Governing expertise through anti-corruption: how governance mechanisms authorize expertise and ratify power

Abstract

This article examines anti-corruption as a strategic case for understanding the governance of expertise in contemporary policymaking. It asks how anti-corruption governance turns some forms of relevant knowledge into institutionally recognized authority while leaving others peripheral. The article argues that this process is shaped by governance mechanisms that are formally technical but socially selective. Drawing on research on expertise, policy advice, quantification, and anti-corruption governance, it distinguishes between substantive expertise, understood as knowledge about corruption’s forms, measurement limits, organizational constraints, institutional embeddedness, and enforcement trade-offs, and authorized expertise, understood as knowledge that is treated as credible, actionable, and legitimate in powerful policy arenas. The analysis shows how four mechanisms structure this process: indicator-centered problem definition, advisory systems and template governance, organizational insulation, and audit-and-repair politics. Together, these mechanisms shape how corruption is defined, which experts gain authority, and what kinds of reforms come to appear credible. Building on prior work on transnational anti-corruption expertise, the article situates these mechanisms within a field in which recognition tends to cluster around three recurrent poles: academic prestige, measurement authority and proximity to international financial institutions (IFIs), and media visibility. As a result, forms of expertise that travel well through metrics, standardized policy scripts, insulated advisory settings, and evaluative repertoires of progress are more likely to become authoritative, while locally grounded or politically inconvenient forms of knowledge are more easily marginalized. The article contributes to debates on expertise and democratic governance by showing that anti-corruption governance does not simply use expert knowledge to improve policy. It also organizes which experts are heard, which forms of knowledge count, and how authority is distributed in policymaking.