The task force for Greece: symbolic power and expertise in EU crisis management

The cascade of events linked to the ongoing economic crisis led to the production or consolidation of political and economic tools at the European level and to interventions in countries considered economically fragile. By looking at a specific group of civil servants who intervene as “experts”, specifically members of the Task Force for Greece mandated by the European Commission, I seek to shed light on how European institutions and policy networks managed to withstand critical mobilisations and bolster a certain type of knowledge. I therefore assume the fortification of an economic knowledge based on expertise and technical discourses, especially under the “emergency” economic measures. My contribution questions its effects on public policies, asking how the professional actors from the EC mobilize this resource, particularly when facing other types of actors such as members of the government or external experts. With the aim of exploring the particular authority and influence of the Task Force as a group of actor, sociological concepts of “symbolic power” (Bourdieu, 1977) and social space represent enlightening tools in EU research. Indeed, members of the EC benefit from institutional and symbolic authority, as they occupy a position at the heart of the establishment of structural reforms, and their standpoints matter. I aim to understand the construction of crisis narratives and the political work of actors who translate an economic situation into political imperatives, which then lead to institutional plans of action. Secondly, I seek to assess the effects of this construction on the distribution of resources and power between actors. One can indeed assume that these crises constitutes a situation of uncertainty which creates new opportunities in the distribution of powers. Most of the debates and research on the EU focus on “high politics” (Mégie and Vauchez, 2014). “Expert rhetoric” has been abundantly studied, using technical instruments or the imposition of “objective” realities, to appear politically neutral (Lemoine, 2014). This technicisation of issues contributes to their de-politicisation and encourages debates closures, especially in times of “crisis” (Temmar, Angermuller, Lebaron, 2014). Yet we know surprisingly little about the interplay between academic economists, “experts”, and policy makers, or the circulation of actors and ideas in the European political space (Smith, 2014). Similarly, there is considerable opacity around members of the DG Ecfin or the Task Force and their precise role during the elaboration and implementation of reforms in “countries in crisis”. In conclusion, the objective is to study the enrollment of expertise as a means to a critical understanding of the re-negotiation of institutional governance and power games in the European Union. In order to do that, we focus on specific actors, their positions and circulation between spaces: as a case study, the Task Force for Greece embodies the role of policy professionals who embrace expertise as a tool for policy-making.