Populists,Producers and the Politics of Rentiership

Populism studies finds itself in a crisis of originality. While some scholars have signalled over-usage, others have argued that by contextualising populism, we are able to specify our own ‘populist moment’ and remedy the term’s slipperiness. This article opts for the latter tactic through a comparison of two aspects of contemporary populism with late nineteenth century precedents. In the late nineteenth century, the American People’s Party pioneered a mode of mass politics anchored in agrarian and industrial labour which launched the term ‘populism’ in Western discourse. Contemporary populists show rhetorical and political overlap with this template, but also come up against two new constraints: (1) a stagnant capitalism increasingly centred on ‘rentiership’; and (2) a disorganised civil society. These factors render today’s populism resistant to analogy but also conceptually more specific, sharpening the contours of our populist moment.     

Dodging the bullet: How crises trigger technocrat‐led governments

Governments led by nonpartisan, ‘technocratic’ prime ministers are a rare phenomenon in parliamentary democracies, but have become more frequent since the late 1980s. This article focuses on the factors that lead to the formation of such cabinets. It posits that parliamentary parties with the chance to win the prime ministerial post will only relinquish it during political and economic crises that drastically increase the electoral costs of ruling and limit policy returns from governing. Statistical analyses of 469 government formations in 29 European democracies between 1977 and 2013 suggest that political scandals and economic recessions are major drivers of the occurrence of technocratic prime ministers. Meanwhile, neither presidential powers nor party system fragmentation and polarisation have any independent effect. The findings suggest that parties strategically choose technocrat‐led governments to shift blame and re‐establish their credibility and that of their policies in the face of crises that de‐legitimise their rule.     

Women in contemporary Soviet society

What enables democracies to succeed has much in common with what enables other forms of modern rule to succeed: notably the capacity for effective military selfdefence and the reasonably efficient functioning of a domestic economy. When the factors favouring the success of any form of modern regime are broken down, most of them may readily be secured for a time under autocratic rule, and none is strucurally ensured by democratic rule. At present there is good reason to believe that the special advantages of democratic rule - above all the heuristic merits of open and competitive political deliberation - at least offset the inherent disadvantages long ago identified by its enemies. The distinctive preconditions for the success of democratic regimes are furnished, if at all, only by the workings of democracy itself. They are both instances and products of success in learning how to live freely as, and within, a large collectivity. That outcome can be menaced or precluded by the causal properties of ill-conceived institutions. But it can only be brought about by free and practically intelligent political action. This is a task for citizens and career politicians, not a potential gift from the social sciences.     

Defining and classifying technocrat‐led and technocratic governments

Governments led by technocrats remain a nebulous category in political science literature, with little clarity about how they differ from party governments, how many have existed and how we can differentiate between them. This article aims to provide that conceptual and empirical clarity. Having proposed an ideal type definition of ‘technocratic government’, it sets out three conditions for an operational definition of a ‘technocrat’ and, on that basis, lists the 24 technocrat‐led governments that have existed in 27 European Union (EU) democracies from the end of the Second World War until June 2013. It then classifies these according to their partisan/technocrat composition and remit. This allows for the presentation of a typology of four different types of technocrat‐led governments and the definition of ‘full technocratic governments’ as those which contain a majority of technocrats and – unlike caretaker governments – have the capacity to change the status quo. The article concludes that full technocratic governments remain extremely rare in EU democracies since there have been only six cases – of which three have occurred in the last decade.     

Singapore: The Limits of a Technocratic Approach to Health Care

Being a tiny, easily managed polity run by Western-educated technocrats, Singapore is an ideal laboratory for those who believe that there is a “logical” answer to the problem of health-care funding in economically advanced societies. Certainly the ruling elite in this not-very-democratic country is convinced that Singapore is the epitome of a rational, technocratic state in which rule is based on supposedly impartial, objective criteria. The government's achievements in the delivery of health care are at the forefront of its showcase of technocratic achievements. This article uses the Singapore government's innovations in health-care funding as a case study to explore and test the limitations of trying to apply purist technocratic premises and methodologies to governance. The limitations it uncovers raise the question of whether a technocratic approach to governance can ever deliver the promised results and suggests that the attraction of “technocracy” is a chimera.     

From Machine Politics to the Politics of Technocracy: Charting Changes in Governance in the Mexican Municipality1

Abstract — A typology comprising technocratic rationality versus political partisanship helps to identify several local government structures found in contemporary Mexico: political machines; autonomous-indigenous; technocratic; and modernising party governments. Case study research in over a dozen municipalities for three principal parties suggest a trend towards increasing technocratic and more administratively efficient municipal government and changing patterns of partisanship. This arises from new pressures associated with electoral opening, political alternation, new government actors, growing urban development complexity, and from federal reforms offering greater local government autonomy. However, while improved administration and technocratic governance often leads to positive outcomes, they do not necessarily imply ‘good government’.     

Who’s afraid of penal populism? Technocracy and ‘the people’ in the sociology of punishment

Contemporary sociologists of punishment have criticized the rising incidence of incarceration and punitiveness across the Western world in recent decades. The concepts of populist punitiveness and penal populism have played a central role in their critiques of the burgeoning penal state. These concepts are frequently sustained by a doctrine of penal elitism, which delegates a limited right to politicians and ‘the people’ to shape institutions of punishment, favoring in their place the dominance of bureaucratic and professional elites. I argue that the technocratic inclinations of penal elitism are misguided on empirical, theoretical, and normative grounds. A commitment to democratic politics should make us wary of sidelining the public and their elected representatives in the politics of punishment. A brief discussion of Norway’s legal proceedings against Nazi collaborators in the mid-1940s and the introduction sentencing guidelines commissions in Minnesota in the 1980s shows – pace penal elitism – that professional elites may variously raise the banner of rehabilitationism or retributivism. While penal elitism may yield a few victorious battles against punitiveness, it will not win the war.     

Technocracy Questioned: Assessing Economic Stabilisation in Nicaragua

Abstract — The Chamorro government (1990–1996) has finally achieved stabilisation in Nicaragua. At first sight, this government has been a classic example of technocracy, implementing stabilisation and structural adjustment policies as recommended by the IMF and the World Bank. The paper argues that the IMF and the World Bank did have a considerable influence on economic policies, but that these policies suffered from limitations. The priority of internal stabilisation implied that insufficient attention was paid to the external balance, and the liberalisations and privatisations did not create a competitive market economy, but tended to favour a small group. Furthermore, the foreign aid that accompanied the programmes permitted this discretionary government behaviour.     

Technocrats and Tortured Bodies: Simone de Beauvoir's Les Belles Images

Through an analysis of Simone de Beauvoir's final novel Les Belles Images (1966), this article examines how a 1960s French technocratic class dealt with individual and collective traumas, particularly how they placed their faith in an undying hope in the future while simultaneously ignoring the horrors of wartime violence. The article contends that Beauvoir's novel is a story of not remembering—or, more specifically, attempting to forget—Algeria and all the conflict signified to the average French citizen, including decolonization, torture, racial difference and political tumult. Analysis rests on the novel's representation of its protagonist Laurence, who had been shaken to the core after reading a newspaper article about a (likely Algerian) woman tortured to death, ultimately causing a nervous breakdown that forever altered her interactions with her family and fellow technocrats. Gender and nationality also figure centrally in this examination of the broader role that images—not only belles images—played in the construction of French national identity at this historical moment.