Prof. Dr. Philipp LepeniesComparative Politics, Otto-Suhr-Institut

Spring Campus of the University Alliance of Sustainability UASFreie Universität Berlin

The Political Economy ofStatistics

2

Indicators• Role of Indicators, Numbers and Statistics

• UN Resolution: Transforming our World (SDG)

• International Search for Indicators of Well-Being and Sustainability „Beyond GDP“

• Assumption: Indicators are instrumental in politics

• J. Stiglitz: What we measures affects what we do…

• Contradictions / tensions

• Emerging and important field of research

Titel, Datum

3

Indicators• Numbers packed into concepts that describe social life – vaguely defined, not

consistently

• Statistik – Achenwall

• quantitative and qualitative techniques for ordering knowledge

• accountability – transparency – objectivitiy – accuracy

• Claim: above politics, offer rational, technical knowledge

• Role of the media: accurate descriptions of the world

Titel, Datum

4

Indicators – But…..• expression of power – those who collect data, who represent data, who translate

data into policies

• role of experts versus the affected

• indicators create truth – compromise, arbitrariness, generalizations, quest foruniversality

• missing: local knowledge, national knowledge, cultural, social and historicalcontexts, qualitative data

• Commensurability

Titel, Datum

5

Indicators…

Those who create indicators … create the world they are measuring

Indicators exist within power and governance – creation and functioning

Titel, Datum

6

Numbers….in Politics

Titel, Datum

7

Numbers as Performance Measurement

Titel, Datum

8

Kula

Titel, Datum

9

Derosières and Hacking

Titel, Datum

10

Theodore Porter

Titel, Datum

11

James Scott and Foucault

Titel, Datum

12

Michael Power -

Titel, Datum

13

Sally Engle Merry 2016

Titel, Datum

14

Wendy Espeland - Emmanuel Didier

The Sociology of Quantification

Titel, Datum

15

Institutionalization

• Topic Group on Quantification Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin

• Fellow Group on Quantification at the Institute for Advanced Study in Nantes

• Fickle Formulas Group in Amsterdam (Chair in Political Arithmetic)

• MP-Institute for Anthropology Halle

Titel, Datum

16

Sally E Merry et al. 2015

Titel, Datum

17

Morten Jerven 2013

Titel, Datum

18

GDP

Titel, Datum

19

Comparative Analysis – National Initiatives „Beyond GDP“

Titel, Datum

20

OECD - 2007

Titel, Datum

21

Stiglitz Commission – Lack of Confidence in Statistics - 2009

Titel, Datum

22

The Guardian….January 2017

Titel, Datum

23

Alternative Facts – The Post-factual Age?

Titel, Datum

24

Summary

• general power and political issues involved regarding indicators (political economy ofstatistics)

• quantification in the Social Sciences (take data as „real“) - sensitize

• transformation will be based on indicators (Sustainable Development) – Beyond GDP

• democracy is under threat through bad statistics

• democray can be improved by good statistics – and citizen participation

• Big Data

• Post-Factual skepticism

• Need for multidisciplinary cooperation in academia

Titel, Datum