A presentation of the French “économie des conventions”. Application to labour issues

This paper presents the main assumptions of the French research on the "économie des conventions" toward an anglo-saxon audience. It applies that framework to labour issues and, specifically, the formalisation of the labour relation.Economics of Convention; Labour Relation

Deliberative democracy and its informational basis: what lessons from the Capability Approach

Amartya Sen's works lead to focus theoretical issues relative to deliberative democracy, not only on optimal procedural rules, but upstream on the substantial content of the informational basis that serves as background to deliberation. The contribution explores the issues to take on board, especially questions on deliberative inquiries and the constitution of publics.Deliberative Democracy; Capability; Inquiry; Informational Basis; Amartya Sen

An open contribution to the understanding of the OMC: changing the conventions supporting national policies

I discuss what the Open Method of Coordination does, not from the point of view of its procedures, but via the cognitive instruments that serve as tools for coordination, benchmarking and adjustment of national policies. This helps to connect with the analysis of conventions with regards to employment and unemployment

Conventions, sens commun et action publique: Contribution au Colloque de Cerisy septembre 2009 : Conventions, l'intersubjectif et le normatif

La publication est en recherche d'éditeur. La date de publication est purement indicativeThis contribution focuses on the shift, in the current crisis, of State's action towards modifying the common sense, instead of modifying substantially social realities. It develops the concept of CSK (Common sense knowledge) as sets of conventions which, for people, provide both meaning and direction to their actions and to social coordination. It then examines some theoretical issues within the economics of conventions: from CK to CSK; the capability to critics; difference between convention and rule; reflexivity and social inquiryLa contribution se concentre sur le changement, dans la crise actuelle, des modes d'action de l'Etat en direction d'une action, non plus sur les réalités, mais sur le sens commun. Elle réactive le concept de "savoir de sens commun", comme ensemble des conventions qui donnent sens (en tant que signification et orientation) à l'action et la coordination. Elle examine enfin en quoi cet objet pose question à l'économie des conventions: différence entre connaissance commune et savoir de sens commun; capacité à la critique; différence entre conventions et règle; réflexivité et enquête sociale

The Contours of a Pragmatic Theory of "Situated" Institutions And its Economic Relevance

Revised English version of Robert Salais, 1998, “A la recherche du fondement conventionnel des institutions”, in Salais, R., Chatel, E. and D. Rivaud-Danset, eds., 1998, Institutions et conventions. La reflexivité de l'action économique, Paris, Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Raisons pratiques, n° 8, p. 255-292Relying upon the "economics of conventions, this contribution intends to build the contours of a pragmatic, thus "situated", theory of institutions. It undertakes it through the re-reading of main theories of justice (Buchanan, Hayek and, above all, Rawls and Sen)

L'approche par les capacités et le travail

On examine l'analyse que peut faire du travail comme activité l'approche par les capacités dérivée des recherches d'Amartya Sen et appliquée à un domaine qu'il n'a pas directement exploré

Quantification and objectivity: from statistical conventions to social conventions

Standard quantification processes and most often their analysis are derived from statistics' technique and approach. Social conventions are at the core of daily life, practical knowledge and coordination between people; statistical conventions are at the heart of cognitive activities developed by statisticians. What does quantification mean when addressed from the wider point of view of social conventions? This article analyzes the differences between social and statistical conventions. It enlarges the concept of objectivity in having recourse to the lenses of the plurality of worlds as defined by the economics of convention (EC), and to the concept of the informational basis of judgement in justice introduced by Amartya Sen. A wider conception of quantification processes in the social world can thus be elaborated, which opens fresh views on what become, in these processes, the concepts of facts and democracy. (author's abstract

Social Exclusion and Capability

This lecture delivered to an international Conference in Norway on social exclusion and marginalization offered a preliminary approach to capture social exclusion phenomena as capability deprivation. It also offers a first sketch about the several methods of inquiry with regards to the different possible postures for the observer and the inquired person

Evaluation et politiques : Y a-t-il de bons indicateurs pour la recherche ?

La conférence porte sur l'emploi des indicateurs de performance dans l'évaluation de l'action publique, en particulier la recherche. Elle contraste eux méthodes d'articulation entre évaluation et recherche et esquisse un cadre de saisie de la pluralité des acteurs et de leur modes d'évaluation.Evaluation; Indicateurs; Recherche; Pluralisme

Europe, laboratory for a-democracy?

"A-democracy is for a given society a state in which, like the apples sold in supermarkets, democracy has now only the appearance of democracy, without the taste (no real practice and effectivity) that should go along with it. This contribution claims that, for the leaders of the neoliberal global market and finance, the searched political solution for its crisis is how to change everything without changing anything. The construction of Europe appears a de facto laboratory for experiments aimed at this objective. For the European Union is using in different fields forms of democracy whose specificity is to imply participants (peoples, actors, organizations, national political elites) in a game in which they control neither the rules, nor the data, the agendas, or the outcomes. The contribution reviews a series of these forms; which describe passages to a-democracy in the current crisis." (author's abstract