being contracted out to the private sector. The performance measure-
ments thus redefined the prison as a separate performance-oriented
unit—a calculating accounting entity, responsible for its own success
and failure. The prison ratings enabled comparisons between public and
private sector prison performance and they helped render ideas about
competition and competitiveness operable. The government also used
(and still uses) quantified performance targets in the definition, detailing
and monitoring of private prison contracts and the operation of a financial
penalty system if such contracts are non-fulfilled.

Before quantified performance measures were introduced, prison
values and objectives had been articulated in Circular Instructions, which
had been criticized for being “uncoordinated and uncosted” and “lacking
a mechanism of ensuring the initiatives they contain are implemented”
(Lygo, 1991; Prison Reform Trust, 1992). Of course, the created “mar-
ket” for prison services is highly imperfect. It is a market that is highly
regulated and not characterized by free trade and exchange. The goods
traded are not private goods: they are public services aimed at the delivery
of public security, punishment and rehabilitation at a reasonable cost.
Private prisons act on behalf of the government. They are supervised by
the state and accountable to parliament. Private prison providers have
to obey the same rules and regulations as public prison establishments.
The state is the sole “buyer” of prison services, acting in the interest
of a third party—the public. Prison services do not represent a good
that is consumed. Prisoners do not have “a choice” and, also, prison
establishments cannot freely choose which prisoners they want to house.

One could argue that ideas of marketization and privatization did
not lead to the creation of an actual market. First and foremost, we
observe the emergence of calculative bureaucracies, created in the name
of the market, and a corresponding rise in managerialism (Bennett, 2019;
Liebling & Crewe, 2013), akin to what Boltanski & Thévenot (2006
[1991]) have labelled in terms of an “industrial world”, characterized
by attempts aimed at “asserting greater managerial control within estab-
lishments over both staff and prisoners, making them more ordered and
more legitimate inside and out” (Bennett, 2016, p. 8; but see also Bryans,
2007; Coyle, 2005). Furthermore, expanding quantification and calcula-
tion did not automatically contribute to an enhancement of administrative
capacities. First of all, the prison performance measures and ratings placed
new demands on administrative capacities, for example with regard to
the expertise required to make quantification operable, to work with and
make sense of the numbers.

LIMITS OF MARKETIZING QUANTIFICATION

Operational and financial performance measures, summarized in
published prison ratings, were aimed at stimulating organizational intro-
spection and inter-organizational competitiveness. They were enrolled
in attempts aimed at “exacting responsibility” (Miller 2001, p. 380)
following ideals of total, finely calibrated control. Yet, at the same
time, we see also the creation of new zones of opacity, invisibility and
non-accountability (Bennett, 2016; Liebling, 2004; Mennicken, 2013).

Research has shown that accounting entities are fictional and network-
effacing superimpositions on complex organizations (Mennicken &
Power 2015, p. 213). Underlying the concept of an accounting entity
is the fiction of separable economic units (Hines, 1988) and aspi-
rations to use accounting, such as performance measurement, as a
tool for the mapping and managing of social and economic relations
(Hopwood 1984; Kurunmäki, 1999; Miller 2001; Miller & Rose, 1990).
The boundaries that delineate an organization, such as a prison, as
a performance-oriented, economic unit separate from other organiza-
tions are not clear-cut, natural or fixed. The making of an accounting
entity is not so much an economic than a political process (Kurunmäki,
1999): “The actors who identify entities and define their limits are many
and varied, and may speak on behalf of legal, economic, social, polit-
ical, aesthetic and professional interests” (Kurunmäki, 1999, p. 220).
Also in the Prison Service quantification and “accountingization” were,
and still are, contested and commensuration, “the transformation of
different qualities into a common metric” (Espeland & Stevens, 1998),
a “congenitally failing” (Miller & Rose, 1990) undertaking. Even seem-
ingly straightforward measures, like measures of cost, are far from being
unproblematic. Should prisons costs, for example, be expressed as a
per diem rate for prisoners, or as a fixed sum assuming 100 per cent
occupancy?

Inconsistencies exist between the performance measures and targets for
public and private prison entities (National Audit Office, 2003). Attempts
aimed at establishing comparability are further undermined by variation
in the characteristics of different prison entities (size, location, design,
function and age). The contracts negotiated for each private prison differ,
making it difficult to draw comparisons between different public and private prison establishments. It is also difficult to establish an exact correlation between financial penalties that private prisons occur and their operational performance (National Audit Office, 2003). Financial deductions can be reduced following negotiations between the Prison Service and the private prison contractors. According to the National Audit Office (2003, p. 17), these negotiations are not solely concerned with the prisons' operational performance, but take also account of problems of "inflexible contract monitoring". In other words, negotiating penalty deductions allows for the flexing of otherwise inflexible 15-year or 25-year contracts, which normally are based upon fixed key performance indicators (KPIs) and targets. See for example the dialogue below between Martin Narey (Director General of the HM Prison Service in England and Wales, 1998-2003) and Alan Williams (Member of Parliament) in a Public Accounts Committee hearing:

*Mr Williams (Committee of Public Accounts)* Can you just clarify a point which is genuine misunderstanding? In Figure 9 on page 15, cost per penalty point, Ashfield is £94, Altcourse is £293. Why is the cost per point three times higher in one than in the other?

*Mr Narey (Commissioner for Correctional Services)* It is because each penalty point regime—and I confess to having had to have a tutorial on this just this morning—is unique to that particular prison. If you want to compare how a particular prison has performed against another one, you cannot just look at the penalty points incurred, but you will see that prisons have very different base lines, that is, the number of penalty points which are tolerated before a financial penalty is enforced. That again reflects the fact that we have different schemes for different prisons.

*Mr Williams* Why was Ashfield set at £94? Why is it so different, particularly in view of subsequent events? The worst offender of the lot, yet it has the least disadvantageous penalty point system?

*Mr Narey* It has been significantly at a disadvantage in terms of the money we have taken from it, a total of £4.2 million, as Mr Beeston said. Whatever the penalty point regime, the fact is that we have been able to use sanctions against Ashfield going way beyond the use of penalty points, in this case in closing places and saying this is not a safe enough place in which to put young prisoners so as to make a very significant financial sanction.

*Mr Williams* Was the £4.2 million based just on penalty points or on other factors?
*Mr Narey* No, the £4.2 million was primarily based on closing places and saying we do not think this is a place which is safe enough or good enough to meet our standard requirements so we are not going to put young people into there. (House of Commons, 2003, Ev18)

Further it is difficult to attribute re-offending rates to individual prison performance, as prisoners are regularly transferred between prisons, transcending prison boundaries and the accounting for them (Bastow, 2013; Mennicken, 2013). The Prison Service struggled, and still struggles, to identify the most appropriate KPIs. As the Prison Reform Trust (1996, p. 3) observes:

> First, people may not agree as to the most important goals. Second, measuring performance in a quantitative way gives no indication of quality. Third, goals which cover general areas of work can be measured using a number of different KPIs. For example, helping prisoners to return to the community is not achieved solely by providing more than the minimum visiting entitlements; it is also achieved by enabling prisoners to gain educational qualifications, or by helping them find accommodation after release. Fourth, the date may not be accurate or objective. Finally, even if there is agreement as to the KPIs, the target performance may be set too high or too low.

Following these and other criticisms the KPIs were reviewed, repaired and extended (see also Liebling, 2004). They constitute a moving target, and a platform for an ever-expanding apparatus of quantification and calculation, which itself has been described as unwieldy and uneconomical (Bennett, 2016; Coyle, 2005, 2008). Prison governors have to meet increasingly detailed reporting demands, facing “constant oversight from internal auditors and external inspecting bodies” (Coyle, 2005, p. 97; but see also Bennett, 2016). Prison governors also find it difficult to prioritize amongst the various performance measures. They are often overwhelmed by the reporting demands, which take them away from “where the action is”, the “floor” and day-to-day interactions with prisoners and prison officers (Bennett, 2016; Bryans, 2007; Coyle, 2005, 2008).
MORALIZING VERSUS ECONOMIZING NUMBERS

Quantification involves a transformation of quality into quantity, of subjective experience into objectified knowledge (Espeland & Stevens 2008; Kurunmäki et al., 2016). In so doing, it prepares the ground for new possibilities of governing (Kurunmäki et al., 2016; Miller 2001; Supiot 2015). But, as Kurunmäki et al. (2016, p. 395) highlight, we need to be careful to separate quantification from economization, for not all quantification implies economization. Although the rise of prison performance measurement in England and Wales was, in large part, animated by market-oriented reforms and ideals of competition, the introduction of the performance measures gave also rise to the creation of an unwieldy calculative bureaucracy and new information systems that needed to be managed and fed.

Furthermore, we should not forget that the performance measures, at least at their onset, also had a “democratizing” ambition, an aspiration to hold managers, public administrators, and civil servants to account, so as to counteract nepotism and arbitrariness (Kurunmäki et al., 2016; Lewis, 1997; Prison Reform Trust, 1996). Prison interest groups, such as Prison Reform Trust, for instance, had welcomed the introduction of the performance measures, as they allowed for insight into areas of prison activity which had not been publicly accounted for previously (Prison Reform Trust, 1996). Of course, the performance measures were also criticized by the very same groups. The Prison Reform Trust, for instance, questioned the purpose of the prison league tables arguing that they were useful as an internal management tool but did not provide a clear picture of prison life (Solomon, 2004, p. 2). According to criminologist Alison Liebling (2004, p. 26), the market-oriented prison performance ratings and the regime aspirations arising out of them “left crucial questions of moral responsibility and individual transformation untouched”.

Following such criticisms, the measurement system came to be reformed from within. In 2000, the Home Office commissioned Professor Alison Liebling, Director of the Prisons Research Centre at Cambridge University, with the task to develop “quantitative measures of qualitative dimensions of prison life” (Liebling, 2004; Liebling & Arnold, 2002). Liebling and her team developed new performance measures along two dimensions: relationships (respect, humanity, trust, staff-prisoner relationships and support) and regimes (fairness, order, safety, well-being, personal development, family contact and decency) (Liebling,
2004). These measures were aimed at “moralizing prison management” (Liebling, 2004) and at counter-acting the economization and managerialization of prison life. The newly developed “Measures of the Quality of Prison Life” (MQPL) were fully rolled out for both public and private sector prisons in 2012, when they became part of the weighted scorecard of prison performance and were fully incorporated into the 1-4 prison performance ratings under the heading of “decency” (making up 28.6% of the overall prison performance rating). Liebling and her team perceived the performance measures as a mediating, rather than economizing, instrument (Miller & O’Leary, 2007)—as a mechanism that could be utilized to link up and mediate between conflicting concerns and prison values, such as those of security, economy and decency. They used quantification as a way to bring prison values relating to questions of rehabilitation, care and decency back in, and to give prisoners “a voice” through the introduction of a standardized survey aimed at capturing their day-to-day experiences (Liebling, 2004).

It is beyond the scope of this chapter to provide a detailed assessment of the success of this quantification project in reshaping and rebalancing prison value configurations. Further, as Robert Salais’ contribution in this volume reminds us, we need to be cautious when labelling this as “democratization”. Questions of democracy do not only concern issues of consultation and participation (e.g. participation in processes of performance measurement, or the capturing of multiple voices through KPIs). As Salais argues in this volume, democratizing quantification would also entail a critical engagement with the very logic of “managing by numbers”, with the very process of capturing and transforming a prisoner’s voice via KPIs, and the extent to which such quantification is still able to take account (or not) of individual capabilities, hopes and desires. Nonetheless, we ought to acknowledge that the Prison Service’s KPIs contributed not only to an infusion of the Prison Service with market-oriented ideals of efficient, economic management. The performance measures also served as a platform for debate about prison values and reform, not least because of the public attention and criticism they attracted.

At the same time, such measures can themselves become challenged and changed by economization. Put differently, quantification is not only an instrument of economization; it can also be subjected to economization and destabilized as a result. Liebling’s Measures of the Quality of
Prison Life (MQPL), for instance, soon after their system-wide introduc-
tion and establishment, came to be undermined by austerity policies and
related economizing practices of curtailment and frugality. In the wake
of the 2008 financial crisis and government austerity measures, concerns
with cost and “economies of scale” came to overrule the Prison Service’s
“balanced” performance measurement system. Definitions of failure were
narrowed to definitions of failure in economic (i.e. cost management)
terms. In a report by the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons we read (HM
Chief Inspector of Prisons for England & Wales, 2013, p. 7):

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) as a whole (that
is, prison, probation and headquarters functions) had to make savings of
£246 million on top of the £228 million savings delivered in 2011–12.
This represented a further reduction of seven per cent of NOMS’ resource
budget against the spending review baseline. Public sector prisons alone
had to find savings of around £80 million. NOMS overall savings were
delivered by a combination of workforce restructuring; market testing and
privatisation of entire establishments and specific services; standardising
costs and services; and reconfiguring the prison estate by closing some
smaller, older prisons and increasing the size and number of very large
establishments.

The bulk of savings that the Prison Service had to deliver was achieved
through a changed estate management strategy. As is highlighted in the
quote above, this included not only land sales, but also the closing of
smaller, older prisons (with approx. 150–250 certified places of normal
accommodation on average) that, in comparison, were costlier to run than
new, large establishments with more than 1,500 places where economies
of scale can be realized (see, e.g., Oakwood Prison). According to the
National Audit Office, by the end of 2013–14, the changed estate
management strategy contributed £71 million of savings since 2010
(National Audit Office, 2013). The National Audit Office notes that
the estate strategy’s explicit focus was on cost measurement and reduc-
tion (i.e. economizing understood in terms of curtailment) and that this
limited how far it could address concerns with quality and performance
(National Audit Office, 2013, p. 5). The annual prison performance
ratings and HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ regular reports were not consid-
ered in the estates management strategy. Only cost calculations were
taken into account. Of the 18 prisons closed or identified for closure
by December 2013, eight were considered to be “high performers” on
dimensions related to Liebling’s Measures of the Quality of Prison life (National Audit Office, 2013, p. 30). Different forms of quantification thus came to be hierarchized; leading to a prioritization of issues of security and cost over objectives of individual rehabilitation, measures of decency and the quality of prison life (Bennett, 2019; Liebling & Crewe, 2013).

Ironically, contracted-out prisons were largely spared from these cuts, due to the inflexible nature of the 15- or 25-year contracts under which they are operating and “because of the cost and difficulty of terminating contracts early” (National Audit Office, 2013, p. 6). In other words, state contracts governing privately managed prisons shielded these establishments from economization in the form of budgetary savings requests, and public prisons were exposed the most to measures of government austerity. This does not imply that private prison establishments are not economized, but different mechanisms of economization (and quantification) are at work here, and it is important to differentiate between these. Private prisons, for example, might be more financialized than public prisons, and it is to financialization as one specific modality of economization, and the implication of quantification in such processes of financialization, that we turn next.

## QUANTIFYING AND FINANCIALIZING: ACCRUAL ACCOUNTING AND SOCIAL IMPACT BONDS

Financialization can be seen as one distinctive mode of economizing that has taken hold in the Prison Service, as well as in other parts of the public services in England and Wales, over the past 38 years, first through the government's Financial Management Initiative (FMI), which was launched in 1982, later through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which was launched in 1992, and more recently through the experimentation with Social Impact Bonds (for instance in Peterborough Prison) (Anders & Dorsett, 2017; Disley et al., 2015; Joliffe & Hedderman, 2014). According to van der Zwan (2014), studies of financialization interrogate how an increasingly autonomous realm of global finance has altered the underlying logics of the industrial economy and the inner workings of democratic society. Financialization encompasses a range of different developments connected to the rise and spread of finance: the emergence of new accumulation regimes (including the increasing importance of financial services and financial assets on a company's balance sheet); the increasing importance of capital markets that is paralleled by an
ascendency of the shareholder orientation; the financialization of everyday
life; and the rise and spread of financial economics, for example into
accounting.

Also the public services, including the Prison Service of England
and Wales, have been affected by such processes of financialization.
With prison privatization, new stakeholders entered the picture: finan-
cial investors, such as banks and shareholders, who seek financial returns
on their investments. When this chapter was written, 13 prisons out of
117 were private and contractually managed by G4S Justice Services,
Serco Custodial Services and Sodexo Justice Services. In 2019, these
private companies housed nearly 20% of the prisoners in England and
Wales (20% of approx. 82,000 prisoners).² All three security firms are
globally operating corporations listed on multiple stock exchanges. G4S
Justice Services, for instance, is listed on the London and Copenhagen
stock exchanges. Serco Custodial Services is listed on the London Stock
Exchange. Sodexo Justice Services is part of the Sodexo Group that is
traded on the Paris Bourse and the New York Stock Exchange.

Private prison managers are not only subject to government oversight and scrutiny. They are also wary of stock price reactions. *Inter alia*, this brings to the fore concerns with reputation management—a prison establishment’s appearance to the (financial) market. Globally operating security corporations are interested in economic gains. They are concerned with winning new prison contracts and renewing old ones, and with avoiding both adverse publicity and drops in stock price (Volokh, 2002, p. 1870). Quantification is here not only implicated in the determination of operational prison performance against nationally stipulated KPIs, but also in financial profit and loss calculations, and a logic of (financial) “capitalization” (Muniesa et al., 2017), where prison establishments and prisoners come to be viewed as (financial) assets, as vehicles for the generation of future (financial) returns (see also Birch & Muniesa, 2020).

