ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the tension between technocracy and democracy, making a crucial distinction between two conceptions of democracy: the individual or liberal, and the collective or aggregative. It focuses on the neoliberal variety of technocracy, which, arguably, is the most relevant and influential. Neoliberal technocracy shares many of the characteristics of traditional technocracy, but it also displays some specific traits that set it apart from the standard model. There is a significant difference between the standard and the neoliberal conceptions of technocracy. In the standard model of technocratic governance, policy is delegated to independent or unelected agencies whose legitimacy relies mainly on expertise. The neoliberal justification of technocracy is quite different from the liberal one regarding limits on majority rule. Technocracy becomes a more questionable institutional arrangement if the aggregative or collective conception of democracy is embraced. The people’s capacity to make collective choices on what kind of society they want to live in is severely constrained by neoliberal technocracy.
