French Capitalism : how is France's mixed capitalist model defined, and will it endure or shift more towards either a traditional liberal or coordinated market economic model?

Abstract

This thesis is about the topic of Comparative Political Economy, and specifically about where France and its form of capitalism stand in its study. This area of research has long been influenced by Peter Hall and David Soskice’s dual interpretation of liberal and coordinated market economies, but this approach has been a source of debates and opposition, especially in more recent years. One such opposition is the French Regulation Theory, originally created by Michel Aglietta, which presents a much different perspective than the firm-centered interpretation of Hall and Soskice. The focus here is on France as it has been identified by many authors like Aglietta as having a mixed model. The purpose of this paper is thus to answer the question of how is France's mixed capitalist model defined, and will it endure or shift more towards either a traditional liberal or coordinated market economic model. To answer this question, we study France using both Hall and Soskice’s dualistic Variety of Capitalism, along with the Regulation Theory. We conclude that France does in fact have a distinct model separate from the liberal and coordinated market economies, characterized by its influential state and that despite trends of liberalization in the French economy since the 1980s, because of issues exposed by the coronavirus pandemic and global decoupling, France is more likely to shift towards a coordinated market economy and even protectionism in the future.