The Sustainable Development Goals as Epistemic Infrastructures

Abstract

AbstractOver the last three decades, quantification has emerged as the predominant governing logic in global public policy. In this introductory chapter, we explore how this paradigm has evolved from one of governing by numbers to governing numbers in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This chapter presents an overview of the emergence of sustainability politics and contextualises it in the broader literature on quantification and global public policy. Drawing on these debates, we propose a new theoretical lens, conceptualising the SDGs as epistemic infrastructures connecting data and numbers, networks and new governing paradigms. As such, this chapter approaches quantification not merely as a tool for governing but rather as a broader epistemic system through which sustainable development problems become knowable and actionable.