Technocratic Populism and Subnational Governance

Abstract

Although scholarly interest in populism has increased as populist parties have risen across Europe, the subnational level has been largely overlooked. This article adopts an original subnational focus and explores an unlikely but increasingly prevalent political agenda: the combination of technocracy and populism. We focus on technocratic populism as a political and governance strategy at the municipal level and assess how the interaction of populism and technocracy plays out empirically in relation to administration and public policies and how the tensions and synergies between technocracy and populism are solved at the local level. The article argues that the local level is especially prone to this kind of intersection between technocratic and populist ideology. While the article is mainly an exercise in concept development, two illustrative cases at the city level, namely the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S, Five Star Movement) in Rome and the Akce nespokojených občanů (ANO, Action of Dissatisfied Citizens) in Prague are used to support the argument.

Populists in Government: Normal or Exceptional?

“…Overall, despite being a newcomer to government, the Progress Party's history of governing at the local level evidently gives them a large pool of potential candidates for service at the national level. Similar observations have been made about populist parties in several other European countries as well (Drápalová and Wegrich 2020). The results also confirm findings in existing research that show that Norwegian MAs are comparatively well educated and experienced (Askim et al 2020).…”

The Localist Turn in Populism Studies

“…Both local or regional populists as well as national populists tap into these local conditions and anxieties for electoral gain. When it comes to the former, examples such as Lega Nord in Italy’s Padania, Bob Katter’s Australian Party in Far North Queensland, and Rob Ford in Canada’s Toronto are clear illustrations of populists that seek to govern first and foremost at the local or subnational level by ‘shaping local politics, public services and administrative reform’ (De Decker et al, 2005; Drápalová & Wegrich, 2020: 3). What is emblematic of such populists is their fundamentally local or regional raison d’être .…”

“…The study of populism is arguably in the midst of a ‘localist turn’. Where scholars once prioritized the national and, to a lesser extent, transnational in analyzing populist politics (Moffitt, 2016; Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018; McDonnell & Werner, 2019; De Cleen et al, 2020), recent research has begun to reckon with local, regional, and municipal cleavages in populist support (Katz & Nowak, 2017; Fitzgerald, 2018; Rossi, 2018; Economou & Ghazarian, 2018; Weinstein, 2019; Heinisch et al, 2020; Chou, 2020; Drápalová & Wegrich, 2020; Paxton, 2020; Rivero et al, 2020; Silver et al, 2020; Macedo, 2021; Albertazzi & Zulianello, 2021). This research note emerges out of a key observation: while scholars have developed robust accounts of populism at the national and transnational levels, a systematic examination of what populist politics look like at the local level remains lacking.…”

Euroscepticism between Populism and Technocracy: The Case of Italian Lega and Movimento 5 Stelle

“…In this sense, technocracy can be seen as a form of populism that, while rejecting traditional left/right ideologies and relying on narrative of de-politicisation and distrust of party systems, emphasises unmediated and partyless representation based on procedures, efficiency, meritocracy and transparency (for example Caramani 2017;Buštíková and Guasti 2019;Bickerton and Invernizzi Accetti 2018). Although ideologically distinct from nativist populism, 'technocratic populism' (Drápalová and Wegrich 2020) retains key populist core elements which recombines rhetorically with other discourses. Typical claims of 'techno populists' will involve: anti-party politics as an end to the 'corrupt' system; the adoption of efficient and 'apolitical' management strategies and technologies; and the detachment of the executive leader (Drápalová and Wegrich 2020).…”

“…Although ideologically distinct from nativist populism, 'technocratic populism' (Drápalová and Wegrich 2020) retains key populist core elements which recombines rhetorically with other discourses. Typical claims of 'techno populists' will involve: anti-party politics as an end to the 'corrupt' system; the adoption of efficient and 'apolitical' management strategies and technologies; and the detachment of the executive leader (Drápalová and Wegrich 2020). In contrast to the right leaning populism that recognises a strong leader and conceptualises of the people primarily in nativist forms, technocratic populism focuses on economic and political definitions of popular sovereignty (Mény and Surel 2000) and derives its legitimacy from expertise and knowledge in problem solving as well as claims of direct (i.e.…”