Nationalizing Statistics
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Nationalizing Statistics: A Comparative Study of the Development of Official Statistics During the 20 th Century in Israel-Palestine and Canada. A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (Science Studies) by Anat Elza Leibler Committee in Charge: Professor Andrew Lakoff, Chair Professor Theodore M. Porter, Co-Chair Professor Nancy Cartwright Professor Chandra Mukerji Professor Steve Epstein Professor Richard Biernacki 2008 Copyright Anat Elza Leibler, 2008 All rights reserved The dissertation of Anat Elza Leibler is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm: ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Co-Chair ___________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2008 iii DEDICATION To Alon and Shahar who endured this journey. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ………………………………………………………………….. iii Dedication ……………………………………………………………………… iv Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………. v Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………….. vii Vita ……………………………………………………………………………... xii Abstract ………………………………………………………………………… xiv Chapter 1: Science and the State: Statistical Practices and Their Implications.... 1 Chapter 2: Political Centralization and Scientific Credibility………………….. 38 Chapter 3: Regulative Centralization – The 1912 Statistical Commission ……. 63 Chapter 4: Constitutive Centralization – Universalizing ‘The Economy”……... 109 v Chapter 5: Versus the Only Child” – Political Demography in Israel’s Pre- State Period …………………………………………………………………… 150 Chapter 6: National Registration, Census and Citizenship..…………………… 203 Chapter 7: Conclusions – Republics of Statistics……………………………… 256 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………. 277 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation concludes an intellectual journey that has spanned over two continents, lasted for more than a decade, and has involved friends, colleagues, teachers, mentors and family members. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of you. First and for most I want to begin by thanking my advisors Theodore Porter and Nancy Cartwright for their immense contribution and deep commitment to this project, for being admirable mentors, for believing in me and for their immeasurable knowledge. I was fortunate to be their student. Ted had been an inspiration to me in my MA studies in Israel, way before I knew him personally. I owe him my knowledge and perspective on the history of statistics and quantification and his books are the reason for my continuing interest in the field. Above all, his kindness, guidance and constant encouragement have been a source of growth and development. Nancy read with great dedication every rough draft she received from me, pushed me to crystallize my arguments and to develop my philosophical perspective on the subject of the dissertation. Studying with her was a special honor which is reserved to being near great scholars. Chandra Mukerji, who has been a thorough and insightful teacher and a committee member, had a special role in supporting me since the very beginning of grad school. I want to thank the members of my dissertation committee – to Richard Biernacki for his wisdom and generosity; to Steve Epstein for his excellent and substantive guidance as a teacher and for his scholarship from which I have learned a vii lot. I thank Andrew Lakoff who exposed me to his STS perspective; it has been an important conceptual tool ever since. My project on national statistics had already started in Israel, during my MA studies at Tel Aviv University. I want to express sincere appreciation to Daniel Breslau and Michael Shalev, my MA advisors, for believing in the importance of this research, to Yehouda Shenhav who was an intellectual mentor to me and to Elia Zureik for opening conceptual and professional opportunities for me. Thanks, Toda and Shukran to you all. Being abroad as an international student has not always been easy and this is the place to thank old and new trustful and reliable friends. First, to my UCSD colleagues from Sociology and The Science Studies Program, for offering much needed solidarity during the years and especially at the last stage of my studies, while I was writing my dissertation from distance. Each of them was reading, commenting, criticizing and assisting me to reach the final goal, some extensively, some in more specific times. It was a great honor to meet you all: Charlene Bredder, Melody Chiong, Carmel Finley, Michael Haedicke, Laura Harkewicz, Raquel Jacob-Almeida, Minakshi Menon, Miriam Padolsky and David Ribes. Miriam was not only a dear friend