Research area on “Technocracy” (coordinated by Eri Bertsou)

Our aim is to bring together previously disconnected strands of thought and research in order to provide a systematic analysis of technocracy, technocratic politics and technocratic governance in a comparative perspective. The research area at the Chair of Comparative Politics on “Technocracy” aims at a broad set of research and teaching activities.

Technocracy is present not only in parliaments and cabinets, but also in political language, communication and policy, across different countries and continents. Despite the difficulty in defining and measuring technocracy – or precisely because of this difficulty – its prominence compels us to place it under the microscope.

Technocracy and the technocrats have jumped into the political limelight in recent years due to the numerous technocratic government appointments during the financial crisis (nine government appointments in European nations since 2009) prompting debates on the representativeness, legitimacy and democratic threat of political governance by “unelected experts”. Yet, technocracy occupies a bigger part of political thought and politics, which spans further than the context of the Eurocrisis. It can be traced back to Plato’s ‘philosopher king’ and the Technocratic Movement of the 1930s in the US. Technocratic governments have assumed political power in countries as diverse as Finland, the Czech Republic, Mexico and Italy. The role of technocrats has attracted academic attention in the political contexts of democratic and authoritarian regimes, from communist China, the administrative elites of Western Europe, reformists in Latin America, to the bureaucratic expertise of transnational organisations and the European Union.

Given the mounting challenges levelled at party-based representative democracy from disaffected citizens, on the one hand, and extremist and populist politics on the other hand, how can we study technocracy and the appointment of technocratic governments? Does technocracy stand at odds with representative democracy? What solutions can technocratic actors offer to political processes and why are there citizens who support independent, unelected experts? How do citizens and politicians evaluate the role of ‘independent expertise’ and what is relationship between technocracy and populism? These are the main questions addressed in this research area.

Collaboration:

• Book panel on "The Technocratic Challenge to Democracy" at the Conference of Europeanists (Council for European Studies), Madrid, June 20-22, 2019.
• Organization of workshop on "The Technocratic Challenge to Democracy", October 5-6, 2017, University of Zurich.
• Panel Summer School “Doctoral Programme Democracy Studies” on “Populism, Technocracy and Stealth Democracy” (with Stefaan Walgrave), University of Zurich, June 2016.
• Creation of a “Technocracy Network” among leading international scholars world-wide.
• ECPR Joint Sessions workshop in Spring 2018, Nicosia (Cyprus).

Deliverables:

• Nine-country survey on "Technocratic Attitudes", questionnaire of 55 questions/items (codebook available).
• Paper by Bertsou, Eri and Daniele Caramani (2020). People Haven't Had Enough of Experts: Measuring Technocratic Attitudes among Citizens in Nine European Democracies. American Journal of Political Science (Early View).
• Edited volume by Bertsou, Eri and Daniele Caramani (2020). Technocratic Challenge to Democracy. London: Routledge.
• Chapter by Daniele Caramani on "Technocratic Representation" in Handbook of Political  Representation edited by Maurizio Cotta (Edward Elgan, forthcoming).
• MA-research seminar on the measurement of technocratic discourse (see Teaching and supervision).
• Paper by Eri Bertsou and Daniele Caramani at ECPR general conference, Wrocław 2019.
• Paper by Eri Bertsou on “The Effects of Technocratic Government Appointments on Citizens' Political Support: Evidence from Europe”, at the EPSA, Brussels, and the APSA, San Francisco, 2016.
• Paper by Eri Bertsou and Giulia Pastorella (2017). Technocratic Attitudes: A Citizens’ Perspective of Expert Decision Making. West European Politics 40(2): 430-58.
• Caramani, Daniele (2017). Will vs. Reason: The Populist and Technocratic Forms of Representation and Their Critique to Party Government. American Political Science Review 111(1): 54-67.
• Paper by Bertsou, Eri and Daniele Caramani (in preparation). Measuring Technocracy: Levels of Analysis and Operationalization.
• Eri Bertsou "Rethinking Political Distrust", manuscript under review.
• Eri Bertsou "Mediatization and the Technocratic and Populist Challenge to Party Democracy: Evidence from Four European Countries" (with B. Wuest), manuscript prepared for publication.

Funding:

• Preparation of grant application.