Independence of Official Statistics

Jean-Guy Prévost is Professor of Political Science at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada, and a member of the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRT). His areas of interest are the political and critical analysis of statistical data, statistical independence, statistical structures, norms and practices, and Italian political history. His publications include: A Total Science. Statistics in Liberal and Fascist Italy (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), Statistics, Public Debate and the State (with Jean-Pierre Beaud; Pickering and Chatto, 2012), “The Battle over Greek Deficit Statistics”, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 39, 2, October 2021, 439-457, “Past, present and future of Canadian statistics”, Statistical Journal of the IAOS, 36 (2), June 2020, 355–363, and “The 1946 Allied Mission to Observe Greek Elections: An Experiment in Quantitative Political Science”, Histoire et mesure, 2018, 2, vol. XXXIII, p. 163-192.

• - 1. Introduction: The Problem of Independence. - 2. The Legal Display of Independence. - 3. The Organization of Institutional Independence. - 4. The Instruments of Professional Independence. - 5. Patterns, Paths, and Processes: The Dissemination of Independence. - 6. Conclusion: Expanding Independence?.