Constructing the “moralization shock”: The role of contingency in the translation of anticorruption policy in France

This article applies the concept of transaction to the process of policy transfer, through the case of conflict of interest regulation in France, using archives, documentary sources, and interviews with stakeholders. It contributes to the literature on policy translation by clarifying the role of contingency, which remains underspecified. It shows that timing matters in two ways: it affects actors' ability to open a policy window, and it ultimately affects problem definition and future implementation instruments and practices. It explores the construction of the situation as a scandal, making it necessary to adapt transferred ideas to the political context, where a “shock of moralization” was seen as necessary. It also offers an opportunity to enrich the scholarship on policy transaction with an application to transnational policymaking, where problem definitions and policy solutions are imported from elsewhere and where foreign or transnational actors contribute to the co-construction of actors and issues.