French Cohabitation
French cohabitation research papers are written from the perspective of political science. From international politics to how the system is seen in the United States, you can write about French Cohabitation in many ways. Have Paper Masters help you with this complex system of government.
In the United States, a bipartisan system of government has long divided the nation's legislative and executive leaders into two distinct ideological camps. Although there are many points upon the continuum of political beliefs that are expressed by the members of the two major political parties, as well as by a small minority in third parties, most politicians are classified as either Democrat or Republican party in their affiliation.
The French Cohabitation and American politics
While the open debate and challenging dialectic that this system allows is a prized characteristic of the American political system, it also engenders some serious difficulties. For example, there is a tendency for the debate between the two parties to polarize and devolve into partisan bickering. In addition, the fact that only one party at a time holds the power in the legislative and executive branches means that the gains achieved by one party are often eradicated when the other party attains majority power. Also, when opposing parties hold the power in the executive and legislative branches, there is often a depreciable decrease in the amount of productive policy making that is achieved, as the party in power in each branch often privileges its own ideological agenda.
The French system of cohabitation provided one alternative to the polarity that is often the bane of a bipartisan government. Although the results of a recent referendum in France diminished the possibility that cohabitation will occur again in the future, the French have experienced three periods of cohabitation in the past, in which executive power was divided more or less equally between two leaders of opposing party affiliation.
A research paper on French cohabitation should include the following elements:
- Examine the underlying concepts, implications, and characteristics of French cohabitation
- Assess the long-term political and historical significance of this practice.
- Write an evaluation of the future prospects for the French practice of executive cohabitation will be presented.
The issue of cohabitation first arose during the fourteen-year presidential tenure of Mitterrand. Because of Mitterrand's relatively radical Socialist agenda, the French people were not always welcoming of the sweeping reforms he implemented, despite the fact that some of these changes were beneficial. However, what the French public focused on were rising unemployment rates, increasingly higher taxes, and falling currency values and exports. Taken together, these issues resulted in a public skepticism of Mitterrand's fitness to wield presidential control without the tempering effect of another powerful, non-Socialist politician.