Théo Bourgeron
Biographic Data
| ID | 93121 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Théo Bourgeron |
| GIVEN NAMES | Théo |
| FAMILY NAME | Bourgeron |
| SIGNATURE | BOURGERON T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6414-1975 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Asset struggles
The proliferation of the asset form and its management through financial intermediaries has informed manifold transformations of contemporary capitalist societies. While scholarship acknowledges that these transformations are conflictuous, we currently lack a systematic understanding of the ways in which assets give rise to social conflicts. In this special issue, we introduce the notion of asset struggles to shed light on the various forms of co…
Spéculation, réaction et conclusion
Dans « Spéculation, réaction et conclusion », Théo Bourgeron critique le modèle dit Le Roy–Haraway–Latour, proposant une lecture originale des spéculations culturelles des dernières décennies. Ce modèle prend appui sur un texte de fiction de Boris Le Roy, où la spéculation financière est explorée par les moyens de la création littéraire, et trouve sa formulation théorique. Ensemble, les deux auteurs esquissent une réflexion sur les liens entre sp…
Financiariser l’intelligence
Cet article explore comment les pensées cybernétique et néolibérale ont employé les machines et les marchés comme des instruments pour clore les débats politiques sur les échanges économiques. Il s’appuie sur une étude de quelques-uns des textes de Fischer Black, de Friedrich Hayek et d’autres auteurs appartenant à ces mouvances. Il souligne la nature paradoxale de cette éviction des débats socio-politiques des échanges économiques, qui opère ell…
Des spéculations anti-néolibérales aux spéculations réactionnaires
Utopies solarpunk , fabulations féministes, afrofuturisme, etc. : les genres spéculatifs sont en vogue à gauche. Ils sont devenus l’un des instruments culturels de lutte contre le régime néolibéral : la place centrale qu’ils laissent à l’imagination est décrite comme une manière de contester le règne des experts et de remettre en cause la fermeture des alternatives politiques instaurées par le néolibéralisme. Problème : ces dernières années, les …
Geler pour dégeler
Les actifs prospèrent grâce à la liquidité, mais ils instaurent aussi leur propre forme de gel, un gel de ce qui leur sert de fondement. Comment renverser le règne glacé de l’économie des actifs ? En transformant les pratiques étatiques de gel d’actifs en base d’une tactique pirate de dés-activation. La dés-activation consiste à geler les conduits qui maintiennent la circulation du capital ; elle consiste aussi à appliquer de la chaleur à l’idée …
Contre-spéculations
Cet article soutient que l’émergence de homo speculans et son rapport à l’incertitude recèlent un potentiel politique encore peu exploré. Le fait que les communautés spéculatives habitent l’inconnu a rendu les individus à la fois plus attentifs à l’ici et maintenant et plus ouverts à l’imprévisibilité du futur. Ces évolutions ouvrent de nouvelles possibilités non seulement pour penser, mais aussi pour poursuivre des alternatives au capitalisme et…
Economic sociology and the far-right
Reflecting on the recent support of prominent business moguls for far-right movements, this comment article argues that reactionary politics are permeating deeply into socio-economic interactions, compelling economic sociologists to investigate them. It shows that, to date, economic sociology has explored four main aspects of this entanglement: (1) materialist approaches have examined the class logics underpinning business support for the far rig…
Market Studies
Market studies is a newly emerging field dedicated to understanding the origins, core concepts, theories and methods currently being used and developed to examine markets in the making. Providing a unique overview that introduces, positions and develops this highly fertile area of research, Market Studies is the first book to consolidate its themes, tools and methods in a single, comprehensive volume. Topics covered include: market organization a…
Financer l’innovation
Dans cet entretien, Théo Bourgeron décrit les mécanismes de financement de l’innovation par les fonds d’investissement. En s’appuyant sur son terrain de thèse ainsi que sur ses recherches plus récentes sur l’industrie pharmaceutique, il montre que ce mode de financement est soutenu par un consensus transpartisan historiquement consolidé qui limite l’apparition de critiques et d’alternatives
Countermovements from the core
