The Quiet Power of Indicators

This highly accessible book investigates the rankings that increasingly influence perceptions of countries' governance and civil rights.

This highly accessible volume investigates the rankings that increasingly define perceptions of countries' rule of law, governance, corruption, freedom, and democracy. Special attention is given to viewpoints in countries impacted by rankings, with authors from Romania, Albania, Colombia, Kenya and South Africa, as well as the US and the UK.Using a power-knowledge framework, this volume critically investigates how major global indicators of legal governance are produced, disseminated and used, and to what effect. Original case studies include Freedom House's Freedom in the World indicator, the Global Reporting Initiative's structure for measuring and reporting on corporate social responsibility, the World Justice Project's measurement of the rule of law, the World Bank's Doing Business index, the World Bank-supported Worldwide Governance Indicators, the World Bank's Country Performance Institutional Assessment (CPIA), and the Transparency International Corruption (Perceptions) index. Also examined is the use of performance indicators by the European Union for accession countries and by the US Millennium Challenge Corporation in allocating US aid funds.