The Role of Expert Knowledge in the EU

In this special issue of the Open Access journal Politics and Governance, guest editors Åse Gornitzka and Cathrine Holst assemble 14 articles dealing with the role and use of expert knowledge in EU decision-making.

Expertise has played a pivotal role in EU executives since the European Union was established, but its significance is arguably increasing and takes on new shapes. This issue explores the role and use of expert knowledge in decision-making in and by EU executive institutions.

Developments in the EU are decisive for executive organisation and politics in Europe, in particular due to the position of the European Commission as the EU’s executive centre, but also because of the growing number of EU-level agencies. What characterizes EU’s executive organizations' reliance on expert advice and judgment? How is the use of expertise organized? And what are the implications of expertise organisation for experts’ performance and interactions, policy outcomes, institutional dynamics and democratic legitimacy?

The expert-executive nexus

In their introductory article, Gornitzka and Holst give an overview of how these questions have been addressed in contemporary study of the EU. They explore the major argument as to why it is relevant to centre analytical attention on the nexus between expertise and executive institutions in the political-administrative systems, and look at why analysis of this relationship is especially warranted in the context of the EU’s political-administrative order.

In addition to the guest editors' article, the special issue contains several articles by ARENA scholars:

The Expert-Executive Nexus in the EU: An Introduction
Åse Gornitzka and Cathrine Holst

Representative Bureaucracy and the Role of Expertise in Politics
Jarle Trondal, Zuzana Murdoch and Benny Geys

Cynical or Deliberative? An Analysis of the European Commission’s Public Communication on Its Use of Expertise in Policy-Making
Cathrine Holst and John R. Moodie

The Unexpected Negotiator at the Table: How the European Commission’s Expertise Informs Intergovernmental EU Policies
Meng-Hsuan Chou and Marianne Riddervold

The Limits of Epistemic Communities: EU Security Agencies
Mai'a K. Davis Cross

Societal Inclusion in Expert Venues: Participation of Interest Groups and Business in the European Commission Expert Groups
Åse Gornitzka and Ulf Sverdrup

Variables and Challenges in Assessing EU Experts’ Performance
Cathrine Holst, Silje H. Tørnblad

Full info

The Role of Expert Knowledge in EU Executive Institutions
Åse Gornitzka and Cathrine Holst (eds)

Politics and Governance, special issue, vol. 3, no. 1, 2015

Published Apr. 8, 2015 12:04 PM - Last modified Jan. 26, 2022 1:13 PM