Rescaling Interest Representation in Regional Policy Making: The Case of the Conseils Economiques, Sociaux et Environnementaux Régionaux

The rescaling of interest representation in French Regions has often been documented regarding the organization of interests groups or the extension of territorial social dialogue. Yet the Economic, Social and Environmental Regional Councils (Conseils Economiques, Sociaux et Environnementaux Régionaux, or CESER) have been materializing the involvement of social partners and organized civil society in the regional policy-making process for over four decades. The CESER resulted from the divorce between electoral and socio-professional representation, generated by the decentralization reform. Previously associated with partisan representation in the early forms of Regional assemblies, interest representation has ever since remained (although only in a consultative fashion) part of the regional institution. Such assemblies occupy a unique position as organized mediation arenas between political and socio-economic institutional spheres where interdependences consolidate, conflicts crystallize, collective bargaining rules are negotiated, and therefore they offer insights into the impact of interest territorialisation on the regional policy making process. This work intends to present and analyze data on the evolving nature of organized interests participation to the definition of regional policies within the CESERs, on the basis of an ongoing thesis. It combines longitudinal data collected in Aquitaine, regarding nomination process and seats allocation, with mapping of multiple positions held by members of the CESER in concomitant arenas of mediation between organized interests and public deciders. This will be used in conjunction with interviews in order to underline how different degrees and organizational forms of interest territorialisation impact the ability and the modalities of political participation within the CESER. In a complex environment with new regional interests nominated in the assembly and growing alternate arenas of negotiation with policy makers at the regional level, interest representation in the CESERs seem to resort increasingly to expertise rather than adversarial deliberation in order to participate to the policy-making process.