Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Exercising knowledge of costs: behavioural politics of economic restraint in French public service reform

  • Original Article
  • Published:
French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

The tropes of restraint and remediation that accompany the reform of public services and public administrations often locate in efficient costing the key to the state’s economic fitness. Knowledge of costs does not feature in such reforms solely as information conducive to the strengthening of budgetary reform. It is also knowledge that needs to be practised and exercised in order to achieve a virtuous modification of the conduct of the state. The case of public hospitals and universities in France illustrates how knowledge of costs is made sense of by state practitioners as a behavioural lever. A Foucauldian angle on the narratives and policies that inform such exercising of knowledge of costs reveals the contours of a new paradigm of the state’s self-care.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alauzen, M. 2019. L’État plateforme et l’identification numérique des usagers: le processus de conception de FranceConnect. Réseaux 213: 211–239.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bergeron, H., P. Castel, S. Dubuisson-Quellier, J. Lazarus, É. Nouguez, and O. Pilmis. 2018. Le Biais Comportementaliste. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bezes, P. 2002. Aux origines des politiques de réforme administrative sous la Ve République: la construction du ‘souci de soi de l’État’. Revue Française d’Administration Publique 102: 307–325.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bezes, P. 2006. Publiciser et politiser la question administrative: généalogie de la réforme néo-libérale de l’État dans les années 1970. Revue Française d’Administration Publique 120: 721–742.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bezes, P. 2009. Réinventer l’État: Les Réformes de l’Administration Française (1962–2008). Paris: PUF.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bezes, P. 2020. Le nouveau phénomène bureaucratique: le gouvernement par la performance entre bureaucratisation, marché et politique. Revue Française de Science Politique 70: 21–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blyth, M. 2013. Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruno, I., F. Jany-Catrice, and B. Touchelay (eds.). 2016. The Social Sciences of Quantification: From Politics of Large Numbers to Target-Driven Policies. Cham: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cederström, C., and A. Spicer. 2015. The Wellness Syndrome. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clift, B. 2012. Comparative Capitalisms, Ideational Political Economy and French Post-Dirigiste Responses to the Global Financial Crisis. New Political Economy 17 (5): 565–590.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clift, B. 2018. The IMF and the Politics of Austerity in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cole, A. 2010. State Reform in France: From Public Service to Public Management? Perspectives on European Politics and Society 11 (4): 343–357.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cole, A., and G. Jones. 2005. Reshaping the State: Administrative Reform and New Public Management in France. Governance 18 (4): 567–588.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, W. 2012. The Emerging Neocommunitarianism. The Political Quarterly 83 (4): 767–776.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, W. 2014. The Limits of Neoliberalism: Authority, Sovereignty and the Logic of Competition. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, W. 2015. The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Desrosières, A. 2003. Managing the economy. In The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 7: The Modern Social Sciences, ed. T.M. Porter and D. Ross, 553–564. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DGSIP (Direction générale de l’éducation supérieur et de l’insertion professionnelle). 2015. Connaissance des Coûts des Activités des Établissements d’Enseignement Supérieur et de Recherche. Paris: Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobbins, M. 2012. How Market-Oriented is French Higher Education? French Politics 10 (2): 134–159.

    Google Scholar 

  • DSS (Direction de la Sécurité sociale). 2017. PLFSS 2018: Programme de Qualité et d’Efficience ‘Maladie’. Paris: Ministère des Solidarités et de la Santé.

    Google Scholar 

  • Engel, F., and F. Kletz. 2007. Cours de Comptabilité Analytique. Paris: Presses des Mines.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 2006. Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the Collège de France 1973–1974. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978–1979. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 2009. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 2010. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France 1982–1983. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gélédan, F. 2016. Spectres du Léviathan: l’État à l’épreuve de la simplification administrative (2006–2015). Revue Française d’Administration Publique 157: 33–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grant, W., and G.K. Wilson (eds.). 2012. The Consequences of the Global Financial Crisis: The Rhetoric of Reform and Regulation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hood, C. 2000. The Art of the State: Culture, Rhetoric, and Public Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hood, C., O. James, G.W. Jones, C. Scott, and T. Travers. 1999. Regulation Inside Government: Waste-Watchers, Quality Police and Sleaze-Busters. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hopwood, A.G., and P. Miller (eds.). 1994. Accounting as Social and Institutional Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Juven, P.-A. 2016. Une Santé qui Compte? Les Coûts et les Tarifs Controversés de l’Hôpital Public. Paris: PUF.

