Dispute, Uncertainty and Institution in Recent French Debates*

Knowing the Unknowable: The Epistemological Authority of Innovation Policy Experts

“…Regulationists have argued similarly that the capitalist state employs economics as a particular "fix" through which to stabilise and represent complex economic processes (Boyer 1989;Jessop 1990). Meanwhile, Science and Technology Studies has examined the "performative" role of economics in the economy (Callon 1998;MacKenzie, Muniesa, and Siu 2007) while the Convention School has studied how socio-economic knowledge is mobilised as a critical capacity or justification in every day economic situations (Boltanski and Thevenot 2006;Wagner 1994). However, these various theories presuppose that decision-makers look to economic experts in search of reduced uncertainty and a narrowing of possible futures.…”

Qualitätskonventionen in ökonomischen Feldern

“…Les économies de la grandeur eine systematische Darstellung (deutsch: Boltanski/Thévenot 2007). Eben dieses Buch wird in Frankreich in den Sozialwissenschaften (insbesondere in der Soziologie und einem Teil der Wirtschaftswissenschaften) intensiv rezipiert (Wagner 1994(Wagner , 2004Wilkinson 1997;Dosse 1999). 8 Die beiden bezeichnen diese Rechtfertigungsweisen ("formes de justification") als Wertigkeitsordnungen ("ordres de grandeur") oder als "Konventionen".…”

Survey Article: The Regulation Approach

“…96 In part, this absence can be seen as a reaction against the neoclassical tradition; in part, as a continuation of structural Marxism with its minimization of the role of agency; and, in part, as a re¯ection of early interest in the crisis of Fordism considered as an accumulation regime and/or mode of regulation. Subsequent work addresses the issue of micro- 94 See, for an early presentation of this approach, Wickham 1987; for state-and regulationtheoretical applications, Jessop 1990a; and, for possible links to the`new French social science', Wagner 1994. foundations in three ways: the attempted convergence with`conventions' theory; borrowing from structuration theory, Bourdieu's notions of`habitus' and practice, or discourse analysis; and the use of econometric modelling. Having already reviewed the ®rst solution, I now discuss the borrowings from`soft' qualitative sociology and`hard' econometrics.…”