Copy the page URI to the clipboard
Newman, Janet and Clarke, John
(2018).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13511610.2017.1396887
Abstract
In this article, we explore the implications of contemporary populist challenges to established forms of expertise in the UK, USA and elsewhere. Drawing on a Foucauldian conception of knowledge and power as always articulated, we argue for a conjunctural approach to understanding the ways in which formations of expertise become stabilized and de-stabilized, vulnerable to challenge and contestation. We trace the role of economic expertise in defining the limits of political and policy “realism” before and after the crash of 2007–8. We then consider the rise of nationalist-populist political mobilizations which challenged existing “expertise” in the name of popular wisdom. In the context of de-stabilized forms of expertise, we ask about emergent attempts at reconfiguring knowledge, power and politics in different ways.