Introduction: Why expertise? -- The periodic table of expertises : ubiquitous and specialist expertises -- The periodic table of expertises : meta-expertises and meta-criteria -- Investigating interactional expertise and embodiment -- The color-blindness and perfect pitch experiments -- New demarcation criteria -- Conclusion: Science, the citizen, and the role of social science -- Appendix: Waves of science studies
Sharing expertise is a growing field of interest because of the increased amount of available information, turnover of experts and globalization of companies. Sharing expertise is a difficult task; therefore, experts often lack motivation, skills and time to document their expertise. The developed expertise cycle is a framework where knowledge stewards build personal trusted relationships with experts. Knowledge stewards interview the experts, construct the knowledge and document it, making it available for knowledge seekers. The expertise cycle is tested in two cases where the expertise is distributed to different individuals and business units. In both cases the usage of the expertise cycle was expanded. As a conclusion, the usage of the expertise cycle and described best practices are recommended. Instead of providing more information we should concentrate on providing better quality of information – and the expertise cycle is a valuable method to achieve this goal.
Abstract This paper surveys recent work on moral expertise. Much of that work defends an asymmetry thesis according to which the cognitive deference to expertise that characterizes other areas of inquiry is out of place in morality. There are two reasons why you might think asymmetry holds. The problem might lie in the existence of expertise or in deferring to it. We argue that both types of arguments for asymmetry fail. They appear to be stronger than they are because of their focus on moral expertise regarding all-in judgments about rightness. We reject this emphasis on all-in judgment in favor of an account of moral expertise as typically multi-stranded and domain limited. This account of moral expertise is better able to address the problem of how to identify those who have expertise. It also offers a more nuanced picture of the contrast between accepting a moral claim on one's own and accepting it on testimony.
Alongside economic change, market socialism in Vietnam entails biopolitical campaigns to combat poverty as a "social problem." Social workers in Hồ Chí Minh City function as agents of therapeutic governance to transform the lives of poor urban clients by employing empathetic interpersonal interaction grounded in scientific models of human behavior. Analysis of social workers' affective expertise illuminates two gendered and classed consequences of their technoscientific interventions. First, social work is feminized, yet social workers often cannot achieve middle-class feminine ideals. Second, the casework approach risks naturalizing class inequality by atomizing structural problems as stemming from individual characteristics that require reform.
For its 50 years, the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) decided to edit a collective book and asked to « the Magnificent Seven » to write seven chapters. Alain Bonnafous wrote his chapter on the relationship between research and policy in the field of transport. European research in the field of transport economics owes a great deal to ECMT activities and initiatives. The full collection of Round Tables and Symposium reports prepared at the instigation of the ECMT provides an encyclopaedic body of knowledge. It bears witness to the vitality of European expertise and is an essential tool of reference of transport economics. The value and interest of the topics selected has always resided in the fact that they reflect the two-fold dimension of the ECMT – the dimension of a Conference of Ministers, meaning that the questions raised address immediate and, if possible, future policy concerns, but also a scientific dimension, meaning that the research community's knowledge and expertise are applied to answering these questions, if only partially. Thus, the Round Table reports, including the valuable summaries of discussions, constitute a long-term dialogue between decision-makers and experts – a dialogue of over 20 000 pages that has been maintained for over 35 years. The purpose of this brief report will be to take stock of this dialogue. For this exercise to be useful, it must be critical. More specifically, it answers the following three questions: - Has this dialogue addressed the right issues, i.e. those faced by decision-makers? - Have the experts been able to provide the right solutions? - Can we identify tomorrow's issues and will we be able to provide solutions? ; Les experts sont formels. - La Conférence Européenne des Ministres des Transports (CEMT) a édité, pour les 50 ans de sa création, un ouvrage collectif confié à sept auteurs (« the Magnificent Seven » ). Alain Bonnafous a choisi de traiter des relations entre recherche et politique des transports. L'Europe de la recherche en ...
