The New Politics Of Numbers: Utopia, Evidence And Democracy

Foreword: What Numbers Do
Acknowledgments
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 The New Politics of Numbers: An Introduction
	Quantification as Utopia
	The Politics of Evidence
	Voicing for Democracy
	Quantification: Where the Economics of Convention Approach Meets Foucault
	References
Part I Quantification as Utopia
2 Creating a Socialist Society and Quantification in the USSR
	Inventing a New Form of Statistics for a New Model of Society
		A New State Statistics Administration
		A Complicated Demarcation Between Accounting and Statistics
		A Task of Theoretical Deconstruction
	Debates and Tensions Surrounding Statistical Theory
		Tension Surrounding the Mean and the Law of Large Numbers
		Tensions Around the Shift to the Random Model
	What Form of Statistics for Constructing a New Order?
		The Relationship Between Statistics and Accounting
		Categorization of the Population and Censuses
		Confidence in the Data and the Status of the Statistician
		What Statistical Tools for a New Order?
	Conclusion
	References
3 The People’s Algorithms: Social Credits and the Rise of China’s Big (Br)other
	The Earlier Chinese Dream
	Personal Dossiers
	Social Credit
	The Total Information System
	The Future Now
	Bigger Than Big Other
	References
4 Accounting for Who We Are and Could Be: Inventing Taxonomies of the Self in an Age of Uncertainty
	Corporeal Accounting Within Immaterial Capitalism
	Calculation and the Living Body
	The Quantified Self
	Well-Being, Performance and Emotions as Core Issues of Leibschreiben (Writing the Body)
	The Emerging Taxonomies of the Self
		Inventing Representational Forms
		Moral Conflicts in Quantifying the Self
		Quantifying Performance: Alternative Measures, Rational Planning and the Deficiency of Corporeal Sensations
	Conclusions
	References
5 Quantifying Inequality: From Contentious Politics to the Dream of an Indifferent Power
	Words: The Semantics of Poverty and the Syntax of the Threshold
		Shifting Words
		Moralization
		The Threshold
		Visibility and Obfuscation
	Spatial Choreographies: From Inequality to Distance
	Numbers: Measuring Inequality
	Conclusions: The Dream of an Indifferent Power
	References
Part II The Politics of Evidence
6 Homo Statisticus: A History of France’s General Public Statistical Infrastructure on Population Since 1950
	The Representative Household Survey
	The Biographical Investigation
	The Matched Panels
	Homo Statisticus: Three Types of Being Constructed by the Statistical Infrastructure
	Conclusion
	References
7 A New Calculable Global World in the Making: Governing Through Transnational Certification Standards
	Introduction: The Evolving Politics of Calculable Worlds
	From State Statistics to Government Through Standards: A Research Programme on the Politics of Conventional Forms and Engagements
		Social Coding and Investments in Conventional Forms: The Prerequisites for the Politics of Quantification
		Placing Value on Invested Forms: The Plurality of Orders of Worth Involved in Justifications and Criticisms Referring to the Common Good
		The Worth of Standards
		Standard-Setting in Search of Legitimacy: The Grammars of Commonality in the Plural
		Committed to Objects: Valuable Regimes of Engagements with the World Affected by Standardization
	Distinctive Features of a New Calculable World Governed by Certification Standards: Which Substitute for the Rule of Law in the Production of Regulations?
		Made in Standard: All the Good that Money Can Buy
		Multi-Stakeholder Certification: A Liberal Public in Which Opting Individuals Are Formatted as Stakeholders and Options as Measurable Objectives
		Participative Technologies and Procedures to Deliberate Over Regulations
		A-liberal Conceptions of Communication and Their Managerial Reductions
		Experiencing Participative Technologies in Practice: “Open Space” and Dialogue Dispositions Put to the Test of “Smallholders”  Engaging in Them
		Some Lessons Learnt on the “Participative” and “Legislative” Legitimacy of Governing by Certification Standard
	A-testing, Pro-testing and Con-testing: Substitutes for the Judicial System in Putting the Standard Enforcement to a Critical Test
		Audit Procedures
		RSPO “Dispute Settlement Facility”
			Contest: Formatting the Complaint in the Right Form for the Public
			Attest: Land Appropriation and Appropriate Evidence
			Protest: Direct “Private” Interaction
		Some Lessons Learnt on the “Judicial” Legitimacy of Governing by Certification Standards
	Discussion of the Certified Objectivity Sought by a “Standardizing Liberalism”: Power-Knowledge and the Enlarged Analysis of Oppression and Criticism
