Knowledge-Making in Politics: Expertise in Democracy and Epistocracy

• Published date: 01 June 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231199495
• Author: Matthew C. Lucky
• Date: 01 June 2024

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231199495

Political Theory

2024, Vol. 52(3) 431 –458

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917231199495

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Article

Knowledge-Making

in Politics: Expertise

in Democracy and

Epistocracy

Matthew C. Lucky1

Abstract

Recently, epistocrats have challenged the value of democracy by claiming

that policy outcomes can be improved if the electorate were narrowed to

empower only those with sufficient knowledge to inform competent policy

decisions. I argue that by centering on contesting how well regimes employ

extant knowledge in decision-making, this conversation has neglected to

consider how regimes influence the production of knowledge over time.

Science and technology studies scholars have long recognized that political

systems impact the productivity of expert research. I argue that in order to

evaluate which regime is “smarter,” we must consider not only how well

they employ existing knowledge in decision-making, but we must also assess

how those regimes influence the ongoing production of policy-relevant

knowledge. Thus, I offer an instrumental defense of democracy based on its

capacity to encourage a superior pattern and quality of expert research to

inform policy decisions over time. Epistocracy may be effective at employing

extant knowledge in the short run, but in the long run, democracy is a

superior environment for producing knowledge to inform policy decisions.

1Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Matthew C. Lucky, Indiana University Bloomington, Woodburn Hall, 1100 East 7th Street,

Bloomington, IN 47406, USA.

Email: mclucky@iu.edu

1199495PTXXXX10.1177/00905917231199495Political TheoryLucky

research-article2023

432 Political Theory 52(3)

Keywords

epistocracy, epistemic democracy, science and technology studies,

meritocracy, knowledge systems

Contemporary democracies are experiencing a prolonged period of threats

from populist antisystem forces (e.g., Connolly 2017; Levitsky and Ziblatt

2018). Mounk (2018) likewise flags survey evidence of a multidecade decline

in support for belief in the essential value of living in a democracy (105–10).

As democracies degrade and publics grow skeptical of their value, epistocrats

such as Brennan (2017), Somin (2016), Bell (2015), and Caplan (2011) argue

that the best response is to sacrifice democracy in order to save and fortify the

authority of experts over policy decisions. They indite the mass publics in

democracies as incorrigibly ignorant, irrational, and tribalistic. In contrast,

epistemic democrats such as Landemore (2012, 2020), Estlund (2009;

Estlund and Landemore 2018), Surowiecki (2005), and Goodin and

Spiekermann (2018) argue that rule by expert groupthink is prone to failures

of myopic vision. Instead, they argue that democratic decision-making pos-

sesses emergent epistemic properties that epistocrats wrongly discount. Other

committed democrats, such as Bagg (2018) and Achen and Bartels (2017),

lament that the mechanisms for democracy’s alleged emergent epistemic

properties often appear to be fragile beyond restrictive conditions. They con-

tend that a more realistic and robust defense of democracy is possible, though

that defense centers on valuing democracy narrowly as an anticorruption

mechanism after accepting the bulk of epistocratic critiques of voter compe-

tence. Ultimately, I side with the democrats here and offer an epistemic

defense of popular rule. Unlike the existing defenses, however, I do not locate

democracy’s advantages in the emergent properties of collective decision-

making or anticorruption mechanisms. Instead, I argue that democracy is bet-

ter than epistocracy at producing socially useful patterns of expert research.

Advocates for competing regimes agree that we ought to evaluate regimes

on the exclusive basis of their instrumental merits. To wit, we ought to value

regimes based on their ability to solve social problems. Brennan (2017)

claims “the only reason to favor democracy [or epistocracy] over any other

political system is that it is more effective at producing just results” (11). I

reformulate the instrumental criteria of solving social problems here as the

question of which regime is more capable of intelligent action. Intelligent

action, whether it be performed by individuals, political assemblies, AIs, ani-

mals, or regimes, requires the actor(s) to engage with the world with intention