Ambler. Limits of The State

Western Political Science Association
University of Utah
French Education and the Limits of State Autonomy

Author(s): John S. Ambler
Source: The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Sep., 1988), pp. 469-488
Published by: University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science Association
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FRENCH EDUCATION AND THE LIMITS OF
STATE AUTONOMY
JOHN S. AMBLER
Rice University
IN another of those pendulum swings so familiar to observ

titioners of political science, the popularity of society-cen
of the democratic policy process recently has provoked
counterattacks by proponents of "state-centered" model
1981; Krasner 1978, 1984; Skocpol 1985; and, on neomarx
Carnoy 1984, and Carnoy and Levin 1985). Neither the plur
orthodox Marxist school, it is argued, gives adequate consid
the ability of the state to act autonomously.
The only means of ascertaining the extent of state auton
utility of state-centered models, is through case studies of th
ess in different countries and policy areas. The purpose of
analysis will be twofold: first, to demonstrate the limits o
omy in a policy arena which would seem to favor it, and, se
gest some general problems with state-centered models in
the democratic policy process.
The case studies of French education to be presented are n
to offer a definitive test. Limited as they are in number an
do, however, offer important evidence, for they deal with
which has a number of characteristics commonly associate
autonomy. Among Western nations, France often is percei
most perfect democratic embodiment of the strong and cen
(Krasner 1978: 58-61; Nordlinger 1981: 103, 105; Skocp
N. 29). 1 In a survey of the development of uses of the concept
J. P. Nettl concludes that ". .. it is the French state and th
state that provide the basic European model" (Nettl 196
the time of Louis XIV and his energetic minister, Jean-Bapt
to postwar economic planners, high political authorities
broad view of the state's responsibility for guiding social a
development. Within French Government, the Ministry of
one of the most highly centralized, with extensive formal
curriculum, personnel and funding allocations. And yet, as
state autonomy in French education is limited by intrastat
rivalry between public-private coalitions.
Received: March 26, 1987

First Revision Received: September 30, 1987
Accepted for Publication: October 5, 1987
For empirical evidence disputing the "strong state" interpretation of French policy-making,
see Suleiman 1987, and Hollifield 1986.
470 Western Political Quarterly
CONCEPTIONS OF STATE AUTONOMY: NORDLINGER AND HIS CRITICS
The state-centered literature shares a common focus on the impor

tance and relative autonomy of the state. It offers no consensus rega
ing the boundaries and functions of the state. The most systematic
treatment of state autonomy within democratic polities, and the one
which will serve as a point of reference in the following analysis, is that
offered by Eric Nordlinger in his book, On the Autonomy of the
Democratic State. Nordlinger is aware of conflicts within the state, but
concludes that state autonomy may be gauged by the proportion of
authoritative decisions which follow state preferences, defined as "those
with the weightiest support of public officials behind them, based on the
number of officials on different sides of the issue, the formal powers of
their offices, their hierarchical and strategic positioning relative to the
issue at hand, and the information, expertise, and interpersonal skills at
their disposal" (Nordlinger 1981: 15). Nordlinger suggests that state au-
tonomy may exist not only when state preferences prevail over diver-
gent societal preferences (Type I autonomy), but also when the state
succeeds in reshaping societal preferences which initially are opposed
to its own (Type II autonomy). Even when societal preferences are "non-
divergent" from its own, Nordlinger argues, there is no reason to assume
that the state is not acting autonomously when it translates its prefer-
ences into policy (Type III autonomy). Nordlinger is aware that policy
coalitions often bridge the state-society divide; yet he insists that state
autonomy still can be measured: "State autonomy obtains to the extent
that the policy outcome coincides with the latter's preferences in both
(or all) coalitions as weighted exclusively by their intrastate resources"
(Nordlinger, 1981: 20).
Nordlinger proposes more systematic attention to the capacity of po-
litical authorities to impose their own policy preferences, a contribution
for which he and other state-centered theorists are to be congratulated.
Yet his reliance on state vs. society models obscures an understanding
of the democratic policy process in two important ways. First, he seeks
to factor out such untidy phenomena as intrastate conflict and public-
private coalitions, when in fact the essential character of the policy proc-
ess would seem to be the interaction among elected officials, govern-
ment agencies, political parties and private interest groups. Secondly,
Nordlinger attempts to avoid the danger of reification by defining the
state as a set of individuals, made up of all elected and appointed offi-
cials with influence on public policy (Nordlinger 1981: 10-11). This
atomistic image of the state as individuals rather than institutions avoids
one set of problems but creates another by marginalizing some of the most
crucial forces and contests in the political process.
These problems are recognized and avoided by other theorists of state
autonomy, including Stephen Krasner and Theda Skocpol, who under-
stand the state as a set of institutions as well as the individuals who guide
them (Krasner 1978, 1984; Skocpol 1985). Indeed, Skocpol dismisses
Nordlinger's treatment of the state as simply revisionist pluralism, a charge
French Education 471
which is not fully justified in that Nordlinger, like Skocpol and un

