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- Title
The instatement of order: state initiatives and hegemony in the modernization of French forest policy.
- Authors
Sarles, Curtis
- Abstract
Theories of France’s political integration, from Tocqueville to the present day, frequently disregard the political achievements of the nineteenth century state and assert that the infrastructures needed for effective governance were created during the absolutist period. Using the case of forest policy, one of the major policy domains for local and national regimes during the absolutist and nineteenth century periods, this study argues against prior accounts. It shows how the nineteenth century state, led by an elite faction of the bourgeoisie, gained infrastructural power by promoting its preferred policies as the only means of avoiding disorder and chaos. These policies advanced private property as the natural (hegemonic) form of land control. It was this project, rather than the earlier absolutist regime, that led to effective state authority over France’s territory and the achievement of the nation’s political integration. This study of forest policy provides an opportunity to evaluate state efforts to regulate economic and political life, as well as the resistance to these efforts that arose.
- Subjects
FRENCH politics &; government; HEGEMONY; MODERNIZATION theory; FOREST policy; SOCIAL integration; INFRASTRUCTURE (Economics); PERSONAL property; POLITICAL economic analysis; FRENCH territories &; possessions; NINETEENTH century
- Publication
Theory & Society, 2006, Vol 35, Issue 5/6, p565
- ISSN
0304-2421
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11186-006-9013-x