Measuring technocracy

This chapter aims to offer a roadmap for the systematic categorization, operationalization and possible empirical measurement of technocratic elements in democratic systems. It focuses on key players of representative democratic systems, which are traditionally thought of as the locus of decision making in representative democracy: parties, executives, parliaments, politicians and the citizens that elect them. The chapter also aims to propose a typology and offer suggestions for the operationalization of technocracy that can lead to comparative analysis. It reviews existing research efforts and proposes new avenues to “quantify” technocracy across different layers of the political system, and by employing diverse methodologies. Technocracy represents a value-system that can be found in public discourse. This value-system is in line with the dimensions of elitism, anti-pluralism and scientific approach presented earlier, but also additional elements to be found in oral and written text