By the Power Vested in Me

"Same-sex marriage in the United States and France was a contested legal topic. Both countries relied on evidence from experts to sort through their challenges and both countries ended-up with roughly the same outcome of legal same-sex marriage. However, the expert justifications that were essential in the United States were more or less nonexistent in France and vice versa. In By the Power Vested in Me, Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer shows how scientific and technical merit is couched within politics, money, emotion, and cultural taboo and formulates what he calls expert capital. Through 72 interviews and 300 hours of ethnographic observation, Stambolis-Ruhstorfer takes readers through the contestation of same-sex marriage in the American courts, culminating in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges case and the French parliament, where same-sex marriage was hotly debated through nationally televised hearings. In telling these two stories, he examines how and why certain experts-but not others-rise to prominence and use their power to influence both public opinion and policy, a topic that is particularly timely now, when public mistrust of expertise has never been higher"--