The Global Politics of Census Taking
Quantifying Populations, Institutional Autonomy, Innovation
1st Edition
Published on 27. June 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
348 pages
978-1-032-19551-3 (ISBN)
Description
This book examines in detail the state of the art on census taking to spark a more vivid debate on what some may see as a rather technical - and hence uncontroversial - field of inquiry.
Against the backdrop of controversy between instrumental and performative theoretical stances towards census taking, it analyses the historical trajectories and political implications of seemingly technical decisions made during the quantification process by focusing on the 2020 round of censuses, which have been particularly revealing as activities have been affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing containment policies. Through case studies of countries from the Global North and the Global South, the book highlights the consequences of, and innovations and challenges in census taking focusing on three particular areas of concern - the politics of the census in terms of identity politics; the institutional autonomy of the census; and significant and transformative methodological innovations.
This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of quantification studies, and social demography and more broadly to public policy, governance, comparative politics and the broader social sciences.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Against the backdrop of controversy between instrumental and performative theoretical stances towards census taking, it analyses the historical trajectories and political implications of seemingly technical decisions made during the quantification process by focusing on the 2020 round of censuses, which have been particularly revealing as activities have been affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing containment policies. Through case studies of countries from the Global North and the Global South, the book highlights the consequences of, and innovations and challenges in census taking focusing on three particular areas of concern - the politics of the census in terms of identity politics; the institutional autonomy of the census; and significant and transformative methodological innovations.
This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of quantification studies, and social demography and more broadly to public policy, governance, comparative politics and the broader social sciences.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Reviews / Votes
"Nothing matches the reach of this volume! Learn what politicizes a census; produces questions on racial identities; expands the use of third party data. These insights instruct us in whether globalization of census-taking is in our reach, with far-reaching consequences."Kenneth Prewitt, Columbia University, New York; Director of the 2000 Census, USA
"This truly international edited volume offers highly competent, nuanced, and empirically well-supported hypotheses to show how census making represents and enacts the classification of citizens; how it strives for autonomy while being part of politics and international standardization; and how the digitization of population registers might eventually make it superfluous."
Richard Rottenburg, Wits University, Johannesburg
"In an increasingly globalized and standardized production of numbers, this book offers an outstanding contribution to both a political epistemology as well as an institutional and methodological framing of census taking, making sense of what the state sees or avoids to see when counting its population."
Patrick Simon, National Institute for Demographic Studies, Paris
"...the perspectives considered by the book are valuable, not as models, but as trajectories that show possibilities and difficulties..."
Book review by Da Silva, C. A. M., Oliveira, F. H. F. de, & Almeida, P. A. de (2024) in "Censuses in focus: recent transformations, sociopolitical issues, and methodological innovations", Ciencia & Saude Coletiva, 29(11) https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-812320242911.08072024EN
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Postgraduate, Professional, and Undergraduate Advanced
Illustrations
9 s/w Abbildungen, 9 s/w Zeichnungen, 12 s/w Tabellen
12 Tables, black and white; 9 Line drawings, black and white; 9 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
550 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-19551-3 (9781032195513)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Walter Bartl | Christian Suter | Alberto Veira-Ramos
The Global Politics of Census Taking
Quantifying Populations, Institutional Autonomy, Innovation
Book
02/2024
1st Edition
Routledge
€207.20
Shipment within 10-20 days
Walter Bartl | Christian Suter | Alberto Veira-Ramos
The Global Politics of Census Taking
Quantifying Populations, Institutional Autonomy, Innovation
E-Book
02/2024
1st Edition
Taylor & Francis
€0.00
Available for download
Walter Bartl | Christian Suter | Alberto Veira-Ramos
The Global Politics of Census Taking
Quantifying Populations, Institutional Autonomy, Innovation
E-Book
02/2024
1st Edition
Taylor & Francis
€0.00
Available for download
Persons
Walter Bartl is Senior Lecturer of Sociology (Privatdozent) at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, and President of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee 41, Sociology of Population.
Christian Suter is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, and President of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee 55, Social Indicators.
Alberto Veira-Ramos is Professor of Demography and Population Theory at the Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain, Treasurer of International Sociological Association's Research Committee 41, Sociology of Population, and Vice President of the Research Network on Economic Sociology of the European Sociological Association.
Christian Suter is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, and President of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee 55, Social Indicators.
Alberto Veira-Ramos is Professor of Demography and Population Theory at the Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain, Treasurer of International Sociological Association's Research Committee 41, Sociology of Population, and Vice President of the Research Network on Economic Sociology of the European Sociological Association.
Content
The Global Politics of Census Taking in the 2020 Census Round: An introduction I. The Politics of Ethnoracial Categories 1. The Politics of a Datascape Transformed: Ethnoracial statistics in Brazil in regional comparative perspective 2. Census, Politics and the Construction of Identities in India 3. Education Censuses and Recognition: The Politics of Collecting and Using Data on Indigenous Students in Latin America II. The Politics of Institutional Autonomy 4. Population Census - Large Scale Project of a Public Statistics in Transition 5. Population Censuses in Crisis: United States, Brazil, and Ecuador in comparative perspective 6. The Latin American Observatory of Population Censuses: Increasing statistical literacy through an academia-civil society network 7. The Politics of Population Census, Socio-Economic Planning and Crisis of Underdevelopment in Nigeria 8. Censuses in Ukraine: not trusted and not needed? III. The Politics of Socio-Technical and Methodological Innovations 9. Establishing a Register-Based Census in Spain: Challenges and implications 10. Towards a Register-based Census in Germany: Objectives, requirements and challenges 11. Techno-political Transformation and Adaptability in Ghanaian Census History 12. Adoption of Smartphones for Data-Collection during the Fourth General Population and Housing Census of Cameroon: Motivations, opportunities and challenges. Conclusions and Desiderata for Further Research