Knowledge, politics, and (ir)rational forces

In this paper, I problematise oppositions between apparent neutral knowledge and ideology, and between expertise and the popular. Existing theory tends to juxtapose populist rule with a post-adversarial politics of expertise. Previous research also warns of the democratic problematic of handing policy-making power to unelected experts optimising regulation – effectively denying political dimensions and turning problems of politics into problems of administration. Populism may easily be seen as both antithesis and reaction to such developments. By combining approaches from the sociology of knowledge, with a feminist critique of objectivity, and Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony, this paper argues that rational or scientific analyses do not automatically bring about unanimous, neutral consensus on policy solutions. On the contrary, it makes the case that ‘the realm of the rational’ often serves to cover up socio-political contingencies and exclude irrational elements from the social order – and is thus intimately linked to conceptualisations of hegemony and ideology. In doing so, the paper focuses in particular on the role and function of “experts” as a) signifiers in populist discourses, and b) a function tied to the naturalisation of knowledge claims and obfuscation of the conflicting and irrational forces behind seemingly rationalized social, political or fiscal orders. The paper uses a historical perspective to understand power struggles over what counts as knowledge, expertise, and the affective investments involved in this.