The Politics of Expertise

Undergraduate

Few societies have been as reliant on experts as our own. As societies grow more complex and technology advances, so does the need for experts who have undergone years of specialized training. Ordinary citizens, firms, state bureaucracies, courts, and legislators constantly rely on experts to guide them in their decisions. However, this reliance is far from seamless. Opportunities to become a successful expert are uneven and often depend on circumstances beyond individual control. Specialists must counter public skepticism and compete with rival groups to establish their authority. Decision-makers are inundated with claims to expertise, making it challenging to discern between valid and dubious advice. Experts can exacerbate issues, fail catastrophically, or neglect public concerns to serve their own interests. Moreover, the increasingly specialized knowledge possessed by experts can seem esoteric and detached from everyday life, leader laypeople to view them with suspicion. For these reasons and others, the very notion of expertise has become highly politicized in recent years. Our society seems to be more and more divided between those who think that experts are indispensable to solve our problems, and those who see them as the root of our troubles. The course adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to explore these issues, drawing from both classical and modern research in sociology, political science, psychology, and philosophy. SO HTBA