Teaching and research interests
♦ Social studies of science: study of knowledge production processes, controversies, science policy.
♦ Political sociology of public action: instrumentation of public action, regulation, recomposition of state and European action, energy policies, economic policies.
♦ Economic / finance sociology: pragmatics of financial valuation, green finance, theories of money and currency, the role of economic expertise in shaping public action.
Research
My research interests lie at the crossroads of the sociology of science and technology, economic sociology and political sociology.
I have been studying, through various research projects, how expertise drawing on economic or financial knowledge is contributing to transforming the way public action is thought and acted, whether in France or Europe, in different sectors (banking, state reform, energy, metal and mineral supplies).
Current research project
As part of a Priority Research Program and Equipment (PEPR) “subsoil as a common good”, I am responsible for coordinating a research project entitled “Anticipation: the futures of French subsoil use”. This five-year project, starting in November 2023, is being carried out by research teams from three partner institutions: Ecole des Mines de Paris, IMT Mines Alès and Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM).
In this project, we analyze the projective capacities of actors in the uncertain future of subsoil resource use in France. At the crossroads of the sociology of science and technology, social geography and political sociology, the project is based on the hypothesis that the actors concerned by the issue of resource exploitation have different relationships to the future, depending on the knowledge and instruments they mobilize to make it emerge, quantify it, and make it relateable or controllable. These instruments (e.g. models, scenarios, standards and regulations, cost/benefit analyses) provide different takes on the future, depending on their epistemology, the assumptions they are based on, the technologies they envisage and the territories they consider. The project studies this knowledge, these instruments, their historicity, practices and controversies, as well as the way in which they inform or prescribe specific forms of public action with regard to the subsoil.
Past research projects
Since completing my PhD, I’ve been involved in a number of research projects, of which I’ll highlight a couple here.
In September 2019, I defended my dissertation “Constituting the territory of government for finance : an inquiry into the construction of the expertise in risk supervision within the European Banking Union” at the Center for the Sociology of Innovation (CSI) of PSL-Mines Paris University. My doctoral research focused on Banking Union, the main reform of the European Union’s institutions in response to the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The objective of my dissertation was to follow, through qualitative research, the effects of the public action instruments invented by European Central Bank actors to control the financial risks taken by banks of the Eurozone. This investigation aimed to characterize the way in which these instruments contribute to the jointly redefine risk management by banks, as well as the role of the European Union and the States in defining the proper conduct of banks.
From November 2021 to November 2023 I carried out a post-doctorate research funded by a grant from the Institut Francilien Recherche Innovation Société (IFRIS) entitled “Climatizing finance or financializing climate? The material politics of climate stress test in Europe” at the Centre d’étude des mouvements sociaux of the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. This project examined the climate expertise of central bankers in Europe. I am currently writing a book on the subject.
For more details see Full CV
Teaching
I taught introductory courses in the social sciences and the sociology of controversy at the Ecole des Mines. At IEP de Paris, I taught sociology of public action and science and technology studies at bachelor’s and master’s levels. Since September 2022, I have been in charge of organizing a course on controversy mapping for master’s students at Sciences Po’s School of Innovation Management.
I have supervised or participated in master’s thesis juries at the Ecole des Mines, as well as in the master’s program in economics and social sciences (Institutions, Organizations, Economy and Society) at PSL University.
Publications
Laurent, B. & Violle A., (to be published 2024), “Scaling up or deep scaling? Problematizing the scalability imperative”. Science Technology and Human Values.
Laurent, B. & Violle, A. (2024). The territorialisation of industry in times of transition: ecosystems, infrastructures and hubs in the green hydrogen sector, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, DOI: 10.1080/1523908X.2024.2324425.
Violle, A. (2023). Une stabilité financière pour quelle Europe ? Controverses juridiques et conflits de souverainetés dans la fabrique des compétences de supervision de la Banque centrale européenne. Politique européenne, (79), 132-159.
Violle, A. (sept 2021). Agir en européen. Forme et présence de l’État dans la fabrique des décisions de supervision des acteurs de l’Union bancaire. Revue française d’administration publique, 178.
Violle, A. (2020). Constituer un territoire de gouvernement pour la finance. Enquête sur l’expertise de supervision au sein de l’Union bancaire européenne. Compte rendu de thèse, RFSE, 24, 255-258.
Alauzen, M., Muniesa, F., & Violle, A. (2020). Exercising knowledge of costs: behavioural politics of economic restraint in French public service reform. French Politics, 1-16.
Laurent, B., Saraç-Lesavre, B. & Violle, A. (2019). Formuler l’action publique en termes de tests. Les stress tests européens comme réponse aux crises financières et nucléaires. Critique internationale, 85(4), 63-83.
Violle, A. (2017). Banking supervision and the politics of verification: the 2014 stress test in the European Banking Union. Economy and Society, 46:3-4, 432- 451.