Guest Article: Magic Numbers? Why the Politics of Indices Are a Problem Rather Than a Solution | SDG Knowledge Hub
By Paul Jackson, Professor, School of Government and Society, University of Birmingham, UK, and Louis Meuleman, Visiting Professor, Public Governance Institute, Leuven University, Belgium. Both are members of the UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA).
In Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the supercomputer Deep Thought calculated the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, as ’42’. In a similar way, numerical indices seek to distil complex systems into simple numbers that provide comparable rankings. We argue that such approaches can be as problematic as they are useful.
The think tank Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) recently published its annual SDG index, which ranks the progress countries have made on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. As usual, the highest-ranking countries are Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Bhutan, a country known for having sustainable development at the heart of its policy and practice, ranks only 70th. In the SDSN index, Ireland ranks ninth. As Ireland ranks second in the Transitions Performance Index published by the European Commission, and only 15th in the World Happiness Index (also by SDSN), we might conclude that excellent transition performance does not make people happy; or could these indices be based on different assumptions and data?
Rankings frequently influence how state behavior is perceived, how states react, and how they develop responsive strategies. However, rankings always contain value judgments, methodological choices, and also implicit political aims. Uncritical acceptance of rankings can therefore lead to unintended internalization of normative assumptions that could lead to poorer, not better, public policy outcomes.
Dozens of global actors, national organizations, private sector actors, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) currently issue rankings. The ‘Big Three’ private credit agencies rate and rank the creditworthiness of states. An international NGO, Transparency International, produces a Corruption Perceptions Index. The World Bank’s Doing Business Index rates regulatory environments. The US NGO Freedom House stratifies states into “Free,” “Partly free,” and “Not free.”
Over the last two decades, international ranking indices have emerged as an important tool for those engaged in governance. Governments are now ranked by a bewildering array of indices aimed at a wide range of national policymakers, transnational activists, bureaucrats, and media. They are based on at least three related trends: 1) the wider use of performance management in modern political life; 2) the strengthening of global networks and the need for standardization, comparability, and evaluation; and 3) the expansion of new data sources and the use of new technologies.
