Edited by
Antoine Laporte, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France.
Antonine Ribardière, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France.
ISBN : 9781789452020
Publication Date : May 2025
Hardcover 352 pp
165.00 USD
Co-publisher
The reader may be amazed when they are faced with the sheer number of territorial divisions associated with public action, and full of questions. What justifies this diversity? What are the problems that arise from these divisions? Why don’t the limits of public action simply follow administrative and political subdivisions?
Territorial Division for Public Action focuses on the situation in France, proposing three different approaches. First, we consider the functions that are associated with these territorial divisions: equitable distribution of resources across the territory, administration and the management of public services. However, they are also a tool for maintaining power.
Lastly, we consider the effects these divisions have on the implementation of public action and on socio-spatial structures. These divisions reflect political projects, which embody the issues as much as the partition design itself does. The recent reform of territorial regions, alongside a gradual imposition of intercommunal links in France, has given rise to political debates at both local and national levels.
Part 1. Territorial Division and the Political Project.
1. France’s Départements and Municipalities: Fossils or Phoenixes? Antoine Laporte.
2. Intermunicipal Division: An Ambiguous Revolution, Guillaume Vergnaud and Antoine Laporte.
3. Contradictory Bets on a Greater Paris, Xavier Desjardins.
4. Creating Neighborhoods for Participatory Democracy, Anne-Lise Humain-Lamoure.
5. Division for Better Governance in Post-Revolution Tunisia, Maher Ben Rebah.
Part 2. Territorial Division and Access to Rights.
6. The Challenges of the French Judicial Map, Etienne Cahu.
7. School Sectorization, the Territorial Division of the French Republic’s Schools? Jean-Christophe François.
8. The Territorial Division of Social Action to Promote Cohesion and Reduce Inequalities, Antonine Ribardière.
9. France’s Territorial Frameworks for Public Health Policy, Catherine Mangeney, Emmanuel Eliot, Véronique Lucas-Gabrielli, Guillaume Chevillard and Magali Coldefy.
Part 3. Sharing Public Action: From Territorial Division to Zoning.
10. Selecting and Acting upon “Priority Neighborhoods” to Reduce Inequalities? Violette Arnoulet and Christine Lelévrier.
11. Demarcate to Preserve: Zoning Protected Areas in France, Lionel Laslaz.
12. Public Action Zoning in Rural Areas, Pascal Chevalier and Guillaume Lacquement.
13. Rural Revitalization Zones: Between Equality and Efficiency, Christophe Quéva.
Antoine Laporte is Assistant Professor at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France, and member of the UMR EVS.
Antonine Ribardière is Professor at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France, and member of the UMR Géographie-Cités.
