Author Description

The widespread development of neocorporatism--a process in which certain interest groups derive power from their privileged relationship with the state and formal participation in public policy-making rather than through traditional lobbying or pressure tactics--has recently attracted considerable scholarly attention. This penetrating study focuses on the emergence of the most powerful agricultural union (FNSEA) as a force in French politics, the trends toward corporatization and decorporatization of the agricultural sector, and the governmental efforts at reform and decorporatization in Mitterrand's France. Keeler introduces a new, sector-oriented theoretical framework suitable for analyzing the corporatization process in any democratic polity. The book also offers a general model of the "corporatist imperative" in the agricultural sector of democratic polities and tests this model with comparative case studies of the United States, Britain, Italy, and West Germany.