Top‐down to bottom‐up? Centre‐periphery relations and power structures in France's Gaullist party

Changes in centre‐periphery relations, both institutional (most notably decentralisation) and socio‐economic (the growing importance of cities) have radically altered the environment in which French political parties operate. The unprecedentedly close links between parties and the local political system that have resulted have profoundly affected power structures within the parties. Just as the Fifth Republic ‘presidentialised’ parties, so decentralisation has ‘localised’ them. The case of the Rassemblement pour la Republique, the inheritor to the top‐down, presidentialist tradition of Gaullism, is a remarkable illustration of this transformation.