Experts as researchers and policy actors: Czech pension reform

Abstract

AbstractIs it possible to act simultaneously as an expert and co‐policymaker without breaking the rules for knowledge‐based social policies? Trying to answer this question, I recap my experience as Chairman of the Czech Government‐established Expert Committee on Pension Reform in 2013–2017. I reflected on it analysing and advising on the path of the Czech pension reform. Applying theories of actor‐centred and discursive institutionalism, I analysed the rich empirical evidence based on the content of manyfold actors’ discourses. My involvement gave me a chance to participatorily observe the behaviour of formal and informal actors and thus learn more about their ideological positions, communication and negotiation strategies, and final embodiments of these disputes in policy proposals and acts. I analysed the roles of experts as moderators of discourse, analysts, and policy actors themselves. Following this experience, I offer some tentative conclusions for further discussion.