Such a financialization of the prison organization is intertwined
with a shift in the conventions underpinning (economic) quantification
(Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006 [1991]; but see also Chiapello, 2015;
Chiapello & Walter, 2016). Chiapello (2015) highlights the progressive
diffusion of financialized conventions of quantification. Such conventions
have been developed and spread by accounting and finance professionals,
for example in the form of net present value calculations, probability-
based estimates of financial value, and market prices as true value bench-
marks (see also Muniesa et al., 2017). Such financialized conventions of
quantification have not only been utilized in private prisons. They have
also travelled into public prisons. As Liebling (2004, p. 71) writes, with
privatization a “new rationality of governance” (Miller & Rose, 1990,
2008) was introduced into the (public) Prison Service, where auditing
and accounting practices originating from “the world of finance” came to
be applied to the non-financial practices and systems of the Prison Service.

Private Sector Accrual Accounting

In particular, private sector budgeting and accrual accounting were
promoted as “a necessary precondition for identifying inefficiencies” and
“managing capital budgets properly”. As O’Quinn and Ashford (1996,
p. 31) put it: “While adopting accrual accounting and budgeting is
technical, it is a necessary precondition for identifying inefficiencies,
improving services and saving taxpayers money”.

Unlike cash accounting, private sector accrual accounting records
the changes in value of assets and liabilities and distinguishes between
operating and capital flows (Ellwood & Newberry, 2007; O’Quinn &
Ashford, 1996). Expenses are recorded as incurred and revenues as earned
(rather than when cash changes hands). Fixed assets, such as buildings
or equipment, are capitalized, i.e. they appear as a separable item on an
organization’s balance sheet. The introduction of business-like accrual
accounting was supposed to allow for better measurement of costs and
revenues and more efficient and effective use of resources, for example,
through charges for fixed assets, or calculations of full costs of providing
a public service, which could then be compared with the prices charged
by outside suppliers (Ellwood & Newberry, 2007).

In the Prison Service, the introduction of private sector accrual
accounting was largely driven by the desire to establish financial compa-
rability between public and private prison providers, and to stimulate and
govern private financial investment (see also Ellwood & Newberry, 2007).
Private sector accrual accounting was supposed to enable the development
of benchmarks for inter-organizational financial comparisons. It should
help establish a common business language, making financial reports read-
able across the public and private sectors. Thereby, it should increase
inter-organizational competition and strengthen “financial transparency”
and “fiscal responsibility” (O’Quinn & Ashford, 1996).

Yet, numerous studies have also challenged the relevance of accrual
accounting to governments and have highlighted difficulties of its
practical implementation (see, e.g., Ezzamel et al., 2014; Ellwood & Newberry, 2007; A. Bruno & Lapsley, 2018; Barton, 2004). Such difficulties were also experienced in the Prison Service. The assumed benefits proved difficult to realize. The valuation and recognition of assets, such as property and equipment, was far from straightforward, given that no market exists to determine their “fair value”, including financial losses due to impairment. Furthermore, assets, such as prison buildings or the equipment they contain, do not generate any cash revenues for the government, rather they represent a future stream of expenses.

Moreover, private prisons and the costs of running those remained off-balance sheet. This applies also to the costs connected to the preparing and monitoring of private prison contracts. Private prison establishments are governed by contract. These contracts fall into two main categories. Design, Construct, Manage and Finance (DCMF) contracts, also known as Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) that are typically 25 years long and Manage and Maintain Contracts that are typically 15 years long. These contracts are negotiated behind closed doors and they are not available to the public, as they fall under the commercial confidentiality clause. “Fiscal transparency” is thus punctuated, the “representational faithfulness” of the Prison Service’s accrual-based accounts highly limited, and the objective of financial comparability and contestability undermined.

Finally, financial and operational prison performance, and their respective quantification, are largely de-coupled. It is not easy to assess their interplay from the Prison Service's financial and management reports, and there is no systematic mapping of the impact of financial management on a prison's operational effectiveness, including measures concerning the quality of prison life, and vice versa.

Despite these limitations, the accounting reforms introduced new ways of thinking about what the state consists of. The state does not “pay” or “fund” any longer. Instead, it “invests” in an accountable manner (Mennicken & Muniesa, 2017; Muniesa et al., 2017). The reforms also led to the rise of new experts, the emergence and empowerment of financial experts and expertise. The transformations shifted the locus and focus of governing. They redefined relations between the state, public and private prison providers, “making up” prison providers in financial business terms, introducing private-sector oriented forms of calculation and financial responsibility. Such reforms also paved the way for experiments with new forms of financing, supporting the rise of “social
finance” initiatives, aimed at stimulating investments that generate finan-
cial returns for the (private) investor while including measurable positive
social impact, e.g. in the form of reduced recidivism rates. It is to such
forms of investments, and the implication of quantification in these, that
we turn last.

Social Impact Bonds

By way of concluding this section, we would like to draw attention
to a relatively new class of financial instrument, so-called Social Impact
Bonds (SIBs). Social Impact Bonds are aimed at “socializing finance”—
“rethinking finance for social outcomes” (Social Finance, 2009). Social
Impact Bonds are based on a commitment from government to use a
proportion of the savings that result from improved social outcomes
to reward non-government investors that fund the intervention activ-
ities. They are based on a contract negotiated with government that
includes definitions of a success metric (e.g. 1-year reoffending rate for
short-sentence offenders in a specified geographic area); a specific target
population (e.g. offenders aged over 18 leaving prison after a sentence of
less than 12 months and returning to a specified geographic area); and
the value of success (i.e. the amount returned to investors for a given
improvement in the social outcome; generally a proportion of the related
savings to government) (Social Finance, 2009). The private investment
is used to finance a range of interventions to improve the target social
outcome over the contract period (often around 5 years). If the interven-
tions are successful and the social outcomes improve, government pays
investors a reward based on the pre-agreed payment schedule (this scheme
is also referred to as “payment by results”). SIBs seek to “align govern-
ment policy priorities with the interests of non-government investors
and social service providers” (Social Finance, 2009). They are aimed at
creating “a rational investment market” and aligning “the financial and
social return on investment” (Social Finance, 2009).

In the Prison Service, a pilot with a Social Impact Bond was started
in 2010 in Peterborough Prison. This Social Impact Bond was aimed
at reducing the reoffending of approximately 2000 male prisoners who
were discharged from HMP Peterborough after serving a sentence of less
than 12 months between 2010 and 2014. Social Finance, a not-for-profit
financial intermediary, developed the model, raised the finance and was
performance managing the bond. The Ministry of Justice commissioned
the service, with part of the outcome payments contributed by the Big Lottery Fund. Organizations involved in delivering the service were: St Giles Trust; Ormiston Children and Families Trust (Ormiston); SOVA; YMCA; Peterborough and Fenland Mind (Mind) (Disley et al., 2015; Civil Society Media, 2014).

The investment pool totalled £5 million from 17 social investors including: the Barrow Cadbury Charitable Trust; the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation; the Friends Provident Foundation; the Henry Smith Charity; the Johansson Family Foundation; the Lankelly Chase Foundation; the Monument Trust; the Panahpur Charitable Trust; the Paul Hamlyn Foundation; and the Tudor Trust. If re-offending was reduced overall by at least 7.5%, investors received a minimum repayment of 2.5%. The greater the drop in re-offending beyond this threshold, the more the investors would receive. The total payments by Government were capped at £8 m (or £7 m in real terms) and return to investors was capped at 13% annual IRR (Civil Society Media, 2014).

The Peterborough Social Impact Bond was part of a broader government strategy to outsource the financing of government services and to stimulate more third sector involvement in the delivery of these. An interim report of results (Joliffe & Hedderman, 2014) showed that the frequency of re-conviction events for the Peterborough SIB cohort 1 was 8.4% lower compared to a matched national control group (142 re-conviction events per 100 offenders in Peterborough's cohort 1 compared to 155 re-conviction events per 100 offenders nationally). This means that the provider (One Service) was on track to achieve the 7.5% reduction target for the final payment based on an aggregate of both cohorts, but that the pilot had not achieved the 10% reduction target for cohort 1 (Joliffe & Hedderman, 2014).

The final cohort impact evaluation (Anders & Dorsett, 2017) found that the provider had managed to reduce the number of reconviction events amongst those discharged from HMP Peterborough by 9.7% for cohort 2. Reduction across both cohorts was estimated to be 9.0%, which reached the minimum threshold of 7.5% across all cohorts, and was sufficient to trigger payment under the terms of the SIB contract (Anders & Dorsett, 2017). The evaluation of the Peterborough SIB was far from straightforward. In the evaluation of the first cohort, it took the evaluators 11 months alone to agree the sample and obtain all the data needed to begin the analysis (Joliffe & Hedderman, 2014). And, unlike random control allocation, the applied method of propensity score
matching (PSM), although regarded as one of the best ways of matching quasi-experimentally, could not take account of unmeasured differences which may account for variation in reconviction rates aside from “treatment received” (Joliffe & Hedderman, 2014). It was also not possible to precisely replicate the approach adopted in the dry run because of data quality issues, including missing data pertaining to the type of offence (Joliffe & Hedderman, 2014, p. 4).

Apart from such measurement challenges and the costliness of the evaluation, SIBs like the Peterborough SIB have also been criticized for their short-term orientation, high transaction costs, and their focus on the fulfilment of quantifiable targets that dictate the rate and amount of payment received by contracted service providers (Cooper et al., 2016; Edmiston & Nicholls, 2018; Jeamet & Salais 2019). As Edmiston and Nicholls (2018) highlight, this can compromise service quality and integrity due to “gaming” and perverse incentives (see also Cooper et al., 2016; Jeamet & Salais, 2019). Social investors are likely to have different and potential conflicting motivations. Some may prioritize financial return on investment, whereas others may focus on the social impact rather than financial rates of return (Edmiston & Nicholls, 2018).

In the case of the HMP Peterborough SIB, according to the final process evaluation report produced by RAND Europe (Disley et al., 2015), the private provider (One Service) made extensive efforts to engage offenders and ex-offenders through the provisioning of through-the-gate and post-release support (addressing practical problems, such as housing, benefits, training and education). Yet, often the contact with One Service was ended after a few months and a longer-term engagement with ex-offenders was difficult to achieve (Disley et al., 2015). It was also highlighted that different organizations hired by One Service shouldered unequal burdens in delivering the service, and interviewees perceived contractual relationships behind the Peterborough SIB to be complex (Disley et al., 2015).

In addition, not all reductions in re-offending (more precisely re-conviction) bring realizable savings, where costs of existing services are largely fixed and prison numbers are not a direct product of re-offending (Fox & Albertson, 2011). The Peterborough SIB's focus on reduced recidivism rates is itself highly questionable. It is based on what Robert Salais has termed in this volume “governance-driven quantification”, where meeting contractual requirements is prioritized over the (long-term) needs of subjects (see also Morley, 2021; Supiot 2015), and root
causes underlying the commitment of crime remain largely unaddressed. As a recent OECD report on SIBs stated: “There is a fear that this strong focus on results can change the public service ethos or lead to a narrow mechanical determinism in service delivery” (OECD, 2016, p. 16, cited in Morley, 2021). SIBs reframe public service users, in this case prisoners, as potential revenue sources rather than conscious agents and citizens, and they often lack engagement with subjective experiences and preferences (Cooper et al., 2016; Jeamet & Salais, 2019; Sinclair et al., 2021).

However, the actors involved in the Peterborough SIB differed from those engaged in the prison privatization schemes described earlier. Most of these actors are located in the not-for-profit voluntary sector, and boundaries between the public and private have become increasingly blurred. As Edmiston and Nicholls (2018) remind us, we need to be careful not to dismiss the heterogeneity of these actors and their varied motives. We need to be careful not to overlook the heterogeneous kinds of private capital present within public services and their dynamic influence on service operations and delivery.

On the one hand, SIBs foster the penetration of financial criteria and issues into what were previously non-economic areas (Sinclair et al., 2021). Yet, on the other hand, they can also come to be utilized for the “socializing” of finance, as some investors might forego a higher rate of return for the sake of social impacts, because of their charitable orientation (Disley et al., 2015; Edmiston & Nicholls, 2018). We need to be mindful of the multiple ways in which quantification and financial concerns come to be interlinked—reinforced, mitigated or undermined—in the day-to-day realization of such schemes. Of course, this does not mean to say that (financial) “governance-driven quantification” (Salais, in this volume) is suspended. But we need to attend to the conditionality of its performance (Butler, 2010) and scrutinize the circumstances that enable its scope and depth to increase and intensify (or not).

## CONCLUSION

This chapter has explored different dynamics of economization and quantification in the Prison Service of England and Wales. In so doing, it concentrated on neoliberal, Anglo-American dynamics of quantification and economization, characterized by attempts aimed at the remaking of everything and everyone in the image of *homo oeconomicus* (Brown, 2015;
Davies, 2014; Supiot 2012). In the UK, such developments were kick-started under the Thatcher government (1979–1990) and later continued under the rule of Labour. This chapter has scrutinized what it means to “economize the social” drawing attention to three different modalities of economizing and the varied implication of quantification in these: ideas and practices of marketizing, politics of austerity (curtailment) and processes of financializing.

First, we examined the rise of market-oriented quantification in the form of prison ratings and rankings aimed at stimulating competition amongst public and private prison providers. We then attended to the limits of such quantification and showed how in particular criminologists undertook efforts to undo such economization through the development of “alternative” forms of quantification measuring the quality of prison life. These efforts, in turn, were undermined by the government’s austerity policies, and related economizing and quantifying practices which brought concerns with economies of scale and cost management to the fore. Lastly, we explored the implication of prison quantification in processes of financialization, drawing attention to practices of private-sector accrual accounting and experimentations with Social Impact Bonds (SIBs).

We underscored the importance of unpacking the multiplicity of economization and quantification. Quantification is an important condition for economization, but should not be equated with it. To develop a better understanding of the multiple roles that quantification can come to fulfil we need to investigate interactions between different quantification regimes (e.g. cost accounting regimes, prison performance ratings and quantifications of the quality of prison life) and their implication in different “orders of worth”, as Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) would put it. We need to follow the numbers across the different sites of their production and circulation (see also Kurunmäki et al., 2016, and the other chapters in this volume). Further, we need to be mindful of the different facets of economization. This chapter focused on neoliberal forms of economizing and quantifying—reforms that were undertaken in the name of the market, involving a logic of competition and capital investment rationales. Of course, we should not forget about other forms of economizing and quantifying—involving, for instance, state planning, public statistics, redistribution and public welfare rationales (see here also the contributions by Mespoulet and Amossé in this volume).
Finally, we have shown how economizing quantification can be punc-
tuated, undermined and undone. State contracts governing privately
managed prisons also shielded these from economization, such as govern-
ment austerity measures. The introduction of prison performance ratings,
aimed at enhancing transparency, comparability and inter-organizational
competitiveness, was accompanied by the creation of new zones of
opacity, invisibility and unaccountability. Private prison contracts as well
as SIBs, for instance, are negotiated behind closed doors, and they can
further the production of mutual lock-ins that, in many respects, suspend
the logic of market discipline. Furthermore, the market-oriented reforms
led to a creation of an unwieldy calculative bureaucracy, new quantifi-
cation systems which needed to be fed and maintained, which could be
described as uneconomical.

For those interested in the powers of quantification in all its forms, the
challenge is to get to grips with its multiple modalities and intertwinement
in different programmes and processes of reform. As Kurunmäki et al.
(2016, p. 400) remind us, the performance of calculating selves, pris-
oners, prison officers and prison governors, may be evaluated by others
without their knowledge, or against their wishes. Prisoners and prison
governors may seek to influence prison ratings in their favour and tamper
with the numbers. On the other hand, quantification can be turned
against programmes of marketization, financialization and austerity. This,
as also the chapters by Salais and Thévenot in this volume show, happens
when ruling mechanisms of quantification and programmes of governing
(e.g. governing in the name of the market or efficiency) are subjected to
scrutiny, debate and critique, when forms of disruption are sought that
go beyond “gaming the numbers”, when numbers become attached to
dreams and schemes of doing things differently (Kurunmäki et al., 2016,
p. 400).

**Acknowledgements** This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/N018869/1) under the Open Research Area Scheme (Project Title: QUAD—Quantification, Administrative Capacity and Democracy). The QUAD project is an international project co-funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, France), Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaft (DFG, Germany), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, UK), and the Nederlands Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO, Netherlands). Both authors thank the other contributors to this volume, and in particular Robert Salais, for comments on earlier versions of this chapter.
Mennicken thanks the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin for generous intellectual and financial support, and the Quantification Focus Group at the Wissenschaftskolleg (2013-14) for stimulating discussions.

## NOTES

1. This and the next two sections are based in part on Mennicken (2013, 2014).

2. See https://www.justice.gov.uk/about/hmps/contracted-out and https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/prison-population-statistics, accessed 19 June 2020.

