“From Elysian Fields to the Guillotine? The Dynamics of Presidential and Prime Ministerial Approval in Fifth Republic France”* Richard S. Conley Associate Professor Department of Political Science University of Florida 234 Anderson Hall Gainesville, FL 32611 (352) 392-0262 x 297 [email protected] * Author gratefully acknowledges grants provided by the Department of Political Science, University of Florida, and Dr. Gayle Zachmann, Director of the University of Florida Paris Research Center, for this article. Field research was completed in Summer 2003 and 2004 at the Université Aix-Marseille III and the Institut d’Études Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence, and in Fall 2003 at the Centre américain de Sciences-Po in Paris, France. Keywords: France, public opinion, president, prime minister, job approval, cohabitation, divided government. Bio: Richard S. Conley is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida (Gainesville). His research focuses on presidential politics and comparative executives. He is author of The Presidency, Congress and Divided Government (2003) and editor of Transforming the American Polity: The Presidency of George W. Bush and the War on Terrorism (2005). His articles have appeared in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Congress and the Presidency, Political Research Quarterly, and American Politics Research. “From Elysian Fields to the Guillotine? The Dynamics of Presidential and Prime Ministerial Approval in Fifth Republic France” Abstract This article develops an integrative framework for explaining variation in monthly presidential and prime ministerial approval in Fifth Republic France. Melding theories of executive approval in the Anglo-American and French literatures, the empirical model closely examines macroeconomic indicators alongside contextual factors, such as cohabitation, temporal effects, and variables specific to French socio-political culture. The study refines prior models by utilising the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) technique to improve forecast estimates. The study also incorporates new archival data on unemployment to avoid measurement error. The results of the time-series analyses confirm that poor macroeconomic conditions yield larger drops in presidential approval. Similarly, short-term impacts of strikes and “rally effects” are consistently greater for changes in public confidence in the president. The import of time-decay effects and electoral factors varies dramatically for first and subsequent prime ministerial appointments. The few systematic studies of executive approval in Fifth Republic France have centred primarily on the influence of macroeconomic factors on public approval trends (Anderson 1995; Hibbs 1981; Lafay 1981; Lecaillon 1980; Lewis-Beck 1980). Most are limited to the first three presidents—De Gaulle, Pompidou, and Giscard d’Estaing—and their prime ministers, spanning 1960-79. Rather than produce consensus, these studies have generated divergent and sometimes contradictory results about the impact of unemployment and inflation on presidential and prime ministerial approval. The inconsistent findings in the Anglo-American or French literature suffer from a number of theoretical and contextual lacunae, in addition to significant measurement difficulties. Changing political and economic contexts in France across the Fifth Republic demand an updated and more thoroughly refined analysis. First, the condition of cohabitation—when a president squares off against a prime minister heading an opposition majority or coalition of opposition parties in the Assemblée nationale—has been dealt to presidents on the Left (Mitterrand) and the Right (Chirac) since most of the above-cited studies were completed. It is unclear whether macroeconomic trends carry similar effects on presidents and prime ministers during cohabitation periods. Second, much of the scholarship is dated insofar as structural unemployment has formed a consistent government context since the mid-1970s. Third, scholars have relied on the number of unemployed workers as the key index in empirical models in the absence of a time-series of the percentage unemployed. Comparing the number of unemployed workers for the early period of the Fifth Republic with the last several decades raises concerns about model misspecification and measurement error. Finally, intriguing hypotheses about short-term variation in executive approval posited by French scholars, including the effect of “rally effects,” incidences of domestic terrorism, and first and subsequent prime ministerial appointments have attracted little attention in quantitative models. 2 This research develops a more integrative framework for explaining variation in aggregate, monthly presidential and prime ministerial approval in Fifth Republic France (1960-mid 2003). The study closely examines macroeconomic indicators alongside contextual factors, temporal effects, and variables specific to French socio-political culture. The analysis expands the time period for analysis significantly and refines prior models by utilising the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) technique to improve forecast estimates. The study also incorporates a measure of the percent unemployed in France dating to 1960 for a more accurate analysis of the impact of joblessness over time. The article unfolds in several stages. The next section presents a brief, comparative synopsis of executive approval over the course of the Fifth Republic and explores hypotheses that seek to explain variation in mass support. The third section details the methodology employed for modeling presidential and prime ministerial approval, followed by the results of the empirical analysis. The concluding section reprises the implications of the analysis for the institutional balance of the dual executive in Fifth Republic France. II. APPROVAL OF THE FRENCH DUAL EXECUTIVE: SYNOPSIS AND THEORY The time-series of approval ratings for French presidents and their prime ministers was compiled from IFOP and SOFRES sources.1 Figure 1 presents approval data spanning all five presidents and seventeen prime ministers in the Fifth Republic through August 2003. A closer examination of key trends enables us to establish and assess a number of hypotheses that can be systematically tested through regression analysis. [Figure 1] The early presidents of the Fifth Republic, De Gaulle and Pompidou, maintained relatively stable public approval ratings. Greater volatility in the initial and final approval ratings for the subsequent three presidents—Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand, and Jacques Chirac— 3 is clearly visible. Following the divisive 1974 election, Giscard took office with the lowest initial approval rating of all presidents in the Fifth Republic at just 44 percent. Both Mitterrand and Chirac began their terms well above 60 percent, fell below the 40 percent threshold within 18 to 24 months, and then gradually recovered to position themselves for reelection victories. However, Mitterrand left office in 1995 the most unpopular president thus far in the Fifth Republic with a rating below 40 percent. Prime ministerial ratings tend to track presidential approval. Per se, however, presidential approval does not offer much of an explanation for changes in public confidence in prime ministers (r = .20). A more important tendency is that prime ministers appointed at the beginning of the president’s first or second septennat (seven year term) appear to benefit from a more substantive honeymoon period or état de grâce (Parodi 1997, 92-93). Initial appointees may garner more political capital. First appointments are “constrained” choices for presidents insofar as they tend to appoint prime ministers from the bloc of deputies who were most supportive of their candidacy in the second round of the presidential election. Discretionary appointments between legislative elections are often viewed as the “men and women of the president” without commensurate electoral legitimacy (Portelli 1997, 22-23). Time appears to take a heavier toll on prime ministers’ approval fortunes. The occupants of the Hôtel Matignon typically suffer a much more steady and rapid decline in public support. Prime ministers typically start their terms at relatively high levels of approval, followed by a steady and sometimes dramatic decline—as the cases of Mauroy (1981-84), Rocard (1988-91), Cresson (1991), Bérégovoy (1992-93), Balladur (1993-95), Juppé (1995-97), and Raffarin (2002-) suggest. The visible drops in support are consistent with the “time/competence paradox” thesis noted by many scholars (see Stimson 1999; Strøm 1990). Executive decisions inevitably disappoint some in the electorate, precipitating a decline in job approval. 4 Presidential Domination of the Prime Minister and the Advent of Cohabitation Presidents’ public approval ratings have outpaced their prime ministers’ by significant margins, particularly during De Gaulle’s terms (Parodi 1971). De Gaulle’s successful, if constitutionally dubious referendum on the direct election of the president enhanced his and his successors’ claims to be the only representative of all the people (Ehrmann 1983, 7-11). Moreover, De Gaulle established the precedent that the president could “sack” prime ministers at will, despite any such formal-constitutional authority. Subsequent presidents have followed this exemplar. Prime ministers are fusibles2 or “fall guys” who serve at the president’s pleasure. They are expected to act as lightening rods to