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Johan Christensen for the Global Blog about experts in global governance

Recently, Johan Christensen, Assistant Professor at the FGGA, contributed to the commentary series on technocracy and democracy in global governance that is organised by the Global Governance Centre and the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy.

Christensen outlines two competing narratives about the role of experts in governance and the very different democratic concerns they raise. The first narrative that Christensen mentions in his blog is 'the technocracy narrative'. It states that experts have become increasingly powerful. Christensen: 'Decisions that were previously made by elected leaders have been delegated to expert bureaucracies that are insulated from politics and far removed from regular citizens: the European Commission, the IMF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), etc.'  The second that Christensen mentions is the 'useful idiots' narrative. Christensen: 'In this narrative, experts are powerless rather than powerful. Academics, scientific advisors and expert bureaucracies do not have an independent influence on policy-making. Rather, they are the instruments of political interests.'  

Read the whole blog here

Johan Christensen is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration. His research focuses on the role of experts and expertise in public policy-making, both at the national and European levels. His first book “The Power of Economists within the State” is published by Stanford University Press in 2017.

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