Opposites But Similar? Technocracy and Populism in Contemporary European Democracies

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231158341
• Author: Francesco Maria Scanni
• Date: 01 May 2023
• Subject Matter: Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231158341

Administration & Society

2023, Vol. 55(5) 1007 –1029

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997231158341

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Perspectives

Opposites But

Similar? Technocracy

and Populism in

Contemporary European

Democracies

Francesco Maria Scanni1

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of two political

phenomena: populism and technocracy. Often seen as opposites, the two

factors are linked by some elements: both are described by their proponents

as remedies to the legitimacy crisis that modern representative democracies

are going through; both tend to define certain practices and principles of

constitutional democracy that are insufficient to ensure effective governance

of society; both see as their main remedy a restriction of the classical

functions of representation and of the institutions of mediation (parties and

parliament among all). Nevertheless, the two phenomena seem to follow

the dynamics of opposite extremes: in the phases when the democratic

order is increasingly identified with technocracy, the populist democratic

eschatology gains confidence on the basis of the promise to return to

citizens the power stolen from them by non-elective institutions. We will

attempt to identify some key features that unite the two phenomena and we

will highlight the differences in principle, the possible relationships as part

of a more general democratic vulnus and the different types of impact they

have on democracy and its principles.

1Università della Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende, Italy

Corresponding Author:

Francesco Maria Scanni, Università degli Studi di Teramo Campus “Aurelio Saliceti” via R.

Balzarini 1 64100 Teramo.

Email: Francesco.scanni@unical.it

1158341AAS0010.1177/00953997231158341Administration & SocietyScanni

research-article2023

1008 Administration & Society 55(5)

Keywords

technocracy, populism, liberal democracy, impact, characteristics

Introduction: Populism and the Origins of the

Concept of Technocracy

The problem of the ideal government of society has distant roots in philo-

sophical and theoretical considerations of politics. Since ancient Hellenistic

philosophy, the question has been what political system is best suited to

ensure the welfare and prosperity of citizens. This question has persisted

for centuries until it found partial (not final) stability in the modern Western

world with the identification of democracy as the ideal system for manag-

ing public affairs (Bobbio, 1980). Phenomena such as globalization, eco-

nomic, and legitimacy crises that have affected actors, rules and democratic

institutions (Kriesi, 2014) have reopened the debate on the capacity of

democracy to deal with new changes and provide broad opportunities for

the affirmation of two (apparent) extremes located at the two poles of rep-

resentative democracy, understood as mediation between the government

of the few and the government of the many: technocracy and populism. On

the one hand, the complexity of the modern welfare state has fostered an

increasing reliance on policymaking by professional bureaucracies and

expert agencies (Scicluna & Auer, 2019); on the other, new challenging

parties have revived the promise of regenerating the democratic system by

challenging actors, rules and practices that are accused of leading to a deg-

radation of politics and citizen sovereignty. Technocrats and populist have

thus become the two main contemporary challenges to the democratic

order, so much so that Freeland (2010) argues that the contrast between

populism and technocracy represents the most important contemporary

political division.

There is a large and diverse literature on populism that has focused on a

number of very relevant aspects. It is not part of the objectives of this paper

to reproduce them; instead, we, will focus on the perspectives that have

explored the nature of the relationship that populism establishes with the

democratic system and the risks that populism in power poses to for constitu-

tional democracy (what we define as a consequentialist approach, see

Akkerman, 2003; Müller, 2017; Urbinati, 2019). To make the comparison

possible, we will use the definition of populism as a subtle ideology, referring

to Mudde’s (2004) “minimal definition,” according to which the characteris-

tic elements of populism are: (a) recourse to the people-pure/corrupt-elite

fracture; (b) a marked personalization; and (c) repeated appeals to the general