French Repressive Administrations and Europe: Adaptations, Competition, and National Embeddedness

By Jacques de Maillard, Andy Smith
English

French repressive administrations and Europe: Adaptations, competition and national embededness

When applied to the action of precise ministries, multiple and often vague usages of the term ‘Europeanization’ sap analytical purchase. In adapting A. Jordan’s analysis of organizational learning, this article seeks to explain how three French national administrations (the Ministries of the Interior and Justice and the Gendarmerie Nationale) have adapted in order to confront the issues raised by the European Union’s involvement in internal security. We show that if a certain form of Europeanization has occurred because acors have modified their knowledge and know-how, the emergence of transnational allegancies has not transpired. Rather the actors studied find themselves in an imprecise space, oscillating between a desire to reach Community decisions and the preservation of perceived national interests. In other words, at least in this case, Europeanization has not caused the adoption of “Brussels-produced” ways of thinking, but a redefinition of the organizational objectives and identities that has taken on board the emergence of Europe as a space of public action in the field of internal security.

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