Conventions for measuring and questioning policies : the case of 50 years of policy evaluations through a statistical survey

"Statistics are used to make critical judgments about society and fuel policy debates through different configurations that link together three components: a) the questioning of policy appropriateness and fairness; b) the categories and statistical tools used in evaluations; c) the economic, social and political theories invoked in interpretations and explanations. Using convention theory and the sociology of engagements, the article offers a perspective view of how these configurations have changed over nearly half a century in France, based on a single statistical source. This approach to 'the politics of statistics' identifies four main configurations around four main measurements of human characteristics: social origin, occupational skills, human capital, migration history." (author's abstract