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<figure><img src="image_25.png" /></figure>
# The Shifting Legitimacies of Price Measurements: Official Statistics and the Quantification of *Pwofitasyon* in the 2009 Social Struggle in Guadeloupe

Boris Samuel

The historic mobilization experienced by Guadeloupe in early 2009 resulted in a 44 day-long strike, whose watchword was the struggle against the high costs of living and *pwofitasyon*. The social movement denounced the opacity of the state's regulation methods and of the management of the main economic sectors, particularly in large-scale retail. The strike was led by a group called LKP (*Lyannaj Kont' Pwofi-tasyon*—l'alliance contre la *pwofitasyon*), which used numbers as a weapon to analyse, claim and negotiate. *Pwofitasyon* is a creole word which

<footnote>B. Samuel (✉)</footnote>

<footnote>French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), Centre d'études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains, et asiatiques (CESSMA), University of Paris, Paris, France</footnote>

<footnote>e-mail: boris.samuel@ird.fr</footnote>
gained prominence at the time of the 2009 conflict. The LKP collec-
tive translated it into French by the expression *outrageous exploitation*
("exploitation outrancière"). It means abusive economic exploitation,
with the connotation that this exploitation is rooted in both colonial and
capitalist relations. The *Union générale des travailleurs guadeloupéens*, a
leftist union had already used the term in social conflicts before, since
1997 at least (Ruffin, 2009). The identification of *pwofitasyon* always rests
on the same idea: players holding a dominant position in a given market
or in an economic activity capture an undue profit, resulting from the
existence of high sales prices. The denunciation of the *pwofitasyon* thus
makes the quantified (re)evaluation of the profit or the abusive margins a
passage not only possible, but also necessary.

In the case studied here, the fight against *pwofitasyon* resulted in a
multiplication of calculation work, which was at the very heart of the
2009 movement. The essential role of figures in the 2009 struggle was
not limited to the issue of price formation. The platform of protest put
forward by the LKP carried a broad set of measures aimed at the revalu-
ation of purchasing power. One of its central demands, for instance, was
the introduction of a wage bonus of 200 Euros for those on low incomes.
The negotiations consisted of a series of number battles around this
and other demands. The parties involved in these standoffs were public
institutions—the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic
Studies (INSEE); the General Directorate for Competition, Consumption
and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF)¹; the Inspectorate General of Finances
(IGF); the Court of Audit; and others—as well as non-state actors urging
the administrations to produce new quantitative analyses, audits and
figures, such as the unions and the LKP. This ability to propose new
frameworks for thinking about the economy, as well as new quantification
methods was one of the strongest points of the mobilization.

How far has the “statactivist” (Bruno et al., 2014) momentum of
the LKP and other non-state actors been capable of shifting the legiti-
mate price measurement methods and the social construction of the price
debate, and by what means? This is the question that this study addresses.
Based on empirical observations of the calculations used during and in the
wake of the movement, and analysing the conditions of their implemen-
tation as well as the discussions they triggered, this article will attempt to
assess the processes by which the new measures became legitimate.

The text is organized as follows: The first part will show that the 2009
social conflict involved a variety of actors, differing in their relations to
calculation and also in the quantification methods they used. The strug-
gles with numbers lead to unequal outcomes, in which technical but also
relational resources determined the balance of power between the actors.
The second part will question the legitimacy of the new quantifications of
high costs of living appearing in the wake of the social crisis, at a time
when official price analysis and measurement studies were particularly
poor. It will compare the different quantification methods under discus-
sion during and after the negotiations: some estimates of abusive margins
proposed by the LKP, which, although effective to impose a public debate
on the *pwofitasyon*, were considered too simplistic to become legitimate;
a measurement of price differences between Guadeloupe and mainland
France undertaken by the INSEE, which did not sufficiently highlight
abusive profits to become visible and legitimate, although it was meant to
be a reference; and, finally, a practice widely used in official reports, the
press, or political speeches, which selected and displayed individual prices
in order to report, and denounce, the existence of abusive pricing prac-
tices. It is this latter utilization of figures which proved to be the most
efficient in the public space under consideration here.

The article illustrates the shifting legitimacies of price measurements
after the 2009 social conflict: the common and rigorous statistical
methods used by the INSEE created controversy, because they did not
display abusive prices with sufficient strength, while the innovative but
clumsy quantification practices of the LKP led public actors to adopt new
ways to account for pricing practices and for the price level gaps with
mainland France.

THE QUANTIFICATION OF PWOFITASYON
IN THE 2009 BATTLES FOR POWER

*Quantification as a Mode of Action for a Variety of Players*

The first protests leading to the January and February 2009 general
strikes were triggered by an unexplained rise in fuel prices. In the French
overseas *départements*, unlike as in the rest of France, fuel prices were
administered and they were fixed via a “formula”,² which was periodically
revised, taking into account a variety of parameters, such as freight and
employment costs, profit margins granted to the operators, international
prices, or the USD exchange rate (according to Decree 2003-1241 of 23
December 2003) (see Bolliet et al., 2009, pp. 8–9) (Autorité de la concurrence, 2009a, pp. 4–5). The “formula” used for the price calculation was deemed to guarantee an equitable regulation of the sector, but in practice criticisms of the industry’s lack of transparency and its abusive pricing mechanisms had become stronger and stronger in the years preceding the conflict.

In 2005, an association of fishermen—the Association of Sea Fishermen of North Basse-Terre—complained that the tax free price paid by their profession had unexplainably increased by 70% between 2003 and 2005, while the all-inclusive prices had progressed much less (Gircour & Rey, 2010, p. 86). Facing the impossibility of understanding the price determination mechanisms (Les pêcheurs exigent de la transparence, newspaper article in France-Antilles Guadeloupe, 18 August 2006), their criticism targeted the regulation techniques employed by the DGCCRF. Here, the “formula” was debated for the first time outside of the administration. Then, in 2007, one of the major wholesale importers of the island, Didier Payen,³ went on a crusade against fuel supply policies and price-setting mechanisms in Guadeloupe. In a detailed study, not dissimilar to what an audit firm could have supplied, he showed that cost differentials were, at least to a large extent, due to the supply policy in place for over 40 years—a policy favouring local refining and granting a monopoly for importing and refining to a private company (the Société Anonyme de Raffinerie des Antilles, SARA)⁴ (Payen, 2009, p. 33). Furthermore, he showed that the calculation of pump prices contained various obvious and unjustifiable irregularities, such as the double-counting of certain taxes (as for instance in the case of the accounting for the tax on used oils) (Payen, 2009, p. 29). Although his work gave rise to discussions among the island’s economic and administrative actors in 2007 and 2008—the report was even endorsed by the *Regional Economic and Social Council* of which Didier Payen was a member—his intervention did not alter the methods used by the DDCCRF (regional outpost of the French General Directorate for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Prevention, the DGCCRF, in Guadeloupe), which continued to apply the same “formula” to set prices.

The social movement against *pwofityason* examined here arose in this context. In the first half of 2008, international oil prices rose sky high, before starting to decline in July. Yet, as the months went by, pump prices continued to rise in the various French Overseas departments. The peak was reached on 1 October 2008.⁵ A collective of entrepreneurs whose
activities were hard hit by the increase, was the first to protest against this unbearable situation: it called for a strike in November 2008 and set up the first roadblocks in December. From the outset, Yves Jégo, Secretary of State for Overseas territories, showed himself to be receptive to the protest movement's messages. He, too, was somewhat suspicious of the administration's way of regulating the oil sector, which he considered opaque and potentially collusive (Jégo, 2009, p. 89).

In December 2008, the Inspection Générale des Finances (Inspectorate General of Finances, IGF) was asked to investigate the situation, and the Competition Authority was seized in February 2009. Pending the conclusions of these audits, the State adopted transitory measures, applying an immediate 31 centimes reduction per litre for lead-free petrol, and a 22 centimes reduction for diesel (Guadeloupe: An agreement to reduce oil prices triggers the removal of the roadblocks, 2008). To compensate SARA's loss of income, the agreement reached with the collective of entrepreneurs also provided for temporary State transfers to the company. Far from appeasing the social situation, the agreement actually fuelled the conflict: The *Lyannaj Kont' Pwofitasyon* (LKP), the alliance against *pwofitasyon*, was set up on 5 December 2008 upon the call of the *Union Générale des Travailleurs de la Guadeloupe*,⁶ the main Guadeloupian trade union, which was completely opposed to the State's compensatory transfer to SARA. The very object of their anger were precisely the profits made by the company, which they considered to be illegitimate, i.e. *pwofitasyon*. Hence, it called for a general strike on 16 December, the day after the agreement was signed with the entrepreneurs (Gircour & Rey, 2010, p. 97).

LKP's accusations were incomprehensible to the administration, which denied any fault. The “formula” may of course have been clumsy, since price revisions were not frequent enough to guarantee a good matching of prices at the pump with international market fluctuations. However, according to the administration, no collusive or irregular practices occurred,⁷ and despite the existence of certain dysfunctionalities, price regulations had mostly suffered from a lack of adequate consumer information. The March 2009 General Inspectorate's report confirmed these assertions. But it also acknowledged that the complexity of the “formula”, and its outdated character, had made fuel prices opaque and vulnerable to calculation errors. The impact remained low, however: only 8 centimes were due to these errors, that is 5% of the price, and not 40%, as asserted by Payen.
LKP's call for a strike was, however, the starting point of a wider movement. The radical trade unions, UGTG (Union générale des travailleurs guadeloupéens), CGTG (Centrale des travailleurs unis) and CTU (Confédération générale des travailleurs de Guadeloupe), aspired to start a general strike on a broad set of claims going well beyond oil prices. Between December 2008 and January 2009, the collective prepared a broad platform of protest comprising 165 points.⁸ The denunciation of *pwofitasyon* and the issue of purchasing power formed the platform's base (Ruffin, 2009).⁹ The reasoning justifying the denunciation of fuel prices was replicated in numerous sectors, considering that prices were seen to hide abusive margins more generally: the LKP thus drew attention to the possibility of abuses on the markets for “basic necessity items”, such as transportation, water, rents, electricity, communications, etc. To address this situation, the collective demanded the adoption of a variety of measures: the promotion of transparency, both in the private sector and public services, for example through the conduct of a programme of audits, or the creation of a “workers’ research office” (Bureau d'études ouvrières, BEO) intended to help trade unions monitor prices; the bolstering of purchasing power via a series of social transfers to households (the symbolic claim being a bonus of €200 for all employees below a certain level of salary, and other claims pertaining to an increase of the social minima); interventions on price formation (the LKP demanded for example a “significant reduction of all taxes and margins on basic necessity products and on transportation” as well as the freeze of certain prices, such as rents and fuel); the fight against the pre-eminence of the importing companies and the promotion of Guadeloupian products.

What does the above teach us about the role of calculations and figures in the formation of social and political relations in Guadeloupe? Economic calculation played several roles here. The mobilization was aimed at fighting against the social and economic relations which calculation had helped establish (for example, the determination of fuel prices through the “formula” had immediate and daily consequences for the entire region). Besides, various actors turned calculation into a weapon, mobilizing their analytical capacity to denounce or even accuse the private firms and public administration of abusive pricing practices. Lastly, calculation was used by administrative and political players who carried out audits and controls in order to promote transparency and arbitrate the conflict, making calculation also a mediation tool.
Moreover, social actors stood out by their plural use of calculation and
differed in their position with respect to the handling of figures. For the
administration in charge of regulating the fuel sector, the handling of the
“formula” echoed a routine task of “government at a distance”. The inter-
views I conducted showed that the executives in charge were concerned
with professionalism and accuracy, while being subjected to strong pres-
sure by the economic actors. Since the existence of calculation errors was
somehow part of the routine in their eyes, they also demonstrated the
administration’s relative indifference towards citizens (Herzfeld, 1992;
Hibou, 2012, pp. 128–129). For some executives also, the handling of
the formula could possibly reflect the collusion with the operators of the
oil sector, who were seeking to draw maximum profits from the frame-
work established by the “formula”, but this could not be proven.10 Here,
different players used calculations and economic analysis to denounce the
arbitrariness and opacity of price management. Didier Payen decided to
undertake his own investigation of fuel price formation, making large use
of quantification and collecting information via his personal network. His
task was difficult: his report underlined how it had not been easy to obtain
relevant information, the administrations hardly being open to his inter-
rogations. Nevertheless, he belonged to an economic elite that had some
access to information and power circles and was also able to spread his
message. His report was even published by the regional Economic and
Social Council.

This was not the case for the fishermen, who a priori turned out to be
the victims of the calculation's arbitrariness. By initiating an inquiry into
the "formula", they seemed to fight David's fight against Goliath, but
while facing the opacity of price determination, they finally obtained some
pieces of the puzzle of the fuel sector's management. Central political and
administrative authorities could also act as counter-powers to the local
authorities: The State Secretary, and the supervisory bodies questioned
the way the figures were used, claimed their right to inspect and audit the
data, and reaffirmed their capacity to impose sanctions in cases of proven
circumvention of the rules. Finally, by demanding the end of pwofita-
syon and claiming the existence of abuses, the LKP's relation to data was
two-sided: they expressed doubt and uncertainty as to the integrity of
the calculation methods and considered it was a sufficient reason to chal-
lenge the legitimacy of power practices, and to enter into a struggle with
the administrative authorities. Furthermore, later events of the movement
(see also the next section below) show that the collective used calculation
as a weapon and an accusatory tool, even when it could not prove the
existence of abuses.

Thus, there are different styles of calculation, which are characterized
by varying capacities of actors to master calculation techniques, varying
access to information, varying relationships to the political authority and
different motivations in making the calculations.

These varying styles of calculation also reflect different historical trajec-
tories. Didier Payen, in particular, was not only interested in social
dialogue and defending his own entrepreneurial interests: he was a
member of MEDEF and acted in his capacity as a representative of heads
of businesses; he was also a notorious supporter of free market ideas.
He highlighted the virtues of free trade continuously, and disputed the
regulatory measures taken by the French authorities. His calculation tech-
niques expose this multi-layered social and political position, for example
he mixes the writing of pamphlets with the work of an audit. His approach
was not that of an auditing firm, as can be observed immediately from the
style of presentation: large characters, flashy colours to highlight the most
important findings and underline the denunciative tone. His approach was
reminiscent of the correspondence between chambers of commerce and
the administrative authorities during imperial times, when merchants and
settlers from the islands challenged state decisions in order to obtain free
marketing rights (Lemercier, 2008; Tarrade, 1972, pp. 224–285).

The LKP's and unions' calculation techniques also deserve to be ques-
tioned from a historical standpoint. The use of calculation and technicity
for purposes of activism must be considered in the light of the specific
history of unions in Guadeloupe, and of their relations towards the
administrations.¹¹

*The Role of Technicity and Expertise in the Negotiations*

The struggle breaking out in January 2009 with the general strike showed
that LKP's actions related in a variety of ways to state administrations
and to the logics of expertise. On the one hand, the collective's skill
and capacity enabled it to negotiate with the State on its own ground,
in particular, because some of its members stemmed from the administra-
tion. The collective also had close links with most technical administrative
bodies, such as the INSEE, which could support the activists during
the negotiations with their expertise. Nevertheless, the negotiations were
also an unequal process, in which highly skilled negotiators from the
State’s Overseas department cabinet in Paris succeeded in getting the upper hand over LKP’s leaders, who did not have the same access to economic information, and who did not enjoy the same calculative skills when it came to the design and discussion of new public policy instru- ments. Such observations ask for further investigation of the links that these “statactivist” (Bruno et al., 2014) mobilizations maintain with state administrations and expertise. Historically, both unions and employers’ organizations fought to impose their conceptions of quantification, and they employed quantitative skill in their struggles; yet, they were also often backed by statistical administrations (Stapleford, 2009; Touchelay, 2014; Volle, 1982). What kind of situation is reflected by the Guadelou- pian case? What kinds of links between the LKP’s activist use of numbers and administrative expertise can be uncovered in this instance?

