The Centre d'Etudes de l'Emploi (1970-2015): statistics - on the cusp of social sciences and the state

Abstract

The Centre d’études de l’emploi (CEE) is a Paris-based public research institute. This article will attempt to draw up a social history of quantification viewed through the lens of the Center’s story. Positioned on the cusp of science and State, its own history relates the tension, hesitations, and upheavals that have marked relations between labor and employment administration and social science organisms over the last 45 years. More specifically, it provides insight into the role played by statistics in the effort to combine action and knowledge – and by this we understand both a field of actors with its rules, practices and a myriad of instruments, methods and results.