How does the distinctive manner in which a national community imagines itself shape institutional changes? The Gaullist nationalist project (1958–69)

By tending to take the existence of communities for granted, most approaches in social sciences overlook how national communities reconstruct themselves through the redefinition of their identity and their ideas about the nature of the collective. This paper seeks to address this blind spot by arguing that the two-way causation between individual motivations and institutions is itself constituted by, and constitutive of, the ‘imaginary’ foundations upon which communities are built. Its theoretical contribution is made through an analysis of how the reformulation of three ideational factors that are constitutive of these ‘imaginary’ foundations informs institutional changes. By relying upon in-depth analysis of primary documentary material, its empirical contribution sheds a new light on the reconfiguration of industrial policy during the Gaullist period (1958–69). Such reconfiguration aimed at allowing the reconstructed purposive content of national identity to be pursued more effectively, in congruence with reformulated ideas about the nature of the collective.