Experts in Policy Processes: A Contemporary Perspective

Abstract

An expert has typically been conceived as one with certain personal qualities of knowledge or skill. Martin suggests an alternative to the empiricist mode of viewing experts (with its faith in the ability of scientists to discover an objective truth), abandoning the notion of an expertise which confers expertness apart from the social setting. Instead he views experts and expertise in more relativistic terms. In the relativist mode, expertness is an ascribed quality, conferred by those who accept one as an expert. Partisanship enters: clients may be seen as choosing from among candidate-experts those who share their policy position, to assure receiving the right kind of advice. The marketing of supportive experts becomes part of our political life. In this very useful look at the literature of experts in policy-making. Martin observes how generally we have been dazzled into thinking naked pundits are wearing fine scientific garments.