Numerical representations and systems of ranking are used to allocate development funds, assess compliance with human rights norms by treaty bodies, evaluate health status and interventions, and impose sanctions for poor performance. As numerical representations of countries and rankings of countries become more prominent in global governance, the question of how such indicators are made and used rises in importance. The PI's will host workshops to bring together a network of scholars who will collectively examine how these indicators are created, how the data is collected and analyzed, and how they impact both decision-making and the general knowledge possessed by a range of global publics. Engaging scholars in different countries to work on global governance indicators provides a comparative perspective on the practice of indictor production and their use. This activity facilitates new theoretical development concerning how such indicators work in action.
Indicators of phenomena as diverse as corruption, rule of law, human rights compliance, governance, and transparency are being produced and used in a wide variety of international contexts. Understanding their use is of critical importance to understanding the emerging shape of global governance. Further, the diversity of workshop participants in terms of discipline and nationality promotes international collaboration by a broad range of researchers.
In order to understand the implications of prominent global governance indicators for the dynamics of power relations, including their influence on behavior, discourse, and contestation, we have created a network of scholars from several countries of the global South and global North who carried out case studies of production, uses and impacts of indicators on global and local governance. These case studies, together with research seminars that we held throughout the course of the grant, enabled us to develop a theoretical framework for the way indicators act in practices of global governance. Our project was both a research study and a training program. Engaging scholars in different countries (both developing and developed) to work on various indicators allowed for a comparative perspective on indicator-related processes. At the same time, structuring this research project as a set of individual case studies allowed us to focus on a common set of questions and problems. As a result, the project provided training and mentoring for both US and international scholars. The engagement of scholars from developing and developed countries not only enriched the quality of our overall research endeavor but also brought out perspectives from countries that may have been traditionally excluded from the process of indicator construction. The final product of the project is being published as an edited book by Cambridge University Press. In addition, Individual case studies has been presented in multi- and interdisciplinary conferences and workshops, both in the United States and abroad.
