Technocracy is a form of government that places emphasis on technical knowledge when identifying and implementing objective solutions for society’s problems (Caramani, 2017). In essence, it criticises government by politicians and proposes their substitution by a government of technocrats. For technocrats, many of the problems faced by society are a result of politicians’ incompetence. Therefore, the solution for their better management consists of ensuring that, when decisions are made, there are more experts in the government that apply a technical perspective to social problems.

Economic crises and natural disasters can significantly influence public opinion, reducing the support for parties in government (Healy & Malhotra, 2009) and trust in political institutions (Foster & Frieden, 2017). These are key ingredients for people wanting a more technocratic type of government. 

The covid-19 pandemic brought with it a series of challenges, of both a social and an economic nature, that have evidenced the limitations of governments. Among them could be cited, for example, the loss of millions of lives, it causing recessions and unemployment, and that it brought with it new political restrictions, such as lockdowns and the use of masks. For this reason, the pandemic’s consequences have led to an increase in technocratic attitudes, as demonstrated by a study recently conducted in Spain (Lavezzollo et al., 2021).

This article analyses who became more technocratic during the pandemic and for what reasons. We have confirmed that, during this period, technocratic attitudes increased in Spain, especially among right-wing people who, to begin with, were already against the government, and that this change occurred with greater intensity among citizens who had low institutional confidence but a high level of political knowledge.
If the technocratic turn by the right were manifested in public discourse in Spain, this would accentuate the current political polarisation, given that it would not be a case of deciding who to vote for nor which policies to apply. Technocracy is a substantial criticism of the functioning of a government and of the source of its legitimacy.

The study on which this article is based has followed the evolution, through the conducting of six surveys, of the political preferences of Spanish society during the covid-19 pandemic. The surveys presented three items that reflect different attitudes with respect to three forms of government, and for their evaluation a scale of 7 points was used, where the highest values indicate greater closeness to technocratic positions. 

The items were the following:

• Management versus ideas: I would always vote the party that has managed well, even if it does not share my ideas.

• Technical versus programme: Politicians should leave their programme aside and tackle the public programmes from a technical angle.

• Experts versus politicians: It is better to have technical experts, and not politicians, deciding which policies are best for the country.

In addition, the standardised average was also calculated for the three items.

When observing figure 1, the first thing that is patently obvious is the broad support that existed among Spaniards, even before the pandemic, towards more technocratic forms of government. In January 2020, some 48% preferred good management versus sharing ideas; 64%, technical solutions versus political programmes, and 58%, that decisions for the country be taken by technical experts instead of politicians. Furthermore, there were very few people clearly against technocracy (24%, 11% and 12%, respectively).

The second thing noticed is the increase experienced by technocratic attitudes during the pandemic. In March 2020, the preference for good management rose by 14%; for technical solutions, by 8%, and for experts, by 9%. Figure 2 shows how the average estimated value of each item increased during the pandemic. The aggregated average for technocracy increased from 4.7 points to 5.1 points.

These results highlight the fact that the consequences of the pandemic have caused a technocratic turn in Spanish society that is enduring, despite the fact that this tendency was already observed.

Figures 3 and 4 show the relationship between ideology and partisanship, respectively, with technocratic attitudes during the pandemic. It is observed that right-wing and pro-opposition Spaniards tend to show a greater predisposition in favour of technocracy than left-wing and pro-government Spaniards. With respect to the aggregated measure of technocracy, in January 2020, right-wing Spaniards were positioned 0.5 points above left-wing Spaniards, and those in favour of the opposition, 0.4 points above those in favour of the government.

The technocratic turn at the start of the pandemic equally affected right- and left-wing Spaniards, as can be observed in the parallel tendencies between January and March. However, the tendencies start to diverge as those on the right become more technocratic and those on the left, less. This suggests that the technocratic divide did not grow because of the pandemic itself, but because of the response of the government and political reactions.

To demonstrate that the ideological differences with respect to technocratic attitudes increased during the pandemic, a more rigorous analysis was conducted that takes into account other factors that may be related with the impact of the pandemic, such as the autonomous community of survey respondents and their gender, age and education. In addition, the change manifested by survey respondents was measured individually, rather than the average of the answers in the survey.