Thanks to the protests, LKP quickly met with resounding success. After
the indefinite general strike which was launched on 20 January 2009, a
series of important demonstrations began (Calimia-Dinane, 2009). On
Saturday, 24 January, and Sunday, 25 January, over 10% of the island's
population are said to have marched in the streets of Pointe-à-Pitre. The
Prefecture, impressed by these successes, agreed to enter negotiations. It
also took a decision for which it would later on be much blamed by the
State's Overseas department: the Prefect agreed to a live television broad-
cast of the negotiations (Jégo, 2009, p. 54). The live broadcasting by
Canal 10, from 24 to 28 January, was an unprecedented event. Thanks
to their skills and mastery of the economic and social issues under discus-
sion, the LKP members stood up well to the Prefect and his administrative
directors. On each of the points up for negotiation, the administrative
directors—often coming from mainland France like most in the state
administration hierarchy, and in Guadeloupe for just a few years—faced
union members who had managed to build solid knowledge of the files
over many years. At that time in Guadeloupe, both among activists, the
administration, the negotiators and the press, the LKP was praised for its
skills, and placed on a pedestal, whereas the administration was allegedly
found to have been incapable and at fault. The course of the negotiations
confirmed LKP's victory. The televised discussion was interrupted early,
on an order from Paris. Prefect Desforges read a message from the State
Secretary Yves Jégo denouncing the way the negotiation had been turned
into a "tribunal" (Jégo, 2009, p. 54). And Yves Jégo decided to come to
Guadeloupe in person to settle the matter.
At the beginning of the strike, the movement thus succeeded in gaining the upper hand over the state players by demonstrating its ability to use “government tools”, such as administrative files and techniques of economic calculation (Desrosières, 2008, p. 59). This evidences a profound transformation of the modes of political action in the Département. After the violent struggles that had occurred during the 1970s, which included armed and terrorist action,¹² since the 1990s, the left-wing anti-establishment and separatist movements moved onto different institutional ground (Daniel, 1997; Réno, 2001). Its leaders, many of whom were born after Guadeloupe’s “Departmentalization”, got to know (and to challenge) the state apparatus from the inside. The separatist parties became very successful in local elections by asserting their management abilities, while facing a political class seen as corrupt and unreliable. This shift, however, remained limited to political parties only. The main unions within LKP, such as UGTG and CGTG, continued to present themselves as the legatees of the radicalism of past struggles. Continuing to refer to the traumatic memory of the great repressions of the 1960s and 1970s, such as the May 1967 episode, when police fired at crowds, resulting in a number of victims, still kept secret to date by the French State,¹³ these unions continued to use force and inflexibility as weapons, sometimes even advocating resort to violence (Braflan-Trobo, 2007).

Yet, the use of such radical methods generated a deep division among trade unions in present-day Guadeloupe. Major strikes had often resulted in a divided society. In this respect, LKP's approach marked a break. The trade unions united with political parties and a number of associations to form an unprecedented alliance (Bonilla, 2010; Bonniol, 2011, p. 92; Chivallon, 2009; Gircour & Rey, 2010, p. 101; Larcher, 2009). The LKP could take advantage of a generational renewal. By grouping officials from different economic and social sectors, customs officers, company executives, political leaders, academics, representatives of consumer organizations, etc., it benefited from the arrival of union leaders who came from the very heart of the bureaucratic and political system. Elie Domota, head of LKP at the time, and originally from UGTG, the main Guadeloupian autonomist union, was for example deputy director of the ANPE in Guadeloupe. Alain Plaisir, the collective's economist at the time, was a customs officer with a thorough knowledge of economic policies and the tax system. Thus, LKP was in a position to initiate the struggle via the administrative field itself. It was comfortable with the handling of figures and administrative data, presenting itself as the
institutions' interlocutor. In this respect, the movement can be seen as a
"XXIst century movement".¹⁴

Nevertheless, only a few months after the mobilization, the initial impressions of success started to fade. The idea that the LKP could play on an equal footing with the public administration thanks to its skills was contradicted by the observation that the movement—with its limited means—was facing a dominating State apparatus. In many respects, the fight was unequal. A closer look at one of the negotiations helps to get a sense of the multiple factors shaping the power relations that developed between by the LKP and the other parties around economic policies. The negotiation of the wage agreement resulting in a €200 bonus for workers earning less than 1.4 times of the SMIC (guaranteed minimum wage) affords in particular a better understanding of the movement's relation to economic and statistical expertise.

The negotiation involved the State, the local authorities and the social partners (trade unions and heads of businesses). It took place shortly after the adoption of a new social system in France, called the “active solidarity income” (*Revenu de Solidarité Active*, RSA), which provided a bonus to all persons whose income was below the minimum wage. But this system had not yet been applied outside mainland France, in spite of repeated appeals from the overseas departments’ elected representatives (Le RSTA moins avantageux que le RSA? Newspaper article, France-Antilles Guadeloupe, 15 May 2009). The negotiation’s aim was to determine the overall financial effort that could be made by each of the parties (region, regional council, State and companies) in order to pay a bonus. The total amount obtained would determine the salary threshold below which the bonus could be paid, and therefore the number of beneficiaries. The first phase in the negotiation had made it possible to find an agreement close to the wishes of the LKP. Under the auspices of Yves Jégo, the MEDEF accepted that the bonus would apply to all employees earning less than 1.6 of the SMIC (guaranteed minimum wage). But the State secretary was disavowed by the government and the agreement was adjourned before it could be sealed and signed, probably due to pressure from the lobbies of heads of businesses in Paris (Jégo, 2009, p. 11). Because of this U-turn by the government, the unions’ position became more extreme, and tough, even clearly violent, methods propagated by certain radical fringes of the LKP, such as Alex Lollia’s “GTL” (*Groupe d'intervention des travailleurs en lutte*) (Gircour & Rey, 2010, p. 14), emerged at this point. Shops were closed by force to comply with the general strike order; extremely
tough road blocks took place, night-time violence, lootings of shopping centres, clashes with police forces erupted, even causing the death of a trade unionist, Jacques Bino, who was shot dead near a roadblock during the night of 18–19 February (Gircour & Rey, 2010, p. 123).

In the midst of this tense situation, a team of negotiators was dispatched from Paris by Matignon. The discussions turned into a tug of war. The LKP refused to go beneath the threshold of 1.6 of the SMIC (guaranteed minimum wage), which it considered had already been obtained during the first negotiating phase. The other parties could not, or did not wish to, finance the total sum. At this point, the discussions placed calculations at the centre of an open conflict, and INSEE's (National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies) regional office played an important part in the mediation. It lay the foundations for the conduct of the discussions, by supplying all parties with the figures required for the calculation of various scenarios, in particular figures concerning employment and the distribution of income by branches.¹⁵

INSEE's regional office was in direct contact with the negotiators, often quite informally. On LKP's side, Alain Plaisir, the collective's “economist” (and also Secretary General of the Centrale des Travailleurs Unis, CTU) communicated with INSEE's regional office, sometimes directly from the negotiation's backstage. The delegation of negotiators could present its requests to the INSEE internally through the administrative channel, either directly or via the Prefecture's services. The negotiations were concluded on 26 February 2009 with an agreement which was constructed on the basis of the calculations realized by the statisticians.¹⁶ The negotiations were based on calculations simulating the financial impact of a €200 bonus on a variety of economic branches, and the collection of available information for this. Such work was of course technical. But the statisticians' work also contributed to the political mediation of the conflict. INSEE's regional department head was considered by the Paris negotiators to be part of the state administration and, off the record, he was an attendee of internal meetings held at the Prefecture. Such an integration was quite unusual, since INSEE's mandate of independence would normally require that it remained distant to the work of the Prefecture.

In parallel, a close link could also be established informally between the LKP and the INSEE. The CTU's union representative within INSEE, a statistician himself, knew that he could count on his department chief's cooperation during the negotiation. Sometimes, the LKP and the INSEE
would even discuss urgent matters by telephone. Thus, the social dialogue relied on links that each party managed to establish with the INSEE, which on the one hand assisted in elaborating measures of economic policy based on quantitative data, and, on the other hand, sought to act in a mediating capacity in the conduct of the social dialogue.

Despite the existence of such a political mediation through numbers, the relations between the parties remained conflicted and unequal. The events following the agreement show that the process carried numerous uncertainties. The agreement turned out a posteriori to be much less favourable to LKP than it had seemed to be at the outset, because the collective had contented itself with too vague terms. In fact, the State had merely redeployed funds that had already been budgeted for a similar scheme, simply re-shaping old policy measures.¹⁷ The 1.4 SMIC limit also created confusion as to whether the threshold amount was net or gross, which made the agreement actually more restrictive than it had appeared. As a result of the bonus, certain households passed into a higher tax bracket, thus reducing the sum they were expected to receive overall (Le RSTA moins avantageux que le RSA? Newspaper article, France-Antilles Guadeloupe, 15 May 2009; Verdol, 2010, p. 63). Lastly, from the end of the first year onwards, the system was no longer fully financed. It thus turned out that the social negotiation had been less favourable to the collective than it had seemed, in particular because the other negotiators had been better armed than the LKP to deal with the files and the evidence contained in them.

These different sequences show the multiple roles technicity and calculation played in the social dialogue and the struggle against the high cost of living in Guadeloupe. In the negotiations examined above, the LKP had indeed succeeded in imposing the establishment of new public policies, even if the State services, initially taken by surprise, were able to regain the upper hand. The collective showed that it was possible to defy the State's power on its own ground, and even to get the existing policies shifting. But its activism was also subject to an unequal relation. This raises the question whether or not, observing the ways in which economic policies were formulated before and after the conflict, LKP's activism succeeded in creating a lasting change in the relations of power in Guadeloupe.
## THE LEGITIMACY OF PRICE AND MARGIN MEASUREMENTS

Did the conflict modify the calculation of prices and quantification and assessment of (high) living costs? Did the LKP succeed in making its voice heard, by changing the socially accepted methods of measurement, in the short and in the longer term? To answer these questions, this section will examine the means by which the unions' action and the social movement legitimized, or de-legitimized, new price measures, as well as ways of thinking about the question of high cost of living.

### *The Absence of Prices and Margin Measurements Before 2009*

Prior to the 2009 crisis, the measurement of prices was in a paradoxical situation. In the French Overseas departments, the debate on price formation was at the centre of attention and socio-political relations, and the high level of prices was recurrently denounced. And yet the question of price levels gave rise to very scarce economic analyses and statistical follow-up efforts. One of the consequences of the 2009 movement is the questioning of this *status quo* in which the price question remains outside the scope of what can be discussed by public institutions.

When purchasing power became the centre of attention of Guadeloupe's boiling political scene in 2009, INSEE's most recent studies on the cost of living differential between mainland France and its Overseas departments (DOM) were surprisingly old. The last one dated back to 1992, and the one before that to 1985. Such deficiency surprises, because conducting such studies is theoretically required and constitutes a core part of INSEE's working programme. Once every ten years at least, INSEE is supposed to establish a "geographical price comparison" for the State to adapt a series of public policies towards the Overseas departments (DOM): in particular, the level of the bonuses granted to civil servants to make up for the cost of living gap (the famous "sur-remunerations") and other social transfers, such as the "territorial continuity" which subsidizes transportation to mainland France. In other words, price differentials between the different DOM and mainland France constitute key data for the State, but when the contestation broke out in Guadeloupe, INSEE had not measured them for a long time.

It is difficult to assess precisely why such a situation prevailed. The debates following the adoption of the Euro in 2002 were for sure a part of the explanation. The adoption of the Euro generated in particular very
strong discontent in the Overseas departments (DOM). In the DOM, and to a lesser extent in mainland France, the changeover to the Euro was deemed to have entailed particularly heavy price increases, especially in the large-scale retail sector. Such increases could not be formally proven by existing surveys in Guadeloupe, but interviews with INSEE officials confirmed that closer scrutiny of the price factors could have revealed and confirmed these. INSEE's official speech, however, buried these increases inside an assessment of the general level of prices, which allegedly had remained stable (INSEE, 2002). The lack of official statistical data became the object of a public debate.

In La Réunion, where the price gap with mainland France reached 70% to 80% on many supermarket products at mid-decade (UCF/Que choisir, 2004, 2005), the pressure exerted by elected representatives and consumer groups sought to reinforce the establishment of better price analysis structures. Thanks to the relentless fight of a communist elected representative of La Réunion,¹⁸ the decision to create regional price observatories in Overseas departments (DOM) had been adopted in 2000. These observatories would bring together consumer associations, administrations, social partners, chambers of commerce, etc., under the presidency of the Prefect. But until the controversy over purchasing power grew on the island in 2004–2005, the resistance of state services remained very intense (Sénat, 2005, p. 1725). According to witnesses of the creation of the observatory, this reluctance could be linked to the pressures exerted by the large-scale retail sector lobby (Le collectif pour l'observatoire des prix: Dix mille signatures pour Baroin, newspaper article, Le Quotidien de La Réunion et de L'Océan Indien, 5 September 2006). The implementation decrees were only adopted in 2007 (Doligé, 2009, p. 147).

In Guadeloupe, the price observatory held its first meetings in 2008, and its activities were expanding when the conflict erupted. The observatory intended to conduct a whole new series of analytical works, but at least during the first years of its existence, it had not been able to produce any important results (Favorinus, 2009).

The public authorities' reluctance to (re)calculate and analyse prices should also be understood in the light of the Overseas departments' social history. The matter is explosive and had caused the periodic resurgence of historical disputes. One matter was particularly explosive in this context: the 40% bonus (*sur-rémunération*) granted to civil servants in Guadeloupe, which they managed to obtain in 1953 following a tough
fight and a 65-day strike. At that time, only mainland civil servants were granted such bonuses (similar to the compensations paid to the civil servants accepting to work in the colonies), and even when Guadeloupe had become a department in 1946, the native civil servants were not entitled to this premium (Dumont, 2010, p. 170).¹⁹ Since then, and although the level of the *sur-rémunération* should theoretically be indexed to the observed level of prices (measured by the gap with the mainland), discussions about the adjustment of the bonus were often very risky, because they carried with them the nagging and conflictual question of equal treatment within the Republic, which became effective only recently (Burbank & Cooper, 2010; Forgeot & Celma, 2009; Mam Lam Fouck, 2006).

In theory, the price gap observed in 2009 could no longer justify a 40% bonus: INSEE's studies of 1992 placed the synthetic indicator at around 12%. Since the beginning of the 1990s, there had been regularly calls for a reform to reduce the *sur-rémunérations* (Doligé, 2009, p. 147; Fragonard et al., 1999; Laffineur, 2003; Ripert, 1990), but these recommendations, issued in Paris, never became effective, with the spectre of revolt apparently still on everybody's mind. In addition, the *sur-rémunérations* also played an implicit redistributionary role in a situation of great poverty prevailing in the Overseas departments (DOM: le Medef remet en cause la sur-rémunération des fonctionnaires, newspaper article, Journal de l'île de la Réunion, 11 August 2010; Sur-rémunérations, des avis plus contrastés à la Réunion, newspaper article, Journal de l'île de la Réunion, 12 August 2010), all of which made it a very sensitive subject.

In La Réunion, the inopportune release of a price study resulted in a very serious social unrest in 1997, as well as a “civil servants’ revolt” (Conan, 1997). My interviews suggest that INSEE, by omitting to carry out this task in Guadeloupe for almost twenty years, avoided taking up a position on a question its officials felt was politically too sensitive. But in doing so, it also took the risk of having to react under pressure by starting a study at the very moment the debate would truly flare up.²⁰ And this is precisely what happened in 2009. To be exact, this position is in no way indicative of the statistics policy in the French Antilles, which rather tends to be maximalist, because there is a recognized need for more precise data on the *départements’* economies (Morel & Redor, 2008; Rivière, 2009; Sénat, 2009). Nation-wide surveys are often over-sampled to ensure their representativeness at the level of the *département*, and sophisticated macro-economic aggregates (regional accounts) are compiled. All in all, it
can be held that on the eve of the conflict, the absence of price data was
both the symptom of the conflictual nature of the matter in the public
sphere and the impact of the status quo on the politics of distribution
(symbolized by the pursuit of the *sur-rémunération* policy) which was
also an obstacle to frank reflections on price levels on the island.²¹

This observation also relates to the surveillance of margins and compe-
tition practices, in particular in the mass-market distribution sector. The
pricing practices of economic empires, such as those of Bernard Hayot
or Alain Huyghues-Despointes, both “békés” (Antillean Creole term to
describe a descendant of the early European, usually French, settlers in
the French Antilles) from Martinique, were at the very heart of the 2009
protests. Mass market and import fortunes were built in the West Indies
during the 1970s, with the help of state-sponsored policies. Coming from
the plantation economy, merchants and other entrepreneurs found in the
“catching-up” policies in place from the 1960s through to the 1980s
numerous opportunities to save their assets from the historic collapse of
the sugar-cane sector in the 1970s, in particular by taking advantage of
the public subsidies supposed to stimulate investment in the new markets
and sectors, such as tourism, or large-scale retail. These programmes
generated windfall effects, as well as misuses and excesses. The negative
consequences of these policies were discussed at length by the parla-
ment (Jalabert, 2007, p. 75; Ripert, 1990).²² And yet, though recurrent
since the mid-1990s, the numerous calls for a serious re-evaluation of
the *défiscalisation* (tax exemption policies), which were a continuation of
the systems initiated in the 1960s, had never been successful. Recently
the French Court of Auditors (*Cour des comptes*) and the Economic and
Social Council (*Conseil économique et social*) took once again an interest
in the question, but their recommendations were not implemented either.

