A Marriage of Convenience: Responsive Populists and Responsible Experts

Abstract

This thematic issue, “Varieties of Technocratic Populism around the World,” investigates ideological origins of technocratic populism and situates it among other types of populism. It is composed of 11 articles that bring together 18 scholars from around the world with a wide variety of perspectives. Technocratic populism is an output-oriented populism that directly links voters to leaders via expertise. It emerges as a response to a crisis of governance, reproaches mainstream parties for it and offers solutions that challenge traditional left–right divisions in politics. New leaders combine populism with technocracy: They offer expertise, often harnessed in business, but also a direct, personalized link to ‘ordinary’ citizens. Above all, they politicize expertise to gain legitimacy. Technocratic populism primarily responds to frustrations of the electorate with poor governance, not to nativist grievances or to the plight of the most vulnerable citizens. In a new social contract, it is expected that voters renounce politics and political parties and that they turn into spectators who observe how technocratic elites adopt solutions that benefit the ‘ordinary people.’ Technocratic populism is a growing challenge to pluralistic forms of representative democracy and calls for further scholarly attention.

Technocratic Populism à la Française? The Roots and Mechanisms of Emmanuel Macron’s Success

“…Technocratic populism in power attempts to balance responsiveness and responsibility (cf. Guasti & Buštíková, 2020). In terms of responsiveness, Macron initiated new procedures for engaging citizens, forming a new direct linkage between the leader and the people.…”

“…Second, it highlights an important condition for the rise of populism-the implosion of the established party systems (cf. Caiani & Graziano, 2016;Castaldo & Verzichelli, 2020;Ganuza & Font, 2020;Guasti & Buštíková, 2020). Third, it illustrates that populist rhetoric is not limited to the extremes on the right or the left (Norris, 2020).…”

“…In power Emmanuel Macron attempts to balance responsiveness and responsibility (cf. Guasti & Buštíková, 2020).…”

Authentic Expertise: Andrej Babiš and the Technocratic Populist Performance During the COVID-19 Crisis

“…Amidst the growing awareness of technocratic populism as a potential cause of democratic backsliding, the COVID-19 pandemic offered an unprecedented opportunity for it to shine. Even beyond previous findings that crises both provide an opening for and often are an inherent element of populist politics (Moffitt 2015;Moffitt 2016;Brubaker 2017;Stavrakakis et al, 2018), technocratic populism and its politicization of expertise hold a unique appeal in a crisis demanding expertise in public health (or at least the appearance of it) above all else (Guasti & Buštíková 2020). At the same time, people are open to losing civil liberties if a trusted expert made the decision to take them away (Arceneaux et al, 2020).…”

Technocratic Populism in Hybrid Regimes: Georgia on My Mind and in My Pocket

“…Managing 'the state as a firm,' and using expertise to bypass accountability, is now emerging as a respectable method of governance that has become known as 'technocratic populism' (Buštíková & Guasti, 2019). While the rise of modern populism has been extensively studied in the scholarly literature (Caiani & Graziano, 2019;Canovan, 1999;Grzymala-Busse, 2019;Mudde, 2004;Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2012;Pappas, 2019;Stanley, 2008;Weyland, 2020), and there are now several studies of technocracy (Bickerton & Accetti, 2017;Caramani, 2017;De la Torre, 2013), technocratic populism is still relatively underexplored (see Guasti & Buštíková, 2020). Building on this emerging literature, we understand technocracy and populism as two alternatives challenging representative, party-based democracy (Caramani, 2017).…”