La déroute du « benchmarking social ». La coordination des luttes nationales contre l'exclusion et la pauvreté en Europe

The EU?s Lisbon strategy, launched in 2000, included a social aspect, which encouraged the coordination of national policies to fight against social exclusion and poverty, by means of benchmarking. Through the sociological study of quantification activities, which give form to this management technology, this article relates the genesis as well as the disappointments of a ?social benchmarking? experiment. It attempts to bring out power issues at stake and to emphasize the political effects produced by this allegedly neutral practice of comparative assessment.