In the same vein, since the DGCCRF lacked human and logistic
resources, its agents undertook no serious study of competition struggles
on the Islands, although such studies would have revealed the dominant
position the main actors had managed to build in the large-scale retail
sector (Doligé, 2009, pp. 132–133).²³

The tense *status quo* around economic policies extends to economic
analyses, measurements and evaluations of prices and margins, which
remained understudied until the end of the 2000s. The 2009 struggle,
with the massive general strike and the roadblocks which paralyzed the
Island's economic activities for 44 days, got things moving. The social
conflict and the existence of LKP's platform of protest forced the opening
of a participatory debate, in particular through the organization of a large multi-stakeholder consultation under the auspices of the State’s Overseas department (les Etats généraux de l’Outre-mer, from March to July 2009) which was followed by the establishment of an *Interministerial Committee for Overseas Departements* (Comité Interministériel pour l’Outre-Mer). In this context, the group working on price formation, purchase power issues and large-scale retail issued a series of recommendations largely inspired by LKP’s claims. The group was headed by a former chief of the Guadeloupean regional office of the INSEE, Delile Diman Antenor, who was also very respected by LKP members for being a former leftist activist. The report produced under her guidance proposed the conduct of new economic and statistical analyses, enabling the setting-up of a fully fledged “transparency policy” in response to the social movement.

The particular measures provided in the agreement of the 4th of March 2009, which put an end to the general strike, included studies that were to be undertaken by the INSEE, the DDCCRF, the Price and Income Observatory, or workers’ associations, such as the “Bureau of Labour Studies” (BEO) (see *Protocole d’accord du 4 mars 2009*). The “typical shopping trolley” and the “household shopping basket”²⁴ were meant to permit price tracking (and adjustment) in the large-scale retail sector. The spatial comparison of prices between mainland France and Guadeloupe conducted by INSEE was intended to evaluate the price gaps. The programme of competition audits to be undertaken by DDCCRF was destined to shed light on the practices of certain strategic sectors. In addition, a study of consumption patterns was to be launched, with the aim of boosting local production. Furthermore, the creation of a regional commission for economic and statistical information (CRIES) was considered (Diman-Antenor, 2009). These various studies were furthermore slated to be submitted to the Price and Income Observatory (*Observatoire des prix et revenus*). At least on paper, the response to the problem of purchasing power appeared to be ambitious and coherent.

However, studying the transformation of the ways in which prices were managed by numbers requires to go beyond examining the presentation of these plans on paper. The problem lies not so much in the questioning of the effectiveness of the implementation of this “transparency policy”— a large portion of the measures has been more or less implemented since 2009. It is about examining whether the price measurements gave way to new social practices and formed a base for new measurement conventions, which could be either seen as legitimate, or, on the contrary, as sparking
debates and controversies. To examine these questions, the remainder of
this chapter will investigate how three different modes of price quan-
tification were used and put up for discussion. Firstly, the chapter will
analyse negotiations of “voluntary reductions” of the prices of the prod-
ucts considered as “necessities” (*produits de première nécessité*), where
LKP used very intuitive, but not very robust commercial margin esti-
mates. These calculations became quickly delegitimized for their lack of
precision, but they also helped improve the balance of power as they
generated a debate on what constitutes legitimate levels of prices and
margins. Secondly, the case of the spatial price comparison study carried
out by INSEE is considered which highlights how a sophisticated study,
evaluating the price gaps between Guadeloupe and mainland France, can
come to be very negatively received and held to be socially and politically
illegitimate, although such a study had been among the social movement’s
core demands. Lastly, by examining a diverse series of studies of prices
and margins, I will argue that new legitimate price-setting practices even-
tually emerged. However, neither the price index nor the average price
level measurements stood out as proper ways to address issues related to
high living costs; rather, extreme values, such as examples of individual
high prices, seemed to be better able to reflect the population’s feelings
of inequality and injustice in the face of abusive pricing practices. Here,
new quantification methods took root as legitimate ways to describe and
denounce such pricing practices.

*The Quantification of Pwofitasyon: Innovation and Tests of Reality*

The negotiations held to determine price reductions for the 100 products
knowns as “necessities” reveal LKP’s working methods, its approach to
obtain margin reductions and its use of figures.

The negotiations were held from March to May 2009 under the super-
vision of the Prefecture (Préfecture) and the DGCCRF, and they were
particularly tedious. One hundred product families were designated; a set
of products had to be selected for each of these families. The various
actors of the large-scale retail industry had successive discussions with the
LKP, from local minimarket chains, such as *Huit à Huit*, to the very large
*Bernard Hayot Group*. Every day discussions were held, from late after-
noon to four o’clock in the morning, over a period of approximately three
months.²⁵
The collective of the LKP intended to get the upper hand by showing quantitative evidence (or at least what it held to be such evidence) of the existence of *pwofitasyon* and of the necessity to lower prices and margins. This was possible thanks to the series of calculations on prices it had carried out prior to the negotiations.²⁶ At that time, there was no other available information on commercial margins in the large-scale retail sector. No public institution could be blamed in this respect, since only a detailed audit of the sector, or a competition audit could have produced solid facts about profit margins, and such actions, though within the DGCCRF's competence, were not deemed necessary to be undertaken on a regular basis at that point.²⁷

The technique the LKP collective had adopted under the guidance of its economist, Alain Plaisir, was rudimentary, but it made it possible to put a figure on the table. LKP teams prepared listings of prices observed in mainland France, using the *Carrefour* chain's website; for each product, a theoretical DOM price was then calculated by adding a fixed percentage to the mainland price to account for the costs of transportation, taxes and other logistics. The members of the collective considered that these costs could be estimated by adding a lump sum of 10% to the initial price. The resulting theoretical prices were then compared with the prices that were actually observed in the island's supermarkets; and the resulting differences equipped the LKP with estimates of “illegitimate margins” picked up as *pwofitasyon* by the companies.

LKP's ambition was at least twofold. First, it sought to expose the illegal profits, and, second, it used the figures in its price setting negotiations. Each brand brought its own price records and negotiated item by item. Armed with spreadsheets, the LKP thus cornered the large-scale actors and obliged them to justify the level of their commercial margins (see also Fig. 11.1, which provides an excerpt from the records that were used by LKP in the negotiations). Obviously, the method the LKP applied was very clumsy, and the obtained values were impossible to verify. Nevertheless, the figures reflected LKP's mental representation of the price formation, and they rested on the collective's “expertise”. They were thus considered significant enough to uncover misuses and force the concerned players to admit their abusive pricing practices and to lower their prices.

The method worked. The negotiations led to a series of agreements providing for price reductions on the 100 “necessities”. These agreements were binding for the companies concerned and gave rise to new control procedures. Announcements of price reductions had to be
<table><caption>**Fig. 11.1** Excerpt of the chart used by the LKP during the negotiations of the prices of the 100 “necessities” (Adapted from the original obtained by the author with permission from Alain Plaisir/LKP)</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Libellé</th><th rowspan="2">Prix Moyen<br>France</th><th rowspan="2">+ 10%<br>(transp.)</th><th colspan="3">1 Destrellan</th><th colspan="3">2 Cora</th><th colspan="3">3 Milenis</th></tr><tr><th>Prix</th><th>Diff</th><th>Ecart</th><th>Prix</th><th>Diff</th><th>Ecart</th><th>Prix</th><th>Diff</th><th>Ecart</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>LAIT CONCENT SUCRE NESTLE 397G</td><td>1,65</td><td>1,82</td><td>1,85</td><td>0,04</td><td>2%</td><td>1,89</td><td>0,08</td><td>4%</td><td>1,96</td><td>0,15</td><td>8%</td></tr><tr><td>LAIT NIDO 28% 400G</td><td></td><td>0</td><td></td><td>5,31</td><td></td><td></td><td>5,4</td><td></td><td>5,3</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>LAIT POUDRE LAICRAN 900G</td><td>6,9</td><td>7,59</td><td>8,05</td><td>0,46</td><td>6%</td><td>8,79</td><td>1,2</td><td>16%</td><td>7,99</td><td>0,4</td><td>5%</td></tr><tr><td>LAIT CROISSANCE CANDIA BRK 1L</td><td>1,85</td><td>2,04</td><td>1,59</td><td>-0,45</td><td>-22%</td><td>2,2</td><td>0,17</td><td>8%</td><td>1,85</td><td>0,19</td><td>-9%</td></tr><tr><td>LAIT 1/2 ECREME VIVA CANDIA 1L</td><td>0,9</td><td>0,99</td><td>1,1</td><td>0,11</td><td>11%</td><td>1,35</td><td>0,36</td><td>36%</td><td>1,1</td><td>0,11</td><td>11%</td></tr><tr><td>GLORIA LCNS 3X410G</td><td>3,6</td><td>3,96</td><td>4,73</td><td>0,77</td><td>19%</td><td>4,59</td><td>0,63</td><td>16%</td><td>4,73</td><td>0,77</td><td>19%</td></tr><tr><td>LAIT PPX 1 L</td><td>0,59</td><td>0,65</td><td>0,79</td><td>0,14</td><td>22%</td><td>0,75</td><td>0,1</td><td>16%</td><td>0,8</td><td>0,15</td><td>23%</td></tr><tr><td>LAIT ECREME REGILAIT BTE 300G</td><td>1,88</td><td>2,07</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>ST HUBERT 41 250 G</td><td>1,9</td><td>2,09</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>2,19</td><td>0,1</td><td>5%</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>BEURRE PLAQUETTE BOCAGE 250GR</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>BEURRIER BRIDEL D/S 250G</td><td>2,05</td><td>2,26</td><td>2,36</td><td>0,11</td><td>5%</td><td>2,59</td><td>0,34</td><td>15%</td><td>2,35</td><td>0,1</td><td>4%</td></tr><tr><td>BEURRE DX 250G PRESIDENT</td><td>1,49</td><td>1,64</td><td>2,29</td><td>0,65</td><td>40%</td><td>2,65</td><td>1,01</td><td>62%</td><td>2,4</td><td>0,76</td><td>46%</td></tr><tr><td>BEURRE MOULE DEMI SEL U</td><td>1,55</td><td>1,71</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>BEURRE DOUX 250G MAITRE LAITIER</td><td>1,49</td><td>1,64</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>MARGARINE ASTRA 500G</td><td>1,4</td><td>1,54</td><td>2,37</td><td>0,83</td><td>54%</td><td>2,39</td><td>0,85</td><td>55%</td><td>2,35</td><td>0,81</td><td>53%</td></tr><tr><td>FRUIT D'OR VITALITE ALLEGE 250GRS</td><td>1,27</td><td>1,4</td><td>1,77</td><td>0,37</td><td>27%</td><td>1,79</td><td>0,39</td><td>28%</td><td>1,78</td><td>0,38</td><td>27%</td></tr><tr><td>MARG TOURNESOL ALLEG N°1 500G</td><td>0,76</td><td>0,84</td><td>1,15</td><td>0,31</td><td>38%</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>1,65</td><td>0,81</td><td>97%</td></tr><tr><td>MARGARINE à frire winny 1kg</td><td>1,95</td><td>2,15</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>3,33</td><td>1,19</td><td>55%</td><td>3,33</td><td>1,19</td><td>55%</td></tr><tr><td>S.EPA.4% UHT BRIDELIGHT 2</td><td>1,18</td><td>1,3</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>CREME EPAIS.LEG.E&V 33CL+15%MG</td><td>1,47</td><td>1,62</td><td>2,04</td><td>0,42</td><td>26%</td><td>2,05</td><td>0,43</td><td>27%</td><td>1,99</td><td>0,37</td><td>23%</td></tr><tr><td>YOPI CHOCO 4X100G</td><td>0,98</td><td>1,08</td><td>1,7</td><td>0,62</td><td>58%</td><td>1,7</td><td>0,62</td><td>58%</td><td>1,69</td><td>0,61</td><td>57%</td></tr><tr><td>BRIE ROITELET POINTE 200GR</td><td>1,75</td><td>1,93</td><td>2,48</td><td>0,56</td><td>29%</td><td>2,45</td><td>0,53</td><td>27%</td><td>2,59</td><td>0,67</td><td>35%</td></tr><tr><td>VACHE QUI RIT 8 PORTIONS 128G</td><td>1,35</td><td>1,49</td><td>1,58</td><td>0,095</td><td>6%</td><td>1,59</td><td>0,11</td><td>7%</td><td>1,59</td><td>0,11</td><td>7%</td></tr><tr><td>EMMENTAL RAPE 100G ENTREMONT</td><td>1,24</td><td>1,36</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>CAMEMBERT 45%MG 250GR BRIDEL</td><td>1,7</td><td>1,87</td><td>2,78</td><td>0,91</td><td>49%</td><td>3,19</td><td>1,32</td><td>71%</td><td>2,79</td><td>0,92</td><td>49%</td></tr><tr><td>EMMENTAL PLAQU PDT 220G</td><td>2,35</td><td>2,59</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>2,89</td><td>0,31</td><td>12%</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>EMMENTAL RAPE 3X70G +1 GT PRESIDENT</td><td>2,7</td><td>2,97</td><td>3,21</td><td>0,24</td><td>8%</td><td>3,25</td><td>0,28</td><td>9%</td><td>3,15</td><td>0,18</td><td>6%</td></tr></tbody></table>

displayed visibly in all stores. The DGCCRF was in charge of verifying the enforcement of the agreement. It was also responsible for the monthly publication of a survey on large-scale retail prices. The negotiations thus led to actual results. However, at the same time, the LKP was taking a big risk by employing such a simple method. This could easily engender powerful resistance, as the figures could easily be invalidated. Both actually occurred very quickly.

The “quantification” of *pwofitasyon* proposed by the LKP was rapidly contested. Their use of numbers entailed certain weaknesses which came
to be exposed in the course of the negotiations. Rather than proving the
high level of prices, the numbers were also used to constrain companies to
lower the prices.²⁸ Although some of the negotiators had true expertise in
price formation, as for instance Alain Plaisir of the CTU union or Justina
Favorinus of the *Consommation, Logement et Cadre de Vie* association,
the negotiations revealed that LKP had missed some major components
of price formation in their calculations. LKP’s theoretical prices were thus
grossly underestimated, so that some firms came even to be obliged to sell
at a loss. According to members of the LKP, the unions became only in
the course of the negotiations aware of this and the fact that a major part
of the commercial margins escaped mass-distribution operators, and were
instead distributed to other actors, such as importers and wholesalers.
The important role of these actors had not been identified by the LKP
experts before. More generally, the sharing of “gross margins” among a
myriad of participants had never before been perceived by the analysts as a
major cause of high prices (Favorinus, 2009). For a while LKP considered
inviting these other actors—distributors, wholesalers, logistics and ware-
house operators—to the negotiation table as well. But this turned out to
be unfeasible, since this would have entailed more than 300 companies.²⁹
Therefore, the negotiations on necessities had to be stopped in the face
of this obstacle.

In an apparent paradox, by undertaking efforts to quantify price differ-
ences and margins, the trade unions had made it possible for themselves
to better understand the formation of prices, but such better under-
standing made it in turn impossible for them to demand a significant
lowering of prices. LKP's initial analysis of prices had proven inaccurate.
The pertinence of the notion of *pwofitasyon*, understood as the grab-
bing of commercial profit by a very limited number of actors, was also
seriously challenged. Nevertheless, the negotiations brought the quan-
tification of price formation to the centre stage of the public debate.³⁰
From this standpoint, it cannot be considered that LKP did not succeed
in undermining the long lasting status quo around pricing practices.

*An Expected but Socially and Politically Unacceptable Intervention*
*by Public Statistics*

The case of the work known as “spatial price comparison” produced
by INSEE (Berthier et al., 2010) was the exact opposite of the situa-
tion described above. This study was supposed to be the highpoint of
the “transparency policy” initiated in response to the social crisis. But although the study managed to finally quantify the price gaps with mainland France, thereby officially acknowledging the existence of such gaps, it failed to become the “instrument of proof” it should have come to be (Desrosières, 2008, p. 59). On the contrary, the study became an occasion for heated exchanges and controversy among the actors of the conflict.

First of all, the INSEE study was published relatively late, in July 2010, i.e. roughly sixteen months after the open conflict had ended. Its release had been postponed after a debate that had ensued among INSEE's specialists, and for the reason of being able to use what was considered to be the best-suited, but also cumbersome method: the purchasing power parity (PPP) method of comparison. A reference method used in international organizations (for instance, the International Comparisons Programme carried out under the auspices of the United Nations has used it since the 1970s),³¹ PPP calculations mobilize expertise composed both of national accounting and price statistics. The head of the regional statistical office of Guadeloupe in particular had argued in favour of this methodology. Yet, in the end, the investment was deemed too costly and unwarranted in Paris, so preference was finally given to a much lighter method based on the data that had already been collected for the price indexes.

There were two good reasons behind opting for such a technique: first, the existing databases used for the calculation of price indexes immediately allowed for this type of analysis, no additional data collection was required; second, the method appeared completely natural and clear to the price statisticians in charge of the study, who, however, were not really at ease with the complex analyses of purchasing power parities. The choice was thus apparently technically driven, marking the reluctance of price statisticians to engage with a methodology perceived to be too complex, and involving national accounting approaches they could not master. This “technically” driven choice had however substantial consequences on the public reception of the study. The applied method was less suited to address the purchasing power question, and thus was also far from adequate to address the societal demands for more accurate data on price differentials.

The study compared the value of a basket of representative consumer goods observed in the DOM to what exactly would be the price of this
same basket in mainland France; conversely, it compared a typical mainland basket to what its price would be in the DOM; and then, in a last step, it determined an average.

