Lawyers, Judges, and the Obstinate State: The French Case and an Agenda for Comparative Politics

08 September 2020, Version 1
This content is an early or alternative research output and has not been peer-reviewed at the time of posting.

Abstract

In the field of comparative politics, France is often taken to exemplify the resilience of the centralized modern state. Stanley Hoffmann popularized this thesis by highlighting the French state's "obstinacy" despite postwar reform efforts. This article revisits Hoffmann's obstinate state thesis by tracing how lawyers and judges shaped French political development. I demonstrate that continuity in French officials' claims to centralized power belie a deeper story of how legal actors catalyze institutional change in unlikely places: In civil law countries without a history of judicial review, in authoritarian regimes without regard for judicial independence, and in seemingly monolithic states without much room for democratic self-governance. These findings compel a comparative research agenda placing lawyers and judges at the center of the study of political development.

Keywords

political development
governance
political liberalism
judicial politics
legal mobilization
European integration
institutional change
French politics

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