In the last several decades, there has been a surge of interest in expertise in the social scientific, philosophical, and legal literatures. While it is tempting to attribute this surge of interest in expertise to the emergence and consolidation of a "knowledge society," "post-industrial society," or "network society," it is more likely that the debates about expertise are symptomatic of significant change and upheaval.
As the number of contenders for expert status has increased, as the bases for their claims have become more diverse, and as the struggles between these would-be experts intensified, expertise became problematic and contested. In
The Oxford Handbook of Expertise and Democratic Politics, Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz have brought together a broad group of scholars who have engaged substantively and theoretically with debates regarding the nature of expertise and the social roles of experts to examine these areas within sociology and allied disciplines. The analyses take an historical and relational approach to the topic and are motivated by the sense that growing mistrust in experts represents a danger to democratic politics today. Among the topics considered here are the value and relevance of the boundary between experts and laypeople; the causes and consequences of mistrust in experts; the meanings and social uses of objectivity; and the significance of recent transformations in the organization of the professions.
Bringing together investigations from social scientists, philosophers, and legal scholars into the political dimensions of expertise, this
Handbook connects interdisciplinary work done in science and technology studies with the more classic concerns, topics, and concepts of sociologists of professions and intellectuals.
Gil Eyal is Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. His research focuses on various types of expertise, as well as the sociological theory of expertise, lay expertise and the politics of expertise. He is the author of The Crisis of Expertise (2019), The Autism Matrix (2010) and The Disenchantment of the Orient (2006). He has also published various articles on intellectuals, experts, and expertise in Theory and Society, BioSocieties, the Annual Review of Sociology, Sociological Theory, and the American Journal of Sociology.
Thomas Medvetz is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on the political role of experts, professionals, and intellectuals in modern societies. He is the author of
Think Tanks in America (2012), a book based on his study of the history and impact of think tanks in the United States. He has also written or co-written academic articles about public intellectualism and the contemporary American conservative movement. His work has appeared in journals such as
Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, the
Annual Review of Sociology,
Politics & Society,
Public Culture, and
Qualitative Sociology.
