Les temps de l’action publique entre accélération et hétérogénéité

Abstract

Temporalities have always interested sociologists working on public policy. The latter is seen as heavily impacting social times while social times are a constraint that no public policy can ignore. Research has shown that the perception of time as a linear and sequential phenomenon can only imperfectly account for the process, and that public action corresponds rather to irregular and unforseeable alternations between the lengthy temporality of stability and the shorter and more concise time of rupture. The appearance of New Public Management has nevertheless radically transformed the issue, by imposing a different time rationale, of which the law itself now bears the mark. Though the literature does account for the acceleration of public action and the multiplication of the number of ruptures, our article seeks to question once again the alternation and heterogeneity of temporalities as well as the consequent tensions they generate. That heterogeneity is first of all exacerbated by the sectorisation of public policy. Also, there are domains where lengthy temporality resists, thus making it necessary to operate a differential reading of contemporary public policy.

Keywords

• temporalities
• public policies
• New Public Management
• politic sociology of Law
• sociology of public policies
• reform