Expert advice bodies’ role in COVID-19 crisis governance

In modern days, it is taken for granted that policy-makers rely on expertise to make good decisions given the ever-increasing complexity of policy issues. It is expected that expert advice enhances the effectivity of policies. However, the political legitimacy of expert influence on policy decisions is debated. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion of the role of expert advice bodies in COVID-19 crisis governance and the impact of expert advice bodies on the outputs of COVID-19 crisis governance. It first provides an overview of the expert advice bodies and their characteristics across 31 European states. Next, the paper examines the establishment, the composition and the influence of the identified expert advice bodies. While in some countries established expert committees have been activated, in other countries, new committees had to be formed with the goal to provide governments a better understanding of the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic and advise governments in formulating crisis measures. The selection of expert committees were in some cases untransparent and the composition of expert committees was not made public. Much debated was also the composition of these bodies as some expert advice bodies were dominated by medical experts. Finally, the paper explores whether the pattern of the establishment of these expert advice bodies and their composition have influenced their outputs and influence. For example, it investigates the expectation whether ad hoc expert bodies had weaker influence in comparison to established ones because they had no working routines and communication channels with authorities at the onset of the pandemic.