PROFMEX-Consorcio Mundial para la Investigación sobre México

Mexico and the World
Vol. 2, No 1 (Winter 1997)
http://www.profmex.org/mexicoandtheworld/volume2/1winter97/TechEfficiDem.html

European Perspectives

Technocratic Efficiency or Democratic Legitimacy?
Peter Boehringer

Technocratic efficiency and democratic legitimacy are criteria that can serve a political system as fundamental guidelines for the production of binding decisions.

A system functioning in accordance with the principle of technocratic efficiency is following in the tracks of the so-called inevitable evolution of the highly complex modern world shaped by science and technology and the ongoing process of regional and global integration. In such a system, only scientists, technicians, and bureaucrats are considered capable of making the correct decisions for society. Technocrats are directing a decisionmaking process which is--in their understanding of themselves and their role--governed by the unbiased, "objective" knowledge of experts and not by political distortions. The decisions thus produced are supposed to be those which ensue directly from a given "objective" constellation of "real facts."

For such a system, efficiency is the central value, not only in the sense of making decisions as fast and objective as possible but especially in the sense of economical efficiency--maximizing output by minimizing corresponding input.

If, in contrast, a political system's rationality is based essentially on the principle of democratic legitimacy, it pursues legitimacy among the population by complying with the principal of democracy. Here, democracy is a final value that has higher aims than the immediate goals of politics or politicians. A system possesses democratic legitimacy if it is acknowledged as a legitimate political power and if its decisions are generally accepted by the populace without direct coercion. This legitimacy becomes democratic by the fact that the system is bound to a bundle of central political convictions and values (the right to life, freedom, equality, and other human rights). Decisionmaking in such a system is based on certain procedures (e.g., periodical elections, separation of powers, and the rule of the majority). It is clear that a system oriented toward the principal of democratic legitimacy cannot achieve efficiency in the technocratic sense.

In this article, the confrontation of democratic legitimacy and technocratic efficiency as two opposite rationalities of political systems is explored in general terms. Space is not available for an in-depth analytical look at the social-science concepts of democracy, legitimacy, technocracy, and efficiency. Careful articulation of each concept would give different shapes to the question "democratic legitimacy or technocratic efficiency?" The opposition between these two concepts is made here as a typological simplification, constructed for heuristic reasons in order to underline the polarity of the two ideas. In reality, of course, democratically legitimated systems bear many technocratic elements; and, in reverse, technocracies very often try to legitimate themselves as democratic.

The key questions for the author of this article are the following: which guiding principle dominates the rationality of modern political systems? Especially, how do these systems deal with the inherent polarity between efficiency and legitimacy? Is a balance between these two poles necessary? Can balance be achieved?

Only a few of the answers to this relatively complicated question can be given here. What the author tries to do is to present some preliminary thoughts by comparing three concrete political systems, each of which serves as a very illustrative case: Mexico, the European Union, and Switzerland. Switzerland, with democratic legitimacy as its primary criterion of the rationality of its political system, can be compared with the two others, which until now have clearly preferred technocratic efficiency to democratic legitimacy. It is interesting to note that in recent years, each of these systems has found its primary guiding principle placed under a strong pressure from the opposed principle. First to Mexico and the European Union.

In Mexico the polarity of these two system values has been shown in a very telling way in two historical events which took place at the beginning of 1994: the entering into force of the NAFTA and the rebellion of the Zapatista National Liberation Army in Chiapas, both on January 1, 1994. In an exemplary fashion, NAFTA represents technocratic efficiency as the primary system rationality. It is the culmination of a period of politics led by the presidents De la Madrid and Salinas, which was characterized by a technocratic style and a neoliberal economic program.

Mexico's technocratic policymaking was carried out in a decisionmaking process without real parliamentary structures. An extensive policy of liberalization and privatization has been pursued by an elite, an elite educated at the most famous American and European universities and which bets on modernization by way of economic progress and believes that social change can be planned and executed by experts. The policies formed by this group allowed only a relatively small part of the society to profit from the resulting economic growth.

The Mexican system and the economic policy it produced in the 1980s and early 1990s provoked the revolt of the Zapatistas, who understand themselves as the advocates of the underprivileged, fighting for social compensation, self-government, and particularly for a democratization of the political system. Because of their early military successes and the very intelligent use they made of the mass media, the Mexican government and the PRI were forced to allow elections which can be called almost democratic for the first time. The Zapatista movement has thus shaken the system mightily and reminded policymakers of the fact that technocratically determined growth of the economy cannot alone produce social and political stability in the medium term. Some measure of democratic legitimacy would appear to be necessary.

