pp. 3-33

This article analyzes the restructuring of relations between the French state and its territory, a process that has been under way since the 1980s, and the effects of that restructuring on the state bureaucratic apparatus through a case study of a recently « deconcentrated » department of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the Délégation Régionale à la Recherche et à la Technologie or DRRT, staffed by representatives (délégués) of the national state at the regional level in the areas of research and technology. The only support made available to these « delegates » comes from certain European Union funds. The way research and development policies are run thus attests to a combination of state withdrawal from and reinvestment at the local level : though the state is making increasing use of local authorities and regional-level projects and structures to steer public policy in this area, it is doing so by withdrawing from its deconcentrated departments, which no longer work to mediate between the central state, administrative staff and local academic communities.