This article studies these interactions under specific circumstances, i.e. during moments of crisis. Crises as focusing events challenge experts to inform and comment on the crisis, to assist in the development of appropriate policies, and more generally to sketch the prospects of where the crisis is heading (Birkland 1997) . Understood as such, we will see how crises function as springboards for experts from relative invisibility to visibility, and how experts are thus invited or forced to develop their own style of crisis management. Some authors point to the strategic use of crises in inducing policy change (Kingdon 1995; Birkland 1997; Weingart et al. 2000) . These sources demonstrate that a crisis is not something that 'just happens' to experts, but that experts, as policy entrepreneurs, also shape and give voice to crises. They tend to use moments of crises to 'capture attention for their causes', at times even by 'overselling to the media' (Weingart 1999, p. 159 ; see also Edwards 1999, p. 169) .