Electoral dynamics, the construction of a common sense and national urban policies: The case of the radical right vote in the 2002 French presidential election

The main theories of urban governance analysis do not take a significant interest in elections. As a result, the existing literature has seldom meaningfully engaged with electoral dynamics. This article seeks to put electoral dynamics at the centre of urban governance analysis. We examine the case of France and its Politique de la Ville, the national urban policy targeted towards the banlieues – the working-class neighbourhoods at the periphery of French cities. We aim to explain how a major reform of this policy in 2003 came about in the aftermath of the 2002 French presidential election, where a radical right candidate progressed to the second round of the election for the first time in history. By taking Gramsci’s notion of ‘common sense’ as a starting point and dwelling on critical approaches to electoral processes, this article examines the construction of the discourse on the banlieues during the campaign through analysing the media and political debates. It shows how this discourse shaped the interpretation of the election’s outcome and provided a political opportunity to justify a major reform of the policy. We conclude by calling for a more careful examination of electoral dynamics, and deconstruction of the common sense discourses underpinning their interpretation.