This chapter starts from the observation that the growing density and complexity of transnational governance generates regulatory uncertainty which fosters the strategic use of expertise to develop an analytical framework for assessing the role of knowledge and expertise as a basis for authority. To understand the relationship between knowledge, expertise and authority in transnational governance two interrelated types of claim are distinguished. The first involves claims to epistemic authority by which individuals or groups attempt to convert their specific knowledge into expertise as a type of knowledge that stands out from other more commonly shared forms of the latter. The second type refers to actors’ claims to governance authority, in the sense of a privileged voice in transnational rule-making and implementation. Building on this conceptual framework, the chapter investigates how different groups of knowledgeable actors have sought to transform claims to policy-relevant expertise (epistemic authority) into claims for a privileged voice in transnational rule-making and implementation (governance authority) in the fields of transnational copyright and accounting governance.
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