Technocracy and Politics in a Trajectory of Conflict

Abstract

Technocracy often holds out the promise of rational, professional, and politically disinterested decision-making particularly in economic planning and management. Yet states and regimes frequently turn to technocracy not just to obtain expert inputs and calculated outcomes but to embed the exercise of power in many agendas, policies, and programs. Thus, technocracy operates as an appendage of politically constructed structures and configurations of power, and highly placed technocrats cannot be mere backroom experts who supply disinterested rational-technical solutions in economic planning, resource allocation, and social distribution since they are engaged in inherently political exercises. Using examples of technocratic interventions in a variety of developing countries, this article traces the trajectories of technocracy that were marked by conflict, especially in conditions of rapid social transformation, severe economic restructuring, or political crises when the technocratic was unavoidably political.