Contenu du sommaire : Le marché comme instrument d'action publique

Do markets work for the state ?
This special issue is centred upon a key mode of political regulation : how and why state representatives create markets when seeking to tackle a public problem. Our introduction is organized around two questions. The first deals with the generalization of this phenomenon as of the 1980s ; the second tackles the effects of this trend, notably in terms of the capacity of state representatives to impact upon economic and social regulation. Drawing upon the contributions made in the rest of this special issue, here two lines of analysis are developed. Firstly, we claim that because most of the creation of “state markets” builds upon previous bureaucratic practices, such as delegations of public authority, these instruments are not highly innovatory. Indeed, they are generally not the result of some over-arching, top-down design, but rather the progressively generated outcome of sector-specific experimentations. Secondly, we seek to go beyond overgeneral conclusions about the effects of states' markets upon governmental influence and practice. One set of authors sees these markets as always strengthening the state through a process of “government at a distance”, whereas another instead sees these same markets as the sign of states that have given up power to economic actors. Considering that responses to this question need more empirical research, we claim instead that the effects of state markets can only be fully evaluated by taking into account the segment of the state involved and the precise types of market instruments they have respectively developed.

The outsourcing of french maritime protection through a state-made market
Until 2014, the French authorities had refused to outsource the use of armed force in war zones. However, in July of that year, a law was passed in order to allow private companies to participate in areas of naval conflict under the authority of a state agency (the National Council of Private security activities). This article demonstrates that this policy project was supported by the national union of ship owners, Armateurs de France, and the French Maritime Cluster : the principal beneficiaries of the law thus played the role of policy entrepreneurs. Their demands were placed on the political agenda in part thanks to the media coverage of hostages taking and a favorable political context, both of these elements creating a window of opportunity. Anticipating the reluctance of politicians to adopt legislation over this matter, ship owners adapted their discourses to justify the use of the private sector, by highlighting its “unavoidability” and by reaffirming the sovereign power of the state as the controller of a new market for maritime security. In this way, the outsourcing of French maritime protection has been driven by a hybrid model that combines both liberalism and protectionism.

The marketization of the border : a matter of states
Border control lies at the core of state sovereignty. Nevertheless, it is often shared with private companies. Based on in-depth ethnographic research, this contribution presents a sociological analysis of the process that has lead to the adoption of public-private cooperation as a standard mode of implementing the EU's visa policy. It reveals the configurations of private and public actors who have been responsible for the delegation of so-called “administrative tasks” to private companies. Having traced the making of EU visa policy, from European arenas to national ministries, and thereby identified the private and public organizations which put the policy into practice, a gap is highligted between the problem framing that interprets public-private cooperation as the improvement of public services and the underlying state logics which have structured this choice. Within the context of the reform of European rules, the member states of the Schengen Agreement have used public-private cooperation for other purposes : diminishing the costs of control induced by new European rules, getting rid of the burden of day-to-day implementation and reducing the responsibility of state actors.

Liberalizing the labor market ?
Since the post-war period, the placement of jobseekers in France has been a state monopoly entrusted to a public agency, the National Employment Agency (ANPE). The mid-2000s represents a turning point in breaking this monopoly by initiating the use of quasi-market private providers. Despite a semantics that focuses on the notion of “the labor market”, this article demonstrates that the employment policy's implementation remains firmly controlled by the public employment service. The chronological analysis of subcontracting in employment policy undertaken here reveals that this phenomenon is more a matter of contextual imperatives than of a marketization strategic perspective which, at best, remains peripheral. Moreover, fieldwork-based analysis of the concrete practices of public employment service agents and private providers highlights the weight of public policy instruments in reinforcing pre-existing power relations between the actors specialized in social insertion through work.

Recourse to markets as a political process
This article focuses on the introduction and implementation of market instruments in two policy sectors in England : healthcare and security. Three dimensions are highlighted : outsourcing from the public to the private sector, the introduction of competition based on performance indicators and the creation of an internal market. Agenda-setting, decision-making and implementation behind these dimensions during the Coalition government (2010-2015) are analysed as a political process. This perspective provides a means of understanding the limits of marketisation and key differences between the two policy sectors.

Governing through the market
This article focuses on the relationship between governments and markets in development aid policymaking. It argues that the spread of market-oriented mechanisms within international assistance is an institutional process that is linked to the changing foreign policies of major donor countries. First, this article shows that the integration of government and market spheres mostly results from donor countries' efforts to reform the existing global aid architecture in the name of development effectiveness. Second, it argues that the proliferation of international private norms used in development practices partly reflects a process of delegation of authority through which states have transfered regulatory powers to private organizations, while preserving a capacity to influence the implementation of norms. Eventually, this article demonstrates that the market is a way for donor countries to steer their international aid policy, transferring part of the burden of development aid to private actors and, in return, giving them access to new, often lucrative, markets.