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In the world of Wikipedia, blogging and citizen journalism where huge masses of information and the capability to disseminate opinions, thoughts and ideas is available at the click of a mouse what is the role and impact of political experts? The contributors to this insightful and original volume argue that across the western world in general, the political expert occupies as important a role today as at any time in the past. The ubiquity of information and the fact that the experts and the organizations to which they are affiliated may be viewed as having an ideological agenda has not diminished their role, influence or status. Governments and the media still rely on them for information and advice whilst organizations in civil society need them in order to provide the evidence, arguments and policy recommendations that are essential to having a voice in the public conversation. By examining how these policy experts and their think tanks continue to exert influence across a range of modern western democracies a better understanding of the role of policy expertise and an examination of how it may develop and evolve throughout the rest of the world is reached.

Policy Expertise in Contemporary Democracies