and a brilliant colleague; she and her partner – Anatole Papadopoulos – hosted me at their home in Ottawa during my fieldwork in the Canadian archives. Raquel and Melody’s friendship and hospitality was vibrant and colorful. My endless conversations with Mini were insightful and helped me to contextualize my experience at UCSD in more general terms. Finally, I thank my much-loved off-campus friends, who have been constantly listening, encouraging and supporting me during all the viii years of my studies: Maya Belkin, Sarit Elenbogen-Frankovich, Aliza Kamery, Sandy Shapiro, Nava Toledano, Yoav Toledano and Aviva Zeltzer-Zubida. My friendship with Aviva, who is also a colleague, has been rooted in her deep understanding of the complexity of having multiple statuses - being an international grad student, a woman and a mother; this makes her friendship precious. This project greatly benefited from the financial support of various institutions: The Science Studies Program granted me with the necessary resources to study, conduct my research, publish and write my dissertation. The generosity of the program was unwavering. Special gratitude is dedicated to Chandra Mukerji and Naomi Oreskes whose assistance and personal support as the chairs of The Science Studies Program was invaluable. The Department of Sociology’s travel grants, stipend and dissertation fellowship in addition to the Dean of Social Science’s research and travel grants allowed me to present my work in various professional meetings, workshops and colloquia and gave me the time to write. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Society Program Dissertation Improvement Grant, Award # SES 0526595 and the NSF Science and Society Program Research and Training Grant, Award # SES 0349956 provided a significant support necessary to carry out my research; Lastly, I want to thank Ms. Beatrice Curty Golay from The AVI Fellowships foundation (Switzerland) who secured my studies in the first years with generous grants as well as to The International Sepharadic Education Foundation (ISEF). The project could have not been accomplished without all the people in the archives that helped me to locate the empirical data for this research and provided ix assistance: In Israel State Archive Michal Saft and Helena Vilenski were and still are a great help with their efficient and kind service. Thanks to Hana Pinshow and Miriam Sagues from the Science Archives in Ben Gurion Archives for their remarkable service. Also, chapter five would not have been written if Margalit Bejarano with the help of Shaul Katz didn’t donate Roberto Bachi’s personal archive to the Science Archives. My visits to the Canadian archives and libraries have always been a pleasure due to the exceptional Canadian service. I wish to mention two outstandingly helpful people: Martin Ruddy, the head of the Textual Consultation Unit from the National Archives and Library of Canada, helped to relocate lost documents. Volodymyr Rebinczak from Statistics Canada Libraries dedicated valuable time in every visit I had in Stats Can libraries. The people from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics and from Statistics Canada deserve my gratitude for helping me in narrating the historical case of both countries. The dissertation contains parts of my published papers. Chapters 2 and 5 contain parts of the paper: “Statisticians’ Reason: Governmentality, Modernity, National Legibility.” Israel Studies 9(2) pp. 121-149, 2004. Chapter 6 contains parts of the paper: “Establishing Scientific Authority – Citizenship and the First Census of Israel”, in, Brunner, Jose, (ed). Tel Aviver Jahrbuch fuer deutsche Geschichte XXXV, (Tel Aviv Yearbook for German History), pp. 221-236, 2007. Wallstein Verlag, Goettingen; and the paper: “The Uncounted: Citizenship and Exclusion in the Israeli Census of 1948.” Ethnic and Racial Studies ; 28(5) pp. 880-902, 2005. (Co-authored with Breslau, Daniel). I thank Daniel for allowing me to use these parts of our paper. x Here I am reaching the very last lines of this dissertation giving room to the most important and influential people in my life. Yet, no words can express the gratitude I feel to them: I owe this dissertation to my parents, Sharona and Vardi Rozner who instilled in me the urge to ask questions and to search for knowledge. I only wish my mom was living to this moment. I want to thank Tamar Rozner, my father’s wife, my brother, sisters and their partners; to my in-laws, Rivka, Ben-Zion, Tali and Danny Leibler for their trustworthy support. Most of all, I am indebted to Alon, my partner, and Shahar, my daughter for traveling with me to an unknown country, giving up the coziness and security