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Critical Elitism

Deliberation, Democracy, and the Problem of Expertise

Alfred Moore author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:22nd Jun '17

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Critical Elitism cover

This book re-imagines expert authority for an age of critical citizens, and shows how expertise can contribute in a deliberative system.

How are we to handle the tension between expertise and democracy? Developing a democratic model of expert authority, this book describes the ways in which civil society, expert institutions, and democratic innovations can contribute to its production. It addresses deliberative democrats, but will also interest scholars working in environment, health policy, and science communication.Democracies have a problem with expertise. Expert knowledge both mediates and facilitates public apprehension of problems, yet it also threatens to exclude the public from consequential judgments and decisions located in technical domains. This book asks: how can we have inclusion without collapsing the very concept of expertise? How can public judgment be engaged in expert practices in a way that does not reduce to populism? Drawing on deliberative democratic theory and social studies of science, Critical Elitism argues that expert authority depends ultimately on the exercise of public judgment in a context in which there are live possibilities for protest, opposition and scrutiny. This account points to new ways of looking at the role of civil society, expert institutions, and democratic innovations in the constitution of expert authority within democratic systems. Using the example of climate science, Critical Elitism highlights not only the risks but also the benefits of contesting expertise.

'In this illuminating book, Alfred Moore argues persuasively that democracy requires not only active participation, but also reflective judgments about expert authority by those who choose not to participate. Critical Elitism offers a nuanced and important contribution to the study of expertise and democracy.' Mark B. Brown, California State University, Sacramento

ISBN: 9781107194526

Dimensions: 235mm x 160mm x 20mm

Weight: 480g

226 pages