Abstract

After decades of incremental policies, in many countries with solid democratic traditions, drastic U-turns are taking place on very relevant issues, such as the environment, health, immigration. How do the technicians who work in the political institutions react to the reversal of choices that they once endorsed? How can they reconcile coherence and professional responsibility with the responsiveness to their political principals? Is there a differentiation in the way distinct epistemic communities adapt to these dramatic changes? In a governmentality such as the Italian one, dominated by the legal logic and the importance of public finance problems, the (few) policy experts are the most exposed to the risk of irrelevance.