Accountability, Quantification, and Law

Abstract

Accountability can mean many things, but increasingly it is linked to quantification. This is true in many fields, including law. This review considers how the recent emphasis on quantitative accountability has influenced law and legal practices. Rather than offering a broad survey of quantitative techniques deployed in law, the article examines three legal contexts in which quantification has shaped how actors are held accountable: sentencing guidelines, cost-benefit analysis in regulation, and law school rankings. The conditions that promote rigorous quantification, its effects on professional discretion, relations of authority, and resistance are examined. The article suggests fruitful questions and strategies for analyzing more broadly the effects of quantification in law.

Algorithms in practice: Comparing web journalism and criminal justice

“…Such local practices matter because, as we saw, one of the main arguments developed by Big Data advocates is that algorithms help make experts more accountable for their decisions. In both cases, however, it turns out that instead of eliminating discretion, algorithms can lead to a displacement of subjective judgments, burying them under a patina of objectivity and making them harder to monitor (Espeland and Vannebo, 2007).…”

Do economists make policies? On the political effects of economics

“…This is highlighted across the literature, from the abject failure of the Thaba-Tseka livestock development project described by Ferguson (1990) to the unintended consequences of US prison sentencing reform discussed by Espeland and Vannebo (2007), to the sequence of performativity and counterperformativity MacKenzie (2006) found at play as the Black-Scholes-Merton model was put to work in financial markets.…”

Indigenous Data Sovereignty

“…Indigenous peoples around the world are not immune from this growing trend of quantification-based accountability (Espeland & Vannebo 2007). There is a plethora of information pertaining to Australia's First Peoples compiled by the state and other organisations for the purposes of knowing and counting the population base for service delivery and resource allocation.…”