Studies a number of aspects of the reform of public finance and public management in France (LOLF), with special attention to science and technology policy, using a pragmatist approach to the sociology of the state.

We develop the notion of "trials of explicitness" as a conceptual instrument for the study of the state from a pragmatist, sociological angle. We present results from an empirical case study on how state practitioners (i.e. actors in charge of expressing, evaluating, executing or reforming the...