The Cumul des Mandats in Contemporary French Politics: An Empirical Study of the XII e Législature of the Assemblée Nationale

Abstract

It has often been noted that French politicians frequently hold local and national offices concurrently (the cumul des mandats). Traditionally, this phenomenon is explained by the political culture (a patriarchal conception of authority), territorial centralization and the weakness of party organizations that characterize France. In order to test the latter two hypotheses, we propose analysing the cumul des mandats at the level of individual parliamentarians. In this way, we circumvent the classic n=1 problem without engaging in a comparison with other countries. Based on a Logit analysis with the dependent variable equal to the number of local offices held by the members of the National Assembly under the present term (XIIelégislature), the study partially confirms our hypotheses. Other variables, such as age and gender, are also considered.