Organisation Effects of Indicator Use.

A Policy Analysis of the World Bank in the Field of Poverty

Katja Freistein

Abstract: In order to support the global distribution of knowledge and enhance the potency of their ideas,

international organisations like the World Bank employ indicators and other instruments that seem objective and

easily accessible in any given context. Beyond producing certain kinds of knowledge in the global sphere, the

creation of ever new indicators can be understood as a self-generating practice of international organisations that

ensure their competence and mandate to act against poverty. Drawing on Focaultian governmentality studies, the

article studies several key examples of poverty indicators of the World Bank to identify the ambiguous effects of

and rationales for employing indicators by organisations.

Key Words: Indicators; international organisation; poverty; governmentality; World Bank

1. Introduction

For a variety of reasons, international organisations like the World Bank employ indicators.

Indicators (and other similar instruments) seem objective and easily accessible in any given

context, thus allowing for almost universal translatability. At least this is the fiction of

indicator use. While useful and omnipresent in many policy fields (Svendsen/Bjornskov 2007,

Lee/Whitford 2009), indicators have also been criticised and discussed as instruments of

exerting power and subduing alternative knowledge (Arndt/Oman 2007). In the field of

poverty, international organisations have developed an increasing number of quantifiable

indicators and measures to assess problems and indicate solutions. In fact, new indicators are

being produced continuously, adding to a global web of ever new indices and indicators.

Beyond producing certain kinds of knowledge in the global sphere, I would argue, the

creation of ever new indicators can be understood as a practice of the self-generation of

organisations that ensure both their competence for a specific policy field and their mandate

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to offer solutions. On top of that, indicators can serve as tools of legitimising the organisation

towards the global public as well as its own members and as a (specific) instrument of

communication with other organisations. These are organisation effects of indicator use.

Drawing on organisational research and governmentality studies, the article studies the use of

indicator as organisational practices, focusing not only on the impact they have within a

certain policy field but also on the role they play for organisations. Mirroring insights on

human rights and other indicators (Espeland/Sauder 2007, Rosga/Satterthwaite 2009, Merry

2011), the paper aims to show functions and effects of global poverty indicators, focusing on

the practices of the World Bank to illustrate these effects. Poverty reduction is one of the most

accepted, yet at the same time controversially discussed goals of global development policies

(Hulme 2012). Since much in-depth and inspiring research has already been conducted on the

phenomenon of poverty itself, on the usefulness of certain indicators and the preferability of

others (on a similar debate, see Anand et al. 2009), these issues will be omitted here.

Outside the study of one set of indicators the paper will also take into account some other key

technologies of poverty measurement and their effects, since they are closely related to the

quantifiable indicators such as the poverty headcount ratio or the poverty gap. The intricate

web of indicators and related instruments is already a potential result of the assumed effects,

namely what Sally Merry calls knowledge and governance effects (2011: 84), framing them as

“sociological aspects of the expansion of indicators”. The paper will utilise these

considerations to discern the political consequences of employing poverty indicators.

Furthermore, it identifies a third function of indicators, broadly called organisation effect,

which pertains to the power of indicators not exerted by the organisations that produce them

but on the organisations themselves. Using indicators has established path dependencies that

have led to a self-generative dynamic that perpetuates itself, making the creation of ever new

indicators almost inevitable for organisations to ascertain their relevance. The paper starts by

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introducing the conceptual underpinnings of studying indicators. In a second step, the three

different effects of indicator use are described and analysed.

2. Governing by Indicators

In the analysis of the role of poverty measurement in the World Bank, the paper draws on

related analytical frameworks that can be seen as instructive for the questions raised. The

main frame of reference is the trans-disciplinary research literature on indicators, audits and

the general question of comparing (e.g. Espeland/Sauder 2007, Espeland/Stevens 2008,

Hansen/Porter 2012), particularly the work of Sally Merry with regard to human rights

indicators (Merry 2011, Davis/Kingsbury/Merry 2012). The paper will also link up to the

growing body of literature on governmentalities that aims to show how people are governed

by the subtle means available to the liberal state – or, on the global level, the organisations

derived from it (Burchell/Gordon/Miller 1991, Dean 2007, Neumann/Sending 2010). The

paper is particularly interested in the power aspects of indicators and indicator use. Finally,

for the sake of accounting for organisational practices the paper builds on neo-institutionalist

theory, according to which organisations operate in the context of a rationalised Weberian

“World Culture”, which also brings forth techniques like indicators that help to diffuse its

models of governance (Boli/Thomas 1999).

