Wendy Espeland and Michael Sauder, Engines of Anxiety

Academic Rankings, Reputation, and Accountability. New York, NY, Russell Sage Foundation, 2016

Bibliographic Data

ID4812784
AuthorsAndrea Mennicken (0000-0002-5658-7678, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author), Christine Musselin (0000-0002-6720-0707, Sciences Po, Centre de Sociologie des Organisations, CNRS, Paris, France), Marion Fourcade (0000-0002-4821-9031, University of California, Berkeley)
Year2018
Volume16
Issue1
Pages207-218
Publication date2018-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocio-Economic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ser/mwx044
OpenAlexW2791394879
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited2

Correspondence: [email protected] Numbers, including university rankings, as Espeland and Sauder’s book so powerfully demonstrates, have in many ways come to rule our lives. Whether in the public or private sector, economic, social or political life, activities are increasingly structured around numerical representations: quantified impact assessments, benchmarks, cost-benefit analyses, estimates of social and financial return, measurements of performance and risk. It is essential that we consider how such an advance of quantification is affecting our lives, our values, and sociological imagination. ‘Engines of Anxiety’ helps us develop a better understanding of this new culture of numerical evaluation, the ‘audit society’, as Power put it some years ago (Power 1997, see also Strathern 2000). The book is an essential read, not least as the numbers it considers (university rankings) increasingly affect our very own academic lives. The book helps to get to grips with the inner workings and effects of ‘governing by numbers’ (Miller 2001) and it does so in a very captivating way, albeit the insights it delivers are chilling in many respects.

Accountability · Miller · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Reputation · Social science · Sociology · Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions · Higher Education Governance and Development · Law

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