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Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict Paperback – Illustrated, June 15, 2010
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At least 200,000-250,000 people died in the war in Bosnia. "There are three million child soldiers in Africa." "More than 650,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the U.S. occupation of Iraq." "Between 600,000 and 800,000 women are trafficked across borders every year." "Money laundering represents as much as 10 percent of global GDP." "Internet child porn is a $20 billion-a-year industry." These are big, attention-grabbing numbers, frequently used in policy debates and media reporting. Peter Andreas and Kelly M. Greenhill see only one problem: these numbers are probably false. Their continued use and abuse reflect a much larger and troubling pattern: policymakers and the media naively or deliberately accept highly politicized and questionable statistical claims about activities that are extremely difficult to measure. As a result, we too often become trapped by these mythical numbers, with perverse and counterproductive consequences.
This problem exists in myriad policy realms. But it is particularly pronounced in statistics related to the politically charged realms of global crime and conflict-numbers of people killed in massacres and during genocides, the size of refugee flows, the magnitude of the illicit global trade in drugs and human beings, and so on. In Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and policy analysts critically examine the murky origins of some of these statistics and trace their remarkable proliferation. They also assess the standard metrics used to evaluate policy effectiveness in combating problems such as terrorist financing, sex trafficking, and the drug trade.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherCornell University Press
- Publication dateJune 15, 2010
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions6 x 0.81 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100801476186
- ISBN-13978-0801476181
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts is terrific. It demonstrates that quantitative misrepresentation is not an idiosyncratic problem but one that is widespread and often detrimental. The authors make sense of the numbers that are thrown around so liberally by interested parties and which so often influence or even determine, important and costly public policies."--John Mueller, Ohio State University"Statistics can be like sausages: the more you know about how they're produced, the less appetizing they seem. Each essay in this excellent collection explores how political considerations rework best guesses and stab-in-the-dark estimates into 'hard numbers' that, in turn, are used to justify international policies on human trafficking, illicit drugs, and warfare. Readers risk losing their complacent confidence in 'what the data show.'"--Joel Best, University of Delaware, author of Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data
"This is a terrific, innovative, and coherent volume that combines the insights of The Wire with outstanding recent scholarship. Puncturing many myths--sometimes uncomfortably so--chapters both systematic and vivid show the dangers of basing public policy on numbers that no one should count on, including exaggerating numbers of victims or, the opposite, deliberately downplaying gross state violations. The authors show how and why unreliable numbers persist, what it takes--politically and methodologically--to develop better estimates, and why it matters. Not uncontroversial, Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts will be of great interest to social scientists, policy wonks, and the wider reading public."--Lynn Eden, Stanford University"Scoffing at the politicization of numbers in policy debates is now standard fare. This book is the first to move from scoffing to a serious analysis of the process of politicization."--Peter Reuter, University of Maryland College Park"This intriguing collection of essays is a refreshing counterpoint to the all too commonly accepted view that numbers and only numbers matter to scholarship and to policy and that such numbers are but neutral and accurate reflections of fact. This volume ably demonstrates the dangers of problematic statistics and dubious measures in the fields of armed conflict and transnational crime. Its findings should generate an abundance of healthy skepticism."--Martha Crenshaw, Stanford University
Review
This is a terrific, innovative, and coherent volume that combines the insights of The Wire with outstanding recent scholarship. Puncturing many myths―sometimes uncomfortably so―chapters both systematic and vivid show the dangers of basing public policy on numbers that no one should count on, including exaggerating numbers of victims or, the opposite, deliberately downplaying gross state violations. The authors show how and why unreliable numbers persist, what it takes―politically and methodologically―to develop better estimates, and why it matters. Not uncontroversial, Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts will be of great interest to social scientists, policy wonks, and the wider reading public.
-- Lynn Eden, Stanford UniversityAbout the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Cornell University Press; Illustrated edition (June 15, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0801476186
- ISBN-13 : 978-0801476181
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Item Weight : 14.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.81 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,933,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,405 in Statistics (Books)
- #3,450 in National & International Security (Books)
- #9,485 in Criminology (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Kelly M. Greenhill is Associate Professor at Tufts University and Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is author of Weapons of Mass Migration (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)--winner of the 2011 International Studies Association's Best Book of the Year Award--and co-author and co-editor of Sex, Drugs and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict (Cornell University Press) and The Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics, 8th ed. Greenhill's research has also appeared in a variety of other venues, including the journals International Security, Security Studies, Civil Wars, and International Migration, in media outlets such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, the International Herald Tribune, and the British Broadcasting Company, and in briefs prepared for the U.S. Supreme Court and other organs of the U.S. government. Greenhill is currently completing a new monograph, a cross-national, multi-method study that explores why, when, and under what conditions, contested, "extra-factual" sources of political information--such as rumors, conspiracy theories, myths and propaganda--materially influence the development and conduct of states' foreign and defense policies. Outside of academia, Greenhill serves as a consultant to agencies of the US government and to other governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations.
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