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Conventions of the State, Statistics, and Public Action in a Territorial Perspective

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Handbook of Economics and Sociology of Conventions

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Abstract

This chapter describes economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC)’s concept of the state and of the co-production of official statistics and public action in a territorial perspective. EC/SC conceives of the state as a set of culturally established conventions, i.e., mutual expectations about the role of the state that help actors to pragmatically coordinate with each other. The specificity of state conventions is that they claim to define the common good for society. In this respect, official statistics have become a crucial instrument of the nation state for defining objects to be known and to be governed by public action. This interrelatedness of statistics and state interventions stabilizes expectations toward the state. However, in EC/SC, conventions of the state are not in pre-established harmony, but are seen as contingent upon the (non-) resolution of pragmatic problems in (national) history, which means that state conventions can become subject to comparative as well as historical empirical research. The chapter, firstly, summarizes the concept of conventions of the state, mainly based on the work of Michael Storper and Robert Salais. Secondly, it describes how statistical tools of the nation state have varied historically focusing on the work of Alain Desrosières. Thirdly, it points out challenges of producing and using statistics on a subnational and a transnational scale. Fourthly, the chapter presents more recent empirical EC/SC research on producing and using numbers in a territorial perspective. Finally, conclusions for further research are drawn.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    Walter Bartl

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  1. Walter Bartl
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Correspondence to Walter Bartl .

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  1. University of Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland

    Rainer Diaz-Bone

  2. University of Lille, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France

    Guillemette de Larquier

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Bartl, W. (2023). Conventions of the State, Statistics, and Public Action in a Territorial Perspective. In: Diaz-Bone, R., Larquier, G.d. (eds) Handbook of Economics and Sociology of Conventions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52130-1_76-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52130-1_76-1

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