The proliferation of economic expertise and economic experts in European governance

The EU has been and still is a political entity in the making, an arena in which not only strug-gles over the content of certain policies but also over the structure of politics and its relation-ship to economics as well as society are staged. Europe today is more than just another level of government. As can be seen in reactions to economic crisis, it has become an ever more politicized bureaucratic field in which the principles of vision and division of the social are fought over. As such it has not only been in need of expertise right from the onset but also attracted experts from political, scientific and professional backgrounds trying to take influ-ence on its development: Experts shape European policies, take influence on the evolving political entity and at the same time engage in struggles with other experts over the bases of their authority and its legitimacy. Experts engage in staging Europe and by doing so engage in their respective professional struggles, just as they did in all other historical projects of evolv-ing stateness. Law and Economics have been prominent opponents in these struggles in the 20th century. In the paper presented, I will focus on the influence they have had in creating Europe as transna-tional form of stateness, and I will argue that Europe has seen a proliferation of economic expertise and experts, who turned a once liberal entity of governance neo-liberal. The turn from a logic of integration by law to a logic of integration by market-mechanisms with ac-companying techniques and subjectivities is strong evidence for this development, as is the rising importance of a professional background in economics for European experts. I will out-line the argument by drawing on the rich body of research that has been conducted on EU-professionals and Eurocracy and especially expert groups. Hence the research focus of the paper is not only on the effects certain forms of experts and expertise have on policies and politics, but also on the social structural background of professionals and the covert effects their European engagement has on their professional positions.