Indicators as Knowledge: Human Rights Indicators and Global Governance

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Indicators are rapidly multiplying as tools for assessing and promoting a variety of social justice and reform strategies around the world. There are indicators for the rule of law, violence against women, human development, and much more. Donors increasingly demand quantifiable and measurable results as a condition for funding NGOs. Forms of statistical measurement developed to understand economic development are now being transferred to transnational problems such as compliance with human rights and combating sex trafficking. This project examines this new use of indicators in global governance. Indicators use numerical measures to make comparisons across countries and over time. They use comparable categories to describe highly diverse social phenomena and render them as simple numbers that enable ranking. Their goal is to produce knowledge that is accessible to the public and policy-makers. Yet, indicators require technical expertise that is opaque to public understanding. They depend on data collection efforts by governments, advocacy organizations, and international organizations that are highly specific to particular places and problems. What gets labeled and counted is usually the product of political battles. The information that indicators package as objective and straightforward conceals political competition among countries, local idiosyncratic practices of counting, and the influence of expertise. The goal of the research project is to open up the political and technical processes through which indicators are made. The project will examine how indicators are produced and used though an ethnography of three indicators. The findings may help the public and international decision-makers to develop a more cautious, nuanced understanding of the kinds of knowledge indicators do and do not provide.