The assetization of essential goods brings to high-income countries the logics of scarcity that have been dominant for long in low-to-middle income countries-fostering the rise of new forms of activism. Will this new activism strengthen already existing social movements or weaken them through more moderate politics? Building on interviews and the observation and mapping of activist events, we investigate this question through the case of pharmace…
Democratic research
The sudden and dramatic advent of the COVID-19 pandemic led to urgent demands for timely, relevant, yet rigorous research. This paper discusses the origin, design, and execution of the SolPan research commons, a large-scale, international, comparative, qualitative research project that sought to respond to the need for knowledge among researchers and policymakers in times of crisis. The form of organization as a research commons is characterized …
‘Let the virus spread’. A doctrine of pandemic management for the libertarian-authoritarian capital accumulation regime
Debates have grown around the initial COVID-19 response of radical right-wing governments such as those of the UK, the US and Brazil. These governments initially let the virus spread among the population and delayed the enforcement of strong social distancing measures such as a lockdown. Focusing on the UK’s early response to COVID-19, this article builds on Nicos Poulantzas’ Marxist theory of the state to highlight how this pandemic management d…
Building the weak hand of the state
Prices for new medications have strongly increased over the last decades, reaching levels that could endanger healthcare insurance systems. Focusing on the French case, this article builds on the structural approach of business power and investigates how this situation results from the construction of market boundaries that created unassailable spaces for high pricing. Starting from the 1990s, it traces how high drug prices relied on the construc…
(De-)assetizing pharmaceutical patents
Recent debates in public health and social sciences have shown how biofinancialization has been fuelled by patents' transformation into 'patent-as-assets'. This paper traces the historical construction of one such patent-as-asset bundle: the multi-billion worth architecture of patents behind the hepatitis C blockbuster drug sofosbuvir. Following this process from the late 1980s to present times, we highlight the ontological entanglements of pharm…
Accumulating Capital Today
Building a Centre of Capital Accumulation
This article describes a major shift in French capitalism: the emergence and development of the new private equity sector. It discusses the particularities involved in the construction of this capital accumulation centre in France, studying how an advantageous institutional arrangement was coproduced by fund managers, government and traditional industrial managers. As such, it takes an institutional approach focusing on the history of the rules t…
The political economy of financialization
Accumuler le capital
Cet article montre comment les fonds d’investissement sont devenus, entre 1980 et aujourd’hui, un pôle central d’accumulation du capital. Il décrit la manière dont la reconfiguration des institutions du capitalisme français a permis l’accumulation du profit par ces nouveaux intermédiaires financiers. Pour ce faire, il remet en cause l’opposition entre acteurs publics et privés, et souligne les modalités de coopération entre ces acteurs dans la co…
Optimising 'cash flows
Following recent works that have underlined the increasing search for liquidity in economic exchange, this article studies how illiquid forms of money are converted into liquid forms by corporate finance actors. In the name of ‘shareholder value’, the various forms of value generated by companies (such as ‘trade credit’) tend to be increasingly transformed into liquid forms of money that are easily distributable to shareholders (‘cash flows’). De…
(De-)assetizing pharmaceutical patents
Recent debates in public health and social sciences have shown how biofinancialization has been fuelled by patents' transformation into 'patent-as-assets'. This paper traces the historical construction of one such patent-as-asset bundle: the multi-billion worth architecture of patents behind the hepatitis C blockbuster drug sofosbuvir. Following this process from the late 1980s to present times, we highlight the ontological entanglements of pharm…
Building the weak hand of the state
Prices for new medications have strongly increased over the last decades, reaching levels that could endanger healthcare insurance systems. Focusing on the French case, this article builds on the structural approach of business power and investigates how this situation results from the construction of market boundaries that created unassailable spaces for high pricing. Starting from the 1990s, it traces how high drug prices relied on the construc…