most pluralist theorists, rejects the notion that policy is shaped prim
ily by society rather than by the state (Skocpol 1985: 31 N. 9). Skoc
is particularly sensitive to the need for analysis of the organization
interests of socioeconomic groups alongside those of the public aut
ties with whom they interact (Skocpol 1985: 20; Evans, Rueschemey
and Skocpol 1985: 353). Two problems remain. First, the very label "s
centered" introduces a bias in favor of state autonomy, rather than
ing that question open for empirical investigation. Second, those w
would revive a notion of the state as something greater than indiv
political authorities risk falling on the other horn of Nordlinger's dilemm
i.e., the reification fallacy. As commonly used in continental Europe
concept of the state refers not only to a complex of institutions, bu
to a collective mission for the defense of the national interest, vario
conceived as order, justice, social welfare, prosperity, or national g
deur (Dyson 1980: 223).
The concept of the state is equally ambiguous with respect to th
stitutions which it includes. For Nordlinger, the state essentially is gover
ment, in the broad American and English meaning. For others it is
central government, or the executive branch, or the national bureauc
or the legal order, or the military, or even the dominant political pa
(Dyson 1980: 222-28). Krasner seems to define the state as the prim
decision-making institutions in a given policy area, e.g., the White H
and the State Department in U.S. raw materials policy.2
In sum, Nordlinger's model of state autonomy understates the p
role of governmental institutions, intrastate conflict, and public-pri
coalitions. Those state-centered theorists who conceive of the state in
more institutional terms still risk biasing research in favor of state
omy and drawing political analysis into a conceptual morass. As an
lytical concept, the state is doubly flawed: its institutional referen
ambiguous, and it calls to mind a single, purposeful actor, when e
cal reality is far more complex. French education policy offers ri
amples of the complexity.
ACTORS AND ISSUES
The extent of state autonomy in French education and the utility of

state-centered models can only be assessed in the context of a broader
study of the role of the principal actors in a complex policy process. Thes
include teachers and their unions, high civil servants in the Ministry o
Education, the minister himself, other ministries (particularly, but not ex
clusively, Finance), the Council of Ministers, the prime minister, the presi-
dent, the parliament, political parties, the Constitutional Council, privat
schools, voluntary associations, professors and researchers in education,
2 Krasner lists a number of agencies and departments, including Treasury, Defense, Agricul-
ture, Commerce, and the C.I.A. and concludes: "I do not mean to imply that each and
every one of them should be thought of as part of the state" (Krasner 1978: 11).
and, on occasion, masses of demonstrators in the streets. Perhaps the most

powerful policy determinants of all in the long run are none of these,
but the amorphous forces of social and economic change. The dramatic
expansion of French education from 7 percent of the age group entering
higher education in 1955 to almost 25 percent in 1975 was largely the
result of a rapid increase in demand produced by urbanization, affluence,
and rising expectations. Government simply sought to meet the demand,
believing that expansion would satisfy voters and also provide the edu-
cated labor force which economists generally believed to be a condition
of economic growth.
Among our designated actors, power varies greatly with the issue at
hand. It is fashionable to portray the largest teachers union, the National
Federation of Education (FEN), as the conservative master of the Minis-
try of National Education (De Closets 1983; Hamon and Rotman 1984;
Gruson 1978). The FEN, which openly campaigns for parties of the Left,
has support not only among public school teachers, who are civil ser-
vants, but also among administrative personnel in the Ministry of National
Education, many of whom are former teachers and FEN members. The
FEN also is part of a network of supporting organizations, including two
which it helped to found: the largest parents association, the Federation
of Parents Councils (FCPE), and the National Committee for Secular Ac-
tion (CNAL). FEN leaders themselves sometimes are inclined to overstate
their power, as when the Secretary General of the Federation's enormous
elementary teachers union, Jean-Claude Barbarant, told two interviewers
in January 1984, "It is evident that we have the means to have the skin
of a minister. We had Rene Haby's. We could have that of the present
minister. It is all a question of who would replace him" (Harmon and
Rotman 1984: 228). The record of the past four decades indicates that,
through its membership on joint committees (commissions paritaries),
the FEN plays a major role in setting working conditions and in manag-
ing teachers' careers. Sometimes it takes credit for transfers and promo-
tions which in fact are awarded according to a formula based largely on
seniority (Ambler 1985, and Haby, interview with the author, 1986). The
power of the FEN in personnel management is particularly great at the
elementary level, where, from 1948 to 1985, its affiliate (and dominant
component), the National Union of Elementary Teachers (SNI), won all
elected seats on the National Joint Administrative Committee (Aubert
1985: 118-21). Although the FEN is regularly consulted it exercises less
influence on curriculum and the structure of education, topics on which
internal conflicts between its elementary teachers union, the SNI, and
its secondary teachers union, the National Union of Secondary Instruc-
tion (SNES), tend to immobilize the Federation and reduce its role to ob-
struction or minor modification of government proposals. When the issue
is state subsidies to private schools, the FEN has lost time and time again
since 1959 to a coalition of Catholic educators, parents of children in
private schools, and conservative parties and politicians seeking to use
the private school issue to mobilize support. The FEN's most dramatic
defeat on this issue, as we shall see, came in 1984.
The FEN is a vigorous and effective defender of the rights an

