BARUCH, Olivier

Introduction - administrateurs et administrations sons la IVe République : une histoire politique - Paris : ENA, 2003

Studies of the Fourth Republic, usually critiques of a teleological nature, tend to caricature and thus prevent a true understanding of this key period. A political history of the administration of the Fourth Republic would on the contrary make it possible to show how civil servants, faced with the blockage of institutions, contributed to the modernisation of France. Such an overall history would have to concern itself with the practises of the state designed as an administrative system, and thus with the main players, the strategies they develop, the areas they focus on, and the resources they mobilise. This approach might also bring to light some of the unexpected factors that modernisation encountered from the start