Putting Locally Based Management to the Test in French Public Policy

In most political discourse today locally based management is analysed as an essential feature of effective and democratic public action, and an element of good governance principles determined at international level. It is seen as defining the questions to solve and the solutions required in every conceivable area of state intervention. Yet the principle of proximity is hardly anything new. Throughout history it has been rediscovered time and again, for the distance between governors and governed is essentially what characterizes political regimes (totalitarianism being the extreme form of overwhelming proximity). Nevertheless, over time the issues evolve and the subjects of debate change. The main issue is no longer the need for local democracy to transform a political-administrative system marked by limited debates on local issues, as it was thirty years ago; it is now the necessity for other modes of production of public policies, closer to the inhabitants of the territories concerned, with a view to increasing the effectiveness and transparency, and consequently the legitimacy, of public policies. That is why the principle of proximity is currently so successful. It encompasses everything from social action to security, health, transport, urban planning, consumption etc., as well as more recent and emblematic topics such as sustainable development or the social and solidarity economy. Since pragmatic solutions and transparent results have become the golden rules for good public management, the dominant discourse is the same everywhere: act in proximity.