Worrying Expertise: Representation and Expert Knowledge in Trade Unions

Studies of professionalisation, oligarchy and expertise have asked how expertise affects democratic representation in professionalised membership organisations. This article approaches that problem from the other direction by examining the role of representation in the production of expert knowledge. Drawing on interviews, participant observation and document analysis at LO, the Swedish confederation of blue-collar trade unions, I argue that union researchers build expertise through representation. Researchers claim an epistemic standpoint-by-proxy through representative mandates, and experiential knowledge is treated as an epistemic resource accessible through the representative apparatus of the organisation. The case complicates accounts that treat expertise and representation as independent or opposed: expert staff can incorporate representation into their work rather than act upon it as an external force. This suggests that whether expertise displaces or facilitates member influence depends partly on whether and how representation enters their work.