This article questions the perceived or assumed dichotomy between populism and
expertise. Using the United Kingdom Government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis in
2020 as a case study, it argues that there is in fact an alignment or synergy between populism
and expertise, one that has important implications for public law, particularly ...
This article questions the perceived or assumed dichotomy between populism and
expertise. Using the United Kingdom Government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis in
2020 as a case study, it argues that there is in fact an alignment or synergy between populism
and expertise, one that has important implications for public law, particularly for the
principle of accountability. More specifically, it argues that technocratic means – and
reliance on scientific expertise in particular – can indeed be useful to populists to the extent
that they can be utilised as a way to depoliticise issues and at least partially shield them from
direct political accountability. This, in turn, allows populists to escape responsibility for
their policy choices in a way that, perhaps ironically, resembles the populist critique of the
“undemocratic” nature or “technocratic” tendencies of present-day liberal democracy
