New Populism vs New Technocracy

Explores the link between technocracy and the rise of populist movements and parties in established democracies during the last two decades. Among the various attempt to find the causes of this populist challenge, the chapter singles out the interplay of technocratic depoliticization and populist repoliticization as the key dynamic. Building on existing observations of this logic in the debates on populism and anti- politics, the chapter explores how the new technocratic preoccupation with network organization, reflexive risk regulation and experimental performance calculation have all contributed in particular ways to depoliticization, which in turn has led to populist counter- reactions and attempts at repoliticization.