Technocratic Nationalism and New Elite Coalitions: Policy Processes in the Neoliberal Agae

New elites made up of agile and elusive representatives from financial, digital, data and knowledge sectors influence the policy process in advanced neoliberal contexts in the West and increasingly in emerging powers like India. Through a combination of neoliberal and nationalist imperatives policies aimed at speed and the utopian are introduced in urban, transport, governance and infrastructure sectors. Often these policy trajectories involve displacement at worst and co-optation at best of marginalised groups. Technocratic nationalism is an important ideological position that enables and legitimises these exclusive policies. The purpose of this paper is to draw on recent policy proposals from India to show the making of this technocratic nationalism. What is technocratic nationalism? What typology can we make of it? How is it different from the more banal cultural nationalism? How does it serve both the political technology and coercive dimensions of power? The paper will answer these questions.