Looking for Utopia: Experts and Global Governance

The coronavirus pandemic has given an old question new traction: what exactly is the meaning of appeals to expert authority in politics? Though basing political decisions on best available scientific and technical knowledge may be a plain task surface, calls for ‘listening science’ regularly maintain this perception, relationship between expertise politics complicated. Given particular centrality global governance practices institutions, would international theory look like? Two recent volumes subject offer highly original answers question. Read alongside each other, Lucile Maertens Marieke Louis’ Why International Organizations Hate Politics Jens Steffek’s Organization as Technocratic Utopia bring fore technocratic legacies depoliticising tendencies governance. In review essay, I first discuss historical emergence technocratically-inspired organisations portrayed by Steffek, then turn Maertens’ practitioner-centred account how depoliticisation works understood analytically. comparative discussion propose that, with help both books, we can picture driven search utopia.