Today, a transnational constellation of 'rule of law' experts advise on 'good' legal systems to countries in the Global South. Yet these experts often claim that the 'rule of law' is nearly impossible to define, and they frequently point to the limits of their own expertise. In this innovative book, Deval Desai identifies this form of expertise as 'expert ignorance'. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Desai draws on insights from legal theory, sociology, development studies, and performance studies to explore how this paradoxical form of expertise works in practice. With a range of illustrative cases that span both global and local perspectives, this book considers the impact of expert ignorance on the rule of law and on expert governance more broadly. Contributing to the study of transnational law, governance, and expertise, Desai demonstrates the enduring power of proclaiming what one does not know. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Runner-up, 2024 Peter Birks Prize, The Society of Legal Scholars

‘‘Disenchanted’ expertise that becomes ‘self-denying’ rests on and professes ignorance. In this provocative, innovative, and elegant book, Desai explores ‘expert ignorance’ in rule of law reform performances. He argues that expert ignorance moves the rule of law in the direction of ‘Governance’. Critical and political, the argument deserves engagement.’

Anna Leander - Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Geneva Graduate Institute

‘In this pathbreaking study of the field of rule of law reform, Desai explores the productive power of ‘ignorance work’ as a form of expert practice, examining the ways in which it helps to produce ‘provisional, fluid, and reconfigurable’ forms of the rule of law. With this innovative argument, which draws on his own years of experience as a practitioner in the field, Desai firmly establishes himself as one of the most insightful analysts of reflexive expertise, not only in the field of development but also beyond. This book is at the cutting edge of new thinking in critical development studies and global economic governance.’

Andrew Lang - Chair in International Law and Global Governance, University of Edinburgh

‘Desai applies a sophisticated theoretical perspective to critically examine the ideas and actions of law and development scholars and practitioners. This penetrating and challenging first-hand look at expert ignorance defies categorisation and stands out in imagination and insight.’

Brian Tamanaha - John S. Lehmann University Professor, Washington University in St Louis

‘In international development, ‘building the rule of law’ has the paradoxical status of being perhaps its most widely supported yet least successful policy objective. To this day, its leading practitioners openly concede that they ‘don’t know what they are doing’ - or, indeed, what the rule of law itself even is. Desai provides an insightful, compelling, and intellectually innovative explanation of this paradox: law and development is replete with expert ignorance, requiring its champions to simultaneously own and disown, deploy and withhold, assert and deny, their expertise - with all manner of vexing consequences. Forging a world in which its most marginalised citizens begin to experience the law as a legitimate, accessible, and effective part of the solution to (rather than a source and compounder of) their problems requires all of us to join Desai in diligently wrestling with this truly unique challenge, in an ongoing quest for the correspondingly unique responses it necessarily requires.’

Michael Woolcock - World Bank and Harvard University

‘This erudite, engaging, and elegantly crafted book trespasses disciplinary boundaries to offer rich and unexpected insights for legal and social theorists, scholars of development and international relations, and practitioners of all stripes. It demands reading by those with a critical orientation towards projects of legal change - and re-reading for Desai's eye for vivid social, political, and lived detail.’

Shalini Randeria - President and Rector, Central European University

‘Desai’s own creativity as a storyteller makes the book well worth reading.’

Tommaso Soave Source: International Affairs

‘In this book, as indicated, the co-creative relationship between the rule of law expert and the academic researcher is especially intimate as they are bound up in the different identities of the author. This entanglement offers a rare insight into how to academically critique the self-critique of the expert. As it turns out, art is most helpful here. With this author, after placing expert ignorance centre stage, the move to analyse it as a performance follows suit. From there, approaching expert ignorance through theatre and theatre studies is only apt. Brilliantly, with this move to theatre away from the more usual approaches, Desai points us in the direction of resharpening our tools of critique by learning from the arts.’

Renske Vos Source: European Journal of International Law