Exercising knowledge of costs: behavioural politics of economic restraint in French public service reform
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- handle: 10670/1.4ieqez
- halshs: halshs-02937977
- doi: 10.1057/s41253-020-00131-9
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Public services Natural science Sciences Science of science Electoral politics Political behavior Politics Mass political behavior Practical politics Political thought Government Political theory Civil government Commonwealth, The Science, Political Administration Politics Public services Municipal services within corporate limits Hospitals, Public Government hospitals National hospitals Federal hospitals Case Frenchmen (French people) Tropes Speech, Figures of English language--Figures of speech Imagery Cost--Accounting Costs, Industrial--Accounting Costing Angle Politics and suffrage Government and politics Politics Political historyCiter ce document
Marie Alauzen et al., « Exercising knowledge of costs: behavioural politics of economic restraint in French public service reform », HAL-SHS : sociologie, ID : 10.1057/s41253-020-00131-9
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Résumé
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.