In recent years politics has seen an increasing role in economic policymaking for a technocracy of experts. How do politicians feel about this and how do they balance their political and ethical aims with economic expertise? Anna Killick offers an in-depth study of how politicians engage with economists and economic opinion. Based on interviews with politicians from the main parties in France, Germany, Denmark, the UK and USA, the book highlights the role economic opinion plays in politics and the tension that can arise between democracy and technocracy. Deferring to the experts is shown to be neither viable nor desirable, and that we should trust politicians to take the lead role in solving economic problems.
Table of Content
1. Do we need more economic experts?
Part I Politicians’ respect for economists and voters
2. Politicians’ respect for economists
3. Politicians’ relationships with voters
Part II Ideological and national variations
4. The resurgent left’s view of economists
5. Denmark and Germany: ‘homegrown’ economists
6. France: pluralist economics and populist threat
7. Inattentive Anglosphere right
8. Politicians and climate change economists
Part III Educating voters
9. ‘Educative’ politicians rather than technocracy
Appendix
About the author
Anna Killick is a research fellow in the Department of Political Science, University College London. She is the author of Rigged: Understanding ‘the Economy’ in Brexit Britain (2020).
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