Politicians and Economic Experts

The Limits of Technocracy

By (author) Dr. Anna Killick

Publication date:

24 November 2022

Publisher

Agenda Publishing

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781788215640

In recent years politics has seen an increasing role in economic policymaking for a technocracy of experts. How do politicians feel about this and how do they balance their political and ethical aims with economic expertise? Anna Killick offers an in-depth study of how politicians engage with economists and economic opinion. Based on interviews with politicians from the main parties in France, Germany, Denmark, the UK and USA, the book highlights the role economic opinion plays in politics and the tension that can arise between democracy and technocracy. Deferring to the experts is shown to be neither viable nor desirable, and that we should trust politicians to take the lead role in solving economic problems.

1. Do we need more economic experts?

Part I Politicians’ respect for economists and voters

2. Politicians’ respect for economists

3. Politicians’ relationships with voters

Part II Ideological and national variations

4. The resurgent left’s view of economists

5. Denmark and Germany: "homegrown" economists

6. France: pluralist economics and populist threat

7. Inattentive Anglosphere right

8. Politicians and climate change economists

Part III Educating voters

9. "Educative" politicians rather than technocracy

Appendix

An insightful and rousing call to turn away from technocracy, which has sowed the seeds of polarization and distrust, to reconnect the economy and democracy through being honest about the contested and moral foundations of economic policymaking. I hope that this book will encourage politicians across the world to engage their citizens in debate about what a good economy in the twenty-first century should look like.