The Intangible Assetization of the State. The Case of a French Reform (2007–2020)

This paper explores the challenges raised by a 2007 reform by the French government concerning the management and valuation of the State’s intangible assets. It conceptualizes intangible assetization as a socio-technical process of turning things into intangible assets through discursive and material operations. A strong programme of intangible assetization involves the processes of monetization (generation of revenues from intangible assets) and balance-sheetization (reporting intangible assets in balance sheets). In a government setting, intangible assetization can be understood in relation to various conceptions of the State along a continuum between two ideal-types: an open democratic model and a closed proprietarist model, each one associated with a distinct accounting technology. Budgetary accounting is best suited to the open model according to its proponents, whereas the closed model is better expressed by an accrual accounting system that makes assets and liabilities visible. Our qualitative investigation, based on 42 interviews and a document analysis, shows that the scope of the reform studied shrank and shifted: more than a decade after the creation of an agency (the APIE) to head the reform, that agency has effectively abandoned the strong programme of intangible assetization and now works on ad hoc marketing consultancy and legal management of intellectual property. This trajectory results from various struggles for an open model of the State or resistance to the strong programme of intangible assetization, as well as competition from other reform programmes. Our exploration offers a sociology of accounting in the making through the example of intangible assets. It draws attention to the power relations between actors, made possible by the polysemy of the expression “valuing intangible assets”, and contributes to the study of government accounting reforms, not least by showing how conflicting conceptions of the State can be conveyed within a single reform