Véronique Dimier - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

V. Dimier is professor of political science at the Free University of Brussels. She has been formerly Deakin and Marie Curie fellow at St Antony's college, Oxford, Fulbright Fellow at NYU university, Braudel Fellow at the European Institute (Firenze) and the holder of the price and chaire Gütenberg, University of Strasbourg (Sage). She got her Phd at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Grenoble in 1999 (The institutionnalisation of a science of colonial government in France and Britain, between the 1930s and 1950s). Her Phd dissertation was published in 2004: Le gouvernement des colonies, regards croisés franco-britannique, Presses Universitaire de Bruxelles, 2004. This dissertation deals with the Indirect Rule vs Direct rule controversy among French and British experts in colonial administration from the 1930s on ("Direct or Indirect Rule : propaganda around a scientific controversy", in : Chafer, T., A. Sackur (dir.), Promoting the colonial idea : propaganda and vision of empire in France, London and New York, Palgrave (Macmillan), 2002, p. 168-183). It shows how this controversy was part of the institutionalisation of a science of colonial government in France and Britain, a science which rested on a comparisons (« Three universities and the British elite: a science of colonial administration in the UK », Public Administration,(UK), n°84, n°2, 2006, p. 337-366). It also analyses the political stakes behind these comparisons and scientific controversy, most notably within the Permanent Mandate Commission (« On good colonial government: lessons from the League of Nation», Global Society, vol. 18, n°3, July 2004, p. 279-299). Since 1999 Véronique Dimier has been working on several topics like the debate about French citizenship at decolonization and beyond (“For a Republic “diverse and indivisible” ? experience from the colonial past”. Journal of contemporary European history, Vol 13, n°1, 2004, p. 45-66; "Unity in diversity: contending conceptions of French Republic and nation", West European Politics, 2004, n°27/5, 836-853); debate on securalism within the colonial context (“French laicité in debate”: French culture, politics and Society, 2008, Vol. 26, No. 1, p. 92-110); the second career of colonial officials ("For a new start ? Resettling colonial administrators in the French prefectoral corps (1960-1980s)", Itinerario, The European Journal of Overseas history, Vol 28, n°1, 2004, p. 49-66). She has also started a new long term research on the role of ex French colonial officials in designing and implementing and an EU development aid bureaucracy. This led to several articles ("Legitimizing the DG8 : a small family business (1958-1975)", European Consortium for Political Research, joint session, Workshop : the political logics within the European Commission, Grenoble, 6-10 april 2001; “ Bringing neo-patrimonalism back to Europe : decolonization and the construction of the EEC development policy”, 48/2008 of the Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, p. 433-460). This work includes articles on the EU delegations (With M. Mcgeever: “Diplomats without a flag: the institutionalization of the delegations of the European Commission in ACP countries » », Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 44, n°3, 2006, p. 483-505) and on political conditionality in development aid policy“ (Constructing conditionality: the bureaucratization of EC development aid”, Journal of European Foreign Affairs, n°11, 2006, p. 263-280). This has led to a second book: (The invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy, Palgrave, 2014), a book which was presented recently at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, the European University Institute in Firenze, New York and Columbia Universities. The last two years she has been working on Businesses, decolonization and development thanks to the Braudel Fellowship and the chair Gutenberg. She is teaching African politics, EU development policies and international public policies (global health governance).

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Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, 2020

European decolonisation posed new uncertainties and risks for European companies with an establis... more European decolonisation posed new uncertainties and risks for European companies with an established presence in Africa. However, some firms found not just risk but opportunities in decolonisation. By examining the activities of foreign enterprises in various African states, and their strategies to stay in Africa, various contributors explore how some European companies benefitted from features of the new international landscape, particularly those provided by development aid. The book brings together research on different European companies (most notably those of former colonial powers) and considers their work or involvement in the development field after European decolonisation. In this introduction to the book, Dimier and Stockwell show how by bringing the study of foreign companies and development aid to Africa into the same frame of analysis, the book breaks new ground. They provide an extensive review of the historiographies of business and development in the colonial and post-colonial eras, and identify key features of European, and especially British and French, post-colonial development aid. They also introduce each chapter and the key themes and questions which these chapters address.

The Invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy, 2014

The influence of French ex-colonial officials on DG8 was clearly recognized by those who joined t... more The influence of French ex-colonial officials on DG8 was clearly recognized by those who joined the DG from other services. As Claude Cheysson, Commissioner for Development between 1973 and 1981, put it: ‘when I arrived at the European Commission, the style was very colonial. If French colonial officials had not implemented indirect rule in colonial times, they certainly did so while at DG8’ (Interview Cheysson). Indeed, they played a crucial role in building the identity of the directorate general. A key figure in this process was Ferrandi. As a ‘leader’ in the institutionalization of DG8 (Selznick, 1957; Hargrove, 1994; Boin and Christensen, 2008), he had the difficult task ‘of interpreting and articulating the organization’s purposes to its own people and to constituencies in its environment’ (Hargrove, 1994, p. 3). He had to define DG8’s mission and methods and orient DG8’s social structure in such a way as to provide the institution with a strong social base capable of sustaining this mission and his own authority, both internally and externally. Following Liesbet Hooghe’s hypothesis about the socialization of Commission officials, I will assume that his former socialization at the French colonial school and his prior experience (in the Directorate General of the Economic Services of the West African Federation) had an influence in shaping his preferences, interests and norms regarding DG8’s mission and methods (Hooghe, 2001, 2005).

The Invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy, 2014

Politique européenne, 2015

Cet article s’interesse a la maniere dont le service charge de l’evaluation des politiques de dev... more Cet article s’interesse a la maniere dont le service charge de l’evaluation des politiques de developpement s’est institutionnalise au sein d’une organisation (la DG DEVCO de la Commission europeenne) pendant longtemps refractaire a toute idee d’efficacite. Il analyse les enjeux politiques et organisationnels derriere ce service et ses pratiques Notre hypothese est que, du fait d’une forte resistance de la part du personnel de la DG DEVCO (et des delegations de l’UE), ces pratiques s’apparentent davantage a un rituel de conformite aux normes de l’efficacite devenues dominantes sur l’agenda des donateurs.

Du 26 au 28 avril 1999, trois hauts fonctionnaires tunisiens, le directeur général des affaires p... more Du 26 au 28 avril 1999, trois hauts fonctionnaires tunisiens, le directeur général des affaires politiques, le directeur de l'informatique et le chef de la division des élections du Ministère de l'Intérieur tunisien sont accueillis par le Ministère de l'Intérieur français à leur demande : ceux-ci souhaitaient s'informer sur l'expérience française en matière de collecte des résultats et de la gestion informatique relative aux élections 1. Le programme concocté pour la visite de leurs homologues tunisiens par les fonctionnaires français comprend un exposé de l'adjoint au chef de bureau des élections et de la vie politique portant sur les règles juridiques et les pratiques administratives applicables à la collecte des résultats électoraux, une intervention du chef des projets de l'administration centrale et des SGAP 2 à la direction des transmissions et de l'informatique (DTI) consacrées aux modalités techniques applicables à la centralisation des résultats, une visite de la préfecture du Pas-de-Calais avec les responsables des services élections et informatique et une visite à la préfecture du Nord au cours de laquelle ils rencontrent le directeur de la réglementation et 1 Note du Directeur Général de l'Administration à l'attention de M. le directeur de l'administration territoriale et des affaires politiques, sous-direction des affaires politiques et de la vie associative, le 25/02/1999. CAC-20050222-art. 3-4 / minutier chronologique de F-X Véron, chef de la division politique du Ministère de l'Intérieur. 2 Anciens centres administratifs et techniques interdépartementaux (CATI), les Secrétariats Généraux d'Administration de la Police (SGAP) ont été créés en 1971.

S’appuyant sur les théories institutionnalistes de P. Selznick, cet article vise à analyser le rô... more S’appuyant sur les théories institutionnalistes de P. Selznick, cet article vise à analyser le rôle des leaders dans l’institutionnalisation d’une administration multinationale, à partir d’une étude de cas historique : la construction de la dg Développement (Commission européenne), chargée des accords de coopération avec les pays acp, entre 1958 et 1975. Il tend à démontrer la complexité de la position de ces leaders, pris entre les contraintes que leur impose leur pays d’origine et la défense des intérêts et de l’autonomie de l’institution qu’ils contribuent à créer (parfois contre l’intérêt de leur pays d’origine).

The Invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy

‘The malaise comes from Germany. It has discovered that the participation of its companies and in... more ‘The malaise comes from Germany. It has discovered that the participation of its companies and industries in the EDF is only 10% of the total while its own contribution to the Fund is perceptibly superior (34%). There is a view that has gained currency in public opinion that this state of affairs is unbalanced — a situation that nobody contests — but also that it is unfair — which is more contestable. According to the same view, we should remedy it by all possible means. Among these means, some are legal and possible (the Commission has sought for some years now to work them out with tenacity and even success). Others are neither desirable nor workable (automatic division of markets, obligation on companies to amalgamate). One has to realize that the privileged (even monopolistic) situation of one of the Member States (France) is about to be reduced and brought into line, which is normal in a Community. One can also see that the participation of other Member States in their trade with the Associated States or in the adjudication of the Fund is increasing year by year. From this, one may conclude that the Commission is on the right track and must continue its efforts (…). The Community is not a piggy-bank, from which each Member State can draw the exact amount of money that it initially gave’ (Ferrandi, 1967, p. 31).

The Invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy

‘I am worried about the villages that are ignored. I am afraid about the engineers who will say: ... more ‘I am worried about the villages that are ignored. I am afraid about the engineers who will say: this village is not at the right place; we have to move this village closer to the railway (…). I fear the inventor who will find some industrial utility for the millet, the main resource of the village (…). Here are the engineers, the inventors, these new sorcerers (…). Fascinated by the irrigation plan for the Niger River, you, engineers, are behaving like European benefactors. You act as if you invented agriculture in the Sudan. True, you have invented so many wonders (…), but in fact you have not seen anything of the villages that the Black people created before you arrived. You cannot grasp the profound character of this ancient countryside (…). You cannot change these villages. If you do, they will die. Move the village where the sorcerers dance but be warned: without sorcerers it will disappear and you will only face poor barbarians, incapable of mastering the bush’ (Delavignette, Director of the French Colonial School, 1935a, p. 142–145).

Politique européenne, 2003

Après avoir présenté la genèse de la DG Développement, fortement marqué parle rôle d'anciens admi... more Après avoir présenté la genèse de la DG Développement, fortement marqué parle rôle d'anciens administrateurs coloniaux français, cet article met en évidence un processus de bureaucratisation, très progressif, qui se traduit notamment par la mise en place d'une logique de programmation reposant sur des critères de plus en plus formalisés, se substituant à une logique de projet, fondée sur des relations inter-personnelles. La rationalisation des procédures administratives est ainsi au coeur des réformes actuelles de la Commission, allant dans le sens du management public et d'une plus grande transparence. Les jours de la Direction Générale Développement, direction chargée des accords de coopération au développement avec les pays ACP, sont comptés. Chaque discours de P. Nielson, le commissaire responsable de ce domaine, annonce sa mort prochaine. Sa principale fonction, la gestion du Fonds Européen de Développement, a d'ailleurs été transférée depuis 2001 à une nouvelle entité, Europ-Aid, et il ne lui reste actuellement plus qu'une vague fonction de programmation. Le destin de la DG DEV est, en fait, étroitement lié à la réforme de la gestion des aides extérieures communautaires entamée en 2000 et à la réforme plus large de la Commission européenne. Cette réforme s'est donnée pour but de modifier la "culture administrative" des institutions européennes dans le sens notamment du "New Public Management": ouverture, indépendance, responsabilité, obligation de rendre compte, efficience, transparence (Livre Blanc, 2000, partie I : 22). Elle entend faire face aux critiques de l'opinion publique face à des institutions considérées comme trop " bureaucratiques ". Elle entend également remédier à l'évolution d'une Commission qui s'est de plus en plus éloignée de ses fonctions initiales (d'initiatrice et de gardienne des traités) pour se concentrer sur la gestion de budgets et de programmes opérationnels, fonctions pour lesquelles elle n'aurait pas été préparée par sa "culture" interne, si l'on suit le diagnostic du Livre Blanc sur la réforme de la Commission (Livre Blanc, 2001, plan d'action : 20). Il en découlerait les dysfonctionnements et 16 Interview, J. Ferrandi. 17 Des personnes de la DG8 que nous avons interviewées, en dehors des administrateurs coloniaux, aucune n'avait une expérience pratique de l'Afrique. Leur formation passait principalement par des études d'économie. 18 Interview U. Stefani (22 février 2001). U. Stefani, entra à la DG8 dès 1958 dans la direction A. Affaire Générale, où il restera jusqu'en 1966. Il devait continuer sa carrière comme assistant du directeur général dans la DG Affaires Economiques et Financières. 19 Interview J. Durieux. 20 Interview, U. Stefani.

The Invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy

Public Administration, 2015

Pouvoirs, 2005

L' ANNÉE 1946 MARQUE UNE ÉTAPE IMPORTANTE dans l'évolution de l'empire colonial français. D'un cô... more L' ANNÉE 1946 MARQUE UNE ÉTAPE IMPORTANTE dans l'évolution de l'empire colonial français. D'un côté, la départementalisation (loi du 19 mars 1946), c'est-à-dire l'intégration politique, juridique et administrative à la métropole des plus anciennes colonies-colonies de peuplement acquises sous l'Ancien Régime : La Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane. De l'autre, la création d'une Union française qui regroupait dans un même ensemble juridique inscrit dans la Constitution la France et ce que l'on nommait alors les territoires d'outre-mer, colonies acquises principalement au cours du XIXe siècle en Afrique, en Asie ou Océanie, parmi lesquels les actuels TOM, Nouvelle-Calédonie, Polynésie française, Wallis-et-Futuna, et les Terres australes et antarctiques françaises1. Cette Union comprenait des institutions et une citoyenneté commune de nature hybride : elle disposait ainsi de sa propre assemblée, incluant pour moitié des représentants parlementaires métropolitains, pour moitié des représentants de l'outre-mer, un conseil spécifique, incluant des représentants du gouvernement français et des exécutifs de chaque territoire, institutions qui n'avaient néanmoins qu'un pouvoir consultatif. La Constitution prévoyait également une citoyenneté de l'Union française commune à l'ensemble des ressortissants de l'Union se superposant à la citoyenneté française proprement dite, mais dont le contenu restait flou. Elle conférait également aux anciens sujets de l'empire la citoyenneté française, leur

Revue d'Histoire des Sciences Humaines, 2004

Le Commandant de Cercle : un « expert » en administration coloniale, un « spécialiste » de l'indi... more Le Commandant de Cercle : un « expert » en administration coloniale, un « spécialiste » de l'indigène ? Véronique DIMIER Résumé Cet article vise à analyser dans quelles mesures l'institutionnalisation d'une science politique ou administrative des colonies au sein de la formation des administrateurs coloniaux s'inscrit dans une stratégie de défense d'une administration coloniale, politique par excellence, qui prise, entre les revendications des nouvelles élites africaines et l'emprise croissante des services techniques, tente de se trouver une nouvelle raison d'être « technicisée » ; dans quelles mesures elle fait partie du processus de professionnalisation progressive d'un corps qui jusqu'ici se définissait précisément par son dilettantisme.

Public Administration, 2006

In this article we examine how the science of colonial administration, which evolved within the t... more In this article we examine how the science of colonial administration, which evolved within the training for colonial administrators in the decades 1930–50 in Britain, became institutionalized in British Universities. We will see that both the colonial context and the somewhat ambivalent conception of colonial administration conveyed by academics such as Margery Perham, Lucy Mair and officials from the Colonial Office may have justified the need to consider colonial administration to be a scientific discipline in its own right, but that it was perhaps the fight between the universities to control and produce the British administrative elite which provided the driver that helped that science to gain institutional legitimacy.

Articles, 2005

Cet article vise à analyser les discours de doctrinaires coloniaux français et anglais concernant... more Cet article vise à analyser les discours de doctrinaires coloniaux français et anglais concernant la politique indigène. Il étudie la façon dont l’idée de « mission civilisatrice » va, en France comme en Grande-Bretagne, laisser peu à peu la place à celle de développement, à un moment (les années 1930) où la « gouvernementalité » des colonies est repensée. Il montre dans quelle mesure cette idée de politique indigène cesse d’être un « droit d’exploitationv» et un « devoir de civilisation » pour emprunter une voie plus sociologique, malgré son caractère paternaliste.

JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2006

This article deals with the evolution of the status and role of the delegations of the European C... more This article deals with the evolution of the status and role of the delegations of the European Commission in Africa from the 1960s onwards. Starting from an institutionalist approach, it tries to show to what extent this evolution reflects the bureaucratization of the external service (in the Weberian sense of a rational and professional civil service) in parallel with that of the administration of the Commission as a whole. It envisages the current reform of the external service as a new step in the construction of a mature European bureaucracy.

Journal of European Integration History, 2017

When the British joined the EEC they immediately asserted that the European Development Fund (EDF... more When the British joined the EEC they immediately asserted that the European Development Fund (EDF), and by extension, the European Commission, were serving French interests. 1 As they were contributing to the fund, it was essential that the money should be well managed and spent, i.e., that UK firms and UK former colonial territories should get their fair share of it. 'UK firms continue to take a proportionately low share of business from the EDF. At 31/12/83, with a UK contribution of 18.7% to EDF IV and 17.76% to EDF V, UK firms had only won 9.8% of overall business from EDF IV (or 14.44% of Member States' contracts only) and 11.71% of business overall from EDF V (or 15% of business won by Member States only). The position is improving steadily but still compares unfavourably with most of our multilateral contribution'. 2 In 1967, EDF Director Jacques Ferrandi, confronted with similar criticisms from the Germans, warned that the Community '[was]not a piggy-bank, from which each Member State could draw the exact amount of money that it initially gave'. 3 After all, was the EEC, as a political experiment, not supposed to enhance solidarity among the Member States and, through the Association, between the EEC and the African associates? Indeed, as laid down in the Treaty of Rome, the Association was meant to ensure 'the development and well-being' of what were still in 1957 overseas territories (mainly French and Belgian colonial territories in Tropical Africa). Renamed after decolonization of those countries, the Yaoundé Convention with Associated African and Malagasy States, (AAMS, 1963), then, when the British joined the EEC and some of their former colonial territories were associated, the Lomé Convention with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP, 1975), it purported to be a 'grand oeuvre de solidarité' ('great charitable solidarity effort'). 4 The EDF was the main financial instrument of those conventions and one of the first financial instruments run by the European Commission. While the Member States of the EEC contributed directly to its funding, it was the European Commission that was responsible 1. This research has been financed through the Gutenberg Chair, funded by the local councils of the Alsace Region and hold by SAGE, the research Centre on Society, Stakeholders and Governement in Europe, at the University of Strasbourg. I am grateful to Louis Bataille and Julia Mussig for their help in translating German documents.

Revue française d'administration publique, 2004

y This article deals with the institutionalisation of a specific service in charge of evaluation ... more y This article deals with the institutionalisation of a specific service in charge of evaluation within an organisation (DG DEV of the European Commission); which had been for a long time opposed to any idea of efficiency. It analyses the political and organisational stakes behind this service and its practices. Our hypothesis is that, due to a lots of resistance among the officials of DG DEVCO and of the EU delegations, these practices looks rather like a ritual of conformity to the norms of efficiency which had become dominant on the agenda of donors.

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, 2020

The Invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy, 2014

Politique européenne, 2015

The Invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy

Politique européenne, 2003

The Invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy

Public Administration, 2015

Pouvoirs, 2005

Revue d'Histoire des Sciences Humaines, 2004

Public Administration, 2006

Articles, 2005

JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2006

Journal of European Integration History, 2017

Revue française d'administration publique, 2004

This paper deals with the negotiations concerning the EEC association with overseas territories d... more This paper deals with the negotiations concerning the EEC association with overseas territories during the Treaty of Rome meeting in 1957. It insists on the fact that at a time when French overseas terrirories in Tropical Africa were granted more and more autonomy, their leaders were kept outside these negotiations. Hence the subsequent necessity for the EEC and the European Commission (DG development) to convince these leaders to stay associated with the EEC when independence became impending in 1960 and the association had to be renewed to become the Yaoundé convention (the basis of EEC development policy). We analyse here the strategies used by the European Commission and its services (DG8) to convince the African elite to remain associated with the EEC. The strategy was copied on colonial methods and was to target a specific elite, trying, through, this elite to reach the 'population'. This however did not work out, as the elite of the African states, played the role of censor.