Inside the Italian Covid-19 task forces

In the year of the pandemic, an unprecedented number of temporary advisory units (consisting of a wide range of experts) emerged in the Italian policy-making landscape to advise the government on ‘crisis management’ in different policy areas–attracting vast media attention. And yet, to date, very little is known about the actual role and composition of these bodies. Our article bridges this gap, mapping these ‘task forces’ so as to understand: i) their functions within policy-making during the pandemic; and ii) who are the experts sitting on these bodies and what expertise they bring to them. The analysis shows that the new advisory units were scarcely formalized, visible or transparent, and that (with some exceptions) they lacked influence. As for their components, a two-step cluster analysis allowed us to identify three ideal-types of experts–the mediator, the interpreter and the scientific expert–ultimately bringing a mix of skills to these exceptional advisory boards.