300450 Expertise in World Society (MA: Politische Soziologie) (S) (SoSe 2022)

The relationship between expertise, politics and the public has always been paradoxical. Confronted with complex dynamics and contested problems such as global warming or worldwide food insecurities policymakers urgently ask for scientific advice. At the same time, however, the role of experts in society is questioned more than ever. Both tendencies can be observed: the ‘expertization’ of politics and the politicization of expertise. In world society, these paradoxical dynamics gain momentum. New actors, global expert networks and international comparisons force nation states to deal with alternative modes and standards of expertise. So far unquestioned arrangements of policy-relevant knowledge production are no longer taken for granted. They are confronted by, and collide with, different norms of scientific integrity and political accountability. The aim of this seminar is to critically explore the interlinkages between science, politics and the public in world society. In taking up the multiple problems and paradoxes of policy expertise, it addresses some key questions: How is expertise generated, communicated and justified in multiple contexts? How do these contexts shape and constrain the politics of expertise? How can we describe and explain changes in the understanding of policy expertise? And: what could be the causes and consequences of its current crisis?

Bibliography

Stone, Diane. 2019. Making Global Policy. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Straßheim, Holger. 2015. Politics and policy expertise: towards a political epistemology. In Handbook of Critical Policy Studies, Frank Fischer, Douglas Torgerson, Anna Durnová and Michael Orsini (eds.), 319-340. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, UK/Northampton, MA.