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Indicators: tools for informing, monitoring or controlling?

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posted on 2023-06-08, 20:48 authored by Markku Lehtonen
Today, indicators are produced and used worldwide; across all levels and sectors of society; by public, private and civil society actors; for a variety of purposes, ranging from knowledge-provision to administrative control. While the use of quantitative data as policy support, including policy formulation, has a long history, recent decades have seen the rise of what some have called an ‘indicator industry’ (for example, Hezri and Hasan 2004), focused especially on the production of environmental and sustainability indicators, within a framework variously called ‘governance by numbers' (Miller 2001; Lascoumes and Le Galès 2005; Jackson 2011), ‘management by numbers’ in public service (for example, Hood 2007) or ‘numbers discourse’ (Jackson 2011, p. 23). Indicators are generally expected to enhance the rationality of policymaking and public debate by providing a supposedly more objective, robust, and reliable information base. Indicators can operate as ‘boundary objects’ (for example, Turnhout 2009; Star 2010), catering to both technocratic and deliberative ideals, by combining ‘hard facts’ and modelling with collective reasoning and ‘speculation’. Research and development work in the area has hitherto overwhelmingly concentrated on improving the technical quality of indicators, while the fate of indicators in policymaking and the associated sociopolitical aspects have attracted little attention. This chapter focuses on this neglected area of indicator research, by providing an overview of the multiple types of existing indicators, as well as their use and influence in various venues of policymaking. Empirical examples are drawn mainly from the fields of environmental and sustainability indicators.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Publisher

Edward Elgar

Page range

76-99

Pages

24.0

Book title

The Tools of Policy Formulation: Actors, Capacities, Venues and Effects

Place of publication

Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA

ISBN

9781783477036

Series

New Horizons in Public Policy

Department affiliated with

  • SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Andrew J Jordan, John R Turnpenny

Legacy Posted Date

2015-05-18

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-03-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2016-03-22

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