The social sciences of quantification in France: an overview - Introduction

Isabelle Bruno (), Florence Jany-Catrice and Béatrice Touchelay ()
Additional contact information
Isabelle Bruno: CERAPS - Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Administratives, Politiques et Sociales - UMR 8026 - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Béatrice Touchelay: IRHiS - Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion (IRHiS) - UMR 8529 - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This edited volume contains various contributions from economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists and statisticians, all of whom share the same approach to quantities. Whether they be dealing with national, European or international statistics on the homeless, occupational health or economic governance, they all emphasise the extent to which the numbers are based on conventions and they all call into question their assumed obviousness by examining the exercises in quantification that produced them. To put it another way, they all explore the ‘black boxes' constituted by the indicators, categories, scoreboards and other accounting or statistical tools that serve both as evidence and as instruments of government. This is the fundamental lesson to be drawn from the work of Alain Desrosières, statistician, historian and sociologist of statistics, whose work has inspired and guided a large number of studies since the end of the 1990s. The aim of this book is to give a general idea of the research that has its origins in the approach pioneered by this eminent thinker on large numbers and the politics underlying them.

Keywords: Occupational Health; Political Scientist; Consumer Price Index; Statistical Argument; Active Labour Market Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-09-30
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Bruno, Isabelle; JANY-CATRICE, Florence; Touchelay, Béatrice. The Social Sciences of Quantification: From Politics of Large Numbers to Target-Driven Policies, Springer, pp.1-14, 2016, 978-3-319-43999-0. ⟨10.1007/978-3-319-44000-2_1⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03971256

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-44000-2_1

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().