As suggested by the above results, the technocratic divide grew during the pandemic, but this did not occur suddenly after confinement and the state of alarm, but in the subsequent months. As right-wing Spaniards became more technocratic, and left-wing reverted to their initial position, the divide between left and right grew by 0.3 points (+66%), while the divide between supporters grew by 0.5 points (+64%). This suggests that the technocratic divide has not increased due to the pandemic as such, but as a consequence of the responses and reactions to it.

There are two possible explanations for why right-wing Spaniards have made this technocratic turn. The first is that the pandemic occurred when the left was in government. Given that the government was a left-wing one, right-wing citizens were more capable of criticism because they are already predisposed to going against the government. The second explanation is that the latent values of right-wing citizens meant that they were more predisposed towards technocracy. Right-wing ideology tends to be more sceptical of popular governance and to value to a greater extent established institutions. This could explain why in times of crisis, right-wing supporters deposit greater trust in a technical government than in a partisan one.

To check which of these explanations is more plausible, we divided the survey taking as a reference the governing party in the autonomous community of the survey respondents and we repeated the analyses (*).  According to the results, the technocratic differences increased more in those autonomous communities governed by the right, as much due to ideology as partisanship of the survey respondents. In the right-wing autonomous communities, the differences in the measure of aggregated technocracy increased by 0.62 points for ideology and 0.59 points for partisanship, while in the left-wing autonomous communities these were not significant. Right-wing Spaniards in autonomous communities governed by the right wing became more technocratic during the pandemic than those on the left. This suggests that the technocratic turn of the right did not obey any anti-government sentiment, but that the pandemic activated latent technocratic preferences that were more common in the more right-wing regions.

(*) Some 29% of survey respondents lived in the nine autonomous communities governed by the left: Valencia, Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, Asturias, Canarias, Balearic Islands, Extremadura, Navarra and La Rioja. Some 49% lived in the seven autonomous communities governed by the right: Madrid, Andalusia, Castile and León, Galicia, Zaragoza, Murcia, Ceuta and Melilla. The PP or the PSOE governed in all of these autonomous communities, except in Melilla. Some 22% of survey respondents lived in the three autonomous communities governed by other parties: Catalonia, the Basque Country and Cantabria.

What impact will the technocratic turn have on Spanish politics? The results indicate that Spanish citizens perceive technocracy positively, given that, prior to the pandemic, half of those surveyed were already in favour of it. In addition, in times of crisis, citizens prefer to adopt a more technical government. This effect is more prevalent among right-wing citizens, particularly in regions governed by the opposition. This suggests that right-wing citizens are more amenable to technocratic criticism against government by politicians.

Given that the technocratic divide has grown on the political map of Spain, it could be expected that the role played by technical experts in the government would acquire greater relevance. If left-wing Spaniards are satisfied with the politicians controlling the government, but right-wing Spaniards prefer there to be more experts making decisions for the country, such differences could be transferred to the public sphere. 

Overall, reasons exist that could avoid the technocratic divide being manifested in a significant way. The desire to have more technical experts in the government is not only a challenge for the governing parties, but also reflects a lack of confidence in the opposition parties. For this reason, it is possible that right-wing parties will resist this tendency, since they will also benefit from political posts once they win the elections. The measure in which this new division is expressed on the political map of Spain will depend on to what extent right-wing citizens insist on effecting this technocratic turn when it comes to giving their support and their vote.

BERTSOU, E. & D. CARAMANI (2022): “People Haven’t Had Enough of Experts: Technocratic Attitudes among Citizens in Nine European Democracies”, American Journal of Political Science, 66-(1), 5-23. 

HEALY, A. & N. MALHOTRA (2009): “Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy”, American Political Science Review, 103(3), 387-406. 

FOSTER, C. & J. FRIEDEN (2017): “Crisis of trust: Socio-economic determinants of Europeans’ confidence in government”, European Union Politics, 18(4), 511-535. 

LAVEZZOLO, S., L. RAMIRO & P. FERNÁNDEZ‐VÁZQUEZ (2021): “Technocratic attitudes in COVID‐19 times: Change and preference over types of experts”, European Journal of Political Research, 61(4), 1123-1142.