^aDepartment of Political Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA. E-mail: toloudis@rutgers.edu

Abstract

From his early work covering local politics in France to his most recent studies of the French labor movement, Mark Kesselman has been a keen analyst of the trajectory of the French left. His work has always been a reaction against current trends in political science. The analyses of local politics rejected the then-current modernization paradigm. His examination of the Mitterrand experiment of the early 1980s held out for the possibility of a progressive shift in France. And his recent work on French trade unions moved to the local level, showing how labor has dealt with firm-level responses to technological change.