privileges of its members. It is rarely an innovator. Policy innovation m
often is imposed by the Minister of Education with the support of t
government. It takes at least three different forms. First, as sugges
above, the crash expansion program of the 1960s and 1970s was large
a response to demand. It was planned only in the sense that like the
general indicative Plan in which education figured after 1953, projections
were made then buildings constructed and teachers recruited as neces-
sary. So long as all holders of the state secondary diploma, the baccalaur-
eat, had the right to enter a university, the government had no choice
but to provide for them. It expanded essentially within existing struc-
tures until the pressure of numbers forced the government to consider
structural reform.
The Faure Law of 1968 on higher education, which created partially
self-governing universities with elected councils and presidents, exem-
plifies a second type of government innovation: structural reform in time
of crisis. It was intended to solve the crisis posed by the violent student
demonstrations of May 1968. While reactive in nature, this reform was
nonetheless a daring and imaginative creation of the minister and his ad-
visors. Without the crisis, and without President De Gaulle's firm sup-
port, it is unlikely that the conservative parties in power would have
agreed to any form of university election which would allow leftist un-
ions supported by students and junior faculty to control university coun-
cils and elect university presidents.
The third and most common form of policy innovation by govern-
ment con'sists of the incremental pursuit of long-term goals such as
democratization and modernization by a series of laws, ordinances,
decrees and circulars. The development of the comprehensive middle
school, or college, which will be examined in more detail, is an excellent
example. Others include the development of technical education and con-
tinuing education. Here the original initiative sometimes came from pri-
vate industry and professional economists, or from the ministries of
agriculture, commerce and industry. For example, the important Rueff-
Armand Report of 1960 concluded that among the obstacles to French
economic growth were the inadequacy of technical and general educa-
tion and the anti-modern bias of instruction in the humanities (Rueff-
Armand 1960: 25, 34).
Specific action to be taken normally is determined by the Minister of
Education, his cabinet ministeriel, or private staff, and the relevant
departments of the Ministry, all in consultation with union representa-
tives. Once a plan is agreed to at the ministerial level, the Minister of Edu-
cation must obtain the support of Finance and other affected ministries,
or appeal to the arbitration of the prime minister or president to over-
rule their objections. If legislation is deemed necessary or politically
desirable, an education bill is almost certain to emerge from Parliament
with amendments attached. Then the Constitutional Council may rule
portions of the legislation unconstitutional, as it did with the Savary Law
of 1983 on higher education and with the decentralization laws of 1983
(Keeler 1985a, 1985b; Delvolve 1985). The legislative and judicial gaunt-
lets completed, there remains the difficult battle over implementation.
The most direct means of demonstrating the complexity of the educa-
tional policy process and the ubiquity of intrastate conflicts is the case
study. We shall examine three cases, two of which ended in failure for
the Minister of Education and one of which was a relative success.
THE SAVARY BILL ON PRIVATE SCHOOLS
From the perspective of public school teachers unions and party ac

tivists on the Left, the French Government pursued a pro-clerical and an
republican policy regarding Catholic Schools from the Marie and Barang
Laws of 1951, which made state scholarships available to pupils in pri-
vate schools and offered subsidies through parents associations, to 198
when finally a president and parliamentary majority came to power com
mitted to a "unified and secular" system of education. The Fifth Repu
lic in fact had partially integrated most private schools into the state
system by requiring that schools entering into contracts with the sta
under the Debre Law of 1959 accept applicants of all faiths and submi
to the financial, administrative and pedagogical supervision of the sta
At the time the Debre Law was voted by the National Assembly, G
Mollet, leader of the old Socialist party (SFIO), warned the conservativ
majority that one day, sooner or later, a new majority would come to
power. "You must be aware that as a consequence of the decisions you
are taking today, on that day all schools and teachers which solicit pu
lic funds will be considered, ipso facto, as having affirmed their calli
to enter the public service, and thus it will be done" (Journal Officiel
Ass. Natl., Deb. Dec. 23, 1959: 3608).3 The new Socialist party repeat
that pledge in its programs of 1972 and 1978, and again in Francois M
terrand's "Ten Propositions for the Schools" during the presidential ele
tion campaign of 1981. Mitterrand's first Minister of Education, Alain
Savary, concluded that some of the ten points, which were written b
Mitterrand's campaign staff rather than by the Party's specialists on e
cation, were financially unfeasible or even undesirable (Savary 1985: 1
Savary accepted as a mandate proposition seven, calling for "a great pub
service of National Education, unified and secular." He understood his
mandate to include Mitterrand's campaign letter to parents of children
in private schools, in which the future president announced his inten-
tion "to convince and not compel" (Savary 1985: 16).
In January 1982, Savary began a process of consultation, negotiation,
and compromise which was to continue for more than two years. Inter-
preting the objective to be "unity" without "uniformity," Savary found
in Father Paul Guiberteau, Secretary-General of Catholic Instruction, and
3 It should be noted that Mollet himself had been involved for several years with a group
which conducted secret negotiations with the Vatican in search of a solution to the
question scolaire and the division between the SFIO and the MRP which it perpetu-
ated. See Lecourt 1978.
in Pierre Daniel, president of the largest private school parents asso

tion, the National Union of Parents of Free School Pupils (UNAPEL),
gaining partners who welcomed an historic settlement of the church
school question, so long as the essential character of Catholic sch
could be preserved (Savary 1985: 84, 98, 130; Daniel 1986: 60-61).
proposed plan which emerged out of Savary's extensive consultations
and which became the Savary Bill after many revisions, included inc
poration of subsidized private schools (almost all of which are Catho
into government planning for the opening and closing of schools, th
offer of parental choice among public as well as private schools, a ne
legal status for private schools, provision for a distinctive "school p
ject" which might be religious in nature, and an invitation to privat
school teachers to seek integration into the public school teaching co
The last proposal, which was particularly worrisome to many Cathol
educators, finally was declared acceptable by the bishops in April 19
on condition that proper guarantees be offered on funding and pedag
ical autonomy (Savary 1985: 96-97). Savary won respect and a conside
able measure of trust from his Catholic interlocuters, who viewed him
as a practical man seeking solutions acceptable to all (Daniel 1986: 158).
The secularist camp became increasingly impatient at Savary's reluc-
tance simply to integrate subsidized private schools into the public sys-
tem. The National Committee of Secular Action (CNAL) organized massive
rallies to pressure the government into fulfilling the promise of a united
system. When it became apparent that Savary did not understand "uni-
fied" to mean simple integration, as he explained to one massive secularist
rally in Paris, the CNAL withdrew from the negotiation process.
It was no surprise that when the final bill was approved by the Coun-
cil of Ministers and sent to Parliament in the Spring of 1984, the CNAL
and the FEN mounted a lobbying campaign to strengthen its integrative
features. The secularist camp had many friends and supporters in the So-
cialist party group in the National Assembly, including the group's presi-
dent, Pierre Joxe. The bill was sent, not to the Cultural Affairs Committee,
several of whose members supported the Savary compromise, but to a
special committee under the chairmanship of a militant secularist, Andre
Laignel. Several amendments were accepted by that committee, the most
important of which linked local government contributions for the main-
tenance costs of private schools to the proportion of teachers who were
integrated into the public school teaching corps. Savary opposed these
amendments, knowing that Father Guiberteau and Pierre Daniel had al-
ready accepted as much as they possibly could without being overruled
by those in the Catholic school camp who felt too much had been con-
ceded. The secularist offensive, in fact, served to polarize the issue.
On May 22, 1984, the Socialist leadership in the National Assembly
persuaded Pierre Mauroy that unless the government accepted the Laig-
nel amendments, there would be massive resignations from the Party and
possibly an open split in the government's parliamentary majority. Mau-
roy, himself a former secretary-general of a teachers union, apparently
with a stronger commitment than Savary to secularism as the Left had
always conceived it, endorsed the Laignel amendments.4 President Mit-

