Market Devices of the Public: Shaping a Sustainable Market Through Rating

Market devices are increasingly used to regulate public goods and align social and ecological concerns with firms’ market incentives. This paper examines the calculative work underlying the construction of the French repairability index, which aims to reshape the consumer goods market in line with circular economy principles. Based on an eight-month participant observation, interviews, and document analysis, we explore the index as a regulatory market device and how it manages and reconciles multiple regulatory ambitions, engaging diverse targets and users. By focussing on the relational aspects of this device and how it is staged vis-à-vis different audiences, we introduce the concept of “calculative staging”. This process highlights how index designers embed and arrange sometimes competing and conflicting epistemic values, “formats”, and “furniture”, within the index, assigning distinct roles to different audiences while catering to their perceived needs and expectations. Our study shows that the index is driven by the aspiration to enact a circular form of reactivity, where different market actors mutually observe each other through the market device – simultaneously acting as users of information and as targets of regulatory intervention. More broadly, we show how regulation through market devices transforms regulation into complex processes of actor enrolment, regulatory delegation, and ongoing negotiation and repair. We reflect upon the implications of these dynamics - driven by reliance on market surveillance and competition - for regulation and underlying public goods.