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Path dependence and chance steered towards a focus on French politics. After a doctoral thesis on the concept of solidarity in nineteenth-century political thought, my research acquired a political economy emphasis. It broadened out from France and implicit comparison to West European explicit comparison, culminating in a professorship at Oxford University to promote European postgraduate political studies in 1993 until my retirement in 1998, when I returned to Hull University as a Research Professor. Collaboration was a crucial part of comparative work, whose findings were tested by an in-depth knowledge of France.

Sartori, G. (2005) Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis. Colchester: ECPR Press. Parry, G. (2005) Political Elites. Colchester: ECPR Press. Lukes, S. (2006) Individualism. Colchester: ECPR Press. Kaplan, M. A. (2005) System and Process in International Politics. Colchester: ECPR Press.

The Fifth Republic sought to overcome the previously excessive subordination of government to parliament by constitutionally imposed procedural rules in the anticipated absence of stable parliamentary majorities. Despite their existence, governments have used the package vote, control over amendments and the rules governing oral and written questions to ministers to avoid parliament enforcing ministerial accountability. The government's stringent control of the budgetary process has led to the ambitious 2001 procedural reassertion of National Assembly financial control, which is gradually coming into operation by 2006. Parliament has been playing an increasing role in European Union legislation.

The reluctance of British political science to continue an earlier comparative politics tradition did not deter Gordon Smith from steering a path between a predominant false particularisation and a minority push towards false universalism. A comparison of the first and fifth editions of Politics in Western Europe shows the continuing thrust of a political sociology approach, with political and social structures and forces having priority over constitutional and institutional provisions. Unapologetically 'old-fashioned' in eschewing law-like generalisations, comparison's prime purpose is to improve our understanding of individual countries: in Gordon Smith's case, it started and finished with Germany.

Avant la commission Delors, l’Union europeenne reglementait de facon minimale la politique sociale car les gouvernements des Etats membres consideraient leurs Etats-providence comme des elements essentiels de la cohesion nationale. Les Etats membres ont ensuite agi de facons diverses pour eviter de mettre en œuvre les reglementations europeennes et ont egalement utilise leur influence au sein du Conseil pour les bloquer ou les modifier en amont. La Cour de justice de l’Union est parvenue a instaurer une certaine uniformite des reglements de la politique sociale. Entre les « partenaires sociaux », un recours accru a la marcheisation, a la dereglementation et a l’autoregulation a favorise les employeurs et les contribuables au detriment des salaries et des citoyens en general. L’austerite financiere imposee a entraine une precarisation variable des services de sante et de retraite dans les differents pays.

L’antiliberalisme est profondement enracine dans la culture politique francaise, a droite comme a gauche. Alors que la politique economique s’est eloignee des principes affiches, passant de la planification nationale a une acceptation honteuse du marche et de la privatisation, les partisans a gauche d’un socialisme liberalise ont ete incapables de convaincre le Parti socialiste. A droite, des tentatives peu convaincues de reformer le modele social francais ont ete suivies par une therapie de choc qui s’est rapidement heurtee a une resistance entrainant une retraite tactique desordonnee. Une politique au coup par coup d’intervention de l’Etat, motivee par le patriotisme economique, persiste.

This article assesses the meaning of corporatism and asks whether this state form is likely to be successfully implemented in Britain and France. Concentrating on the period after 1970, the authors argue that the role of the trade unions, along with the financial and business sectors, can act as a constraint on the successful implementation of this solution to the problems facing advanced capitalist economies. It is contended that both weak and fragmented trade unions (as in France), as well as defensively strong but undisciplined and fragmented trade unions (as in Britain), can undermine the search for corporatist solu tions. The logic of this argument is then clear: There are severe intra-class obstacles to the successful implementation of corporatism. Neither Britain nor France possesses the disciplined or hierarchically structured trade unions that are necessary for the successful institutionalization of corporatism.

The concern with immobilism or stalemate in France and Britain is analysed in terms of the concept of institutional inertia, defined as structural overinstitutionalisation and processual pluralism and incrementalism. Examples from economic policy indicate that French governments, relying principally on the techno-bureaucracy, have a greater innovative capacity than British governments, relying primarily on the major interest groups. That this is so even when the French governments are Right-wing and the British governments are Left-wing suggests the operation of culturally-based dominant values that inhibit or preclude some kinds of government action and favour others. Though the political factor may not be of decisive importance in determining whether a country experiences economic “success”, it is pivotal in explaining how countries cope with economic “failure”. A comparison between the relative capacity of France and Britain to mobilise consent and to overcome dissent indicates that French etatisme has worked more successfully than British tripartite power sharing between government, business and labour organisations. A reforming impetus coming from a French government is less likely to be impeded and more likely to be furthered by interest groups (pressured rather than pressure groups) than is the case in Britain. The culturally-determined addiction to crisis-avoidance characteristic of Britain has prevented the emergence of “new men” and encouraged a foredoomed reliance on salvation through attempted imitations of French institutions such as national planning or the ENA.