BRITISH FARCE, FRENCH DRAMA AND TALES OF TWO CITIES: REORGANIZATIONS OF PARIS AND LONDON GOVERNMENTS 1957–86
| Date | 01 December 1987 |
| Author | BRENDAN O'LEARY |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1987.tb00670.x |
| Published date | 01 December 1987 |
BRITISH FARCE, FRENCH DRAMA AND
TALES OF TWO CITIES: REORGANIZATIONS
OF
PARIS AND LONDON GOVERNMENTS
1957-86
BRENDAN
OLEARY
Comparing the evidence
of
London and Paris reorganizations in the last three decades
confirms that political interventions are often autonomous
of
administrative
or
class logic.
Reorganizations are not mere registers
of
the subterranean workings
of
socio-economic
forces. However, the reorganizations show that these political interventions are not
autonomous from the characteristics
of
their respective political systems.
A
Tale
of
Two
Cities
explores upheaval, honour, class, doctrine, intrigue,
administrative politicking and symbolism
in
Paris
and London
in
the
1790s.
Dickens'
novel ends in an execution. This essay explores similar themes in the reorganiza-
tion and disorganization
of
Paris and London governments in the three decades
1957-1986.
This 'faction'
also
comes to an end with an execution, albeit more comic
than that of Sydney Carton, the abolition
of
the Greater London Council
(GLC)
on April 1st (All
Fools
Day)
1986.
Six
modes of explaining institutional interventions by political hlites, which are
commonly used by political scientists, are explored here because they generate
helpful
insights
which facilitate the understanding
of
recent transformations
of
Paris
and London governments. The
six
modes of explanation treat reorganizations as
the outcomes
of:
-
managerial rationality
-
class struggle
-
political ideologies
-
party political competition
-
bureaucratic politics
-
symbolic politics.
These modes
of
explanation are not necessarily incompatible with one another
/
Brendan OLeary is
Lecturer
in Public Administration in the Government Department, London School
of
Economics and Political Science. The author
is
grateful to the participants in the London-Paris
Group, notably George
Jones,
John Townshend, Howard Machin, Yves Meny, Jacques Lagroye,
Vincent Wright and especially Tom Clegg, as well as the helpful comments of the referee, who have
improved the essay but bear
no
responsibility
for
it.
Public Administration Vol. 65 Winter 1987 (369-389)
C3
Royal Institute
of
Public Administration
ISSN
0033-3298 $3.00
370
BRENDAN OLEARY
but each has its own distinct emphasis. The six modes
of
explanation are used
to establish the salient similarities and contrasts between the reorganizations of
Paris and London.
Two general points are confirmed about the reorganizations of London and Paris
between 1957 and 1986. First, the reorganizations of both city-regions illustrate
the general autonomy of politics from other social processes, and the particular
autonomy of the politics of capital cities which are also full-scale metropolises.
Second, the contrasts between London and Paris reorganizations serve to support
Ashfords oxymoronic thesis of ’British dogmatism and French pragmatism‘, but
only
if
we qualify his thesis by reference to ‘British farce and French drama’
(Ashford 1982).
Paris and London, the two largest city-regions of unitary states with similar
populations, have dominated their respective economic and cultural provinces for
several centuries. They have been distinguished in their respective political systems
by the uniqueness of their governmental and administrative arrangements. For
instance, London government was excluded from the first Municipal Corporations
Act of 1835. Moreover, the London County Council, set up in 1889, and the
Metropolitan Borough Councils, set up in 1899, created a two-tier structure for
London, which made the capital the only city in England and Wales not organized
on a single tier basis. London government was reorganized during 1963-5 in
isolation from the rest of the British local government system, and its two-tier
metropolitan system differed considerably from the six established elsewhere
in England and Wales in 1974. Finally, London government has been
disorganized
differently from the other metropolitan governments
of
England during 1983-86.
Paris has also been treated differently from other French cities. The territorial
boundaries of the Ville de Paris were fixed by Napoleon
111
and have remained
intact since. Paris was excluded from Waldeck-Rousseau’s democratization of
commune administration in France in
1884.
The Paris region and the Ville de Paris
were also singled out for special treatment
in
the course of French local government
reorganizations from 1961 to 1986. But here we are concerned to isolate the factors
which serve to explain the reorganizations of
Paris
and London governments during
the last three decades.
ADMINISTRATIVE RATIONALITY: RESPONDING TO FUNCTIONAL
IMPERATIVES?
The first mode of explaining institutional reorganizations, found especially among
public administrators, is to account for change as the outcome
of
projects of
managerial reform. Reformers, motivated by disinterested administrative considera-
tions, succeed when they can overcome petty, parochial and traditionalist resistance
to necessary change. Most local government reorganizations in liberal democracies
are justified in these discourses of administrative rationality. The concepts of
‘efficiency’, ‘effectiveness’, and ’economy’ normally dominate the rhetoric of re-
organization. The creation of the
GLC
and the London boroughs in 1963, the
abolition of the
GLC
in 1986, the establishment of the
District
de
la
Region
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