The Intractable Logic of Quantification

• In Event: 3450 - Evaluating People, Work, and Organizations

Abstract

Drawing on a 24-month ethnographic study of the effects of quantitative evaluations on a Korean university, this paper identifies specific social processes that make quantification powerful and intractable. We argue that the power of quantification is better understood when it is conceptualized as a cultural logic and show how one administrative unit––the Ranking Management Department–– spread a cultural logic of quantification by mobilizing and combining calculative tools, authorities, manpower, material structures, and cultural scripts. We specify six mechanisms that contribute to the entrenchment of quantification. They are becoming a central statistical organization, surveillance, standardization, modification, participation, and comparison. These processes provide institutional foundations for quantification and make quantification stable.

Authors

• Hyunsik Chun, University of Iowa

• Michael Sauder, University of Iowa