The Politics of Information: A New Research Agenda

Blom, Tannelie; Vanhoonacker, Sophie

doi:10.1057/9781137325419_1

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While previous work by Blom and co-authors (Blom and Carraro, 2014;Blom and Vanhoonacker, 2014; focuses on developing and applying the broader information-processing framework as such, this article is the first to focus on Blom's (forthcoming) politics of expertise approach and apply it to a concrete case study. As such, this article is of an exploratory nature, probing into the usefulness of employing such an approach when studying the formation and functioning of expert groups.…”

Section: The Politics Of Expertise In Public Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…When it comes to assessing the independence of committee members, a helpful analytical tool is offered by Blom (forthcoming), who studies the ‘politics of expertise’ within the framework of an information-processing approach to public organizations, as also outlined and applied in Blom and Vanhoonacker (2014) and Blom and Carraro (2014). This approach starts from the assumption that ‘organizations exist in the form of subsequent … episodes of information processing with explicit decisions as transitional and linking events’ (Blom and Carraro, 2014: 5).…”

Section: The Politics Of Expertise In Public Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To address these issues, this article proposes a model to study the politics of expertise within international organizations, which finds its roots in an information-processing approach (Blom and Carraro, 2014; Blom and Vanhoonacker, 2014). It sets a framework to study the formal and informal processes leading to the appointment of expert committees, and to assess their overall level of expertise and independence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Electing the experts: Expertise and independence in the UN human rights treaty bodies

Carraro

2019

European Journal of International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Independent experts are employed in international organizations to carry out a variety of functions, including conducting independent evaluations of state performance in a given policy area. In the field of human rights, a well-known example of the use of independent expertise in public organizations is that of the United Nations treaty bodies, committees of independent experts in charge of monitoring state compliance with the major United Nations human rights treaties. Considering the sensitive tasks that these experts perform, and the fact that they are elected by states, the question of whether they actually possess the required levels of independence and expertise to fulfil their role arises. This article proposes and applies a framework to study the formal and informal processes leading to the appointment of expert committees in international bodies, and to assess their level of expertise and independence. Data were collected by means of an original survey and 40 semi-structured interviews. The article shows that the overall level of independent expertise possessed by committees is surprisingly high when considering the highly political electoral process. Therefore, it argues that to study the expertise and independence of expert committees, one should conceive of them as groups that might be able to maintain a certain independence from the states that have elected them.

show abstract

Section: The Politics Of Expertise In Public Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: The Politics Of Expertise In Public Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Electing the experts: Expertise and independence in the UN human rights treaty bodies

Carraro

2019

European Journal of International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This conceptualization departs from the assumption that current societies have shifted away from a command and control style of government towards increased deliberation and bargaining where information and knowledge are a key resource (e.g. Blom 2014). Especially now that national parliaments are meant to play an active role within the EU policy--making process via the Early Warning System, information processing plays an important enabling function.…”

Section: The Role Of Officials In the Epmentioning

confidence: 99%

More bureaucracy or more democracy: the EU at an "unrepresentative turn"?

Neuhold¹

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The academic debate on officials within the EP only provides limited answers to the question under which conditions such actors have an impact on policy-making. We thus have to build on the more general debate on bureaucratic delegation processes to civil servants and work on ministerial bureaucracies. Any study on bureaucracy is-as our Research Master students in European Studies well know-inspired by Max Weber. The Weberian ideal type of a bureaucracy is characterized by hierarchical structures and the rule of law. Personnel of this ideal type are career officials recruited by way of "objective criteria and educational qualifications" (Barberis 2011, 15). These professionals adhere to principles of neutrality "free from all personal considerations" (Weber 1978, in: Barberis 2011, 962). From the debate on delegation in the US Congress we learn that competences are delegated to officials, given that clear administrative procedures and rules prevail. Administrative procedures lower the costs of monitoring and sharpen sanctions and thus contribute to greater compliance (McCubbins, Noll and Weingast. 1987, 246). Gailmard and Patty (2007) show that the risks of delegation can be minimized if issues are delegated to bureaucratic experts that have "some measure of control over policy issues they care about" and as such develop "politicized competence" (Gailmard and Patty 2007, 886). A merit system based on job tenure protections combined with discretion setting by the legislature, creates a main incentive for officials to invest in their career. These two factors provide a "payment" for expertise development (Gailmard and Patty 2007, 874-875). Politicized competence thus can be defined as the readiness to invest in "expertise development" and is not to be confused with politicization and partisanship (Peters and Pierre 2004). When trying to conceptualise the role officials play within policy-making, the work by Page and Jenkins (2005) is particularly instructive. Building on sociological theories of bureaucracy and drawing on 140 interviews, three types of policy roles of middle-level administrators working for UK ministries are identified (

show abstract

“…IO bureaucracies are also noted for the way in which they marshal expertise and process information. Therefore they frequently possess a broader and more structured knowledge about certain policy problems than member states (Blom and Vanhoonacker, 2014). Scholars also recognise the moral standing of the United…”

Section: The Location Of Authority In Global Affairsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who governs? : authority and authorisation in global affairs

Conzelmann¹

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the "Taverne" license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement:

show abstract

The Politics of Information: A New Research Agenda

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Electing the experts: Expertise and independence in the UN human rights treaty bodies

Electing the experts: Expertise and independence in the UN human rights treaty bodies

More bureaucracy or more democracy: the EU at an "unrepresentative turn"?

Who governs? : authority and authorisation in global affairs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About