THE NS ESSAY The rise of the technopopulists The politics of the people and a new age of emptiness By Chris Bickerton

few days before it was exception of Johnson’s chief aide, Domi- technocracy as opposites, not as comple- announced there would be a nic Cummings, Downing Street has come ments. There are good reasons to believe nationwide UK lockdown from down hard on anyone breaching Covid-19 in this opposition. The conflict between late March, Sky News politi- restrictions. Johnson’s determination to technocracy and democracy takes us back cal editor Beth Rigby remarked follow the advice of his scientists has creat- to Plato, who argued that we should think Aon an unexpected shift in the Prime Minis- ed an opportunity for the Chancellor, Rishi of the polis or ideal city in the same way as ter’s behaviour. Struck by the importance Sunak, to present himself as less risk-averse we think of the individual household, the was attaching to scientific and more attuned to the dangers that the oikos. Running a household requires skills, advice, Rigby mused that a populist poli- pandemic poses for Britain’s economy. techne, and we expect those with the skills tician seemed to be taking a non-populist Experienced observers of British poli- to be in charge. Similarly, we should put the approach to the crisis. tics are right to be confused. After becom- “philosopher kings” in charge of running The embrace of science has persisted ing Prime Minister in July last year, John- the polis. throughout the pandemic. As well as son reaffirmed his status as the country’s Technocracy is therefore skill (techne) justifying government decisions in the leading populist. He attached “the people” plus power (kratos). The industrial age language of scientific advice, the country’s as a prefix to almost every dimension of recast the meaning of technocracy in a way chief medical officers and scientific advisers his premiership. After pitting “the people that tied it more closely to the liberating po- – from Chris Whitty and to against parliament” in his general election tential of modern technology. In the 18th the ill-fated epidemiologist Neil Ferguson – campaign, he created “a people’s govern- century, the French social theorist Henri de have been leading actors in the British ment”. Having packed the House of Com- Saint-Simon first proposed power be taken coronavirus drama. mons with his own MPs, Johnson called it away from politicians and given to engi- From the outset, arguments about rival “the people’s parliament”. The March 2020 neers. This idea exists today among tech scientific models dominated political dis- Budget was “the people’s Budget”. enthusiasts in Silicon Valley. Empowering cussion. The “herd immunity” approach This confusion stems from our expecta- experts seems to imply the demobilisation was popular early on but lost out to the tion that promises to do what “the people” of “the people”. suppression strategy promoted by Fergu- want will clash with appeals to expertise The opposition between and

son at Imperial College London. With the and competence. We think of populism and technocracy also makes sense because t