	References
8 Do Performance Indicators Improve the Effectiveness of Development Aid?
	The Harmful Effects of Performance Indicators
	Querying Performance-Based Management in Third World Countries
	Giving Aid Recipient Countries Greater Autonomy to Conduct Their Public Policy
	Conclusion
	References
9 Archaeology of a Quantification Device: Quantification, Policies and Politics in French Higher Education
	The Bedrock: NPM, LOLF
	Performance Indicators for French Universities: What Are Their Raisons D’être?
	The Upper Stratum: The Micro-Conventions of Calculation
	The Life of the Device: Context, Uses and Developments
		2006–2012
		Since 2012
	Conclusion
	References
Part III Voicing for Democracy
10 Quantification = Economization? Numbers, Ratings and Rankings in the Prison Service of England and Wales
	Quantifying and Marketizing: Prison Privatization, Quantification and the Ethos of Contestability
	Limits of Marketizing Quantification
	Moralizing Versus Economizing Numbers
	Quantifying and Financializing: Accrual Accounting and Social Impact Bonds
		Private Sector Accrual Accounting
		Social Impact Bonds
	Conclusion
	References
11 The Shifting Legitimacies of Price Measurements: Official Statistics and the Quantification of Pwofitasyon in the 2009 Social Struggle in Guadeloupe
	The Quantification of Pwofitasyon in the 2009 Battles for Power
		Quantification as a Mode of Action for a Variety of Players
		The Role of Technicity and Expertise in the Negotiations
	The Legitimacy of Price and Margin Measurements
		The Absence of Prices and Margin Measurements Before 2009
		The Quantification of Pwofitasyon: Innovation and Tests of Reality
		An Expected but Socially and Politically Unacceptable Intervention by Public Statistics
		Towards a New Articulation of Prices and Margins
	Conclusion
	References
12 “La donnée n’est pas un donné”: Statistics, Quantification and Democratic Choice
	Introduction: Towards Governance-Driven Quantification
	Producing and Interpreting Data is a Collective Undertaking
	Inventing and Deconstructing Unemployment as a Category: The Role of Quantification
		The Invention of Unemployment: Comparing France, Germany and the UK
		Governance-Driven Quantification as Inverted Statistics: Europe and the Reversal of the Pyramid
			The Reversal of the Statistical Pyramid
			A New Target for Employment Policies
			Statistical Tables as Driving Forces
			The Set of Indicators as Embedded Norms—Guidelines as Justificatory Covers
			A Cooperative Game Between Rational Actors (the Member States and the Commission)
	Quantification: Contrasting Rational Governance with Democratic Choice
		Democracy and the Emergence of the Category “Unemployment”
		Governance-Driven Quantification and “A-Democracy”
			Creating Cognitive Ambiguity
			Fabricating Proofs of Effectiveness and Efficiency
			Generating Difficulties to Articulate Alternative Legitimate Claims
	Social Criticism, Justice and Plurality of Quantification Regimes
		Introducing Justice and Democracy
		The “Informational Basis of Judgment in Justice” (IBJJ)
		Deliberative Inquiry as Data Processing
		Claiming for Another State
	Conclusion: Implications for Research on Quantification Processes
	References
13 Free from Numbers? The Politics of Qualitative Sociology in the U.S. Since 1945
	Excluding Quantities?
		Interpretation and Determinism
			The American Soldier
			The Qualitative as Propaedeutic
			Interpretation Cannot Be Overlooked
			The Quantifier Blumer
		Ethnomethodology Between Accounts and Official Power
			Statistical Accounts
			Measurement by Fiat
			The Quantitativist Cicourel
	Radical Sociology, Quantification and the Welfare State
		Are Quantities Fascist?
		Light Travelling: Numbers as Gleanings
	Institutionalization of a “Qualitative Sociology”
		Common Ground
		A Bipolar Category
	Conclusion
	References
14 Afterword: Quantifying, Mediating and Intervening: The R Number and the Politics of Health in the Twenty-First Century
	Conclusions
	References
Index