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Subcultural Persistence and Political Cleavage in the Third French Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

David E. Sumler
David E. Sumler
Affiliation:
State Board for Higher Education, Maryland
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Extract

The theories which have been offered to explain the governmental instability and persistent political fragmentation of the Third Republic have been of two basic types. Either specific institutional structures have been blamed, or the French national character has been cited. Often-mentioned institutional weaknesses have included the multi-party system, the dominance of the legislative branch, the independent and authoritarian civil service, the various electoral systems tried–especially the two-ballot system and proportional representation–and so on. Aspects of political culture which are said to have contributed to instability and ineffective government include an innate distrust of leaders, the avoidance of face-to-face confrontation and compromise, the lack of a training for democracy in voluntary associations, and an authoritarian educational system. The common element in all of these explanations is that they begin at the top; they see France as a uniform society with “average” ways of doing things. That is, these explanations assume that the explanation to instability and fragmentation can be found at the national level by studying the aggregate characteristics of French men and women or by analyzing the political institutions of the nation-state.

Type
Social Structure and Politics in Two Modern Societies
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , October 1977 , pp. 431 - 453
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1977

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References

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