An emerging branch of governance research has come to re-interpret the Foucaultian concept

of governmentality (gouvernementalité), originally referring to states, in terms of political

processes beyond the nation-state. This Foucaultian perspective – only briefly introduced

here – may also prove interesting in the case of indicators; indeed, some studies have referred

to governmental practices in this context (Sokhi-Bulley 2011). Studies about

governmentalities focus on the contingent nature, on the instruments and on the contested

practices of governance that include both state and non-state actors (Merlingen 2006: 195).

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Moreover, in the age of governmentality power is only legitimate if it is justified rationally.

Based mainly on observations of the liberal state, Foucault developed a loose concept of

governmentality as the form of rule not over a territory, a state or a political structure, but over

and through the people. According to this idea, the ultimate goal in a given governmentality is

“governing bodies” (Foucault 1998), as politics are not a sphere strictly separable from

private lives but inclusive of every subject or “body”. Yet, people do not become mere

subjects to power but are also able and indeed instrumental to exercise it. The subjects of

politics cannot be ruled by threat, but have to be induced to govern themselves.

In Foucaultian terms, a governmentality consists of two core principles: political rationalities

and political technologies (Merlingen 2006: 183). Political rationalities are about “the

changing discursive fields within which the exercise of power is conceptualised, the moral

justifications for particular ways of exercising power by diverse authorities, notions of the

appropriate forms, objects and limits of politics” (Rose/Miller 1992: 175). Governmental (or

political) technologies consist of “the complex of mundane programmes, calculations,

techniques, apparatuses, documents and procedures through which authorities seek to embody

and give effect to governmental ambitions” (Rose/Miller 1992: 175). That makes the role of

knowledge and expertise crucial. What may be presented or conceived of as neutral, rational

knowledge and, therefore, seemingly apolitical are highly politicised attempts at determining

what is to be perceived as “normal” (Rose/Miller 1992). Resistance against governmental

rationalities and technologies is difficult, since they are usually normalised to a degree where

they become hard to even identify. Yet, non-compliance or even a complete opting-out of

certain practices could be considered resistance against the governmental influence

(Merlingen 2006).

Tying in with the literature on governance techniques, governmentalities and their

technologies and rationalities to regulate the life of people beyond the nation-state (Douglas

1999, Walters/Haarb 2005, Miller/Rose 2008, Foucault 2009, 2010), the more general

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observation how quantifications and global comparisons have structured (international)

policies can be specified as to the functions and consequences of indicator use (Hansen/Porter

2012). Slightly deviating from Merry and others, effects can be reformulated as both functions

and consequences of indicators and measurements in general. Merry (2011) identifies two

main effects with various different functions, namely a) a knowledge effect and b) a

governance effect (84).1 Both effects refer to similar assumptions as governmentality studies

about normalisation effects of expertise and the presentation of knowledge as neutral and

rational.

While their various effects cannot all be accounted for here, indicator use is a standard tool of

(international) organisations and has become established within a logic of rationality and

effectiveness, prevalent in their social environment: “Organizations that do so increase their

legitimacy and their survival prospects, independent of the immediate efficacy of the acquired

practices and procedures” (Meyer/Rowan 1977: 340). As a consequence, a third effect can be

identified with regards to the practices of international organisation. It shifts the analytical

angle from the outside communications of organisations to their inside. If we assume that

organisations are in constant need of reproducing themselves in order to remain meaningful

vis-à-vis their environment, we can see indicators as an important practice of self-generation

and identity-building through self-legitimation (Barker 2001). Thus, the path dependencies

produced by using indicators have ensured the continuous creation of new indicators,

aggregate indices etc. – for instance due to their almost universal employability. Indicators

need not be the most efficient form of organisational practices or, in fact, correspond to

current shortcomings. Instead, they have already become rituals that contribute to the stability

and social reproduction of organisations.

1 In a more detailed enumeration of what indicators do (Davies/Kingsbury/Merry 2011), global governance effects are explicated and detailed as including 1) a topology of governance, 2) standard-setting, 3) decision-making (including 3.1 efficiency, 3.2 consistency, 3.3 transparency, 3.4 scientific authority, 3.5 impartiality), 4) contestation and 5) regulation. Here, a concentration on two effects is sufficient, since the main focus is on the organisation effects, which are not part of either list of effects.

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In the following chapter, I will illustrate the three effects of indicator use, pointing to practices

of the World Bank in the field of poverty reduction.

