Review of 'L'instrumentation de l'action publique.

Summary 1st paragraph: Far from being a simple review, this imposing volume edited by Charlotte Halpern, Pierre Lascoumes and Patrick Le Galès is more like an extension of the debates opened ten years earlier in Gouverner par les instruments.1 It should be noted from the outset that it is "instrumentation" and not just the notion of "instrument" that is highlighted in the title of this opus. This semantic shift underlines the authors' renewed attention to "the set of problems posed by the choice and use of tools [...] that make it possible to materialize and operationalize government action" (introduction, p. 17). It is also part of a desire to reinforce its anchorage in the more general debates that animate political sociology, thus responding to certain criticisms formulated against its postulates. This collective collection is composed of more than fifteen chapters, the most salient aspects of which are discussed in an exhaustive introduction, both through its synthesis of the theoretical issues raised and through its exposition of the main themes discussed.