Book Review: Government statistical agencies, and the politics of credibility by Howard, C. W.

• Author: Niva Golan-Nadir
• Date: 01 April 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/02750740211069405
• Published date: 01 April 2022
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

articulate or observe. Indeed, one would hope this to be true,

as it would go a long way to temper fears about a runaway

bureaucracy enabled by deferential courts. Yet an examina-

tion of administrative jurisprudence alone cannot substantiate

the authors’claims. An effective rebuttal of critiques of the

rise of executive power, threats to liberty, and the account-

ability of the administrative state should demonstrate how

that jurisprudence guides administrators.

Second, and related, Law and Leviathan could do more to

provide insight into the circumstances under which the

morality of administrative law constrains agencies. Sunstein

and Vermeule recognize that administrative law has its

limits; agencies balance the morality of administrative law

against capacity and programmatic objectives. The authors

suggest a sliding scale, with the minimum morality necessary

to constitute rule of law on one end and perfect legality on the

other. Extending the authors’line of reasoning, the pointer on

this scale likely rests at different places across varying agen-

cies and points in time.

Acknowledgement of this variation is necessary when

engaging with critics of the administrative state. As the

authors note, critiques tend to center around government

action (as opposed to inaction) and the exercise of new

authority (as opposed to existing power). An exploration of

how and when legal principles channel and shape agency dis-

cretion could alleviate each of these concerns. By focusing on

how agency decision-making incorporates the principles of

administrative jurisprudence, the authors would be able to

clarify why government action (or inaction) under new (or

old) authority exhibits internal morality.

Overall, Law and Leviathan is a timely piece of scholar-

ship that blends political philosophy and law and encourages

the reader to contemplate the power of the administrative

state. The book engages with key questions in administrative

governance and will provide new avenues for research in

public administration, law, political science, and public

policy.

ORCID iD

Jennifer L. Selin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4018-6159

Howard, C. W. (2020). Government statistical agencies, and the

politics of credibility. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

230 pp., £75, ISBN 978-1-108-49122-8

Reviewed by: Niva Golan-Nadir ,Center for Policy Research,

University at Albany, SUNY, New York, USA

DOI: 10.1177/02750740211069405

Official statistics are one of the most critical sources pertain-

ing to our knowledge of a state. They provide basic social,

economic, demographical, and environmental data (Allin,

2021) that influences inner-state political decision and

policy making. It may also determine the nature of political

and economic international relations. For scholars, it is also

a basic primary quantitative data collection tool that sheds

light on their case studies (Harrison, 2013).

Investigating power struggles between politicians and

bureaucracies producing statistics in democracies, the book

Government Statistical Agencies, and the Politics of

Credibility authored by Dr. Cosmo Howard, Deputy Head

of the School of Government and International Relations at

Griffith University who specializes in comparative public

administration, bureaucratic politics, and public policy pro-

cesses, argues that despite witnessing delicate pressures and

tensions between governments and statisticians, such pres-

sures rarely cause bias in the production of statistics.

Acknowledging that “democracies needs statistics”(p. 2),

the research questions posed in the book inquires: Who has

the authority to produce official statistics in liberal democra-

cies? What explains the allocation of authorities to different

participants within these official statistical systems? (p.5).

This is to realize the power politicians have over leadership

of statistical agencies in the production of official statistics.

The book’s main hypotheses innovatively focus on the

balance of power between the political strata and the admin-

istrative one. It shows that official statistics in liberal democ-

racies are far from mistruths; they are consistently shielded

from direct political interference. Yet, it shows that a range

of subtle pressures and tensions exist that governments and

statisticians must manage. The book also showcases that

power over statistics is distributed differently across coun-

tries, since differences in decision-making powers across

countries are the result of shifting pressures politicians and

statisticians face to be credible. Additionally, while using a

comparative perspective, the book reveals the different

national contexts that provide distinctive institutional settings

for the production of government data.

Structurally, the book contains seven chapters. Following

the introduction chapter that opens with a striking and vivid

example of political intervention in the American Bureau of

Labor Statistics (p. 1), the first chapter provides the theoret-

ical framework of the study and is followed by five chapters

that analyze the case studies selected (Australia, Canada,

Sweden, The United Kingdom, and the United States of

America). The book ends with a final concluding chapter

highlighting the causal relationship between credibility and

authority in official statistics. The structure of the book pro-

vides an orderly setting for this comparative study, as it

clearly presents the profound insights from both the theoret-

ical framework and the findings that the author wishes to

endow to the readers. Further, in order to equally portray

on the varied case studies, for each case the author elaborates

on the distribution of statistical authority, political credibility,

professional credibility, and the institutional settings.

One of the contributions of this book is locating the long-

standing study of the distribution of power between

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