3. The Effects of Measuring Poverty

Much of the debate about poverty and strategies for eradicating its worst forms has been

dominated by the question how to measure it best (Ravallion 2003). The idea that poverty can

and needs to be measured has long become established in development discourse; it has been

taken up by both supporters and critics of anti-poverty politics. Disagreement has mostly

evolved over the right measures and not the fact of measuring itself. By definition, poverty

can be measured in contrast to non-poverty (however heterogeneous a group of non-poor

could be), particularly in the case of absolute poverty, and with regard to a certain political (or

national economic) entity. The point of reference for most monetary (money-metric)

indicators of poverty is the so-called ‘poverty line’, separating the poor and non-poor in a

given context, usually the nation-state. Different measurements, including the poverty

headcount as well as the poverty gap and squared poverty gap, serve to make different

statements about entities and their relation towards the poverty line, that is, as above or below

the line, distance from the poverty line and relations within a group with a certain distance

from the poverty line.

As agenda-setters, institutionalisers of knowledge and operating agencies, intergovernmental

organisations have become crucial in defining and fighting poverty (Woods 2006), pushing

certain indicators that are not always in line with the indicators of other organisations. The

paper thus builds on the observation that indicators have played a vital role in the field of

global poverty reduction, for instance as parts of the Millennium Development Goals that will

now come to an end in 2015, as points of reference in the debate about human development

and even in the context of fighting global terrorism and global inequalities. Beyond the

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critical link between the tangible reality of poverty and ways to measure it (for example

reflected in debates about non-monetary or multi-dimensional measures of poverty), it is thus

interesting to scrutinise the various ways poverty has been measured, mapped, labelled, linked

and reproduced in order to understand the effects these techniques have had. The following

analysis of poverty measurement is focused on some of the main instruments the World Bank

has employed (Sindzingre 2004) and builds on interviews conducted with staff members

mainly from the World Bank Development Research Group.2 While systematic in their focus

on the distinct effects of indicators, the examples given have been chosen to exemplify these

effects and are illustrative rather than comprehensive with regard to the overall anti-poverty

policy of the World Bank.

3.1 Knowledge Effects

In the field of poverty measurement, we find a broad array of quantitative indicators, ranging

from clearly poverty-focused ones to poverty-relevant in a more implicit sense; we find

graphical depictions, based on indicators, including world maps and other visualising tools.

There are indicators that are composites of other indicators, such as the World Development

Indicator as well as the (relatively new) Human Opportunity Index with only weak links to

poverty reduction, but sometimes used in the context of the poverty debate. We are even

offered a tool to (re)calculate and analyse poverty in countries ourselves, using World Bank

data (see below). All of these indicators have knowledge effects. The form of this knowledge

depends on the specific characteristics of its presentation – as objectified, quantified, neutral,

or in short, as numbers (Espeland/Stevens 2008). Numbers exert some influence on how they

should be received; they seem easily translatable, re-countable, and apt to travel

(Hansen/Porter 2012). More even, they seem exempt from any of the ambiguities that other

narrative forms produce.

2 Interviews conducted in Washington in October 2012 and March 2014.

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That, however, is true only insofar as numbers are independent of interpretation – which they

never are – and suggest a certain isolation from these other forms. Yet, indicators are not

detached; they are embedded in webs of other indicators and various instruments that also

contribute to exerting influence on how people perceive and use them. They function as a

rationalised language specific to a certain form of ‘world culture’ (Boli/Thomas 1999). Even

the use of indicators as such can be accounted for by pointing to the knowledge effects

exerted by standardisation, supported by the growing influence of international organisations

as actors of international society (Boli/Thomas 1999: 173).

The World Bank is not only a knowledge bank in the sense that it provides knowledge for the

global public (Kapur 2006). It also gathers data and information that no one else has and that

sometimes remains restricted to internal use.3 Thus, it is not only the use of indicators that is

interesting here, but also the quasi-monopoly of knowledge inherently connected to the role of

indicators. Particularly because underlying theories and pre-assumptions are lost in the

presentation of indicators as a starting point for further use (Davis/Kingsbury/Merry 2010: 4,

also Ravallion 2010b). The World Bank has developed several instruments to demonstrate

what poverty means and why or how it needs to be governed. Among these instruments are

indices, world maps, tables, graphs etc. Every data item can be translated to a representation,

compared to other data, etc. etc. The knowledge effect that is generated is to some extent

dependent on the complementarity of these representations.

