How History Shaped the Relationship of Between Government and Citizen in Britain and France

Britain and France both suffered from similarly devastating economic difficulties in the

late 1970s and early 1980s, yet the solutions that they implemented were vastly different. The

thaw of the Winter of Discontent brought with it the renewed domination of the Conservative

Party led by Margaret Thatcher, yet the French elected the Socialist François Mitterrand just two

years later. This stark divergence in choices between the two countries was caused not by

internal interests or institutions, but by their stark divergence in national political ideologies,

which was in turn caused by their stark divergence in national political development. Britain

incorporated polite political contestation within the aristocrat class long before it included the

majority of its people in the policy-making process. In contrast, France attempted to

simultaneously achieve both contestation and participation several times after its 1789 revolution.

These contrasting legacies left contrasting ideas of the role that government should play in the

national economy. British voters tend to only favor government involvement that proves

economically beneficial, while French voters tend to favor heavy government involvement at all

times with specific policies implemented by a powerful president.

Britain’s path from monarchy to democracy was extraordinarily stable when compared to

most countries. Beginning with a “closed hegemony”, it gradually liberalized by allowing more

political contestation to become a “competitive oligarchy”; then gradually increased inclusion by

bringing more actors into the system to become a “polyarchy” (Dahl 34). The early decision-

making process among the British elite led to the development of three political norms: “agree to

disagree, accept the risk of losing, and accept occasional losses” (Alexander 1/28). When

universal suffrage was granted gradually over the course of the century following the outbreak of

the Industrial Revolution, each newly enfranchised group was not only incorporated into the

voting institution itself but also the norms of polite contestation that came with it. This is

essential because it meant that all British citizens were amenable to the implementation of

policies that they did not agree with, as well as being open to new agendas when old ones

became obsolete.

This is exactly what happened in 1979. Though Keynesian demand management and

industry nationalization (along with public welfare) were the embodiment of the post-war

consensus, the economic difficulties that peaked during the Winter of Discontent caused voters

to search for new options. Keynesianism alleviated unemployment at the expense of increasing

inflation (Hall 391). James Callaghan’s Labour government became bogged down in disputes

over wages and benefits with the unions of nationalized industries such as “coal, railways, and

power…[which] were in a very strong bargaining position” (Kavanagh 219). The government did

not have the liberty of free market competition that private companies did, and was forced to

respond to political pressures rather than economic ones, which ultimately resulted in

inefficiencies and union strikes. This caused British voters to place their confidence in Margaret

Thatcher, who swiftly implemented an economic U-turn.

Over the next ten years, Thatcher and the Conservatives privatized the oil,

telecommunications, steel, and automobile industries (Kavanagh 222). They stressed monetarism

over Keynesianism, arguing that “by strictly controlling the money supply system they would

restore sound finance and squeeze inflation out of the system” (224). Both policies were

successful, and though there was a short-term surge in unemployment, this was both expected

and accepted by British voters. Thatcher’s ideology remained successful in Britain over the

following decades; in 2010 “the debate…[was] more on how fast to cut government spending

rather than whether such reductions are the right thing to do” (Thomas). Privatization and

monetarism brought Britain out of its recession, and as long as they continue to hold up they will

receive the support of the populace. In accordance with this ideology, though Thatcher wanted to

reduce the welfare state, it remained too popular among voters and she was forced to abandon

this attempted reform.

The French Socialist response to the same economic crisis that brought Thatcherism to

Britain is inexorably linked to the aftermath of the revolution which deposed King Louis XVI.

Between 1789 and 1792, the French attempted a rapid development from closed hegemony to

polyarchy, an overambitious (though well-intentioned) move that was doomed to failure (Dahl

35). The political process became open to a large portion of the population before “the arts of

competitive politics [had] been mastered and accepted as legitimate” (38). The British norm of

polite contestation developed by their aristocrats was unknown in France; therefore simultaneous

contestation and inclusion created chaos rather than stability. This chaos brought crippling

fragmentation into French politics for the next century and a half.

Both the first and second French republics lasted less than ten years before devolving into

empires. The third allowed itself to be taken over by the Nazis; the fourth could not maintain a

majority coalition in Parliament because the numerous parties that were represented refused to

compromise on agendas, such as the decolonization process (Cirtautas 85). The resulting

political paralyzation deeply troubled Charles De Gaulle, who had been traumatized by the

subjugation of his homeland for five years and who worked tirelessly to restore it. He knew from

experience that fragmentation led to weakness, and that France could not afford to be weak in the

face of powerful neighbors. This brought him to the conclusion that the only way to “avoid

embroiling in party battles” was the establishment of a “Chief of State, placed above the parties”;

a president1 (De Gaulle). The fifth republic was thus stabilized by the institution of the powerful

presidential office, and with it the idea that it was no longer acceptable to question the

government. The history of fragmentation also led to the creation of the two-round electoral

system, which dictates that the president-elect receives a popular majority of the votes. In other

words, anti-fragmentation ideology has created institutions that enforce cohesiveness.

This has also caused the idea of dirigisme, a desire among the French for high

government involvement in the economy (Clift 153). In addition to large-scale nationalization,

France was the only Western European state to implement microeconomic intervention, or “soft

planning” after the end of World War Two through subsidies and tax incentives to encourage the

development of infant industries (Alexander 3/2). This idea also caused the French to opt for a

Socialist solution in 1981 rather than a Thatcherite one.

Though Keynesianism and “soft planning” created incredible growth in the quarter

century after World War Two, they were no longer effective by the end of the 1970s. Yet France

still elected François Mitterrand. The failure of previous policy failures led him to implement an

“‘ordo-liberal,’ anti-inflationary and market-conforming solution” (Clift 161), following the

German model of tackling inflation at the expense of unemployment. This neo-liberal approach,

though a significant departure from Keynesianism, is characterized by the remaining presence of

the French government in the French economy. It seems that the French people would not have it

any other way.

This paper has described the effect of the chronological order of political contestation and

inclusion on the current British and French ideology concerning the role of government in the

economy. The British only favor government involvement that proves effective because they

developed contestation before inclusion; the French favor heavy government involvement at all

times through the actions of a powerful president because they tried to develop both

simultaneously.

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