Introduction

Methodological debate is central to characterising the scientificity of social sciences research (Merton, 1957) and policy studies in particular (Lerner and Lasswell, 1951). This chapter focuses on French policy studies and the methods of policy analysis. Its objective is to highlight the main features of these approaches as compared to other national community practices. This task seems somewhat daunting as explicit discussions on methods among policy specialists are scarce. This is evidenced by the fact that over the last 30 years, none of the main French public policy analysis textbooks contain a complete chapter on methodology (Thoenig, 1985; Mény and Thoenig, 1989; Muller and Surel, 1998; Duran, 1999; Muller, 2015; Gaudin, 2004; Boussaguet et al, 2014; Lascoumes and Le Gales, 2006; de Maillard and Kübler, 2015; Massardier, 2008; Hassenteufel, 2008). The same can be said for classic French policy studies (Padioleau, 1982; Dupuy and Thoenig, 1985; Jobert and Muller, 1987; Lascoumes and Le Gales, 2004; Collectif, Laborier and Trom, 2003; Payre and Pollet, 2005; Zittoun, 2013). Recently though, special issues have dealt with methodological issues (see Gouvernement et action publique, 2012, 1–2 ; Muller et al, 2005). This relative neglect of methodology is not specific to France; in other national settings as well, methodological debates rank second in collective discussions. The French case, however, may be explained by the peculiarity of French policy studies, that is, the influence of sociology. This has led to a strong reliance on the methods and debates privileged in sociology studies and thus to the absence of autonomous methodological debates. This contrasts sharply with methods used in policy analysis, even though our knowledge on practitioners is still scarce.

This chapter primarily focuses on political science, where in academia in particular, a clear emphasis has been placed on producing empirical knowledge on the policy process that is axiologically neutral, as opposed to normative contributions. There is also a strong tradition of qualitative empirical inquiry in French studies but relatively few quantitative studies (Lewis-Beck and Belanger, 2015); the sociological imprint of inquiry tools is obvious, notably semi-structured interviews, mid-term analyses of the policy process and small-N studies; last, when it comes to theoretical approaches, emphasis is placed on ideational processes and, in parallel, rational choice frameworks are rejected. By contrast, there is greater heterogeneity in terms of methods when the analysis is undertaken by practitioners.