In the European Union too the tension between these guiding principles, as a deeply lying structural problem, has burdened the system for decades. The EU is a classic example of a political system which is almost totally dominated by the logic of technocratic efficiency. Although other motives--such as the insurance of peace and anti-communism--played a role in the integration process, its actual goal and essential character lie in the construction of an internal market with a common currency in order to advance economic efficiency and with it economic growth.

The EU as a supra-national system, which is steadily annexing an increasing number of national powers, has been negotiated in every phase of development up until the Treaty of Maastricht by a technocratic elite. Presidents, heads of government, cabinet ministers, ministerial officials, and expert advisors have deliberated and decided behind closed doors. The people of the member states were excluded from the decisionmaking process, with the exception of a small number of plebiscites. And the European Parliament, even though its powers to take part in the decisionmaking process have steadily been strengthened in recent decades, remains an organ in no wise comparable to parliaments in a democratic system.

This chronic deficit of democracy did not constitute a threat to the EU's stability as long as the EU was able to attain legitimacy through its economic success. But now high unemployment and low growth rates have put this success into question. And, at the same time, with the transfer of power by national states to the EU concerning ever more essential areas of national power, the system's lack of democratic legitimacy has become acute.

Finally, Switzerland has recently also been exposed to the tension between these two polar principles of orientation. It is interesting to note the parallels and differences among the three cases. Whereas in the cases of Mexico and the EU technocratic efficiency has come under pressure from demands for democratic legitimacy, in the Swiss case traditional democratic processes have come under pressure from technocratic imperatives.

To date, democratic legitimacy has been in the foreground in the Swiss political system, and in a form even stronger than that in representative democracies due to the direct-democratic structures of its decision-making process. The "system of concordance" which characterizes Switzerland stands at the extreme opposite of a technocratic system because, with its diverse and protracted mechanism of weighing every important social interest with others, it contradicts the principle of producing decisions as efficiently as possible, and of basing them on objective scientific and technical facts as much as possible.

The conditions of the global economy, which have changed dramatically in recent decades, are now placing the Swiss system under pressure to function more efficiently both economically and politically. The transnationalization of industrial production and of services, the globalization of economic competition, and rapidly growing regional integration processes all over the world have changed the premises of the global market substantially. Concomitantly, the goal of using economic policy--which increasingly means foreign economic policy--to strengthen the capacity of Swiss economy to compete with others on the international level has achieved a predominant position in Switzerland's political agenda. This is particularly the case as regards the perceived need for renewed action in foreign policy after Swiss citizens voted overwhelmingly not to take part in the European Economic Area (EEA).

Given these changes, it is hardly surprising that the democratic institutions of Switzerland are the object of increasing attacks from those political and economic interest-groups which are fighting for a "revitalization of Switzerland." These attacks threaten a significant reduction in the rights of the citizens to take part of the political decisions in the state (especially the rights to vote, elect officials, mount referendums, and initiate legislation through a ballot-initiative process). Instead, interest groups involved in such attacks emphasize the benefits of more efficient structures for decision-making and governing that will produce a liberalized economy. In this view, strong citizens' rights and the balancing of different social interests through the time-consuming process of public hearings are, like a strong social state or environmental policy, factors which reduce efficiency and should be restricted as quickly as possible. This position is supported not only by some well-known Swiss economists and political scientists but also by several members of the Swiss Parliament. It can be found also in the recent proposal of the Swiss government for a total revision of the Swiss Constitution.

In Switzerland the struggle between democratic legitimacy and technocratic efficiency is still in its infancy, but it is already clear that it will intensify and put Switzerland to a test like those faced by Mexico and the European Union. How should we judge this coming challenge? As a person who is a convinced advocate for democratic structures (which even in Switzerland are hardly perfectly formed), the author is naturally unwilling to support a system that follows the logic of technocratic efficiency. The potential problems of instability, which we have seen burdening both Mexico and the EU, lends credence to this position. At the same time, one should not ignore the fact that democratically legitimated systems must somehow confront the reality of a more competitive globalized economy and a intensified internationalization of domestic policy and a corresponding growing pressure of the problems which belong to the agenda of foreign policy.

But even admitting the obvious truth of a changing global economic context, we should not adopt the typical reaction of the technocracy and make a hasty, weak-willed capitulation to economic efficiency. Instead, we should question the interest of the individuals and social groups that stand behind this kind of reaction, critically uncovering their views as ideological rather than somehow "rational" or "objective." Additionally, we should discuss very soon, as seriously and broadly as possible, how challenges accompanying the globalization of economic trends and the internationalization of domestic policy can be met with the building of democratic structures on the international level, with an adequate transnationalization of democratic legitimacy.