Quantified expertise: Connecting science and politics in global governance

This chapter offers an overview of the field of the sociology of expertise to explore the production of usable knowledge across the traditional boundaries of science and politics. International bureaucracies rely heavily on expert knowledge. At the same time, expert knowledge is a subject of paradoxical tensions—on the one hand, international politics increasingly rely on expert advice to solve complex global challenges; on the other hand, expert knowledge is often contested and politicized. Against this backdrop, two central questions emerge: Who are the experts in international politics, and what are their grounds for legitimacy? This chapter answers these questions through two interlinked inquiries. First, it focuses on the constitutive notion of expertise in global governance. In particular, the chapter explores the epistemic structures underpinning global governance, including the mechanism of legitimation of experts and their knowledge. The second part of the chapter focuses on how the key modality of knowledge production in global governance—namely, the production of numbers—shapes expert practices. The chapter offers an in-depth theorization of ‘quantified expertise’ in global governance by focusing on three central processes, distinguishing it from other forms of advice-giving, namely: toolification, narrative translation, and brokerization of expertise.