In this volume, distinguished French and U.S. historians, economists, and political scientists explore the dimensions of France's current crisis of identity. Although every European nation has been adjusting to the dramatic transformations on the continent since the end of the Cold War, France's struggle to adapt has been particularly difficult. Responding to a mix of external and internal pressures, the nation is now questioning many basic assumptions about how France should be governed, what the objectives of national policies should be, and ultimately what it means to be French. Rather than focusing explicitly on the problem of identity, the contributors offer differing perspectives on the issues at the heart of the country's debate about its future. They begin by examining how France's historical legacy has influenced the way the nation confronts contemporary problems, giving special attention to the manner in which past traumatic experiences, socioeconomic and cultural traditions, and the belief in French exceptionalism have shaped current political thinking. They then consider how favoring a more open approach to trade and building a strong franc have changed the culture of economic policy and created dilemmas for the rule of the state as a guarantor of welfare. They go on to explore changes in elite structures, the evolution of the party system, and the spillover of new political conditions that are driving France's efforts to establish a strong national identity in the area of trade. Finally, the contributors examine the central influence of the changing international framework on France's self-definition, on its security policies, its relationship to the European Union, and its basic perceptions of the state and sovereignty. They also consider how the answers to these questions are affecting France's relationships with the outside world and the overriding policy dilemmas faced by all the European nations.

In this volume, distinguished French and U.S. historians, economists, and political scientists explore the dimensions of France's current crisis of identity. Although every European nation has been adjusting to the dramatic transformations on the continent since the end of the Cold War, France's struggle to adapt has been particularly difficult. Responding to a mix of external and internal pressures, the nation is now questioning many basic assumptions about how France should be governed, what the objectives of national policies should be, and ultimately what it means to be French. Rather than focusing explicitly on the problem of identity, the contributors offer differing perspectives on the issues at the heart of the country's debate about its future. They begin by examining how France's historical legacy has influenced the way the nation confronts contemporary problems, giving special attention to the manner in which past traumatic experiences, socioeconomic and cultural traditions, and the belief in French exceptionalism have shaped current political thinking. They then consider how favoring a more open approach to trade and building a strong franc have changed the culture of economic policy and created dilemmas for the rule of the state as a guarantor of welfare. They go on to explore changes in elite structures, the evolution of the party system, and the spillover of new political conditions that are driving France's efforts to establish a strong national identity in the area of trade. Finally, the contributors examine the central influence of the changing international framework on France's self-definition, on its security policies, its relationship to the European Union, and its basic perceptions of the state and sovereignty. They also consider how the answers to these questions are affecting France's relationships with the outside world and the overriding policy dilemmas faced by all the European nations.

A collection of writings by French and American historians, economists and political scientists which explores various aspects of France's crisis of identity in post-Cold War Europe. The contributors offer differing perspectives on the issues at the heart of the country's debate about its future.

A major new study of the ancient roots of nationalism and its enduring power in the modern world.

How the French have used American culture to define a unique modern identity There are over 1,000 McDonald's on French soil. Two Disney theme parks have opened near Paris in the last two decades. And American-inspired vocabulary such as "le weekend" has been absorbed into the French language. But as former French president Jacques Chirac put it: "The U.S. finds France unbearably pretentious. And we find the U.S. unbearably hegemonic." Are the French fascinated or threatened by America? They Americanize yet are notorious for expressions of anti-Americanism. From McDonald's and Coca-Cola to free markets and foreign policy, this book looks closely at the conflicts and contradictions of France's relationship to American politics and culture. Richard Kuisel shows how the French have used America as both yardstick and foil to measure their own distinct national identity. They ask: how can we be modern like the Americans without becoming like them? France has charted its own path: it has welcomed America's products but rejected American policies; assailed America's "jungle capitalism" while liberalizing its own economy; attacked "Reaganomics'" while defending French social security; and protected French cinema, television, food, and language even while ingesting American pop culture. Kuisel examines France's role as an independent ally of the United States—in the reunification of Germany and in military involvement in the Persian Gulf and Bosnia—but he also considers the country's failures in influencing the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. Whether investigating France's successful information technology sector or its spurning of American expertise during the AIDS epidemic, Kuisel asks if this insistence on a French way represents a growing distance between Europe and the United States or a reaction to American globalization. Exploring cultural trends, values, public opinion, and political reality, The French Way delves into the complex relationship between two modern nations.

