The Limits of Technocracy

‘It’s the economy, stupid’. That, famously, was one of the organising principles of Bill Clinton’s campaign for the US presidency in 1992. Thirty years on, amidst a cost of living crisis, economic policy decisions still often dominate politics. 

Some of the debates about economic policy relate to questions of fundamental values: how much weight should we place, for example, on the size of the cake or on its distribution?

But other debates focus on questions of fact. Would lowering taxes today fuel inflation? Did austerity a decade ago protect the public finances by bringing spending closer to tax receipts, or harm them by shrinking the economy and thereby diminishing the tax take?

So, if fundamental questions at the heart of politics are, at least in principle, answerable by experts, that raises the question of what the relationship between elected politicians and expert economists should be. The Bank of England was given independent control over monetary policy 25 years ago. So should other areas of economic policy get similar technocratic treatment? Or does political control matter?

To discuss these issues, UCL Uncovering Politics is joined by Dr Anna Killick, Research Fellow in the UCL Department of Political Science. 

Mentioned in this episode:

• A. Killick., Politicians and Economic Experts: The Limits of Technocracy (Newcastle: Agenda Publishing, 2022)