QUAD

Numbers increasingly govern public services. Both policymaking activities and administrative control are increasingly structured around calculations such as cost-benefit analyses, estimates of social and financial returns, measurements of performance and risk, benchmarking, quantified impact assessments, ratings and rankings, all of which provide information in the form of a numerical representation. Through quantification, public services have experienced a fundamental transformation from “government by rules” to “governance by numbers”, with fundamental implications not just for our understanding of the nature of public service itself, but also for wider debates about the nature of citizenship and democracy. This project scrutinizes the relationships between quantification, administrative capacity and democracy across three policy sectors (health/hospitals, higher education/universities, criminal justice/prisons) and four countries (France, Germany, Netherlands, UK). It offers a cross-national and cross-sectoral study of how managerialist ideas and instruments of quantification have been adopted and how they mattered. More specifically, it examines (i) how quantification has travelled across sectors and states; (ii) relations between quantification and administrative capacity; and (iii) how quantification has redefined relations between public service and liberal democratic understandings of public welfare, notions of citizenship, equity, accountability and legitimacy.

The research is being conducted by a multidisciplinary team of social scientists based in the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation at Mines ParisTech (France), the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University (Germany), the Department of Management Accounting and Control at Helmut-Schmidt University Hamburg (Germany) and the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University (Netherlands).

The three year research project is supported by more than €1.9million in research grant funding awarded through the “Open Research Area (ORA) for the Social Sciences” programme by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, France), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Germany), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, UK) and the Nederlands Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO, Netherlands).

ESRC grant Ref: ES/N018869/1

London School of Economics and Political Science,  Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation

Andrea Mennicken | Principal Investigator, UK, Project Coordinator

Andrei Guter-Sandu | Research Officer

Alex Griffiths  | Research officer | September 2016-October 2018

Martin Lodge

Liisa Kurunmäki

Peter Miller

Ecole des Mines de Paris (Mines ParisTech), Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation

Fabian Muniesa | Principal Investigator, France

Florence Paterson

Marie Alauzen

Alexandre Violle

University of Bielefeld, Faculty of Sociology

Michael Huber | Principal Investigator, Germany

Alfons Bora

Maarten Hillebrandt

Fabio Schiebel

Helmut-Schmidt University Hamburg

Tobias Scheytt

Christian Huber 

Nathalie Iloga Balep 

Jacob Reilley 

Leiden University, Institute of Political Science

Arjen Boin | Principal Investigator, Netherlands

Nadine Raaphorst

Academic Journal Articles: 

Kurunmäki, L., Mennicken, A., & Miller, P. (forthcoming 2019). Assembling calculative infrastructures. Accepted for publication in Research in the Sociology of Organizations.

Lodge, M., & Mennicken (forthcoming 2019). Reflecting on Public Service Regulation by Algorithm. Accepted for publication in “Algorithmic Regulation” edited by Lodge, M. and Yeung, K., Oxford University Press.

M.  Huber and M. Hillebrandt, “Pay for Promise in Higher Education”: The Influence of NPM on Resource Allocation in German Universities, Historical Social Research, 44 (2) – accepted for publication, 2019

J. Reilley and T. Scheytt, A Calculative Infrastructure in the Making: The Emergence of a Multi-Layered Complex for Governing Healthcare, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, forthcoming (2019)

J. Reilley, Making Quality Transparent: How Quantification is Implicated in Changing Norms for Governing Healthcare, in Transparency: Norms, Practices, Structures, forthcoming (2018)

Kurunmäki, L., Mennicken, A. and Miller, P. (2018): ‘Économicisation et démocratisation de la faillite: Inventer une procédure de défaillance pour les hôpitaux britanniques [Economising Failure, Democratising Failure: Designing a failure regime for NHS hospitals].’  Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 221-222: 80-99.

Mennicken, A. (2018): ‘The Powers of Quantification’, Review Symposium: Wendy Espeland and Michael Sauder, Engines of Anxiety: Academic Rankings, Reputation, and Accountability. New York, NY, Russell Sage Foundation, 2016, Socio-Economic Review 16 (1): 207-218.

