Politics by Number
Indicators as Social Pressure in International Relations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6230197 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Judith G Kelley (0000-0002-1154-2943, Duke University), Beth A Simmons (0000-0001-8207-713X, Harvard University) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 55-70 |
| Publication date | 2015-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ajps.12119 |
| OpenAlex | W2166040563 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 177 |
| References cited | 47 |
The ability to monitor state behavior has become a critical tool of international governance. Systematic monitoring allows for the creation of numerical indicators that can be used to rank, compare, and essentially censure states. This article argues that the ability to disseminate such numerical indicators widely and instantly constitutes an exercise of social power, with the potential to change important policy outputs. It explores this argument in the context of the United States’ efforts to combat trafficking in persons and find evidence that monitoring has important effects: Countries are more likely to criminalize human trafficking when they are included in the U.S. annual Trafficking in Persons Report, and countries that are placed on a “watch list” are also more likely to criminalize. These findings have broad implications for international governance and the exercise of soft power in the global information age
Argument (complex analysis · Business · Context (archaeology · Corporate governance · Geography · Global governance · International relations · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Rank (graph theory · Sociology · State (computer science · Computer Science · Human Rights and Development · International Development and Aid · Law · Political Conflict and Governance
Rule in International Politics
Hostile Forces
Human Trafficking
Scorecard Diplomacy
Behavioral Public Performance
The relational politics of shame
Engage key social concepts for sustainability
Weights and importance in composite indicators
The Grammar of Status Competition
Rating Politics
Credibility Without Formal Commitments
Consultocracy and the power of benchmarks in the French “startup nation”
Rule by Metrics
The Paris Agreement’s inherent tension between ambition and compliance
L’avènement de la couverture sanitaire universelle dans la gouvernance globale
The Problem of the “Shiʻa Crescent” in the Middle East
Understanding and comparing HIV-related law and policy environments
Monitoring, reporting and regulating medicine quality
Examining New Donors in the OECD's Development Assistance Committee
Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals
The political economy of IMF conditionality and central bank independence
Social partners in the digital ecosystem
Evaluating explanations for poverty selectivity in foreign aid
Battlefield of global ranking
Reclaiming Everyday Peace
The statistical trilemma
Development of an UNDRIP Compliance Assessment Tool
Human security benchmarks
A dynamic climate finance allocation mechanism reflecting the Paris Agreement
Human trafficking
Building composite indicators for the territorial quality of life assessment in European regions
Legitimising EU Governance through Performance Assessment Instruments
What Can We Learn from Global and Regional Rankings of Countries
The Janus Face of Valuation
Structural Power and International Regimes
Numbers in global security governance
Centering Human Subjects
Back up or Backfire? The Impact of Human Rights Sanctions on Target Citizens’ Attitudes Toward Human Rights and Mobilizations
National Perspectives and Quantitative Datasets
On the reliability of published findings using the regression discontinuity design in political science
The perfect storm
Country Reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals—The Politics of Performance Review at the Global-National Nexus
Explaining New Models of Global Voluntary Regulation
Politics and theory of global governance
Backlash against human rights shaming
Governance by Other Means
Fully-automated liberalism? Blockchain technology and international cooperation in an anarchic world
Global social indicators and the concept of legitimacy
In the name of (de)securitization
Global Efforts against Human Trafficking
Responding to Needs
Global benchmarking
Measuring Peace
The Rankings Game
Using Data to Create Change? Interrogating the Role of Data in Ending Attacks on Healthcare
UN Women’s feminist engagement with governance by indicators in the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals
Global public policy in a quantified world
Salient discourses in international society
Governing development
Social policy by numbers. How international organisations construct global policy proposals
Counting bodies, preventing war
Global models and post-Brexit discourses
Do international rankings affect public opinion
Constructing national policy space
Security through numbers? Experimentally assessing the impact of numerical arguments in security communication
Domesticating Competitive Common Sense
The Future as Epistemic Condition
Imputing Away the Ladder
Understanding the research-policy relationship in ESE
The Political Economy of US Territories and Indian Country
When is blacklisting effective? Stigma, sanctions and legitimacy
Globalization and the growing defects of international economic statistics
Economic statistics as political artefacts
Asymmetric diffusion
Valuing knowledge
How Does the USA Perform in the Sustainable Development Goals
Trapped in university rankings
What users of global risk indicators should know
Process Tracing the Policy Impact of ‘Indicators’
Defining Crimes in a Global Age
Spies, Lies, Trials, and Trolls
What do citizens in tax havens think? The EU blacklist and public opinion in Switzerland
Poverty reduction during 1990–2013
Public Information and Performance
Policy Evaluation via Composite Indexes
Targeted sanctions, resource substitution, and violence against civilians
The Rwandan agrarian and land sector modernisation
The Impact of Ingo Climate Shaming on National Laws
A network analysis of naming and shaming in the universal periodic review
Peer review and compliance with international anti-corruption norms
Who Reviews Whom, Where, and Why? Evidence from the Peer Review Process of the OECD Development Assistance Committee
Culture counts
Governing the world at a distance
Punishing the violators? Arms embargoes and economic sanctions as tools of norm enforcement
Show me what you’ve got
Human capital, risk and the World Bank’s reintermediation in global development
Taxing the People, Not Trade
Gaming country rankings
Comparing Resistance to Open Data Performance Measurement
Where Help Is Needed Most? Explaining Reporting Strategies of the International Trade Union Confederation
Law, morality, and the relations of states
International Institutions and National Policies
The socialization of international human rights norms into domestic practices
Human Rights and the New UN Protocols on Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling
The Hawthorne effect
Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts
The New Masters of Capital
After Hegemony
The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy
Monitoring Democracy
Governance by Indicators
Mobilizing for Human Rights
The power of numbers in global governance
The power of performance indices in the global politics of anti-corruption
Coercive Assets? Foreign Direct Investment and the Use of Economic Sanctions
Human Trafficking in East Asia
Why Comply? Social Learning and European Identity Change
Soft power
Unipolarity, Status Competition, and Great Power War
Treating International Institutions as Social Environments
Discursive Multilateralism
The Politics of Shame
International Norm Dynamics and Political Change
Intergovernmental Organizations, Socialization, and Member-State Interest Convergence
Is the good news about compliance good news about cooperation
Automatic vigilance
The Quiet Revolution
Soft Power
Examining the State
Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance
Power and Interdependence in the Information Age
Commensuration as a Social Process
Rankings and Reactivity
Human Rights in a Globalizing World
| Unique citing works | 177 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 16,09 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 177 |