Journal of Common Market Studies March 2001 Vol. 39, No. 1 pp. 15–36 © Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA Abstract This article affirms the usefulness of thinking of Europeanization and European policy change in terms of national, party and European contexts and their interrelationships. Through a case study of the French Socialists in office, the article seeks to establish that national, party and European policy contexts matter in different ways and in varying degrees. National context provides a set of institutions, interests and referential paradigms which help to make sense of a complex external environment. Party provides a distinc- tive partisan lens and an enduring political community. Europeanization poses a series of direct and indirect policy challenges and opportunities for nation-states and party governments. The article considers national and Europeanized pressures to be more significant than partisan processes. Introduction This article affirms the usefulness of thinking of Europeanization and Europe- an policy change in terms of national, party and European contexts and their interrelationships. European policy is formulated within precise national contexts. Governments operate according to norms, traditions, rules and codes of appropriate institutional behaviour. Each incoming government must adapt to an ongoing policy process and governments inherit a mesh of past and National and Partisan Contexts of Europeanization: The Case of the French Socialists* ALISTAIR COLE University of Cardiff *I am very grateful to two anonymous readers and to the editors for their helpful comments.