Numbers, Governance, Health: A Norwegian Case of Statistics and Documentation Production

This paper follows the documents (texts, numbers) of a statistics system called IPLOS. IPLOS is intended to coordinate, control, standardize and stabilize municipal care services in Norway and generate statistical knowledge about the clients. We follow the production of IPLOS numbers, their movements through the interlocking organizations, and how IPLOS is understood, used, and interacts with service delivery. We find that rather than IPLOS numbers stabilizing the organization, the organization de-stabilizes the numbers.