ABSTRACT
France invented the model of the centralized unitary state, in which territorial governance is conceived in a strictly top-down, hierarchical manner and exercised through a prefectoral system. Already the French monarchy, during the period of the Ancien Régime, was attempting to impose its control over the whole of the territory despite the resistance of the provinces and the nobility who resided there. This was only more or less successful and was carried further by the French Revolution which began in 1789, particularly during the Jacobin period (1792–97) and subsequently consolidated by Napoleon I. This French model of the state, sometimes called the Jacobin or Napoleonic model (Loughlin and Peters, 1997), was subsequently adopted by many other states.
