Formuler l’action publique en termes de tests. Les stress tests européens comme réponse aux crises financières et nucléaires

Abstract

In Europe, stress tests are used by institutional leaders as a tool\nfor regulating the banking and nuclear sectors. They were first used in\xa02009\xa0in the\nbanking sector in the wake of the sovereign debt crisis and in\xa02011\xa0in the nuclear\nsector following the Fukushima accident. Where in the former case their purpose\nis to convince investors of bank stability, in the latter they seek to reassure the\nEuropean public as to the safety of nuclear power plants. Both explicitly aim to\noffer an “objective and transparent” evaluation of technical objects. This evaluation\ndefines “crisis” and the ways for resolving it in well-delimited terms. Stress tests\nresult in an expansion of the domain of European institutional intervention, which\nis centralized in the case of banking and distributed in that of nuclear power.\nWhile doing so, they also eliminate alternate ways of conceptualizing crisis and\npossible responses thereto.