New edited volume 'Experts in a Turbulent World' edited by Jan Eijking (July 2026)

From the International Panel on Climate Change to the World Health Organization, the work of international organizations fundamentally depends on expertise. Even more so in turbulent times such as ours, when climate change, pandemics, food insecurity, and war intersect in mutually compounding ways. But bringing in the experts bears risks too. It can reduce accountability and the perceived legitimacy of institutions; and specialist input often compartmentalizes issues that are actually intertwined. Yet the challenges we face are not isolated problems-they are historically intertwined instances of turbulence. Addressing them as individual crises or unprecedented shocks emphasizes technical problems and solutions over longer-term inequalities and trajectories, which are often precisely what fuels backlash. This raises a pressing question: how does the work of experts in a turbulent world affect international organizations?

Bringing together leading historians and international relations scholars, Experts in a Turbulent World explores this question at length. It conceptualizes the work of experts as 'issue insulation': the compartmentalization of interconnected issues-whether temporally, by scale, or by type of expert-as an effect of the specialist viewpoint. In-depth case studies on biologists, lawyers, food scientists, security experts, farmers, citizen climate scientists, and others develop this lens by examining different ways of timing, seeing, and acting like an expert.

This edited collection not only speaks to scholars and students of international relations and international history but also reframes and advances the conversation on the promises and pitfalls of addressing the world's major challenges with the help of experts.

Edited by Jan Eijking, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Antwerp; former Oxford Martin School Fellow and Research Associate, the Oxford Martin School Programme on Changing Global Orders

Contributors:

• Madeleine Dungy, Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
• Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, Professor of International Relations, University of Cambridge
• Markus Hochmüller, Postdoctoral Researcher, Roskilde University
• Alvina Hoffmann, Lecturer in Diplomatic Studies and Deputy Director, Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS University of London
• Andrew Hom, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Edinburgh
• Craig N. Murphy, Betty Freyhof Johnson '44 Professor Emeritus, Wellesley College
• Ole Jacob Sending, Research Professor and Head of the Center for Geopolitics, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
• Geert Somsen, Maastricht University and the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
• Juanita Uribe, Postdoctoral Researcher, Global Governance Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute

Oxford University Press, July 2026

ISBN: 9780198991670

Experts in a Turbulent World - Jan Eijking - Oxford University Press