5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

The slogan of the United Nations Statistical Commission, “Better Data, Better Lives,” captures the longstanding and widespread belief that better information will lead not only to better collective decision‑making but also to better individual results. In line with this instrumental view, the 2020 World Population and Housing Census Program of the United Nations (UN) regards population censuses as a primary source of data needed for policy formulation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. This view has become even more salient since the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development relies on population and housing censuses to develop many of the indicators operationalizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While these indicators are often seen as instruments for gathering objective information, they can also be conceptualized as instruments that constitute their objects in a particular way and are, hence, epistemic interventions.

While the knowledge-use literature started with the question of to which extent research results are used in public policy, the assumption of instrumental knowledge use was later reformulated, emphasizing the epistemic changes in policymaking that were attributable to the diffusion of academic concepts through the media. On the “detour” of the media, academic concepts are trivialized, become partially taken for granted, and are partially imbued with new meanings. Applying this idea to population indicators, the planned session strives to bring together contributions on the use of population indicators in public policy.