The New Technocracy, livre ebook

The rise of populist parties and movements across the Western hemisphere and their contempt for ‘experts’ has shocked many. Yet research in governance studies identified that an increasingly technocratic approach to government – managerialism, depoliticization and the politics of expertise – was alienating people from the political process. This major new title exposes the ‘post-industrial’ technocratic regime that emerged in the ‘80s, sweeping all before it over the next thirty years, and shows how it sowed the seeds of a populist backlash.

The ‘new’ technocracy sought to transform the policy process and public management along scientific lines. While presented as a means of continuous improvement and dressed in the language of democracy, the approach was, the author argues, hostile to ideology and politics as traditionally understood; and in aiming to move beyond left and right and to depoliticize political problems, it removed ordinary citizens from the policy process.

The populist backlash against technocracy, reasserted the people against the elites, feelings and emotions against scientific facts and nationalism against globalism. The author warns that attempts to strengthen scientific management and government to ‘overcome’ the post-factualism and irrationalism of populism are misguided and doomed to fail. Populism, for all its flaws, is a sign that the technocratic bluff has been called and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exasperate existing problems. This book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation.

Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, this book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines the development since the 1980s of a new 'post-industrial' technocratic regime and its complicity in the populist backlash against politics and political elites that is visible today.

The new technocracy – a combination of network governance, risk management and performance management – has, the author argues, abandoned the overtly anti-democratic sentiments of its industrial predecessor and proclaimed a new partnership with democracy. The rise of populism, however, is a clear sign that the inherent problems of this partnership have been exposed and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exacerbate existing problems.

Rediscovering Technocracy

Technocratic Revolutions: From Industrial to Post-industrial Technocracy

Who are the Technocrats? From the Technostructure to Technocratic Government

The Technocratic Regime: Technocracy, Bureaucracy and Democracy

Technocratic Organization: The Power of Networks

Technocratic Regulation: Coping with Risk and Uncertainty

Technocratic Calculation: Economy, Evidence and Experiments

New Populism vs New Technocracy

Reining Technocracy Back In?

Conclusion: Technocracy at the End of the World