Numbers have achieved an unmistakable political power within technologies of government. An initial inventory might distinguish four sorts of political numbers.

First, numbers determine who holds power, and whose claim to power is justified. Electoral districts apportion persons according to numerical criteria. Elections and referenda count votes. Executive powers are related to numerical calculations of majorities and minorities. The fate of a nation can depend upon a percentage point or less; the character of an assembly can depend upon a complex mathematical calculation of proportionality. Numbers, here, are part of the mechanism of conferring legitimacy on political leaders, authorities and institutions.

Secondly, numbers operate as diagnostic instruments within liberal political reason. Opinion polls calibrate and quantify public feelings; as George Gallup put it, they ‘take the pulse of democracy’. Social surveys and market research try to transform the lives and views of individuals into numerical scales and percentages. Numbers here promise to align the exercise of ‘public’ authority with the values and beliefs of ‘private’ citizens. And this promise becomes even more alluring as democratic citizens themselves come to be understood as consumers with preferences which politicians ignore at their peril.

Thirdly, numbers make modern modes of government both possible and judgeable. Possible, because they help make up the object domains upon which government is required to operate. They map the boundaries and the internal characteristics of the spaces of population, economy and society.