Technocracy in America. State, Governance and Expertise in American Political Thought

In the latter decades of the 19th century, the social sciences in the United States began to theorize the need to restructure American public power by subjecting politics to “rational” control. Many political scientists, sociologists and economists abandoned the previous Jeffersonian optimism, and in their books and scholarly articles consistently sought to attain the objective of bringing the inevitable tension between the myth of mass democratic participation and the realities of political and social control in the hands of oligarchies into focus. American political theorists stated the aim of going beyond politics by “technicalizing” it, with a vital contribution provided by an elite to be recruited based on “talent” and “skills” and made available for the public good. Technocracy in America explains these theoretical developments and their implications.