Alex Griffiths and Meghan Leaver (2017): Wisdom of patients: predicting the quality of care using aggregated patient feedback. BMJ Quality & Safety. ISSN 2044-5415

Kurunmäki, L., Mennicken, A. and Miller, P. (2016): ‘Quantifying, Economising, and Marketising: Democratising the social sphere?’ Sociologie du travail 58, 390-402

Other Publications: 

2018

Alex Griffiths, Meghan Leaver and Roger King (June 2018): The Wisdom of Students: Monitoring Quality through Student Reviews, QAA

2017

Havergal, C. (2018). Student feedback on Facebook could be 'very useful' for regulators, Times Higher Education, 26 April 2018. Full report here.

Andrews, L., Benbouzid, B., Brice, J., Bygrave, L. A., Demortain, D., Griffiths, A., Lodge, M., Mennicken, A., Yeung, K. (2017): Algorithmic Regulation. CARR Discussion Paper 85. London: LSE, CARR. ISBN 2049-2718.

Lodge, M. and Mennicken, A. (2017): ‘A Public Service for All Seasons?’ Risk & Regulation, Winter 2017, pp. 6-8.

Mennicken, A. and Muniesa, F. (2017): ‘Governing Through Value: Public Service and the Asset Rationale.’ Risk & Regulation, Winter 2017, pp. 9-11.

Lodge, M. and Mennicken, A. (2017): ‘Regulation of and by Algorithm in Public Services.’ Risk & Regulation, Winter 2017, pp. 21-22

Balep, N. I. and Huber, C. (2017): 'Quantification times 16’. Risk & Regulation, Winter 2017.

Hillebrandt, M. and Huber, M. (2017): 'Trading promises for money: effects of quantification in the German higher education sector’. Risk & Regulation, Winter 2017.Who you gonna call? Myth-busters’. Risk & Regulation, Winter 2017.

Norderland, M. and Lodge M. (2017): 'Who you gonna call? Myth-busters’. Risk & Regulation, Winter 2017.

Lodge, M. and Mennicken, A. (2017): ‘Capacity in Regulation.’ Risk & Regulation, Summer 2017.

Reilley, J. and Scheytt, T. (2017): 'Governing through quantification: developing a calculative infrastructure for controlling quality in German hospitals’. Risk & Regulation, Summer 2017.

Griffiths, A. and Leaver, M. (2017): Predicting inspection outcomes using ‘patient voice’, Risk & Regulation, Summer 2017.

2016

Kurunmäki, L., Mennicken, A. and Miller, P. (2016): ‘Quantifying, Economising, and Marketising: Democratising the social sphere?’  Sociologie du travail 58, 390-402

2015

Quantification, Administrative Capacity and Democracy

QUAD - presentations

Planned for 2019

M. Hillebrandt and E. Ruijer: Panel on Quantified transparency in public service delivery: the (unforeseen) consequences of open managerial data, 6th Global Conference on Transparency Research, Rio de Janeiro, 26-27 June 2019.

M.  Huber and M. Hillebrandt: Organisation of workshop Quantifying Higher Education: Origins, Production, Consequences, University of Bielefeld, 27-29 March 2019

2018

A. Mennicken: Economising Failure, Democratising Failure: Designing a failure regime for NHS hospitals (paper with Kurunmaki and Miller). Presented at: University of Innsbruck (January 2018), RWTH Aachen (January 2018), CIDE (Centre for Research and Teaching in Economics), Mexico City (June 2018), (invited for presentation) University of Glasgow, HEC Paris, Amsterdam (dates to be confirmed)

J. Reilley, C. Huber: Attendance of International Workshop ‘New Public Sector Conference’ University of Edinburgh, 8-9 November 2018

M. Hillebrandt: Guaranteeing Equality in the Higher Education Sector: Through, or in Spite of Quantification?, Netherlands Institute of Governance conference, The Hague, 1-2 November 2018

Raaphorst, N. (2018). Street-level bureaucrats in ‘the iron cage’ of numbers? An empirical comparison of prison guards, university teachers and nurses in the Netherlands. Presented at the Netherlands Institute of Governance (NIG) Annual Work Conference, 1-2 November 2018, Leiden, The Netherlands.

