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Quantifying Law: legal indicator projects and the reproduction of neoliberal common sense

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  • Tor Krever

Abstract

Development thinking in the past two decades has explicitly embraced law as an engine of development. This legal turn has been accompanied by a dramatic expansion of efforts to measure and quantify legal systems. Against claims that legal indicators are neutral, technical descriptions of the legal world, this article argues that legal indicators do not merely reflect legal reality; their construction and deployment are central to the continuing diffusion of neoliberalism as development common sense. The article considers the two most prominent projects to quantify law in the service of economic development—the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators and Doing Business indicators—and argues that these reproduce a narrow neoliberal conception of law as a platform for private business and entrepreneurial activity, and institutional support for a system of laissez faire markets.

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  • Tor Krever, 2013. "Quantifying Law: legal indicator projects and the reproduction of neoliberal common sense," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 131-150.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:34:y:2013:i:1:p:131-150
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2012.755014
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    Cited by:

    1. Deval Desai & Mareike Schomerus, 2018. "‘There Was A Third Man…’: Tales from a Global Policy Consultation on Indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(1), pages 89-115, January.
    2. Estevão, João & Lopes, José Dias & Penela, Daniela & Soares, José Miguel, 2020. "The Doing Business ranking and the GDP. A qualitative study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 435-442.
    3. Lilac Nachum & Charles E. Stevens & Aloysius Newenham-Kahindi & Sarianna Lundan & Elizabeth L. Rose & Leonard Wantchekon, 2023. "Africa rising: Opportunities for advancing theory on people, institutions, and the nation state in international business," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(5), pages 938-955, July.
    4. Mikaela Luttrell-Rowland & Sophia Rhee & Whitney Okujagu, 2023. "Dominant Development Indexes’ Construction of Gender and Challenges for Recognizing Everyday Activism for Peace and Security," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 23(2), pages 152-168, April.
    5. Paul Holden & Alma Pekmezovic, 2020. "How accurate are the Doing Business indicators? A Pacific Island case study," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 247-261, September.
    6. Plehwe, Dieter, 2021. "The Development of Neoliberal Measures of Competitiveness," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 155-181.

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