ABSTRACT
This chapter first intends to understand how the world of actors in charge of managing money and the financial sector is structured, and how it relates to the so-called “real” economy, based on a long-term historical sociology of the monetary and financial space within capitalism. It is shown that this sector is defined by a set of interdependency relationships, which have become particularly visible since the global financial crisis of 2007–2008: the action of central banks, in particular as “lenders of last resort” for the entire financial system (banks and the State) during crises, interacts with all the “external” dynamics of the economy. This allows to raise the question of the specificity of a sociological approach to this subject, by insisting not only on the concepts of the discipline, but also on the approaches and methods of empirical investigation that are specific to it. Finally, we discuss how a sociological approach conceived in this way can attempt to respond to future challenges, for example, in the interpretation and modelling of socio-historical processes, forecasting, or even the “categories” of public policy in the field of “central banking”.