With regard to public perception, simple, easily understandable graphics give us a non-

negotiable picture of the world today. World Bank experts point to the usefulness of these

graphs, for instance in making use of poverty maps in order to improve measures against

poverty,4 claiming: “The presentation of these detailed estimates in the form of maps is a

3 Recently, several attempts have been made, though, to open data to an interested public, interviews with World Bank statisticians in Washington on March 19 and 21, 2014. 4 See http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/EXTPA/0,,contentMDK:20219777~menuPK:462078~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:430367,00.html.

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powerful communication tool because the maps summarize poverty estimates for hundreds or

even thousands of towns, villages, or urban neighbourhoods on a single page and in a visual

format that is readily understandable by a wide audience. The presentation as a map not only

summarizes a large volume of data concisely, but it also enhances the interpretation of that

data by preserving the spatial relationships among different areas, something that simply is

not possible in a tabular data format” (3). The pervasiveness of the tool rests on the

combination of different technologies. The document offers guidance for developing local

poverty maps and gives instructions that mirror the general rationalities behind indicator use.

Indicators – and related instruments – are meant to be spread and applied to particular

contexts, mostly in order to normalise definitions and strategies supported by the

organisations that issue them: “The poverty map alone does not necessarily resolve such

disagreements, but the map does foster debate and analysis about what it means to be poor,

how one might measure poverty, and what additional perspective each of the various

measures may lend to understanding poverty. While the various measures may reflect the

multidimensional nature of poverty, the process of constructing a poverty map has sometimes

produced closer agreement on official measures of well-being and poverty thresholds” (6).

Thus, maps, statistics, indices and so on can be seen as policy-making tools themselves and

not as mere depictions of prior research. They do not simply illustrate the problem but are

potentially already part of policies against it. The understanding of poverty, accordingly, is

not necessarily prior to the collection of data in surveys; it may also result from the

availability of this data and the suitability to present it in a certain way (similarly:

Kanbur/Lustig 1999). In other words, technical progress has facilitated or perhaps even co-

determined the ways in which the World Bank perceives poverty and inequality – for example

as unequally distributed household income – and how it contextualises it.5

5 This was a point raised by an interviewee at the World Bank, concerning global inequality but valid also in the context of poverty, interview on October 9, 2012.

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As central documents in our main context, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs,

2000-2011) are a telling example of a standard-setting instrument with regard to self-

regulation and knowledge normalisation (Joseph 2012: 168). PRSPs contribute to

mainstreaming the World Bank’s poverty definitions and serve to promote self-governance

and self-regulation in recipient countries as well as to spread generalised knowledge about

poverty and anti-poverty measures. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, poverty became a

central concern of the World Bank – and this is also reflected in the publication of the Poverty

Reduction Strategy Papers, a tool introduced at the verge of the new millennium. In terms of

the process, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank make the writing of

these documents mandatory before low-income and indebted countries receive certain forms

of aid. Contrary to other documents, PRSPs are not issued by the international organisations

but by the countries concerned, also linking up to national MDG processes. They detail a

country's plan to promote growth and reduce poverty through the implementation of specific

economic, social and structural policies.

Strictly speaking, PRSPs are not based merely on indicators but use a different narrative form,

namely standard-setting through guidelines – not only with regard to how to prepare a PRSP,

but more generally what measures to take against (domestic) poverty. The World Bank offers

a manual (A Sourcebook for Poverty Reduction Strategies) to help developing countries

formulate their own poverty reduction strategies.6 Here, we find multi-dimensional indicators

for poverty: poverty and inequality; security; health; education; empowerment – all in line

with the MDGs. Furthermore, the manual defines core areas, goals, achievements and so on

that touch on various issues and goals and establishes a frame of issues attached to poverty,

excluding others. As standard-setting instruments, the PRSP have been a powerful tool to

regulate both the process of managing poverty reduction strategies between the organisations

6 See http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/EXTPRS/0,,contentMDK:20175742~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:384201,00.html.

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and their client countries and the distribution of knowledge that is seen as a necessary

precondition for the World Bank to work successfully and combat poverty on behalf of the

affected country. Similar to indicators, the manuals seem to indicate accessibility and clarity,

since each PRSP can be compared with another because they are written on the same basis

and with the same knowledge about poverty and poverty reduction. They thus also imply fair

and transparent proceedings, since each individual country has to go through the same

process.

