Mitterrand, the socialists and French security policy. French nuclear policy and the left elite culture: The evolution of the French defense consensus under Francois Mitterand.
Item
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Title
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Mitterrand, the socialists and French security policy. French nuclear policy and the left elite culture: The evolution of the French defense consensus under Francois Mitterand.
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Identifier
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AAI9315488
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identifier
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9315488
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Creator
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Mason, John Grouard.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Bogdan Denitch
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Date
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1993
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Social Structure and Development | Political Science, International Law and Relations | Sociology, Theory and Methods
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Abstract
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This dissertation proposes to use a case study of opinion-holding and formation among Socialist political and cultural elites in France concerning national defense policy to investigate the exceptional support these elites have given to the expansion and modernization of France's national nuclear forces during the decade of the 1980's. France has been exceptional among her continental neighbors (West Germany, Italy, Spain or Holland), because she has pursued an ambitious array of nuclear weapons programs independent of the United States.;More specifically, this dissertation will focus on the role played by Left party and intellectual elites in facilitating the "normalization" of nuclear weapons development and defense issues, and in promoting a "European evolution" of the inter-party defense consensus during the Mitterrand Presidency. Collateral issues concerning the exceptional position of France as an "independent" nuclear weapons state in the postwar European system, and its likely erosion in the near future, will also be addressed.;I seek to identify the institutional processes in France which have promoted the emergence of a common strategic discourse among national party, bureaucratic and media elites, and most particularly among those elite groups who identify with the Socialist Left. I argue that this strategic consensus has operated at three levels: first, in consolidating an inter-party accord in support of the development and deployment of an array of nuclear weapons systems under national control; second, in legitimating effective control over the decision-making process concerning French nuclear development and security policies by military technicians and security policy specialists; and, third, in generally promoting the acceptance of pro-nuclear options in security policy by most sectors of French public opinion.;I aim to demonstrate that a significant degree of convergence in opinion exists among political and intellectual elites concerning nuclear defense issues by focusing on those political and intellectual groups who were initially the most hostile to French nuclear weapons policy: the intellectuals and activists of the French Left, who "rallied" to a nuclear policy discourse developed by the parties of the Gaullist Right which the Left opposed during the 1960's and 70's.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
