Converging Regional Education Policy in France and Germany

Ordinary regionalization processes, which occur without a (strong) sense of distinctiveness and with various levels of regional authority, raise two main questions, explored in this introductory chapter: do regional governments have any capacity for autonomous policymaking? If they have any, do regional policies diverge? In presenting these issues, the book positions itself within existing research. It considers in particular that policymaking in ordinary regions cannot be fully explained by formal institutions (including scope of policy responsibilities, financial autonomy and central state-regions relations), sometimes concealing political dynamics which go on in the shadows and go beyond the regions’ formal policy scope. In addition, the book suggests that even in the absence of regional identity, regional policymakers’ strategies drive policymaking. These strategies include electoral and institution-building considerations.

This chapter examines whether French and German regional governments have any capacity to autonomously devise their policies, or whether formal institutions are heavily circumscribing their policymaking. After all, in both countries, the central state has proudly acclaimed its role as a guardian of territorial equality, or the “equivalence of living conditions” in the German parlance. The chapter engages with formal institutions-based literature, which notes that both French and German regional governments have little capacity for autonomous policymaking. This literature points at the absence of regional normative power and the central state’s governing at a distance in France; and at the strong entanglement of the regional and federal governments’ policy responsibilities in Germany. Despite all predictions to the contrary, and in line with recent research on German federalism, the chapter shows that in both cases, central states have been absent guardians of territorial equality.

This chapter continues the book’s examination of whether regional governments have an autonomous capacity with regard to policymaking, by addressing the issue of regional policy politicization. It considers that signs of politicization of education policy by regional actors, such as conflicting arguments about what regional policy should be and the effects of these on actual policymaking, are evidence of regional autonomous capacity. The existing literature has essentially defined politicization in party political terms, that is, whether the partisan composition of regional governments influences policymaking. The chapter sets out the argument that this is only one form of regional politicization and introduces the notion of institutional politicization. Instead of being defined by partisan ideas, institutional politicization refers to ideas about regional institutions and their role in the institutional order opened up by regionalization processes. Empirically, the chapter shows that regional education policy is in fact politicized in Germany and France. In Germany, politicization by regional actors is partisan whilst in France it is institutional.

This chapter further develops the analysis of France and Germany’s education policy by exploring what regional governments do with their capacity to autonomously devise policy. It suggests that regional governments’ main concern is to develop or secure their policy capacity and that this may result in a deliberate sidelining of distinctive policymaking in the form of the active cultivation of policy similarity. Specifically, the chapter argues that the adoption of this strategy is contingent upon two requirements: a countrywide public preference for policy uniformity in the policy area of concern, in this instance education, and the presence of a threat posed to regional policy capacity by various political entrepreneurs, including the central state, who blame regions for providing divergent policies and thereby challenging territorial equality. The chapter thereby engages with the literature on horizontal coordination and the “shadow of hierarchy” argument in cases where both strong (Germany) and weak (France) institutions of non-hierarchical coordination are in place. It thereby develops an explanation for policy convergence that emphasizes regional governments’ agency.

This chapter addresses the literature on interregional competition. It is in line with research which analyses the political dynamics of competition instead of adopting a purely economics-based perspective. The chapter’s argument is that competition between regions in France and Germany concerning educational policies takes the form of a race to the middle. With political entrepreneurs unleashing competitive relationships between regions to promote certain policy changes, and national governments challenging the regions’ capacity to develop education policies that meet its standards, regional governments enter the competition seeking to develop policies that vary little from those of other regions. Taking the same actions as other regions can be a way to be competitive either because the state and voters prefer the policies of other regions, or because following others is a means of self-protection when other avenues are contested and controversial.

This concluding chapter starts with a synthetic review of the main empirical findings, and goes on to discuss the analytical contribution, with special attention afforded to the outcomes of the most-different comparative research design. Lastly, the conclusion reflects on the political consequences of such regionalization processes in terms of citizens’ perceptions of regional governments’ legitimacy.