The Role of Expert Reporting in Binding Together Policy Problem and Solution Definition Processes

Abstract

In this chapter, we study expert reporting as a type of political work that can powerfully link public problem with policy solutions. Expert reporting and categories can more efficiently play a binding and cementing role between problem definition and policy solution since they display the same properties as policy instruments (Lascoumes & Le Galès, 2005), i.e., they implicitly carry specific frames and perform lock-in effects. We first demonstrate the political work taking place around ecological indicators which are far from neutral representations of the natural world. They are hybrid expert categories and partly political constructs that indicators’ promotors tweak to adjust to various influences. We show in particular that, to be sanctioned, actors promoting specific ecological indicators need to align their expert category with categories emanating from multiple streams and spaces. We then argue that in adverse contexts, when alignment across streams and spaces prove to be challenging, the imposition of expert indicators may occur through the rolling-out of scientific programs that feed indicators with data. Once expert categories are informed with such knowledge and data, they become more difficult to undo, hence binding together a specific way of seeing the problem and of conceiving its policy solution.