Role of Metrics in Constructing the EU Anti-Poverty Policy

Marianna Zieleńska is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Warsaw. She researches quantification in public policy, including the use of quantitative measures and algorithms in labour market and anti-poverty policy. Between 2021 and 2025, she led two projects focusing on poverty indicators applied in European Union anti-poverty policy that resulted in this book: "Making anti-poverty policy in the European Union through quantitative measures - the case study of the composite indicator at risk of poverty or social exclusion” (financed by the National Science Centre) and “What gets measured gets done - governing the EU anti-poverty policy though indicators” (financed by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange) - carried out during visiting fellowship at the University of Edinburgh (School of Social and Political Science).

• Introduction: Calculative infrastructure and ideational power games.- Chapter 1: Mapping the theoretical field – EU indicators in different theoretical perspectives.- Chapter 2: EU anti-poverty policy and the proliferation of metrics.- Chapter 3: Harmonization of data – installing the calculative infrastructure.-  Chapter 4: Negotiating policy priorities though numbers.- Chapter 5: The monitoring role of calculative infrastructure.- Chapter 6: Communicating positions and advancing interests though calculative infrastructure.- Chapter 7: Legitimising the supranational dimension of the EU though indicators.- Conclusions: The technical and the political as a part of the calculative infrastructure.