The Opinion-Policy Nexus in France: Do Institutions and Ideology Make a Difference?

This article offers a previously unutilized perspective--the opinion-policy relationship--to analyze empirically two issues at the heart of postwar French politics: the significance of institutional differences between Fourth and Fifth Republics and the importance of ideological changes from non-Socialist to recent Socialist party rule. This study quantifies the relationship between mass public opinion and public policy in over 250 cases in France from 1946 to 1984. It compares and analyzes consistency levels between majority preferences and government policy in five areas: (1) Fourth versus Fifth Republic periods; (2) Socialist versus non-Socialist rule; (3) landslide versus slim majority cases; (4) redistributive versus non-redistributive issues; (5) domestic versus foreign policy issues.