The politics of expertise in the COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-level mini-public approach

As a crisis of unprecedented speed, pervasiveness, and multi-dimensionality, COVID-19 generated several questions and tensions at the intersection of scientific knowledge and democratic politics. These were, in turn, yet another manifestation of broader debates on the appropriate role and functions of science and expertise in liberal-democratic policymaking, which have defined a large part of European politics over the past few years. This paper contributes to the research on the politics of expertise by presenting the results of an innovative multi-level mini-public approach, in which citizens from five European countries – France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland – were asked to discuss and deliberate on questions relating to the place and role of experts in policymaking, scientific information, and communication. The results of these discus- sions not only yield more fine-grained and nuanced evidence on citizens’ attitudes on these topics than currently available via survey research but also allow for the formulation of actionable advice that will be of interest to policymakers at the national as well as EU level.