While the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were inclusive in their design, the reliance on official measurement infrastructures has upheld narrow definitions of both the terms of sustainability and development. Indigenous and non-Indigenous “governance beyond the state” approaches call these definitions into question. They highlight that disaggregated official data are unable to fully reflect alternative grounds and aspirations of living sustainably with the environment and non-human world. Relational Indigenous epistemologies and practices contribute to alternative epistemic infrastructures. In this paper, three examples from the Andean-Pacific region provide an alternative lens through which to reconceptualize and remake the SDG landscape. Together this suite of cases highlights the importance of bottom-up articulation processes, knowledge inclusion, and alternative epistemic harmonization for operationalizing the SDGs. In particular, we highlight the urgent need to renegotiate the relationship between Indigenous communities and the global measurement infrastructure in order to pursue and realize global sustainability goals.
{"title":"Remaking the Sustainable Development Goals: relational Indigenous epistemologies","authors":"Johannes M. Waldmüller, M. Yap, K. Watene","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac026","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 While the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were inclusive in their design, the reliance on official measurement infrastructures has upheld narrow definitions of both the terms of sustainability and development. Indigenous and non-Indigenous “governance beyond the state” approaches call these definitions into question. They highlight that disaggregated official data are unable to fully reflect alternative grounds and aspirations of living sustainably with the environment and non-human world. Relational Indigenous epistemologies and practices contribute to alternative epistemic infrastructures. In this paper, three examples from the Andean-Pacific region provide an alternative lens through which to reconceptualize and remake the SDG landscape. Together this suite of cases highlights the importance of bottom-up articulation processes, knowledge inclusion, and alternative epistemic harmonization for operationalizing the SDGs. In particular, we highlight the urgent need to renegotiate the relationship between Indigenous communities and the global measurement infrastructure in order to pursue and realize global sustainability goals.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85664363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recent literature on indicators as technology of global governance has shown the power of numbers in shaping knowledge and policy priorities. But not all indicators have powerful effects; some remain invisible. Are such indicators an obverse of powerful indicators? Are the same process of indirect exercise of power to indirectly achieve social and economic effects at work? This paper explores the case of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 3.d.1 for the target to build national capacity for pandemic preparedness (target 3d) as a case study of invisible indicators. This indicator has had little traction, despite its relevance in the context of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The paper explores the reasons that explain this paradox through the framework of epistemic infrastructures. It argues that the indicator—the State Party Self-Assessment Report (SPAR) score—was an inconvenient tool for the powerful actors in the global health community as it turned out to be an extremely poor predictor of COVID-19 response performance. It would have exposed not only the failings of the powerful countries that lead the policy agenda for pandemic preparedness but also the legitimacy of their expertise and the paradigm of global health security as an approach to governing health risks. The analysis highlights the tight relationship between power and the use of indicators in global governance. While indicators are increasingly used by powerful actors to reframe policy narratives, the indicator of pandemic preparedness has been kept invisible to maintain their existing framing. It thus illustrates the resilience of power structures in epistemic infrastructures.
{"title":"When indicators fail: SPAR, the invisible measure of pandemic preparedness","authors":"S. Fukuda‐Parr","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac024","url":null,"abstract":"Recent literature on indicators as technology of global governance has shown the power of numbers in shaping knowledge and policy priorities. But not all indicators have powerful effects; some remain invisible. Are such indicators an obverse of powerful indicators? Are the same process of indirect exercise of power to indirectly achieve social and economic effects at work? This paper explores the case of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 3.d.1 for the target to build national capacity for pandemic preparedness (target 3d) as a case study of invisible indicators. This indicator has had little traction, despite its relevance in the context of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The paper explores the reasons that explain this paradox through the framework of epistemic infrastructures. It argues that the indicator—the State Party Self-Assessment Report (SPAR) score—was an inconvenient tool for the powerful actors in the global health community as it turned out to be an extremely poor predictor of COVID-19 response performance. It would have exposed not only the failings of the powerful countries that lead the policy agenda for pandemic preparedness but also the legitimacy of their expertise and the paradigm of global health security as an approach to governing health risks. The analysis highlights the tight relationship between power and the use of indicators in global governance. While indicators are increasingly used by powerful actors to reframe policy narratives, the indicator of pandemic preparedness has been kept invisible to maintain their existing framing. It thus illustrates the resilience of power structures in epistemic infrastructures.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76104744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The policy dilemmas of blockchain","authors":"Judith Clifton, L. Pal","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85561832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Designating statistical capacity development as a target for measurement in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) created a dilemma for statistical decision-makers in the United Nations system, as some saw the inclusion of statistical capacity in SDG17 as a “conflict of interest,” making their work both a goal of the SDGs and a means to achieve them. In 2022, there are five indicators for measuring both the statistical capacity of individual countries and the support provided to strengthen it, including one indicator for measuring a country’s ability to monitor the SDGs themselves. In this article, I argue that the epistemic infrastructuring of statistical capacity into the SDG framework is a privileged case. By parsing the interconnections between the data, actors, networks, and processes that constitute statistical capacity on national and global levels, we can understand how central these materialities and processes are in constituting the larger policy agenda of the SDGs as well as debates over the problems that statistical capacity is meant to solve. Like all indicators in the SDG framework, statistical capacity indicators are performative – defined and delineated by the global statistics community that also helps define and delineate the SDG framework’s development problems. Unlike other indicators, however, statistical capacity indicators have the added weight of also producing the conditions of possibility for the “SDG framework itself.” In this way, debates over what constitutes statistical capacity and its strengthening are also debates about ownership of policy agendas and where tensions between the local and global erupt.
{"title":"Statistical capacity development and the production of epistemic infrastructures","authors":"Marlee Tichenor","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac023","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Designating statistical capacity development as a target for measurement in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) created a dilemma for statistical decision-makers in the United Nations system, as some saw the inclusion of statistical capacity in SDG17 as a “conflict of interest,” making their work both a goal of the SDGs and a means to achieve them. In 2022, there are five indicators for measuring both the statistical capacity of individual countries and the support provided to strengthen it, including one indicator for measuring a country’s ability to monitor the SDGs themselves. In this article, I argue that the epistemic infrastructuring of statistical capacity into the SDG framework is a privileged case. By parsing the interconnections between the data, actors, networks, and processes that constitute statistical capacity on national and global levels, we can understand how central these materialities and processes are in constituting the larger policy agenda of the SDGs as well as debates over the problems that statistical capacity is meant to solve. Like all indicators in the SDG framework, statistical capacity indicators are performative – defined and delineated by the global statistics community that also helps define and delineate the SDG framework’s development problems. Unlike other indicators, however, statistical capacity indicators have the added weight of also producing the conditions of possibility for the “SDG framework itself.” In this way, debates over what constitutes statistical capacity and its strengthening are also debates about ownership of policy agendas and where tensions between the local and global erupt.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74233947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Traditionally, governments and companies store data to identify persons for services provision and interactions. The rise of self-sovereign identities (SSIs) based on blockchain technologies provides individuals with ownership and control over their personal data and allows them to share their data with others using a sort of “digital safe.” Fundamentally, people have the sole ownership of their identity data and control when and how it is shared, protecting their privacy. As these data need to be validated to be trusted, they may become a more important data source for digital information sharing and transactions than the formal source of identity controlled by governments. Furthermore, SSIs can be used for interacting digitally with any organization. These developments change the relationship between government, companies, and individuals. We explore information sharing and governance in the digital society using blockchain-based SSIs. In addition, the impact of SSIs on data storage in the digital world is assessed. Technology enactment might result in no greater control or privacy and might only reinforce current practices. Finally, we argue that regulation and a combination of centralized and decentralized governance are still required to avoid misuse and ensure that envisaged benefits are realized.
