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Author: Alain Desrosières
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674009691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
Begins with study of history of statistics, and shows how the evolution of modern statistics has been inextricably bound up with the knowledge and power of governments.
Author: Alain Desrosières
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674009691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
Begins with study of history of statistics, and shows how the evolution of modern statistics has been inextricably bound up with the knowledge and power of governments.
Author: Joshua Cole
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801437014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
French government officials have long been known among Europeans for the special attention they give to the state of their population. In the first half of the nineteenth century, as Paris doubled in size and twice suffered the convulsions of popular revolution, civic leaders looked with alarm at what they deemed a dangerous population explosion. After defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, however, the falling birthrate generated widespread fears of cultural and national decline. In response, legislators promoted larger families and the view that a well-regulated family life was essential for France.In this innovative work of cultural history, Joshua Cole examines the course of French thinking and policymaking on population issues from the 1780s until the outbreak of the Great War. During these decades increasingly sophisticated statistical methods for describing and analyzing such topics as fertility, family size, and longevity made new kinds of aggregate knowledge available to social scientists and government officials. Cole recounts how this information heavily influenced the outcome of debates over the scope and range of public welfare legislation. In particular, as the fear of depopulation grew, the state wielded statistical data to justify increasing intervention in family life and continued restrictions on the autonomy of women.
Author: William Alonso
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610440021
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 491
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Book Description
The Politics of Numbers is the first major study of the social and political forces behind the nation's statistics. In more than a dozen essays, its editors and authors look at the controversies and choices embodied in key decisions about how we count—in measuring the state of the economy, for example, or enumerating ethnic groups. They also examine the implications of an expanding system of official data collection, of new computer technology, and of the shift of information resources into the private sector. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Census Series
Author: Theodore M. Porter
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691210543
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
A foundational work on historical and social studies of quantification What accounts for the prestige of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is desirable in social investigation as a result of its successes in science. Trust in Numbers questions whether such success in the study of stars, molecules, or cells should be an attractive model for research on human societies, and examines why the natural sciences are highly quantitative in the first place. Theodore Porter argues that a better understanding of the attractions of quantification in business, government, and social research brings a fresh perspective to its role in psychology, physics, and medicine. Quantitative rigor is not inherent in science but arises from political and social pressures, and objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts. In a new preface, the author sheds light on the current infatuation with quantitative methods, particularly at the intersection of science and bureaucracy.
Author: Jacob S. Hacker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416588701
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
Analyzes the growing divide between the incomes of the wealthy class and those of middle-income Americans, exonerating popular suspects to argue that the nation's political system promotes greed and under-representation.
Author: Jerry Z. Muller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691191263
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens business, medicine, education, government—and the quality of our lives Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself—and this tyranny of metrics now threatens the quality of our organizations and lives. In this brief, accessible, and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage metrics are causing and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from business, medicine, education, government, and other fields, the book explains why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But Muller also shows that, when used as a complement to judgment based on personal experience, metrics can be beneficial, and he includes an invaluable checklist of when and how to use them. The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects us all.
Author: Meg Jacobs
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691130418
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366
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Book Description
"How much does it cost?" We think of this question as one that preoccupies the nation's shoppers, not its statesmen. But, as Pocketbook Politics dramatically shows, the twentieth-century American polity in fact developed in response to that very consumer concern. In this groundbreaking study, Meg Jacobs demonstrates how pocketbook politics provided the engine for American political conflict throughout the twentieth century. From Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon, national politics turned on public anger over the high cost of living. Beginning with the explosion of prices at the turn of the century, every strike, demonstration, and boycott was, in effect, a protest against rising prices and inadequate income. On one side, a reform coalition of ordinary Americans, mass retailers, and national politicians fought for laws and policies that promoted militant unionism, government price controls, and a Keynesian program of full employment. On the other, small businessmen fiercely resisted this low-price, high-wage agenda that threatened to bankrupt them. This book recaptures this dramatic struggle, beginning with the immigrant Jewish, Irish, and Italian women who flocked to Edward Filene's famous Boston bargain basement that opened in 1909 and ending with the Great Inflation of the 1970s. Pocketbook Politics offers a new interpretation of state power by integrating popular politics and elite policymaking. Unlike most social historians who focus exclusively on consumers at the grass-roots, Jacobs breaks new methodological ground by insisting on the centrality of national politics and the state in the nearly century-long fight to fulfill the American Dream of abundance.
Author: Morten Jerven
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801467616
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
One of the most urgent challenges in African economic development is to devise a strategy for improving statistical capacity. Reliable statistics, including estimates of economic growth rates and per-capita income, are basic to the operation of governments in developing countries and vital to nongovernmental organizations and other entities that provide financial aid to them. Rich countries and international financial institutions such as the World Bank allocate their development resources on the basis of such data. The paucity of accurate statistics is not merely a technical problem; it has a massive impact on the welfare of citizens in developing countries. Where do these statistics originate? How accurate are they? Poor Numbers is the first analysis of the production and use of African economic development statistics. Morten Jerven's research shows how the statistical capacities of sub-Saharan African economies have fallen into disarray. The numbers substantially misstate the actual state of affairs. As a result, scarce resources are misapplied. Development policy does not deliver the benefits expected. Policymakers' attempts to improve the lot of the citizenry are frustrated. Donors have no accurate sense of the impact of the aid they supply. Jerven's findings from sub-Saharan Africa have far-reaching implications for aid and development policy. As Jerven notes, the current catchphrase in the development community is "evidence-based policy," and scholars are applying increasingly sophisticated econometric methods-but no statistical techniques can substitute for partial and unreliable data.
Author: Michael Perman
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807860255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416
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Book Description
Around 1900, the southern states embarked on a series of political campaigns aimed at disfranchising large numbers of voters. By 1908, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia had succeeded in depriving virtually all African Americans, and a large number of lower-class whites, of the voting rights they had possessed since Reconstruction--rights they would not regain for over half a century. Struggle for Mastery is the most complete and systematic study to date of the history of disfranchisement in the South. After examining the origins and objectives of disfranchisement, Michael Perman traces the process as it unfolded state by state. Because he examines each state within its region-wide context, he is able to identify patterns and connections that have previously gone unnoticed. Broadening the context even further, Perman explores the federal government's seeming acquiescence in this development, the relationship between disfranchisement and segregation, and the political system that emerged after the decimation of the South's electorate. The result is an insightful and persuasive interpretation of this highly significant, yet generally misunderstood, episode in U.S. history.
Author: Doctor Lorenzo Fioramonti
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1780322704
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203
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Book Description
Numbers dominate global politics and, as a result, our everyday lives. Credit ratings steer financial markets and can make or break the future of entire nations. GDP drives our economies. Stock market indices flood our media and national debates. Statistical calculations define how we deal with climate change, poverty and sustainability. But what is behind these numbers? In How Numbers Rule the World, Lorenzo Fioramonti reveals the hidden agendas underpinning the use of statistics and those who control them. Most worryingly, he shows how numbers have been used as a means to reinforce the grip of markets on our social and political life, curtailing public participation and rational debate. An innovative and timely exposé of the politics, power and contestation of numbers.
