New Publication out now: "Le calcul et le politique"
9. Januar 2020
The article "Le calcul et le politique - Le Débat National sur la Transition Énergétique et la construction des choix énergétiques en France" has now been published by Revue d'Anthropologie des Connaissances.
Calculation and politics - The “National Debate on the Energy Transition” and the construction of energy choices in France
Abstract: Shortly after his election in 2012, French President François Hollande launched a major debate on French energy policy, known as the “National Debate on the Energy Transition” (Débat National sur la Transition Énergétique, DNTE, 2012–13). This paper explores this process in order to address the making of this policy in France, and the link between calculation practices and political change. Political and calculation practices are approached as relational practices. This paper focuses on calculation practices and on their material support (models, scenarios, calculation tools), so as to analyze their role in the emergence of new political assemblages. In doing so, the paper discusses the changes in expertise (actors, tools, methods), the transformations of public action (modes of association and the composition of the public interest), and the societal recomposition (the establishment of new collectives of actors) that the DNTE process brings forth. As a conclusion, we propose the notion of the infra-model to discuss the tension between scientific robustness and mediation potential in the collective construction of visions of the future.