M. Hillebrandt: Attendance of International Workshop ‘The Role of Visibility in Academic Evaluation: (E)valuation Studies in Science and Higher Education’, DZHW/Humboldt Universität, Berlin, 15-16 October  2018

M. Hillebrandt: Guaranteeing Equality in the Higher Education Sector: Through, or in Spite of Quantification?, EGPA Annual Conference, Lausanne, 6 September 2018

Raaphorst, N. (2018). Street-level bureaucrats in ‘the iron cage’ of numbers? An empirical comparison of prison guards, university teachers and nurses in the Netherlands. Presented at the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA) Conference, 4-5 September 2018, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Mennicken, Andrea & Fabian Muniesa (2018), "Governing through value: public service and the asset rationale", XIX World Congress of Sociology, 15-21 July 2018, Toronto, Canada.
URL: https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2018/webprogram/Paper91322.html

J. Reilley and C. Huber: A calculative infrastructure in the making: shifting modalities for governance in healthcare, 12^th IPA Conference, University of Edinburgh, 10-13 July 2018

J. Reilley, N. Iloga Balep and C. Huber: Negotiating metrics in the public sector: Variations of performance management in prisons and hospitals, 34^th EGOS Colloquium, Estonian Business School, 7 July 2018

N. Iloga Balep: When Vocation meets Quantification: The Empowerment of Experts in the German Prison Sector, ISA Conference, Toronto, July 2018

N. Iloga Balep and C. Huber: Framing organizational legitimacy in square meters: The appropriation of organizational space through quantification of cell size in prisons, 34^th EGOS Colloquium, Estonian Business School, 6 July 2018

Alauzen, Marie, Fabian Muniesa, Alexandre Violle (2018), "Exercising knowledge of costs: public service reform and the therapeutics of economic restraint", QUANTORG Seminar, 14 June 2018, Paris, France.
URL: http://www.csi.mines-paristech.fr/en/code-quantorg-seminar-archives/

M. Hillebrandt: Transparency as Quantification, poster presented at the Herrenhausen Conference Transparency and Society – Between Promise and Peril, Berlin, 12 June 2018

J. Reilley, and T. Scheytt: A calculative infrastructure in the making: shifting modalities for governance in healthcare, 41^th Annual EAA Conference, Bocconi University, Milan, 29 May 2018

N. Iloga Balep and C. Huber: Quantifying the ‘in-between’ of prisons using indicators: The tension between security and resocialization through the lens of liminality, 41^th Annual EAA Conference, Bocconi University, Milan, 29 May 2018

A. Mennicken: Invited presentation at conference “Technology and the disruption of professional work”, King’s Business School, King’s College London, May 2018; paper presented “Regulation of and by algorithm” (co-authored with Lodge)

N. Iloga Balep and J. Junne: “Free” and “Unfree” Money in German Prisons: The Role of Budgets in Reconstructing Prisoners as Citizens, 22^nd IRSPM Conference, University of Edinburgh, 11-13 April 2018

M. Huber: The Risk University. Buenos Aires, 22 March 2018

J. Reilley, T. Scheytt: Negotiating metrics in the public sector: Variations of performance management in prisons and hospitals, Organization and Valuation Workshop, DGS, University of Bremen, February 2018

M. Hillebrandt: Constructing the Public Sector User through Quantification, Quickborner Kreis meeting, Quickborn, 7 January 2018

2017

J. Reilley, N. Iloga Balep, C. Huber, T. Scheytt: Diverging calculative infrastructures: Valuing performance in hospitals and prisons in Germany, Cultures of Valuation Workshop, DGS, University of Cologne, 10 November 2017

M. Hillebrandt: Quantifying the User in Public Sector Regulatory Reform, Netherlands Institute of Government Annual Work Conference, 10 November 2017

M. Huber: From “Pay per performance” to “Pay for Promise”: The effects of allocation models on the German universities, Workshop on Governing by Numbers: Key Indicators and the Politics of Expectations, University of Halle-Wittenberg, 5-7 October 2017

A. Mennicken: Economising Failure, Democratising Failure: Designing a failure regime for NHS hospitals (paper with Kurunmaki and Miller). Presentations at Strathclyde University and Leicester University. Presentation at conference “Historical Perspectives on Neoliberal  Society”, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany, 13-14 July

