Building a governing territory for finance: an investigation of supervisory expertise in the European Banking Union.

Summary This research takes as its subject the Banking Union, the main reform of the European Union's institutions sought by the heads of state and government in response to the 2008 financial crisis. In particular, the reform entrusts the European Central Bank with the task of supervising the banks of the Eurozone as of November 2014. At the crossroads of a sociology of finance in discussion with a sociology of science and technology, and a political sociology attentive to instruments of public action, the thesis proposes to analyze the new supervisory practices as a problem of government in the sense of Michel Foucault. It describes the Banking Union as an institutional arrangement, i.e. an assembly of actors, verification practices and control mechanisms, within which a new form of intervention is invented. This arrangement produces a European expertise centralized on a territory of government. In this territory, the problematization of the proper conduct of institutions aims to guarantee the long-term future of investors' assets, without acting in a dirigiste manner on financial flows. The supervisory authorities of the states taking part in the arrangement are in charge of relaying the decisions collectively taken in Frankfurt to their banks, which are considered national. The thesis contributes to contemporary academic debates on finance and the construction of Europe, by making visible through investigation the effects of a public action focused on the problem of investment management in Europe. In particular, it allows us to grasp the recomposition of state sovereignty in the area of banking policy, which, far from disappearing, plays a decisive role in the constitution of the territory studied. The developments are based on a qualitative survey, including an ethnography of the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR), an interview campaign and a documentary analysis.