The Accountability of Expertise
Erik O. Eriksen, "The Accountability of Expertise "
English | ISBN: 1032007605 | 2021 | 202 pages | EPUB | 541 KB
English | ISBN: 1032007605 | 2021 | 202 pages | EPUB | 541 KB
Based on in-depth studies of the relationship between expertise and democracy in Europe, this book presents a new approach to how the un-elected can be made safe for democracy. It addresses the challenge of reconciling modern governments’ need for knowledge with the demand for democratic legitimacy.
Knowledge-based decision-making is indispensable to modern democracies. This book establishes a public reason model of legitimacy and clarifies the conditions under which unelected bodies can be deemed legitimate as they are called upon to handle pandemics, financial crises, climate change and migration flows. Expert bodies are seeking neither re-election nor popularity, they can speak truth to power as well as to the citizenry at large. They are unelected, yet they wield power. How could they possibly be legitimate?
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