BOOK: Antoine VAUCHEZ and Pierre FRANCE, The Neoliberal Republic - Corporate Lawyers, Statecraft, and the Making of Public-Private France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020). ISBN 978-1-5017-5257-5, 113.95 EUR.

 

(Source: Cornell University Press)

Cornell University Press is publishing a book on the revolving door between public service and private enrichment in 21^st century France.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Neoliberal Republic traces the corrosive effects that the revolving door between public service and private enrichment has on the French state and its ability to govern and regulate the private sector. Casting a piercing light on this circulation of influence among corporate lawyers and others in the French power elite, Antoine Vauchez and Pierre France analyze how this dynamic, a feature of all Western democracies, has developed in concert with the rise of neoliberalism over the past three decades.

Based on interviews with dozens of public officials in France and a unique biographical database of more than 200 civil servants-turned corporate lawyers, The Neoliberal Republic explores how the always-blurred boundary between public service and private interests has now been critically compromised, enabling the transformation of the regulatory state into either an ineffectual bystander or an active collaborator in the privatization of public welfare. The cumulative effect of these developments, the authors reveal, undermines democratic citizenship and the capacity to imagine the public good.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Antoine Vauchez is a CNRS Research Professor at Université Paris 1-Sorbonne and a Permanent Visiting Professor at iCourts Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen. He is co-author of How to Democratize Europe.

Pierre France is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Université Paris 1-Sorbonne.

 

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