Expertise at the intersection of technicality and ambiguity: international governance of gender and development

Abstract

This paper studies processes of expert authorisation in international institutions of governance. Based on interviews with gender experts, it focuses on discourses of women’s empowerment to reveal two strategies that experts deploy: the production of technical frames and indicators for capturing empowerment while also generating ambiguity about its meaning. I argue that technicalisation and mystification are expert strategies used to navigate organisational priorities and diverse political convictions. I propose that we need to analyse expert knowledge production not just as the cause of depoliticisation of policy problems, but also as part of other institutional processes within which expertise has to be authorised. The ongoing nature of such contestations and negotiations bears on who is acknowledged as an expert and the extent of their authority. The problem is not always expert authority but rather its dependence on political processes devised by actors who retain power by remaining behind the scenes.

Keywords:

• Expertise
• gender experts
• international organisations
• international governnance
• gender
• development

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted during my time as a visiting scholar at the Gender Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva in 2017–2018, during my sabbatical leave from Koç University. I am grateful to Professor Elisabeth Prügl, the director of the Gender Centre, and to Claire Somerville as well as every other member of the Centre, who were all invaluable to my research. I am also indebted to all the gender experts who graciously agreed to be interviewed. Finally, I thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions, which helped me immensely as I worked on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This research was supported by a European Commission Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship [grant number MSCA IF 746133] and by sabbatical leave from Koç University.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a European Commission Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship [grant number MSCA IF 746133] and by sabbatical leave from Koç University.

Notes on contributors

Özlem Altan-Olcay

Özlem Altan-Olcay is Associate Professor of political science at Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her research interests include citizenship studies, international governance of gender, and gender and development. Her recent articles have appeared in Development and Change, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Feminist Economics, Gender, Place & Culture, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Sociology and Social Politics. She is the co-author of The American Passport: National Citizenship in the Age of Transnationalism, published by Penn Press (2020).