Data Rules: What the History of Scientific Data Can Tell Us about the Asymmetries of Global Governance in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article explores the history of international scientific data organizations and documents their significance in the definition of new forms of global governance. It focuses in particular on the ancestry of two data organizations now operating under the International Science Council (formerly International Council of Scientific Unions -ICSU): the World Data System and the Committee on Data for Science and Technology. Examination of these organizations reveals that while global data infrastructures have developed considerably in the last century, they have also shaped a noticeable imbalance in the administration of data resources between the scientific organizations of a few scientifically developed countries and the rest of the world. In turn, the article suggests that these disparities are also decisive in implicitly shaping a two-tiered system in global data governance as they have forestalled scientific development in world regions marginalized in these data systems, while hastening that of the few represented within.