Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a well-structured and well-written piece that offers a good conceptual summary of technocracy. I’d like to make some minor suggestions.

• While the author provides several examples of technocracy applied in the contemporary world, both in developing and developed countries, I hope the author includes more examples from non-Western countries where technocracy plays a dominant role. Additionally, there are many instances of technocracy in areas such as public health, environmental policy, education, and welfare. The author may want to elaborate on the diverse applications of technocracy.
• What are some dangers and limitations of technocracy? While the author offers several critiques, these are areas that could be explored further. It’s possible that the points raised here may overlap with the critiques of technocracy. It’s up to the author to create a separate section or incorporate those dangers and limitations into the existing framework of this article.
• What are some avenues for future research or trends on this topic? I think potential readers may want to know about these.
• An encyclopedic list like this one may not cover all the relevant topics related to a given subject. As such, I suggest that the author specify the scope of this article as well as the review approach, preferably at the end of the introduction.

Thank you.

Author Response

Responses to Reviewer 1

Comment: This is a well-structured and well-written piece that offers a good conceptual summary of technocracy. I’d like to make some minor suggestions.

Response: Many thanks for the affirmations. Responses to the specific comments are provided below.

 

Comment: While the author provides several examples of technocracy applied in the contemporary world, both in developing and developed countries, I hope the author includes more examples from non-Western countries where technocracy plays a dominant role. Additionally, there are many instances of technocracy in areas such as public health, environmental policy, education, and welfare. The author may want to elaborate on the diverse applications of technocracy.

Response: I appreciate the suggestions. I believe that diverse country experiences are already mostly addressed in the discussion where the experiences of Indonesia, the Philippines, Chile and others are referred to (though, granted, in these cases, mostly in historical, not contemporary, context). Given this, and the constraints of space, I have made no alterations in this regard. I have, however, added to the conclusions a paragraph discussing technocratic applications to the subject areas mentioned, adding to the prior discussion of technocracy in economic and development policy realms.

 

Comment:  What are some dangers and limitations of technocracy? While the author offers several critiques, these are areas that could be explored further. It’s possible that the points raised here may overlap with the critiques of technocracy. It’s up to the author to create a separate section or incorporate those dangers and limitations into the existing framework of this article. What are some avenues for future research or trends on this topic? I think potential readers may want to know about these.

Response: These are good points. A separate section has not been added due to space limitations. But the final paragraph has been augmented with the following text to address these issues in at least a preliminary way: " Meanwhile, the fundamentally instrumental and consequentialist nature of technocracy also makes it incompatible, by definition, with intrinsic values such as justice. These are core issues that render technocracy as a generalised order problematic, and which need to be dealt with fully even in more focused implementations. Perhaps the most succinct assessment is that technocracy is a usefully applicable construct in particular and well-defined domains, but that these domains are very narrow. Even if technocracy is applicable, it will almost certainly be impinged upon by the “messiness” of human affairs at some point or another.  Alterations, to both present and possible future technocracies to deal with this messiness, are necessary and fruitful areas of both policy design and future academic research."

 

Comment:  An encyclopedic list like this one may not cover all the relevant topics related to a given subject. As such, I suggest that the author specify the scope of this article as well as the review approach, preferably at the end of the introduction.

Response: This is a good point. I have added this sentence to the end of the introduction: "The primary focus is on presentation and analysis of core conceptual and theoretical definitions and contours, and the issues that arise when theory is put into actual practice." 

 

Comment: Thank you.

Response: Thank you back.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is entry is on technocracy, and I believe the author has done a great job in providing the breadth and depth on the topic. But if an entry is supposed to be concise, I believe this article can be trimmed down, especially the section on technocracy in America.

Other than that, here are my minor comments:

On page 3, the sentences are accidentally split into two I believe, "However political and social conflict was rife, exemplified by the waves of revolution in 1830 and 1848, with markets being. Increasingly dominated by ever larger, and monopolistic, private enterprises."

The author uses Singapore as a good example of technocracy. Although I believe people would agree, I would like to see specifics on what makes it a good technocratic state beyond just saying "it has achieved high levels of development" (p. 8). Along that line, although the author discusses the incompatibility with democracy, maybe it can be stated that it worked in Singapore because it has a dominant party system (thus authoritarian, as the author mentions).

