Predicting in an (increasingly) unpredictable system? : forty years of election forecasting in France

Abstract

In the last 40 years or so, scholars have proposed a vast array of models and approaches to predict election outcomes in a variety of democracies. Election forecasting has garnered increasing attention and has been the subject of multiple symposia and special issues in political science journals. This article reviews the forecasting efforts that have been deployed in the case of France since pioneering work in the late 1970s and early 1980s and discusses the peculiarities of the French political system and their consequences as well as the challenges they create for election forecasting.