The use of contractual agreements in intergovernmental relations. A tool of governance or a tool of government ?

This paper is about the increasing use of contractual agreements between levels of government in France, trend that can also be seen in Europe. Contractual agreements can be considered as part of the multi-level governance toolbox. In order to implement policies and projects in this complex institutional framework, where some competences are shared by different levels of government, public actors use institutional arrangements such as quasi contractual devices as a way to cooperate, coordinate their action and manage public policy overlaps. These intergovernmental relations are often analysed from this fonctionnalist perspective, describing public actors having shared issues to deal with and getting together through synallagmatic agreements in order to find joint and efficient solutions. Based on different examples of contractual agreements, this paper seeks to adopt a different but complementary angle of analysis of the making, the appropriation and the implementation of these public policy devices. In a context marked by the economic crisis and budgetary policies aiming at reducing public deficits on the one hand, and by an ongoing Territorial Reform reshaping the institutional order of governance on the other hand, contractual agreements can also be mobilised by public authorities in order to enhance their position in the institutional system or to achieve their political objectives. The paper focuses on three cases of more or less binding contractual agreements implemented in France, and shows how the power relations in a given configuration of players and the political-institutional contexts are determining factors in the understanding of the different uses of contractual agreements . The first type of contractual agreement is a device set up by French Departments in the 2000's to allocate subsidies to local infra-departmental authorities in order to co-finance their land-use planning projects. The analysis shows how this tool was designed and implemented as an attempt for French Departments, weakened by the past territorial reforms, to regain control over their territory. The second case study focuses on more recent contractual agreements implemented by some French metropolitan governments with rural local governments since 2015, seeking to a better cooperation between big cities and their hinterland, through partnerships. Such initiatives can also be looked at as a way for the French metropolitan areas which have been given additional powers in 2014 to extend their area of influence, particularly vis-à-vis the Departments. Finally the third type of contractual agreement was introduced by the French government in 2017 aiming to contain public expenses of local governments. Presented as a financial device based on local government volunteering, the implementation of this contractual agreement is however part of a broader strategy led by central power since the 2000's of recentralisation of local finance and taxation, on which local elected representatives have increasingly limited room for manoeuvre. Overviews of similar contractual arrangements in other European countries could also be included in this perspective. Thus, this paper aims to question what instruments of governance, such as contractual arrangements, and the attempts at political control they contain, can teach us about contemporary forms of government .