As an engineer, I am of course always a representative of empiricism, numbers and statistics. But he also knows how well one should know the measurement regulations and boundary conditions. With the corona pandemic, I became more aware of another dimension – statistics and studies as a political (power) instrument. In this respect, the book by Richard Münch “The Rule of Incidents and Evidence. Governing in the snares of scientism” and the review in “Soziopolis” at just the right time.
Referring to statistics is common practice both in government business and in public debates. “Governing by numbers” goes hand in hand with the great attention that experts from the (mostly experimental) sciences receive in the process of political opinion-forming and decision-making. If political-administrative measures can be justified with numbers and empirical studies, they are considered rational decisions, as manifestations of a mostly positively evaluated “fact-supported” or “evidence-based” policy.
Today, political issues seem to be taking on an increasingly epistemic character. Are viewed as knowledge conflicts in which better, correct knowledge is at stake. Has that to objectification, intellectualization of our lives? Do we have a dominance of arithmetical calculation: do affects and passions take a back seat? I don’t think so. Which leads to the question which
societal forces driving the dynamics of quantifying socio-political phenomena? What are the consequences and side effects to be expected if incidences, rankings, benchmarks and similar statistical measurements serve as the basis for political decisions? What does the “epistemization” of the political and the increasing power of scientific experts mean for the structure of state rule, what for democracy?
The book approaches these questions based on the state crisis management during the corona pandemic and the PISA regime of the past decades.
Sections on “governing education” are dedicated to the PISA policy, with which the OECD countries evaluate the performance of their school systems and develop corresponding reform standards. What the reviewer sees as a successful sociological case study on the many unrecognized consequences of data-driven metrics in the world of education. It turns out that behind the
the supposed objectivity of the educational economics PISA doctrine, international and widespread expert networks accumulate symbolic and monetary capital, thereby cementing their own position of power and that of the leading NGOs in the education system. The seemingly completely harmless collection and evaluation of international data on the performance of students is thus secretly transformed into concrete and momentous definition and control power, quite apart from the profitable commercialization of the international evaluation, research and consulting industry.
In the book, Münch calls this an educational-industrial “knowledge-power complex” in the sense of Foucault, which largely dominates the educational-political discourse. With the grown international test industry and
With the support of the national ministerial bureaucracies, a knowledge and discourse cartel has emerged that is as omnipresent as it is powerful in the social field of education.
With its programs and recommendations, based on a “tunnel vision of the numbers”, this has a deep effect on everyday school life and the practice of the teachers. This is often far removed from everyday school reality and concrete pedagogical experience.
The sharpest thing about it, the whole PISA regime, about which it has become pretty quiet, has generally not achieved the goals it set itself – improving student performance, reducing educational inequality, positive prosperity effects.
On the contrary, one of these findings is that “school does not compensate for social inequality, but rather reproduces it continuously” (p. 158). The scientific approach to school reform policy, pursued with noble intentions, thus turns out to be an everyday disaster for teachers and an attack on liberal school policies and national cultural educational traditions.
The statements on the corona crisis and state corona management are naturally more complex and are aimed more at a macro-sociological analysis of what is happening in society as a whole. Which also means a far greater topical political explosiveness.
The worst health crisis since the Spanish flu has presented a unique challenge to both government and science. In the consensual interaction of the two, the apparent primacy of science has enabled a policy of no alternatives. Here a change in rule towards a benevolent paternalism has manifested itself.
Admittedly, its representatives are mainly guided by “good” intentions – saving lives, protecting health, strengthening social cohesion. But the disproportionate harshness and relentlessness shown by the executive branch in trying to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 reflects an inherent authoritarian and anti-democratic streak in the paternalistic state.
With the extreme threat posed by the virus and the temporary declaration of a national emergency, according to Münch, the older and long-term tendencies towards an authoritarian welfare state intensified. In this respect, the Corona policy is a suitable case study for the problematic, but also for the positive effects (which I miss in the book or the review).
The massive restrictions on freedom in the name of health and life protection and the intensified mass media communication of fear, but also the shutdown of large parts of social life during the lockdowns, which is usually legitimized with very few and isolated indicators (incidence rate, reproduction value, intensive care bed quota and the like), illustrate with rare plasticity, which social upheavals can result from the maxim follow the science.
For me, this is also a call to improve, to collect suitable data. So think again about our often excessive data protection. One should only follow science if one makes the necessary data and facts accessible to it. Protecting data is obviously not always the same as protecting people.