Défaire l’arbitraire des faits. De l’art de gouverner (et de résister) par les « données probantes »

This article aims at reexamining the issue of ?evidence-based government? in the light of current profusion of evaluative technologies that aim at producing such hard ?evidence? (data, benchmarks, statistics, etc.). Beyond mapping the types of knowledges and techniques composing the evaluation devices dedicated to inform governmental activities, our purpose here is to discern the process of rationalisation and formalisation, of legitimation and disrepute, by which certain data are in the end considered as « hard facts » that an effective management cannot simply ignore. Such a questioning about facts and their use in the exercise of power raises the problem of the possibles and their objectivation as resources of resistance.