The applied method can be considered problematic for a balanced understanding of the purchasing power issue for several reasons. For example, nobody drinks whisky in the West Indies, and conversely, few people in France eat yam. The comparisons outlined above fail to adequately consider such (cultural) differences between consumption patterns, and are in the end not very accurate with regard to reflecting people's behaviours and preferences. In addition, the results are not very legible to the unversed: the final, synthetic gap indicator is computed with the help of a complex methodology (resulting in a geometric average, based on Fisher's law), which is not easily understandable (see also Table 11.1).

A further factor complicated the public reception of the “spatial price comparison”. The synthetic indicator put forward by the statisticians in

<table><caption>**Table 11.1** Excerpt from INSEE's 2010 report based on a spatial price comparison</caption><thead><tr><th>%</th><th>Price differences<br>DOM/mainland France<br>(market basket of<br>representative consumer<br>goods in mainland<br>France)</th><th>Price differences<br>mainland<br>France/DOM<br>(market basket of<br>representative<br>consumer goods in the<br>DOM)</th><th>Fisher's differences<br>(écarts de Fisher)<br>DOM/mainland<br>France</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Martinique</td><td>16.9</td><td>-2.9</td><td>9.7</td></tr><tr><td>Guadeloupe</td><td>14.8</td><td>-2.2</td><td>8.3</td></tr><tr><td>French Guiana</td><td>19.6</td><td>-6.4</td><td>13.0</td></tr><tr><td>La Reunion</td><td>12.4</td><td>-0.4</td><td>6.2</td></tr></tbody></table>

Translated by the author from Berthier, J. P., Lhéritier, J. L., & Petit, G. (2010). *Comparaison des prix entre les DOM et la métropole en 2010*. INSEE Première, n°1304. Paris: INSEE

Price differences between overseas departments (DOM) and mainland France in March 2010

Explanation: Taking the mainland consumer basket as a reference, prices in Martinique were on average 16.9% higher than in mainland France. Taking Martinique's representative consumer basket as a reference, prices in mainland France were 2.9% lower than in Martinique on average. Fisher's difference indicator, a geometric average of the two differences, shows that prices were overall 9.7% higher in Martinique than in mainland France. Coverage: Household consumption except fuel oil, town gas and rail transport

*Source* Spatial price comparison survey, INSEE
the study amounted to about fifteen percent, to be precise 14.8%. Estimating the price gap with mainland France at such a level could obviously create misunderstanding in Guadeloupe given that differences exceeding 50% had been so far mentioned in all studies that were based on the observation of supermarket shelf prices, in particular concerning many of the most common imported goods, such as food and household products. Representations of high living costs and *pwofitasyon* were thus based on estimated differences of 50% or more. The INSEE figure did not contradict these estimates, as it was based on a sample of different prices, including prices for which the difference was much smaller or even negative, such as rental prices, insurance premiums, etc., which explains the lower value of their indicator.

But the difference calculated by the INSEE was not socially acceptable, because it was not in line with the commonly shared representation of the “high level” of abuse existing on the island. Besides, claiming that there is a 15% price differential could also pave the way for a possible questioning of the 40% bonuses (the *sur-rémunérations*) granted to civil servants. We have seen before how politically sensitive these are. When INSEE’s study was published in the summer of 2010, the spatial price comparison failed to settle the debate. Instead, it led to the creation of more controversy.

Among other things, the publication of the study was undermined by an untimely intervention of the Prefecture. INSEE’s regional office had planned a press conference to accompany the release of the study in order to be able to publicly explain the results and guide interpretations to be attributed to the figures, to highlight what conclusions could (and could not) be drawn from the study. For example, they wanted to stress the considerably large increase of food prices and the disturbing growth of the synthetic gaps over the last ten years in this area—results which were in line with the movement’s expectations. Yet, before the press conference could take place, the regional INSEE office was put under pressure by the Prefecture and by Paris.32 The French Ministry in charge of overseas territories and the Prefecture did not want the results of the study to get any media coverage as the public release of the results coincided with the “unfreezing” of gasoline prices in July 2010. Thus the officials were worried that, in this context, INSEE’s study might inflame matters further.

This statistical work produced by the INSEE was thus one of the salient points in the end-of-conflict agreement, but its publication went completely unnoticed. It even spread dissent. In mid-August 2010, a
controversy began to grow, opposing in particular the MEDEF, the Regional council and the INSEE. The interventions drew a connection between the price gap indicator of roughly 15% which INSEE had identified and the level of the civil servants' over-remunerations, as if INSEE's study was linked to an alleged plan to question the over-remunerations, which of course was not what had been intended (Bellance & Coste, 2010; DOM: le Medef remet en cause la sur-rémunération des fonctionnaires, newspaper article, Journal de l'île de la Réunion, 11 August 2010; Drella, 2010; Sur-rémunérations, des avis plus contrastés à la Réunion, newspaper article, Journal de l'île de la Réunion, 12 August 2010; Sur-rémunération des fonctionnaires: les clés du débat, newspaper article, France-Antilles Guadeloupe, 16 August 2010).

Victorin Lurel, President of the region at the time, even accused INSEE of publishing studies “on the sly” in order to call into question the social gains of past struggles. A multiplicity of reactions followed, some in favour of, some against a questioning of over-remunerations, by associations, parties, newspapers, etc. (Erichot, 2010). Thus, the synthetic 15% difference, although produced by expert statisticians, failed to be regarded as a legitimate numerical representation of the department’s high cost of living problems. Neither was it able to offer mediation in the social conflict.

INSEE’s work had not been vain, though. Victorin Lurel himself, who meanwhile had become a minister, used the study a few years later as one of the pillars in his communications. He nonetheless noticeably changed the interpretation of the results. This is how he presented his draft economic regulation law for the overseas territories to the Senate in 2013:

> Inside these territories, the prices of most goods and services remain much higher than those of mainland France (a gap of 22% to 38.5% was measured by INSEE in 2010 on food products alone). Yet, at the same time, wages are notoriously lower there, with the median income below 38% [of that of mainland France], again in 2010 according to INSEE. (Lurel, 2012)

He thus uses the study as the cornerstone of a new strategy of communication on price levels. I will show in the following that this strategy succeeded in asserting itself by representing prices not through their average values or an average index,³³ but particular, extreme values,
considered to be a fairer representation of the inequitable situation lived
by many Guadeloupians.

*Towards a New Articulation of Prices and Margins*

This last section will show how new legitimate quantifications of prices
and margins emerged in the wake of the social conflict. These quantifica-
tions did not consist of synthetic price indicators. To the contrary, these
new quantifications focused on the reporting and denunciation of indi-
vidual price abuses. Their emergence becomes particularly clear in a series
of studies and opinions which investigated the question of price abuses in
the months after the struggle had been resolved.

The Competition Authority's Report published in September 2009
(Autorité de la concurrence, 2009b) identified a long list of likely viola-
tions of competition law in the large-scale retail and import sectors. The
report highlighted in particular suspicions of vertical anti-competitive
integration. Importers representing certain brands appeared to own some
of the main retail chains, opening the way to illegal exclusive arrange-
ments, thereby blocking price competition. Likewise, agreements between
local importers and mainland suppliers appeared to hinder new importers
from entering the market, obliging the retail chains to deal with the
brands' local representatives.

The Competition Authority Report of 2009 further considered that
the difficult access to real estate on the island could act as a barrier to
entry, preventing new distributors from finding land to establish their
business. Conversely, local actors and descendants of old land-owning
families had an advantage. The Authority thus asserted in its commu-
nication from 8 September 2009 (Autorité de la concurrence, 2009b,
2009c):

In the DOM, the markets' small size and their distance from the main
supply sources are natural obstacles to obtaining prices comparable to
those noted in mainland France. [...] However, these particularities do
not suffice to explain the price gaps on large consumption items between
mainland France and the DOM. Price data from a sample of around 75
imported goods collected in the four DOM show that differences exceed
55% for over 50% of the sampled goods, a percentage that is too high
to be explained solely by freight costs and dock dues ("octroi de mer").
Above all, the Authority identifies several features of the supply chain
in the DOM markets which enable the operators to partially escape the
competitive game. (Autorité de la concurrence, 2009c)

These conclusions delighted LKP's members, in particular the most
leftist trade unionists. The report meant indeed that the official Authority
in charge of the most liberal economic regulations acknowledged the rele-
vance of their analyses of the Guadeloupian markets. This is how LKP's
main economist commented on the report:

This report is truly devastating for the large-scale retail sector and for
the importers. It explains that *pwofitasyon* is very strong in this sector.
It explains that prices exceed those of mainland France by an average of
20 to 60%; some of them even by up to 100%. We had already said so,
but this time it is [officially] written, in contradiction with the statistics of
INSEE—another public body—according to whom the price differential is
a mere 10%. This time, thanks to our work, they are obliged to tell the
truth about the prices and about the margins, which are sometimes up to
100%. [...] These are centuries-old colonial ties. [...] A manufacturer can
decide to grant exclusive rights to a company in Guadeloupe. [...] Thanks
to these ties both parties make profits. [...] Such practices are illegal, and
the report acknowledges it when it considers punishing anticompetitive
practices. (UGTG, 2009)

LKP members thus saw the report as a legitimation vehicle of their own
quantification methods aimed at attesting the existence of *pwofitasyon*.

Before the Competition Authority's report had been published, a fact-
finding mission dispatched by the Senate during the movement had led to
the publication of another report in July 2009 (Doligé, 2009). In a long
passage titled "The crucial question of prices: A two-way solution, compe-
tition and, above all transparency" (Doligé, 2009, pp. 118-149), the
report calls for a clear analysis of price formation, to reveal the specific cost
items entailing high prices. It regrets that state services had not managed
to ensure price surveillance, neither INSEE nor DGCCRF. In addition,
the report supports the idea of the existence of predatory pricing (Doligé,
2009, pp. 121-123). To prove the existence of such pricing practices, it
presents a large amount of information on individual prices and economic
operators.

Regarding freight, for example, it denounces the monopoly held by
the French sea-freight giant CMA-CGM, as well as the excessive prices it
imposes on the market. To prove its assertions, it compares and contrasts
cost figures presented by the Organization of French ship-owners with
other expert estimates. Its conclusions are definitive: the data provided by
the operators are shown to be false, and the report accuses the shipping
companies of being responsible for 5–15% of the final retail price of large
consumption goods (Doligé, 2009, pp. 141–143). In the same vein, the
report accuses Air France of charging too high tariffs, by comparing them
to other airlines’ tariffs. It also presents the oligopolistic structure of large-
scale retail by showing in a table which supermarket chain belongs to
which old family, thereby highlighting the inherited dominant positions
of the economic elites (Doligé, 2009, pp. 127, 129). In other words, the
Senate’s fact-finding mission took on the role of an informer, adopting a
“naming and shaming” logic in its presentation of price data. It adopted
its own methods to deal with the problem of price levels. In doing so, it
legitimized the movement’s position, and it endorsed LKP’s inferences.

The price surveys carried out by the mission highlighted that price
differences seemed totally random, thus excluding the possibility of
explaining them by systematic factors, such as increased supply costs. In
addition, the mission took account of individual cases to expose price
differentials, including minute details as the following (see also Table
11.2):

The price of ‘Nesquik’, an imported product, is considerably higher in the
DOM: 42% in La Réunion, 75% in Martinique (although the product was
on special offer there), 128% in Guadeloupe and 142% in Guyana. (Doligé,
2009, p. 126)

Thus, the report turned each price, as experienced by the consumers
in their everyday life, into an indication of the existence of abuse and
injustice, deserving to be discussed and publicly denounced in an official
document. Shortly before, price aggregates had been deemed liable for
the triggering of strong protests, and at least some considered it better
not to discuss those in public. But in 2009, it appeared that individual
prices could be considered meaningful events (Boltanski & Esquerre,
2017) proving the existence of unacceptable practices, and deserved to
be known by the public.

Many other instances of this way of quantifying and debating prices
and price differentials can be found after the 2009 conflict: for instance,
in press articles (Vachert, 2010), in studies by consumer associations,³⁴
in surveys carried out by the LKP feeding the press (Témoignage, 2010),
<table><caption>**Table 11.2** Extract from the reported price differentials by the Senate's fact-finding Mission (*Mission d'information parlementaire*) from 2009</caption><thead><tr><th>Product</th><th>La Reunion</th><th>Guadeloupe</th><th>Martinique</th><th>French Guiana</th><th>Mainland France</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Nido milk powder (2.5 kg, origin: mainland France)</td><td>31.80</td><td>24.05</td><td>26.95</td><td>24.85</td><td>X</td></tr><tr><td>Orange juice (2 litres, imported)</td><td>4.18</td><td>2.02</td><td>2.99</td><td>2.60</td><td>1.12</td></tr><tr><td>Cristalline spring water (6 x 1.5 L)</td><td>3.85</td><td>2.64</td><td>X</td><td>3.60</td><td>1.08</td></tr><tr><td>Nesquik chocolate powder (1 kg)</td><td>4.40</td><td>7.08</td><td>5.43</td><td>7.50</td><td>3.10</td></tr><tr><td>Strawberry jam No. 1 (1 kg pot)</td><td>1.66</td><td>2.81</td><td>2.39</td><td>4.73</td><td>1.27</td></tr><tr><td>Fresh chicken (local production, price per kg)</td><td>3.70</td><td>X</td><td>6.10</td><td>7.15</td><td>3.08</td></tr><tr><td>Rouelle of pork (fresh) (price per kg, local product, wrapped in cellophane)</td><td>8.34</td><td>10.20</td><td>8.20</td><td>9.90</td><td>4.70</td></tr><tr><td>Sweet potatoes (price per kg, local product)</td><td>1.50</td><td>2.60</td><td>2.50</td><td>3.50</td><td>1.50 (origin: Israel)</td></tr><tr><td>Tomatoes (price per kg, local product)</td><td>3.45</td><td>2.50</td><td>3.80</td><td>4.30</td><td>2.80</td></tr><tr><td>Bleach No. 1 (5 litres can, origin: mainland France)</td><td>3.99</td><td>2.30</td><td>2.99</td><td>3.15</td><td>1.05</td></tr><tr><td>Mir dishwashing liquid (750 ml, origin: mainland France)</td><td>4.20</td><td>3.22</td><td>3.15</td><td>3.20</td><td>1.46</td></tr></tbody></table>

(continued)
<table><caption>Table 11.2 (continued)</caption><thead><tr><th>Product</th><th>La Reunion</th><th>Guadeloupe</th><th>Martinique</th><th>French Guiana</th><th>Mainland France</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Detergent (Xtra, 27 washes, 2.5 kg)</td><td>10.66</td><td>12.07</td><td>12.37</td><td>11.50</td><td>6.07</td></tr></tbody></table>

Translated by the author from Doligé, E. (2009). Rapport d'information au nom de la mission commune d'information sur la situation des départements d'outre-mer (p. 125). Paris: Editions du Sénat

Extract from the price quotes reported by the Senate's fact-finding Mission (prices in Euros)

etc., which suggests a real change in how prices and price differentials were considered and quantified. This change is also confirmed by an episode that stayed in everyone's memory, because it caused hilarity on the island: Yves Jégo, shortly after his arrival in Guadeloupe, was shocked and started protesting against the “4 Euro toothbrushes”. Jégo, then a minister of Overseas territories, suggested several concrete measures to fight such abuses: in addition to a surveillance unit, it was planned that a toll-free number would be installed for the receipt of instant complaints from consumers noting abusive prices in supermarkets. In this, his plans echoed LKP's very Trotskyist proposal to create “price brigades” charged with the enforcement of the agreements, which the collective had submitted to the Prefect in the aftermath of the conflict.

Against this background, it becomes clearer why INSEE's synthetic price index, which was based on the calculation of averages for the entire economy, was considered indistinct at the time, as it was not limited to certain symbolically significant basic items (such as toothbrushes) in an attempt to avoid any overstatement (Témoignage, 2010). Since then, we can observe a shift in the representations of price gaps which the mainland considered legitimate. Moral criteria were increasingly used to talk about price levels, and the denunciation of individually high prices seen as “abusive” became widely acceptable. In this context, magnitudes had to be sufficiently high to be deemed acceptable and fit understandings of unjust price differentials; for instance, “several tens” appeared to be in line with representations of levels of abuse; and measurement was supposed to get closer to control such abuses (i.e. prices came to be seen as something that must be controlled, audited and possibly denounced and acted upon).
Victorin Lurel, for example, as already shown above, used the INSEE study several years after its publication, when he presented his draft law for overseas economic regulation to the Senate. Here's what the Minister declared, following the passage cited above:

> [...] we are not talking about relatively bearable differences of 10, 15 or even 20%. No, we are talking about the chocolate powder all families in mainland France and overseas put on their breakfast table, which can be found at € 3.10 here in Paris, while it may be priced € 4.40 in La Réunion, € 5.43 in Martinique, € 7.08 in Guadeloupe, and even € 7.50 in Guyana!

We are talking about four pots of plain yogurt, priced at € 1.15 in mainland France, and never less than € 2.30 overseas. Here again, a 100% difference for two identical everyday goods.

