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Rethinking ‘expert sense’ in international development: the case of Sierra Leone’s housing policy

ABSTRACT Experts have come to dominate global economic policies under certain institutional ideological discourse. But what happens when most of the policy players in developing countries do not belong to globalised institutions? This article interrogates the role of national officials in reinforcing Western institutional hegemony. A review of housing policies in Sierra Leone since independence, and interviews with housing sector officials, show that the current manifestation of such superstructure and its reinforcing nature also mask new economic interests. The review shows that local national officials, who are often presented as passive objects of power, actually have enormous interpretive agency, and the aggressive articulation of their exclusionary approach demonstrates specific actionable interventions which enable them to create space and advantage for themselves. The lack of a new articulative strategy means that commitment to local content remains only as paper plans and symbolic gestures.