Considering the socio‐economic and cultural diversity of the world, it is a bold undertaking by international organisations to propose welfare policies designed to apply to all or many countries. We argue that since the 1990s, new instruments of quantification have extended the knowledge base of international organisations, helping them to design and communicate policy proposals with a global scope. We map these numerical instruments in the field of basic income protection, showing that they serve to identify global social problems and to design global models of welfare. Three case studies illustrate the findings. To make sense of the spread of quantification, we draw on world society theory, arguing that the numerical instruments create a global space of observation, comparison and deliberation regarding social reform. We conclude that numerical instruments have facilitated the expansion of global social protection since the 1990s, but have also narrowed social concerns in the process.
All websites referenced were accessible in November 2020. This edition of the Digest covers the period from June 2020 to September 2020.
COVID-19 and its containment measuresWhile the effects of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and its COVID-19 disease continue to be felt by all, new and pre-existing inequities continue to be exacerbated amid efforts to cope with and contain the pandemic. In September 2020, Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet, argued that COVID-19 is not only a pandemic, but in many places, a syndemic, 'characterized by biological and social interactions between conditions and states, interactions that increase a person's susceptibility to harm or worsen their health outcomes'. 1 Containing and mitigating the negative effects of COVID-19 is a political choice, and recognizing this crisis as a syndemic in places where containment and mitigation efforts have failed 'allows us to recognize how political and social factors drive, perpetuate, or worsen the emergence and clustering of disease'. 2 As discussed throughout the current and preceding issue of the GSP Digest, promoting an equitable and sustainable transition and recovery from COVID-19 will require 'a larger vision, one encompassing education, employment, housing, food, and environment'. 3 As of 30 September 2020, a total of 33.6 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported globally since 30 December 2019 according to the World Health Organization (WHO), resulting in over 1 million deaths. 4,5 From June 2020 to September 2020, the Americas were the epicenter of COVID-19, with signs of a second wave threatening in Europe by the end of September 2020. The WHO transitioned from daily to weekly epidemiological reporting in August 2020 and began providing a weekly operational update as well. 6 For a list of relevant databases tracking COVID-19 policy responses across countries, please see GSP Digest 20.3.
The article investigates the production of decent work indicators within the ILO, to demonstrate that developing measurement infrastructures in global policymaking requires political work. The concept of decent work responds to the perceived marginalization of the ILO in social and labor policy and was supposed to provide a new unifying normative framework for the organization. The article shows that creating decent work indicators encountered challenges due to its highly politicized production process. Proponents of quantification (mostly workers’ representatives) and opponents (mostly employers’ representatives) disagreed about the function of indicators: should they be country-specific or allow for universal assessment of progress from above. In effect, although indicators of decent work have been integrated into the Sustainable Development Goals—mostly as part of goal no. 8, many are still incomplete. As a result, the indicators did not establish a “framework of assessment,” which would have been guided by universal standards of progress allowing the ILO to “govern at a distance,” and could not initiate a paradigmatic policy shift, impeding the infrastructuralization of measurement. Theoretically, the article advances our understanding of policy formulation and design on the transnational level by showing the political foundation of knowledge-based instruments. Empirically, it rests on a Grounded Theory-based analysis of key ILO documents, including Governing Body minutes, conference and expert meeting reports, and official publications, mainly from the period from 1998 to 2015.
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