Information and deliberation in the Covid-19 crisis and in the climate crisis
How expertocratic practices undermine self-government and compliance
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9537605 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Julian Frinken (0000-0001-9663-9869, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, corresponding author), Claudia Landwehr (0000-0002-0814-3028, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 837-855 |
| Publication date | 2023-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Acta Politica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-6810 • E-ISSN: 1741-1416 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41269-022-00267-2 |
| PMID | 40479269 |
| OpenAlex | W4307170150 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 28 |
At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, democracy’s promise to enable well-informed, responsible decisions gained almost unprecedented appeal. At this stage, many European governments mainly deferred to expert judgment. This is what some experts and activist groups occasionally call for in the case of an even more severe global crisis: the climate crisis. But where citizens are asked to more or less blindly follow the lead of expert judgments, politics takes what Lafont (Democracy without shortcuts: a participatory conception of deliberative democracy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848189.001.0001 , 2020) calls an ‘expertocratic shortcut’. In the first part of this paper, we delineate the perceptions of threat that characterize these two cases and that can lead to expertocratic temptations. We point out that shortcuts to democratic decisions not only constitute dead ends, but can also be used to reinforce existing power structures. In the second part, we show how and why such shortcuts are sociologically likely to cause alienation and reactance, as accountability is lost and the rationale for decisions cannot be retraced. We conclude that if a democratic system is to live up to its promise of rationality, legitimate expert involvement has to meet three requirements: political mandate and control, transparency of uncertainty and expert disagreement, linkage to inclusive and effective citizen deliberation
2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Comparative politics · Compliance (psychology · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Deliberation · Government (linguistics · Political science · Politics · Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 · Globalization and political ideologies · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology · Virology
An inquiry into the human prospect
Climate Crisis and the Democratic Prospect
Der Bürger*innenrat im System globaler Klimapolitik
Global Warming Gridlock
Reason in a Dark Time
Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against
The crisis of democracy and the science of deliberation
Between Full Endorsement and Blind Deference
Democracy
Open Democracy
“Co-construction” in deliberative democracy
The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy
Beyond consensus
Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited
People Haven't Had Enough of Experts
Democratic Meta-Deliberation
Covid-19 and the Paradox of Scientific Advice
Political trust during the Covid‐19 pandemic
The Paris Agreement and the new logic of international climate politics
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |