ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about questions and contribution, international bureaucracies as strategic actors within a given environment, modes of knowledge mobilization, processes of knowledge production and forms of knowledge. In the literature on international organizations however, little is said about how, why, and when international bureaucrats use expert knowledge and where that knowledge comes from. The lack of research on international bureaucracies and expertise has to do, first and foremost, with the predominance of a state-centric perspective in International Relations (IR) until recently. International bureaucrats may resort to expertise in order to inform and guide policy. International bureaucrats can use expertise in order to uphold the appearance of the apolitical character of their actions. International bureaucrats certainly attempt to act strategically and produce the specialized knowledge which they think they need, but they do so in a given milieu. The reversed view consists of conceiving policy-makers as strategic actors in processes of knowledge production.
