Two leading authors challenge the assumption that France has a well coordinated government. The constitutional, political,and policy frameworks of coordination are critically assessed in relation to the central actors and spending ministries, as well as the formal and informal mechanisms of coordination. Four case studies are examined; the European Union, budget, privatization and immigration policy processes. The book concludes with forthright findings on a fragment executive struggling to steer a disparate and partially paralyzed institutional structure.

The research findings offer precise cautionary recommendations to policy makers against the dangers of overconfident recourse to 'joined up' government. The findings are relevant, not merely to France, but generally to Western states more generally.