The Crisis of Expertise

Gil Eyal (Professor of Sociology, Columbia University)

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English

Polity Press
20 September 2019

Sociology & anthropology

In recent political debates there has been a significant change in the valence of the word experts from a superlative to a near pejorative, typically accompanied by a recitation of experts' many failures and misdeeds. In topics as varied as Brexit, climate change, and vaccinations there is a palpable mistrust of experts and a tendency to dismiss their advice. Are we witnessing, therefore, the death of expertise, or is the handwringing about an assault on science merely the hysterical reaction of threatened elites?

In this new book, Gil Eyal argues that what needs to be explained is not a one-sided mistrust of experts but the two-headed pushmi-pullyu of unprecedented reliance on science and expertise, on the one hand, coupled with increased skepticism and dismissal of scientific findings and expert opinion, on the other. The current mistrust of experts is best understood as one more spiral in an on-going, recursive crisis of legitimacy. The scientization of politics, of which critics warned in the 1960s, has brought about a politicization of science, and the two processes reinforce one another in an unstable, crisis-prone mixture.

This timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the social sciences and to anyone concerned about the political uses of, and attacks on, scientific knowledge and expertise.

By: Gil Eyal (Professor of Sociology Columbia University)
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 213mm, Width: 137mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 249g
ISBN: 9780745665788
ISBN 10: 0745665780
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 20 September 2019
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction The Crisis Chapter 1 Expertise Chapter 2 The Debate about Expertise Chapter 3 Trust Chapter 4 Risk Chatper 5 Crisis, Take 2 Chapter 6 Inside the Vortex Chapter 7 Balaam's Blessing Conclusions, or, Trans-science as a Vocation

Gil Eyal is Professor of Sociology at Columbia University

Reviews for The Crisis of Expertise

This impressive piece of scholarship explores contemporary debates about the nature of expertise and their relationship to politics in novel ways. Eyal writes with verve and a great eye for metaphor, which makes the book a great read. Harry Collins, Cardiff University Gil Eyal thinks that the present-day crisis of expertise is substantial and serious but that it has not yet been properly described. His attempt to supply that description is necessary reading for our troubled times. Steven Shapin, Harvard University