Rankings have dramatically proliferated over the past several decades. An often-overlooked impact of this proliferation is that it has facilitated the institutionalization of an imaginary of the modern world as a stratified order, whose actors are imagined as continuously striving to perform better than others. To better understand this impact, we need to take a closer look at rankings’ premises and the way these resonate with the broader institutional environment of which rankings are a part.

中文翻译：

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为什么排名看起来很自然（但不是）

在过去的几十年中，排名急剧上升。这种扩散的一个经常被忽视的影响是，它促进了对现代世界的想象作为分层秩序的制度化，人们认为这种行为者不断努力以取得比其他人更好的表现。为了更好地理解这种影响，我们需要仔细研究排名的前提以及这些前提与排名所参与的更广泛的制度环境的共鸣。