Hyper-active Governance

Matthew Wood is Lecturer in Politics and Deputy Director of the Crick Centre at the University of Sheffield. His work focuses on the authority and legitimacy of experts in the field of Governance and Public Policy, and he currently holds an ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellowship 2015–18. His doctoral dissertation (2014) received the Department of Politics' Andrew Gamble prize for best thesis, and his article 'Paradoxical Politics' has recently been awarded the Harrison Prize for best article in Political Studies (2016). He has held visiting fellowships at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, University of Mainz, University of Canberra and Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico.

• Part I. Introducing Hyper-active Governance: 1. The 'cult of the expert'; 2. Managing the 'expert-politics nexus': a conceptual map; Part II. Hyper-active Governance in Practice: 3. Defence: health technology assessment; 4. Empowerment: emergency management and flooding governance; 5. Inclusion: water resource governance; 6. Defend, empower and include: hyper-active governance in monetary policy and electoral administration; Part III. Theorising Hyper-active Governance: 7. Frenetically standing still: hyper-active governance and social acceleration; 8. Experts, politics and co-production: the need to rethink political authority; Appendices; Endnotes; References; Index.

Advance praise: 'Hyper-active Governance makes a timely intervention in contemporary debates about the place of expertise in policy making. This book draws on detailed case studies to question assumptions about the dynamics of technocratic depoliticisation. It offers a novel framework through which to understand how knowledge and expertise are legitimated in the context of hyper-mediatisation and declining trust. It makes important reading for all scholars interested in the relationship between governance and expertise.' John Boswell, University of Southampton