early intimations of epistocracy Plato Aristotle John Stuart Mill - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

early intimations of epistocracy  Plato  Aristotle  John Stuart Mill  From Roman Republic to Enlightened Absolutism

Basis for Modern Challenge Two consequences of the ‘moral order’ of modernity  The meta-democratic assumption  The sceptical mind

Estlund’s Epistocracy is not  Plutocracy  Timocracy  Oligarchy  Aristocracy  Stratocracy  Theocracy  Bureaucracy  Democracy

Taking expertise seriously  No single logic of rule attractive ( including democracy, which today needs supplements of bureaucracy and epistocracy )  Most other logics of rule unappealing  Often other logics of rule are a kind of ‘epistocracy by proxy’

The modern paradox of expertise in politics - cultural and structural Cultural  Post-metaphysical demand for knowledge-based government  That knowledge remains fragile and subject to challenge over competence and good faith Structural  Decline of representative nexus  Self-referential response of government exacerbates decline

The EU in epistocratic terms  The EU a natural outgrowth of ‘paradox’ of expertise  Also a unique form of bureaucratic discipline to ensure mutual inter-polity self-binding Eurocracy a fusion of these two tendencies – we see this in its  Political Culture  Institutional Architecture

Pathological Tendencies  Greater Distancing  Scapegoating/Displacement  Ulysses in bad faith  Ambivalence over means and ends  Populist target