panel on global indices of opinions and perceptions: introduction and an overview by dr ijaz shafi...

Panel onGLOBAL INDICES OF OPINIONS AND PERCEPTIONS:

Introduction and An Overview by

Dr Ijaz Shafi Gilani (Email: [email protected])

and Professor Takashi Inogouchi (Email: [email protected])

Reflections on Indices developed during 1945-2015

Presented atWAPOR Annual Congress, Buenos Aires, Argentina

June 16-19, 2015

WAPOR Annual Congress (2015): Panel onGLOBAL INDICES OF OPINIONS AND PERCEPTIONS

Introduction and An Overview

Panel Paper # 1

We generally know what we can NAME and beyond it if we can

MEASUREwhat we have named



THINGS OR RELATIONSHIPS WHICH

CAN BE NAMED AND MEASURED ARE

MUCH MORE IMPORTANT IN OUR

‘REALITY’ COMPARED TO THOSE

WHICH ARE NOT



WHILE REALITIES ARE SHAPED BY THE

WAY IN WHICH WE NAME AND

MEASURE THEM, NEW AND ‘EMERGING

REALITIES’ ARE IN SEARCH OF NAMES

AND MEASUREMENT APPROACHES



IN A NUTSHELL ‘NAMING’ AND

‘MEASURING’ IS PART OF SCIENCE

AS WELL AS POLICY AND POLITICS



IT IS NOT WITHOUT REASON THAT THE AMERICAN CONSISTITUTION WROTE A CLAUSE WHICH REQUIRES A CENSUS OF POPULATION EVERY TEN YEARS

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS (NOTABLY HOOVER) ENGAGED AT GREAT LENGTH ON MEASUREMENT AND THE ISSUES JUST STATED ABOVE. THESE DISCUSSIONS CONTNUE TO THIS DAY

Documented by Raymond Bauer (1966) and Z. Karabel (2014)



EMERGING RELATIES REQUIRE THAT

THOSE SHOULD BE ‘NAMED’,

‘MEASURED’ AND ‘HARNESSED’

ACCORDING TO POLICY PERSPECTIVES



20th Century

IN THE FIRST HALF, THE FOCUS WAS ON

MEASURING ‘NATIONAL ECONOMES

It was later extended to

CORSS-NATIONAL COMPARISONS/

COMPARATIVE ECONOMIC GROWTH

A field developed by Simon Kuznets (1965) for which he

received a Nobel Prize in Economics



20th Century

IN THE SECOND HALF, THE FOCUS WAS

ON

MEASURING ‘SOCIAL INDICATORS’

Apparently this was a reaction to

Over-emphasis on ‘Economy’ which

triggered search for ‘Other Indicators’Details available in Raymond Bauer (Edited) Social Indicators, MIT Press

1966



21th Century

THE FOCUS IS ON

MEASURING A GLOBALIZED WORLD

HOWEVER INDICATORS AND MEASUREMENT

APPROACHES ARE STILL SHAPING

The Process is perhaps only at an early

stage



TWO HURDLES

Hurdle # 1

GOING BEYOND ‘ECONOMICS’

Hurdle # 2

GOING BEYONG ‘NATIONAL’



Search for Indicators and Measurement Approaches

BEYOND ECONOMCS

Behavioral Economics is One Example

Kahneman received a Nobal Prize for contribution in that field



Search for Indicators and Measurement Approaches

BEYOND NATION

World Values Survey is

One Example. It began as a

multi-country exercise



DOCUMENTING OF HISTORY IS OFTEN

NEEDED TO GO BEOND THE CONVENTION

BECAUSE IT INFORMS US OF THE PROCESS

THROUGH WHICH PREVIOUS CONVENTIONS

WERE MADE INTO ‘HISTORY’



For a detailed version of this paper we have chosen

2 Books as key source materials

INTERESTINGLY BOTH DID NOT RECEIVE WIDE ATTENTION IN THE FIELD, despite strong

credentials of the Authors and Publishers

Raymond Bawer (ed) Social Indicators, 1966

Zachary Karabel,The Leading Indicators,A Short History of the Numbers that Rule our World, 2014



RAYMOND BAUER (1966)

The first Book was very interestingly

produced under sponsorship from NASA

(before landing on the Moon) to

research the Consequences of such a

prospect on Society in a comprehensive

way (Economics and beyond)



ZACHARY KARABEL (2014)

The Second Book is driven by concerns

with the Global Economy. It is written

by a historian trained at Columbia and

Harvard History Departments, who

introduces himself as an ’author,

money manager and head of global

strategy at a consulting Group’.



Phase # 1: 1945-65

FOCUS ON ECONOMY

1- GDP/GNP: Per Capita National Income2- Unemployment (Unemployment Rates)3- Inflation (Consumer Price Index-CPI)4- Inequality (Gini Coefficient)

Continued……..

