THE FRENCH PRESIDENCY: CONCEPTUALIZING PRESIDENTIAL POWER IN THE FIFTH REPUBLIC.

This article introduces an English-speaking audiences to the two existing explanations of presidential power. It also proposes an alternative explanation drawn from the recent literature of new institutionalism. An institutional explanation combines the strengths of the two existing approaches and provides a future research agenda for the study of presidential power in France. One of the main task of those who study French politics has been to understand both why the system became presidentialized in the period after 1958 and why it was transformed in the mid-1980s. The state power thesis contends that, throughout the Fifth Republic, the source of presidential power is to be found in structural factors and not in the presence of a favorable parliamentary majority. It follows that presidential power has been a constant feature of the Fifth Republic.