Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T07:45:06.966Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Independent experts with political mandates: ‘Role distance’ in the production of political knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2020

Aurel Niederberger Open the ORCID record for Aurel Niederberger [Opens in a new window]
Aurel Niederberger*
Affiliation:
The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Some experts take on political mandates and simultaneously base their authority on a claim to independence: this balancing act enables international organisations (IOs) to incorporate ‘independent’ experts and generate ‘objective’ knowledge around their policies. However, how do these experts reconcile the contradictory roles of a mandated expert and an independent expert? I address this question by taking recourse to Goffman's sociology and two related concepts: sociological ambivalence refers to situations in which a person faces conflicting expectations. This conflict can be remedied through role distance, that is, behaviour that signals a degree of disaffection from the role one is currently performing while one simultaneously continues to perform that role. I conduct a case study of ‘independent’ experts hired by the UN Security Council to monitor sanctions, analysing how their position is sociologically ambivalent and how their knowledge practices are interlaced with performances of role distance. The findings have two implications for macro-phenomena: first, by keeping their contradictory role constellation functional, experts make it possible for IOs to mobilise ‘independent expertise’. Second, because experts perform role distance through the way they produce knowledge, role distance leaves traces in political knowledge.

Keywords

ExpertsGoffmanGlobal GovernanceKnowledgeUN Sanctions
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of International Security , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , October 2020 , pp. 350 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Littoz-Monnet, Annabelle, ‘Production and uses of expertise by international bureaucracies’, in Littoz-Monnet, Annabelle (ed.), The Politics of Expertise in International Organizations: How International Bureaucracies Produce and Mobilize Knowledge (Abingdon, Oxon and New York, NY: Routledge, 2017), pp. 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Merton, Robert K. and Barber, Elinor, ‘Sociological ambivalence’, in Tiryakin, Edward A (ed.), Sociological Theory, Values and Sociocultural Change (New York: Free Press, 1963), pp. 91–120Google Scholar.

3 Goffman, Erving, ‘Role distance’, in Goffman, Erving (ed.), Encounters; Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction (Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books, 1961), pp. 58–152 (p. 108)Google Scholar.

4 Haas, Peter M., ‘Ideas, experts and governance’, in Ambrus, Monika et al. (eds), The Role of ‘Experts’ in International and European Decision-Making Processes: Advisors, Decision Makers or Irrelevant Actors? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)Google Scholar; Li, Tania Murray, The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics (Durham and London: Duke University Press Books, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sending, Ole Jacob, The Politics of Expertise: Competing for Authority in Global Governance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Dezalay, Yves and Garth, Bryant G., The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Abbott, Andrew, The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Larson, Magali Sarfatti, The Rise of Professionalism: Monopolies of Competence and Sheltered Markets (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishing, 2012)Google Scholar.

7 Best, Jacqueline, ‘Bureaucratic ambiguity’, Economy and Society, 41:1 (2012), pp. 84–106 (p. 84)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Seabrooke, Leonard, ‘Identity switching and transnational professionals’, International Political Sociology, 8:3 (2014), pp. 335–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hilgartner, Stephen, Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

9 Seabrooke, ‘Identity switching and transnational professionals’.

10 Best, ‘Bureaucratic ambiguity’; Mallard, Grégoire, Fallout (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pénet, Pierre, ‘The IMF failure that wasn't: Risk ignorance during the European debt crisis’, The British Journal of Sociology, 69:4 (2018), pp. 1031–55CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

11 Weber has been translated to IOs particularly by Barnett, Michael and Finnemore, Martha, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

12 Best, ‘Bureaucratic ambiguity’, p. 92.

13 March, James G. and Olsen, Johan P., Rediscovering Institutions (New York: Free Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

14 Latour, Bruno and Woolgar, Steve, Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Cetina, Karin Knorr, Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

15 Adler-Nissen, Rebecca, ‘Stigma management in international relations: Transgressive identities, norms, and order in international society’, International Organization, 68:1 (2014), pp. 143–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Adler-Nissen, Rebecca, Opting Out of the European Union: Diplomacy, Sovereignty and European Integration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pouliot, Vincent, International Pecking Orders: The Politics and Practice of Multilateral Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 For an illustration, see Pouliot, International Pecking Orders, pp. 150–2.

18 Burns, Tom, Erving Goffman (Oxon: Routledge, 2002), p. 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Goffman, Erving, Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings (New York: The Free Press, 1966), p. 8Google Scholar.

20 Goffman, ‘Role distance’, p. 93, emphasis added.

21 For a longer description of roles and role performance, see Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1959), pp. 16–76Google Scholar.

22 Goffman, ‘Role distance’, p. 93.

23 Strauss, Anselm L., Continual Permutations of Action (Piscataway, NJ: Aldine Transaction, 1993), p. 247Google Scholar.

24 Goffman, ‘Role distance’, p. 101.

25 Goffman, Erving, Interaction Ritual (New York: Pantheon, 1982), p. 169Google Scholar.

26 Adler-Nissen, Rebecca, ‘The social self in international relations: Identity, power and the symbolic interactionist roots of constructivism’, European Review of International Studies, 3:3 (2016), pp. 27–39 (p. 27)Google Scholar.

27 Merton, Robert K., ‘The role-set: Problems in sociological theory’, The British Journal of Sociology, 8:2 (1957), pp. 106–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Merton and Barber, ‘Sociological ambivalence’.

29 Verhoeven, Jef C., ‘An interview with Erving Goffman, 1980’, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 26:3 (1993), pp. 317–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Hughes, Everett C., The Sociological Eye (New Brunswick, NJ: Taylor & Francis Inc., 1984), pp. 141–51Google Scholar.