32 | NEW STATESMAN | 23-29 OCTOBER 2020 JONATHAN MCHUGH

23-29 OCTOBER 2020 | NEW STATESMAN | 33 t it confirms those who put their faith in technocratic forms of decision-making. Johnson’s critics often remark rather smug- ly that a former Have I Got News For You panellist was never going to be able to han- dle a global pandemic. The failures of Don- ald Trump, Johnson and Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro in tackling Covid-19 have led to a crescendo of voices decrying the policy failures of populists. By contrast, the German Chancellor An- gela Merkel – who has a doctorate in quan- tum chemistry – is celebrated for her seri- ousness of purpose. Placing populism and technocracy in opposition like this is a way of attacking those voters who elected the populists in the first place. We cannot understand the contemporary political moment if we stick to this opposi- tion between populism and technocracy. Political competition in advanced demo- cratic states today is increasingly ordered around appeals to both “the people” and to competence and expertise. Far from clash- Flanked by experts: , Mike Pence and face the press, February 2020 ing with one another, these appeals are combined in multiple and complex ways. The concept of technopopulism helps populist against a seasoned and highly com- We cannot say that one party or leader is to unravel the mystery of Dominic Cum- petent politician. And yet, Trump’s political populist while another is more technocratic. mings’s centrality to the Johnson govern- persona made much of his practical ability Rather, political strategies involve various ment and the manner in which he became to do deals and “get the job done”, in con- combinations of populism and technocracy. the object of public opprobrium in May this trast to his Democratic predecessor. In short, we live in a technopopulist age. year, after revelations about his trips to the Trump has, perhaps, most in common The crucial difference with the tradi- north-east during lockdown. Cummings with Italy’s . Derided by tional understanding of technocracy is that ruminates obsessively about the potential outside observers, Berlusconi successfully technopopulism does not describe a shift of cutting-edge science and technology cultivated a personal and direct relationship of decision-making power from political to improve government performance; he with Italians via television and by politicis- entities to independent bodies. This sort of writes rambling blog posts on the 17th- ing his entrepreneurial success. At the core depoliticisation still exists, of course, but century German polymath Leibniz and the of Italian politics under Berlusconi, as with technopopulism is something different. It Apollo space programme; he is waging a Trump, has been this amalgamation of a per- is not an alternative to democracy; it is the war against the civil service. sonal bond with citizens and a managerial form that democratic politics takes today. At the same time, Cummings is Britain’s approach to politics. While much has been We have been accustomed to viewing po- arch-populist agitator. In 2004, he was in- written about the dangers of this overlap- litical competition as a struggle between strumental in the campaign against the ping of money with politics, we should pay left and right. We should think about it in- Labour government’s proposal for a North as much attention to the exact meanings of stead as competition between rival ways of East Assembly. His winning slogans – “vote expertise and popular representation con- synthesising appeals to “the people” and no to more politicians” and “politicians tained in Berlusconism or . appeals to expertise. talk, we pay” – capitalised on public distrust Since the coronavirus pandemic began, of the political class and were precursors Trump’s strategy has not been to dismiss all he Conservatives’ election-win- to the Leave campaign in 2016. In the early expert opinion out of hand. Instead, he has ning slogan of 2019 – “Get Brexit autumn of 2019, Cummings was a key fig- deployed “his” experts. He has also made Done” – was powerfully tech- ure in pushing the government towards its much of his ability to read data and provide nopopulist. It was a promise to do showdown with parliament, arguing that his own interpretations. Political debate in “what the people want”, namely, the Commons and the Lords had become the United States has been along the lines Tleave the European Union – but it was also obstacles to the exercise of popular sover- of “my expert versus yours”, not a simple a promise to do it promptly and efficiently. eignty. Cummings thus in many ways em- clash between populism and technocracy. The pledge to act entailed a claim about bodies this new combination of populism Variations in technopopulism therefore competence and expertise, which fed off and technocracy. come from different ways of mobilising a growing disillusionment with the stale- “the people” and by focusing on different mate in the House of Commons. The La- echnopopulism is not just a British understandings of techne. Elected in 2017, bour Party’s response to this slogan – “Get story. In the United States, Don- French president Emmanuel Macron’s at- Brexit Right” – is itself firmly rooted in the ald Trump’s coruscating attacks tack on the political class and his unabash- technopopulist register. Keir Starmer pits on expert opinion belie a more nu- edly messianic political style had all the his promise of precision against Johnson’s anced set of developments. When hallmarks of the populist politician. In a promise of swiftness, but both entail claims The ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016, it striking instance of the populist’s personal-

to a form of political competence. was common to view the contest as that of a ised approach to exercising power, Macron ALEX / GETTY WONG IMAGES

