A Quiet Exercise of Power: Quantification and the Global Circulation of Expertise

With the shift toward evidence-based governance, new forms of knowledge are required to specify legal concepts and evaluate compliance.  The forms of expertise and the models used to develop quantitative indicators reflect existing global power relationships, particularly those dividing rich and poor nations.  The capacity to define the categories for numerical knowledge is typically vested in national and global elites rather than local communities.  As in the colonial era, the use of quantified forms of knowledge represents a quiet exercise of power.  A focus on the production of three prominent human rights indicators underscores the importance of examining how, by whom, and with what underlying theories quantitative knowledge is produced.