terrand failed to intervene to throw his support behind Savary, even
though he and his advisers in the Elysee certainly were aware of the fra-
gility of the compromise bill and of the strong opposition of his Minister
of Education to the Laignel amendments. Savary speculates that the Presi-
dent had freshly in mind the strong protests from Socialist backbeachers
over his recent decision to offer amnesty to those generals imprisoned
for their role in the attempted military revolt of April 1961 (Savary, in-
terview with the author, 1986). Mitterrand no doubt did not foresee the
size and intensity of the political protest by the private school commu-
nity which the Laignel amendments unleashed.
The direct result of Mauroy's acceptance of the Laignel amendments
and the National Assembly's approval of the amended Savary Bill was
a massive demonstration in Paris on June 24, organized in brilliant fash-
ion by the UNAPEL. This display of militancy by over a million supporters
of private schools, coupled with strong evidence in the polls that over
70 percent of the population - and a majority of Mitterrand's own elec-
torate in 1981 - favored the survival of a separate and subsidized sys-
tem of private schools, persuaded Mitterrand to cut his losses by
withdrawing the Savary Bill, then still before the Senate, and accepting
the resignation of Pierre Mauroy and his government. Jean-Pierre Chev-
enement, Alain Savary's replacement as Minister of Education, was given
one principal charge by the President: to restore calm (Chevenement, in-
terview with the author, 1986).
From one perspective, the withdrawal of the Savary Bill can be inter-
preted as a victory of "society," represented by Catholic education and
its supporters, over the "state." It is equally correct to interpret these
events until May 22, 1984, as exemplary of blockage of policy innova-
tion by conflict within the state. The turning point was the victory of
militant secularists in the National Assembly over the Minister of Educa-
tion. FranCois Mitterrand's campaign promises of 1981 were understood
very differently in different segments of the government. In keeping with
his own personal preferences and leadership style, Savary focused on the
President's commitment "to convince not compel," while militant
secularists assumed that a "secular and unified educational system" meant
simple absorption of private schools into the public system, in keeping
with the traditional slogan of the Left: "Public funds for public schools;
private funds for private schools." From a third perspective, this battle
was neither one purely between state and society nor one between ele-
ments of the state, but rather a struggle between coalitions each com-
posed of public and private actors, seeking support wherever it was
4 Savary, who is reluctant to criticize anyone, insists that Mauroy supported him loyally
until May 22, 1984. Pierre Daniel disagrees, pointing out that the Prime Minister repeat-
edly undercut Savary, for example in announcing the titularisation of 25,000 private
elementary school teachers. At the least, Mauroy, who is a former secretary-general
of a technical teachers union, appears to have been more of a laiciste engagi than Savary.
See Savary 1985: 24; and Daniel 1986: 158-59.
available. Having failed to control Savary, the secularist organiz

sought support elsewhere, notably in the Socialist party and its
tion in the National Assembly.
INTEGRATION OF THE GRANDES ECOLES WITH THE UNIVERSITIES
Compared with the private school issue, the struggle over the Socialist
party's oft-stated goal of integrating the grandes ecoles (great schools)
into the university system was far shorter and less dramatic, but no les
indicative of the ubiquity of intrastate conflicts over policy. One of th
unintended consequences of the rapid expansion of higher education
in France as elsewhere, was a decline in the prestige of most university
diplomas and an increase in the value of diplomas from the most selec-
tive schools, which in France are the grandes ecoles. The grandes ecoles
are a diverse group, including approximately 160 engineering schools,
60 business schools, and 80 others offering professional education in a
variety of fields (Magliulo 1982: 25). Slightly more than a third of them
are private, many under the jurisdiction of chambers of commerce, whi
the public schools operate under the control of a dozen different minis
tries. Many are modest engineering or business schools, while a few -
the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale d'Adminstration in par
ticular - train all high civil servants and a large portion of the nation's
business leadership (Suleiman 1978). What they have in common is the
power to select students on the basis of competitive examinations, a
power denied the universities, with rare exceptions.
Edgar Faure discovered the influence of the grandes ecoles lobby in
1968, when, in preparing his reform plan for higher education, he con-
sidered including all of those schools in the public sector, whether they
were controlled by the Ministry of Education or by other ministries. He
was forced to back off when administrators and supporters of the grandes
ecoles barraged the offices of the prime minister, the president, and the
various supervisory ministries with warnings that any movement toward
integration would threaten that sector of French higher education which
seemed to work best (De Chalendar 1970: 85).
Already in 1968 the Communist party was pressing for full integra-
tion of the grandes ecoles with the universities. The Common Program
to which the Socialist and Communist parties subscribed in 1972 called
for integration on grounds that the elitist grandes ecoles were fundamen-
tally undemocratic (Parti Socialiste 1972: 151). The Socialist party main-
tained that position in its education program of 1978 (Parti Socialiste
1978: 176-84). Although integration of the grandes ecoles was not one
of the ten propositions on education composed by candidate Mitterrand's
campaign staff in the Spring of 1981, and full integration was not pro-
posed by the socialist governments, Alain Savary did attempt to strengthen
linkages between the rival sectors of higher education. Soon after the Left
came to power, an eminent mathematician from the Ecole Polytechnique,
Laurent Schwartz, in a report commissioned by the government on the
state of French education, recommended that the grandes ecoles link their
research programs to those of the universities and subject themselves to