A short Chronology ofGLOBAL INDICATORS DURING

1945-2015



A short Chronology ofGLOBAL INDICATORS

DURING 1945-2015

Phase # 2: 1965-1990

FOCUS ON GOING ‘BEYOND ECONOMY’ AND ‘CROSS NATIONAL’

1- Civic Culture (Almond and Verba)

2- Democracy and Freedom (Freedom House)

3- World Values (Inglehart et.al)

4- Human Development Index (UNDP-Amartya Sen

and Mahboob ul Haque)

5- Human Poverty Index (World Bank et.al)Continued……..



A short Chronology ofGLOBAL INDICATORS

DURING 1945-2015

Phase # 3: 1990-2015

Focus On Going Beyond Nation and Reaching

out to ‘State’ and ‘Non-state’ Actor/ Audiences/

Policy Makers – FOCUS ON A GLOBALIZED WORLD

1- Corruption Perception Index – Transparency International2- Consumer Confidence (Reuters-Conference Board)

Originally developed by Katona at University of Michigan in the 1950s. Still continuing at Michigan for the US population

3- Market Research and Polling Industry driven work by

Economist Intelligence Unit – EIU Economist London Group )Series PWC and other leading Consulting Groups Gallup Inc. WIN-Gallup International Association Ipsos-MORI PEW Foundation Globscan/BBC Others ……….



REFLECTIONS ON THE CURRENT PHASE: Phase # 3

Unlike Phase # 1 and (partly) Phase # 2 there is no Custodian. Central Governments were fairly unchallenged CUSTODIANS AND DRIVERS in Phase # 1. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS (UN, World Bank et.at) or INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS of Central Governments provided that Role in Phase # 2.

In Phase # 3 there are SEVERAL DRIVERS BUT NO CUSTODIAN OR LEADER



1- THE ABSENCE OF A CUSTODIAN

In Phase # 1, there was a strong THEORETICAL GROUNDING FOR THE CHOICE OF THE SUBJECT (Economy) AND ENORMOUS METHOLDOLOGICAL INPUT FROM DISCIPLINES WHICH LED THE MEASUREMENT PROCESS (Philosophy, Mathematics, Statistics).

This led to work like Kuznet and its critics. To cite an example, there is an interesting literature spanning over at least a decade, spearheaded by Economics Departments of leading American universities, on the concept of ‘Purchasing Power Parity’ (PPP), and ‘Living Standards Measurement’ before developing the modified Indicator of GNP at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)*

This is less true for Phase # 2 and considerably less for Phase # 3

REFLECTIONS ON THE CURRENT PHASE:

PHASE # 3

_____________Work produced at National Bureau for Economics Research. Examples are Work by Rudger Dornbusch (MIT); McCloskey and Zecher (Harvard) and many othersContinued……..



2- WEAK ON THEORY

Phase # 3 is preoccupied with (to borrow from recent economic development literature which talk about ‘Resource Curse’) the Curse of Abundant Data which has crowded out the hard work needed to develop new Global Indicators to Capture the realities of a Globalized world. The BIG DATA is a GREAT OPPORTUNITY as well as partly responsible for sluggish development of Indicators in Phase # 3



3- THE CURSE OF ABUNDANT DATA

REFLECTIONS ON THE CURRENT PHASE:

PHASE # 3

In Phase # 3 the Indicators are not necessarily addressed to a specialized audience of scholars and policy makers. Instead they are addressed to a much wider media audience.

The excessive focus on media visibility of the findings of global indices may hurt the development of sound Indices.

4- MISPLACED FOCUS ON MEDIA VISIBILITY

This Panel has tried to lay ground for documenting the history of a few global indicators. In addition they also report on some of the data produced in the process. In addition to this overview paper there are 5 papers, one on Economic Indices, one on Public Health Indices and 3 on Governance related Indices. After the Overview paper, which has been numbered as Paper # 1, Paper # 2 looks on Economic Indices .

Paper # 3 looks on a Public Health issue, namely Vaccine Confidence Index.

Paper # 4 looks at Governance related Indices (unfortunately the paper can not be presented partly due to time constraints and partly because authors team was not yet satisfied with their research).

Paper # 5 also looks at a Governance related Index, namely Index on Justice, developed by the World Justice Program.

Paper # 6 looks at still another Governance related issue, namely Perceptions about Freedoms. We are very happy to host this paper in our panel because its subject and theme matched with that of this panel. It was not part of the original panel proposal.



PRESENTATIONS IN THIS PANEL

THANK YOU

panel on global indices of opinions and perceptions: introduction and an overview by dr ijaz shafi...

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