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 Boris Johnson 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 Jenny Harries 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 populism 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: Anthony Fauci, Mike Pence and Donald Trump 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 Silvio Berlusconi. 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 Trumpism. 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 France’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.