Economic sociology and the far-right
Reflecting on the recent support of prominent business moguls for far-right movements, this comment article argues that reactionary politics are permeating deeply into socio-economic interactions, compelling economic sociologists to investigate them. It shows that, to date, economic sociology has explored four main aspects of this entanglement: (1) materialist approaches have examined the class logics underpinning business support for the far rig…
Building a Centre of Capital Accumulation
This article describes a major shift in French capitalism: the emergence and development of the new private equity sector. It discusses the particularities involved in the construction of this capital accumulation centre in France, studying how an advantageous institutional arrangement was coproduced by fund managers, government and traditional industrial managers. As such, it takes an institutional approach focusing on the history of the rules t…
Optimising 'cash flows
Following recent works that have underlined the increasing search for liquidity in economic exchange, this article studies how illiquid forms of money are converted into liquid forms by corporate finance actors. In the name of ‘shareholder value’, the various forms of value generated by companies (such as ‘trade credit’) tend to be increasingly transformed into liquid forms of money that are easily distributable to shareholders (‘cash flows’). De…
The political economy of financialization
Accumuler le capital
Cet article montre comment les fonds d’investissement sont devenus, entre 1980 et aujourd’hui, un pôle central d’accumulation du capital. Il décrit la manière dont la reconfiguration des institutions du capitalisme français a permis l’accumulation du profit par ces nouveaux intermédiaires financiers. Pour ce faire, il remet en cause l’opposition entre acteurs publics et privés, et souligne les modalités de coopération entre ces acteurs dans la co…
Building a Centre of Capital Accumulation
This article describes a major shift in French capitalism: the emergence and development of the new private equity sector. It discusses the particularities involved in the construction of this capital accumulation centre in France, studying how an advantageous institutional arrangement was coproduced by fund managers, government and traditional industrial managers. As such, it takes an institutional approach focusing on the history of the rules t…
Accumulating Capital Today
Democratic research
The sudden and dramatic advent of the COVID-19 pandemic led to urgent demands for timely, relevant, yet rigorous research. This paper discusses the origin, design, and execution of the SolPan research commons, a large-scale, international, comparative, qualitative research project that sought to respond to the need for knowledge among researchers and policymakers in times of crisis. The form of organization as a research commons is characterized …
‘Let the virus spread’. A doctrine of pandemic management for the libertarian-authoritarian capital accumulation regime
Debates have grown around the initial COVID-19 response of radical right-wing governments such as those of the UK, the US and Brazil. These governments initially let the virus spread among the population and delayed the enforcement of strong social distancing measures such as a lockdown. Focusing on the UK’s early response to COVID-19, this article builds on Nicos Poulantzas’ Marxist theory of the state to highlight how this pandemic management d…
Building the weak hand of the state
Prices for new medications have strongly increased over the last decades, reaching levels that could endanger healthcare insurance systems. Focusing on the French case, this article builds on the structural approach of business power and investigates how this situation results from the construction of market boundaries that created unassailable spaces for high pricing. Starting from the 1990s, it traces how high drug prices relied on the construc…
(De-)assetizing pharmaceutical patents
Recent debates in public health and social sciences have shown how biofinancialization has been fuelled by patents' transformation into 'patent-as-assets'. This paper traces the historical construction of one such patent-as-asset bundle: the multi-billion worth architecture of patents behind the hepatitis C blockbuster drug sofosbuvir. Following this process from the late 1980s to present times, we highlight the ontological entanglements of pharm…
Market Studies
Market studies is a newly emerging field dedicated to understanding the origins, core concepts, theories and methods currently being used and developed to examine markets in the making. Providing a unique overview that introduces, positions and develops this highly fertile area of research, Market Studies is the first book to consolidate its themes, tools and methods in a single, comprehensive volume. Topics covered include: market organization a…