{"title":"Governance and societal impact of blockchain-based self-sovereign identities","authors":"Rachel Benchaya Gans, J. Ubacht, M. Janssen","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Traditionally, governments and companies store data to identify persons for services provision and interactions. The rise of self-sovereign identities (SSIs) based on blockchain technologies provides individuals with ownership and control over their personal data and allows them to share their data with others using a sort of “digital safe.” Fundamentally, people have the sole ownership of their identity data and control when and how it is shared, protecting their privacy. As these data need to be validated to be trusted, they may become a more important data source for digital information sharing and transactions than the formal source of identity controlled by governments. Furthermore, SSIs can be used for interacting digitally with any organization. These developments change the relationship between government, companies, and individuals. We explore information sharing and governance in the digital society using blockchain-based SSIs. In addition, the impact of SSIs on data storage in the digital world is assessed. Technology enactment might result in no greater control or privacy and might only reinforce current practices. Finally, we argue that regulation and a combination of centralized and decentralized governance are still required to avoid misuse and ensure that envisaged benefits are realized.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88150574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has once again highlighted the importance of social inequalities during major crises, a reality that has clear implications for public policy. In this introductory article to the thematic issue of Policy and Society on COVID-19, inequalities, and public policies, we provide an overview of the nexus between crisis and inequality before exploring its importance for the study of policy stability and change, with a particular focus on policy design. Here, we stress the persistence of inequalities during major crises before exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to focus on these inequalities when the time comes to design policies in response to such crises. Paying close attention to the design of these policies is essential for the study of, and fight against, social inequalities in times of crisis. Both during and beyond crises, policy design should emphasize tackling with inequalities. This is the case because current design choices shape future patterns of social inequality.
{"title":"COVID-19, crisis responses, and public policies: from the persistence of inequalities to the importance of policy design","authors":"D. Béland, A. He, M. Ramesh","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac021","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has once again highlighted the importance of social inequalities during major crises, a reality that has clear implications for public policy. In this introductory article to the thematic issue of Policy and Society on COVID-19, inequalities, and public policies, we provide an overview of the nexus between crisis and inequality before exploring its importance for the study of policy stability and change, with a particular focus on policy design. Here, we stress the persistence of inequalities during major crises before exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to focus on these inequalities when the time comes to design policies in response to such crises. Paying close attention to the design of these policies is essential for the study of, and fight against, social inequalities in times of crisis. Both during and beyond crises, policy design should emphasize tackling with inequalities. This is the case because current design choices shape future patterns of social inequality.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87431704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emerging technologies permeate and potentially disrupt a wide spectrum of our social, economic, and political relations. Various state institutions, including education, law enforcement, and healthcare, increasingly rely on technical components, such as automated decision-making systems, e-government systems, and other digital tools to provide cheap, efficient public services, and supposedly fair, transparent, disinterested, and accountable public administration. The increased interest in various blockchain-based solutions from central bank digital currencies, via tokenized educational credentials, and distributed ledger-based land registries to self-sovereign identities is the latest, still mostly unwritten chapter in a long history of standardized, objectified, automated, technocratic, and technologized public administration. The rapid, (often) unplanned, and uncontrolled technologization of public services (as happened in the hasty adoption of distance-learning and teleconferencing systems during Corona Virus Disease (COVID) lockdowns) raises complex questions about the use of novel technological components, which may or may not be ultimately adequate for the task for which they are used. The question whether we can trust the technical infrastructures the public sector uses when providing public services is a central concern in an age where trust in government is declining: If the government’s artificial intelligence system that detects welfare fraud fails, the public’s confidence in the government is ultimately hit. In this paper, we provide a critical assessment of how the use of potentially untrustworthy (private) technological systems including blockchain-based systems in the public sector may affect trust in government. We then propose several policy options to protect the trust in government even if some of their technological components prove fundamentally untrustworthy.
