Conventions for measuring and questioning policies: the case of 50 years of policy evaluations through a statistical survey

"Statistics are used to make critical judgments about society and fuel policy debates through different configurations that link together three components: a) the questioning of policy appropriateness and fairness; b) the categories and statistical tools used in evaluations; c) the economic, social and political theories invoked in interpretations and explanations. Using convention theory and the sociology of engagements, the article offers a perspective view of how these configurations have changed over nearly half a century in France, based on a single statistical source. This approach to 'the politics of statistics' identifies four main configurations around four main measurements of human characteristics: social origin, occupational skills, human capital, migration history." (author's abstract

From social coding to economics of convention: a thirty-year perspective on the analysis of qualification and quantification investments

Among the contributions to the presently growing sociology of quantification, a long-standing French tradition has built on an approach to the "politics of statistics" based on the formatting practices of the transformative chain that leads to data. It resulted from statistician-economists who, in the critical spirit of the 1960s, were reflexive and largely open to the social sciences, and cooperated with historians and sociologists. The article offers a 30 years' perspective on the avenue of research that began with the article "L'économie du codage social" which goes from labour designation and qualification to ways of making occupation worthy. It leads to the broader notion of "investments in forms" which produce equivalence and economies of coordination. While making available in English large extracts of the original paper, the author adds comments from today perspective on the development of this trend which has fuelled both On Justification (co-authored with Luc Boltanski) and convention theory more generally. (author's abstract

Convening the company of historians to go into conventions, powers, critiques and engagements

"Reconsidering previous exchanges between the economie des conventions (EC) and historical research, the article puts right different prejudices against EC and Shows grounds for going deeper into cooperation. The first part is dedicated to the genesis and dynamics of conventions, in an open perspective on the ways value is placed on forms coordinating with others, the environment and oneself. Rather than looking for abstracts values, the article suggests to find the basis for repertoires of evaluation in empowering dependencies between human beings and their environment. This approach is favorable to a dialogue with historians on the domain of work identity, occupations and products or services. The second part deals with the politics of convention in a long-term perspective on power, authority and protest. Considering powers issuing from coordinative forms, it is claimed that this view helps to situate in a comparative and historical perspective nation-states among a variety of authorities which govern - possibly transnationally - through reduced conventions." (author's abstract

Measure for Measure: Politics of Quantifying Individuals to Govern Them

This article compares a variety of modes of quantifying individuals to govern them. The analytical grid issues from a former research program on the Politics of Statistics that focused on one of these modes of governing by numbers, the statistical nation state, which is here included in an array of more recently developed governing numbers based on benchmarking, digital tracking, or self-quantifying. Three main operations differentiate modes of governing by numbers: measuring individuals for quantification, taking political measures accordingly to guide their behaviors, and an intermediate operation that is often less visible although situated between the two previous ones and needed to link them: evaluating the situation through a measured judgment that justifies the monitoring based on numbers. This analysis breaks down data into the sequential steps of the transformations chain of information formats needed to pass from an individual person to a governing figure. The plurality of modes of evaluation, and its reduction by quantification, is given high significance, as well as the way each mode of governing affects individuals, their identity and their possibility to critically reflect and question

What engages ? The sociology of justifications, conventions, and engagements, meeting norms

In parallel with the chapter of this book in which Véronique Champeil-Desplats introduces the conceptual shifts that took place in the ways law grasps a variety of modes of normativity, this chapter outlines the sociology of justifications, conventions, and engagements that has, for its part, renewed the approach of normativity and contributed to a lasting cooperation with jurists, which produced this book among other publications. Clashes between these two disciplines often result from attem..

Formes de l’action et du jugement : chose publique, choses privées

Laurent Thévenot, directeur d’études Composer avec des engagements pluriels, de l’intime au public En hommage à Paul Ricœur, le séminaire a d’abord parcouru divers massifs de son œuvre avec le concours de jeunes chercheurs qui s’inspirent de sa philosophie dans le développement d’une sociologie politique et morale attentive aux biens par rapport auxquels les personnes s’engagent dans le monde. Cedric Terzi a ainsi utilisé les concepts de « mise en intrigue » et de « triple mimésis » pour anal..

Formes de l’action et du jugement : chose publique, choses privées

Laurent Thévenot, directeur d’études Composer avec des engagements pluriels, de l’intime au public Une première partie du séminaire a été consacrée au dialogue qu’une sociologie de régimes d’engagements différenciés permet d’établir avec des recherches sur le droit et sa mise en œuvre, dans une comparaison historique et interculturelle. Exemplaire d’une recherche historique attentive aux conditions matérielles et pragmatiques de cette mise en œuvre, le travail de Simona Cerutti sur le « droit..

Ce qui engage : la sociologie des justifications, conventions et engagements, à la rencontre de la norme

Le mouvement sociologique dont cet article rend compte a favorisé un genre de coopération avec le droit qui rapproche les opérations et catégories fondamentales des deux disciplines. Il remonte à un déplacement conceptuel depuis la notion classique de norme sociale, conduisant à l'analyse de "conventions" qui gouvernent normativement la coordination incertaine des actions. Des "investissements de forme" sont nécessaires à la mise en œuvre de ces conventions. Mis dans un format approprié, l’environnement soutient la convention normative de coordination pour laquelle il est "qualifié". Une extension ultérieure a réélaboré la notion d'identité personnelle requise pour une coordination avec d'autres selon une normativité collective. Une identité personnelle dynamique est le résultat composite d'une pluralité d'engagements personnels qui se chevauchent, engagements qui ne coordonnent avec d'autres mais avec soi-même. Chacun de ces régimes d'engagement assure un mode de continuité de la personne, d'un moment à l'autre, gagée par une relation avec l'environnement matériel. La normativité qui maintient la coordination avec d'autres repose sur des engagements personnels, ce qui suggère d'élargir la notion de normativité et ses modes. Pénétrant dans le plus personnel de ce qui engage, le cadre d'analyse de la sociologie des conventions et engagements éclaire les transformations de ce qui préoccupe personnellement, jusqu'à la mise en commun et en différend de ces préoccupations, selon différentes grammaires.The sociological trend reported in this article has fostered a kind of cooperation with law scholars that brings together the fundamental operations and categories of the two disciplines. It goes back to a conceptual shift from the usual notion of social norm leading to the analysis of "conventions" that normatively govern the uncertain coordination of actions. Form-giving operations – or "investments in forms" – are needed for the implementation of these conventions. The properly formatted environment is thus a main support for normative convention of coordination as long as it "qualifies" for this normativity. A further extension reworked the notion of personal identity that is required for the coordination with others according to collective normativity. A dynamic personal identity is the composite result of multiple overlapping personal modes of engaging that do not coordinate with others but with oneself. Each of these regimes of engagement ensures a kind of continuity of the person from one moment to the next, backed by the relationship to the engaged material environment. Coordination with others builds on such personal engagements which broaden the notion of normativity and its modes. Approaching the most personal aspects of what engages, the sociology of conventions and engagements sheds light on the transformations of personal concerns, up to modes of public communicating and differing according to different grammars