This article reinterprets French postwar economic planning not as a top-down exercise in technocratic control, but as a form of structured negotiation between state officials and business elites — a mode of coordination I term a “growth alliance.” Drawing on archival material and case studies in the steel and agricultural sectors, the paper shows how planning institutions such as the Commissariat général du Plan and technical committees served as arenas of selective consultation, where the state and industry worked to coordinate investment and production strategies while deliberately excluding organized labor. Contrasting sectoral dynamics reveals how the institutionalization of growth alliances was uneven and contingent on the organizational structure and political leverage of participating actors. By emphasizing the negotiated character of postwar planning, the article challenges both statist and neoliberal narratives of economic governance and contributes to broader debates on state capacity, industrial policy, and the politics of growth.

Speaker

Antoine Jourdan, EHESS 

Chair 

Matthias Thiemann, Sciences Po, CEE