Support for Technocratic Decision-Making in the OECD Countries: Attitudes toward Apolitical Politics

Abstract

Why talk about technocracy in a time when democracies are consolidating all over the world? The term rings of something out-dated and archaic, more suited to the Cold War era, or a George Orwell novel. Out of all possible subjects, why dedicate hours of research to this phenomenon which in no way constitutes a threat to the hegemony of liberal democracies today? This paper will argue that technocracy is indeed a relevant concept in modern societies. Not only has the current financial crisis provoked the formation of temporary technocratic governments in certain European countries, but the technocratic framing of policy-questions and the use of expert knowledge to define political goals are characteristics of present-day policy making which have perhaps not received the full scholarly attention they deserve. This paper will insist that technocracy is not only a system of governance where experts rule by virtue of their knowledge; it is a decision-making paradigm functioning within contemporary democracies. The motivations for carrying out this study are both personal and academic. At a personal level, the chance to observe the Spanish government’s policy responses to combat the financial crisis during these past five years has served as a source of motivation for examining technocratic decision-making. Top-down policies have been implemented and justified in terms of efficiency and e↵ectiveness and what has been deemed good for the financial sector and the economic system has been presented as representing the ‘public interest’ without further debate. However, most policies have made “the burden of the mistakes of the rich fall on the poor”(Palat, 2012:1) by cutting public spending where it hurts the most and invariably favouring capital over labour. Unable to counter-argue what prestigious financial institutions claim to be true, citizens have become truly disenfranchised when it comes to influencing the choice of policies to combat the current financial situation. In spite of this, the support for technocratic decision-making is considerably high in Spain and in the countries of the OECD. Questions such as who supports technocratic decisionmaking and what might explain this support inspire further inquiry...