Obsessed with Numbers: Statistics, State Building, and the "Monopoly of Information" in Peru, 1850s–70s

My paper examines the rise of statistics as a mechanism of a modern state apparatus.  This paper places the adoption of statistics and the emergence of professional statisticians in the Andes within a broader framework of state building and the adoption of technologies of information.  Control of information was a critical issue for state makers in Latin America in the pursuit of administering populations and extending its jurisdiction.  I analyze the transition from an Ancien Regime, tax-based, religiously shaped way of administering the state to the rise of a technocratic modern bureaucracy.

The adoption of statistics meant a rapid transformation of the Peruvian state in terms of technology and infrastructure.  Fueled by the guano revenues, state makers sought the implementation of censuses and institutions that could provide regular and accurate data to an increasingly centralized state.  At the same time, this process meant competition and displacement in the task of collecting data among private agents and the Church through the creation of civil registers and municipalities.  Authorities regarded municipalities as an effective presence local representative of the state in order to displace parishes and priests in the task of collecting information from citizens.

Nonetheless, statistics as a central element of the modern state brought discontent and tension.  In the end, the collection of data proved to be a major challenge for Peruvian officers, who faced criticism and resistance from below.  My current research considers this ‘monopoly of information’ as one crucial element in the strategies taken by modern states in order to control mobility from citizens during the Age of Mass Migration in the Trans-Pacific circuit.