Environmental policy and neo‐corporatism in France

Abstract

In France, neo‐corporatism has characterised and shaped core components of environmental policy. The argument is made that environmental policy‐making has suffered from implementation deficits, partly because of a lack of resources, technical responses and administrative capacity, but also because of socio‐economic obstacles embedded within long‐standing systems of interest representation. Through case studies of nature protection and the hunt lobby, industrial pollution control, and water management, the meso‐corporatist model is used to elucidate early patterns of interaction between public administration and socio‐economic actors, identify the recent problems associated with exiting from these societal arrangements, and help assess some of the environmental consequences.