Enough of Experts (PDF)

Enough of Experts: Expert Authority in Crisis analyses the challenges and threats to expert authority in neoliberal political economies and societies. It focuses upon the deep-seated political, economic, social and cultural transformations which have fundamentally destabilized and eroded the institutional foundations of expert authority over more than four decades. The book critically assesses the orthodox or 'received' model of expert authority as it has come under escalating pressures from a nexus of ideological, organizational, technological and cultural changes that have radically weakened the former's core 'institutional logic' and practical efficacy. It also looks forward to a range of 'expert futures' in which expert groups and organizations decline in power and status as their prevalence proliferates to a stage where they become ubiquitous in neoliberal regimes. Finally, the book presents an alternative reflexive model of expert authority and governance that is grounded in the 'dynamics of contestation and trust' and stands in direct contrast to the orthodox, rational model.

Cara Reed is a Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. She has currently published her work on experts, professions, identity construction and discourse in the likes of Organization Theory, the British Journal of Management, and Management Learning. In 2023, she will be guest editing a special issue of Organization with Alexandra Bristow from the Open University, Thomas Lopdrup-Hjorth from Copenhagen Business School and Gabriela Spanghero Lotta from Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Brazil, on the topic of 'Expert Futures? Re-examining the role of experts and expertise in organizations and organizing.' She is a member of the Learned Society of Wales Early Career Researcher Network, the British Academy of Management, and the European Group for Organizational Studies, as well as being Social Media Editor at Management Learning.?

Michael Reed is Professor of Organizational Analysis, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. He was Professor of Organization Theory at the Department of Behavior in Organizations, Lancaster University Management School before moving to a chair in Cardiff in 2002. He has also held office as Associate Dean for Research in both schools. Over a period of more than four decades, he has published extensively in major European journals in organization and management studies and has authored and edited 6 books within the field. His research interests focus on the dynamic interplay between expert work, organizational governance and elite power within neoliberal political economies and societies. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and The Learned Society of Wales.