Standards and Standardization as a Social Scientific Problem

In recent years there has been an increased interest among social scientists in issues of standards and attempts at standardization in all aspects of economic, political and social life. Once regarded as technical issues of concern primarily to specialists (see Barry 2001, p. 63), standardization is now viewed as a legitimate site of social scientific study Such an interest has been provoked largely by questions concerning how successful co-ordination among a variety of different actors, organizations and levels of governing is achieved in a globalizing world where the state is no longer the main form of regulation, and particularly how public and private entities might most effectively shape conduct ‘at a distance’ within this environment. In particular, the globalization of scientized knowledge systems as social and cultural institutions is argued to accelerate a rationalization of the social world (see Weber, 1968) in which professional and organizational knowledge-practices are reinvented in increasingly formalized, universalized and standardized ways (Drori et al., 2006, pp. 13–14). This gives rise to a wide range of standards, protocols, certification and auditing systems which form a pervasive and powerful mechanism for governing conduct within contemporary economies and societies (e.g., Brunsson and Jacobsson, 2000; Power, 1997; Strathern, 2000; Tamm Hallström, 2004).