Littoz-Monnet, Annabelle

Governing through expertise: the politics of bioethics - New York Cambridge University Press 2020 - xi, 159 p.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Governing Science and Technology
2. Re-Conceptualizing the Enmeshment of Knowledge and Politics
3. The Fabric of Ethics Experts
4. Researching Embryonic Stem Cells
5. Manipulating Particles on a Small Scale
6. Tracking People's Behaviour
7. Conclusions: The Politics of Expertise.

Littoz-Monnet provides a fresh analysis of the enmeshment of expert knowledge with politics in global governance, through a unique investigation of bioethical expertise, an intriguing form of 'expert knowledge' which claims authority in the ethical analysis of issues that arise in relation to biomedicine, the life sciences and new fields of technological innovation. She makes the case that the mobilisation of ethics experts does not always arise from a motivation to rationalise governance. Instead, mobilising ethics experts - who are endowed with a unique double-edged authority, both 'democratic' and 'epistemic' - can help policy-makers manoeuvre policy conflicts on scientific and technological innovations and make their pro-science and innovation agendas possible. Bioethical expertise is indeed shaped in a political and iterative space between experts and those who do policy. The book reveals the mechanisms through which certain global governance narratives, as well as the types of expertise they rely on, remain stable even when they are contested.

Proposes a new view of expertise
Proposes a critical view of the notion of bioethics
Sheds light on the mechanisms which enable certain governance narratives to emerge and stabilize

9781108843928


Science and state
Specialists
Ethics committees
Expertise--Political aspects

174 / LIT