Representative bureaucracy and the role of expertise in politics

Journal article | Zeitschriftenartikel

The vast majority of existing studies on bureaucratic representation focus on bureaucracies' permanent and internal staff. Yet, the rising sophistication of modern democracies and the technocratization of political life are gradually inducing an increased reliance on external experts to assist in the development and implementation of policy decisions. This trend, we argue, raises the need to extend studies of bureaucratic representation to such external and non-permanent experts in governmental affairs. In this article, we take a first step in this direction using seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Commission as our empirical laboratory. Our results highlight that Commission SNEs do not appear representative of their constituent population (i.e., the EU-27 population) along a number of socio-demographic dimensions. Moreover, we find that the role perception of "experts" is primarily explained by organizational affiliation, and only secondarily by demographic characteristics (except, of course, education).

Object Details

• ISSN: 2183-2463
• Extent: Seite(n): 26-36
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Status: Veröffentlichungsversion; begutachtet (peer reviewed)

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Politics and Governance, 3(1)

Classification and Topics

• Subject: Politikwissenschaft ; politische Willensbildung, politische Soziologie, politische Kultur ; Bevölkerung ; Wahrnehmung ; Bürokratie ; Repräsentation ; Europäische Kommission ; Experte ; Know-How ; demographische Faktoren ; Gruppenzugehörigkeit ; politische Entscheidung

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Trondal, Jarle ; Murdoch, Zuzana ; Geys, Benny
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (when): 2015

Further information

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v3i1.65
• Last update: 21.06.2024, 4:27 PM CEST