Expert Knowledge in Times of a Global Crisis: Examining interactions between think tanks, media and politics in hybrid political regimes

It is widely acknowledged that experts may have a powerful impact on public opinion and policymaking. Hence, there have been numerous scholarly attempts to analyze the policy influence of expert groups in different institutional environments. However, these analyses have mainly focused on Western democratic societies. In the context of authoritarian and hybrid political regimes, expert knowledge production and its impact on policymaking remains largely unexplored. This paper sets out to narrow this gap by conceptualizing the interplay between expert knowledge, media and politics beyond consolidated democracies. More specifically, it provides and tests an analytical framework for examining how institutionalized expert groups, such as think tanks, influence media discourses and political agendas in illiberal political contexts. The examination is conducted against the background of the current global crisis related to the spread of the Coronavirus. Drawing on examples from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, three post-Soviet countries with varying types of hybrid/non-democratic political regimes, the paper thus seeks to advance a new research agenda on the expert-media-policy nexus in times of crisis and conceptualizes the impact of expert knowledge on politics and society beyond Western democracies.