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Paper short abstract

The paper examines energy governance through an empirical investigation of a valuation process within decarbonation public action. The little-known entanglements between energy governance and value economy are analysed in light of different governance problems and points to democratic challenges.

Paper long abstract

What does an analysis of energy governance through the lens of valuation processes offer, and how should it be carried out? This paper draws on a qualitative investigation conducted since 2024 in France, focusing on the mobilization of valuation practices and instruments in public action overseen by the regulatory authority and electricity network operators. Together with market actors and local authorities, they shape administrative, market-based, and technical devices to capture "flexibility reserves."

Analyzing this dynamic grounds two key insights. First, the paper identifies a vernacular value economy stabilized by a hierarchy of instruments appropriate to each energy governance problem. This observation helps to explain the coherence of governance over the long term: new administrative intervention modalities remain subordinate to market valuations, consistent with the governance established over two decades of liberalization. Second, the paper highlights the contingency of value hierarchies when an instrument values other objects and respond to different governance problems. The contrast between the system balancing and the minimization of investment costs in the networks shows that this contingency, through its effects on longstanding principles, must be considered extensively.

These observations lead to highlight some democratic challenges posed by these little-known entanglements between energy governance and valuation. One should grasp the optimism commonly associated with resilience, a notion close to flexibility, without losing sight of its other meaning: the capacity to cancel, to forget, to dismiss stabilized ways of living-together in order to cope with shocks; furthermore, while these are considered outside of democratic intervention.