Global social indicators, as a form of governance and soft regulation, exert pressure for change and compliance through the way they compare and rank the relative performance of states or other units. Is it reasonable then to expect the comparisons they make in the process of carrying out such strategic exercises to be accurate and fair? In particular, how far can they, or should they, be required to be faithful to the requirement to ‘compare like with like’. Using as an example the role of indicators in documenting and responding to the current coronavirus epidemic, I investigate the way their hybrid combination of both comparison and commensuration may help to account for the difficulty they have had so far in establishing stable rankings of best practice.

中文翻译：

---

在比较和比较之间：COVID-19 排名的案例研究

全球社会指标作为治理和软监管的一种形式，通过对国家或其他单位的相对绩效进行比较和排名的方式，对变革和合规施加压力。那么，期望他们在进行此类战略演习的过程中进行的比较是准确和公平的，是否合理？特别是，他们可以或应该在多大程度上忠实于“比较相似”的要求。以指标在记录和应对当前冠状病毒流行中的作用为例，我研究了它们将比较和比较相结合的方式可能有助于解释它们迄今为止在建立稳定的最佳实践排名方面遇到的困难。