The simple question to which this first ‘sociohistorical’ chapter wishes to respond is the following: what types of studies, writings and reflections existed on the theme of public administrations and their policies even before the institutionalisation of public policy analysis per se in France? And how did this corpus of understandings and questioning, of knowledge and know-how, influence the constitution of this academic speciality, or indeed not? In other terms, in this chapter we would like to examine the sociogenesis of an academic discipline by illustrating the filiations, borrowings, hybridisations and co-constructions which contributed to the public policy analysis ‘à la française’ of current times. Our hypothesis is that, in the French case, public policy analysis, primarily inspired by North America, also developed in response to the relative failure of ‘administrative science’ to be institutionalised, and from the science's foundations and eventual prolongations.

Indeed, in France, public policy analysis took over from an ‘administrative science’ which tried to develop over almost a century but which, unlike in the United States, was never fully institutionalised and professionalised. This occurred for two main reasons. First, due to the weight of law in the training of French elites, this administrative science constantly tended to fall under the specialty of the administrative law taught in the Facultés. It was also the result of the fundamental role played by some senior civil servants, jurists by training and legal practitioners – notably state councillors – in the determination of jurisprudence and a form of litigation science, as well as reflections and policies pertaining to the reform, modernisation and operation of the state and public administrations. These senior civil servants considered themselves to be the only legitimate actors operating in this domain, although they were also state actors and could thus be referred to as both ‘judge and jury’ of politico-administrative action. It is necessary to make a specific inventory of what this ‘administrative science’ bequeathed to public policy analysis in France, as this historical episode constitutes an essential element to understanding the sociogenesis of French public policy analysis.