Technocracy revisited: knowledge, power and the crisis in energy decision making

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Abstract
Technocracy is problematic because it disempowers citizens. Previously, scholars worried that technocracy empowered technical elites. When that con tention failed, technocracy was dismissed as not being a serious problem. But the literature was half right. The growing importance of scientific technology in public affairs does have an effect on the power relationships within society. The mistake was assuming that possession of scientific knowledge automati cally enhanced power for the possessors. That error came out of a conceptual confusion about the nature of power relationships and the role of scientific knowledge within them. This paper will review that conceptual ground and reformulate the concept of technocracy. It then presents a case study in energy policy, virtually a critical case, showing the empirical validity of the reformu lation of technocracy.

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