Thus, what Merry sees as an important effect of indicators, namely the neglect of “local

particularities and idiosyncracies” for the benefit of ‘universal categories’ (2011: 84) also

holds true in the case of the PRSP (manual). In fact, one of the main criticisms against poverty

measurements can be (and has been) directed at the PRSP – they define poverty and measures

against it in a universalised pattern that is not particularly suitable to grasp local

circumstances and the subjectivity of people’s needs. While the format of a country report

suggests a context-specific and participatory analysis, which a PRSP can certainly offer to

some extent, the comparability and generalisability of the report is such an important criterion

of the suggested measures that the reverse effect may arise (similarly Merry 2011: 84). As for

global poverty, definitions are standardised almost by necessity because they are aimed at

grasping a phenomenon that only makes sense in the context of a generalisable observation.

Accordingly, the idea of comparability itself – and this is a core characteristic of indicators

and related instruments – is both part of the practice and the diagnosis of a potential problem

(Rosga/Satterthwaite 2009: 267). Both in terms of technologies, i.e. the concrete instruments,

and rationalities, the contextual discourse of poverty reduction in our case, PRSPs are a case

in point to illustrate the effects of indicators. Particularly as means of self-governance, PRSPs

reflect the core of (neo-)liberal practices described by the governmentality literature, namely

the normalising discourse of poverty reduction and tools to govern the practices, backed up by

the material power held by the organisations.

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To underline this, it is both by standard-setting and the induction of self-regulation that the

PRSPs contribute to a de-politicisation of poverty reduction, also affecting how poverty itself

is conceived of. Using the manual to convey certain definitions of poverty, inducing the

recipient countries to internalise them while producing the papers and then using the papers as

measures of success in reducing poverty, can be considered a governmental technology in

both standardising knowledge and regulating recipient countries to (almost) regulate

themselves. This “shift of responsibility” (Merry 2011: 88) is a subtle one, however, since it

does not change power relations as such, but gives the impression of “promoting self-

governance among the governed” (89), creating further dependence by empowering its

subjects to regulate themselves.

Quite unremarkably, the use of povcalnet,7 a tool to re-calculate poverty incidents in different

ways and possibly responding to criticism, seems to be catered to relativise such knowledge

effects. The online tool is accessible on the homepage and (apparently) allows everyone to

validate the indicators of the World Bank by doing their own calculations on different aspects

of poverty. As a true counter-measure to the power of indicators, povcalnet unsurprisingly

does not work, and obviously was never intended to.8 First, since the data it draws on is also

provided by the World Bank, the tool is only a minor concession towards those critical of the

World Bank’s indicators. Second, the overall problem of not including a greater group of

stakeholders – at times raised in the general criticism against the World Bank – cannot be

overcome. However, as an indication of the immense power of indicators, the case of

povcalnet is indeed interesting. As a more open, less authoritatively communicated source of

knowledge it gives a sense of participation and, perhaps, even of agency to those who may

otherwise be forced into accepting what World Bank indicators offer them. Using povcalnet is

7 See http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTPROGRAMS/EXTPOVRES/EXTPOVCALNET/0,,contentMDK:22716987~pagePK:64168427~piPK:64168435~theSitePK:5280443~isCURL:Y,00.html. 8 While the number of people who accessed the tool has risen to approximately 3 million users in 2011, reliable knowledge about who uses it is difficult to attain, interview with World Bank expert on March 20, 2014.

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itself a performative act that means becoming part of the same discourse of measuring poverty

as the one that is potentially criticised; it is certainly no act of resisting the power of the

World Bank’s indicators. While it is possible to challenge indicators on the basis of the

information they use or the added context information, it is difficult to think outside them.

With regard to knowledge effects, at least two interesting observations can be noted. One,

indicators refer to a web of explicit and implicit claims that result both from a number of

globalised expectations and the organisational context of their production. Second, indicators

are tools of organisational policies to establish specific knowledge claims towards their

clientele and general (global) public, often in competition with other knowledge claims.

3.2 Governance Effects

More than just for their ability to compare countries according to numbers developed by

international organisations indicators can be seen as instrumental in normalising certain

globalised expectations (Speich 2011), since they make it possible to link (or even equal) all

of the world’s countries according to a certain understanding of poverty. Poverty might vary

in different countries or have various facets but measuring poverty with numbers and statistics

according to a certain poverty threshold (be it US-$ 1, US-$ 1.25 or even US-$ 2) makes

unequal countries comparable. Furthermore, this practice clusters countries and permits

linkages between countries and regions that do not necessarily have anything else in common,

for instance the group of countries described as ‘heavily indebted poor countries’ or countries

that share the same headcount poverty ratio, such as Namibia, Ghana and India.9 Maps of the

world that depict inequalities, realisation of MDG, income etc. etc. are an important tool (and

merchandise article) of international organisations to depict their spheres of influence that is

almost by definition global. Similar to indicators, the power of maps, in short, rests in stating

and establishing facts as given and portraying them as indisputable truths (Wood 2010: 46).