34 | NEW STATESMAN | 23-29 OCTOBER 2020 even gave his political movement the same Casaleggio, was that the internet and digital party of the left and of the right. As Hans initials as himself: En Marche!. connectivity were a means of harnessing the Fallada put it in Alone in Berlin (1947), his But Macron was also a product of ’s “collective intelligence” of humanity. Direct celebrated novel about resistance to Nazi statist and elitist technocratic system. He democracy through the web was the route to rule in wartime Berlin: “The party was used the language of competence to attack better policymaking. As Casaleggio once put everything, and the people nothing.” his opponents. A key turning point in the it, “the web makes us equal in being smart.” Ideologies were more than political rhet- last presidential election was the second tel- The Five Star Movement thus com- oric; they gave societies their substance and evised debate on 3 May 2017, when far-right bines populism and technocracy by argu- structure. Conservative and Labour tradi- National Front leader Marine Le Pen made ing everyone is an expert. The internet and tions in the UK were a way of life, as were a series of factual errors culminating in an direct citizen participation help pool the Christian democracy and social democracy incoherent account of how she would take knowledge and competence of the general in Germany or Italy. In the Netherlands, France out of the euro. In his response, Ma- population. Citizens are at the heart of the ideology divided society so much that the cron chided Le Pen in the manner of a teach- M5S, but as holders of knowledge rather country’s social structure was imagined as er disappointed at his student’s poor perfor- than as bearers of rights. Dominic Cum- a series of independent pillars, existing side mance. You could at least have prepared for mings’s demand on 2 January this year that by side but never overlapping. Life in a pillar this debate rather than trying to wing it, he “weirdos and misfits” apply for jobs in No was all-encompassing, taking in your foot- scolded. Le Pen never recovered. Macron’s brand of technopopulism is un- abashedly top-down. He thinks of himself Emmanuel Macron’s unabashedly as the people’s problem-solver. His concept of techne, drawn from the upper echelons of messianic political style has all the the French meritocracy, is put to the service of “the people”. As Macron argued in his hallmarks of the populist memoir-cum-political programme, Revolu- tion, “the French are less interested in rep- resentation than in action. They want poli- 10 had something of Grillo and Casaleggio ball club, your school, your preferred news- ticians to be efficient, and that’s all there is to it. But British technopopulism relies on paper and even the café at which you would to it.” In recent months, Macron has had to a traditional party structure and eschews drink and socialise. recalibrate the balance between his populist Italian experiments with digital democracy. As the structuring power of rival ideolo- and technocratic components. His decision gies has declined, so the force of “the peo- this summer to change his prime minister he language of expertise and com- ple” as a political slogan has grown. Individ- was a way of forging a more direct and “hu- petence is almost as old as de- ualism has eroded these distinctive social man” connection with voters. In place of mocracy itself. The same is true groups, leaving political parties without any the stiff and technocratic Édouard Philippe, of “the people” and attempts to roots. As free-floating politicians, they coin Macron chose Jean Castex – a mayor of a mobilise popular will. So what empty slogans in the hope of winning over small town in the south of France, who Texactly has changed? From the middle of as many voters as possible. The prominence speaks with a southern accent and has the the 19th century until the final years of the of competence and expertise in our politi- popular touch his predecessor lacked. 20th century, democratic politics was about cal vocabulary has its origins in the rise of Italy’s Five Star Movement (M5S) is a a clash between rival ideologies: between meritocracy, what political scientists like to bottom-up form of technopopulism. Cur- the left and the right. These ideologies were call “cognitive mobilisation”. By investing rently in a coalition government with the not devices deployed by cynical politicians. intellectual ability with a moral superiority, centre-left Democratic Party, the M5S They were the building blocks of society, many of those near the top of the merito- is usually associated with its charismatic taking precedence over general appeals to cratic ladder feel justified in demanding that founder, Beppe Grillo, a comedian-turned- “the people” or to the competence of politi- politicians should resemble themselves. politician who built a popular movement cians and their advisers. The clash of ideolo- Synthesising these appeals to “the people” out of anger and frustration at Italian po- gies was embodied in the most significant and to expertise gives us technopopulism – litical life. Grillo’s promise to do away with creation of the early 20th century, the mass the new political logic of our age. the political caste and replace it with a more direct form of democracy was enormous- f technopopulism is the key to making ly successful: founded in 2009 as a small sense of Johnsonism as a political phi- online movement, in the 2013 general elec- losophy, it is also the way we can grasp tion the M5S received more votes than any its weakness and superficiality. At the other party. time of the electoral victory in late Grillo’s anti-establishment message gal- I2019, there was much talk of a fundamen- vanised a generation of political discon- tal ideological reordering of British politics, tents, but the M5S is not a purely populist one where working-class voters of the north movement. The “five stars” refer to the of England were willing – for the first time movement’s central goals of environmen- in their lives – to vote Conservative. Cum- talism, internet connectivity, and sustain- mings and others around him in Downing able water, transport and development. Street spoke grandly of a new social con- These are concrete policy ambitions, not tract. Less than a year later, it has all come grand ideological principles. The philoso- apart, dramatically so. Johnson cuts a lonely phy behind the M5S, articulated by the figure and there is talk about him quitting BOB RATTRAYBOB web guru and co-founder Gianroberto “Good food, no atmosphere” in the New Year. The most discontented t

