Decentralization, Europeanization, State Restructuring, and the Politics of Instruments Accumulation: The Case of the French Housing Sector

Abstract

This paper advances research on policy accumulation by analyzing its political consequences in the French housing sector. It argues that, in the context of decentralization reforms, the accumulation of policy instruments has undermined national steering capacities and intensified territorial inequalities. Decentralization accelerated accumulation by decoupling policy formulation from the costs and administrative responsibilities of implementation, shifting these burdens onto subnational governments. The resulting proliferation of instruments politicized implementation, as local authorities confronted capacity-driven trade-offs between adhering to national directives and pursuing local policies, while simultaneously gaining opportunities to innovate and build coalitions with non-state actors. Consequenty, local governments in economically dynamic areas could strategically leverage policy accumulation to advance their interests, whereas those in less affluent regions faced administrative overload. By adopting an institutional perspective on policy instruments, this paper shows how accumulation research can foreground the political consequences of accumulation, which increasingly shape the problem-solving capacities and legitimacy of modern states.