Between science, economics and politics: the changing face of political-economic European Expert Groups (1966–2018)

European expertise is an effect of the field of European politics that opens up access to sources of knowledge and authority beyond the political context and varies depending on the state of European integration. This can be exemplified by a prosopography of members of political-economic European Expert Groups (1966–2018). A multiple correspondence analysis of 261 professional careers allows us to reconstruct the structure of European expertise in this policy area to determine six types of experts by clustering and, in the light of the observed diversity, to trace the decline in scientific and the increase in financial expertise. This development can be interpreted as a strengthening of the economic-heteronomous pole in the field, which goes hand in hand with the rise of neoliberal forms of government, the autonomisation of the field and the professionalisation of expert consultations.