The Politics of Numbers: Slavery, its Modern Forms and Forced Labour within the ILO Global Monitoring Regime

Multilateral monitoring regimes, benchmarks and other quantification systems to simplify, commensurate and reify complex phenomena have become a distinct feature in world politics. What they all have in common, is the above mentioned translation of complex phenomena into simplified numerical representations. These numbers are imposed as unbiased facts and draw on the idea of immaculately, objective data to legitimize political decisions. That is why these numbers are politically appealing and significant but first of all highly problematic. Benchmark practices as new forms in applying authority in inter- or transnational relations are subject to a new research agenda in International Relations Theory. These practices include attributing responsibility, constructing issue expertise and defining concepts that are used to quantify international norms. Even though this observation is not new, the processes underlying these practices of quantifying are insufficiently theorized so far. The ILO, referred to, as a prototypical model for multilateral monitoring regimes, is no exception in this regard. Regional rankings and shaming of single member states are strategies to prevent or punish member states’ detection from core labour standards. In this connection, the ILO quantifies the international norm against forced labour as a core labour standard. The underlying concepts, however, are highly contested – for example regarding tendencies of de-politicizing forced labour as (criminal) aberration from the proper working of a global capitalist economy. Drawing on the systematization of labour within (Critical) International Political Economy and Labour History, the paper analyses the ILOs Global Reports under the follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work on forced labour. It aims at reconstructing possibly flawed concepts, simplifications and complex and contested normative values that are translated into simplified numerical representations of forced labour. To this end, the method of qualitative content analysis is applied. This explorative design allows for discovering argumentative constellations beyond those defined in the literature on the challenging concept of unfree labour in all its forms. As numbers are also used to create easily accessible “truths” by illustrations of “facts and figures” the paper will also incorporate insights from social scientific picture analysis. The re-construction of concepts of unfree labour that are underlying the quantification of forced labour within the global monitoring regime of core labour standards is a necessary contribution to the scientific debate on the (authoritative) modes of global governance in ruling issues of globalization.