regular evaluation by a national body (Commission du Bilan 1981: 389,
392). When Alain Savary's initial proposals for reform of higher educa-
tion were presented, they included the creation of an Interministerial
Commission on National Titles and Diplomas, authorized to oversee
degrees granted by both universities and grandes ecoles.
This perceived threat to the autonomy and status of the grandes ecoles
set off a vigorous lobbying campaign by alumni associations (Reverchon
1986: 12). As in 1968, the many grandes ecoles graduates in high politi-
cal and administrative positions were strategically placed to warn that
any movement toward integration would risk contaminating their illus-
trious alma maters with the diseases of demoralization, mediocrity and
politicization which afflicted the universities. Socialists, even more than
Conservatives, it was argued, needed the first-class administrators which
only the grandes ecoles could produce. Ministries other than education
which supervised grandes ecoles rallied to the defense of their clients.
In the Savary Bill which emerged from the Council of Ministers in the
Spring of 1983, the Interministerial Commission on National Titles and
Diplomas had disappeared. On the floor of the National Assembly in late
May, in response to objections that the bill might be construed to allow
the Ministry of National Education to extend its regulations to grandes
ecoles under other ministries, Savary himself attempted to reassure the
critics by offering an amendment which provided that such action could
be taken only with the express approval of the council of the targeted
school. The final version of the Savary Law, passed in December 1983
and signed into law in January 1984, posed no threat to the autonomy
of the grandes ecoles. The only significant victory of those who sought
greater cooperation between the two sectors was the creation of narrow
passerelles, or foot-bridges, allowing a small number of university stu-
dents to seek late entry into certain grandes ecoles.
Few officials in this Socialist government would have objected to the
principle of democratization of higher education. When the principle was
interpreted to require diminution of the autonomy of the grandes ecoles,
the loyalties of graduates and the competing interests of ministries proved
stronger than campaign promises.
L'ECOLE UNIQUE
The development of the comprehensive middle school, beginning in

1959 and continuing into the 1980s, offers an example of incremental
decision-making by persistent government leadership, often against strong
resistance from teachers unions and the supporters of the traditional lyc-
ee, both inside and outside the government. Until the 1960s, most chil-
dren in France, as in Britain, were segregated at about age 11 into those
who would go to the lycees and then often on to higher education, and
those who would go to short-cycle, terminal education, ending normally
at age 14 or slightly later, sometimes after a short and highly applied voca-
tional course. Among reformers in the interwar years who denounced
this system as prejudicial to rural and working-class children, it was

Zay, the energetic Education Minister of the Popular Front, who laun
the slogan which came to symbolize the aspiration of the French Le
I'ecole unique, or the single school, encompassing children of all soci
classes.
The governments and parliaments of the Fourth Republic were
blocked on educational reform by the notorious weakness and internal
division of their governing coalitions, by conflict between elementary
and secondary teachers, by strategically placed defenders of the tradi-
tional lycee, and by the tendency of the church school question to over-
shadow all other education issues (Donegani and Sedoun 1975). The stable
parliamentary majorities of the Fifth Republic finally produced the polit-
ical energy to enact a number of the elements of the plan which had been
submitted by the Langevin-Wallon commission in 1947 (for an account
in English, Lewis 1985: ch. 2). The Debre Government made use of
delegated powers in 1959 to extend the school-leaving age to 16, to take
effect gradually over eight years, and to create a two-year "observation
cycle," with similar programs for 11-13 year-olds, in whatever type of
school they might be enrolled. When the elementary and secondary
departments of the Ministry of Education appeared to be obstacles to
greater integration at the middle school level, they were abolished in 1962
and replaced by "functional" departments, with a director general at the
top to facilitate policy innovation. In 1963, again by administrative ac-
tion, all programs for sixth to ninth graders, whether located in lycees
or in Colleges of General Instruction (CEG), were converted into Col-
leges of Secondary Instruction (CES), in the hope that making diverse pro-
grams available under one roof would facilitate movement upward,
particularly from the "short" modern course to the university-preparatory
modern course. In practice, once a pupil was assigned to a short course
at the end of the first semester of sixth grade, he or she very rarely was
able to climb into the university preparatory course, where the curricu-
lum was more theoretical in orientation. Mobility in the college was
primarily downward out of the academic courses.
The next major step toward the ecole unique at the middle school
level was taken by Edgar Faure who, as Minister of Education in 1968-69,
initiated a compulsory "common trunk" of courses for all pupils for the
full sixth grade. He also planned for the delay of Latin instruction from
the sixth until the eighth grade in hopes of eliminating one barrier to up-
ward transfers (Faure 1971: 146-48).
At each of these steps, the government had to overcome strong op-
position not only from teachers and administrators who had vested in-
terests in the old structures, but also from these numerous defenders of
the traditional lycee who, whatever their political persuasion, believed
that delay in the teaching of Latin foretold the collapse of French civili-
zation.5 The biggest battle for the ecole unique occurred in 1975 when,
5 Faure's successor at the Ministry of National Education, Olivier Guichard, who was left
to implement the delay of Latin instruction, complained that, like most curriculum
changes, it had set off "a war of religion." Le Monde, December 3, 1969.
ironically, a conservative government ordered the gradual elimination

