Abstract
The French UDF has failed in its attempt to become a party capable of dominating the right at the expense of the Gaullist RPR. It is best regarded as an underdeveloped party which has difficulty in acting as a unitary organization. This failure is due to the exceptional historical and institutional context of its birth but also to the preference of its leaders for their existing organizations. To preserve these they have elaborated a sophisticated and measurable system of compromise between themselves and with the RPR which guarantees significant rewards. This underdeveloped status will probably continue indefinitely. In a wider context the UDF's failure sheds light on the difficulty of creating genuinely new partisan organizations.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
