The Politics of Cultural Policy in France

The Politics of Cultural Policy in France offers a lively and iconoclastic account of cultural policy-making in France. Focusing on the policies of the Socialist governments of 1981-86 and 1988-93, the book suggests that policy towards the arts was shaped less by an all-powerful state than by influential professional interest groups. In addition to presenting unusual insights into a policy area which has rarely been studied by political science, the book provides significant revisions to conventional views of relations between the state and civil society in France.