Interviews, Expert

The History of Expert Interviews

Expert interviews were first encountered primarily in German-speaking countries, where they have been used increasingly in social, economic, and political science research since the 1980s. However, it was not until the early 1990s that they slowly began to establish and distinguish themselves as a specific qualitative social research method. In the meantime, a number of books have been published on the methodology and methods of interviewing experts, and most pertinent, newer German-language books on qualitative research methods now also include expert interviews. The situation is quite different in their English-language counterparts, where—unlike interviews with the elite—expert interviews are rarely mentioned. In fact, there are many similarities between these two interview forms, from the sampling and difficulties of gaining access to the field through to the actual specifics of the interview process. However, the key difference lies in their target groups: the elite are the powerful, top echelon of a society. Indeed, the label “elite” is ascribed to a person or group/class of persons with high social, educational, and economic status and, thus, the power to make (or at least the possibility of making) a significant impact on society. From a sociology of knowledge perspective, the elite can also be seen as experts with expert knowledge, but more precisely as experts who have particular power. In essence, they are top company executives and members of corporate supervisory bodies, senior civil servants, or high-ranking government officials. The actual person who will be able to provide the best information for a particular research topic, the type of knowledge sought, and the position of the interviewees in their hierarchy will ultimately always depend on the specific research context.

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