Assuming that expertise and knowledge play an important role in policy making every lasting paradigmatic policy change is based on fundamental knowledge change. Thereby knowledge is shaped by a classification of specific forms of evidence or particular experts as relevant and legitimised in a given political context. I analyse the settings which attribute attention or credibility to certain forms of evidence and experts in an institutional and discursive dimension (knowledge order) following the questions: Which knowledge change can be observed in British labour market policy and how is it reflected in policy change? Is this knowledge change reflected in a supporting change of knowledge order?
The analysis shows that the change of knowledge order under New Labour did affect the sphere of public justification less than the sphere of policy decision making and that this incomplete change of knowledge order prevents a lasting policy change.
