The construction and use of indicators for sustainability governance: empirical insights from Swiss cities

The use of evidence in policy-making and politics can take various forms and resorting to quantified knowledge in the form of indicators is one of them. In the past three decades, a plethora of indicator-based initiatives for assessing and monitoring progress towards sustainability have emerged at the international, national and local (e.g. urban) level. Indicators measuring progress towards the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals are a prominent addition to what critical observers referred to as an indicator “zoo” or “industry”. Despite this rapid growth of indicator initiatives and a more general trend towards quantification as a crucial mechanism in the production of knowledge for the governance of complex problems, empirical enquiries into the tensions and conflicts imbuing the construction of indicators measuring a value-laden and contested concept such as sustainability and their implications for urban governance efforts are few. Conceiving of sustainability indicators as boundary objects, this contribution puts the spotlight on the ways in which the (participatory) construction and use of indicators can stimulate debate and negotiations among divergent perspectives and ultimately contribute to strengthening policy coherence across fragmented policy fields. Relying on findings from qualitative interviews with public administration officers participating in the Swiss indicator platform “Cercle Indicateurs” and from a quantitative survey among representatives of Swiss cities administrations, this paper offers empirical insights into (i) tensions in the co-construction and harmonization of sustainability indicators for Swiss cities, (ii) policymakers’ perception of drivers and barriers for using sustainability indicators in their municipalities and (iii) the policy and polity contexts in which sustainability indicators are operated. Drawing a rich picture of actors, institutions and processes involved in the Swiss indicator landscape, these empirical findings will make both theoretical and practical contributions to recent debates on the quantification of knowledge for the governance of complex, interconnected and multi-level problems.