I could continue the list of examples, which may seem harmless and trivial to you. But believe me, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate, they are the testimony of the striking injustice our overseas fellow-citizens feel and which can become a ferment for a feeling of abandonment. (Lurel, 2012)

Victorin Lurel clearly and explicitly expressed this new legitimate way of articulating the price question. The draft law he then presented focused on avoiding “inadmissible” practices: it affirmed the right to regulate basic product prices, trade margins and to sanction abusive practices by using a new tool, the “power of structural injunction” (Evrard, 2013). According to this legislation, a firm appearing to have built a dominant position on a given market could be forced to cede a part of its productive capital (land, shops, machines) in order to make the market more competitive (Venayre, 2015).

## CONCLUSION

This chapter has studied the role of the measurement of prices and commercial margins in the 2009 Guadeloupian social struggle against high living costs. It first showed that calculation was central in the framing of the mobilization (Cefaï & Trom, 2001). The State and some leading economic actors (in particular large-scale retail and oil industry operators) used quantitative tools to manage or regulate prices. These practices triggered revolt on the island, because they were considered opaque and illegitimate by several political parties, unions and other associations. The actors who led the strike, grouped in the LKP collective, used their
own quantification and economic analysis techniques to identify abusive
pricing and margin-setting mechanisms, and to prove that pricing prac-
tices on the Island had enabled wealth extraction from Guadeloupian
consumers—a situation they referred to as *pwofitasyon*.

Calculation was also central throughout the struggle and in the ensuing
negotiations. This chapter described thus a “statactivist” (Bruno et al.,
2014) movement in action, showing that the use of quantification was
one of the best political weapons employed by the LKP collective. The
LKP succeeded in challenging the State and powerful economic actors on
their own ground by using quantified arguments. It showed that it was
possible to use economic numbers and arguments to get existing policies
shifting. INSEE attempted to play a mediating role in these negotiations.

However, at the same time, the chapter also showed that quantification
and calculation can end up being one’s Achilles heel—in this case LKP’s.
Although some members of the LKP were highly informed economic
experts, in the end, it was not possible for them to compete with the
State’s calculative skills and expertise on an equal basis, and their perti-
nent use of numbers could only establish temporarily a favourable balance
of power in the negotiations. This observation is important at a time when
prices are measured through ever more complex statistical techniques.
The possibilities to use quantification as an emancipatory device could
be shrinking with the greater complexity of statistical tools (Jany-Catrice,
2019; Touchelay, 2014). By making such a point, and by documenting
the use of numbers by trade unions, this chapter fills a gap in the literature
on quantification and on “statactivism”.

Finally, the chapter stressed the existence of multiple price level
measurement methods, and the shifting legitimacies associated with each
of them in the post-2009 Guadeloupian society. It showed that, although
scientifically legitimate, INSEE's price indexes were subject to radical
political criticism by a range of actors. By using an average, these indexes
could indeed not account for the existence of the abusive prices that
were targeted by LKP's mobilization. The high level of prices on some
widely used consumption items was indeed considered as a form of
political oppression, and INSEE's publications nurtured controversies by
not singling them out: LKP actors, the press and Guadeloupian officials
accused the statistical office of making the existence of such price abuses
invisible.

Furthermore, the aggregate indexes displayed a price difference
between Guadeloupe and mainland France of 10–15%, a magnitude
that was widely perceived as contradicting the everyday experience of consumers, who, at least in some instances, experienced price gaps of 100% and more. The perceived illegitimacy of INSEE's numbers shows that there existed a different, generally accepted and naturalized, understanding of value in the Guadeloupian society at the time, based on consumers' experiences and on their imagination of what the price gap had been (in this case around 40% at least, also corresponding to the historical *sur-rémunerations* entitled to the civil servants in Guadeloupe).

After the 2009 struggle, the most legitimate quantifications of prices and price differentials in Guadeloupe were thus of another sort: abandoning averages, these singled out abusive prices (or pricing practices), either based on individual products or on groups of products. Since individual experiences of commercial abuses appeared politically significant (Boltanski & Esquerre, 2017), extreme prices were mentioned in many press articles, political speeches and administrative documents in the aftermath of the conflict. Such a use of numbers made it possible to quantify price differentials while meeting the social demand for a moral and political denunciation of abusive commercial practices. Its large adoption by administrations, journalists, political actors, activists and elected representatives strongly contrasts with the rejection that INSEE's indexes had generated. This new way of presenting prices in an official report (see Lurel, 2012 above) generated satisfaction among LKP actors, and was used in the years following the conflict by officials, such as the Overseas Territories Minister, to display their political engagement for overseas citizens. The evidence presented in this chapter suggests that this new way of problematizing and representing prices can be considered a socially validated way to account for the existence of high prices, and a new legitimate quantification of prices and price differentials after 2009.

## NOTES

1. In the remainder of the text, the acronym DDCCRF refers to its outpost in Guadeloupe.

2. The term of “formula” is not used in official texts, which refer instead to “price structures”. It was, however, a term generally employed by my interlocutors in Guadeloupe.

3. Didier Payen is the chief executive of an import company, PHP Trading, which holds the exclusive rights to import major brands (such as Danone, British American Tobaccos, Johnson).
4. The SARA has a monopoly for refining and supplying the market with imported goods. The policy allowing for this monopoly dates back to the choices made by General de Gaulle. Its principal aim was to ensure the autonomy of supplies.

5. Data obtained by the author from DDCCRF.

6. The majority worker's union in Guadeloupe, stemming from separatist movements. In total, the LKP included 49 organizations (Gircour & Rey, 2010, p. 101; Verdol, 2010, pp. 23-26).

7. Interviews with administration officials; see also Bolliet et al. (2009, pp. 12-13, 26).

8. To access the full platform of claims see http://ugtg.org/article_700.html (last accessed 15 July 2019).

9. *Pwofitasyon* has been promoted by the UGTG since 1997.

10. My inquiries did not afford me the possibility to interview SARA executives.

11. Such issues were also documented about France (Jany-Catrice, 2019; Touchelay, 2015).

12. See the case of the GONG, *Groupe d'organisation nationale de la Guadeloupe*.

13. According to certain counts, there were close to 80 dead, but the official count states that only five people were killed. The event also resulted in a political trial against 18 union leaders.

14. The expression “XXIst century movement” was taken from Julien Mérion, political scientist. I interviewed him in Pointe-à-Pitre in November 2010.

15. Interviews conducted with trade union and administration officials in Basse-Terre in 2009, and then again between August and November 2010.

16. The “Bino Agreement” was named after the union member killed on the roadblocks during the night of 18 to 19 February 2009. It provided for the payment of a €200 bonus to workers earning less than 1.4 times of the SMIC (guaranteed minimum wage).

17. Yves Jégo also declared that it was a strategy elaborated by Raymond Soubie, advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy at the time (Jégo, 2009, p. 121), as well as several other persons close to the negotiations. Fred Reno described this situation as a “triumph of the State” (Réno, 2012).

18. Elie Hoarau, in the context of the *Loi d'orientation pour l'Outre-mer* (LOOM) adopted by the French government in 2000.

19. A feature of the newspaper *Antilla*, from La Réunion, makes the connection between the 1953 and the 2009 sequels (Pied, 2010).

20. Interviews, conducted in March 2012.

21. Calculation possibilities are sometimes limited (Espeland, 1998; Maurer, 2007), but ignorance can also be deliberate (Henry, 2017; Hirschman, 2016).
22. According to Jalabert (2007), debates on these matters occurred within the National Assembly during the discussion of the 1973 Budget Law, and also within the *Commissariat général au plan* in 1980.

23. Etienne Pfister, Vice General Rapporteur of the French Competition Authority and Florent Venayre, University of French Polynesia, confirmed this during a roundtable meeting at the French Agency for Overseas Development's *Third Overseas Conference* on 25 November 2011 in Paris.

24. The “typical shopping trolley” is designed to monitor the prices of 50 among the most consumed goods. It distinguishes in particular between brand products, the lowest priced items, and distributor-brand prod- ucts. The “household shopping basket” is composed of primary necessity goods. Both are mentioned at the end of the conflict agreement.

25. Interviews with various parties present at the negotiations which I conducted in Guadeloupe in August, October and November 2010.

26. My thanks go to Alain Plaisir, General Secretary of CTU, for the information supplied on this matter.

27. The DGCCRF initiated a series of audits in the wake of the 4th of March agreements, dealing with various sectors, such as distribution, fuel, telecommunications or banks.

28. Interview with administration officials.

29. Interview, Basse-Terre, November 2010. Alain Plaisir mentions LKP's attempt to negotiate with the wholesalers at the end of May 2009 also in Verdol (2010, p. 7).

30. See the report of the workshop on prices of the *Etats Généraux*, which mobilized experts from the INSEE, the DDCCRF and customs to explain that large-scale sector commercial margins and *pwofitasyon* were often over-estimated.

31. PPP calculations use the expense aggregates and not only the price index weights in order to examine consumption habits.

32. Interviews conducted in Guadeloupe in August 2010.

33. Various conceptions of price measurement led to fights (Neiburg, 2011; Stapleford, 2009). For a theory on the measurement through indexes and aggregates in economics see in particular Morgan (2012, p. 204) and Boumans (2005).

34. For example, the “*Consommation, Logement, Cadre de Vie*” (CLCV) association, which takes an active part in the Price observatory, together with several other associations, succeeded in setting up price monitoring via the internet (Lerondeau, 2013).
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<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>
“La donnée n’est pas un donné”: Statistics,
Quantification and Democratic Choice

Robert Salais

This contribution focuses on the use of quantification in the new governance techniques that emerged for the most part in the 1980s, first in the United States and Britain, before spreading to Europe and the rest of the world under the auspices of international organizations such as the World Bank, OECD or the European Union (OECD, 1994). In this use, “quantification” refers to maximizing quantitative objectives to be achieved through definition, implementation and supervision of policies, either by management rules in organizations and companies, or by measures adopted in the context of public policy. Such techniques have profoundly altered the practice and final purpose of quantification. Far from underpinning statistical observation of reality, quantification is now expected to serve political measures that are proposed, or already decided. Quantification is expected, not only to test them, but is also enjoined to demonstrate their efficiency over time or in comparison with other policies. Its master concept is performance, which witnesses an inversion of priority in the use of data in politics: not only aimed at measuring,

<footnote>R. Salais (✉)</footnote>

<footnote>Institutions et dynamiques historiques de l'économie et de la Société (IDHES),
École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France</footnote>

<footnote>© The Author(s) 2022</footnote>

<footnote>A. Mennicken and R. Salais (eds.), *The New Politics of Numbers*,
Executive Politics and Governance,</footnote>

<footnote>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78201-6_12</footnote>

<footnote>379</footnote>
but, above all, performing. The historical connection of statistics with implementing public policies (as described by Desrosières, 1998 [1993]; Hacking, 1990) is taken over by performance indicators that both orient and evaluate outcomes, objective by objective.

Governance seeks to place effectiveness at the core of collective action, whether in organizations or in government administrations. This effectiveness is measured by performance indicators. These indicators pertain, directly or indirectly, at resources and means granted, to results expected from better management of the company or the administration. These reforms are justified by the stated (and debatable) claim that “more” is the equivalent of “better”. It is the role of quantification to show that this is indeed the case, by internalizing this definition as a key step in reform.

The mainstream economy wholeheartedly applauds this targeted focus on efficiency. It took time for practitioners of political science to become aware of the issue, at least partially, especially for those not interested or not familiar with data construction's subtleties.¹ The sociology of quantification (in particular the branch derived from the sociology of science) sees in this phenomenon a field of research related to its habitual domain, with description of these new quantification instruments and practices, particularly within states, and according to the nature of these states. In this book, and elsewhere, one finds significant contributions to the sociology of quantification in these areas.

# INTRODUCTION: TOWARDS
## GOVERNANCE-DRIVEN QUANTIFICATION

There is nonetheless something different, something more than the focus on effectiveness; there is a sort of “revolution” of quantification, when it is governance-driven. Three aspects emerge, which, we will see, challenge democracy as a government procedure and collective practice.

First, the objectivity of figures is used as a political argument. Figures do not lie. In itself a figure tells the truth of the moment on the question at hand. This truth is of course approximate, because truth is beyond our reach in this world. But this approximation is taken to vouch for the seriousness of the figure, and of the arguments based on the figure. Debate is developing mostly on the existence and amplitude of the margin of error, and not on the political relevance of the figure produced (that resides in the details of their modes of definition and calculation).
Second, the qualitative complexity and diversity of social and historical processes are reduced to a few quantitative scales of appraisal. The notions of equivalence and comparability, and a static perception, are introduced as tools of analysis, whereas many phenomena are singular, not commensurable to others, and are part of a dynamic group process.

Last but not least, the rational construction of data by the implanted quantification processes tends to be formatted for proving that the policy implemented is appropriate and successful. This capacity of self-producing the politically expected data is one of the most significant innovations of governance techniques, one that is surprising and hard to understand for the non-specialists.

To apprehend this development we will take a *long view of the social history of quantification* by looking at a specific example, that of its role in the emergence and decline of unemployment as a social category. For the effects of governance are not limited to quantification instruments. By capillarity this governance—as an emerging phenomenon, rather than as a rational project—gives birth to another political, social, financial and economic world that alters the way governance sees itself, how it frames and analyses problems, how it acts and evaluates its action.

By comparing the role of quantification (when it was known as *statistics*) during the “invention” of the unemployment category, and then during its decline, we can see what is different and what is new in today’s *governance-driven quantification*. The core of the changing between the two is the status and the role given to democracy and participation of people, both in political and quantification processes.

In brief, the purpose of statistics is to build *general knowledge* "extracted" from the plurality and variety of *social conventions* people use in daily life to understand their world, to coordinate with others, to pursue their aims and try to achieve their ends; and on its knowledge basis to define policies apt to meet these conventions (see also Desrosières, 2011). By fabricating cognitive proofs that things are going the right normative way, governance-driven quantification becomes part of the political process: producing knowledge becomes the oriented by-product of politics. The purpose of governance-driven quantification is to find ways *to rationally transform social conventions* towards some pre-given political objective, judged by the Centre as optimal.² So in this case, as we will see below, such quantification could be best defined as "inverted statistics". In my view, the what-works approach that led to evidence-based policies (see in particular Davies et al., 2000) has been
the premise of such an orientation which, afterwards, has been developed
into technologies of management by performance.

The history of unemployment as a social category comprises two
periods, its rise, and its fall. Unemployment emerged in Europe, roughly
from 1880 to the 1950s, as a social category to be elaborated, measured
and targeted by public policies. At the same time, what was then called
*statistical science*, collective reflection and thinking about the instruments
and uses of statistics, emerged. After a period of stability, through the
1980s, this social category began to decline. For Europe, the progres-
sive relegation and probable future disappearance of this category as a
public social concern are the paradoxical fruit of the European Employ-
ment Strategy (EES). It is not that this disappearance is deliberately
intended, quite the contrary, the EES aims to increase employment
levels, by raising the employment rate in the population of working age.
Along with other factors (and the evolution of the labour market) it is
the result of a choice made by the European Union in the 1990s, to
*monitor* employment policy using performance-based governance tech-
niques. As employment policy remains the prerogative of states, the
European Commission invented a system of voluntary coordination of
national policies, called the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). It
has been extended at the European level to other social domains: social
inclusion, pensions, health/long-term care, and to the Broad Economic
Policy Guidelines (BEPG). The launching period 1997–2006 was crucial
in that the European institutions boosted collective learning by national
senior civil servants of the method and, more generally combined with
other influences, of New Public Management methods.

In the next section (Part I), we review how far producing and interpreting data rely upon institutional machineries and, often neglected, upon the participation of inquired people. In the subsequent section (Part II), lessons that can be drawn from the socio-historical invention and deconstruction of the category “unemployment” for three European countries, France, Germany and the UK, will be discussed. The turn from statistics to governance-driven quantification is illustrated by the way European institutions deconstructed the category. The following section (Part III) draws the implications for democracy from the turn towards governance-driven quantification. It emphasizes the political move towards “a-democracy”. The final section (Part IV) explores ways by which social criticism can oppose this turn by taking on board justice expectations into quantification processes and, in so doing, make way for
reintroducing democracy. To be just quantification must be *correct and fair* is the message implicitly sent by Amartya Sen when he puts forward his concept of informational basis of judgement in justice.

## PRODUCING AND INTERPRETING DATA IS A COLLECTIVE UNDERTAKING

Most often, if not always, quantitative data are taken at prima facie by users. Data present themselves as evidence. For users data are “real”, or tend towards a pure reflection of this “real”. Thanks to them collective decisions are evaluated, undertaken and followed. Such beliefs neglect the fact that data are produced and interpreted along a chain of several steps, in specific configurations of actors in which statisticians or quantifiers are involved with other actors, in deliberative arenas. Any data process should be viewed from two sides: the institutional machinery organizing the process on one side; and, on the other side, (very often neglected or even forgotten) the people who, through their answers, are the object and support of the searched data.

