The Power of Numbers

Pati Siuda, Sydney Whitby

 AIM

To explore the origin and role of statistics within

the state
Objectives
1. To be able to explain the origin of statistics
2. Be able to distinguish between ancient and modern uses of statistics in the state
3. To understand the mechanism of the census and its importance in state building
4. To examine the implication of statistics within different political systems
Roadmap

Discussion Discussion
Definition of question: question:
statistics Modern data Inclusion or
2 4
legibility 6

1 3 5

Compare Compare US Discussion

premodern & & French question:
modern uses census Modern
statistics
Statistics ->

Status ->

Government or state

Is it a phenomena in its own right?

Statistical System

“System for the production, distribution,

and use of numerical information.”
Cognitive

Social
Measurement &
Control

What causes statistical

systems to be
established?

● They serve an interest

in social coordination
and control

● Financial
● Organization
● Authority
 Premodern
● “Nothing but a valuation of a man’s
goods” - Jean Bodin
● Limited to males, particular age groups,
and classes
● Non-distinguishable from the state (no
privatization)
● No production of information
● Census is a secret (shhhhh)
● Reason: to keep people under
surveillance and control
Modern
● Entire population, not just males or
high class
● Household >>> individual
(property)
● Expected to be published
● Statistical agencies distinguished from
the State
● Focus on the individual
● Reason: the production of quantitative
information
According to Starr,

The modern census is an inversion of the premodern

&

“The modern state presumes a cooperative relation between a state and its
citizens rather than a coercive relation between the state and its subjects”

coercion + force >>>>>> cooperation (?)

Do you feel like you “cooperate” with the state in your information providing?

How does this fit in with Foucault’s ideas on discipline and power?
Meta- modernism?
What about 2023?
● Data science, BIG data, privatization of statistics

Does big data change things?

The Origin of Statistics
● Serve an interest in social coordination and control
● It requires financial resources, organization, and
authority
● The stakes of statistics are high considering the
results can be (not just surveillance BUT)
allocation of money and power, setting of norms,
making policy, evaluation of govnt. Performance.

●
 State building & mechanics of census

- The greater authority over economic and social aspects, the greater the detail
and volume of statistical inquiry
- E.g. Colonies, Nazi Germany
- As long as statistics were associated with taxation, the development of the state
was limited
- Gathering reliable official statistics requires cooperation

- Evolve with time

- Formed by norms and practices at given historical moment
 The US France

● First census had 3 racial categories: ● Recording nationality and place of

○ Free whites, other free persons birth
and slaves ● Model of integration; no cultural
● 1960 - able to choose their own race distinctiveness
● 2000 - able to choose more than one ○ Reinforces assimilation to the
race nation
● Recognizing different identities

https://www.pewresearch.org/interactives/what-
census-calls-us/
 Discussion Question

Are ethnic/racial categories in a census a form of legibility? Or a way of

acknowledging diversity?
 Statistics and political systems

Autocracy
Democracy

● Extending the rule to both the state ● Rule limited to the state

and people; Cooperation ● Censorship; lack of publicity

● Publicity of the results ● Serves to create a better image by
● Public recognition of different ‘fudging’ the data
identities and its importance
 Discussion Question

Can we consider modern statistics democratic?

Takeaway

Despite Starr insinuating that modern statistics are segregated from the state,
statistics and the state are essential to each other for power
References
Alenda-Demoutiez, J. (2022). Statistical conventions and the forms of the state: a story of South African statistics. New Political Economy, 27(3), 532-
545.

Simon, P. (2008). The Choice of Ignorance: The Debate on Ethnic and Racial Statistics in France. French Politics, Culture & Society,
26(1), 7–31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42843526

Starr, Paul (1987). ‘Statistical Systems in the Making: Origins and Development’ (excerpted from ‘The Sociology of Official
Statistics’), in W. Alonso and P. Starr (eds.), The Politics of Numbers, New York: Russell Sage.