Technocracy and the Policy Process

Abstract

This chapter adds to the perspective of comparative politics the lens of comparative public policy or policy analysis. Though technocracy as challenge to democracy has been explored by comparative politics as a distinctive mode of political representation (Caramani 2017, Habermas 2015), comparative public policy has a research focus on the policy process. It brings in the granularity of the policy processes. With policy processes centre stage, one sees more clearly variations across patterns of technocratic challenges. Further, clarity and granularity are delivered in this chapter via a taxonomic contribution to the topics that motivate the volume. Classifications help to disentangle complex conceptual constructs, expose the risks of conceptual stretching, and, most importantly, shed light on dimensions of a scientific discussion that deserve more attention and require greater nuance. The organization of this chapter in simple. The next section shows differences and opportunities to develop connections between comparative politics and comparative public policy. Then we introduce the public policy “take” on technocracy by distinguishing between two modes – technocracy as comparative political scientists understand it and epistemic learning as the preeminent public policy frame. Using a taxonomic approach, we build on these foundations delineating four types of epistemic learning – the conditions for their emergence and dysfunctional or degenerative forms. Drawing on this, we conceptualise three more learning modes where experts’ contribute to policy making: reflexive arenas, bargaining environments and hierarchical structures. Our conclusions echo the themes of the concluding chapter of this volume. Paraphrasing the title of Eri Bertsou’s Conclusions, expertise is neither an absolute friend or an absolute foe of democracy. It can degenerate into technocracy, but it can be a formidable resource of representative democracy. Its contribution depends on scope conditions that are revealed by the analysis of the policy process. This chapter is an effort to identify and justify theoretically these scope conditions.