Social Science Expertise and Policymaking. Comparing U.S., French, and EU Think Tanks: Similar Model Different Paths

Abstract

The relationship between social science and policymaking, marked with “tension and ambiguity,” is one that scholars never ceased to be perplexed about (Anderson 2003). My research seeks to shed light on the interaction between the two by comparing how the “think tank model of expertise,” first developed in the U.S., is being emulated in the EU and in France where the political systems and the structures of social knowledge traditionally called for a different use of social science research. By looking at the comparative evolution of the think tank model I also wish to question the building of the expert as a modern figure that bridges a discursive regimen of “knowledge claim” used in the scientific world and a regimen of “truth-claim” consistent with political discourses (Veitl 2005; Leclerc 2001). Scrutinizing the activities of think tanks as a place where “experts” claim to inform and influence policymakers is, in that sense, a way to revisit and rethink the relations between power and knowledge (Ihl 2006).

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