Politicising and depoliticising metropolitan governance in France: the case of Bordeaux Métropole

Abstract

ABSTRACT The institutions of metropolitan governance have often been analysed as emblematic cases of depoliticisation mechanisms at play in contemporary political systems. Based on the French case, and more specifically on an analysis of metropolitan governance in Bordeaux, this article puts forward two types of proposals that nuance and refine this diagnosis of depoliticisation. First, it challenges the idea of an inexorable and linear trend towards depoliticisation. The processes and strategies of depoliticisation are inextricably linked to parallel processes and strategies of politicisation. It is far from certain that the logic of depoliticisation always prevails. The article, therefore, argues for a ‘symmetrical’ and ‘dialectical’ reading of these processes. Second, it proposes a reading that distinguishes between two distinct but complementary dimensions of the processes of de/politicisation: the de/politicisation of the metropolitan institution as a political space, on the one hand, and the de/politicisation of the metropolitan bureaucracy, on the other.