The institutional machinery could be directly that of the state, or that of a firm or any collective organization requiring data. In this second case, the state is indirectly present through public regulation and law. The main components of the machinery are: the conception along which the state is built; the questioning and its tools (organization of the questionnaire; the type of inquiry and its methodology or administrative requirements in case of data as by-products of administrations or management services); the instructions for coding the answers; the production of statistical tables (which requires nomenclatures, categories to classify answers and rules to aggregate individual answers in order to put every person into one case and only one). All these components play their role along a chain of production with many steps; each of them open to several possible technical options and to different interpretations; all managed by sets of organizational rules.

As outcomes of this chain, users have at their disposal a wide statistical material: variables, tables, correlations between variables, dispersion figures, indicators, and so on. They can quietly assert, for instance, that “the number of unemployed people is this”, “the rate of unemployment is that”. In so doing, they neglect that the data they use have been produced along a chain of production in which many not neutral technical choices are to be made. They also neglect the second side of data,
namely that their primary resource, like coal or iron, has been worked out, is constituted of persons who have to answer or to be classified.

The beliefs about questioned people oscillate between two extremes. In one extreme, they have no margin, except to provide the expected right answer. They are viewed as passive resources or sites automatically responding to some external stimulus, like in behavioural models of experience. At the other extreme, they are viewed as pure rational cheaters who have to be severely controlled. These are both dire mistakes against which quite nobody (be it politicians, technocrats, civil servants, economists and statisticians) can be taken, at diverse degrees, as protected.

Firstly, such beliefs impede us to see what one could call “the democratic paradox” in our (until now) democratic societies. To understand such a paradox, it is necessary to have, in data production, a wider view of “democratization” than usual in politics. The first step is to be aware that asking people to respond to questionnaires basically means that, “somewhere”, their answer has some intrinsic value and should be collected as such. Not as pure and transparent carriers of some pre-existing underlying reality, the standard view, but as active interpreters bringing some practical experience and knowledge of enough value to be used in collective choices. When collecting their world views and experience of the domain at stake, persons become *active mediators* and go-between between the supposed real and the data. Their experience has to be considered as having a knowledge value. The second step is to take into account what they have to say on them when defining categories and methodologies.

Secondly, data are built upon the “official understanding” of the investigated domain.³ However, depending on their situations of life and work, their biography and life course, people have varied experiences with regards to this domain. There are many personal or collective understandings of the same reality, each being a priori as effective and relevant as the others. Sometimes the major part of these understandings could differ from the “official understanding” which forms the basis of the questioning. Basically, the intrinsic value of individual answers does not depend on their good will to answer, or on their correctly answering in the sense of adhering to the official meaning. This value is elsewhere, in its potentiality to reveal *distances* between different understandings for the same “object”, which leads us to the third point.

Thirdly, and not the least, such intrinsic value is in essence democratic. For it has the capacity to put the spotlight on the distance (and to open a window on its meaning) between the understanding a person has of her
situation and the questioning incorporated in the questionnaire.⁴ These distances or gaps between individuals and official understandings on the same domain signal the existence of the plurality of possible relevant questionings (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1983; Thévenot, 1983). The official one is one among others. No data, especially aggregated data, can be said to be the truth, not only because they are deeply linked to the series of both technical and political choices made along their chain of production, but basically because among a range of possible choices, one path only has been chosen.

One will see the huge impact of all these factors on the nature of data produced in the three countries we will review below: France, Germany and the UK.

## INVENTING AND DECONSTRUCTING UNEMPLOYMENT AS A CATEGORY: THE ROLE OF QUANTIFICATION

Almost at the same historical period (the turn of the twentieth century), unemployment as a social category and as a procedure to count those to be classified as unemployed was invented in the major European countries: France, Germany and the UK. Such inventions lasted half a century or more. The national processes and their outcomes were very deeply anchored into national specificities. They brought to people and their political communities new resources to understand “their” real, to act within it, to form expectations and projects, to legitimate decisions, disagreements and conflicts. Invention has followed the road of statistics as we suggested in the introduction. Statisticians were involved in diverse deliberative arenas, and were at the initiative to create both the category and the methodology. Deconstruction is following the road of governance-driven quantification (for a detailed demonstration see Salais, 2007). It disqualifies ancient and familiar resources that offered stable anchors for people, without, until now, providing alternative types of resources.

### *The Invention of Unemployment: Comparing France, Germany and the UK*

The “invention” of the category unemployment at the turn of the twentieth century demonstrates how far data (categories, procedures, numbers) are worked and re-worked all along the process by the actors,
in a sort of joint production.⁵ There was a kind of double plurality at work, the plurality of institutional machineries among national states and within them, on one side, and the plurality of indigenous categories among people on the other side. In each country, the data to be produced had to meet a demand for information which was linked not only to public policies but, above all, to their specific conceptions of collective objectives and to the way the state should intervene for their achievement. Formats, specifications, levels of collecting and using data, even the need to collect or not, all will depend—for the same domain of observation—on these state specificities, which were, and still are, very diverse among countries and over time. States were more or less inclined to systematic and general quantification, more or less open to democratization of data production. They required different types of data and of their “production system”. From the people’s side, there was another type of plurality, one of the principles of justice considered as legitimate on which to build the category.⁶ In the final two sections (Parts III and IV) we will connect democratization and justice.

In France, whose state has been historically built along top-down, systematic and central intervention through general categories, the search for defining unemployment has been undertaken directly by elites surrounding the central state administration. Lawyers and economists (at that time trained into the same faculties), statisticians, economic and social actors, members of the parliament, public officers, tried to have their word, using their own knowledge and experience. They met in different assemblies, circles and savant societies (Didry, 2002). In the 1890s, the state created a special institution, named “Office du travail” which launched inquiries, monographs, collected professional advices to have a clear understanding of the various work conventions especially with regards to periods of no work (Luciani, 1992). All together were able to define a general and practicable category of unemployment which was incorporated into the census and administered to the whole population, for the first time, in 1896. All French administrative levels were progressively required to use the same category and to produce the same types of statistics and tables at all administrative levels. However, the disparities in the rates of unemployment among regions, professions or labour statuses reveal durable traces of other conceptions, especially homeworkers and independent workers, employees of local small firms, craft workers who have their own conception of the primacy of individual, local or craft
responsibility in social compensation or in job search organization (see Salais et al., 1986, chapter 3).

In Germany, a federal state, such a national unification of the category failed. There were already a series of local definitions and conventions, depending on the professions, the unions and the towns. These definitions were founded on specific principles of justice that led to various principles to identify unemployed people: for instance, belonging to local crafts; being citizen of the local town; being registered on local social help bureaus (Zimmermann, 2001, pp. 126-138). Land statisticians, convoked to Berlin, were unable to agree to a common definition. It is only in 1927 that some unification was achieved, thanks to the national social insurance system which was eager to generalize insurance to unemployed situations. Yet, being centred on previous craft insurance systems, it tended to exclude workers that did not belong to craft unions. A categorization of the unemployed appeared for the first time only in the 1931 population census. This was not renewed by the Nazi regime in the 1936 census. Beyond the failure to generalize, it shows that, except for the Nazi period, Germany as a national entity is built along with a different conception of the state, mostly that of one we call a "situated" state,⁷ a concept we develop in Salais and Storper (1993, fourth part). Such a state gives precedence to collective autonomy over national top-down intervention. It tolerates diversity; the responsibility to define the common good at stake and to take care of it can be left to various levels, especially the Land, the city, the profession or the economic sector. Statistics can have different frameworks and tables for the same domain, which leaves some collective freedom to choose the relevant principle of justice for building the data.

In the UK, the historical picture was also another one, a long and uncertain battle between at least three conceptions of unemployment, implying the state only indirectly, and of the assignation for responsibility: poor laws, trade unions or the market. All these systems had their own statistical categories and data which were not consistent with each other. Poor law, the oldest system, was placed under the sovereignty of the King, but managed at the very local level of the parishes; unemployed people were not differentiated from the poor and treated as such. Trade unions had their own system for their members. Unemployed members were supported by friendly societies which did not differentiate between the lack of work due to unemployment or strike; both were financially helped (Phillips & Whiteside, 1985). At the turn
of the twentieth century, social reformers (the most famous, among many, being William Beveridge) were hostile to these systems. They pleaded—with more or less success—in favour of the creation of labour offices which could rationally construct a true national labour market. Such a market not only should work as a perfect market, but have the tasks to clear the market from the unemployable (sent to other social policies) and to teach workers to be individually responsible for their situation and their future (Mansfield, 1992). Regarding unemployment, the UK has thus implemented contradictory conceptions of the state, valid at certain levels and for some organizations, but not at others: interventionist for constructing from the top the perfect market, but in competition with local autonomy and professional diversity which would have been best taken in charge by a “situated” state. Several principles of justice are in competition to define and observe unemployment, presumably in some unstable compromises even today, based on, respectively: the deserving poor, the acknowledgement by peers, the morally regular worker (Whiteside, 2014).

*Governance-Driven Quantification as Inverted Statistics: Europe and the Reversal of the Pyramid*

However, a new actor appears on the field of employment in the 1990s: Europe, its institutions and political frameworks (for a historical perspective on building Europe see Salais, 2013). It added complexity, more uncertainty in the definition and observation of unemployment, and in the meaning of data. Basically, it contributed to blurring the boundaries within established categorizations and to deconstructing them. Especially, short unworked periods are less and less considered as “unemployment”, but as transitions—that have to be the shortest possible—between two jobs or tasks. In practice for part of the population it corresponds to precariousness, but precariousness is not recognized as a valuable category of social policy and not counted as such (see Standing, 2014).

European institutions introduce new public management reforms through a specific method, called the open method of coordination (OMC). This method constitutes a fascinating illustration of the social and political impact of quantification when internalized into governance schemes. It reveals its basic specificities. We will pass in review five of them: the reversal of the statistical pyramid; a new target for employment policies; statistical tables as driving forces; the set of indicators
as embedded norms and guidelines as justificatory covers; a cooperative game between rational actors.

## *The Reversal of the Statistical Pyramid*

Governance-driven quantification operates a *reversal of the pyramid* which, in classic statistics, links its large basis (the multiplicity of individual experiences and the mobilization of their social knowledge of situations and problems) to its top (the producing of aggregated data, via the progressive reduction to numbers by aggregating individuals' answers). Governance-driven quantification puts the pyramid not on its basis, but on its top. It starts from the top data (the quantitative global performance) to be maximized at all costs whatever the means used to achieve this objective. It tries, through a descending movement, to produce the required basis of the pyramid able to generate the expected global outcome. Quantification rules of measurement, organizational rules of political schemes are adjusted in order to fabricate, if not individual behaviours themselves, at least answers, or statistical treatments that fit with the quantification objectives. The underlying utopia of quantification and, as a consequence, of governance by numbers (see Miller & O'Leary, 1987; Miller, 1992; Supiot, 2015), is that social subjects are expected to create by themselves a reality that complies with the objectives. They would, eventually, spontaneously produce the required data. In general these are only answers that, through several organizational means, at the end begin to fit with maximizing the scores. Such utopia to make people spontaneously creating an “optimal” social reality must not be confused with the ordinary faking of statistical data, frequent on sensible domains like unemployment statistics.

## *A New Target for Employment Policies*

In the European employment policies promoted since the end of 1990s, European Union authorities took the global rate of employment as one of its major macroeconomic indicators.⁹ They substituted the search of Keynesian full employment for the maximizing of the rate of employment as their main target. In so doing, a “job” is no longer what it promised to be in the model of full employment. In that model, any employment guarantees minimum standards of remuneration, of security in the face of unforeseeable events based upon social and economic rights. What Europe now guarantees to its citizens was only to have a task, whatever it could be and under the condition they accept it.
In practice, to measure the national rate of employment, the European authorities recommended applying the definition that is used by the ILO to build international statistics on employment: “Employed persons consist of those persons who during the reference week did any work for pay or profit for at least one hour, or were not working but had jobs from which they were temporarily absent” (see, for instance, European Commission, 2006). Statistically speaking, applying this definition is simply following the ILO definition.

But it takes on a very different meaning when it is translated into political action. It means that, whatever the task is in terms of quality (wage, working conditions, duration, type of labour contract), it can be considered as employment if it lasts at least one hour a week. All other characteristics were deemed irrelevant when creating employment data. One should call this “the convention of employment without quality”. This convention is far from trivial. Employment without quality is a task stripped of all legislative guarantees (in terms of recruitment, protection against unfair dismissal, minimum starting wage) and social provisions (social and economic rights). By removing quality features when comparing and putting in competition their social systems by means of such single quantitative scale, the Member States are encouraged to water down the quality of their employment conventions in order to improve their quantitative performance.

## Statistical Tables as Driving Forces

One should pay attention to what is ordinarily taken for neutral, hence unproblematic, that is the collection of statistical tables that, for each yearly report, national administrations are required to fulfil in the areas using the OMC. One must suspect that, to a large extent, these tables are the driving forces “behind” the formalism, not only for data, but, beyond, for political discourse (vocabulary and syntax). Tables also act as rhetorical justifications of the normative background imbedded and for most people dissimulated in data, especially in the selected indicators.

Contrary to the standard view, a table is not only a collection of figures (one in each box, for instance, as in a double-entry table), some being higher and others lower, from which one can *directly* draw conclusions like “the female rate of employment in 2005 is higher in the UK than in France”. A table is, above all, a procedure for aggregating individual situations, for instance, relating to employment and the person’s position in the labour market as built by nomenclatures. All situations compiled
in the table which are considered as identical with regards to these two nomenclatures are placed in one box. They are considered as equivalent according to the corresponding properties. In other terms, filling a table by combining individual data requires conventions of equivalence,¹⁰ which decide about what should be considered as similar. These conventions ensure the passage from the particular to the general (what Luc Boltanski & Laurent Thévenot (2006 [1991]) call the rising into generality).

Generally speaking, conventions of equivalence are ignored or misunderstood by the ordinary users. From the above statement on female rates, users will spontaneously conclude that "women work less in France than in the United Kingdom". But this conclusion is valid only if the legal, statistical and social definitions of what should be considered as a "job" are identical in the two countries. In practice, the UK is using a "softer" definition of part-time work than France, which results in women who work very few hours a week being considered as having a job and driving them into such jobs. The situation is even reinforced with the invention in the UK of the zero hour contract. Applicants are asked to stay available at home for whatever task and at whatever moment their employer decides. They are considered as employed even with zero worked hours. This helps maximize the rate of employment in which the UK is champion (which, as a counterpart, corresponds to one of the highest poverty rates in Europe).

*The Set of Indicators as Embedded Norms—Guidelines as Justificatory Covers*

Conventions of equivalence govern what we select, what we exclude and what we construct. Thus, the requested description becomes not far removed from a normative evaluation of the situation under review.

The basic issue with the Open Method of Coordination—and more generally governance-driven quantification—is not immediate strategic action, or neoliberal ideology¹¹; it is about the cognitive conventions that are selected to drive the political process. The selected set of indicators frames the normative background of the political decision-making process. It is neither malignity nor political cunning. It is the mere consequence of the fact that any indicator selects what is worth to be known or not and, in so doing, basically builds the reality that is relevant both for the deliberative process preceding the decision and for the action to be undertaken.
The set of monitoring indicators selected by the European Employ-
ment Strategy (EES) focuses on the supply side of the labour market,
which is the work offer by the manpower. It expresses the norm that work
offer should be the highest, the most flexible and adaptable to economic
hazards as possible. Employability is the main concept. The higher it is
for an individual, the more he would have access to job opportunities.
At first glance, there is no problem here. But complete labour market
models emphasize a second concept at the same level of relevance, the
one of vulnerability to job losses. The more you are vulnerable to job loss,
the less you could access a stable job. So employability should go hand
in hand with job security (or at least stability) as objectives for employ-
ment policies. There is nothing like this in the EES. Furthermore, the
monitoring indicator for evaluating employability is the rate of return to
employment. The fastest it is, the best it is for the EES. But improving
employability is wider than increasing performance, for it has qualita-
tive aspects that, normally speaking, should be taken on board by public
policies, but are not.

Here appears the mismatch between the political rhetorical justification
one can see in the wording of guidelines, and the effective policies that
are driven by their monitoring of performance indicators. The search for
consistency between data and discourse is, in effect, part of the global drift
from politics to management. It tries to be achieved through the connec-
tion between quantitative monitoring indicators and guidelines that are
expressing the objectives corresponding to the different indicators. There
is a rather subtle, but essential shift of normative requirements from
guidelines to indicators. The *formal* normativity is provided by the guide-
line, the *effective* normativity by the indicators to maximize. One will
take the example of the EES guideline "Ensure inclusive labour markets",
introduced in 2006 (European Commission, 2006). It asks the Member
States to develop "active and preventive measures including early identi-
fication of needs, job search assistance, guidance and training as part of
personalized action plans, provision of necessary social services to support
the inclusion of the furthest away from the labour market and contribute
to the eradication of poverty". Such wording sounds perfect in ethical
terms.

But what does it mean in practice? The answer is provided by the
tool and its real use: the corresponding monitoring indicator, called
"New start" is calculated as being the "share of young/adults becoming
unemployed in month X, still unemployed in month X+6/12, and not