1st Edition
The Technocratic Challenge to Democracy
This book represents the first comprehensive study of how technocracy currently challenges representative democracy and asks how technocratic politics undermines democratic legitimacy. How strong is its challenge to democratic institutions?
The book offers a solid theory and conceptualization of technocratic politics and the technocratic challenge is analyzed empirically at all levels of the national and supra-national institutions and actors, such as cabinets, parties, the EU, independent bodies, central banks and direct democratic campaigns in a comparative and policy perspective. It takes an in-depth analysis addressing elitism, meritocracy, de-politicization, efficiency, neutrality, reliance on science and distrust toward party politics and ideologies, and their impact when pitched against democratic responsiveness, accountability, citizens' input and pluralist competition. In the current crisis of democracy, this book assesses the effects of the technocratic critique against representative institutions, which are perceived to be unable to deal with complex and global problems. It analyzes demands for competent and responsible policy making in combination with the simultaneous populist resistance to experts.
The book will be of key interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, political theory, policy analysis, multi-level governance as well as practitioners working in bureaucracies, media, think-tanks and policy making.
Introduction: The Technocratic Challenge to Democracy
Daniele Caramani
Part I: Concepts and Theory
1. Technocracy and Political Theory
Christopher Bickerton and Carlo Invernizzi Accetti
2. Neoliberal Technocracy: The Challenge to Democratic Self-Government
Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca
3. Technocracy and Depoliticization
Pier Domenico Tortola
4. Technocratic Responsiveness
Reinout van der Veer
5. Measuring Technocracy
Eri Bertsou and Daniele Caramani
Part II: Institutions, Actors and Policies
6. Technocratic Cabinets
Marco Valbruzzi
7. Technocrats in Cabinets and Their Policy Effects
Despina Alexiadou
8. Technocratic Cabinets in European Negotiations
Silvana Târlea and Stefanie Bailer
9. Technocracy in Discourse: The Case of Direct Democracy
Jean Nava, Miguel Ángel Centeno and Larry Liu
10. Technocracy and the Policy Process
Claire A. Dunlop and Claudio M. Radaelli
Part III: Comparative Perspectives
11. The EU between Technocratic and Democratic Legitimacy
Marina Costa Lobo and Ian McManus
12. Technocracy in Latin America: Between Stability and Democratic Deficit
Eduardo Dargent
13. Technocracy in Central-Eastern Europe and Its Impact on Democratization
Joshua A. Tucker and Jan Zilinsky
Conclusion: Technocracy and Democracy: Friends or Foes?
Eri Bertsou
Biography
Eri Bertsou is Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Politics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Daniele Caramani is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.