Setting a Research Agenda on International Trading of Political Capital and High Level Experts

In the context of trans-national policymaking as well as the global knowledge economy (GKE), high-profile cases involving former Presidents and Prime Ministers, and senior public servants of Western governments engaged as experts/consultants for foreign governments and commercial interests raise questions about how political capital is traded in trans-national policy-making. This article maps out the scope of the field of international trade of political capital by looking at the ‘commercial lives’ of ‘high level experts’ engaged in this emerging industry. We review the webpages of ten UK-based Think-Tanks in understanding their business, services they provide and the role of so-called ‘hired guns’ as brokers and negotiators of policy change in the global South and as agents of the ‘soft power’ of the states in which they were once employed. Informed by Bourdieu’s conceptual analysis of political capital we set out a research agenda on i) how political capital is traded internationally, and ii) how/why former political leaders and public servants of Western governments are getting involved in global trade of expertise.