I am a CNRS Researcher at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po in Paris. My research interests are in comparative political economy, public policy and legislative politics.
I am currently working on two main projects that utilize a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods. Building on historical, mathematical, and statistical analyses, the first (book) project examines how private insurance is quietly reshaping conservative-corporatist welfare regimes by empowering market actors, reinforcing labor market dualization, and eroding public support for social insurance.
The second project explores the political economy of corruption and legislative favoritism in various countries and its redistributive implications at the firm level. As part of this latter project, I am currently building with colleagues (and making available) large-scale micro level datasets about legislative and regulatory processes in various countries around the world.
At Sciences Po, I teach courses in political science, public policy and political economy. I’m also the incoming scientific advisor for the ‘Politics and Public Policy’ stream at the School of Public Affairs. Interested students are encouraged to contact me for further information.
You can access a recent version of my CV here and reach me at cyril.benoit@cnrs.fr. Below, you can find summaries of some of my recent work.
Selected PUBLICATIONS
Published in JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies.
In December 2023, the European Parliament and the Council reached an agreement to revise the Solvency II Directive, aiming to unlock €100 billion in private investment through a series of deregulatory measures. This marks a significant departure from the stringent insurance supervision framework that has shaped European policy since the financial crisis. Through detailed process tracing, this article examines the drivers behind this unexpected outcome and its broader implications for EU economic governance. Whilst this shift could be seen as part of the EU’s growing prioritization of growth over stability, we argue that it is, above all, the result of France’s sustained influence. Our findings suggest that the fragmented insurance industry played a limited role in the negotiations. Although the Commission actively promoted the Capital Markets Union and investment in the green transition, it largely acted as a reactive and pragmatic policy-maker. Instead, we show that the reregulation of the European insurance sector was primarily driven by the sustained efforts of the French Treasury. However, rather than pushing for wholesale deregulation, French policy-makers leveraged the Solvency II review to advance a cohesive asset-led growth strategy at home – motivated by a desire for greater economic sovereignty through the inflow of liquidity into national companies. Taken together, these findings shed new light on EU financial regulation in the post-Covid era, the evolving tension between the EU’s interventionist shift and the rise of state activism and France’s role in shaping European economic governance.
Published in Political Studies Review.
What explains changes in the economic structures, institutions and policies of Advanced Capitalist Democracies (ACDs)? In this article, we suggest that the various answers to this question in the field of Comparative Political Economy (CPE) are essentially linked to two main approaches. The first approach emphasizes the role of electorates and political parties, their transformations, and their competition in shaping the evolution of ACDs. The second approach highlights the primacy of producer groups as the most powerful actors influencing the trajectory of ACDs. This review article introduces the debate between these two approaches and underscores its enduring relevance. It then discusses four recent important contributions that provide renewed perspectives on what remains a structuring cleavage in CPE, with implications for neighbouring fields in political science research. Through a systematic comparison of their analytical structure accross various dimensions, we show that their conception of the economy critically shapes their understanding of politics.
Published in Business and Politics.
Business power is thought to increase over time when private actors are involved in the provision of public goods and services. This paper argues that this is partially true – and that in certain circumstances, state actors can even swiftly regain control of sectors previously ceded to private interests. When the latter fulfill some public functions on behalf or as delegates of the state, policymakers face ever greater pressures to sustain a relationship flawed by principal-agent problems – allowing business actors to derive appreciable political benefits. However, these conditions do not hold true after deregulation – when state actors retreat from a sector and attempt to direct the newly created market through licensing, norms and standard-setting. We demonstrate that deregulation sets the stage for a more competitive environment, making it harder for private interests to cooperate. This, in turn, can allow policymakers to enhance regulatory capacities and seize opportunities to highlight the shortcomings of private provision. After establishing this argument theoretically, we illustrate its implications through a comparative case-study of the health insurance sector in two European countries – Belgium and France.
Politicians, Regulators and Regulatory Governance
Published in Regulation & Governance.
We offer a series of reflective insights about the state and direction of studies related to the politics of regulation. Notably we argue that the field is characterized by persisting divisions between Americanists and Europeanists. Largely focused on the actions taken by political principals, the former regularly report a substantial politicization of regulatory behavior. Reflecting on recent developments in US politics however, we show that political influence could be overestimated in the United States. Symmetrically, this same influence could be underestimated by Europeanists, who for now have largely focused on regulators and agencies. This is notably suggested by a discussion of recent developments in European politics, as revealed by contributions systematically measuring agency politicization in Western European democracies. On this basis, we identify some promising research questions and agendas for future studies on the politics of regulation.
Published in The Journal of Legislative Studies.
Independent regulatory agency has become the standard institutional choice in Western Europe. Little is known, however, about the involvement of legislators in their design and in their monitoring. In this paper, we analyse ex-ante and ex-post legislative involvement for 48 regulatory agencies enacted in France. We show that legislators debate and design more substantially agencies for which the government bill has already granted them more powers to appoint members to their board, or to be appointed as board members themselves. Once enacted, agencies that allow greater participation by legislators in their decision-making are subject to greater scrutiny, and this even after controlling for routine oversight activities. Regulatory domains matter, though only for ex-post legislative oversight. These results suggest that legislative involvement is selective and driven by strategic considerations. More fundamentally, they imply that legislative involvement could be more important in regulatory agency activities than usually assumed.
WORKING PAPER
The Political Economy of Legislative Favouritism (with Klea Ibrahimi and Mihaly Fazekas)
Forthcoming presentation at the CBS-Princeton Conference on Money in Politics.
Politicians often enact sector-specific legislation that disproportionately benefits certain firms over others, yet systematic evidences of the distributive implications of legislative favouritism are scarce. We fill this gap by offering a comprehensive micro-level analysis of how favouristic legislation shapes market outcomes, linking UK legislative data with large-scale financial information on publicly traded firms. Given the secretive nature of favouritism, we identify risk factors – excessive legislative production, lack of parliamentary scrutiny, frequent amendments, and non-standard procedures – that signal its likelihood. Our findings reveal that laws associated with these factors significantly boost the profits of high-growth firms relative to their competitors, but at the cost of sector-wide economic growth. Thus, the paper highlights the market-distorting effects of favouristic legislation and by extension, its role in consolidating political influence through concentrated economic gains. These findings underscore the need for further exploration into the cyclical relationship between legislative favouritism, market inequality, and political power.