ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a series of observations that challenge the general celebration of the proximity principle in France. It argues that the probability of locally based management being a lever for democracy depends primarily on trends in the processes of contractualization, partnership and individualization of public policies, and on their consequences. The idea is that the multiplication of arenas of negotiation, the generalization of contracts and the development of regulatory agencies constitute several key modalities of ‘new public action’. Cooperation between associations and public authorities is recognized today, and is both officialised and normalized. A form of public action based on partnerships between public services and associations at the service of locally based management of various social problems has thus been developed. The institutionalisation and normalization processes of partnerships with associations nourish the idea of public locally based management, but with clarity as to the neither goals nor certainty as to their pursuit.
