Accountability of Expertise?

Involving experts in decision-making has many rationales and is often seen as enhancing the legitimacy of decisions. Yet, our expertise reliance raises a range of epistemic worries and a major democratic problem since many experts wield considerable public power. A typical proposed remedy for addressing legitimacy concerns in politics is to make agents “more accountable”. But is making experts “more accountable” the remedy for addressing the normative problems arising with more reliance on expertise? And what does expert accountability mean? Are there special challenges of holding experts to account, and is more accountability of experts sufficient to address the legitimacy challenges we have before us? The popularity of the accountability concept has led to an inflation and fragmentation of the term, causing it to fall from conceptual grace. We argue that the concept can be saved – and that experts do need to be held to account. The idea of accountability must however be brought closer to its core meaning and consciously adapted to the special challenges – we list five – that arise in contexts where account-givers are experts. Conflating all kinds of control and constrain measures to accountability, and failing to see how different types of accountability operate, how such measures can conflict, and that more accountability is not always better, weaken our ability to hold experts to account. Moreover, accountability is not the full answer and the paper discusses other necessary ways of coping with experts’ political power and the legitimacy challenges of expert reliant governance. We exemplify distinctions and recommendations and flesh out the varied ways in which contemporary expertise is institutionalized with reference to a case that involves a controversial and politicized decision where experts play a decisive role: The Norwegian government’s plan to drill for oil in the vulnerable Barents sea and Lofoten archipelago.