An Unbound Prometheus? Bureaucracy, Technology, Technocracy, and Administrative Innovation

We will focus on the intensifying technologization of government affairs and the ensuing question: does this lead to a bureaucratically dominated technocracy? The coining of the concept of ›technocracy‹ is attributed to the engineer William Henry Smyth in 1919: »The rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scientists and engineers«. We will examine past and present debates on possible adverse effects of technocracy on the scope for democratic governance and thus the position of political leaders and citizens in decision making.