Politics of expertise in the European Parliament: discursive constructions and contestations of expertise by party-political actors

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the politics of expertise in the European Parliament (EP). We aim to understand how MEPs and political group staff discursively construct expertise, its role in parliamentary work, and how expertise is politicized in the EP. The qualitative analysis is based on an extensive interview dataset (n = 133) from the 8^th and 9^th legislative terms. It builds on a constructivist approach that sees expertise as constructed, legitimized, and institutionalized in discourses and practices and shaped by struggles and power relations. The article shows that expertise in the EP is a political rather than a technical question. Understandings of expertise and its role are constituted and contested, and political ideologies shape understandings of expertise. Although the role of technical policy expertise in the EP is broadly accepted, it is approached through a political lens, and political groups value and use expertise in different ways in internal policymaking.

KEYWORDS:

• European Parliament
• expertise
• MEPs
• interest groups
• political groups

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

The research has received the approval of the Ethics Committee of Tampere Region on 10.8.2018 (Decision 51/2018).

Cited interviews

Interview 1: EPP MEP 28.11.2018

Interview 2: ECR MEP 06.02.2019

Interview 3: EP staff 20.02.2019

Interview 4: S&D MEP 26.02.2019

Interview 5: EPP MEP 22.03.2019

Interview 6: Greens/EFA staff 01.04.2019

Interview 7: Greens/EFA MEP 30.09.2019

Interview 8: GUE/NGL staff 07.02.2020

Interview 9: GUE/NGL staff 24.02.2020

Interview 10: Greens/EFA MEP 25.02.2020

Interview 11: S&D MEP 02.03.2020

Interview 12: S&D staff 02.03.2020

Interview 13: S&D staff 04.03.2020

Interview 14: EPP MEP 04.03.2020

Interview 15: Renew MEP 04.03.2020

Interview 16: EPP MEP 04.03.2020

Interview 17: GUE/NGL staff 04.03.2020

Interview 18: EPP staff 06.03.2020

Interview 19: S&D MEP 06.03.2020

Interview 20: EPP MEP 10.03.2020

Interview 21: Greens/EFA staff 10.03.2020

Interview 22: ID MEP 12.03.2020

Interview 23: Renew staff 13.03.2020

Interview 24: EFDD staff 07.02.2019

Interview 25: Greens/EFA MEP 13.03.2020

Interview 26: EPP MEP 18.03.2020

Interview 27: EPP MEP 27.03.2020

Interview 28: ECR MEP 12.05.2020

Interview 29: Greens/EFA MEP 29.05.2020

Interview 30: ALDE staff 29.01.2019

Interview 31: EPP staff 21.02.2019

Interview 32: Greens/EFA MEP 03.03.2020

Interview 33: GUE/NGL staff 21.03.2020

Interview 34: NI MEP 30.01.2020

Interview 35: EFDD staff 19.03.2019‬

Interview 37: Renew staff 04.03.2020

Interview 38: EP staff 20.03.2019

Interview 39: GUE/NGL staff 13.06.2019

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program grant number 771676, the Academy of Finland grant number 347916, the Tomás y Valiente fellowship programme at the Madrid Institute for Advanced Study (MIAS) and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM).