Governance by Indicators

The use of indicators as a technique of global governance is increasing rapidly. Major examples include the World Bank's Doing Business Indicators, the World Bank's Good Governance and Rule of Law indicators, the Millennium Development Goals, and the indicators produced by Transparency International. Human rights indicators are being developed in the UN and regional and advocacy organizations. The burgeoning production and use of indicators has not, however, been accompanied by systematic comparative study of, or reflection on, the implications, possibilities, and pitfalls of this practice. This book furthers the study of these issues by examining the production and history of indicators, as well as relationships between the producers, users, subjects, and audiences of indicators. It also explores the creation, use, and effects of indicators as forms of knowledge and as mechanisms of making and implementing decisions in global governance. Using insights from case studies, empirical work, and theoretical approaches from several disciplines, the book identifies legal, policy, and normative implications of the production and use of indicators as a tool of global governance. ...this insightful volume aims to open up new avenues of thought and scholarship in international law and politics, comparative law and public and private global regulation. Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers1. Governance by Indicators ; 2. The Dynamism Of Indicators ; 3. Taming and Framing Indicators: A Legal Reconstruction of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) ; 4. Problems of Power in the Design of Indicators of Safety and Justice in the Global South ; 5. Immunization Coverage Indicators: Technology of Public Health Governance ; 6. State Failure: The U.S. Fund for Peace Failed States Index ; 7. Corporations, Indicators, and Human Rights: A Material Semiotics View ; 8. Trends in Mission-Driven Funding: New Impact Indicators for a New Impact Industry ; 9. Legal Yardsticks: International Financial Institutions As Legal Diagnosticians And Remedial Agents ; 10. Measuring Human Rights: U.N. Indicators In Critical Perspective ; 11. Internally Displaced Population in Colombia: A Case Study on the Domestic Aspects of Indicators as Technologies of Global Governance ; 12. The Use Of Indicators To Measure Government Responses To Human Trafficking ; 13. Fighting Human Trafficking or Instituting Authoritarian Control? The Political Cooptation of Human Rights Protection in Belarus ; 14. Rights-Based Humanitarian Indicators In Post-Earthquake Haiti ; 15. Accountability In The Generation Of Governance Indicators ; 16. Beyond Supply and Demand: A Political-Economic Conceptual Model of Measurement Standards for Global Markets ; 17. Public Regulation Of Global Indicators