In his contribution to the commentary series on technocracy and democracy in global governance that is organised by the Global Governance Centre and the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, Johan Christensen, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, outlines two competing narratives about the role of experts in governance and the very different democratic concerns they raise.
Experts are seemingly everywhere nowadays. From the natural scientists advising governments through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), via the economists in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB) who shape fiscal and monetary policies, to the medical experts in government bureaucracies and advisory bodies who provide politicians with evidence-based advice on how to manage the coronavirus pandemic. The reliance on specialized expertise has become a ‘fact’ of modern political life – making policies is simply not possible without it. This is the case for national policy-making, but even more so for governance at the international level, as scholars like Peter M. Haas have pointed out.
Yet, there are two competing narratives about the role of experts in global governance. The first – the technocracy narrative – argues that experts have become increasingly powerful. Decisions that were previously made by elected leaders have been delegated to expert bureaucracies that are insulated from politics and far removed from regular citizens: the European Commission, the IMF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), etc. These are the kind of organizations that the British politician Michael Gove alluded to in his famous claim that “people in this country have had enough of experts from organizations with acronyms”. These bodies have taken the politics out of policy-making: they reduce every issue to technical questions that can best be answered by specialized expertise and evidence. The guiding star for decision-making is no longer what people want but rather what the science says: Are economic policies ‘right’ according to economic theory? Are public health measures based on sound evidence about the spread of disease? As Jens Steffek argues in his latest book, this idea of technocratic governance has been crucially important for the creation of international organizations. This mode of decision-making may also be accompanied by technocratic attitudes among experts, which entail not only a belief in science-based decisions but also a disdain for pluralist politics and citizen input. For instance, in a recent study with Ronen Mandelkern, we show how economists in finance bureaucracies are more likely to hold this kind of technocratic views.
Technocratic governance represents a serious challenge for democracy: If experts rule, what is left of political equality and citizens’ right to have a say over the policies that affect their lives? Why should people even bother to participate in politics and public debate if experts call the shots anyway?
But there is also an alternative narrative about experts in international governance, which we can call the ‘useful idiots’ narrative.