consensus” on Defence Policy and the End of the Cold War: Political Parties and the Limits of Adaptation’, in Tony Chafer and Brian Jenkins (eds), France. From the Cold War to the New World Order (Houndsmills and London: Macmillan Press 1996), 162–165.
57 Paul Gallis, ‘NATO’s Decision-Making Procedure’, CRS Report for Congress RS21510 (2003) 3. One important exception was in 2003 when the DPC decided to support Turkey with defensive systems should the US intervene in Iraq.
58 Robert P. Grant, ‘France’s New Relationship with NATO’, Survival 38/1 (1996) 62. In NATO parlance, ‘combined’ has to be understood as multinational, and ‘joint’ as multi-service.
59 NATO Press Communique M-1 (94) 3.
60 Charles Barry, ‘NATO’s Combined Joint Task Forces in Theory and Practice’, Survival 38/1 (1996), 81–97.
61 Ministère de la Défense, Livre Blanc sur La Défense, 37.
62 Lemaitre ‘La réunion des ministres de la défense de l’Alliance atlantique a Séville’.
63 Grant, ‘France’s New Relationship with NATO’, 62, 64.
64 Gilles Delafon and Thomas Sancton, Dear Jacques, cher Bill. Au cœur de l’Elysée et de La Maison Blanche 1995–1999 (Paris: Plon 1999), 182; Stanley R. Sloan, NATO, the European Union, and the Atlantic Community. The Transatlantic Bargain Reconsidered (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers 2003), 169.
65 Barry, ‘NATO’s Combined Joint Task Forces in Theory and Practice’, 83.
66 Quoted in Cogan, The Third Option, 72.
67 Quoted in Grant, ‘France’s New Relationship with NATO’, 65.
68 Cogan, The Third Option, 13; see also Yost Citation1990: 124).
69 Quoted in Grant, ‘France’s New Relationship with NATO’, 63.
70 Interview with Francois Heisbourg in Paris (27 May 2008) and Admiral Jean Dufourcq in Paris (27 May 2008). Andréani, ‘La France et l’OTAN après la guerre froide’, 87; Coudurier, le monde selon Chirac, 266.
71 Delafon and Sancton, Dear Jacques, cher Bill, 185; Sloan, NATO, the European Union, and the Atlantic Community, 169.
72 Ibid., 170.
73 Kori Schake, Amaya Bloch-Lainé and Charles Grant, ‘Building a European Defence Capability’, Survival 41/1 (1999), 22.
74 Robert O. Keohane and Celeste A. Wallander, ‘Security in an Era Without Enemies. Expansion will mark the end of wars among Europeans. The alliance becomes one of security management’, Los Angeles Times (6 May 1998), B7.
75 Quoted in Boniface, ‘The NATO Debate in France’.
76 Rick Atkinson, ‘NATO Gives Members Response Flexibility’, Washington Post (4 June 1996), A14.
77 Economist, ‘Riling NATO’ (19 June 1997); Anand Menon, France, NATO and the Limits of Independence, 1981–97: The Politics of Ambivalence (Houndsmill: Palgrave 2000).
78 Interview with Admiral Jean Dufourcq in Paris (27 May 2008). Coudurier, le monde selon Chirac, 268; Delafon and Sancton, Dear Jacques, cher Bill, 206–207.
79 Ibid., 251, 266.
80 Andréani, ‘La France et l’OTAN après la guerre froide’, 89–90; Coudurier, le monde selon Chirac, 271–73.
81 Delafon and Sancton, Dear Jacques, cher Bill, 282.
82 Cogan, The Third Option, 89.
83 Andrew Knapp, ‘From the Gaullist movement to the president’s party’, in Jocelyn A.J. Evans (ed.) The French party system (Manchester: Manchester UP 2003), 127.
84 ‘Learning of Chirac’s defeat, President Clinton “rolled his eyes” according to an advisor. “He knew that this would complicate the relations with France and could bury the accord over AFSOUTH”’ Delafon and Sancton, Dear Jacques, cher Bill, 288.
85 Coudurier, le monde selon Chirac, 274; Parti Socialiste Manifesto, Changeons d’avenir. Nos engagements pour La France, 1.
86 Interview with Admiral Jean Dufourcq in Paris (27 May 2008).
87 Patrick Jarreau, Laurent Maudit and Jean Louis Saux, ‘Entretien avec le president du RPR’, Le Monde, 10 Dec 1997. <http://discours.vie-publique.fr/notices/983000214.html>.
88 Coudurier, le monde selon Chirac, 406–407.
89 Quoted in Delafon and Sancton, Dear Jacques, cher Bill, 301.
90 Quoted in Jean-Michel Lamy, ‘Otan et intégration de l’Est: La leçon de Washington’, Les Echos (9 July 1997), 56.
91 ‘According to one State Department official intimately connected with the NATO process, Chirac’s government held out the possibility that France might rejoin the NATO military structure at the time of the Madrid Summit in July 1997. Pentagon officials claim to this day that what halted the French move back toward NATO more than anything else was the imprudent decision of Chirac to schedule the snap legislative election of May 1997, which upset this final attempt at a rapprochement between France and NATO’ Cogan The Third Option, 89; Delafon and Sancton, Dear Jacques, cher Bill, 305–6.
92 Lionel Jospin, Déclaration de M. Lionel Jospin, Premier ministre, sur la politique de défense de la France, notamment l’élaboration d’un nouveau modèle d’armée, la contribution de la France à la paix dans le monde et le partenariat avec l’Afrique, la coopération en matière de sécurité et de défense au niveau européen, 4 Sept. 1997. <http://discours.vie-publique.fr/notices/973145084.html>.
93 Interview with Admiral Jean Dufourcq in Paris (27 May 2008).
94 NATO Strategic Concept, The Alliance’s Strategic Concept. Approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. on 23rd and 24th April 1999, par. 10.
95 Bastien Irondelle and Frédéric Mérand, ‘France’s return to NATO: The death knell for ESDP?’, European Security 19/1 (2010), 29–43.
96 Nicolas Sarkozy, ‘Discours de clôture du président’, Paris, 11 Mar 2009. <http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ambafrance-no.org%2FIMG%2Fpdf%2F11_1_.03__Conclusion_colloque_Defense_Otan.pdf>.
97 Laurent Fabius, ‘Sarkozy wins French NATO re-entry vote’ (2009), <http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/03/17/france.nato/.>
98 In terms of receiving visible positions within the integrated command structure, since 2009, Allied Command Transformation has been led by French generals.
99 Steven Erlanger, ‘Sarkozy Assures Libyan Rebel Leader’, New York Times (24 August 2011).
100 Parti Socialiste, ‘Les Conséquences réelles de la décision de réintégrer le commandement intégré de l’OTAN devront être sérieusement évaluées’, 24 March 2012, <http://www.parti-socialiste.fr/communiques/les-consequences-reelles-de-la-decision-de-reintegrer-le-commandement-integre-de-lotan;> Vivien Pertusot, ‘Defence and Foreign Policy under President-Elect Francois Hollande’, RUSI Analysis, 6 May 2012. <https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/editoriaux/actuelles-de-lifri/defence-and-foreign-policy-under-president-elect-francois>.
101 Parti Socialiste, ‘Pour l’indépendance de la politique étrangère de la France’, Archives des communiqués du PS (10 February 2009); Parti Socialiste, ‘Intervention de François Hollande – motion de censure’ (8 April 2008).
102 Hubert Védrine, Report for the President of the French Republic on the Consequences of France’s Return to NATO’s Integrated Military Command, on the Future of Transatlantic Relations, and the Outlook for the Europe of Defence (2012), <http://www.rpfrance-otan.org/The-Vedrine-report>, 7–8, 13.
103 Ibid., 9.
104 Ibid., 16–17; see also Ministère de la Défense, White Paper on Defence and National Security (2013), 60–65.
105 Védrine Report for the President of the French Republic on the Consequences of France’s Return to NATO’s Integrated Military Command, on the Future of Transatlantic Relations, and the Outlook for the Europe of Defence, 10.
106 John Newhouse, de Gaulle and the Anglo-Saxons (New York: Viking Press 1970); Stanley Hoffmann. Decline or Renewal? France since the 1930s (New York: Viking Press 1974); George Ross, Stanley Hoffmann and Sylvia Malzacher (eds), The Mitterrand Experiment: Continuity and Change in Modern France (Cambridge: Polity 1987); J. Paolini, ‘The Gaullist model revisited: Long-range strategic vision and short-term political implementation in French defence policy’, French Politics and Society 7 (1989), 16–23; Gordon, A Certain Idea of France. French Security Policy and Gaullist Legacy’; Howorth ‘France and European Security 1944–94: Re-reading the Gaullist “Consensus”’; Andrew Moravcsik, ‘Charles de Gaulle and Europe. The New Revisionism’, Journal of Cold War Studies 14/1 (2012), 53–77.
107 Martin Fackler, ‘Tensions Between Japan and South Korea Complicate Picture for U.S.’, New York Times (20 December 2012).
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Stephanie C. Hofmann
Stephanie C. Hofmann is Associate Professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. She has worked and published on issues of European security, international organizations, and regime complexity. Her recent book is European Security in NATO’s Shadow. Party Ideologies and Institution Building (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013).