The Regions, Public Transport, and the Dynamics of Public Policy ; Le train des régions. Régionalisation des transports collectifs et recompositions de l'action publique
In 2002, the regionalization of public policy reached a new stage at the end of a five year experimentation, with the transfer to the Regions of a new responsibility in public transport. This doctoral thesis is an attempt at understanding on what factors regional transport policies depend, and what it reveals in terms of the transformation of public policy. Basing our thesis on a comparative analysis of four regions (Alsace, Centre, Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées), we have studied public policy in a concrete way, through a combination of empirical and theoretical approaches. While the study of public transport has long been left to other academic fields (such as geography and economy, among others), resorting to a political science approach enabled us to shed new light on this object. Rail transport is the very archetype of the sector with its own elite, expertise and norms. It is also a sector in which policy outputs have a marked spatial, material and technical dimension. These specificities have an impact on regional policies and raise questions concerning the relations between sector and territories, as well as between technique and politics. At the same time, the study of railway regionalization is a means to further the analysis of the Region and regional power. It brings into focus new orientations, thus paving the way for a renewed approach to regional policy. ; En 2002, la régionalisation de l'action publique a franchi une étape importante avec le transfert aux Régions, à l'issue d'une expérimentation de cinq ans, d'une nouvelle compétence en matière de transports collectifs. Ce travail de doctorat tente de comprendre de quoi dépendent les usages régionaux de cette compétence et ce que ces usages traduisent en termes de recompositions de l'action publique. Reposant sur une analyse comparée de quatre régions (Alsace, Centre, Languedoc-Roussillon et Midi-Pyrénées), il s'attache à saisir l'action publique " au concret " à partir d'une combinaison d'approches empiriques et théoriques. Alors que ...