War by numbers: The sociology of counting in armed conflict

Abstract This paper advances the sociology of quantification by introducing the concept of war counting, a sociologically informed framework for understanding how numbers are produced, utilized, interpreted, and contested within the context of armed conflict. While sociologists have explored the pervasive role of quantification in governance, markets, and everyday life, limited attention has been paid to how numerical practices unfold during war. Drawing on theoretical and empirical sources, the paper examines casualty counts as a paradigmatic example of war counting, tracing how these figures are generated under conditions of uncertainty, used to guide practices and policies, politicized by state and nonstate actors, and imbued with symbolic significance. The analysis reveals that quantification functions simultaneously as a tool of bureaucratic rationality, an instrument of narrative warfare, and a marker of legitimacy. This paper argues that the context of war introduces distinctive challenges to quantification, ranging from access constraints and methodological ambiguities to moral dilemmas surrounding human suffering. By situating war counting within the broader field of the sociology of knowledge and measurement, the paper proposes a new analytic lens for studying quantification in the context of coercive violence. In doing so, it offers a sociological vocabulary and framework for analyzing how numbers function in the most extreme of social settings.