of ability tracks in the sixth through the ninth grades, against the bitter
opposition of the Left and almost the whole of the educational establish-
ment. Determined to establish his mark as a reformer, President Giscard
d'Estaing informed Rene Haby, whom he picked from the ranks of rec-
tors of geographical academies to be his education minister, that he ex-
pected a broad and democratic reform proposal (Giscard 1976: 66-67,
and Haby 1981: 92-93). Haby had helped draft plans for the transition
classes in the colleges in 1963 and had personal doubts about the worka-
bility of heterogeneous classes, doubts which he had expressed with re-
spect to a proposal of his predecessor, Joseph Fontanet. Haby believed,
however, that there was a "powerful wave of opinion which more and
more refused segregation; and a 'Giscardien' minister cannot in this do-
main retreat from the ideas of a preceding government" (Haby 1981: 93).6
Hence Haby proposed and both President Giscard d'Estaing and Prime
Minister Jacques Chirac supported an omnibus education bill which in-
cluded elimination of all ability tracking in the collWges, beginning with
the sixth grade (the 6e) in 1977.
The reaction of organized groups in education was overwhelmingly
hostile. Shrill warnings of worsened conditions for both pupils and
teachers were sounded by teachers unions of the Left and of the Right,
by the two largest parents associations, and by thousands of marching
lycee students (LM, February 20 and 28, 1975; Haby 1981: 112; L 'Express,
March 17, 1975). Haby and his mentor found themselves opposed on the
left flank by the parties and groups which might have been expected to
support democratization of education. That opposition was based on at
least three considerations. First, the Left objected that intended funding
levels were altogether inadequate to provide the staff and training neces-
sary to make heterogeneous grouping work. Second, after seventeen years
of rule by the Gaullists and their allies, the parties and unions of the Left
reacted negatively to virtually every government initiative. Last, teacher
unions of the Left - especially those at the secondary level - were am-
bivalent about changes which might threaten the status and increase the
workload of their members. As so often in the past, the FEN called for
a global reform on the lines of Langevin-Wallon, while rejecting all par-
tial steps in that direction. Haby faced attack not only from the Left but
also from conservatives like Raymond Aron, who feared that in this case
equality would produce mediocrity (Aron 1975, and reply in Haby 1981:
1 10-11). The secretary-general of the academically conservative Societe
des Agreges warned that "general cultural education at the secondary level
is condemned to death if Mr. Haby's plan is finally adopted. . ." (Le
Monde, February 28, 1975). The most conservative of the secondary
teachers unions, the National Union of Lycees and Colleges (SNALC),
characterized the Haby plan as inspired by Communist party doctrine
(Haby 1981: 112). If public opinion was indeed favorable to a reform of
6 Haby told me in an interview on May 12, 1986 that the decision to eliminate tracking
in the colleges "was primarily a political decision."
this sort, as Haby and Giscard believed, it was not expressed by o

groups.
The government considered withdrawing the Haby Bill when it met
intense opposition in April (Haby, interview with the author, 1986). In
June of 1975, with students busy preparing for examinations and sum-
mer vacation, the government revived the bill and with Giscard and Jac-
ques Chirac behind it, succeeded in mobilizing the majority parties to
push the measure through Parliament. In a vigorous debate in the Na-
tional Assembly, Jacques Chambaz of the Communist party expressed
what appeared to be the sentiment of the Left as a whole: "In effect, as
long as its lasts, your regime will compromise the cultural role and what
you call the social role of the school. (Applause on the Communist, So-
cialist and Left Radical benches.) For an exploitative society, mutilated
education" (J.O., Ass. Natl., Deb. June 17, 1975: 4294).
The law passed, but could it be implemented? Meeting in its national
congress in early July, the SNI issued this warning: ". .. the SNI will never
accept the Haby reform of the educational system and will fight it until
it has been totally repealed" (Le Figaro, July 8, 1975). SNI's hostility was
partially assuaged by a promise from prime minister Raymond Barre to
reappoint all auxiliary elementary teachers and to create 3,000 new teach-
ing positions. The SNES, representing certified secondary teachers whose
hostility to the "primarization" of the college was much greater than that
of elementary teachers and uncertified college teachers (the P.E.G.C.),
accused the SNI of having sold out and of having abandoned the fight
(Jacquet 1981: 10). A report by an inspector general of education con-
cluded that three years after the Haby Law went into effect, still only
30 percent of colleges were offering "support" classes in the way intended
by the Law (Binon 1983: 261-63). The emergence of informal ability
groups in colleges across the country is evidence of the difficulty which
an innovating government faces at the implementation stage when con-
fronted by hostile unions and skeptical teachers. In some colleges, the
principal simply grouped together all children coming from a high qual-
ity elementary school. In other cases, ability grouping began after the sixth
grade as the word spread among parents that better students were choos-
ing a particular optional course, often a language considered difficult.
Those pupils then would be grouped together for all courses. However
dedicated the department heads in Paris (and they were carefully picked
by Haby), the Ministry was powerless to prevent informal ability group-
ing when teachers, principals and sometimes inspectors conspired to con-
ceal the practice. An Inspectorate General report in 1980 indicated that
no more than 60 percent of sixth graders were in genuinely heterogene-
ous classes, considerably fewer in the seventh grade, and virtually none
in the eighth grade (Binon 1983: 261-63).
The Haby Law was indeed implemented in the sense that the sepa-
rate and virtually impermeable curricula within the college have been abol-
ished. There also are enough anguished cries from teachers to indicate
that more children are being taught in mixed ability classes than ever be-
fore. When the Left came to power in 1981, it abandoned earlier threats
to repeal the law and set about revising it instead. One of the revisions
decided upon by Alain Savary and implemented by his successor, Jean-
Pierre Chevenement, was the introduction of "differentiated teaching
methods" for different "level groups" within the same large class, i.e.,
reintroduction of flexible and presumably temporary ability groupings,
similar to what Haby himself might have introduced had he remained
as Education Minister (Legrand 1982: Part 3; and Haby, interview with
the author, 1986). The Left also vastly increased expenditures for retrain-
ing programs to prepare teachers to deal with mixed ability classes, a prob-
lem which it earlier had faulted the Giscard governments for failing to
address.
The emergence of the new college is an example of incremental chan
under the impetus of governments which were forced to mobilize the
political strength in order to overcome vested interests. In the long ter
it may well be true that the needs of the job market and the growing public
thirst for education condemned the traditional pattern of early and defi
tive selection. In the short term, there is no doubt that the best organi
and most articulate political forces (teachers, parents, parties of the Le
and traditionalist intellectuals) were overwhelmingly opposed to gover
ment action at each step along the way to the ecole unique. In this sen
government prevailed over powerful conservative forces both inside t
"state" and beyond. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the agenda of middl
school reform changed remarkably little, even after the Left came to
power in 1981. Like problem solvers confronted with the same puzzle,
Ministers of Education repeatedly came back to similar strategies, rev
ing the middle school again and again to meet problems as they arose.
Within the Ministry of National Education, ministers found that a po
tion of the high bureaucracy was eager for reform and ready with cu
boards full of reports and proposals. Beneath the bitter ideologica
confrontation between parties of the Left and Right on education, on
finds considerable agreement among governments once in office with r
spect to the economic and democratice rationale for extending equalit
of opportunity in education. It is not suprising that similar problems a
similar objectives led to similar policies, even though those policies su
sequently produced less equality than expected (Anderson 1978; Prost
1986).
These case studies show that control over education policy is broad
shared, with popular demand for education and needs of the economy
forcing the general direction of change, elected officials, when they ca
agree, taking the initiative for specific innovations, and teachers unio
delaying and often reshaping policy, particularly at the implementati
stage. All of our designated actors play a role, depending on the is
and the breadth and intensity of preferences.
French education has been described by Michel Crozier as a prime
example of a "blocked society," and by others as an example of chroni
"reformitus" (Crozier 1973). Both views are partially correct. Conser-
vative forces have not prevented the transformation from elite to m
education at the secondary level and beyond. In attempting to adapt edu
cation to rapidly increasing demand and a changing job market, the M

