The political significance of expert knowledge has many dimensions. Expertise is a much larger part of governance today than it was in the days of the ideology of total rationalization and planning, but does this mean the epitome of rationalism? This is a question of the place of expertise in our political life, that is, where we draw boundaries between people, ideas and things. In this course, students will understand the role of expert knowledge in contemporary societies, the changes in its creation, distribution and legitimization. From a critical sociological point of view, students will deal with current initiatives promoting expert forms of governance and decision-making, their historical contexts and consequences. Above all, the current consequences seem to be paradoxical: at the same time, the expert literature talks about expertocracy and the danger to democracy, but also post-truth, fake news and the anti-expert movement. This paradox is apparent, sociology can reveal these phenomena with the help of various analyses, such as scrutiny of actors, legitimizing practices, arguments, discourse, but also of space - topology. The course is designed heuristically, students will analyse how the given sociological texts and discussions in the lesson made it possible to think in a new way - what can be done in a new way and what alternative, on the contrary, was prevented. Students will discuss concrete empirical examples of the political and social consequences of the expertise of some areas, and conversely the de-expertization of others, such as the inclusion or exclusion of (non-)expert actors, knowledge and issues. Students will learn to distinguish between liberal and critical, normative and descriptive perspectives on the role of expertise in political life.
- Teacher: Jitka Wirthová