Experts, politics, and crisis management: A case study of the French expert crisis in the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The primary focus of this research is the epistemic crisis of the scientific expert community. It explores how the context of Covid-19 highlights a state of epistemic crisis among experts. With a case study design based on the example of France during the first wave of the pandemic, it analyses how mechanisms such as politicization of expertise and expertization of politics can influence a shift of scientific expertise from rational science to the realm of normative politics. This research further examines the necessity of public trust for scientific legitimacy and credibility and investigates the place of scientific rigor on the perception of science's epistemic authority. This work subsequently discusses how the different mechanisms described are symptomatic of the scientific experts' epistemic crisis. Lastly, it opens up the discussion around the question of to what extent is this crisis coherent with the narrative of a broader revisionist crisis of the role of public authority figures and the western liberal democratic model. Keywords: epistemic crisis, expertise, Covid-19, expertization, politicization, France, revisionist crisis.