try of National Education and the government have tinkered repeate
with curriculum, teaching methods, and university organization. And
a series of ministers failed to impose new policies in areas where ves
interests are strongly entrenched and important actors hostile to th
government. The grandes ecoles have been invulnerable. Any suggest
of imposing university entrance requirements beyond the bac has set
massive student strikes and demonstrations, from 1968 through 198
The government often has enacted new policy - multidisciplinary pr
grams for the universities in 1968 and abolition of ability tracking in
colleges in 1975, for example - which it then has been unable to
implement.
THE LIMITED UTILITY OF STATE AUTONOMY MODELS
Endowed with a highly centralized bureaucracy supported by a st

ble parliamentary majority, heir to a long tradition of etatisme, the
ister of Education of the French Fifth Republic would appear to be
placed to shape policy in his domain. And yet the evidence for state
tonomy in French education is slim. In the case of grandes ecoles, co
flict within the state blocked policy innovation. On the private scho
issue, two public-private coalitions confronted one another, with th
government finally being forced to abandon even its modest plans f
integration. We have discerned a potential for government initiativ
the law-making stage, even against strong resistance, when elected lea
are united and persistent, as was the case in the passage of the Faure
Haby Laws. One finds glimmers of state autonomy in the whole his
of middle school reform, although the options available to minister
education were severely constrained by social and economic forces. F
with similar problems and pursuing similar objectives in the 1960s a
1970s, policy-makers in Britain, Sweden and to a lesser extent elsew
in Europe moved toward comprehensive middle and secondary schoo
similar to the French college. Here one finds support for the "policy
tor" approach to comparative policy analysis (Freeman 1985; Page 19
Richardson 1982).
French education policy in general is not easily fitted into Nordling
state versus society model. The distinction between state preferences
societal preferences is blurred by the frequent emergence of compe
coalitions, each composed of elements from both sides of the state-soc
divide. Preferences which are "outweighed" at one decision point oft
re-emerge to frustrate formal government policies at the implementa
stage, where the constellation of forces is different.
The primary problem with Nordlinger's model is its neglect of inst
tional constraints and intrastate conflict. The highly centralized struc
of French public education has created a heavy and inherently conse
tive bureaucratic machine and has fostered the development of cent
ized and politicized teachers unions. Not long after his resignatio
Minister of Education, Alain Savary commented on the teachers uni
lack of comprehension of his proposals for limited decentralization: "It

is very understandable: more independent schools would force an im-
portant change on the unions, for their hierarchy of power reproduces
exactly the centralization of the state" (Savary 1984: 9). The centralized
structure of the Ministry of Education had a similar effect on Catholic
education, which was decentralized until increasing dependence on state
subsidies forced it to adopt a centralized structure capable of defending
its interests. There is nothing novel in the finding that interest groups
tend to replicate the power structure of the government which they seek
to influence (e.g.,Eckstein 1960).
As Margaret Archer and others have argued, centralization has the ef-
fect of inhibiting change from within, of politicizing all issues, and of
forcing governments to mobilize external political support in order to
impose change (Archer 1979: Duclaud-Williams 1982). If the government
is divided, as it was over the Savary Bill on private schools and over closer
integration of the grandes ecoles with the universities, or if it cannot sus-
tain political pressure at the implementation stage, it usually will fail.
Students of the policy process in the United States long have been
aware that policy battles often pit one coalition of public and private clai-
mants against others. The centralization of French education does not
prevent such intrastate battles. On the contrary, it created the army of
civil servant teachers whose unions, predominantly leftist in orientation,
repeatedly resisted government initiatives in the 1960s and 1970s on the
grounds that public education was being sold out to the Church and to
capitalist interests. In the case of relations between the grandes ecoles
and the universities, the decisive battle was fought out between minis-
tries. In the case of the Savary Bill on private schools, Socialist back-
benchers doomed the reform to defeat with their amendments. In all of
the cases considered, as in the great majority of important educatio
policy decisions, the Nordlinger model, with its insistence on identify
ing the dominant preference of "the state" as opposed to that of "soci-
ety," is oversimplified. On occasion the government leads more than it
reacts. To describe it as autonomous, at least in the case of French edu-
cation, is misleading.
It would not be surprising to find more evidence of state autonomy
in foreign policy, where interest groups may be less plentiful and the con
cept of the national interest somewhat less problematic (Nettl 196
563-64; Krasner 1978). It is no coincidence that among fields of empiri
cal research in American political science, it is in international relation
that the concept of the state has been used most commonly. A number
of accounts of postwar French economic policy stress the role of polit
cal authorities in hastening the modernization of a backward economy
(Shonfield 1965; Kuisel 1981; Hayward, 1986; Hall 1986). In one particu-
larly suggestive account, Peter Hall attributes the relative success of French
political authorities, as compared to their British counterparts, to cer-
tain structural features of the government, the economy and society.
Among these were weak unions, industries dependent on state support
and a planning mechanism which encouraged businessmen to support
the government's broad strategy for industrial development (Hall 19

