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Littoz-Monnet provides a fresh analysis of the enmeshment of expert knowledge with politics in global governance, through a unique investigation of bioethical expertise, an intriguing form of 'expert knowledge' which claims authority in the ethical analysis of issues that arise in relation to biomedicine, the life sciences and new fields of technological innovation. She makes the case that the mobilisation of ethics experts does not always arise from a motivation to rationalise governance. Instead, mobilising ethics experts - who are endowed with a unique double-edged authority, both 'democratic' and 'epistemic' - can help policy-makers manoeuvre policy conflicts on scientific and technological innovations and make their pro-science and innovation agendas possible. Bioethical expertise is indeed shaped in a political and iterative space between experts and those who do policy. The book reveals the mechanisms through which certain global governance narratives, as well as the types of expertise they rely on, remain stable even when they are contested.

"The book asks how the notion of ethics expertise has emerged, what functions its mobilisation plays in the governance of scientific and technological innovation and how such expertise is produced. It reveals that bioethics expertise is fundamentally political in three distinct but interrelated ways. First, its mobilisation in policy does not always arise from a motivation to rationalise governance. Mobilising experts can be a way of manoeuvring through political conflicts, because the mobilisation of expertise can hide the political component of public discussions, insulate policy-making and facilitate the fabric of policy compromises. Second, bioethical expertise and policy do not belong to impervious spheres; experts can be mobilised to such avail because iterations between knowledge and politics take place through tangible mechanisms, so that bioethical expertise ultimately makes policy possible, rather than provide it with oversight. Third, through a close-up on bioethics expertise, the book reveals that the delineation of what counts as expert knowledge fluctuates, reflecting specific political and social circumstances and the agendas which actors unfold in given contexts"--