The Prefect and State Reform
| Author | Nicole De Montricher |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00223 |
| Date | 01 September 2000 |
| Published date | 01 September 2000 |
THE PREFECT AND STATE REFORM
NICOLE DE MONTRICHER
The article intends to explain why although tremendous changes have occurred in
the structure of government – especially the laws organizing decentralization since
1982 – the institution of the Prefect is still alive in the year 2000.
Created in 1800, the institution of the Prefect derives from the will of the central
authority to rely on its own representatives to ensure that public policies will be
equally implemented over the whole territory. This objective remains but it has to
be combined with the objectives of decentralization which are to transfer a number
of responsibilities to elected bodies. Consequently, the task of the Prefect is to co-
ordinate locally the action of the representatives of the ministers with the action of
the elected body. To study the conditions under which the institution carries out
this task the article focuses primarily on the limited capacity of the Prefect to mobil-
ize the relevant actors. The second point concerns the difficulty of bringing together
the information produced by field services. The third point considers the valuation
of proximity and its impact on the action of the Prefect. The article concludes that
the function of the Prefect is still the framing of local action but within the new
context this can be done more often through the diffusion of information and less
often through authority.
When he published his proposals for state reform between 1911 and 1927,
Chardon, a member of the Council of State, suggested that ‘we do away
with prefectoral superstition’ (Legendre 1968) by rationalizing government
business and by setting up regional administrative areas. In the mind of
this author, therefore, the authority of the Prefect is based on beliefs which
will disappear with the improvement in methods of public management.
In 2000, however, the office of the Prefect has not disappeared despite a
reorganization of its instruments of action by the state in a wide-ranging
policy to ‘modernize the state’ begun twenty years ago and which was
part of more far-reaching reform of the public sector that took place in
industrialized nations at the same time. On the contrary, since the begin-
ning of the 1990s, the institution seems to have consolidated its position
within the administrative system. Likewise, the question of the importance
of the administrative areas is still on the agenda today. How can one
explain this permanence in the face of the considerable changes which have
occurred since the first Prefects were appointed?
Until 1982, the French politico-administrative system was characterized
by a policy of centralization of which the Prefect was the emblematic fig-
ure – the instrument of the uniform implementation of public policy and,
Nicole de Montricher is Charge
´e de recherche, CNRS Groupe d’Analyse des Politiques Publiques,
Ecole normale supe
´rieure, Paris.
Public Administration Vol. 78 No. 3, 2000 (657–678)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
658 NICOLE DE MONTRICHER
at the same time, a source of political information for the government. In
short, if the consequence of centralization is the pre-dominance of the
Administration over the whole of the national territory, the Prefect was its
symbol. However, when Parliament passed decentralization laws from
March 1982 onwards, it retained not only the two traditional administrative
areas – the De
´partement and the Re
´gion – but, above all, it perpetuated and
strengthened the institution of the Prefect, explicitly considered to embody
the preserved unity of the state. At the same time, the reform gave rise to
the emergence of political demands at local level. These demands were
legitimate as they resulted from the election of Deliberating Assemblies
in charge of business at departmental and regional level (regarding the
communes, little change took place apart from the power to grant planning
permission). Since the laws of 1982, therefore, one sees that in France there
exists at departmental level an administrative area headed by the Prefect
(Pre
´fet de De
´partement) and a territorial body whose executive is under the
authority of the President of the General Council (Pre
´sident du Conseil
ge
´ne
´ral). The same situation exists at regional level: an administrative area
headed by the Prefect of the Region (Pre
´fet de Re
´gion) while the executive
power of the territorial body is under the authority of the President of the
Regional Council (Pre
´sident du Conseil re
´gional). In this new context, the role
of the Prefect is, apparently, to ensure unity – diversity having been
entrusted to the territorial bodies. Nevertheless, the question must be asked
about the conditions in which the institution has adapted to the radical
transformations taking place in its environment – whether it be decentraliz-
ation or the construction of Europe. The system is characterized, therefore,
by its increasing complexity, not only resulting from the multiplication of
relations between numerous and heterogeneous players but also because
of the growing interaction between territories and networks. Before analys-
ing the modalities of the evolution generated by new constraints, it seems
appropriate to recall briefly the principal aspects of the old system.
THE HISTORY OF THE INSTITUTION OF THE PREFECT
The Prefect represents the government in the general administrative areas –
namely, the Department and the Region. According to the terms of the
decree of 10 May 1982, the authority of the state is vested in him as the
representative of the Prime Minister and of each of his ministers. Both the
President of the General Council and the President of the Regional Council
deal directly with him as the official agent of the state. The role of a local
representative of the central power is an old one. It was ‘invented’ by King
Philippe Auguste who allowed the provinces the right to maintain their
customs while ensuring his political hold on the national territory by
appointing Parisian men loyal to him to key positions. Later, this
representation was organized in the form of ‘Intendants of police, justice
and finance’ who, together with their collaborators, constituted the begin-
nings of a civil service which served as the cement of the state in the face
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
To continue reading
Request your trial