261-68, 279).The resocialization aspect of the French planning pro
offers an example of Nordlinger's "Type II" state autonomy, whe
the state succeeds in changing divergent societal preferences (Hall 19
279). The influence was not exclusively one way, however, for the p
ning process required state agencies to adopt a more interactive s
(Crozier 1965 and 1966; Cahiers de la F.N.S.P. 1965). In both forei
and economic policy, the state's autonomy is of course severely circu
scribed by other nations and international markets, as the Mitterran
governments quickly learned.
Scholars like Eric Nordlinger, Stephen Krasner and Theda Skocpol
who call for "Bringing the State Back In" (Skocpol 1985) are clearly c
rect in asserting that democratic public authorities do more than sim
reflect the preferences of private groups. The French policy experie
suggests that these authorities may be most successful in imposing th
policy agenda and objectives under three circumstances: (1) when the
is agreement among the most relevant and powerful government inst
tions; (2) when a policy is pursued consistently over time; and (3) wh
the opposition in society is weak or divided.
In order to pursue an understanding of the conditions of public lead
ship, it is neither necessary nor advisable to replace society-cent
models with a model which is biased toward the autonomy of politic
authorities, and which rests on the illusive concept of the state. In sh
the answer to the deficiencies of society-centered models is not a st
centered model. To be sure, it is highly unlikely that political scient
in those European countries with a strong statist tradition will cease
ing the concept. Indeed in many of these countries the alternative ter
government, refers only to the current prime minister and his cabi
American students of countries like France would ignore at their pe
the importance of the state as a component of European political cul
tures. Yet as an analytical concept the state may be beyond salvation
Those who use it, in America and in Europe, often have different se
of institutions in mind. More importantly, it is exceedingly difficu
talk in terms of the policy preferences of "the state" without imply
that, like Louis XIV at the peak of his power, there is a single, know
actor exercising his will. French education in the postwar period sup
ports the view that the democratic policy process cannot be underst
without attention to competing public authorities, each allied with a c
lition of like-minded private organizations and actors.
The most promising path toward an integrating concept for analy
of the democratic policy process probably does not lead to a Euro
notion of the state, but rather back to the refining and redefinition
a presently unfashionable concept, the political system (Easton 1981)
Shorn of any assumption of a unidirectional flow of inputs from soci
adjusted to recognize that system maintenance is not the invariable
(or outcome), refitted to deal seriously with the impact of institutio
systems theory still would appear to be suitable for capturing the p
found interdependence of political authorities and society. The longst
ing skepticism in Britain and America about the use of the concept of
the state as a tool for political analysis no doubt is rooted partially in the
weakness of the state tradition in these countries. Nonetheless, that skep-
ticism is not unjustified.
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Western Political Science Association

French Education and the Limits of State Autonomy

IN another of those pendulum swings so familiar to observ

Received: March 26, 1987

CONCEPTIONS OF STATE AUTONOMY: NORDLINGER AND HIS CRITICS

The state-centered literature shares a common focus on the impor

which is not fully justified in that Nordlinger, like Skocpol and un

ACTORS AND ISSUES

The extent of state autonomy in French education and the utility of

and, on occasion, masses of demonstrators in the streets. Perhaps the most

The FEN is a vigorous and effective defender of the rights an

THE SAVARY BILL ON PRIVATE SCHOOLS

From the perspective of public school teachers unions and party ac

in Pierre Daniel, president of the largest private school parents asso

always conceived it, endorsed the Laignel amendments.4 President Mit-

available. Having failed to control Savary, the secularist organiz

INTEGRATION OF THE GRANDES ECOLES WITH THE UNIVERSITIES

research programs to those of the universities and subject themselves to

The development of the comprehensive middle school, beginning in

this system as prejudicial to rural and working-class children, it was

ironically, a conservative government ordered the gradual elimination

this sort, as Haby and Giscard believed, it was not expressed by o

cation to rapidly increasing demand and a changing job market, the M

THE LIMITED UTILITY OF STATE AUTONOMY MODELS

Endowed with a highly centralized bureaucracy supported by a st

lack of comprehension of his proposals for limited decentralization: "It

the government's broad strategy for industrial development (Hall 19

Ambler, John S. 1985. "Neocorporatism and the Politics of French Education."

Closets, Francis de. 1983. Toujours Plus. Paris: Grasset.

Dyson, Kenneth M. F. 1980. The State Tradition in Western Europe. New Yo

Nordlinger, Eric. 1981. On the Autonomy of the Democratic State. Cambridge,

.1978. Liberer l'Ecole: Plan Socialiste pour l'Education Natonale. Paris:

Prost, Antoine. 1986. L'Ensignement s'est-il democratise? Paris: Presses Unive

Richardson, Jeremy. 1982. "Convergent Policy Styles in Europe?" InJ.

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