9 As illustrated in a map on poverty head count ratios, see http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty (data from 2011).

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Furthermore, ignoring all characteristics of countries (such as culture, social structures etc.) or

individual bar those that are seen as relevant in the context of poverty renders the issue

seemingly less political, that is contested. Indicators do not put blame on individual leaders or

countries’ governments, but indicate a neutrality of observation from the point of a global

organisation. Thus enabled, however, a map also hints to a certain hierarchy in the world

where some countries and regions (most often the European Union, the United States,

Australia and Japan) are not even part of the representation because they do not face the

problem concerned (in this case absolute poverty) – which accordingly shows them as blanks

on a map. Some countries seem to be on a way of progress, whereas others find themselves in

a zone of deep concern (befittingly marked red).

Since (political) maps are tools to simplify information, it is expectable to find such

generalisations that level differences. However, the point here is the effect such a map has (in

combination with other instruments), namely the establishment of a sphere of governance, a

signal that global poverty reduction is in the hands of the organisation. The competence of the

World Bank to observe the world and to act where necessary are conveyed in the depiction of

poverty (and non-poverty) spheres visualised in global maps. Governance effects exerted by

indicators and maps go beyond the step of proclaiming and diffusing knowledge in that they

perform the authority of the World Bank for reducing poverty by publishing this information.

Similarly, the development of the idea of the 1$-a-day poverty– now reframed as a US-$ 1.25

– line exerts a governance influence on the field of poverty itself. What is more, these ideas

need to be publicly legitimised. In the following paragraph we see how this can be done.

There, the origin of this poverty line is mythically transformed and recounted:

“In the late 1980s, a group of economists at the World Bank in Washington

DC noticed that a number of developing countries drew their poverty lines at

an income of about $370 a year. This reflected the basic amount that a person

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needed to live. Each country had a different sense of what the essentials were,

but the figure of roughly $370 was common to all, so the World Bank team

proposed it as a global poverty line. Some time later one of these economists,

Martin Ravallion, was having dinner with his wife and, as they chatted, he

had what he described as a kind of "epiphany". If you divide that $370 by 365

days, you get just over $1. And so the catchy "$1-a-day"' concept was born.

Simple, powerful and shocking. "We intended to have some impact with it,"

Martin Ravallion recalls. "Make well-heeled people realise how poor many

people in the world are."” (BBC News Magazine, March 9th, 2012).10

The little episode we read about here is not only a human interest version of a global poverty

programme; it is also indicative of the contingency of indicators. Not because the $-1-a-day

idea was brought about by an “epiphany”, but because it has never been an isolated number.

On the contrary, the poverty headcount ratio, as all indicators, has always been part of a much

denser web of other indicators, narrations, assumptions and even theories that support it. The

very powerful notions that bring about and give substance to such an indicator are hidden both

in the above story and in their application in politics. Moreover, on another note the anecdote

also tells us about other reasons for creating indicators; since reality is too complex to

experience or comprehend, a tangible and relatable measure had to be found in order to have

political impact. Here, simplification means accessibility and discursive power.

As related above, the $-1-a-day idea itself gained power. Accordingly, even those that have

criticised the World Bank for its one-dollar-per-day policy or a two-dollars-per-day (Kanbur

and Vines 2000) – for being reductionist (see particularly the debate "how (not) to count the

poor", Ravallion 2010a, Reddy and Pogge 2010) still refer to and at least implicitly affirm the

10 See http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17312819.

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idea of counting the poor and measuring poverty.11 The (seeming) simplicity of this

measurement has advantageously made visualisations and thus comparisons easier.

Furthermore, poverty indicators (and other technologies) have also streamlined possible

responses to various poverty-related problems, perhaps another case in point for the argument

of a de-politicisation through normalisation and rationalisation.

In terms of identifying governance effects, we can point to the (re)production of the global (as

referent category for poverty) as important here. Global responsibility enables global power,

to phrase it rather polemically. To the extent that the World Bank knows about poverty and its

forms everywhere on the globe it can be seen as responsible for combatting it. And in turn,

ascertain its spheres of influence, both towards itself and the global public.

3.3 Organisation Effects

Adding to the two effects derived from the literature, a third function of indicators can be

discerned, either as a cumulated effect of the two previous or a distinct effect in itself.

