Between comparison and commensuration: a case-study of COVID-19 rankings

David Nelken

doi:10.1017/s174455232100029x

Abstract

AbstractGlobal social indicators, as a form of governance and soft regulation, exert pressure for change and compliance through the way they compare and rank the relative performance of states or other units. Is it reasonable then to expect the comparisons they make in the process of carrying out such strategic exercises to be accurate and fair? In particular, how far can they, or should they, be required to be faithful to the requirement to ‘compare like with like’. Using as an example the role of indicators in documenting and responding to the current coronavirus epidemic, I investigate the way their hybrid combination of both comparison and commensuration may help to account for the difficulty they have had so far in establishing stable rankings of best practice.

Highlights

1 Introduction Those interested in comparative research in an ever more interconnected world are increasingly turning to studying comparison itself as a social process with social consequences (Nelken, 2015b; 2016; 2019b; 2021a)
A global social indicator has been defined by Sally Merry and her colleagues at New York University (NYU) as
Were COVID indicators more of a success in their role of creating standards and aiding compliance? Could what counts as a weakness when indicators are used for the purposes of comparison turn out to be a strength for the purposes of commensuration? Here, too, the record is a mixed one

Summary

Introduction

Those interested in comparative research in an ever more interconnected world are increasingly turning to studying comparison itself as a social process with social consequences (Nelken, 2015b; 2016; 2019b; 2021a). To understand the unexpectedly low rate of infections and deaths in most countries in Africa (other than South Africa), empirical research was needed to establish in each case whether this could be linked to their previous experience of dealing with pandemics or was more an artefact of poor recordkeeping or other features of strained health systems.36 Even if much of the mainstream media preferred to focus on health indicators rather than the threat to normal civil rights and democratic functioning represented by actions taken to deal with the epidemic, this issue was regularly highlighted especially by newspapers on the right with a more libertarian streak.40 Another limit on the usefulness of the comparisons being made can be seen in the limited attention given by COVID indicators to the possibility that the countries whose success they were evaluating were trying to pursue different approaches to the same goal. Deflecting blame from government was to hold sections of the public responsible for the spread of the virus because of non-compliance with the latest version of the rules concerning social distancing

COVID indicators and successful commensuration

Findings

Conclusion: comparing success and the success of comparisons