Expertise and its discontents

Abstract

William Easterly’s Tyranny of Experts further embellishes his record of subjecting the global aid enterprise to penetrating criticism. This essay endorses the primary thrust of his critique but raises several questions concerning its ramifications: (1) Easterly’s experts are criticized for espousing authoritarian development, but a more charitable interpretation places them on the side of authoritarian development; (2) absence of any reference to the experience of India is puzzling and arguably question-begging; (3) that aid technocrats should afford increased concern to democracy and rights is a central point of the book’s argument, but Easterly does not attend to the wide range of meanings these terms carry in the 21st Century, some of which are antithetical to his own conceptions.