Frank L. Wilson

French Interest Group Politics: Pluralist or Neocorporatist?

Although France is not among those countries most frequently cited as examples of the trend toward corporatism, some observers have seen evidence of corporatist patterns of interest group-government contacts. Others assert that French groups have a distinctive protest form of action, and still others see France as a preserve of traditional pluralism. Interviews with 99 French interest group leaders in 1979 suggest that the pluralist model most accurately describes the actions reported by these leaders. Although the group leaders described some corporatist activities, such as participation in statutory commissions, and indicated a willingness to engage in protest, the most common actions were those more consistent with pluralism: personal contacts with government officials and lobbying. These activities were also the forms judged to be most effective in influencing policy, although the overall impression was of a political system in which organized interests had relatively limited impact.

Interest‐group politics in France and Ireland: Comparative perspectives on neo‐corporation

An examination of a range of interest‐groups in France and Ireland shows that there are numerous types of involvement in decision‐making processes and that groups display considerable differences in priorities and strategies both as between groups and over time. The nature of governmental response also varies in a similar fashion. The findings are interpreted against neo‐corporatist theory and its variants of sectoral and meso‐corpor‐atism. The conclusion is that neither corporatist nor pluralist models properly fit the situation of the two countries and that an adequate theory will have to take into account both modes of explanation as well as allowing for the volatility and evolutionary potential of interest‐group behaviour.

Teaching Comparative Politics in the 1990s

experience in adapting Western democracy to a non-Western setting. A survey of comparative politics scholars in 1988 found strong support for including Japan in the introductory courses in comparative politics (Editors Note in Pempel et al. 1992), but in practice Japan is rarely covered. While Germany is more frequently included than Japan, an argument can easily be made that its political experience too should be included more often in our

Political Science 200: Politics and Governance.

An equally important goal is to develop your skills in critical thinking and in expressing your views effectively in written form. These are skills that we hope liberal arts students will develop and use throughout their lives. Another important objective of this course is to develop an analytic perspective. That means, you should leav with an understanding that there are commonalities among countries, processes, people, behavior, and institutions. Those commonalities are based on observations and