People Haven’t Had Enough of Experts: Technocratic Attitudes among Citizens in Nine European Democracies

Political representation theory postulates that technocracy and populism mount a twofold challenge to party democracy, while also standing at odds with each other in the vision of representation they advocate. Can these relationships also be observed empirically at the level of citizens and what does this mean for alternative forms of political representation? This article investigates technocratic attitudes using three key dimensions – Expertise, Elitism, Anti-politics – and identifies citizen groups that follow a technocratic, populist and party democratic profile in nine European democracies. Our analysis shows that technocratic attitudes are pervasive across many European countries and can be meaningfully distinguished from populist attitudes, though important overlaps remain. It concludes with an investigation into the electoral behaviour of different representation profiles and a discussion regarding citizen frustration with politics and increasing demands for expertise, which drive preferences for alternative types of governance.