Critical theory—Frankfurtian, Gramscian, Foucauldian—has for decades, for more than half a century in fact, highlighted the tendency of modern societies, states, economic systems and cultural practices to rely on increasing quantification of social life: description of complex unobservable social processes through seemingly neutral observable and quantifiable measures and indeces. These measures may usefully allow us to simplify description and causal analysis in the complex open system we call the social world, but for critical theorists the aspiration to quantify is not only driven by a problematic ‘positivist’ understanding of knowledge but also ‘does’ something significant in societies we live in. Quantification expands into social and political life forms of ideological control and a mode of ‘unthinking,’ what Frankfurt Schoolers called ‘instrumental rationality.’ Quantification reflects and leads to the tendency to seek to ‘solve’ problems, intervene in the social world, without reflection on the values, which underpin definitions of ‘problems.’ Quantification leads to technicalisation and depoliticisation of knowledge but also, through hiding of normative judgements, implicitly ideological modes of living and inability to decipher the role of ideology in our everyday life.
This important, timely, volume Ranking the World: Grading States as a Tool of Global Governance, edited by Alexander Cooley and Jack Snyder, taps into the long-standing interest in practices of knowing through quantification and grading, and asks what roles such practices play today in international politics. That said, the starting point for this volume is not critical theoretical, although critical theoretical frames are considered as one way in when analyzing grading of states. That this is not a critical theory volume may be both a weakness and a strength in this contribution. It may be a weakness in that many critical theorists will point out that the fundamental insights of critical theory with regard to ‘explaining’ these trends towards quantification are not systematically explored here. Yet, in many ways the fact that this contribution has ‘moved on’ from critical theory inquiry is also an important strength in that it advances into the ‘mainstream’ of IR analysis a keen interest in and an open-minded set of conceptual tools to analyze the very important issue of ‘grading states.’
This issue is important to engage because empirically the ‘grading of states’ is an undeniable, and very significant, dynamic in today’s international politics. As the editors and authors successfully show, understanding grading practices is of considerable significance today because in many diverse areas of policy practice grading practices structure, in a highly politically significant fashion, both international interventions and state responses. States and other international actors if you like have to ‘think’ and ‘act’ within the constant and relentless drive for quantification; utilizing rankings, negotiating them, and manipulating them. As the individual chapters demonstrate, whether it is in structuring of financial markets through grading of states by credit agencies (Abdelal and Blyth), construction of ‘good life’ through corruption indeces (Bukovansky), ratings of ‘state failure’ (Bhuta) or democratic qualities of states (Gunitsky), or evaluation of their ‘business environment’ (Schueth), quantification, statistical analysis and grading are central to practices of international organizations and other interveners (‘anti-corruption activists,’ ‘democracy promoters’). And this is not all: at the same time the increased use of indeces and grading also creates an impetus towards less nuanced, less reflective kind of knowledge production processes in international politics. Indeed, as editors point out (p. 191) where official agencies and journalists used to carefully analyze nuances of knowledge and judgment in relation to public policy, there is now a tendency to ‘abdicate’ this role to the graders of states.
As the book very successfully demonstrates despite the expansion of the use of these tools they come with severe problems, as each of the chapters illustrates. In validity and reliability of the data various issues arise and questions should be raised also about how data is aggregated. Further, as Bhuta’s excellent chapter points out we should also inquire as to how data is communicated ‘aesthetically,’ e.g. through colour coding of ranked states. This volume is an important contribution in demonstrating and documenting in detail the various methodological and definitional problems, and the political consequences thereof, in how grading is conducted.
Yet, as the conclusion by the editors shows, the aim of the volume is not to challenge the use of grading as such but to improve how it is conducted and reflected on. This may appear as a little curious to some readers, at least to those informed by critical theoretical leanings. This is because, from their angle, considerable problems are raised not just by validity and reliability of the data, but also, and fundamentally, about by what this type of knowledge ‘does’ and is ‘reflective of’ (that is, the structuring of social life through capitalist ideology). Now, the book does take on discussion of what grading does. In the introduction the editors raise four possibilities as to the role of grading and graders: gradings can play the role of expert judges over performance of states, can act as mechanisms of global regulation and monitoring, can be utilized as advocacy tools, and play a role in state ‘branding.’ These roles are all important but for critical theorists the ‘deeper’ implicit functions of these tools would be the core issue: perhaps grading is about an expansion of a particular ‘rationality,’ a particular constraining or structuring of our minds and reflective abilities. If so, the turn back to wish to ‘perfect it’ may be problematic, and more consequential, than is recognized by the editors.
That said, the book has a vital role in pointing to important methodological and definitional problems in grading. As many of the chapters recognize there are no neutral definitions of corruption or democracy to be had and thus any effort to grade inevitably takes normative or ideological stance on definitions of contested terms and what this means needs to be taken on, by donors, graders and NGOs. To do so is to accept and recognize the role normative decisions and ideologies play in seemingly neutral judgments in international politics. To do so, also, is perhaps to tackle another aspect of these practices, hinted at in Bhuta’s chapter and picked up again in the conclusion: reliance on grading practices seems to be linked to actors avoiding taking responsibility in international politics. This is intriguing to me, especially with David Chandler recent analysis of ‘hollow hegemony’ in mind. The combined effect of aiming for seemingly ‘precise’ knowledge but with little reflection on definitional problems is that policy practices often end up lacking not just reflection but crucially strategic engagement, with the consequence that political responsibility is no longer assumed by any actor as such. Further investigation of this function of grading may be beneficial for this research agenda and, indeed, for our understanding of various ‘soft’ forms of international intervention, to which—seamlessly—grading practices are tied.
