Grandeur and the Fragility of Symbolic Power

Abstract

This chapter aims at providing an answer to the main research questions addressed in the introduction by drawing on the analyses made in the empirical chapters. It summarizes the main findings by showing how the four status indicators presented in Chapter 2 have been important in the different policy areas and what kind of foreign policy practices they have produced. A key finding is that these ‘new’ French foreign policy practices are largely based on symbolic power – which fits well with the social creativity perspective of Social Identification Theory (SIT) presented in Chapter 1. Towards the end, the sustainability of this modern form of grandeur based on symbolic power is briefly discussed.