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Paper short abstract:

Understanding expertise as a policy-relevant assemblage of knowledge, this paper examines how expertise is created, sustained and legitimized within one civil society actor in Serbia, in the context of three international multi-actor reform projects from different policy domains.

Paper long abstract:

The acceleration of transitional reforms after 2000 in Serbia involved intensified attempts to transform public institutions and policies. In such a context, civil society emerged as a key state partner in 'reform efforts' and as one of the important realms through which expertise about transitional reforms is generated and policies coming from the 'West' are recontextualized and translated.

My research focuses on the way expertise is created, sustained and legitimized in the context of three international multi-actor reform projects within diverse policy domains: higher education, adult education and social inclusion. Specifically, I examine the work of one civil society actor in order to see how expertise as a policy-relevant assemblage of knowledge emerges from its relations with other actors, that is how they negotiate and stabilize interpretations that connect everyday project reality to validating policy models. In order to do this, I deploy an interdisciplinary methodological framework that includes interviews, participant observation and document analysis. This paper presents the research design and offers some reflections after several months of fieldwork.

I contend that focusing on how expertise is created in the scope of international projects can provide valuable insight into the broader assumptions underlying civil society engagement and reforms in the context of 'democratic transitions'. This may help shed light on what issues are perceived as 'political' and what as purely 'technical', and thus reveal the internal dynamics and power relations underpinning the work of policy, its translation and localization.