The Politicization of Expertise
Experts must address the public’s crisis of confidence
The American Enterprise Institute, where I am a Senior Fellow, has started a new monthly publication called The American Enterprise — rebooting and updating its magazine first published in 1990:
The American Enterprise publishes monthly, long-form opinion essays and commentary. Essays will explore pressing issues and ideas critical to a free society. We believe that a competition of ideas is essential to a thriving democracy and prosperous America. The American Enterprise does not take institutional positions—but we embrace strong opinions, debate, and intellectual curiosity on topics ranging from global challenges to domestic concerns.
The original version of The American Enterprise was launched in 1990. The magazine’s archives can be found here.
I have an essay in its second edition on the politiczation of expertise, just published, and I share an excerpt and link to the full essay below. The other essays by AEI scholars published in the new TAE so far are excellent, covering a wide range of policy issues in readily digestible bites:
Rapid Fertility Decline Is an Existential Crisis — Jesús Fernández-Villaverde
Are We Entering the Era of Artificial Friendship? — Christine Rosen
Classical Education Makes a Comeback — Robert P. George
History’s Revenge: America Faces the New Eurasian Threat — Hal Brands
Trump’s Strategic Choice: Prioritization or Retrenchment — Zack Cooper
Is Transformative Artificial Intelligence Just Around the Corner? — James Pethokoukis
The Last Days of Public School — James Pondiscio
You can subscribe to TAE to get each edition direct to your email (free!) here.
Now, on to my essay, which draws upon and synthesizes my recent work here at THB, improved by comments from and conversations with the THB community and by the fantastic editors at AEI — for which I am grateful.
The Politicization of Expertise
Roger Pielke Jr. in the March, 2025 issue of The American Enterprise
More than six decades ago, political scientist E. E. Schattschneider argued that “democracy is like nearly everything else we do; it is a form of collaboration of ignorant people and experts.”
Schattschneider was not suggesting that there are two classes of people—deplorables and the enlightened—but instead, he was making a much more complicated argument. It turns out that all of us are ignorant about most things. Take me as an example: I have considerable expertise in various areas of science and technology policy, but I have little knowledge about the history of Taiwan or how air traffic control works.
All of us are mostly ignorant most of the time, and Schattschneider explained that has consequences for democracy and governance: “There is no escape from the problem of ignorance, because nobody knows enough to run the government.” That means there are no philosopher kings or omniscient dictators out there. Governing well requires collaboration among people with different types of expertise and different political views.
It is essential to recognize that expertise is not the same thing as having a credential—like a college degree, a PhD, or an MD.
To succeed, democracy needs all of us. We do not have to agree on everything, but we do have to work together. To paraphrase Walter Lippmann, writing more than a century ago, politics is not about getting people to think alike, but enabling people who think differently to act alike.
It is essential to recognize that expertise is not the same thing as having a credential—like a college degree, a PhD, or an MD. For instance, a parent who dropped out of high school has plenty enough expertise to know if the price of eggs is too high for their household budget, and a migrant farm worker has developed unique skills for harvesting a field. Expertise comes in many forms beyond educational attainment.
Without the collaboration of many millions of people with different types of specialized expertise, society could not function. The pathological politicization of expertise is therefore problematic not simply as a matter of politics but because we need to reconcile expertise with democratic politics for society to function and its citizens to thrive.
In recent years, credential expertise—like many things—has become pathologically politicized. Part of this can be attributed to an overall decrease in public confidence in institutions. But a big part of this also has resulted from degreed and credentialed experts choosing to become overt partisans and promoting a political agenda far removed from the expressed values of most Americans.
Of course, partisan academics and scientists are only part of the picture—a lot of fuel has been added to the political conflagration over expertise by the mainstream media and Republicans more than happy to use experts as boogeymen for political gain. In my work, I focus on the institutions that credentialed experts inhabit—such as universities, companies, research labs, and science organizations. Experts can’t control the media or politicians, but we do control the institutions that we lead.
In recent decades, these organizations have chosen to become more overtly partisan and political. A seemingly predictable result has been that the public has come to view science and academia as more partisan and political, with consequences for confidence and trust in credentialed experts and the institutions they inhabit. . .
To read the rest please head to The American Enterprise, and you are invited back here to THB to discuss.
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Your column was very well substantiated.
I think it could be clearer about what I consider to be one of the key causes of declining confidence in scientists and scientific institutions: their deliberate decisions to invoke their expert authority to support conclusions and demand actions that go beyond science. Climate change is a primary example: beginning at least in 2009, scientific organizations have adopted and published statements not only on the basics of climate science, but on the effects of current and projected future climate change, and on the economic and social actions "required" to counteract it. These issues are not scientific at all, and science organizations have no more expertise than anyone else in deciding them. Yet, advocates of strong actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have used such statements to justify their preferred policies, while claiming anyone who opposes their policies is opposing science.
Another example was Dr. Anthony Fauci, who claimed to be the sole representative of science on COVID and the policy responses to it. There was certainly a lot of uninformed talk about the virus, the vaccine, and appropriate responses to it, but closing off debate had the unfortunate effect of enshrining the mistakes that had been made.
As you said in the column, credentialed experts (and their organizations) need to make peace with democracy.
Roger, I appreciate the dialogue, and I think it is important. I almost despair when I see groups like the IPCC endorse scientific garbage like RCP8.5 and its derivatives in a deliberate attempt to deceive the public. I see the CO2 climate cult destroying the economies of entire countries like the UK and Germany, and trying to destroy the economy of the US as well. I hear the news media blame every storm and flood and cold snap or hot weather spell on climate change. Keep on being honest and providing the rest of us with good data!