For its 50 years, the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) decided to edit a collective book and asked to « the Magnificent Seven » to write seven chapters. Alain Bonnafous wrote his chapter on the relationship between research and policy in the field of transport. European research in the field of transport economics owes a great deal to ECMT activities and initiatives. The full collection of Round Tables and Symposium reports prepared at the instigation of the ECMT provides an encyclopaedic body of knowledge. It bears witness to the vitality of European expertise and is an essential tool of reference of transport economics. The value and interest of the topics selected has always resided in the fact that they reflect the two-fold dimension of the ECMT – the dimension of a Conference of Ministers, meaning that the questions raised address immediate and, if possible, future policy concerns, but also a scientific dimension, meaning that the research community's knowledge and expertise are applied to answering these questions, if only partially. Thus, the Round Table reports, including the valuable summaries of discussions, constitute a long-term dialogue between decision-makers and experts – a dialogue of over 20 000 pages that has been maintained for over 35 years. The purpose of this brief report will be to take stock of this dialogue. For this exercise to be useful, it must be critical. More specifically, it answers the following three questions: - Has this dialogue addressed the right issues, i.e. those faced by decision-makers? - Have the experts been able to provide the right solutions? - Can we identify tomorrow's issues and will we be able to provide solutions? ; Les experts sont formels. - La Conférence Européenne des Ministres des Transports (CEMT) a édité, pour les 50 ans de sa création, un ouvrage collectif confié à sept auteurs (« the Magnificent Seven » ). Alain Bonnafous a choisi de traiter des relations entre recherche et politique des transports. L'Europe de la recherche en économie des transports doit beaucoup aux activités et aux initiatives de la CEMT. L'ensemble des rapports de Table Ronde et de Symposium établis à l'initiative de la CEMT représente une somme encyclopédique qui, tout à la fois, témoigne de la vigueur des capacités d'expertise européennes et constitue un instrument indispensable de l'économie des transports. Les thèmes traités ont toujours illustré cette double dimension qui a fait tout l'intérêt de leur sélection : la dimension d'une conférence de ministres, qui suppose que les questions posées soient bien celles que désignent les problèmes politiques du jour et, si possible, du lendemain ; mais aussi la dimension scientifique, qui suppose que ces questions aient des réponses, au moins partielles, dans les connaissances et le savoir-faire des milieux d'études et de la recherche. Ainsi, les rapports de tables rondes, y compris les précieux comptes-rendus des débats, constituent-ils un long dialogue entre les décideurs et les experts, un dialogue de plus de 20 000 pages qui se poursuit depuis plus de 35 ans. L'objet de ce bref rapport est de porter un regard sur ce dialogue. Pour que ce regard soit utile, il faut qu'il soit critique. Il répond, en particulier à ces trois interrogations aborderées successivement : - Le dialogue a-t-il abordé les bonnes questions, c'est-à-dire celles qui se posaient aux décideurs ? - Les experts apportent-ils les bonnes réponses ? - Sait-on aujourd'hui poser les bonnes questions de demain et saura-t-on y répondre ?