Systematically, this changes the analytical perspective in that observations are transferred

from the level of a global discourse to the production context of international organisations. It

concerns the inter-connectedness between governance effects exerted by organisations and the

pre-conditions enabling them to do so. The creation of indicators itself has become a pre-

condition not only for outward-bound effects but also for the operativeness of international

organisations. Indicators influence and are derived from the operational logic of international

organisations that serves to reproduce them as actors in global governance by both declaring

them competent of framing a problem (condensing it to the quantitative mode of indicators)

and, more importantly, authorising them to solve the problem. This self-generative process of

organisations, of course, does not rest on indicators alone. Yet, in reducing complexity and

11 The debate has also been somewhat curtailed because other measures have not been accepted by the expert community as viable alternatives to the money-metric poverty line, interview with poverty expert at the IMF, Washington, October 12, 2012.

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thus making problems like world poverty seem more manageable international organisations

confirm their own relevance.

Drawing on institutional research, the phenomenon of indicators can be explained by seeing

their function not in their actual impact on, for example, poverty reduction but in the social

effects they have on organisations as organisational myths of rationality: “In modern societies,

the myths generating formal organizational structure have two key properties. First, they are

rationalized and impersonal prescriptions that identify various social purposes as technical

ones and specify in a rulelike way the appropriate means to pursue these technical purposes

rationally. Second, they are highly institutionalized and thus in some measure beyond the

discretion of any individual participant or organization” (Meyer/Rowan 1977: 343).

Detaching indicator use from judgements of their usefulness, the ritual of creating new

indicators itself has a function, namely self-generation. Indicators and similar instruments are

not merely aimed at influencing the organisational outside; they also help the organisation to

reproduce itself in a way consistent with its identity (Seidl 2003).

Going further even, one reason for employing indicators as ritualised practices and

communications can be seen in their pervasiveness not only to those induced to respond to the

results of measures and rankings, but to those involved in ensuring the importance of the

organisation, of adding to an organisational profile in the competition with other

organisations. Over the past decades or even last few years, new instruments have been added

in the field of poverty measurement, indicators have been changed, adapted, re-

contextualised, and the overall field has expanded to include many other issues. Observing the

various re-contextualisations of poverty, one can assume that there must be good reasons for

why we see constant updates and adaptations of existing indicators or even the creation of

new ones. One reason could be the attempt to reverse governance and knowledge effects.

Organisations can create new indicators for issues that have been de-politicised by previous

indicators to initiate new debates about related issue and thus, temporarily, re-politicise them

18

to gain public support. That observation does not necessarily reflect changes in the empirical

phenomenon of poverty. Whilst the reasons for individual or collective poverty may have

changed (for example through climate change, the nature of internal conflict or others),

indicators are not mere depictions of reality that offer a better, more adequate, detailed

description of a phenomenon. They fulfil a role that goes beyond analysing problems and

identifying strategies. Indicators are used to communicate within organisations – for instance

to “galvanise diverse groups to take action” –12 and between organisations, as competition,

supplementation or symbolic information about the respective organisational identity. When

new indicators are introduced this can be due to organisation effects more than about

efficiency, problem-adequacy and so on.

As practices of self-assurance and self-generation, the continuous creation of indicators

ensures both the competence of the organisation for a specific policy field and their mandate

to offer solutions. From a theoretical point of view, adaptation can be seen as a sign of

‘learning’ and updating of information to ensure the continued relevance of organisations in

the fields they are engaged in, including the central field of poverty reduction, where, to some

extent, they compete with others for resources and influence (Gilbert/Vines 2000). Yet,

evidently, policies can never follow as quickly as new indicators are produced to specify

problems and indicate strategies. Thus, in terms of communicating action, the creation of

indicators can also camouflage a lack of success or progress in fighting problems that

previous indicators described. In the field of poverty reduction, one reason for the on-going

debates is exactly the question of progress – which can be diverted from by introducing new

indicators.

Organisation effects thus refer to the interplay between external expectations of an

(international) organisation on the one hand and its self-determination as a legitimate actor

12 This was one rationale for using indicators given by a World Bank poverty expert, interview in Washington, March 19, 2014.

19

responsible for a certain problem on the other. As to the example of the World Bank, one

could thus see it less as an international organisation driven by a neoliberal agenda than as a

rationalised agent that assesses and evaluates the problem of extreme poverty and develops

measurements and indicators to signal capability. In this respect, assessments have become

routine operations as practices of legitimising organisations’ politics. International

organisations are embedded in their social environment and need to remain responsive to its

influence, be it external critique of development experts or an economic or financial crisis that

exacerbates the situation in poor countries. If they do not respond to environmental changes

and external expectations they may forfeit their existence.

