The New Politics of Numbers

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxvii

   PDF

2. The New Politics of Numbers: An Introduction

   • Andrea Mennicken, Robert Salais

   Pages 1-42Open Access

3. Quantification as Utopia

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 43-43

      PDF

   2. Creating a Socialist Society and Quantification in the USSR

      • Martine Mespoulet

      Pages 45-70Open Access

   3. The People’s Algorithms: Social Credits and the Rise of China’s Big (Br)other

      • Tong Lam

      Pages 71-95Open Access

   4. Accounting for Who We Are and Could Be: Inventing Taxonomies of the Self in an Age of Uncertainty

      • Uwe Vormbusch

      Pages 97-134Open Access

   5. Quantifying Inequality: From Contentious Politics to the Dream of an Indifferent Power

      • Ota De Leonardis

      Pages 135-166Open Access

4. The Politics of Evidence

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 167-167

      PDF

   2. Homo Statisticus: A History of France’s General Public Statistical Infrastructure on Population Since 1950

      • Thomas Amossé

      Pages 169-196Open Access

   3. A New Calculable Global World in the Making: Governing Through Transnational Certification Standards

      • Laurent Thévenot

      Pages 197-252Open Access

   4. Do Performance Indicators Improve the Effectiveness of Development Aid?

      • Ousmane Oumarou Sidibé

      Pages 253-274Open Access

   5. Archaeology of a Quantification Device: Quantification, Policies and Politics in French Higher Education

      • Corine Eyraud

      Pages 275-303Open Access

5. Voicing for Democracy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 305-305

      PDF

   2. Quantification = Economization? Numbers, Ratings and Rankings in the Prison Service of England and Wales

      • Andrei Guter-Sandu, Andrea Mennicken

      Pages 307-336Open Access

   3. The Shifting Legitimacies of Price Measurements: Official Statistics and the Quantification of Pwofitasyon in the 2009 Social Struggle in Guadeloupe

      • Boris Samuel

      Pages 337-377Open Access

   4. “La donnée n’est pas un donné”: Statistics, Quantification and Democratic Choice

      • Robert Salais

      Pages 379-415Open Access

   5. Free from Numbers? The Politics of Qualitative Sociology in the U.S. Since 1945

      • Emmanuel Didier

      Pages 417-463Open Access

   6. Afterword: Quantifying, Mediating and Intervening: The R Number and the Politics of Health in the Twenty-First Century

      • Peter Miller

      Pages 465-476Open Access

6. Back Matter

   Pages 477-497

   PDF

This open access book offers unique insight into how and where ideas and instruments of quantification have been adopted, and how they have come to matter. Rather than asking what quantification is, New Politics of Numbers explores what quantification does, its manifold consequences in multiple domains. It scrutinizes the power of numbers in terms of the changing relations between numbers and democracy, the politics of evidence, and dreams and schemes of bettering society. The book engages Foucault inspired studies of quantification and the economics of convention in a critical dialogue. In so doing, it provides a rich account of the plurality of possible ways in which numbers have come to govern, highlighting not only their disciplinary effects, but also the collective mobilization capacities quantification can offer. This book will be invaluable reading for academics and graduate students in a wide variety of disciplines, as well as policymakers interested in the opportunities and pitfalls of governance by numbers.

• Open Access
• quantification
• quantification practices
• Executive Politics
• Governance
• Numbers
• Evidence
• Democracy
• politics of evidence
• Foucault
• administrative capacity
• democracy
• policy sectors
• economics of convention
• utopia
• new public management
• convention theory
• social criticism

“Numbers, though often taken to be dull and predictable, are foci of power and contestation, never more so than in our own time.  Sober and austere in appearance, in use they often surprise us. The papers in this collection display some of the many dimensions of numbers in action, from planning to neutralize economic disorder to reshaping of governments to mimic private markets.  If numbers sometimes really have become dull, reliable, and routine, they may suddenly be transformed into vital springs of protest and activism.  Democracy and bureaucracy alike are practically unthinkable without data banks of numbers.  Although a total history of numbers and their uses is impossible, these essays provide at least an illuminating sample of their multifarious functions and failings in the contemporary world. And, against all expectations, the stories can be enthralling.” (Theodore M. Porter, Department of History, UCLA. Author of Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life)

 

• Department of Accounting and Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

  Andrea Mennicken

• Institutions et dynamiques historiques de l’économie et de la Socièté (IDHES), École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

  Robert Salais

Andrea Mennicken is Associate Professor of Accounting at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, and Co-Director of the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation (LSE), UK. In 2013-2014 she was a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Germany.

Robert Salais is Associate Researcher at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay, France, and member of the Institutions and Historical Dynamics of the Economy and Society (IDHES) Centre, France. He was a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Germany, in 2005-2006 and of the Nantes Institute of Advanced Studies, France, in 2011-2012