For its 50 years, the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) decided to edit a collective book and asked to « the Magnificent Seven » to write seven chapters. Alain Bonnafous wrote his chapter on the relationship between research and policy in the field of transport. European research in the field of transport economics owes a great deal to ECMT activities and initiatives. The full collection of Round Tables and Symposium reports prepared at the instigation of the ECMT provides an encyclopaedic body of knowledge. It bears witness to the vitality of European expertise and is an essential tool of reference of transport economics. The value and interest of the topics selected has always resided in the fact that they reflect the two-fold dimension of the ECMT – the dimension of a Conference of Ministers, meaning that the questions raised address immediate and, if possible, future policy concerns, but also a scientific dimension, meaning that the research community's knowledge and expertise are applied to answering these questions, if only partially. Thus, the Round Table reports, including the valuable summaries of discussions, constitute a long-term dialogue between decision-makers and experts – a dialogue of over 20 000 pages that has been maintained for over 35 years. The purpose of this brief report will be to take stock of this dialogue. For this exercise to be useful, it must be critical. More specifically, it answers the following three questions: - Has this dialogue addressed the right issues, i.e. those faced by decision-makers? - Have the experts been able to provide the right solutions? - Can we identify tomorrow's issues and will we be able to provide solutions? ; Les experts sont formels. - La Conférence Européenne des Ministres des Transports (CEMT) a édité, pour les 50 ans de sa création, un ouvrage collectif confié à sept auteurs (« the Magnificent Seven » ). Alain Bonnafous a choisi de traiter des relations entre recherche et politique des transports. L'Europe de la recherche en économie des transports doit beaucoup aux activités et aux initiatives de la CEMT. L'ensemble des rapports de Table Ronde et de Symposium établis à l'initiative de la CEMT représente une somme encyclopédique qui, tout à la fois, témoigne de la vigueur des capacités d'expertise européennes et constitue un instrument indispensable de l'économie des transports. Les thèmes traités ont toujours illustré cette double dimension qui a fait tout l'intérêt de leur sélection : la dimension d'une conférence de ministres, qui suppose que les questions posées soient bien celles que désignent les problèmes politiques du jour et, si possible, du lendemain ; mais aussi la dimension scientifique, qui suppose que ces questions aient des réponses, au moins partielles, dans les connaissances et le savoir-faire des milieux d'études et de la recherche. Ainsi, les rapports de tables rondes, y compris les précieux comptes-rendus des débats, constituent-ils un long dialogue entre les décideurs et les experts, un dialogue de plus de 20 000 pages qui se poursuit depuis plus de 35 ans. L'objet de ce bref rapport est de porter un regard sur ce dialogue. Pour que ce regard soit utile, il faut qu'il soit critique. Il répond, en particulier à ces trois interrogations aborderées successivement : - Le dialogue a-t-il abordé les bonnes questions, c'est-à-dire celles qui se posaient aux décideurs ? - Les experts apportent-ils les bonnes réponses ? - Sait-on aujourd'hui poser les bonnes questions de demain et saura-t-on y répondre ?
AbstractWe argue that policy expertise constrains the ability of politicians to act on voter preferences. Representatives with more knowledge and experience in a given domain have more confidence in their own issue-specific positions. Enhanced confidence, in turn, may lead politicians to discount opinions they disagree with, producing a distorted image of the electorate. Two experiments with Swedish politicians support this argument. First, officials are more likely to dismiss appeals from voters in their areas of expertise and less likely to accept that opposing views may represent the majority opinion. Consistent with the proposed mechanism, in a second experiment we show that inducing perceptions of expertise increases self-confidence. The results suggest that representatives with more specialized knowledge in a given area may be less capable of acting as delegates in that domain. The study provides a novel explanation for variations in policy responsiveness.
Every society recognizes expertise, and anthropologists have long documented the culturally and historically specific practices that constitute it. The anthropology of expertise focuses on what people do rather than what people possess, even in the many circumstances where the former is naturalized as the latter. Across its many domains, expertise is both inherently interactional, involving the participation of objects, producers, and consumers of knowledge, and inescapably ideological, implicated in the evolving hierarchies of value that legitimate particular ways of knowing as "expert." This review focuses on the semiotics of expertise, highlighting four constitutive processes: socialization practices through which people establish intimacy with classes of cultural objects and learn to communicate that familiarity; evaluation, or the establishment of asymmetries among people and between people and objects; institutionalization, wherein ways of knowing are organized and authorized; and naturalization, or the essentialization of expert enactments as bodies of knowledge.
AbstractAccording to many, the US Congress desperately needs reform because its capacity to govern has declined. Congressional capacity cannot be understood without examining how the expertise available to members is fostered or discouraged. We present a theory of expertise acquisition and apply it to the problem of overseeing the Executive. We use this theory to organize a dataset of congressional staff employment merged with new records of invitations, applications, and attendance at training sessions produced by three nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC. We find that staffers are more likely to acquire expertise when their jobs are more secure and there are more opportunities to use their expertise in careers outside of Congress—most notably, when their party takes control of the presidency. Our analysis suggests that oversight expertise is generally not sufficiently valuable outside of Congress to entice many staffers to acquire it without subsidies.