{"title":"Maintaining trust in a technologized public sector","authors":"Balázs Bodó, H. Janssen","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Emerging technologies permeate and potentially disrupt a wide spectrum of our social, economic, and political relations. Various state institutions, including education, law enforcement, and healthcare, increasingly rely on technical components, such as automated decision-making systems, e-government systems, and other digital tools to provide cheap, efficient public services, and supposedly fair, transparent, disinterested, and accountable public administration. The increased interest in various blockchain-based solutions from central bank digital currencies, via tokenized educational credentials, and distributed ledger-based land registries to self-sovereign identities is the latest, still mostly unwritten chapter in a long history of standardized, objectified, automated, technocratic, and technologized public administration. The rapid, (often) unplanned, and uncontrolled technologization of public services (as happened in the hasty adoption of distance-learning and teleconferencing systems during Corona Virus Disease (COVID) lockdowns) raises complex questions about the use of novel technological components, which may or may not be ultimately adequate for the task for which they are used. The question whether we can trust the technical infrastructures the public sector uses when providing public services is a central concern in an age where trust in government is declining: If the government’s artificial intelligence system that detects welfare fraud fails, the public’s confidence in the government is ultimately hit. In this paper, we provide a critical assessment of how the use of potentially untrustworthy (private) technological systems including blockchain-based systems in the public sector may affect trust in government. We then propose several policy options to protect the trust in government even if some of their technological components prove fundamentally untrustworthy.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"124 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87809209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article traces the development of the epistemic infrastructure of the education sustainable development goal (SDG) in order to examine the ways that the incremental buildup of the discourse, technical expertise, and necessary—although always fragile—alliances facilitated a paradigmatic policy shift in the field of education: This is the move from the measurement of schooling to the measurement of learning. Through an analytical lens that examines the entanglement of the material, semiotic, and political and temporal/spatial elements of the infrastructure, the article shows how the sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4) as an epistemic infrastructure enabled a fundamental reorientation in the field of global education governance. The article discusses the ways that quantification, despite—and often thanks to—its failings, folded contested discourses, decision-making, politics, and ideas into its processes. Thus, the paper argues that the making of the SDG4 represents a paradigmatic policy shift; one that is not only to be traced in the move from schooling to the policy prioritization of learning outcomes but also in the very production of global public policy through the work of the SDGs as epistemic infrastructures.
{"title":"The education sustainable development goal and the generative power of failing metrics","authors":"Sotiria Grek","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac020","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The article traces the development of the epistemic infrastructure of the education sustainable development goal (SDG) in order to examine the ways that the incremental buildup of the discourse, technical expertise, and necessary—although always fragile—alliances facilitated a paradigmatic policy shift in the field of education: This is the move from the measurement of schooling to the measurement of learning. Through an analytical lens that examines the entanglement of the material, semiotic, and political and temporal/spatial elements of the infrastructure, the article shows how the sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4) as an epistemic infrastructure enabled a fundamental reorientation in the field of global education governance. The article discusses the ways that quantification, despite—and often thanks to—its failings, folded contested discourses, decision-making, politics, and ideas into its processes. Thus, the paper argues that the making of the SDG4 represents a paradigmatic policy shift; one that is not only to be traced in the move from schooling to the policy prioritization of learning outcomes but also in the very production of global public policy through the work of the SDGs as epistemic infrastructures.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"142 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73952525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article investigates the production of decent work indicators within the ILO, to demonstrate that developing measurement infrastructures in global policymaking requires political work. The concept of decent work responds to the perceived marginalization of the ILO in social and labor policy and was supposed to provide a new unifying normative framework for the organization. The article shows that creating decent work indicators encountered challenges due to its highly politicized production process. Proponents of quantification (mostly workers’ representatives) and opponents (mostly employers’ representatives) disagreed about the function of indicators: should they be country-specific or allow for universal assessment of progress from above. In effect, although indicators of decent work have been integrated into the Sustainable Development Goals—mostly as part of goal no. 8, many are still incomplete. As a result, the indicators did not establish a “framework of assessment,” which would have been guided by universal standards of progress allowing the ILO to “govern at a distance,” and could not initiate a paradigmatic policy shift, impeding the infrastructuralization of measurement. Theoretically, the article advances our understanding of policy formulation and design on the transnational level by showing the political foundation of knowledge-based instruments. Empirically, it rests on a Grounded Theory-based analysis of key ILO documents, including Governing Body minutes, conference and expert meeting reports, and official publications, mainly from the period from 1998 to 2015.
