Florent Pouponneau
This article examines the French foreign policy toward the Iranian nuclear program between 2002 and 2006. For French leaders, this action is an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to play a substantial role in the regulation of international affairs. However, our demonstration, paying atten- tion to the evolution of transatlantic relations, underlines that agents learn, in a practical way, the boundaries of their field of actions. The hypothesis of a functional differentiation in the international political system can explain this gap between actors' intentions and their actual outcomes. It also provides us a way to empirically grasp the structural effects of the international system.