If technocrats are said to based decisions on numbers and data, I'm wondering, don't modern governments all do that? What would further differentiate a technocratic government?

In the discussion under inevitabilities of politics, which is a very good section, I wonder if "technocrat" is now a euphemism for a client-patron relationship among politicians and his inner circle?

And in the section on incompatibility with democracy, perhaps the author would want to contrast technocracy with populism. Given that technocracy is elite-driven and populism is against elitism, I think the contrast would be appreciated, especially with rising literature on populism today. 

On page 14, there's a spelling error "riteria" is missing a c.

On the last page, the author briefly mentioned ethics in a short paragraph. I believe this warrants a longer discussion as that differentiates just efficiency with human values.

Author Response

Responses to Reviewer 2: This is entry is on technocracy, and I believe the author has done a great job in providing the breadth and depth on the topic. But if an entry is supposed to be concise, I believe this article can be trimmed down, especially the section on technocracy in America. Other than that, here are my minor comments:

Response: Thank you for the overall affirmation and general observations. The section on American Technocracy has now been streamlined and cut down by around 120 words as a result. Responses to further comments are made below.

 

Comment: On page 3, the sentences are accidentally split into two I believe, "However political and social conflict was rife, exemplified by the waves of revolution in 1830 and 1848, with markets being. Increasingly dominated by ever larger, and monopolistic, private enterprises."

Response: Thank you for picking this up. The error has been corrected.

 

Comment: The author uses Singapore as a good example of technocracy. Although I believe people would agree, I would like to see specifics on what makes it a good technocratic state beyond just saying "it has achieved high levels of development" (p. 8). Along that line, although the author discusses the incompatibility with democracy, maybe it can be stated that it worked in Singapore because it has a dominant party system (thus authoritarian, as the author mentions).

Response: This is a good clarification to make. I have added this additional text to the last sentence of the paragraph discussing Singapore: "...with projects and programs organised along explicitly “technical” principles and generally achieving maximum output for minimum input on a timely basis (though its dominant party system is a significant contributor to making such implementation possible)"

 

Comment: If technocrats are said to based decisions on numbers and data, I'm wondering, don't modern governments all do that? What would further differentiate a technocratic government?

Response: Thank you for the comment. I have not made changes in response to this comment mainly because technocratic government is defined and described in more detail throughout the paper, especially in section 7 on politics, where data collection is noted as just one of a number of elements that define technocratic states.

 

Comment: In the discussion under inevitabilities of politics, which is a very good section, I wonder if "technocrat" is now a euphemism for a client-patron relationship among politicians and his inner circle?

Response: Thank you for the affirmation, which is much appreciated. I would agree with your point on technocrat as a euphemism for client-patron relationship. The paragraphs dealing with Singapore especially make this point directly.

 

Comment:  And in the section on incompatibility with democracy, perhaps the author would want to contrast technocracy with populism. Given that technocracy is elite-driven and populism is against elitism, I think the contrast would be appreciated, especially with rising literature on populism today. 

Response: This is an excellent point, worthy of larger discussion. Because of space constraints I cannot get into detail but I have added the following sentence to the paragraph addressing spheres of justice and other embodied politics: "Indeed, the rise of authoritarian populism can be seen in some ways as emerging from the inability of established institutions to address non-rational aspects of collective political process."

 

Comment: On page 14, there's a spelling error "riteria" is missing a c.

Response: Thank you. I have made the correction.

 

Comment: On the last page, the author briefly mentioned ethics in a short paragraph. I believe this warrants a longer discussion as that differentiates just efficiency with human values.

Response: I agree ethics is a critical issue worthy of more discussion. The final paragraph of the paper has been augmented with the following text to address these issues in at least a preliminary way given space constraints: " Meanwhile, the fundamentally instrumental and consequentialist nature of technocracy also makes it incompatible, by definition, with intrinsic values such as justice. These are core issues that render technocracy as a generalised order problematic, and which need to be dealt with fully even in more focused implementations.