Abstract
Well-functioning democracies depend largely on expert knowledge: It is hard to make just and effective policies to reduce carbon emissions, tame the corona virus, or reform pension and tax schemes, without input from expert communities. At the same time, democracies’ expertise dependence may create deep and genuine problems for their legitimacy. A proposed solution to such problems is to “democratize expertise”. The presentation takes up some interpretations, promises and shortcomings of this idea.