Session 5 of the CEPEL young researchers seminar - May 15, 2024

As part of CEPEL's "Actualité de la Recherche en Sciences Sociale" seminar we are pleased to invite you to the 5th and penultimate seminar session of the 2023-2024 academic year:

Wednesday, May 15from 2 to 4 pm in the Linz room in Building 3 of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Montpellier (in person only), where we will welcome Violette Larrieu, postdoctoral researcher at ENSTA Bretagne, for a presentation entitled :

Defense in the age of New Public Management, Fondation des Sciences Sociales Research Prize 2023

Summary:

Since the 1980s, public policies have been undergoing transformation: agencification, development of performance indicators, evaluation, privatization... the "neoliberal turn" [Jobert, 1994] is underway. Perceived by some as the retreat of the State, or by others as its redeployment, these new public policies are profoundly redefining public action. But what about the Defense sector? Has it also succumbed to the siren calls of New Public Management? How can we reconcile operational and budgetary imperatives? This chapter will attempt to answer these questions. After reviewing the recent policies of "commercial mimicry" [Ansaloni and Smith, 2017] implemented in recent years within the Ministry of the Armed Forces, we will show how the latter has been no exception to the exponential use of consulting firms, veritable "couriers" of neo-managerial thinking in the administration and the armed forces. We'll see how this phenomenon reveals the consolidation of a modernizing elite whose careers are partly based on the success of these new policies. However, we will also highlight how, particularly in the face of announced outsourcing, the players concerned - both military and civilian - are sometimes mobilizing against the undermining of some of their prerogatives, reaffirming the regalian nature of defense policies.

Research background: https: //www.fondation-sciences-sociales.org/violette-larrieu/