This book is a history of an illusion. It is also a history of the dream that preceded the illusion. The book discusses statistics as the field of tension between the scientific claims of neutrality and universality on the one hand and the political and economic reality of the conflicting interests of nation-states on the other. The various paths of state- and nation-building that European countries traversed in the nineteenth century are recognisable in the objectives of government statistics and are reflected in the topics selected for statistical study and in the categories used in the research. Each congress was clearly dominated by the specific interests of the country in which the statisticians convened. The book shows in each case how the organisation of government statistics and national concerns influenced the international agenda. It describes the perceptions, goals and dilemmas of the protagonists and their contact with each other, and in so doing unravels the complex relationships between science, government and society, wherever possible from their point of view. The genesis of international statistics was inspired by a desire for reform. Belgium's pioneering role in the European statistical movement was informed both by its liberal polity and the special status of statistics within it, and by Adolphe Quetelet's key position as an intellectual. The consolidation of the Grand Duchy of Baden, a new medium-sized state in the Rhine Confederation and later in the German Confederation, offered great opportunities for the development of official statistics.
topics before the congress began. Correnti wrote a preparatory report on the issue of organising official statistics: how should a modern state structure its statistical research? This topic was incorporated into the theory and technology section. In keeping with Italian convention, Correnti referred to the debate between the realists and the idealists, initiated by Gioia and Romagnosi. The debate played out in the Kingdom of Naples, mainly among philosophers, but Correnti came to the conclusion that all that philosophising had distracted attention from the practical
opinions by influential men (and a single woman). Billimoria's own contribution ‘Vaccination: A Fallacy’ attacked the practice on several fronts. He duly began with the pain caused to the calves used in the production of vaccine lymph, but soon turned to the more ‘utilitarian’ argument that vaccination had no effect. Referring to official statistics he claimed that there were as many deaths from vaccination as from smallpox itself in
, accor ding to the German killers’ official statistics) in September 1941. A nearby dam gave way in the late 1960s, and the subsequent flooding unearthed hundreds of bodies that were then reinterred without any attempt at identification.6 Other cases may be cited, such as the graves of the Dachau concentration camp, discovered by chance during excavation work for the construction of a road in 1948. The unearthed bodies were then identified by means of the forensic medicine of the time.7 There are even cases where there has been the discovery and identification of
-sized state in the Rhine Confederation and later in the German Confederation, offered great opportunities for the development of official statistics. In 1835 Wilhelm Ludwig Volz of Rastatt near Karlsruhe, a professor and high government official in Baden, toured Austria, Bohemia, Bavaria, Saxony and Prussia to study how statistical practice was organised. Volz noticed that there was little similarity and that there seemed to be no model for statistics on hand in Baden. There was too little interest to get a private statistical society off the ground and the government
implementation of gender mainstreaming rests with the highest level of government and public administration. • Making gender visible. To this end, statistics disaggregated by sex are indispensable. The government has therefore given instructions to Statistics Sweden to 158 CASE STUDIES present all official statistics, to be disaggregated by sex. The same goes for public authorities which produce statistics in their fields or which are request statistics from Statistics Sweden. • Increasing the knowledge on issues related to gender equality. A mainstreaming strategy implies
sphere. 9 This is the public space (physical or metaphorical) in which debates about the people and the state can be articulated. Each of these may have been considered more important relative to the others at different times or circumstances. This book has largely focused on how debates about publicness played out in the public sphere. Evidence of public activity is inferred and identified through official statistics, utterances in the press and the actions of voluntary organisations and representative bodies claiming to operate in the interests of the public. The
could claim superiority over other parties when it came to government statistics. Dupin made that perfectly clear. The French government had been ordering intendants in the provinces to gather statistical information since the time of Louis XIV. Under Napoleon I, official statistics received new impulses, and the French Restoration sparked important initiatives, which were imitated by the Belgians and the British. In Dupin’s view, the conquest of Algeria was also a victory for statistics: ‘Statistics concerning that land, which have been gradually perfected
. He called for a general list of each country’s ‘most essential numbers’ to be compiled by a special committee of the most prominent statisticians in every country. Quetelet ‘appointments’ included Farr for Britain, Czoernig for Austria, Legoyt for France, Von Baumhauer and Ackersdijck for the Netherlands, Engel for Prussia and Heuschling and himself for Belgium. The initiative was probably intended to partition off a domain for official statistics, which was completely reliant on government support. National public authorities were not inclined to support a
methodology was a cover for the problem of defining statistical categories. He showed that official statistics commonly lacked empirical rigour because of the haphazard way in which categories were defined. For example, the German states divided up the population into age groups for no other purpose than to show how many people were available for military service. There were various subcategories for men aged 14 to 60, but not for women in the same age group, 154 chap7.indd 154 02/12/2009 12:15:47 The Hague 1869 which made it impossible to do other kinds of analysis