The budgetary order of pensions from the White Paper to the Balladur reform of 1993

This article is part of an effort to historicize the budgetary dimension of social policies, by studying pensions at the turn of the 1990s. Based on archives from the ministry of the Economy and the CFDT, and interviews, we reveal the influence exerted by the Budget department on the Balladur reform of 1993. Drawing on the sociology of controversy and public policy, which pays close attention to the discursive dimension, the article examines the budgetary order of pensions in two stages. In the first part, we follow the period between 1989 and 1991, when the Budget department formulated a budgetary order for pensions, sent recommendations for reform to the minister of the Economy, and constructed arguments during the drafting of the “Livre blanc”. In the second part, we take a closer look at the implementation of the pensions budget order in the Balladur reform of 1993, contextualizing the strategic and tactical reasons that favored the legislative application of the Budget department’s proposals. This budgetary order is analyzed on the basis of the practices of the actors in the Budget department and their relations with the social administration and the government. The article examines the conditions for the construction of a budgetary order, and its institutionalization, for pensions. It discusses the literature on pensions in economic sociology and history.