The so-called culture industries—film, television and radio broadcasting, periodical and book publishing, video and sound recording—are noteworthy exceptions to the rhetorical commitment of Western countries to free trade as a major goal. These exceptions threatened to derail such high-profile negotiations as NAFTA and its predecessor, the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, as well as the Uruguay Round of the GATT. Conventional wisdom did not foresee trouble from this source, because these established industries are not commercial national champions, nor are they particularly large providers of jobs. As Patricia M. Goff shows, the standard trade literature considers the monetary value but doesn't recognize the symbolic importance of cultural production. In Limits to Liberalization, she traces the interplay between the commercial and the cultural. Governments that want to expand free trade may simultaneously resist liberalization in the culture industries (and elsewhere, including agriculture and health care). Goff traces the rationale for "cultural protectionism" in the trade policies of Canada, France, and the European Union. The result is a larger understanding of the forces that shape international trade agreements and a book that speaks to current theoretical concerns about national identity as it plays out in politics and international relations.

This book analyzes public debt from a political, historical, and global perspective. It demonstrates that public debt has been a defining feature in the construction of modern states, a main driver in the history of capitalism, and a potent geopolitical force. From revolutionary crisis to empire and the rise and fall of a post-war world order, the problem of debt has never been the sole purview of closed economic circles. This book offers a key to understanding the centrality of public debt today by revealing that political problems of public debt have and will continue to need a political response. Today’s tendency to consider public debt as a source of fragility or economic inefficiency misses the fact that, since the eighteenth century, public debts and capital markets have on many occasions been used by states to enforce their sovereignty and build their institutions, especially in times of war. It is nonetheless striking to observe that certain solutions that were used in the past to smooth out public debt crises (inflation, default, cancellation, or capital controls) were left out of the political framing of the recent crisis, therefore revealing how the balance of power between bondholders, taxpayers, pensioners, and wage-earners has evolved over the past 40 years. Today, as the Covid-19 pandemic opens up a dramatic new crisis, reconnecting the history of capitalism and that of democracy seems one of the most urgent intellectual and political tasks of our time. This global political history of public debt is a contribution to this debate and will be of interest to financial, economic, and political historians and researchers. Chapters 13 and 19 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The current cultural climate in France is often described as one of &“d&éclinisme&” or &“sinistrose,&” a mixture of pessimism about the national future, nostalgia for the past, and a sinister sense of irreversible decline concerning the present. The notion of &“democratic melancholia&” has become widely popular, cropping up time and again in academic papers and newspaper articles. In Melancholy Politics, Jean-Philippe Mathy examines the development of this disenchanted mood in the works of prominent French philosophers, historians, and sociologists since the beginning of the 1980s. This period represents a significant turning point in French intellectual life, as the legacy of major postwar and sixties theorists such as L&évi-Strauss, Derrida, and Foucault was increasingly challenged by a younger generation of authors who repudiated both Marxism and structuralism. The book is not a classic intellectual or cultural history of post-1968 France, but rather a contribution to the understanding of the present&—a collection of soundings into what remains largely a complex, ongoing process.

The contributions to the volume present a challenge to conventional views on the extent and scope of globalization as well as to predictions of the imminent disappearance of the nation state's leverage over the economy.

This book i sone of two volumes in which leading scholars examine the way in which EU member states co-ordinate their European policies. Eschewing the 'Europeanisation' problematic within which the issue is usually adressed, this book adopts a broader, more inclusive approach. It examines domestic processes and investigates co-ordination in ten member states - Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom - looking at co-ordinating ambitions, the actors involved in EU policy making, and the structures and processes by which policy is made. From a comparative perspective, the book identifies and assesses the impact of the influiences that have shaped systems of national co-ordination - the demands exerted by Union membership, the instituional structure of the national polity, the pre-existing balance between domestic institutions, administrative norms and values, and attitudes, both popular and elite, the European integration. It assesses the extent to which there has been a convergent response to the administrative challenges posed by membership on the part of the member states or whether a pattern of divergence emerges. The effectiveness of member states in influencing policy outcomes at the European level is also addressed. The companion volume answers similar questions about national administrations in Brussels. Looking at twelve member states, it is the first systematic examination of the role played by Permanent Representations in national EU policy making.