Data infrastructures, international organizations, and the politics of amendment

Data infrastructures are becoming increasingly central in “evidence-based” and “data-driven” policymaking at the international level, but the production and use of data in governance varies between different institutions and settings. This article examines closely the relations between data production and use over time in two international organizations and their efforts to deal with emissions to air—the International Maritime Organization and the World Health Organization. The article contributes to work in STS on infrastructures by proposing new lenses through which to analyze data infrastructures in international organizations over time. We first conceptualize data infrastructures in international organizations as political formations which are institutionally negotiated and contested, and that both carry and enact relations. We then develop amendment as a praxiographic lens through which to study such data formations, based on what we call data praxiography. We analyze the politics of amendment, capturing how these data formations are continuously worked on in response to changing scientific and political interests, and how data practices are intimately linked with institutional practices and politics. The article contributes to the growing literature on data governance and digital statecraft by showing the importance of studying the continuity of data work in international organizations and the layering of data formations through amendments for understanding new data-informed modes of governance.