The New Technocracy

The recent rise of populist parties and movements in the United States and Europe—and their contempt for and distrust of the opinions of mainstream experts—has shocked the establishment. New Technocracy examines how the post-industrial technocratic regime of the 1980s—defined by managerialism, depoliticization, and the politics of expertise—sowed the seeds for the today’s backlash against elite political powers. Esmark argues that populism is a sign that the technocratic bluff has finally been called, setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy by showing that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation.