Annabelle Littoz-Monnet will explore the power of a new cast of “meta-experts” in global governance. "Meta-experts" are skilled and transversal experts hired by organizations to guide them on how to apply a technique, follow a procedure, or implement a set of pre-specified rules. Unlike traditional experts, who derive their authority from their claims to knowledge of a specific domain, meta-experts assert their authority by virtue of their ignorance and detachment from specific issue areas. Annabelle Littoz-Monnet argues that through such claims, they have positioned themselves as standing “above” expertise in specific domains and successfully oversee, order, and verify processes of knowledge production across domains and organizations. This epistemic turn is discussed in relation to the role of methodologists in global health governance.

Annabelle Littoz-Monnet is a Professor of International Relations at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland. Her current research interests include the politics of expertise, the privatization of knowledge infrastructures, and the role of philanthropists in global governance.  She is also the former director of the Global Governance Centre. Her book "Governing through Expertise. The Politics of Bioethics" was published in 2020 with Cambridge University Press.