{"title":"Producing decent work indicators: contested numbers at the ILO","authors":"J. Berten","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac017","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The article investigates the production of decent work indicators within the ILO, to demonstrate that developing measurement infrastructures in global policymaking requires political work. The concept of decent work responds to the perceived marginalization of the ILO in social and labor policy and was supposed to provide a new unifying normative framework for the organization. The article shows that creating decent work indicators encountered challenges due to its highly politicized production process. Proponents of quantification (mostly workers’ representatives) and opponents (mostly employers’ representatives) disagreed about the function of indicators: should they be country-specific or allow for universal assessment of progress from above. In effect, although indicators of decent work have been integrated into the Sustainable Development Goals—mostly as part of goal no. 8, many are still incomplete. As a result, the indicators did not establish a “framework of assessment,” which would have been guided by universal standards of progress allowing the ILO to “govern at a distance,” and could not initiate a paradigmatic policy shift, impeding the infrastructuralization of measurement. Theoretically, the article advances our understanding of policy formulation and design on the transnational level by showing the political foundation of knowledge-based instruments. Empirically, it rests on a Grounded Theory-based analysis of key ILO documents, including Governing Body minutes, conference and expert meeting reports, and official publications, mainly from the period from 1998 to 2015.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77807060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marlee Tichenor, Sally E Merry, Sotiria Grek, Justyna Bandola-Gill
Despite the multiplicity of actors, crises, and fields of action, global public policy has known one constant, that is, the ubiquity of indicators in the production of governing knowledge. This article theoretically engages with the phenomenon of hyper-quantification of global governance in the context of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), debated and introduced in 2015. Increasingly metrics—such as indicators and quantified data to monitor targets and goals—are no longer just tools of governance but rather are emblematic of the new types of political cultures, enabling an interplay of material, techno-political, and organizational structures within which (statistical) knowledge is produced, disseminated, and translated into global public policy. The paper unpacks this complexity by proposing a new theoretical approach to quantification as an “epistemic infrastructure,” which emerges across three levels: materialities (such as data and indicators), interlinkages (such as networks and communities), and paradigms (such as new ways of doing policy work). Using the lens of the “epistemic infrastructure” on the SDGs, this article and the others in this special issue analyze the ways that quantified knowledge practices—in widely varying policy arenas, scales, and geographic regions—are at the heart of the production of its global public policy.
{"title":"Global public policy in a quantified world: Sustainable Development Goals as epistemic infrastructures","authors":"Marlee Tichenor, Sally E Merry, Sotiria Grek, Justyna Bandola-Gill","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac015","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the multiplicity of actors, crises, and fields of action, global public policy has known one constant, that is, the ubiquity of indicators in the production of governing knowledge. This article theoretically engages with the phenomenon of hyper-quantification of global governance in the context of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), debated and introduced in 2015. Increasingly metrics—such as indicators and quantified data to monitor targets and goals—are no longer just tools of governance but rather are emblematic of the new types of political cultures, enabling an interplay of material, techno-political, and organizational structures within which (statistical) knowledge is produced, disseminated, and translated into global public policy. The paper unpacks this complexity by proposing a new theoretical approach to quantification as an “epistemic infrastructure,” which emerges across three levels: materialities (such as data and indicators), interlinkages (such as networks and communities), and paradigms (such as new ways of doing policy work). Using the lens of the “epistemic infrastructure” on the SDGs, this article and the others in this special issue analyze the ways that quantified knowledge practices—in widely varying policy arenas, scales, and geographic regions—are at the heart of the production of its global public policy.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138518833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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