The social life of conditionality: Green industrial policy in post- <i>dirigiste</i> France

The advent of state-led decarbonization has brought with it a renaissance of industrial policy. To evaluate how such policies discipline private capital, social scientists are turning to the conditionalities embedded in public-private contracts. Yet many continue to fetishize the terms of contractual agreements at the risk of ignoring how these terms are, in actuality, enforced. This paper theorizes the “social life” of conditionality through a framework that combines contractual design with the administrative practices that determine the process of enforcement. To illustrate, I apply this framework to two green investment subsidies in France—both designed to decarbonize the 50 highest emitting industrial sites as part of the country’s turn toward “ecological planning.” Drawing on public records and interviews, the case study indicates conditionalities are in fact strong, yet the state is pursuing a form of “soft” enforcement that enables preferential treatment of firms. In doing so, the paper illustrates the contradictory character of green industrial policy in post- dirigiste France. Moreover, it demonstrates the urgency of placing greater attention on the immediate institutional environments in which industrial policies play out. Once this environment is mapped, scholars will find they are better equipped to investigate the broader power struggles that shape such policies.