AbstractIn considering issue expertise in policymaking, we unpack differences in the supply and types of expertise with attention to the presumed privileged role of the bureaucracy. Our empirical investigation is based on witness testimonies of congressional hearings for a policy area involving various forms of expertise – critical infrastructure protection policymaking. Three sets of findings stand out. One set substantiates the role of the bureaucracy as an important information conduit while also showing it is not a primary source of issue expertise. A second set shows how differences in issue maturity and salience affect the demand for and supply of expertise. A third set illustrates the influence of a small cadre of hyper-expertise in drawing attention to problems and solutions across different venues. These findings challenge the conventional view of the bureaucracy in policymaking while expanding the understanding of different sources of information and types of issue expertise in policymaking.
Agrarian expertise has been employed in the context of Swedish development aid since the 1950s. Throughout this time, the Swedish institutions of higher agrarian education—the Agricultural College, the College of Forestry, and the Veterinary College, in 1977 merged to form the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences—have played important roles. In this dissertation I consider three problems with respect to these institutions' involvement in development aid: (1) How and why did actors at the three colleges begin framing their expertise in a development context? (2) How did Swedish agrarian experts approach the problem of development in contexts about which they had little prior knowledge? (3) How and why did a long-term institutional collaboration evolve between the agrarian institutions of higher learning and the Swedish development aid authorities, and what were its characteristics? The study follows actors and their standpoints through three different aid projects: international courses in animal reproduction at the Veterinary College first planned and held in the mid-1950s; the planning and implementation of the Chilalo Agricultural Development Unit in the 1960s and 1970s; and SLU's support to higher forestry education in Ethiopia in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. It also examines the growth and subsequent decline of a continuous institutional collaboration between the institutions of higher agrarian education and SIDA, the Swedish government agency responsible for development aid. Based on my findings, I argue that the framing of Swedish agrarian expertise as relevant to the developing countries—particularly at the Agricultural College in the 1960s—was part of a broader attempt to widen the scope of agrarian science in Sweden in response to social change at home. At the same time, the development strategies proposed by the Swedish experts were anchored in the particulars of the Swedish agrarian context. This made them attuned to the local adaptation of technologies and to the value of practical knowledge but less sensitive to the societal contexts and social effects of their interventions. Their attempts to bring their knowledge to bear on the developing world also helped create a long-lasting institutionalized relationship between SLU (and the three colleges before it) and the Swedish development aid authorities, through which SLU exercised influence on much of Sweden's agrarian development aid from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s.
The issue of what development is & how it is commonly conceived, is also dealt with in the fifth article of this volume, 'Activism, Expertise, Commons' by Larry Lohmann. For many policymakers & activists, social & political reality is imagined to be divided into two parts: what Lohmann terms 'disembodied, potent, transcendental, 'global' entities' such as 'globalization' & their alleged counterpart in the 'local' & 'particular'. Through such dualisms emerges, among other things, a view of development as being a process of planning, taming, organising & rationalising undeveloped, natural, irrational or unmapped domains. However, these dualisms, through which much politics -- tacitly or overtly -- tends to operate, are, he says, subject to incessant collapse. Using three different examples -- dams/development, commodification/'the economy' & science -- Lohmann describes the processes by which the dichotomies are built up & disintegrated. Every development 'master plan' & its implementation, he points out, evolves through an endless chain of revisions, additions, restructurings & other redistributions of power in offices, corners of farmers' fields & elsewhere. Similarly, the politically-contested frontier between 'the market' & what is imagined to be 'outside the market' constantly shifts as the institutions of 'economics' work at the unfinishable job of creating an 'economy'. A more determined awareness of the processes through which dualisms between intention & world, theory & practice & 'inside' & 'outside' are set up, Lohmann suggests, could help middle-class activism better achieve its goals. Rather than buying into a dichotomous metaphysics by attempting to improve theories that are seen as different in kind from practice, he argues, middle-class activists might become more effective by becoming more self-conscious about the primacy of forming closer working alliances with what he calls 'commoners', whom he sees as being often less prone to imagine political action in terms of such dichotomies. Adapted from the source document.