Globalizing comparisons: performance measurement and the 'numerical difference' in global governance.

In this contribution we investigate the prominent role of numbers and quantitative comparisons in establishing and sustaining global governance. More particularly, taking our lead from recent studies of global governance and from Foucauldian studies of governmentality, we focus on public performance measurements. We start by very briefly reviewing the initial indications for the prominent role of performance measurement in global governance. The second section deals with the unique qualities of numbers in contrast to other media of communication like, for example, words and pictures. In analogy to claims of an "iconic difference" in picture studies we will speak of a "numerical difference". In the third section we explore how global governance is reproduced locally by performers attending to the production and circulation of performance measurements, supplementing the macrosociological view of the first two parts with a couple of micro-sociological qualifications. We conclude with several hypotheses concerning the effectiveness of governing by numbers in different social settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]