William G. Andrews: Presidential Government in Gaullist France: A Study in Executive-Legislative Relations 1958-1974. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982.
Originally published in the American Political Science Review, Volume 77, Number 4, December 1983.
Mesmerized by de Gaulle, one forgets the French. Even more easily, one forgets their elected representatives in the National Assembly. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was caught between a laugh and a gasp at “the Emperor of the French” who combined traits of Louis XIV, Napoleon I, and “a little of Napoleon III, as regards the management of a so-called Parliament” [Macmillan: Pointing the Way, New York: Harper and Row, 1972, 427]. Interpreting Gaullism as an elective monarchy retains its popularity (as well as a generous measure of inaccuracy) even today.
Andrews would “correct the exaggerated perception of executive dominance that has marked so much of the literature” on executive-legislative elations in Gaullist France. Scholarly in the best sense, his book qualifies rather than assaults received opinion.
The first and best of the book’s three parts concerns Gaullist institutions as described in the 1958 constitution and as used during the de Gaulle and Pompidou administrations. Recognizing that de Gaulle’s founding of the Fifth Republic did not stop immediately after the ink dried, Andrews shows how the document appeared more favorable to parliamentarism than the regime was in practice. He wants to prove the constitution “solidly parliamentary in design” (vii); at most he proves that if it was parliamentary it was not solidly parliamentary. But in doing so, he shows better than anyone—including de Gaulle himself—the subtlety of de Gaulle’s statesmanship during the early years of the regime, a statesmanship that combined largely meaningless, private assurances to parliamentary elites with careful public avoidance of the word ‘parliamentary.’ If the book fails here, it is a failure more instructive than many another book’s banal success.
The second part concerns law. In it, Andrews would prove that “constitutional provisions designed to transfer authority from the more parliamentary to the presidential components of the system had relatively little effect” (101). De Gaulle had no need to override or evade the national Assembly’s legislative power because he had a Gaullist majority there. Andrews concedes that during the period of “full powers” de Gaulle imposed laws “that virtually revolutionized French life” (131); he also concedes that the prospect of a return to such unmitigated Gaullist authority might well have moderated the parliamentarians. When Andrews writes that “Parliament was relatively restrained, not by necessity but by choice, not by oppression but by common interest and general accord with the Executive” (154-155), he regards such behavior as evidence of increased cohesiveness in French society. But he is also describing a well-designed regime with an executive branch ruled by a prudent statesman.
The third part concerns the relation of French “politics” to French “society,” with some considerations of the political and the social in “democratic” regimes generally. Andrews rightly observes that the political regime of democracy—particularly a democracy that protects individual liberty—by definition allows society to control the government. He suggests that, under democracy, a relatively cohesive society will usually comport with a strong executive, whereas a relatively fragmented society will usually comport with parliamentarism. He contends that society under democracy dominates not only any written constitution but statesmen as well—even a de Gaulle. But perhaps Gaullist republicanism, less monarchic than Macmillan charged, partakes of democracy less than Andrews says it does. Debates over ‘society’ versus ‘politics’ often tend toward circularity; this one might be straightened by an attempt to imagine the French, and France, without de Gaulle.
Andrews prefers more verifiable thoughts than that. In pursuing them, he has gathered useful information that had been scattered, discussing it soberly and with care. His book will be a guidepost for those who set out “in search of France”—which, de Gaulle insisted, is not to be confused with the French.
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