Varieties of Technopopulism

This chapter explores technopopulism as an empirical phenomenon. The primary claim of this chapter is that technocratic and populist appeals can be combined in a variety of different ways. The chapter lays out three ideal-types of such syntheses and explores each ideal-type through an exemplary case. The first ideal-type is ‘technopopulism through the party’, explored through a discussion of the British ‘New Labour’ Party of the 1990s and 2000s. The second ideal-type is ‘technopopulism from below’, explored through the case of the Italian Five Star Movement. The third ideal-type is ‘technopopulism from above’, explored through the case of Emmanuel Macron and his ‘En Marche’ movement. The chapter also discusses a number of cases that are products of both the ideological and the technopopulist political logics, such as Spain’s Podemos and the Lega in Italy.

Conclusion

This conclusion outlines the most recent incarnations of technopopulism. Since technopopulism is not vested in any particular politician or party but as a political logic operates in a way that shapes the constraints and incentives political actors face, the precise identity of technopopulists and the synthesize they achieve between technocracy and populism will change over time. The conclusion then takes up the question of the whether technopopulism can endure as a political logic. Using the corona virus crisis as its starting point, and based on the normative discussion of technopopulism in chapter five, the conclusion looks at various ways in which we may go beyond technopopulism. We conclude that whereas technopopulism is an unstable political logic, there are good reasons to think that it will endure and continue to shape and structure political attitudes and behaviour well into the future.

Normative Reflections on Technopopulism

This chapter is concerned with the remedies to technopopulism. It engages with a variety of different remedies that have been suggested by scholars and practitioners, showing that they all implicitly rely on the assumption that populism and technocracy can function as antidotes for one another. It then argues that this is not the case because the relationship between populism and technocracy is not simply one of opposition, but also complementarity. Both technocracy and populism share a hostility to the political form we call party democracy, meaning that by arguing for more of either technocracy or populism one is at the same time endorsing this critique of party democracy. The chapter then considers an alternative remedy to both populism and technocracy, which consists in the revitalization of the dimensions of partisanship and substantive goal differentiation as key components of well-functioning democracy. Specific examples—such as Corbynism within British politics—are discussed in order to draw out the potential and the limitations of this remedy.

The Origins of Technopopulism

This chapter examines the origins of the technopopulist political logic. It does so by identifying the origins and principal contours of the ideological political logic which preceded it. It then explores the relative decline of the ideological logic and the rise of technopopulism. The technopopulist logic has superimposed itself upon the ideological logic, leading to a complex interaction between the two. The theme of the chanpter is the formation and decline of organizing interests and the complex relationship between societal change and evolutions in national political party systems. The overarching narrative is of the separation of state from society (referred to process of disintermediation) and the connection of this to technopopulism. The rise of the technopopulist political logic is associated with a number of macro-historical processes, such as secularization, cognitive mobilization, and the decline of organized interests. However, the relationship between these processes and the rise of technopopulism is shaped by nationally specific experiences. The empirical focus of the chapter is on British, French, and Italian politics, but the argument refers also to broader changes that held across national political systems in Western Europe since 1945.

The Concept of Technopopulism

This chapter offers a formal definition of the concept of technopopulism. We begin by surveying the various ways in which this concept has already been employed in the existing academic literature. Since we identify several layers of confusion in this domain, we propose to systematize it by defining technopopulism as an organizing logic of electoral competition based on the combination of populist and technocratic discursive tropes and modes of political organization. To clarify what we mean by this, we first explain what we take an organizing logic of electoral competition to be. We then offer formal definitions of the two main modes of political action that characterize the technopopulist political logic; i.e. populism and technocracy. Finally, we contrast the technopopulist political logic with what we take to be its main historical antecedent and contemporary rival; that is what we call the ideological political logic.

The Consequences of Technopopulism

This chapter discusses the consequences of technopopulism. It distinguishes between internal and external consequences. Internal consequences concern the domain of electoral party politics itself. External consequences refer to the broader effects of technopopulism on other domains of contemporary politics and society. Internally, technopopulism has resulted in a form of politics that is both increasingly conflictual and highly desubstantialized. The external consequences of technopopulism are both an increasing degree of citizen dissatisfaction with democracy and a new authoritarianism with our societies, manifested in increasing rates of incarceration, police activity, and generalized surveillance. A final external consequence of technopopulism is the closure of the revolutionary horizon and the rise of identity politics as a new dominant mode of political expression. This derives from the fact that technopopulist politics are characterized by both a virulent anti-establishmentarianism and a very moderate wish to fulfil the basic promises of the existing political order in a more effective way. The pursuit of identity politics fulfils this simultaneous desire for radicalism and stasis embedded within the technopopulist political field.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the book as a whole. It situates the main argument of the book within the ongoing debate about the state of democracy, arguing that we are witnessing a transformation of democracy rather than a collapse or end of democracy. The chapter outlines the main features of this transformation, namely the emergence of a new political logic where appeals to expertise and to ‘the people’ are combined in a variety of different ways. We call this new logic technopopulism. The chapter gives examples of technopopulism and highlights the differences with the ideological political logic that preceded it. The chapter gives a synthesized account of the explanations for the emergence of technopopulism and the consequences associated with its development. The chapter ends by considering possible ‘ways out’ of the technopopulist political logic.