Reining Technocracy Back In?

Abstract

The chapter discusses the possible contributions of this analysis to the broader quest for responses to the new populist challenge. This question is rephrased as a matter of how to rein technocracy back in in order to break out of the vicious circle in which the interplay of technocracy and populism is currently caught. Lack of attention to this problem is likely to exacerbate this problem and reinforce the current tendency to reinforce technocracy and fight fire with fire. Two general approaches to the question of reining technocracy back in are discussed: a short term cordon sanitaire and a more long-term normative reinforcement of the decisionistic model of parliamentary democracy infused with elements of a pragmatic deliberative model.