23-29 OCTOBER 2020 | NEW STATESMAN | 35 t on the Tory back benches include those by this void. It is a persistent form of poli- in which we interpret our political and so- from so-called Red Wall seats, where tics, but also a deeply unstable one. cial world. What matters is the power that expectations about a “levelling up” agenda One important source of instability is comes from being able to build coalitions are highest. that politicising expertise erodes its au- and majorities strong enough to implement The origins of technopopulism as a politi- thority, which stems precisely from being a political programme. cal logic lie in a separation of politics from “outside” of politics. The trouble with po- An appeal to “the people” is also an society. Ideologies provided the glue that liticising expertise is that we quickly realise unstable and fragile source of political kept social groups and political representa- there is no necessary or direct connection authority. Brexit is a useful lesson here. The tives together. As this glue has disappeared, between what we know and what we ought demand that the government trigger Article a gap has opened up between voters and to do. This has been one of the great lessons 50 immediately after the June 2016 referen- governments. Technopopulism is more a of the pandemic. Simply “following the dum was justified as being “what the people consequence of this void than it is a way of science” cannot work because scientific want”. The gap between this appeal to pop- filling it. As a result, politics is no longer a evidence and models are themselves both ular will and the lack of a defined plan for reflection of shifting class cleavages and so- open to question and fall far short of pro- the UK’s exit from the EU was wide enough cial structures. It is far more superficial and viding instructions about what to do in any to shape events long after the vote had tak- disconnected than that. Technopopulism given set of circumstances. en place. The difficulty of filling it ended as a political logic means politicians can – Theresa May’s premiership and locked the simultaneously – appeal to all voters while UK into a negotiating process where the promising them magical technocratic fixes There is no truth options were limited by the ticking clock that are “right” or “true”, and do not involve in politics, only the started by triggering Article 50. Behind any trading the interests of one group against appeal to “what the people want” lies the the interests of another. balance of social forces need to transform popular will into a politi- But we should not equate an individual- cal platform with actual social content. For ised and atomised society with an equal so- At the heart of politics is the need to make over a century, political parties have done ciety. Deep conflicts of interest persist even decisions based not only on facts but also this while working within the rules of rep- if they are not utilised in the old ways. Tech- on a set of beliefs that provide a framework resentative democracy. But parties can only nopopulism is thus a product of the void for action. Stripped of an ideological out- do this if they are a bridge between society between voters and their politicians, and its look that contains within it some vision of and politics. practitioners are constantly being undone future society, decision-making dissolves into problem-solving. This leads to the end- he pandemic has demonstrated less firefighting and U-turns that have char- how wide the gap can be between

5 acterised the British response to Covid-19. what Rousseau called the will of

6 The relative success of the German re- all and the general will. The will

8 sponse to the pandemic is not because of a of all refers to the will of every- 0 stronger technocratic commitment to “fol- Tone in the political community; the general 6 lowing the science”. It is simply because of will is more complex, usually going against 0 the structure of the German state. Its federal the individual interests of some members 7 model – with substantial powers given to of the community. When competence and 1 the individual states or Länder – meant that government performance are all that we 6 the test and trace system developed early on discuss in relation to Covid-19, we neglect 1

0 in the pandemic came from the bottom-up, the much more difficult discussion of how using private and public laboratories, and we should manage the conflicts of interest tracing capacity was built up by individual that run through our societies. For instance, municipalities. At the same time, the coun- what of the inter-generational transfer of try has continued to fund its welfare state, wealth that comes with an approach fo- focusing on healthcare because of its age- cused on saving the lives of the most vul- ing population. The decentralised structure nerable, but paid for by the least vulnerable? of the German state and the quality of its These are the sorts of deeper political health system are nothing to do with scien- questions that we should be discussing and tific expertise as such; they reflect the social worrying about, but our technopopulist age settlements of the past and the present. reduces political debate to a synthesis of ap- There is something self-defeating about peals to “the people” and to expertise. This trying to make truth the foundation of po- political logic has its roots in the decline of litical action, whether it be the truth of “the class-based identities and in a moralised people” or the truth provided by expert celebration of competence, one of the worst knowledge. The anti-Trump “truth cam- features of our meritocratic societies. Tech- paigns” in the US led by nopopulism is unstable and unappealing, (“the truth isn’t red or blue… the truth is but it is likely to be with us for some time hard… the truth is under attack”), have to come. l failed because deploying truth as a political Chris Bickerton teaches politics at the weapon strips it of the objectivity that made University of Cambridge. His book on it politically valuable in the first place. There technopopulism, written with Carlo is no truth in politics. There is only the bal- Invernizzi Accetti, will be published by ance of social forces that dictates the way Oxford University Press early next year

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