ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the conception of technocracy as an insulated, unresponsive form of government, and asks under which conditions and in which contexts technocracy is responsive to political developments in its broader environment. It draws on the literatures on political responsiveness, political reputation management and political signalling to construct a theory of “technocratic responsiveness” and formulate expectations on how such technocratic responsiveness may operate empirically. The chapter discusses avenues for further research and the normative implications of technocratic responsiveness for the technocratic challenge to democracy. The populist conceptualization of responsiveness is a rather simplistic one: it implies that governing actors should straightforwardly follow the “putative will of the people”. Responsiveness to different reputational threats is guided by the executive’s institutionalized organizational reputation and identity. Strategies of technocratic responsiveness may also open insulated technocratic executives up to the critique that their actions favour an elitist, undemocratic agenda.
