The Social Sciences of Quantification

Chapter 1 Introduction. The Social Sciences of Quantification in France: An Overview

Chapter 2 Introduction to the work of Alain Desrosières: the history and sociology of quantification

Chapter 3 Alain Desrosières’s reflexive numbers

Chapter 4 Alain Desrosières’s spectacles: one lens realist, the other constructivist

Chapter 5 From statistics to international quantification: a dialogue with Alain Desrosières

Chapter 6 Learning from the history of the probabilistic revolution: the French school of Alain Desrosières

Chapter 7 Quantifying the effects of public action on the unemployed: disputes between experts and the rethinking of labour market policies in France (1980-2000)

Chapter 8 Counting the homeless in Europe: ‘compare before harmonising’

Chapter 9 The statistical backbone of the new European economic governance: the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure Scoreboard

Chapter 10 Evaluating public policies or measuring the performance of public services?

Chapter 11 Private accounting, statistics and national accounting in France: a unique relationship (1920-1960s)

Chapter 12 Figures for what purposes? The issues at stake in the struggles to define and control the uses of statistics

Chapter 13 The uses of quantification: power and resistance. The example of unemployment statistics

Chapter 14 Statistical argument: construction, uses and controversies. Prices and purchasing power

Chapter 15 The quantification of the social sciences: an historical comparison