Financer l’innovation
Dans cet entretien, Théo Bourgeron décrit les mécanismes de financement de l’innovation par les fonds d’investissement. En s’appuyant sur son terrain de thèse ainsi que sur ses recherches plus récentes sur l’industrie pharmaceutique, il montre que ce mode de financement est soutenu par un consensus transpartisan historiquement consolidé qui limite l’apparition de critiques et d’alternatives
Countermovements from the core
The assetization of essential goods brings to high-income countries the logics of scarcity that have been dominant for long in low-to-middle income countries-fostering the rise of new forms of activism. Will this new activism strengthen already existing social movements or weaken them through more moderate politics? Building on interviews and the observation and mapping of activist events, we investigate this question through the case of pharmace…
Spéculation, réaction et conclusion
Dans « Spéculation, réaction et conclusion », Théo Bourgeron critique le modèle dit Le Roy–Haraway–Latour, proposant une lecture originale des spéculations culturelles des dernières décennies. Ce modèle prend appui sur un texte de fiction de Boris Le Roy, où la spéculation financière est explorée par les moyens de la création littéraire, et trouve sa formulation théorique. Ensemble, les deux auteurs esquissent une réflexion sur les liens entre sp…
Financiariser l’intelligence
Cet article explore comment les pensées cybernétique et néolibérale ont employé les machines et les marchés comme des instruments pour clore les débats politiques sur les échanges économiques. Il s’appuie sur une étude de quelques-uns des textes de Fischer Black, de Friedrich Hayek et d’autres auteurs appartenant à ces mouvances. Il souligne la nature paradoxale de cette éviction des débats socio-politiques des échanges économiques, qui opère ell…
Des spéculations anti-néolibérales aux spéculations réactionnaires
Utopies solarpunk , fabulations féministes, afrofuturisme, etc. : les genres spéculatifs sont en vogue à gauche. Ils sont devenus l’un des instruments culturels de lutte contre le régime néolibéral : la place centrale qu’ils laissent à l’imagination est décrite comme une manière de contester le règne des experts et de remettre en cause la fermeture des alternatives politiques instaurées par le néolibéralisme. Problème : ces dernières années, les …
Geler pour dégeler
Les actifs prospèrent grâce à la liquidité, mais ils instaurent aussi leur propre forme de gel, un gel de ce qui leur sert de fondement. Comment renverser le règne glacé de l’économie des actifs ? En transformant les pratiques étatiques de gel d’actifs en base d’une tactique pirate de dés-activation. La dés-activation consiste à geler les conduits qui maintiennent la circulation du capital ; elle consiste aussi à appliquer de la chaleur à l’idée …
Contre-spéculations
Cet article soutient que l’émergence de homo speculans et son rapport à l’incertitude recèlent un potentiel politique encore peu exploré. Le fait que les communautés spéculatives habitent l’inconnu a rendu les individus à la fois plus attentifs à l’ici et maintenant et plus ouverts à l’imprévisibilité du futur. Ces évolutions ouvrent de nouvelles possibilités non seulement pour penser, mais aussi pour poursuivre des alternatives au capitalisme et…
Economic sociology and the far-right
Reflecting on the recent support of prominent business moguls for far-right movements, this comment article argues that reactionary politics are permeating deeply into socio-economic interactions, compelling economic sociologists to investigate them. It shows that, to date, economic sociology has explored four main aspects of this entanglement: (1) materialist approaches have examined the class logics underpinning business support for the far rig…
Asset struggles
The proliferation of the asset form and its management through financial intermediaries has informed manifold transformations of contemporary capitalist societies. While scholarship acknowledges that these transformations are conflictuous, we currently lack a systematic understanding of the ways in which assets give rise to social conflicts. In this special issue, we introduce the notion of asset struggles to shed light on the various forms of co…
Political science (8 works) · Business (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Economics (5 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy, Sociology, Political Theory (4 works) · Social Sciences and Governance (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Finance (3 works)