Abstract
Official statistics are one of the most critical sources pertaining to our knowledge of a state. They provide basic social, economic, demographical, and environmental data (Allin, 2021) that influences inner-state political decision and policy making. It may also determine the nature of political and economic international relations. For scholars, it is also a basic primary quantitative data collection tool that sheds light on their case studies (Harrison, 2013).
Investigating power struggles between politicians and bureaucracies producing statistics in democracies, the book Government Statistical Agencies, and the Politics of Credibility authored by Dr. Cosmo Howard, Deputy Head of the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University who specializes in comparative public administration, bureaucratic politics, and public policy processes, argues that despite witnessing delicate pressures and tensions between governments and statisticians, such pressures rarely cause bias in the production of statistics.
Acknowledging that “democracies needs statistics” (p. 2), the research questions posed in the book inquires: Who has the authority to produce official statistics in liberal democracies? What explains the allocation of authorities to different participants within these official statistical systems? (p.5). This is to realize the power politicians have over leadership of statistical agencies in the production of official statistics. The book's main hypotheses innovatively focus on the balance of power between the political strata and the administrative one. It shows that official statistics in liberal democracies are far from mistruths; they are consistently shielded from direct political interference. Yet, it shows that a range of subtle pressures and tensions exist that governments and statisticians must manage. The book also showcases that power over statistics is distributed differently across countries, since differences in decision-making powers across countries are the result of shifting pressures politicians and statisticians face to be credible. Additionally, while using a comparative perspective, the book reveals the different national contexts that provide distinctive institutional settings for the production of government data.
Structurally, the book contains seven chapters. Following the introduction chapter that opens with a striking and vivid example of political intervention in the American Bureau of Labor Statistics (p. 1), the first chapter provides the theoretical framework of the study and is followed by five chapters that analyze the case studies selected (Australia, Canada, Sweden, The United Kingdom, and the United States of America). The book ends with a final concluding chapter highlighting the causal relationship between credibility and authority in official statistics. The structure of the book provides an orderly setting for this comparative study, as it clearly presents the profound insights from both the theoretical framework and the findings that the author wishes to endow to the readers. Further, in order to equally portray on the varied case studies, for each case the author elaborates on the distribution of statistical authority, political credibility, professional credibility, and the institutional settings.
One of the contributions of this book is locating the long-standing study of the distribution of power between politicians and administration in the perspective of time. The author does not detach the era of social-media-based “fake news” from the political and the professional strata. He indicates: There is “… a broader political shift in modern societies away from willingness of politicians and the broader public to trust experts like statisticians. The rise of ‘post-truth politics’ suggests that politicians and publics…see all information as inherently political” (p. 4). Relating, the author also differentiates between two definitions to the term authority in the context of modern government and administration; the Weberian formal definition, namely, confided in legal and regulatory instruments, and an informal definition, namely acceptance among participants that this distribution of power is legitimate (see pp. 5–6). The latter being a significant factor in politicians-administration relations in this book.
The methodological strength of this book lies with its employment of the comparative method. In order to unfold causal mechanisms, the book studies five great democracies comparatively. Doing so, it provides an international perspective on the challenges facing statisticians and explains why different countries organize their statistical systems differently. The second merit lies in its data collection tools, and mainly conducting elite in-depth interviews with leadership of statistical agencies (p. 14). This tool provide insider accounts of the challenges key groups of government experts face in managing their organizations and interacting with elected politicians. This is important since despite its value, the production of official statistics raises several challenges concerning its collection and production methods. Indeed, different states, regardless of their nature of regime, collect data differently. Hence, comparative scholars (n > 1) face challenges in collecting identical data from all cases, as the comparative methodology requires. Further, having measurement methods bound to political judgements makes them prone to bias. As scholars, working with this data requires transparency and caution in order to avoid inserting biased data into our research.
One of the limitations of the study lies in case selection. The cases analyzed are all well-established and mature liberal Western democracies. This is an avenue for future research testing younger democracies and nondemocracies that are often accused of publishing unreliable official statistics, mainly to overestimate its economic growth (see the case for China in Chow, 2006; also see, Martinez, 2021). Furthermore, when referring to theory, the book uses concepts and methods of dramaturgical sociology (p. 11) in his empirical study of statistical actors’ performances, stressing that social actors are powerful where they can successfully convince people that they are effective in performing their adopted roles, hence attain credibility to secure authority. This is since credible actors are trusted by others and consequently entrusted with powers and responsibilities (p. 7). In the lens of public administration, the analysis of power relations between politicians and administration calls for a street-level bureaucracy framework (Lipsky, 1980). Future research would benefit from incorporating such theoretical perspective, while also deliberating on the issue of client's trust in service providers. This is in order to transform the unit of analysis from the individual into the organization and its embedded agency. Only than individual discretion may be tested.
To conclude, this book makes two significant contributions both to the study of public administration and to methodology in political science in general. The book is theoretically established as it provides an innovative theoretical framework centered on the politics of statistical credibility, while being methodologically sound. It touches on a wide range of political, administrative, and mere ethical concerns in the interface between administrative professionalism and politician's cost-efficient interests. Hence, the target audience for this book is both practitioners and academicians.
Indeed, the book offers an understanding of the impact of political decision making on collecting official statistics which can acutely influence the data users. Hence, both politicians and bureaucracies in state statistical agencies can learn how to adjust their working interface in the struggle over the final product that will, in turn, determine state policies. The book may further contribute to the work of scholars conducting single-case as well as comparative studies by assisting them to avoid bias in collecting official statistics and recognizing data that might not be reliable or credible. Finally, the book also offers political science, public policy and administration and also statistics students an informative outlook on the process of producing government data, and the role political decision-making plays in it.
