BROUARD, Sylvain; GUINAUDEAU, Isabelle

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BROUARD, Sylvain
Centre Émile Durkheim [CED]

GUINAUDEAU, Isabelle
Pacte, Laboratoire de sciences sociales [PACTE]

Langue

Document de travail - Pré-publication

Résumé en anglais

At first sight, French nuclear energy policy offers a textbook example of how technical, constitutional and economic restrictions, powerful interest groups, and path dependence, constrain democratic responsiveness. This paper uses what might seem to be an unlikely case in order to question explanations of policy choices in terms of technocracy, path dependence, and interest groups, against the background of an underestimated factor: party and coalition strategies. The original data collected on public attitudes towards nuclear energy, and the attention dedicated to this issue in the media, as well as in the parliamentary and electoral arenas, show that the effect of public opinion is conditioned by party incentives to politicize the issue at stake. In other words, parties and coalition-making constraints act as a mediating variable between citizens' preferences and policy choices. These findings point to the need to integrate this conditional variable into analyses of responsiveness and models of policymaking.< Réduire

Mots clés en anglais

Public opinion

party politics

nuclear energy

Origine

Importé de hal

Unités de recherche

Centre Emile Durkheim - Science politique et sociologie comparatives (CED) - UMR 5116