The World of Indicators: The Making of Governmental Knowledge through Quantification (Cambridge Studies in Law and Society) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107450837 ISBN 13: 9781107450837

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2015

Synopsis

The twenty-first century has seen a further dramatic increase in the use of quantitative knowledge for governing social life after its explosion in the 1980s. Indicators and rankings play an increasing role in the way governmental and non-governmental organizations distribute attention, make decisions, and allocate scarce resources. Quantitative knowledge promises to be more objective and straightforward as well as more transparent and open for public debate than qualitative knowledge, thus producing more democratic decision-making. However, we know little about the social processes through which this knowledge is constituted nor its effects. Understanding how such numeric knowledge is produced and used is increasingly important as proliferating technologies of quantification alter modes of knowing in subtle and often unrecognized ways. This book explores the implications of the global multiplication of indicators as a specific technology of numeric knowledge production used in governance.

About this title

Book Description:

Indicators simplify complex issues and produce numeric evidence to guide and justify decision-making. However, we know little about the social processes constituting quantitative knowledge or its effects on public ordering practices. This book shows how technologies of quantification change our modes of knowing in subtle and often unrecognized ways.

About the Author:

Richard Rottenburg holds a Chair in Anthropology at Martin Luther University of Halle, Wittenberg, Germany. His research focuses on the anthropology of law, organization, science and technology (LOST).

Sally Engle Merry is Silver Professor of Anthropology at New York University and a faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the New York University School of Law.

Sung-Joon Park is a lecturer at the Institute for Anthropology of the University of Leipzig.

Johanna Mugler is a lecturer at the Institute for Social Anthropology at the University of Bern.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1107450837
• ISBN 13: 9781107450837
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 381
• Editor: Rottenburg Richard, Merry Sally E., Park Sung-Joon, Mugler Johanna