WEST, Karen <br/><br/>
From Bilateral to Trilateral Governance in Local Government Contracting in France  

 - Canberra, Australia :  Blackwell publishing,  June 2005 
<br/><br/> In France, the tradition of contracting out local public services has been predominantly one of partnership and co-operation rather than competition and antagonism. However, in recent years the traditional approach has come under intense criticism, something which has far-reaching implications for public-private governance. Adopting the socio-legal approach to the study of contract governance set out by Peter Vincent-Jones, this paper explores the discrepancy between descriptions of a traditional French approach to local public services governance, in which the bilateral values of trust and co-operation are emphasized, and a new discourse of local public services governance, which argues for detailed contract planning and close contract monitoring. It is argued that this discrepancy reveals the beginning of a shift in the governance of public service exchange relationships from relatively non-contractual and bilateral to relatively contractual and trilateral. The French case highlights the importance of regulatory and accountability frameworks to the manner in which contracting parties perceive exchange governance.