31 Park, Robert E., ‘Human migration and the marginal man’, American Journal of Sociology, 33:6 (1928), pp. 881–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Simmel, Georg, ‘Der Raum und die räumlichen Ordnungen der Gesellschaft’, in Rammstedt, Otthein (ed.), Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe Band 11 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1992)Google Scholar.

33 Merton and Barber, ‘Sociological ambivalence’, p. 96, emphasis added.

34 Coser, Rose Laub, ‘Role distance, sociological ambivalence, and transitional status systems’, American Journal of Sociology, 72:2 (1966), pp. 173–87CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

35 Goffman, ‘Role distance’ p. 108.

36 Ibid., emphasis added.

37 Ibid., emphasis added.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., p. 128.

40 Ibid., p. 120.

41 Coser, ‘Role distance, sociological ambivalence, and transitional status systems’.

42 Pouliot, Vincent, ‘Methodology’, in Adler-Nissen, Rebecca (ed.), Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 45–58Google Scholar.

43 Academics may fall into the category of entrepreneurial experts, depending on what image they seek to project and how they market themselves. However, there are distinct logics to academia, and institutions such as tenure provide conditions that take away at least the economic pressure to sustain one's image as independent expert.

44 ‘Global death sentences are at record high, says Amnesty International’, The Independent (2017), available at: {https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/global-executions-decrease-death-penalty-third-last-year-amnesty-international-report-annual-a7676841.html} accessed 16 July 2018.

45 Cited after Jennings, Jeremy and Kemp-Welch, Tony, ‘The century of the intellectual: From the Dreyfus Affair to Salman Rushdie’, in Jennings, Jeremy (ed.), Intellectuals in Politics: From the Dreyfus Affair to Salman Rushdie (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 1–24Google Scholar.

46 Said, Edward W., Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (London and New York: Penguin Classics, 2003), p. 10Google Scholar, emphasis added.

47 CIA, ‘Today's CIA’ (2018), available at: {https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/todays-cia/} accessed 16 July 2018; Breger, Marshall J. and Edles, Gary J., Independent Agencies in the United States: Law, Structure, and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 de Guevara, Berit Bliesemann, ‘On methodology and myths: Exploring the International Crisis Group's organisational culture’, Third World Quarterly, 35:4 (2014), pp. 616–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 See, for example, Littoz-Monnet (ed.), The Politics of Expertise in International Organizations; Littoz-Monnet, Annabelle, ‘Ethics experts as an instrument of technocratic governance: Evidence from EU Medical Biotechnology Policy’, Governance, 28:3 (2015), pp. 357–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boswell, Christina, The Political Uses of Expert Knowledge: Immigration Policy and Social Research (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 For example, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, Independent Commission for Aid Impact, Independent Expert Review Group: Accountability for Women's and Children's Health.

51 Barnett and Finnemore, Rules for the World, notably pp. 3, 24–5.

52 Littoz-Monnet (ed.), The Politics of Expertise in International Organizations, p. 1f.

53 Narayanaswamy, Lata, ‘Problematizing knowledge-for-development’, Development and Change, 44:5 (2013), pp. 1065–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nay, Olivier, ‘International organisations and the production of hegemonic knowledge: How the World Bank and the OECD helped invent the Fragile State Concept’, Third World Quarterly, 35:2 (2014), pp. 210–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Biersteker, Thomas J., Eckert, Sue E., and Tourinho, Marcos, ‘Thinking about United Nations targeted sanctions’, in Biersteker, Thomas J., Tourinho, Marcos, and Eckert, Sue E. (eds), Targeted Sanctions: The Impacts and Effectiveness of United Nations Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 11–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Niederberger, Aurel, ‘Investigative ignorance in international investigations: How United Nations Panels of Experts create new relations of power by seeking information’, The British Journal of Sociology, 69:4 (2018), pp. 984–1006CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

56 Small Arms Survey, ‘About the Small Arms Survey’ (2018), {http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/about-us/mission.html} accessed 16 July 2018.

57 Council on Foreign Relations, ‘About CFR’ (2018), available at: {http://www.cfr.org/about/} accessed 16 July 2018.

58 RAND, ‘RAND at a Glance’ (2018), available at: {https://www.rand.org/about/glance.html} accessed 16 July 2018.

59 International Crisis Group, ‘Who We Are: Preventing War, Shaping Peace’ (2018), available at: {https://www.crisisgroup.org/who-we-are} accessed 16 July 2018.

60 DCAF, ‘Home’ (2017), available at: {www.dcaf.ch} accessed 17 May 2017.

61 ISS, ‘How We Work’ (2018), available at: {https://issafrica.org/about-us/how-we-work} accessed 10 July 2018.

62 Chatham House, ‘About Chatham House’ (2018), available at: {https://www.chathamhouse.org/about} accessed 16 July 2018.

63 On Rwanda's regional politics, see, for instance, Lemarchand, René, ‘Foreign policy making in the Great Lakes region’, in Khadiagala, Gilbert M. and Lyons, Terrence (eds), African Foreign Policies: Power and Process (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), pp. 87–106Google Scholar.

64 On challenging PoE evidence, see Niederberger, ‘Investigative ignorance in international investigations’.

65 This procedure intertwines with measures to protect informants, which are not role distance because they are expected from investigators. Furthermore, this case refers to one of the early investigations into human rights issues undertaken by PoEs; the role of the humanitarian expert on PoEs is among the more recent ones and has likely evolved since.

66 On each PoE, one member is designated coordinator.