Intellectuals, Culture and Public Policy in France: Approaches from the Left by Jeremy Ahearne (review)

The way intellectuals have engaged with the public sphere in France is a well-explored field of research, but Jeremy Ahearne is quick to establish how the contribution he makes in his book is different. In contrast to previous cultural commentators who have focused on the way that particular totemic figures among French intellectuals have committed themselves to certain causes in l’espace public, Ahearne concentrates on the role of the intellectual itself — as the product of a complex, liberal society, and something that the intellectual can step into or out of without necessarily being typecast as an extraordinary figure. Ahearne’s concise and useful reminder of the history of intellectuals speaking truth to power in France brings us up to date concerning the sometimes unhappy experiences, notably under Mitterrand, of intellectuals who were co-opted into the policy-making process. What sets Ahearne’s study apart, however, is the rigorous way in which he constructs an analytical platform for the case studies at the core of his book. Drawing largely on the work of those American theorists who dominate the field of policy studies, Ahearne develops an analysis of the role of the intellectual that is much more sophisticated than the traditional ‘oppositional’ model; instead, this is a role characterized by hybridity, ambiguity, and opportunity. By taking the long view we see how changing imperatives in policy terms can coincide with pre-existing agendas in an aleatory process in which the public intellectuals involved risk becoming purveyors of solutions in search of a problem. Lack of specific expertise in a policy domain is no hindrance, argues Ahearne, because the credence that intellectuals enjoy in their own fields allows them to be the best ‘lay-probers’, testing the matrix of values and norms that govern policy decisions. Public intellectuals are part of what Pierre Rosanvallon calls ‘counter-democracy’ in France: the critical and mediating role they play has grown as legitimacy for governments of every stripe has diminished. In a series of case studies ranging across debates about laicity, cultural policy, curriculum reform, cultural democracy, and television programming, Ahearne evokes the way in which major intellectual figures who at some point have followed a left-wing itinerary, such as Debray, Malraux, Bourdieu, and Morin, among others, have stepped into messy policy domains while attempting, sometimes stubbornly and uncomfortably, to preserve their critical voice. All of the case studies provide absorbing insights into the issues prompting the interventions of France’s public intellectuals, and they constitute an antidote to the reductive, short-term perspectives that all too easily misrepresent the nature and effect of those interventions in politically charged policy areas such as laicity and national identity. This very valuable study adapts the critical apparatus of what can often appear to be the model-driven preoccupations of social policy studies and uses it successfully to illuminate the role of the intellectual engaging with the public policy sphere. In so doing the book elucidates some of the most important cultural and social issues that are the focus of debate in contemporary France.