M. Hillebrandt: Pay for performance and the development of organisational capabilities, 33^rd EGOS Colloquium, CBS, Copenhagen, 8 July 2017

Mennicken, Andrea & Fabian Muniesa (2017), "Governing through value: public service and the asset rationale", 33rd EGOS Colloquium, 6-8 July 2017, Copenhagen, Denmark.
URL: https://www.egosnet.org/jart/prj3/egos/main.jart?rel=de&reserve-mode=active&content-id=1442567999321&subtheme_id=1442568082016&show_prog=yes

M. Hillebrandt: Quantifying the User in Public Sector Regulatory Reform (with Hillebrandt, M., Mennicken, A., Van Kleef, D., Griffiths, A. and Reilley, J.), 33^rd EGOS Colloquium, CBS, Copenhagen, 7 July 2017

A. Mennicken :  Governing through value: Public service and the asset rationale (with Muniesa, F.), presented at the 33rd EGOS Colloquium, July 2017, Copenhagen, Denmark

A. Mennicken : Assembling calculative infrastructures (with Kurunmäki, L. and Miller, P.), presented at the 33rd EGOS Colloquium, July 2017, Copenhagen, Denmark

A. Mennicken: Invited panellist “Author meets critics panel”, SASE 29th Annual Conference hosted by the Université Claude Bernard - Lyon 1, 29 June - 1 July, 2017; invited as critic of Wendy Espeland and Michael Sauder’s book “Engines of Anxiety: Academic Rankings, Reputation, and Accountability” (Russell Sage, 2016). Co-panellists Marion Fourcade, University of California at Berkeley, and Christine Musselin, SciencesPo, Paris.

N. Iloga Balep and C. Huber: Quantifying the good prison: The tension between security and resocialization through the lens of space, 33^rd EGOS Colloquium, CBS, Copenhagen, 7 July 2017

J. Reilley and T. Scheytt: A calculative infrastructure in the making: shifting modalities for governance in healthcare, 33^rd EGOS Colloquium, CBS, Copenhagen, 7 July 2017

M. Hillebrandt: Quantification as transparency, 5^th Global Conference on Transparency Research, University of Limerick, 20 June 2017

J. Reilley, C. Huber: Valuing alternative visibility: incorporating the rated into a web-based valuation device, AOS Workshop Valuation, Technology and Society, University of Leicester, 23 April 2017

C. Huber, T. Scheytt, N. Iloga Balep, J. Reilley: Quantification in the public sector: Conceptual reflections and a research agenda, Annual Conference for Management Accounting Research, Wilhelm Otto Business School, Vallendar, March 2017

A. Mennicken: Invited presentation on “Accounting, Economizing, Democratizing” (with P. Miller, LSE); Foucault, Political Life and History working group led by Colin Gordon and Patrick Joyce, London, February 2017

A. Mennicken: Invited presentation at workshop “From Prices to Prizes and Vice Versa”, University of Bologna, January 2017; paper presented “Quantifying and Valuing Life at the Margins: Ratings and Rankings in Healthcare and Correctional Services”

2016

A. Mennicken “Economising Failure, Democratising Failure: Designing a failure regime for NHS hospitals” (with Kurunmäki, L. and Miller, P.), presented at CARR workshop “Quantification in Crisis”, LSE, December 2016

A. Mennicken. Invited speaker at the conference ‘Collecting, Sorting, Ordering: Practices of Listing in Popular Culture’, University of Siegen, October 2016.

A. Mennicken “Valuation and the Quantification of Life: Healthcare and Correctional Services” (with Kurunmäki, L. and Miller, P.), presented at 4S/EASST Conference BCN-2016, Science and Technology by other means, T064: Valuation practices at the margins, Barcelona, August/September 2016

2016      

Organisation of Workshop “Quantification in Crisis” at the LSE (with L. Cabane, CARR, LSE), 15 December 2016 (workshop was part of the CARR ESRC Seminar Series “Regulation in Crisis” and jointly organised with the French IFRIS Seminar Series “The shaping and government of crises”)