Welcome to the Website of the Indicators as a Global Technology/Governance by Information Project
About the Project...
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 (which inform many indicators); many OECD indicators and rankings; the indicators produced by Transparency International, by Freedom House, and by consultancies specialized in advising investors on political risks; and, the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons indicators. Human rights indicators are being developed in the UN and regional and advocacy organizations. The burgeoning production and use of indicators has not been accompanied by systematic comparative study of, and reflection on, the implications, possibilities and pitfalls of this practice. What does it mean to use indicators as a technology of governance? How does the increasing use of indicators in global governance affect the distribution of power, and the power of the governed? How does it affect the nature of decision-making about the allocation of resources and efforts to monitor compliance with global standards? This project, directed by Kevin Davis, Benedict Kingsbury, and NYU legal anthropologist Sally Engle Merry, working closely with Meg Satterthwaite, Lewis Kornhauser, Richard Stewart, and other NYU faculty, examines this phenomenon. A framing paper and workshop series are in preparation.
Upcoming Event:
September 13-14, 2010
Conference: Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance - a meeting of academics, practitioners, NGO representatives and policy makers. New York, NY
Recent Events:
April 26-27, 2010
Indicators Conference: Midiendo el Derecho: el uso de indicadores en el ejercicio poder global - a meeting of academics, practitioners, NGO representatives and government officials. Event flyer, agenda and conference webpages (Spanish).
Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia.
Recent papers on this topic:
Papers presented at ASIL Panel, March 2009:
- Sally Engle Merry, Measuring the World: Indicators, Human Rights, and Global Governance
- Benedict Kingsbury,
- AnnJanette Rosga and Margaret L. Satterthwaite, The Trust in Indicators: Measuring Human Rights
- Kevin E. Davis and Michael B. Kruse, Taking the Measure of Law: The Case of the Doing Business Project
IILJ Working Papers:
- IILJ Working Paper 2010/2: Kevin E. Davis, Benedict Kingsbury, Sally Engle Merry, Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance
Emerging Scholars Papers:
- IILJ ESP 17 (2010): Nikhil K. Dutta,
Accountability in the Generation of Governance Indicators