In a way, indicator use can thus also be seen as a way of contingency management that helps

to reduce the complexity of the organisational environment on the one hand, but also of the

organisational routines on the other, considering, for instance, the different organs within the

World Bank that need to be reconciled (Weaver 2008). Finally, and this is an observation very

much in line with the knowledge and governance effects of indicator use, international

organisations have become entrapped in their own logic of rationalised governance. They are

not simply strategic actors completely in control over the instruments they use, but are equally

caught in the same institutional rationalities and technologies they project to recipients of

poverty aid. The path dependencies created by starting to use numeric instruments and other

forms of indicators have led to a perpetuation and perhaps even acceleration of demands both

from the outside and inside of organisations to create new indicators that are more precise,

capture new problems more adequately, reduce and at the same time depict complexity.

To recap, one can see several organisation effects of (poverty) indicators for the World Bank.

First, one can identify concessions to their operational logics that need clear criteria to arrive

at decisions. These decisions have to be taken in order to constantly re-ascertain the

organisation’s competence and global responsibility. Second, one can see the task of

measuring and comparing, of using numbers and indicators as a practice of legitimation and

20

self-generation. In order for international organisations to maintain their operativeness

indicators have to be produced, adapted, changed. Only in that way organisations remain

attuned to their environment.

4. Conclusion

To conclude, measuring and comparing data on poverty are both outward-bound and self-

generative practices. The general effect of measuring a social and political problem such as

poverty serves to disaggregate the broad field into various (smaller and thus solvable)

problem areas and thus turning it into a largely technical issue. Much of its multi-dimensional

character and, most of all, the human drama is lost; income can be measured but the

consequences of growing up and living in extreme poverty cannot. Measuring, thus, is

essentially a reductionist move. Criticism of poverty measuring has thus often concerned the

adequacy of poverty lines and the neglect of certain poverty-related problems such as basic

needs or calories intake. Global poverty indicators simplify and equalise in order to ensure

comparability for the sake of finding a common, global solution – in that, they also limit the

scope of thinking about poverty and turn it into an issue that can and needs to be managed by

international organisations. This concerns both knowledge and governance effects of

measuring poverty. While that has justly been criticised, it is also something inherently

consistent with the logic of governance in and of international organisations as such.

Furthermore, the World Bank also relies on these techniques in order to constantly reaffirm its

own relevance both in terms of external justifications and internal self-confirmations; this is

what is here called organisation effects. Yet, neither poverty reduction nor any of the indices

and measurements following from it can be seen as detached from each other and the overall

policies and politics of international organisations. Indices and even their graphical

representation are all part of the overall idea of poverty reduction. Only what can be measured

can also be governed globally. In order to become a governance issue and part of global

21

policies an issue must be fitted to the operative logics of organisations. According to this

logic, success and failure of certain political measures must be measureable to determine

further decision-making. The power of indicators, to recapitulate, lies not only in the effects

that organisations can exert on their clientele. Organisations themselves have become bound

by the power of indicators and need them to remain operative. The dependence on the

availability of data and its representation in indicators has thus created a horizon of global

politics according to institutionalised logics like efficiency, rationality etc. – that structure the

actions of the recipients and producers of indicators alike.

Finally, in spite of all criticism from very different political camps and groups there seems to

be a lack of alternative to measuring poverty. If there is agreement that poverty can be seen as

a global challenge, then there is little alternative to evaluating it on a global scale – this does

not say anything about the politics that follow from measuring poverty, evidently, but

concerns the idea of measuring it and evaluating it according to certain indicators. It would be

easy to accuse analysts of the World Bank and other global organisations as naïve, apolitical

or caught up in their respective ideology. Yet, the limits of understanding poverty have not

only been recognised by critics of the Bretton Woods institutions’ politics, but by the

organisations themselves. The effort of justifying each new index, each new way of

measuring poverty is very visible in their publications. Pages and pages have been filled with

explanations of how and why to measure what, defending each index against public scrutiny.

Furthermore, the constant re-contextualisations also indicate a will to improve, in the attempt

to get better and more reliable and comparable data; grasping what poverty entails and what

can be done against it is never finished. As a consequence, indicator use creates a

comprehensive web of representations in one policy field that structures how a global public

discusses the issue and what measures can be part of poverty reduction and which are

excluded. International organisations do not only use indicators for their own purposes but

also reach out to the interested public – as well as donors and developing countries – to assess

22

success and failure of their policies. And they create indicators because they have become part

of the self-generative dynamic that keeps them operative.

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