    Google Scholar 

  • Juven, P.-A., and B. Lemoine. 2018. Politiques de la faillite: la loi de survie des services publics. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 221–222: 4–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leggett, W. 2014. The Politics of Behaviour Change: Nudge, Neoliberalism and the State. Policy & Politics 42 (1): 3–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemoine, B. 2016. L’Ordre de la Dette: Enquête sur les Infortunes de l’État et la Prospérité du Marché. Paris: La Découverte.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mennicken, A., and F. Muniesa. 2017. Governing Through Value: Public Service and the Asset Rationale. Risk & Regulation Magazine 34: 9–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, P. 1991. Accounting Innovation Beyond the Enterprise: Problematizing Investment Decisions and Programming Economic Growth in the UK in the 1960s. Accounting, Organizations and Society 16 (8): 733–762.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, P., and N. Rose. 1990. Governing Economic Life. Economy and Society 19 (1): 1–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morozov, E. 2013. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. New York: PublicAffairs.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muniesa, F. 2014. The Provoked Economy: Economic Reality and the Performative Turn. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muniesa, F., and D. Linhardt. 2011. Trials of Explicitness in the Implementation of Public Management Reform. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 22 (6): 550–566.

    Google Scholar 

  • Musselin, C. 2017. La Grande Course des Universités. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollitt, C., and G. Bouckaert. 2000. Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter, T.M. 1995. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton (New Jersey): Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Power, M. 2011. Foucault and Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology 37: 35–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Renaudie, M. 2018. French University Management Reforms: Critical Perspectives from a Legal Point of View. French Politics 16 (1): 96–116.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riveline, C. 2005. Évaluation des Coûts: Éléments d’une Théorie de la Gestion. Paris: Presses des Mines.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N. 1993. Government, Authority and Expertise in Advanced Liberalism. Economy and Society 22 (3): 283–299.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N., and P. Miller. 1992. Political Power Beyond the State: Problematics of Government. British Journal of Sociology 43 (2): 173–205.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saint-Martin, D. 2010. From Governing Society to Governing Itself: the French Administrative State and the Quest for Managerial Recentralization. French Politics 8 (3): 342–354.

    Google Scholar 

  • Séglard, D. 1992. Foucault et le problème du gouvernement. In La Raison d’État: Politique et Rationalité, ed. C. Lazzeri and D. Reynié, 117–140. Paris: PUF.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simonet, D. 2013. New Public Management and the Reform of French Public Hospitals. Journal of Public Affairs 13 (3): 260–271.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinigaglia, J. 2018. “Mes enfants l’heure est grave: il va falloir faire des économies”: la faillibilité comme mode de gouvernement des universités. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 221–222: 20–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Supiot, A. 2017. Governance by Numbers: The Making of a Legal Model of Allegiance. London: Hart Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (Grant ANR-15-ORAR-0003-01), as part of research project QUAD (Quantification, Administrative Capacity and Democracy). We thank Philippe Bezes, Vincent-Arnaud Chappe, Marion Gilles, Andrea Mennicken, Jean-Marie Pillon, QUAD colleagues and two anonymous referees for comments on previous versions of this study. Authors’ names are listed in alphabetical order.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, CNRS, UMR 9217, Mines ParisTech, PSL University, 60 Boulevard Saint-Michel, 75006, Paris, France

    Marie Alauzen, Fabian Muniesa & Alexandre Violle

  2. Département Sciences Économiques et Sociales, CNRS, UMR 9217, Télécom Paris, 19 Place Marguerite Perey, 91120, Palaiseau, France

    Marie Alauzen

Authors
  1. Marie Alauzen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Fabian Muniesa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Alexandre Violle
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabian Muniesa.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Alauzen, M., Muniesa, F. & Violle, A. Exercising knowledge of costs: behavioural politics of economic restraint in French public service reform. Fr Polit 19, 65–80 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-020-00131-9

Download citation

  • Revised:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-020-00131-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation